Graces That Leads the Way - Sermon
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Introduction
Introduction
Did any of y’all share a room with a sibling growing up? Or share a room with a sibling today?
I was fortunate enough to not have to share a room but my wife did for a period of time and all three of my kids shared one room when we lived in Canada. Let me speak from my experience as a parent...
It’s the worst
One of our kids was neat and the other was a mess. It was a disaster.
Two of our kids liked structure. The other always drew outside of the lines.
One likes quiet the other likes it loud.
One falls asleep before you say amen on the prayer and the others stay up and talk. Some one is going to have fight.
Sorry if I hit a wound for those of you who had to share a room growing up.
My kids were so glad when we came home from Canada and they had their own bedrooms. They also know when they really start acting up and not sharing well, we threaten “back to Canadian housing you will go!”
As we grow older we all start to claim ownership over things we really don’t want to share that we could share.
I got a phone and it is mine.
I got friends and they are my friends and not yours.
I got a car and it is mine.
I have an apartment and it is mine.
Last week we talked about how grace confronts the lies we believe about God, ourselves and others. Today, we’re going to conclude talking about something else that leads to a full and rich experience of grace.
Grace isn’t just mine, it is mine to give.
Experiencing grace FOR yourself is not the same as GIVING grace as a gift to someone else. The body of Messiah is most appealing when grace is something we always give as a gift to someone else.
The [Body of Messiah] is the only society in the world in which membership is based upon the qualification that the candidate shall be unworthy of membership.” - Charles C. Morrison
Tension
When I was growing up none of my friends were Christians. My step-father was reformed Jewish and my mother was a “crypto” believer; yet, while none of my main influencers were deeply religious, they were all deeply gracious, even though they did not call it “grace.”
There was that time my friend Jeff got busted for a large Keg party I organized. He went to jail that night, I went home.
There were the countless times my parents showed me grace upon grace for all my many infractions. Before I got married to Lauren, I had accumulated some credit card debt. My parents did not want me to carry that debt into married life so they wiped my debt out for me.
There was never an expectation of anything owed, it was done as a gift of love. Never a pay me later, or “hey, you remember when we wiped down your debt.” It was done because a person touched by grace always wants better for someone else.
A person touched by grace always wants better for someone else.
Whenever you hear a story about someone’s journey toward God, you always hear about a grace relationship—not just God offering grace, but there was a person that modeled grace.
To put it simply, you are going to affect someone’s relationship with God.
That’s true in both positive and negative ways.
A person touched by grace moves another person closer to God.
Just like the right grace giving person can move a person in the right direction towards God, the wrong un-grace filled person can move a person in the wrong direction away from God.
You’ve probably seen that happen. Maybe you have friends who used to be all about their relationship with God, then they got burned by a religious person and took a long walk away from religion, and away from God. Some did not give up on God but they gave up on God’s people but some did give up on God all together. They started hanging out with a different crowd. And it’s not that they’re bad people. It’s just that at the moment when they needed grace they were given blows, wounds, religion and it drive them away.
Truth
Truth
There is a famous story in Acts 10-11. It is more than just a famous story, it is the story that led to a famous ruling. Much like the Brown vs. Board of Education case of 1954 was a story about Linda Brown who was denied entrance into the Topeka’s all white elementary school. Her father filed suit and claimed that schools for black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” And in a a landmark case the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.
We are going to drop into the last part of this story in Acts 11:1-18. Richard Pervo in his commentary on the book of Acts rightly calls this section “TheTrial of Peter.” What is ironic is that Peter’s trial is not conducted by outsiders like the Romans or the Sanhedrin. No, in this trial his accusers were his fellow brothers in the Messiah.
We expect that a person with a leadership mantle like Peter would be subject to this kind of internal conflict. After all, we are talking Peter the apostle of apostles. This is Peter one of the first three. This is Peter. What are the accusers mad about? Well let’s look and see.
Now the emissaries and brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
Have you ever heard the saying “Bad news travels fast.” When you hear this statement, you have to hear it not as good news but as bad news. You have to hear the shock in the statement. Peter, the Jew from Galilee has extended a Jewish message, a Jewish faith, a Jewish community to people that at best we tolerated and at worst wished they would just go away.
We know this was at least the attitude of some in the Jerusalem community.
But when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision took issue with him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them!”
We have these old texts of the New Testament called Western Witnesses along with the Syriac Version, the Coptic version and the Vulgate that add a little bit more information. They say,
“Peter, therefore, for a considerable time wished to journey to Jerusalem; and having called to him the brethren and having strengthened them [he departed], speaking much throughout the country [and] teaching them; he [lit. who] also went to meet them and reported to them the grace of God. But the brethren of the circumcision disputed with him, saying …
The text of several Western witnesses (D itd, vgmss syrh with * copG67)
I only bring this up because according to these early witnesses, there was a considerable amount of time that elapsed from the event at Cornelius home and his going to Jerusalem. And also that Peter interpreted this event as “the grace of God.”
This was not just a preaching moment, this was a moment where God’s love was put on display.
But when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision took issue with him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them!”
Scholars have said that “the circumcision” represents all the Jewish believers. There are others who say this was a small group within the larger group in the Jerusalem congregation. Others have said it was the gentiles who went through a full conversion and had adult circumcision.
Who was it? All the above. What Peter did was revolutionary. Let’s think about this Yeshua healed a Centurion’s son but never went under his roof. He healed a Canaanite woman but did not have lunch with her.
