God's Grace Extends To Gentiles (Acts 10:44–11:18)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning, church.
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7th-12th
Turn with me, if you would, to Acts 10:44–11:18
Recap
Recap
Show Picture of Coastal Ministry
For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been looking at Peter’s ministry on the coast of Judea.
If you remember, in the middle of chapter 9, verse 32 and forward, Peter begins to visit the churches throughout Judea to encourage and strengthen them and during that stint, he travels to Lydda which is about 30 miles west of Jerusalem toward the Mediterranean Sea.
It is there that Jesus, through Peter, heals the paralyzed man Aeneas.
After that, some folks ask Peter to go to the coastal city of Joppa as a faithful disciple named Tabitha (Dorcas) had just died.
Again, God does the miraculous and raises her from the dead which prompted many in Joppa to believe in Him.
It was there in Joppa that Peter received the vision on the rooftop of the sheet of previously unclean animals of which the Lord told him to eat;
- a command to which Peter, being a Jew, objected being conscious of the Jewish dietary laws about unclean foods—but the voice told him, ”What God has made clean, do not call common.”
Peter didn’t know what that meant at the time.
- But simultaneously, the Lord was directing a God-fearing man in Caesarea named Cornelius to send for Peter to come and tell him a message from the Lord.
Peter went with them to meet Cornelius who shared that the Lord sent an angel to him who told him to fetch Peter to hear what he had to say.
Putting the pieces together, Peter finally understood what the vision meant.
They both had visions around the same time, and he discerns that Cornelius and his household were a people prepared by the Lord.
He tells them,
Acts 10:28 (ESV)
. . .“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.
v. 34 , Peter continues, saying “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him”—
- the gospel was to be extended to Gentiles as well!
So, Peter shares that gospel with them—the “good news of peace through Jesus Christ” as he calls it in v. 36.
- The promised Messiah to come through the nation of Israel,
- who did the miraculous, who healed disease, cast out demons, raised people from the dead.
- This Messiah, though innocent in every way, was put to death, being hung on a tree.
But, as Peter continues, God raised him on the third day and He appeared to Peter and the other disciples, commanding them to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
To Him, Peter concludes, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
And here’s where we pick up in our text today.
Let’s see how they respond.
Read Acts 10:44–11:18
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” But Peter began and explained it to them in order: “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Pray
You may remember last time I preached, we saw the gospel go from Jerusalem and Judea (the focus of Acts 1–7) into Samaria upon the stoning of Stephen.
- Persecution broke out on the church and the Christians in Jerusalem were pushed out into the nearby region of Samaria.
- And they were preaching the gospel as they went.
- All this in fulfillment of Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Now, we see, beginning with our passage today, the narrative in Acts transitions another time—this time, to the “ends of the earth”—to the Gentile nations of the world.
- And from this point thru the rest of Acts, we will see the gospel continue to go to the ends of the earth.
Of course, we already saw a glimpse of this in Acts 8 in the conversion of the Ethiopian man who was not a Jew, but a Gentile.
What makes this passage distinct is that the whole church is now affirming this—that God, in His mercy, is extending the gospel to the Gentiles as well.
Although, reluctantly.
As some have pointed out, what’s going on in this account of Peter, Cornelius, and the Gentiles, is a story of two conversions:
a conversion of Cornelius and his household to Christianity and
a conversion of Peter, not to Christianity but to the implications of Christianity, as one would word it.
See, Peter had some real problems with people who did not look like him,
- he had real hostility toward the Gentiles like the other Jews and Jewish believers.
- They had a real reluctance of getting the gospel to the Gentiles,
- even though it is rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures as God tells Israel that “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isa. 49:6)
Thus, God has to overcome Peter and the church’s partiality and prejudice.
- And, by His grace, He does it, but we do find later in Galatians that Peter returns to that same prejudiced instinct when Paul calls out Peter in front of everyone because he backed away from eating with Gentiles when some Jewish brothers walked in the room.
It just goes to show how deeply rooted discrimination is in the human heart.
I mean, we see it all over the world even today—and I would say, especially today—as we see vast anti-semitism rise up all over the world and in our country following the events in the Middle East, or the prevalence of white-supremacy that still exists in our country.
