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Acts | Chapter 11

Chp. 11:1-18 Uncommon Peter 

11:1-30

“Who invited them?”

I.) Intro.

II.) Vs. 1-18 It’s God’s fault


Intro.

One of the interesting side notes to Acts is the way God develops the people He desires to use. For years now the Church has seen fit to make sure that the people that they use will be qualified in professional schools. Yet in Acts that is not what we see, in fact it is quite the opposite. You remember the words of the Rulers & Elders of the people in Acts 4:13 as they heard & saw the disciples? They, “perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, & they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” That is what qualifies the servant that God chooses, “they have to have been with Jesus!” At the end of David Vaughan’s book on Patrick Henry entitled, “Give Me Liberty”, the author gives a short list on lessons of leadership among the list are these gems:

  • Providence chooses the leader who has prepared to be chosen.
  • The best leaders always educate themselves.
  • A leader knows that adversity is the handmaiden to maturity; therefore, he will not shrink from difficulties.
  • The unseen source of a leader’s courage is faith in God & His justice.
  • Conviction is worthless unless converted into conduct.
  • Humility is essential to leadership because it makes a leader a servant.

Luke will again bring up the controversial conversion of Cornelius & then move to Antioch as even more gentiles are added to the Church so much so that they send the big hearted Barnabas to them. He in turn hunts down Paul to help in the new ministry. Folks every work that God desires to do will require His children, (you & I) to do it. The question is not will He do a work or even where He will do the work. No the question is will He find any workers? We ought to be not only praying, “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” We need to be preparing to be chosen! Folks, school is in session!  


Vs. 1-18 It’s God’s fault

Vs. 1-3 The news of Peter’s work among the gentiles appears to have beat Peter to Jerusalem.

As there was a group of Jewish believers ready to question him upon what had happened. In fact the word “contended” appears 22 times in the N.T. where it means to “separate thoroughly, to withdraw from, or (by implication) oppose or discriminate”. Peter comes back to his buddies excited at the work of God & faces judgment as the Jewish believers doubt the work & perhaps begin to wavier in their friendship with him. Christianity was becoming much more then a Jewish sect; it was available to all. All of this reminds me of childish school-yard behavior, “How come you were talking to so & so?” “If your going to be their friend well then you can’t by my friend!”  

            Now look at verse 3 & you will see what really bothered them, “You went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them!” Do you see that? It was not the salvation that bothered them it was “salivation”. What? You see eating in that culture was a big deal; in fact they considered it tantamount to becoming one with a person. There were no forks, spoons & knifes, people at with their hands. Further more there was a common bowl that every one ate out of & dipped there bread or meet into. Don’t see a problem yet? Hey, there were no rules against “double dipping” or back washing. Now don’t get all-high & mighty on me because I’m willing to bet that with your family members you let each other double dip & you will drink out of the same straw. Why do you not mind with some people & you do with other? Well it’s because some people are family & well other’s are just grouse! I mean who wants to share spit & saliva with people your are not close with? Now aside from health issues I find it interesting that Jews would eat with other Jews who were strangers. My point? Well I think our sharing has a lot more to do with how we feel about a person then we would like to admit. We like certain people so we tend to not bother a little spit.

Vs. 4-17 Can you just picture Peter here before his friends acting this way? How can he defend what took place? Well we shall see that he will retell the story & present four pieces of evidence to show that what happened was God’s fault not his.

