God’s Extended Family

​Text: Acts 11:9-18
Service Date: 5.18.25
Sermon:

• Last week we focused on God’s people eagerly waiting to realize and experience Jesus’ deity. It turns out when we listen to Jesus’ voice, and we do what Jesus does, we live lives of love and acceptance.  
• In the scripture for today, we are partnering this message with the message from last week since they both have similar takeaways: loving and caring the unexpected.
• First, we are going to look at a few sections of today’s scripture and dissect them a little bit:  
•  “What God has cleansed you must not call common” At first, Peter thought God spoke this about food. But Peter came to understand the vision of the sheet and kosher and unkosher animals had to do with people, not food (Acts 10:28: God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean).
• There is a sense in which the sheet represents the church, having both “kosher” (Jews) and “unkosher” (Gentiles) on it, with no distinction or dividing line between the two (Ephesians 2:11-18).
• It is evident that Peter was discovering the importance of being accepting and all-inclusive when it comes to God’s people. When God is bringing new groups of people into the Kingdom of God, we should not stand in God’s way, we should open our hearts to what God is doing.
• If God was reaching out to the Gentiles, who was Peter that he could withstand God? Peter recognized the importance of sensing where God is going and heading that same direction, instead of trying to persuade God to go your direction.
• This is a powerful passage, demonstrating that the hearts of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were soft enough to be guided and corrected by God.
• To best understand what God is doing within this scripture, let us also review a few choice words and their meanings:
• The word for “cleansed” means, “pure, clean, without stain or spot.” It could also refer to emotional or physical purging. “Another figurative use in 1John 1:9 (James 4:8, Hebrews 10:2) describes the purifying or cleansing from sin and a guilty conscience thus making one acceptable to God and reestablishing fellowship.”
• When looking at the word “Spirit” one of the definitions states, “God's power and agency distinguishable in thought from his essence in itself considered” and “by its influence upon the souls productive in the theocratic body (the church) of all the higher spiritual gifts and blessings” Both definitions seem to be referring to the work of the Holy Spirit and its impact of the members of the church.
• This is what we see happening with Peter and the acceptance of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God. The Jewish followers of Jesus believed they were the only people of God and soon they find out that God is willing to expand the kingdom through acceptance and inclusion. 
• The vision Peter received, along with the Spirit's miraculous falling upon Cornelius and his household, demonstrates God's inclusive nature and His desire to save all who believe.
• The descent of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, as it had on the apostles at Pentecost, was a powerful sign of God's acceptance and a catalyst for Peter to understand the universal application of the gospel.

 
Conclusion: Let us be people who open to God’s inclusive and accepting love for all people.