And, unfortunately, these and other forms of discrimination, whether based on race, wealth, or ethnic background, still exist in the church.
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Most of us have heard a little of Mahatma Gandhi, who is considered the father of modern India.
Gandhi shares in his autobiography that in his student days in England—around the end of the 1800’s—he was deeply touched by reading the Gospels and seriously considered becoming a convert to Christianity. He loved reading the Sermon on the Mount and thought that Christianity seemed to offer a real solution to the caste system that divided the people of India.
One Sunday he attended a church service and decided to ask the minster for enlightenment on salvation and other doctrines. But when Gandhi entered the sanctuary, the ushers refused to give him a seat because of the color of his skin and suggested that he go elsewhere to worship with his own people.
He left and never came back. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said to himself, “I might as well remain a Hindu!” (Tony Merida/Kent Hughes)
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I’m sure many of us could share stories of similar attitudes from others—which to be sure, are ANTI-GOSPEL attitudes.
They need to be converted like Peter—not to Christianity (though for some that might be the case), but to the implications of Christianity.
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Which leads me to share the main thing I want us to see in the text this morning:
MPS: The gift of God in the gospel is available for all people.
MPS: The gift of God in the gospel is available for all people.
If you’re here as a guest and you don’t know Christ,
We are glad you’re here.
What I hope you see from this text and our time here together this morning is that
the gospel is not just for folks of a certain color or social status.
It’s not for some with a certain amount of cash in the bank or just for those who vote a certain way.
It’s not just for the people who seem put together or come from a certain background.
It is for all people. It is for you.
With that main point in mind, there are two obvious divisions in this text and they can be summarized like this:
The Gentile Pentecost
The Gentile Inclusion
“The Gentile Pentecost” (Acts 10:44–48)
“The Gentile Pentecost” (Acts 10:44–48)
Verse 44:
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.
Compare this to Peter’s retelling of the events in 11:15, he described it to the church in Jerusalem, saying “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them.”
According to him, Peter was only getting started.
If he continued in the same fashion as his past gospel presentations in chapters 2 and 3—he might’ve mentioned the gift of the Holy Spirit in connection with the offer of forgiveness in Christ.
Peter told the Jews at Pentecost
Acts 2:38 (ESV)
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So, he might’ve went on and mentioned this.
But, he was interrupted.
By whom? THE HOLY SPIRIT.
I don’t think any of us like being interrupted.
- Especially not preachers and story tellers. I mean, c’mon, let me finish my story.
- I know I’m one to talk—I have a habit of finishing other people’s sentences, something I want to publicly apologize for!
We may not like it when we are interrupted, but I think it might be okay if the person interrupting us is the Holy Spirit!
(PAUSE)
The text says that “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.”
You probably have noticed this, but it’s worth pointing out that Luke highlights the initiative of God here in a way that is reminiscent of Pentecost.
- If you remember what happened there in Acts 2:4, the text says
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The same Greek verb for “filled” there is used here in the phrase “fell on”;
- Luke describes this in the next verse as the “gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out” on Cornelius and the Gentiles.
This was all promised by Joel 2:28–32, which we read earlier this morning, where God declared that
Joel 2:28–32 (ESV)
“. . .I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. . . .[and] everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
In his sermon at Pentecost, Peter quotes this prophecy directly, confirming its fulfillment in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Jewish background believers,
- and now he witnesses the Holy Spirit carry it out further in being poured out on Gentiles as well.
See, Cornelius and his household had not yet openly professed faith in Jesus as Lord,
- but the Spirit enabled them upon the hearing of the word to respond appropriately to the gospel.
Paul would write in Rm. 10:17 that
Romans 10:17 (ESV)
. . .faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
They heard the word of Christ and the Spirit did a supernatural work in them to bring about understanding of that gospel and faith in Christ.
If you are here and you believe in Christ, it is because God opened your eyes to the glory of Christ and brought about faith in you.
- That is a sheer act of grace on His part.
See, everyone in their natural state, including us before we first believed, are spiritual zombies—dead people walking around—we are the swarm in the Walking Dead TV series.
I’m not a big Zombie movie guy, but I did play a lot of Call of Duty Zombies in college.
- Many late nights of rounds and rounds holding off swarming zombies with the bros.
