Mixing it Up / Mixed Seeds

Intro: I have heard that Henry Ford once said “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black.” It is nice to see that others didn’t have the same idea of a color pallet for cars, I sometimes have problems finding my car in a parking lot with all kinds of varying colors, I cannot imagine if every car was the same color. I have also heard it said that “It’s good we don’t agree on everything, if we did one of us wouldn’t be necessary.” In fact even though my mom’s younger sisters are identical twins, and when they both used the same DNA testing kit the second one of them wasn’t able to get their results until they called the company, they both have different personalities, different voices, as wells as different views on who knows how many things.

I have planted seeds in the past, that once the were in the ground and growing, it was difficult to see what the plants were until they began to leaf or even flower. Once a plant begins to flower it begins to produce what we want from them, though sometimes we have to go even father to the stage of producing fruit. This morning we want to begin to look at the flowering stage of the church, the stage between initial growth and giving of life to new growth. And this morning’s text is really a comes from a transitional period in the book of Acts: we will transition from Peter to Paul; we will move from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth; and most importantly from Jew to Jew and Gentile. What we are going to look at this morning from Acts 11 is an accounting of the events from Acts 10. I think that you will get the high points from Acts 10 with out delving deeper into the details from chapter 10. So, we will begin reading at Acts 11 verse 1. Acts 11:1–18

Acts 11:1–18 NASB95

Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object coming down like a great sheet lowered by four corners from the sky; and it came right down to me, and when I had fixed my gaze on it and was observing it I saw the four-footed animals of the earth and the wild beasts and the crawling creatures and the birds of the air. “I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ “But I said, ‘By no means, Lord, for nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ “But a voice from heaven answered a second time, ‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.’ “This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into the sky. “And behold, at that moment three men appeared at the house in which we were staying, having been sent to me from Caesarea. “The Spirit told me to go with them without misgivings. These six brethren also went with me and we entered the man’s house. “And he reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter, brought here; and he will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”

I. The Division

We are not the first ‘Cancel Culture.’ In fact that is what we see in the execution of Jesus and the murder of Stephen. The religious leaders did not like what they were hearing and so the canceled these men. It did not start there or end there, much of the negative interaction that we see in the Gospels is part of the cancel culture that was what some of Judaism in the first centuries BC and AD had become.

The segregated South was not unique, unfortunately it still happened! If we look at the cancel culture of Early Judaism, it had as a bosom buddy segregation. Even earlier than this, we see in the account of Joseph a segregation, at least at dinner tables. And while YHWH instituted some of the segregation that the Israelites were to participate in, it seems that the Jews soon hypersegregated themselves, and rather than being set apart they wanted to see themselves as completely isolated.

A. Jewish Distinctives

1. Circumcision

2. 1 Temple

3. Sabbath

4. Dress

5. Diet

B. Segregation

1. Stay as far away as possible

2. Interact as little as possible

3. Never enter their houses or dine with them

II. Intervention

A. Vision

1. Sheet of the unclean – against a Jewish Distinctive

2. I think Peter would have learned his lesson about arguing with God, after all he tried to correct Jesus about what was going to happen and that didn’t go well for him. First Jesus called him Satan and then Jesus had happen to Him what He said would happen and then did what He said He would do.

3. God says “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”

B. Indwelling

1. Recognition of the event by the group

2. Correlation to the indwelling of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost

3. The consensus take away was that the Gentiles were to be included in the Body of Christ/The Kingdom of Heaven

III. Acceptance

A. Peter

1. Baptized Cornelius and his household

2. Ate with them

3. Verse 48 of Chapter 10 says they stayed with them

4. Defended his position to the Church

B. The Church

1. Glorified God

2. Recognized the integration and incorporation that God was doing.