  1. Vs. 4-10 VISION: The first thing Peter does is to show that he was nothing more then an instrument & in fact he was not to keen on the idea to start with either. God came to him three times (verse 10) with the same vision to convince him. I’m amazed, as I look at this section of God working that the first thing God has to do is change the heart of the servant. I can’t help but wonder what more God could do through me if I was more open to Him working in me? So Peter’s first argument is, “Hey it’s not my fault God changed my VISION, my perspective, I did every thing I could to resist Him but after the third time I decided to yield!”
  2. Vs. 11-12 VOICE: Now Peter says God not only changed my vision He told me to go. In other words the Holy Spirit was obviously working in the situation. Now notice that Peter mentions that six other Jewish believers accompanied him. You see seven witnesses were necessary to prove a court case. Simply put Peter says, “These six guys here can testify that I was not all that excited about going with the three gentiles that Cornelius sent.” The only reason I went was the voice of the Spirit told me to Go! Again I wonder how many times I would, apart from my bias, still follow God’s leading? How seldom it is that God’s people actually ask or listen too what God want’s for us. Take finding a Church to attend, do we stop & ask God, “Where would you have me go?” And if He said to go to the Church that did not have a building & all the programs would we still go?  
  3. Vs. 13-14 VISIT: To recap Peter says, “God was working on my heart & then He told me to go. “ Now he says when he & his buddies got there it was obvious that God had already visited Cornelius’ house. You see the Spirit of God was at work in the servant of God, but He was also working on the sinner. As you compare the story you will see that God had a far easier time getting Cornelius to respond then He did Peter. Notice to how Peter drops that little phrase, “words by which you & your household will be saved.” Peter is setting them up to say that the Spirit of God was working in the servant of God by way of the Word of God.
  4. Vs. 15-17a VIEW: Finally Peter says, “As I began to preach the Word of God the Holy Spirit just touched their hearts.” In other words it was in plain view of all seven of them. This was no secret conversion. No, in fact all of them were “astonished”, (10:45) a word which means beside themselves. These six guys had an out of the body experience at seeing the conversion. So Peter says that as he was seeing the whole thing God brought to his remembrance the words of Jesus about the gift of the Holy Spirit being given to all that believe on the Lord Jesus.

Vs. 17b-18 Peter’s rhetorical question, “Who was I that I could withstand God?” The word “withstand” appears 23 times in the N.T. & is the second time that Peter uses it. The first time was in verse 10:47 where he asks, “Can anyone forbid water..” The word literally means, “not capable to prevent.” You see it was God’s sovereign work in the human heart & Peter was a some what willing participant. Look at their response to Peter’s four fold evidence, their worry turned into worship! Peter’s defense reminds me of long ago Elton John rock album, “Don’t shoot me I’m only the piano player!” 

11:19-12 Gaining speed over bumps

11:19-12:11

“Open doors”

I.) Intro.

II.) Vs. 19-26 There goes the neighborhood

III.) Vs. 27-30 Do you need a cup of sugar?

IV.) Vs. 1-11 I’m sleeping don’t bother me!


Intro.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why some people have success & victory & others don’t? I have often thought about the events of my life as some sort of proving ground of God’s favor. We even have a phrase that seeks to describe this, “Our ship has come in!” The section scripture we are looking at today starts off by looking at great victories won for Christ as the Church begins to reach the Gentiles. In fact the hated Gentiles actually become a blessing to the Jewish believers during a time of hardship. Yet in contrast to that Luke tells of the death of ½ of the “Sons of Thunder”, James the brother of John. Then the arrest of Peter & his marvelous deliverance by God. The questions comes to mind, “If we are God’s chosen people & He loves us why the hardship? Why, allow James to die & save Peter? Was Peter some how favored & James not? Why was the Church at Antioch blessed enough to help with food & the Church at Jerusalem forced to go through hard times?” Now I’m not sure that today you will have any better answers to these questions but perhaps they come from a wrong premise altogether. I mean when you stop to think about it based upon our sin who are we to ever have a great day? Further more who is to say that Peter was the one that was blessed & not James? Or that the Church in Antioch was more loved then the Church in Jerusalem. Is it not all a matter of our perspective? I’m certain that when I’m in the presence of Jesus all the things in my life that I’ve questioned will be much more clear then they are now. So until then I will have to continue to remind myself of Who my God is & that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Rom. 8:28)  


Vs. 19-26 There goes the neighborhood

Vs. 19-21 To recap from last week, the Gentiles were really only a handful a point well made by the statement of the Jewish believers in verse 18 “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.” Luke tells this that it all started around the persecution that arose over Stephen as Greek speaking Jews were scattered abroad.