Peter did not perform a miracle and move on. He allowed himself to be entertained in the home of a Gentile. Not just any Gentile. A Soldier of Rome from Italy!
Do you notice the accusation has nothing to do with offering the Gospel. Nothing to do with the Gentiles getting saved. They are putting Peter on trial for eating with them. He is on trial for being friendly, to open, to inclusive.
The are saying, “Peter you could have just got them saved and then got out of there.” You did not need to enter into fellowship with them. How dare you share what is ours with them. How dare you include them in our community.” It is like a child saying I will help you study for the math test but I will not share my lunch with you because I really do not like people like you.
True story. When I was youth pastor I led a group of teens to an area called 5th street in Stafford. At that time, this was considered gang territory. I was serving in a mainly anglo church, made up of mainly middle income to upper income families. For six weeks we took teens down there and did children’s church and youth church for the kids and their families.
The results were amazing. Literally, 100s of people came to faith. Guess what, they wanted to come to the congregation. They did not want to go to their congregation in their neighborhood they wanted to fellowship with us because we shared fellowship with them, love and community.
I was told by the leadership of that church, “Michael, we can’t have kids like that in our congregation. Think about what the problems they bring with them. Think about all the translation issues. We don’t want all those negative influences here. It was good they got saved but they should stay there and not come here.”
The pastor of the congregation we served at did not care about them being saved, or us working with these wonderful families but just keep them over there and don’t bring them here.
That is what these folks were saying. They had precedent, even the Temple kept the Gentiles over there. They have their own space but we have our own space and we don’t mix the two.
Peter knew, we know, the wall of separation must come down.
The grace of God is not just about getting people saved. It is also about giving them a place in our living room.
Image of First Century Synagogue.
We have to keep in mind that these early Jewish believers were probably meeting in homes that were converted into synagogues. Peter is doing more than just getting them saved, he is giving them a place at the table.
Now, Peter gives his defense. John Stott called these four divine hammer-blows.
Four divine hammer-blows which were all aimed deftly at Jewish racial prejudice, and especially at Peter’s—the vision, the command, the preparation and the action. Together they demonstrated conclusively that God had now welcomed believing Gentiles into his family on equal terms with believing Jews.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 196.
These are not four hammers. This is Peter making one case for the grace of God extending to the Gentiles and he uses 6 arguments to support his case.
A Divine Vision
A Divine Command
A Divine Set-Up
A Divine Action
A Divine Application
A Divine Absurdum
A Divine Vision
So Peter began explaining to them point by point, saying,
“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision—something like a great sheet coming down, being lowered from heaven by its four corners, and it came right to me.
I looked inside, considering it carefully, and saw four-footed creatures of the earth, wild animals, reptiles, and birds of the air.
I also heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’
“But I said, ‘Certainly not, Lord! For never has anything unholy or unclean entered my mouth.’
A Divine Command
But a voice from heaven answered a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not consider unholy.’
This happened three times, and then everything was pulled up to heaven.
A Divine Set-Up
“At that very moment, three men arrived at the house where we were, sent to me from Caesarea.
The Ruach told me to go with them without hesitating. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.
He reported to us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon called Peter.
He will speak words to you by which you will be saved—you and all your household.’
A Divine Action
“As I began to speak, the Ruach ha-Kodesh fell on them, just as on us at the beginning.
A Divine Application
And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John immersed with water, but you will be immersed in the Ruach ha-Kodesh.’
For John immersed with water, but you will be immersed in the Ruach ha-Kodesh not many days from now.”
A Divine Absurdum
Therefore if God gave them the same gift as also to us after we put our trust in the Lord Messiah Yeshua, who was I to stand in God’s way?”
The Response
When they heard this they became quiet, and they glorified God, saying, “Then even to the Gentiles God has granted repentance leading to life!”
Here is what Luke is saying through Peter, “Grace is not just for yourself it is a gift we should offer to others liberally.” That is why Yeshua puts such a high premium on showing grace that He even says Matthew 6:15
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
There is real wisdom here and not just a warning. Your heart cannot damn up grace but be a channel for grace to flow through.
Usually, when a person cannot forgive and show grace to another person it is because they are struggling to receive grace in their own lives.
If you want to be the person that points someone towards God then grace has to flow through you like water through a channel.
Application
Application
You and I can pray, listen to sermons, do devotionals, and show up each week to Shalom City—and we SHOULD—but it also needs to be about you and I doing more than just that.
The people who point others to God and not away from God are those who get grace and give grace. They are as kind to a skunk as they are to a cat, as loving with a cactus as they are with a rose. You are the kind of person that just gives off “that peaceful easy feeling” to other people.
Never ignore challenging people; God may be using you as a vessel of grace.
When others put you on trial, defend God’s grace not yourself.
Look for people who are in need, and offer them the Savior and a community.
Encourage other people to extend the grace of God.
Don’t just say grace at a meal, invite people to be part of your meal.
Landing
Landing
The body of Messiah is most appealing when the message of grace is most apparent.
If we want a congregation that is one of the largest in the world, then it has to be one where grace is the message of our hearts, the tone in our voice, the look in our eyes. One of the biggest decisions we’ll make is to not just receive grace but to give away grace just like we have received it.
As you head out today, I want you to think about the relationships that draw you closer to God.
Interactive
Interactive
Operation Game. The point of this interaction is to show how there are some things that are easy for God to get out of us. Maybe it was anger towards this kind of person but what about this kind. Or, this kind.We want to show grace but it is so hard every time we do a little buzzer goes off and says “too hard.”