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Sermon for Sunday, October 18, 2009


“The Church – The World”

Acts 10:34-43

In the last three weeks we have been talking about the church as a Body of Christ; a Body that is for fugitives- a people who say come as you in the hope of what God can do in your life; for the homesick – a place where we can find comfort for our seeking souls and spirits;

are Book people/Bible people who can find direction for life by the reading the scriptures through the person of Jesus Christ; He is always the measuring stick by which we live.

As church we are to have an outward focus as well.  We really are a people for the fugitives and the homesick. The book of Acts certainly says that.

When one starts studying the book of Acts they will soon discover that there seems to be a lot of pushing and shoving going on. It is when we start reading what was happening in Acts that we find people constantly being pushed out of their comfort zones and beyond their known boundaries. We don’t get too far into Acts when the pushing begins. In chapter one (6) the disciples ask the risen Lord, “Is this the time when you restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus does not let them go anywhere with that. He pushes back their idea of a national focus on Israel and tells them that the story of the kingdom is for the whole wide world, not just their little corner of it and not just for their own kind. The followers of Jesus find themselves pushed from just their comfortable place to the ends of the earth.  “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (verse 8) The kingdom was not just for one group or nationality.

On the day of Pentecost, that word gets pushed even farther when they find themselves proclaiming the gospel to people of every nation and language. By the time we get to chapter 8 (1), the people of Jesus are pushed into other parts of the world, not necessarily by choice, but by the pressure of persecution. “A severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and believers were scattered through the country side of Judea and Samara.” Are you beginning to get a feel for what was happening with the gospel of Jesus?

Just a few chapters back the Lord had said “you will carry the word beyond Jerusalem into Samaria and Judea.” By the time we get to chapter 8, it has happened. And in that same chapter Philip gets pushed to share the gospel with an eunuch and if that is not bad enough, he is an Ethiopain eunuch. And the gospel is pushed further into the world.

Do you get the theme of the book of Acts? I have a hunch you do. It is clear. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not going to be bound by language, culture, borders or tradition. That is powerful! It reaches its pinnacle in the chapter ten, our scripture for today. Chapter ten starts with a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Guard. The limit is pushed again.

Remember how the story unfolds? Peter is taking a nap and has a dream. He dreams that God has lowered a blanket full of every kind of creature imaginable. Peter hears a voice in his dream and the voice says, “Peter, get up and have a snack.” Peter responds by saying, “Lord, I have never eaten anything that is unclean. I always do kosher.” The voice then replies, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.”

All of a sudden the door bell rings and wakes Peter up. At the door are some men who have come to invite Peter to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile who lives in Caesrea. Talk about being pushed beyond your comfort zone! This was big. But he goes because he know by now that his strange dream was not so much about what all should be on a table, but who all should be at the table.

We can know this to be true because when we get to verse 28 Peter says to these Gentiles, “You know that it is unlawful for me a Jew to associate with or visit with a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone unclean. So when I was sent for, I came.”

It is so important to know how big a push this was for Peter. His culture was tight. That wasn’t much wiggle room to go outside of faith and culture. God, however, had shown him a new light and that light was shining brighter for him and he was able to transcend the conventional boundaries that he had known all of his life.

What he was learning comes to a culmination in verse 34 where we began reading this morning:  “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  I love that hymn, “In Christ that is no east or west, in him no north or south.”

With that statement Peter is pushed over the edge and right into God’s world. Peter was not unlike the rest of his culture. It had been defined by the nation that God was partial to Peter and his nation, but now he was learning better. And when he learned, knew that it was God and that it was true, he said it out loud.

And it was said loud enough that it got the attention of those in Jerusalem. And they were not pleased. Listen to what Luke says in Acts 11, “The news traveled fast and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it ---heard that the non Jewish outsiders were now “in.” When Peter got back to Jerusalem,  some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him on the carpet: ‘what do you think you are doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?” (The Message Bible)

Peter has to defend himself and in verses 15-17 in chapter 11 he says an amazing thing: “The Holy Spirit fell on them just like it did on us…if then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed, who was I to hinder God?”  That is a great question isn’t it?  In essence, “what did you want me to do? Stop God from giving the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles? Remind God that these are not our people? What was I to do, correct God, tell Him that He must have erred?” Peter had been pushed beyond what he had always believed. And he was honest enough to own it.  “I understand,” said Peter, “That God shows no partiality.” God has no favorites…no favorite nation, no favorite race, no favorite anybody. All God has is the whole wide world in God’s hands and in God’s heart.”

That was Peter’s discovery. But what does that mean for you and me, here and now? For one thing Peter’s story reminds us that we must not fall overly in love with our ideas about God. God simply will not be held hostage to what we have always believed. Peter said, “I know that we always thought God had favorites and that we were it.” It turns out that God’s embrace is bigger than we thought. If we did not believe that, our mission work is for naught.

Another lesson we can learn is that if we are to be true to the gospel, we must not define people by their race or their nation because the gospel of Jesus Christ plays no favorites among races or nations. That is why we must be careful and avoid the thinking that one country has a favorite status with God. Patriotism is a worthy virtue; I love this country, but we do not have a national Jesus. That is what Peter said in Acts 10:34 when declared, “I now understand that God shows no partiality.” That is a word for us and our world.

You see, the truth is that when God looks at the whole wide world, God sees the wide world….whole.  Now for me, that makes me want to see the world the way God sees the world.  To see the world the way God sees the world is to know that there is no such category as “our kind” or “their kind.” All kinds of people are really one kind of people: God’s kind. When I was a child in Sunday school, we use to sing a little song, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” We sang it a lot. I am not sure that everyone who sang it always meant it. I am not totally sure I meant it.  Peter would have meant it as he was pushed into the whole wide world.

For us as church we have a mission, to go, to live and to share Christ with the world; to be able to sing with conviction, “red, yellow, black and white they are precious in His sight.” Now that’s being church.

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Address
First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

Phone
(804) 798-9014

Fax
(804) 798-9043

E-mail
fbcashland@verizon.net

Sunday Worship

  8:30 a.m. –  Worship Service
  9:45 a.m. –  Sunday School
11:00 a.m. –  Worship Service