Vs. 19 Now look at this, it is very plain that the early practice was to preach the word to no one but the Jews, & that was going on well until some un-named men from Cyprus & Cyrene came to Antioch & spoke to the Greeks about the Lord Jesus. In the other great evangelistic works of God it’s Peter, Stephen or Philip that is mentioned as being the instrument of God but not here. No, this was a work of God just as the others but God used ordinary men & women. You know what? God only uses ordinary folks! I think that when God uses them & their names become know to us we begin to think of them as extraordinary. So God doesn’t let us know their names so that we will realize that God desires to uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things!  So the gospel was moved outside of the borders both geographically as well as culturally. Hey, brother & sisters I think that is what the Church is to be as well don’t you? We are always to be without borders. 

 As I said last week Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman empire (500,000). It had all the bright lights, gambling, prostitution, kind of a Las Vegas. I mean this would be a massive undertaking don’t you think? But you see these ordinary people were not looking at it that way they were just living their lives for Jesus & started telling others about what it was like to have Jesus in control of your life instead of the things of the world. And the gentiles said, “I don’t know what you got but I want it.”   

Vs. 21 Look at this statement of Luke, “the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.” The ministry of these un-named evangelists touched a wicked prosperous city because God was working. Now I should not have to say this but look again at what Luke reveals here in verse 21. The Hand of the Lord was with them & this was seen not because lots of folks showed up to church or they had a big offering & lots of programs. No, the hand of the Lord was with them as seen in a great number believed & TURNED to the Lord! Folks, this is one of those verses that often gets over looked because of it’s simplicity but the truth is:

  • You can turn people to a cause, without the hand of the Lord.
  • You can turn people to a event, without the hand of the Lord.
  • You can even turn people to Church, without the hand of the Lord.
  • But You can not turn them to THE LORD, apart from the hand of the Lord!

Now today when the Church has an evangelistic event they will often tell you how many folks came. Some will even tell you how many signed a card, but what I want to know is how many turned to the Lord & we will know that number a year or so latter because they will still be in the local Churches! 

Vs. 22-24 As the news of Gentile faith spread to Jerusalem they sent Barnabas (the son of encouragement” to them. Now before we look at his ministry while there lets not three specific things said about him in verse 24:

  1. A good man: This means more then that he behaved well. It rather speaks as to his overall disposition. Perhaps today we would use the word “laid back” to describe his disposition. Barnabas was an easy going kind of a guy, big-hearted, you always felt as though he was on your side! Now this was very important to any new work in which others would question its validity. Barnabas would be the kind of guy to look beyond whether or not they had all their ducks in a row & rather to where their heart was!
  2. Full of the Holy Spirit: Literally he was “covered over” with the Holy Spirit. He was a man in whom all of the fruit of the Holy Spirit was evident in his life. He was filled with love, patience, joy, and self control. A man who lived upon drawing his breath from the breath of life!
  3. Man of faith: He was a man who was reliant upon the Word of God. He believed what God said & acted upon it.

That’s who they sent to see what God was up too, a man who upon seeing it would notice the “grace of God” upon their lives. Hey, I don’t know about you but I think the body could do with a lot more of these fellows & why not start by asking God to make us one?

Vs. 23 We are told of three aspects of Barnabas’ ministry while he was there.

  1. Glad: That is to say JOY. His ministry was one in which you looked forward to being together. Barnabas saw the “grace of God” & he just kept it going. Hey, why is it that Christian’s don’t laugh? Don’t we have more to laugh at then any other group of people in the world? It was God’s grace that should to Barnabas that these folks at Antioch were for real. 
  2. Encouraged them: He told them & helped them to keep on keeping on! When they felt down he picked them up. Some times we all need a cheer leader don’t we?
  3. With purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord: No legalistic trips, instead, “Hey just stay at it bro’s & sis’s”. Man is that ever an important thing today. Folks, you & I have received everything we are ever going to need to make It through this life the moment we became believers all we need to do know is “purpose in our heart to continue” the same way we began by faith! In our physical bodies the moment we are born we get all the muscles we are going to need to function & all that happens as we mature is they get further developed. Now how are they developed? Well by being pushed beyond where they are comfortable. That the same way in our spiritual life!