- Those were good times.
Whether in a movie, show, or video game I know this much. . .it doesn’t usually turn out well for zombies.
In Eph. 2:1–5, Paul would tell the believers in Ephesus. . .
Ephesians 2:1–5 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. . .
Dead people can’t raise themselves to life. We were once dead. We have been made alive.
You need to be born again as Jesus worded it in John 3.
Paul would describe it in 2 Cor. 3 and 4 as having a veil over our eyes that keeps us from seeing the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ”,
- but in 3:14, he would tell us that through Christ that veil is taken away.
If you’re a believer here, it is not because you figured it out.
- It’s not because you were smarter than others.
- It’s not because you did the right things and earned it.
- It’s not because your family is Christian.
- For kids in the room, that applies to you too—what makes you a Christian is not because your mom and dad are Christians.
If you are Christian here today, it is because someone shared with you the gospel as Peter did to the Gentiles and God, in His grace and through the work of His Holy Spirit as in this passage, led you to call upon His name in faith and be saved.
Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
We have no room to boast, we can only praise God for His grace in our lives.
For anyone in the room who has not responded in faith to the gospel, hear the warning of the Psalmist
Psalm 95:7–8 (ESV)
. . .Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. . .
Today is the day of salvation. Call on the Lord today and ask for His forgiveness and salvation. You are not promised tomorrow. Cry out to God for His mercy.
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As witnesses of this whole things, the believers who came to Caesarea with Peter—described here as from “among the circumcised” meaning they were Jewish background believers—were amazed, as the text says, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.
This was a big deal.
The whole Old Testament tells the story of God working in and through His chosen people Israel whom He set apart for Himself.
- They were to be a holy nation, distinct from the pagan, Gentile nations around them.
- They were given God’s Word, His covenants, and God would pour out His blessing on them.
- They were to be a people for God's own possession, a kingdom of priests who would turn around and mediate God's glory, grace, and justice to the Gentile nations.
Nonetheless, Gentiles did not follow the one true God and, for a bunch of reasons, were considered ceremonially and morally unclean.
This was the reason that Peter told Cornelius and his friends that
Acts 10:28 (ESV)
. . .“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation. . .[but then goes on to say] but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean
Peter and his friends were directly witnessing God extending His mercy through the gospel of Christ to those outside the nation of Israel—
- they were witnessing the fulfillment of God’s promise in Hosea that “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people’” as He pours out His grace on the Gentiles before their very eyes.
There’s more to say on that in a bit, but suffice it to say Peter and his friends—in spite of all their previous prejudices towards Gentiles—
- were confronted with an unmistakeable work of God that was flipping their world upside down.
It was unmistakeable because they were witnessing the external manifestations of the Spirit’s work in them as the Gentiles, v. 46, began speaking in tongues and extolling God.
Again, we are reminded of what happened to the Jewish believers at Pentecost as their filling of the Holy Spirit also resulted in their praising God in tongues.
One commentator would, therefore, point out that:
Always the demonstration of the Spirit serves a single purpose—to show that the advance in witness comes directly from God, is totally due to divine leading. (NAC)
Peter and his friends couldn’t deny the work of God nor would they interfere—as Peter would later comment in 11:17, “who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”
For these reasons, some would call this account the “Gentile Pentecost”—
- since the Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles in the way that He did on the Jews
- but really, it can be better understood as the Gentile participation in the first pentecost as Peter would note in v. 47 that they had received the HS “just as we have”.
This event was showing that Gentiles now belonged to the renewed people of God, on the same basis as believing Israelites.
Jew and Gentile—on level ground at the foot of the cross.
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We see that the natural “next step” for new believers is water baptism.
I do want to point out that one difference we see between this “pentecost” and the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 is when the Holy Spirit is given.
- In Acts 2, the sequence of initiation into the new gospel community was conviction of sin, repentance and faith, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and the reception of the Spirit.
- And as we saw last time I preached, in Acts 8, we saw the new Samaritan believers believe, be baptized, and then receive the Holy Spirit upon the laying on of hands by the apostles.
Yet, here the reception of the Spirit comes first.
Which just goes to show that we cannot control God’s Spirit or when He comes. He is God, the third Person of the Trinity, and He moves as He wills.
