"Peter, Jew Got Some Splaining To Do!"
Text: Acts 11:1-18
Introduction
1. Illustration: For those that are old enough to remember it, or even if your not, you may have seen old re-runs of the I Love Lucy Show. It was a show about a big time Cuban bandleader named Ricky Richardo and his scheming, red-head wife Lucy. Lucy would always come up with some scheme to do an act in one of Ricky's shows or something else she really wanted to do. It always seemed to backfire on her and when Ricky found out he would always say in his Cuban accent, "Lucy, jew got some splaining to do!"
2. Well, in some respects Peter found himself in a similar predicament when he returned to Jerusalem following his experience at the house of Cornelius.
3. From this event in the life of Peter we find...
A. Sometimes We Get In The Way
B. If We Follow The Leading Of The Spirit
C. We Will See Miracles
4. Let's all stand together as we read Acts 11:1-18
Proposition: When we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit amazing things will happen.
Transition: The unfortunate reality is that in the Church...
I. Sometimes We Get In The Way (1-3).
A. Jewish Believers Criticized Him
1. Sometimes we as Christians are not noted for our out of the box thinking. We get stuck in our ways and become allergic to change.
2. This is what Peter encountered when he returned from the house of Cornelius. Instead of rejoicing over the fact that this entire house of people had come to faith in Jesus and baptized in the Holy Spirit, they were more concerned about where Peter went and with whom he ate. Peter would soon find out that rumors travel quickly even without social media.
3. In the beginning of this chapter Luke tells us, "Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God."
A. Most Jewish believers thought that God offered salvation only to the Jews because God had given his law to them (Exodus 19–20).
B. A group in Jerusalem believed that Gentiles could be saved, but only if they followed all the Jewish laws and traditions—in essence, if they became Jews before they became Christians (Barton 510).
C. The Gentiles at the house of Cornelius "received the word of God."
D. This means they welcomed it, acknowledging its truth and accepting its message of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation.
E. This was striking news, and to some of the Jews was probably not good news.
F. Such news travels fast and reached the apostles and the rest of the believers in Jerusalem before Peter returned!
4. So after doing what he should have done in following the leading of the Holy Spirit, Peter gets back to Jerusalem find opposition. In vv2-3 it says, "But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. 3 “You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said."
A. When he arrived, "the Jewish believers" were ready for him.
B. Immediately they "criticized him" severely (and passed judgment on him) for entering the "home of Gentiles" (which they considered defiling) and, even worse, eating their nonkosher food.
C. Just how upset these Jewish believers were is shown by their use of a very derogatory slang word for Gentile, (lit.) "foreskinned" (Gk. akrobustian).
D. It is quite probable they were also upset because they feared that Peter's action might turn the unconverted Jews against them and bring to an end the period of peace they had been enjoying.
E. Besides rejecting Peter, they were more concerned about themselves than about the spread of the gospel.
F. They forgot also that God's call to repentance was "'Come, all you who are thirsty'" (Isa. 55:1), not only "every Jew who is thirsty" (Horton, Acts: A Logion Press Commentary, 209).
G. They were more concerned about laws and customs than people.
B. Seven Last Words
1. The last seven words of a dying church are:
A. We've
B. Never
C. Done
D. It
E. That
F. Way
G. Before
2. When we get stuck in our ways we are in danger of missing God.
A. Isaiah 43:19 (NLT)
For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
B. God doesn't care about the color of the carpet.
C. God doesn't care about whether we sing traditional or contemporary.
D. God doesn't care whether you wear a suit or jeans.
E. God does care about whether we are listening to his voice.
F. God does care about whether we are living by His Word.
G. God does care about whether we are reaching the lost.
H. Let's put our traditions away and get in step with the Holy Spirit!
Transition: Sometimes we get in the way, but...