If there is a norm since these different instances in Acts, it is that the Holy Spirit, as we talked about earlier, moves first to awaken us from death to life and prompts us to receive the gospel by grace through faith.
It is at that point, according to Ephesians 1:13 that we are sealed with the HS.
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
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As is shown in our text:
Even after the gift of the Spirit, baptism remains an important means of calling upon the name of Jesus with repentance and faith and identifying with the community of believers.
The initiation sequence is not complete without water baptism, because of its character as a public act of commitment and reception of the gospel promises. (PNTC)
This is something we have the privilege of witnessing today as a brother and sister in Christ are getting baptized today public demonstrating what has happened in their own life.
As Rm. 6:4 would describe it,
English Standard Version Chapter 6
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
In baptism, they’re identifying with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection and
- they’re identifying with His people as ones who, in Peter’s words, “have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”.
It’s not every week that we get to directly apply the Scripture we just walked through on a Sunday morning, but today is one.
As a community of believers here today, we get to rejoice with our brother and sister in what God has done in their lives to raise them from death to life and
- we get to remember what God has done in our own lives to raise us from death to walk in newness of life.
Take in the grace of the Lord Jesus as we fellowship during that time today and
- let us raise a loud praise to our God for what He has done in their lives and ours.
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After Cornelius and his household are baptized, Peter stays with them for some days, already demonstrating the oneness that they now share in Christ.
The Gentile Inclusion (Acts 11:1–18)
The Gentile Inclusion (Acts 11:1–18)
That leads us to the next section of our text: The Gentile Inclusion.
From 11:1, we see that word spread throughout Judea that Gentiles also received the gospel.
And the text says that everyone rejoiced. . . .but actually it doesn’t.
The text actually says that ‘when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them!.”’
Kids and adults alike, I’m going to ask you a serious question:
How many of you all have looked through your “Frequently Used Emojis” recently?
You know, those emojis in your text messages that perfectly communicate how you’re feeling at a given moment.
- Am I the only one who does this?
I bet I could ask some of you what emoji do you think would come up on your spouse’s list of “Frequently Used” emojis;
- Or your parents’ list;
- or your child list of “frequently used” emojis and you would guess it with 100% accuracy.
For my wife, I know one would be the crying laughing face.
- For some in my family, I already know praying hands would show up or some confetti emojis.
Well, what emoji would you send in a text to the first century circumcision party on Peter’s behalf?
Mine would for sure be the face palm one.
I mean, guys! You’re missing the point here!
- Why are you focusing on that and not on the fact that, I don’t know, God has just shown mercy to Gentiles!
- The HOLY SPIRIT has fallen on them just as we have and they came to faith and were baptized.
- Is that not amazing?
But no, they criticized him for an action that seemed to have more significance for them than the salvation of these Gentiles.
To understand a little more of the situation here, the phrase “the circumcision party” refers more particularly to those Jewish believers who were specially zealous for the law and insisted that there should be no social intercourse between circumcised and uncircumcised.
Their conviction is based out of Lev 20:24b–26 where the laws of clean and unclean foods are linked precisely to Israel’s separation from the rest of the nations as the Lord concludes those laws by saying,
- “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”
With that in mind, these food laws presented a real problem for Jewish Christians in any kind of outreach to the Gentiles.
One simply could not dine in a Gentile’s home without inevitably transgressing those laws either by the consumption of unclean flesh or of flesh that had not been prepared in a kosher, i.e., ritually proper manner (cf. Acts 15:20)
Understandably, and still remains true today, it is simply not possible to fully accept someone with whom you are unwilling to share in the intimacy of table fellowship.
So, the early church had to solve this problem of kosher food laws in order to effectively reach out in mission to the Gentiles.
All this to say, the issue that Peter was initially struggling with himself was the issue the Jerusalem church was struggling with.
Peter had himself been convinced of God’s inclusion of the Gentiles.
- Now his fellow Jewish-Christians in Jerusalem needed convincing.
So, in verses 4–10, Peter takes up his defence and walks them through the sequence of events, “in order” the text says, or step-by-step from his perspective, leading them through his “conversion”—we could say “missional conversion”—of perspective about the Gentiles.