II. If We Follow The Leading Of The Spirit (4-12).
A. The Holy Spirit Told Me
1. So Peter now finds himself in a situation where he had to "splain" himself.
2. So Peter tells them the story word for word. Luke says in vv 4-7, "Then Peter told them exactly what had happened. 5 “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. 6 When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of small animals, wild animals, reptiles, and birds. 7 And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’"
A. Peter then proceeded to defend himself by explaining everything to them "as it had happened," that is, from the time he saw the vision in Joppa.
B. Peter wanted this potentially hostile (already critical) audience to know that he had been praying at the time that he saw the vision (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 511).
C. He does add that the sheet "came down to where [he] was" so that he was able to look closely and inspect the contents without any possibility of being mistaken.
D. If they still wanted to require circumcision, they would have to blame God, not him.
E. He emphasized that the Spirit said "to have no hesitation about going" (implying no disputing or criticizing).
F. He was also careful to point to the "six brothers" as witnesses who were with him at Caesarea and whom he had brought with him to Jerusalem (Horton, Acts: A Logion Press Commentary, 210).
3. Then Peter tells him about his initial rejection of the Spirit's command. “‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.’ 9 “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ 10 This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven."
A. Peter repeated for his audience his refusal to “kill and eat” (11:7) these animals as instructed by the Lord.
B. He quoted the response of the voice from heaven, instructing him that when God says something is acceptable not to say it isn’t.
C. Finally, he noted the threefold repetition of this dialogue between himself and the Lord, and the pulling of the sheet back up to heaven again.
D. This event and all the effects of it in Cornelius’s life became a primary argument for the Gentile mission in the early church (Barton 511).
4. Then he tells them of the Spirit's command to go to Cornelius’s house. “Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. 12 The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. "
A. Peter spoke of the arrival of the three men from Caesarea. Upon the command of no one less than the Holy Spirit, Peter had accompanied them, citing the Spirit’s command not to worry about their being Gentiles.
B. He had taken six fellow believers with him to witness what was to happen and help recall it accurately.
C. Peter understood that God was at work and deduced that something controversial (or potentially divisive) might take place.
D. The potential for misunderstanding was evidently great enough for these men to have also accompanied Peter back to Jerusalem to report to the apostles.
E. Jewish law only required two witnesses.
F. Peter’s having six witnesses reveals the gravity of the issue and the significance of the event (Barton, 511).
B. Following His Leading
1. Illustration: G. D. Watson says the Holy Ghost never guides us contrary to the Word. The Word never guides us contrary to Providence, and Providence does not guide us contrary to the Word or Spirit. So, these three elements of divine guidance are always harmonious.
2. It's always important to follow the Holy Spirit's lead.
A. Galatians 5:25 (NLT)
Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
B. Paul encourages us to follow the leading of the Spirit in every part of our lives.
C. Follow the Spirit in our spiritual lives.
D. Follow the Spirit in our relationships.
E. Follow the Spirit in our financial decisions.
F. Follow the Spirit in our business decisions.
G. Follow the Spirit in our entertainment decisions.
H. Follow the Spirit in everything!
Transition: If we follow the Holy Spirit's lead...
III. We Will See Miracles Happen (13-18).
A. The Holy Spirit Fell On Them
1. Now that Peter has explained his vision, he now explains what happened when he went to meet Cornelius.
2. Peter says, "He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. 14 He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’ 15 “As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning."
A. As further proof of God's leading, he adds that the angel told Cornelius that Peter would "bring... a message through which [he] and all [his] household [would] be saved."
B. Peter added a significant statement that had been excluded from the other accounts of Cornelius’s experience: the angel had told Cornelius that he and all his household will be saved.
C. In other words, God’s intent from the start was to bring this Gentile soldier, along with his friends and family, to Christ. (Barton, 511).
D. Then, without repeating the sermon he gave at Caesarea, Peter told them that as he "began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us": that is, just as supernaturally and as evidently on the Gentiles at Cornelius's house as on the 120 and the 3000 on the Day of Pentecost.