One commentator would point out through his retelling of the events that it essentially took “four successive hammer-blows of divine revelation before his racial and religious prejudice was overcome”
The ‘hammer-blows’ were:
1. the divine vision (vv. 4–10), (he received of the great sheet)
2. the divine command (vv. 11–12), (the Spirit telling him to go with Cornelius’ friends and make no distinction)
3. the divine preparation (vv. 13–14), (of Cornelius and his household to hear the word of the Lord) and
4. the divine action (vv. 15–17). (The HS falling on them as He did on the Jews at Pentecost)
It took a lot to convince Peter that this was the will of the Lord.
- And he still ended up falling into the temptation to return back to those prejudices later on.
But, he could not deny the Lord’s hand in it and so said to the Jerusalem church, “who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”
Almost as an implicit warning to the audience about their own possibility or resisting God’s will and purposes.
They had a choice to make here. Were they going to be like Jonah?
Most of us remember the story of Jonah and the great fish.
But the book itself is about God using this reluctant missionary.
I want you to go preach to the Ninevites and Jonah says, “I hate the Ninevites!”
They like country music, all they do is drink sweet tea, eat fried chicken and go skeet shootin.
I’ll go anywhere but there.
So he runs away on a ship, gets thrown overboard and gets swallowed up by a fish for three days and nights.
He finally submits to God, gets spit out by the fish, and goes to preach to the Ninevites.
Well, they repent and turn to God.
And then he gets mad at God for showing mercy to them.
Very similar thing to what’s going on here in this account in Acts.
Thankfully, after hearing the whole story, they were left silenced.
- They couldn’t help, but see the irrefutable evidence that God was at work.
Their objections ceased and their praise began as the texts says, “they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’”
notice that word granted
granted to life
This was not just about Cornelius and his household anymore;
- they clearly understood the wider implications of this event—
- that God was extending His mercy to the Gentiles and, therefore, all peoples.
They understood that the Spirit now defines the boundaries and character of the people of God, not the law of Moses.
There’s no better way to illustrate this than to let Scripture teach Scripture as Paul would elaborate on this to the Gentiles in Ephesus. I’ll read this in length as we come to a close.
As we read this—I want you to read it as if he’s writing to you. Because in a way, he is. Unless you were born and raised in a Jewish family, this includes you. So, hear the word of the Lord:
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Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
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Brothers and sisters, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people.
We were those unclean people. We are those Gentiles. And God has reconciled us to Himself through the cross. Paul would write in Rm. 1:16, that
Romans 1:16 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (That is, the Gentile)
It is the gospel that saves and it is the gift of God for all peoples.
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Two words of exhortation for us to leave with:
Praise God that He made a way for you.
You who were outside the fold of God, but have been brought near through the blood of Jesus. You do not define who you are nor does anything define you. Not what other people say about you. Not what you say about yourself. Not what you’ve done or where you’re from—The Lord has called you His own. You are a son and daughter of the King.
God shows no partiality. Neither should we.
This text challenges us to be wary of allowing any cultural, social, or inherited religious barriers to keep us from reaching others with the gospel or hinder us in any way in accepting new believers into our church community.
So let us wash our minds and our mouths of all racial slurs and ethnic put-downs and be done with all alienating behaviors. And let's be the good Samaritan for some ethnic outcast, and let's be the Christ for some untouchable leper, and let's be the Peter for some waiting Cornelius. - Piper
God forgive us for our prejudices and temptations to discriminate.
If you’re here and you have not put your trust in Jesus.
I want to remind you that this gospel of Christ that we have been speaking of leads to life.
you are currently outside the fold of God
You, as we all were once, a child of wrath, meaning you are deserving of His wrath
you are still dead in your sin and you will never be able to make yourself alive
no money, no fame, no substance, no good works
Only God can bring life.
And He has made a way.
Jesus Christ, fully God fully man, stepped down from His throne and took on flesh. . .
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Don’t wait, you’re not promised tomorrow.
We are not a perfect people, but we have a perfect Savior, and when you call upon Him and are saved, you have this community to walk with
IF you have any questions about what that looks like. . .
CALL BAND UP
ASK PARENTS TO PICK UP THEIR KIDS DURING THIS TIME