E. Some writers try to avoid mentioning the Day of Pentecost here. But this can only mean as on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), since there was no falling upon or pouring out of the Spirit in fulfillment of Joel's prophecy until then (Horton, 210).
3. Then Peter tells about something we didn't read in the previous chapter. How the Holy Spirit brought Jesus' words to his rememberance just Jesus had said he would do. "Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”
A. He "remembered what the Lord had said" (in Acts 1:5)—that John baptized in water but that they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
B. This remembering was brought about by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26).
C. Consequently, Peter clearly saw that this outpouring was also a baptism in the Spirit. Peter then went on to say emphatically that God gave these Gentile believers "the same gift" He had given the Jewish believers; God was doing the work.
D. "Same" in the Greek means "equal" or "identical." This is significant because the convincing evidence was not wind or fire (which preceded only the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit and was not actually a part of it).
E. The Jewish believers needed a convincing evidence, and the one convincing evidence given was the fact they spoke in other tongues and praised God (Acts 10:46).
F. The Gentiles did not have to ask if they had really received this mighty outpouring.
G. They knew. Peter and the six witnesses did not say "I think" or "I suppose," or even "I trust" or "I believe", these Gentiles were baptized in the Spirit.
H. They knew. Surely, in the midst of all the questioning and discussion about the Holy Spirit today, we need the same convincing evidence.
I. We too can know that when we speak in tongues we have received an experience identical to the one described in Acts 2:4.
J. Peter was no longer perplexed. He had come to a new understanding.
K. Since God gave the Gentiles this gift of the Spirit, for Peter to refuse to accept them would be to "oppose God," and who was he—and by implication who was his audience (who is any person)—to do that (Horton, 211)?
4. The response of the other believers to Peter's explanation was a positive one. "When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”
A. The Jewish believers in Jerusalem would not oppose God either. After learning the facts of the case, "they had no further objections."
B. The Holy Spirit was guiding them into a new understanding of truth (John 16:13).
C. They were responsive enough to the Spirit and the Word to glorify God and to recognize that He had given "even the Gentiles repentance unto life."
D. More specifically, God had accepted their repentance and given them spiritual life without their being circumcised; their baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues bore witness to that.
E. It is still important that we accept people whom God has accepted, no matter how different they are from us (Horton, 212).
F. The response was one of praising God as the congregation remarked on the fact that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of turning from sin and receiving eternal life.
G. This is a remarkable example of the spiritual health of this young church. Though steeped in centuries of Jewish rules and regulations, they had seen enough of God’s wonders over the past few months to know that God was moving in some new ways.
H. Even though they had the words and example of Christ pointing them toward the Gentile world, they had to overcome an enormous rut.
I. The fact that they were so open to what God was doing and so responsive to Peter’s leadership speaks well of the work of the Spirit in their lives (Barton, 511-512).
B. Unleashing God's Power
1. Illustration: As I shut the door of the office after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It seemed to me that I saw Him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at His feet. I fell down at His feet, wept aloud like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathed His feet in tears. I must have continued in this state for a good while. I returned to the front office, but as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any recollection that I had ever heard the subject mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to come in waves of liquid love; it seemed like the very breath of God. I wept aloud with joy and love. (Charles Finney)
2. When we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit great things begin to happen.
A. Acts 4:31 (NLT)
After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.
B. When the Holy Spirit comes on you it changes everything.
C. The Holy Spirit changes our attitudes and desires.
D. The Holy Spirit changes our fears and inhibitions.
E. The Holy Spirit fills us with boldness and unleashes his power, and we begin to do things we never imagined.
F. This opens the floodgates and his power overflows out of us and accomplishes miracles.
Conclusion
1. From this event in the life of Peter we find...
A. Sometimes We Get In The Way
B. If We Follow The Leading Of The Spirit
C. We Will See Miracles
2. Are you ready to get out of the way?
3. Are you ready to follow the Holy Spirit's leading?
4. Are you ready to see the Holy Spirit overflow in your life?