Vs. 24 Now look at the out come of sending the right man with the right ministry, “A great many people were added to the Lord.” Now the word “added” here is a real interesting one it’s the word we get our word “prosthetics” from. That is a term in which means artificial limbs such as legs, arms, hands & the like. What a great word picture for what the body of Christ is. You see as God adds to His church He is adding more arms, legs, hands, eyes & feet. The Church was never meant to be a place where people go to get all warm & fuzzy. Now think of it, all of these prosthetics are designed to facilitate action & motion. There are no artificial bottoms, “I’m just called to sit & watch!” No, it’s to be a place where people become the hands & feet of the Lord! Let me be on record as saying that you never add to the Church apart from this! Adding to the Church only happens as people are added to the Lord & if they are added to the Lord then they become His hands & feet!

Vs. 25-26 Well so many folks are added that Barnabas heads down to find Paul who is in Tarsus. Six to Ten years has passed & Paul has been preaching the word of God in his own region (Gal 1:21) but still it take Barnabas a great deal of effort to find him according to the Greek. Now look at the over all ministry in Antioch starting with the un-named folks & ending up with Paul:

  1. Vs. 20 EVANGELISM: Preached the Lord Jesus. Before you can do any thing people need to hear about the Lord so you got to have evangelism.
  2. Vs. 23 EXHORTATION: After they respond they need to be encouraged & discipled with loving care. Barnabas told them that he rejoiced with them & that they should hang onto the Jesus.
  3. Vs. 24 EXPOSITION: Finally they need to be taught so they can be equipped in the Word of God. Frankly if a Church is not involved in these three things then they are not a healthy Church!

Vs. 26 Now notice it only after the exposition, (teaching) of the Word that they are first called Christian. The word was meant to be a put down as it means belonging to the party of Christ. These folks became synonymous with the One they spoke about all the time, Jesus. They were Jesus folks! Notice they were not called by a denomination, why do folks identify church going folks with the place they attend? Could it be that they spend far too much of the time talking about the Church & not enough time speaking about Jesus? 


Vs. 27-30 Do you need a cup of sugar?

Vs. 27-28 Man is this something? Here are these dirty old Gentiles who nobody wants around & time gets hard & guess who comes to bail you out? The question was, “Can Gentiles come to know Jesus apart from being Jewish?” The answer was seen in their action towards their Jewish brother & sisters in a time of need. Folks, again it is interesting that when the Christians began to take the Word seriously, then generosity naturally flowed. Simply put, they were strong in love because they were strong in the Word! I don’t believe you can be a loving Church apart from the Word of God, neither do I think that you will be a strong Church in the Word if you are not loving! The two go hand-n-hand.    

Man that must have made the Jewish believers feel real small based on how they treated them. Here they would not eat with them but they would eat the food they sent! Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, But we make a life but what we give!” Times were tough things got tight & the Gentiles believers said, “Hey lets do with less so we can help our brothers who don’t much care for us!”  Hard times were coming & the decision was made by each of them according to their ability to help out those who had treated them so poorly. How about it? When you see times are getting tougher things are going to get tight do you say, “Hey, lets help out those in need?” I’ve got to tell you that this verse is one that convicts the tar out of me.  

Vs. 29 Here then you have the pattern of New Testament giving, “each according to his ability, determined to send”.  Now the word here “determined” is the word that we get horizon from & it means a “fixed point of reference”. Some gave a little & some a lot based upon the ability that God had given them, but as far as sending relief to their brother & sisters it was a fixed point of reference.

Vs. 30 Paul & Barnabas the teachers of the Word of God in Antioch now become social workers at the Church in Jerusalem. Again how ironic that God would use the man who persecuted the Christians combined with the funds of the those that the Jewish Christians didn’t like to take care of their needs. God surly desires to break up our prejudices does He not?


Vs. 1-11 I’m sleeping don’t bother me!

Vs. 1-2 Luke starts this section with a little time line, the events that follow took place when Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass or literally “to do evil” against the Church. Now we know the date of these events to be A.D. 44 as the death of Herod (verses 23) is well recorded in ancient history. So all of this took place some 12 years after the resurrection of Jesus & for those years the Church has been growing rapidly. Religious persecution has done nothing but expand the scope of ministry especially when the chief persecutor, (Paul) becomes a follower of Jesus. Trails, from within (prejudice) & from without (famine) have all been used of God to develop character which was necessary to further God’s work of reaching the world. But here in these verses the Church faces it’s first persecution from the Political Roman Government. To date the powers of the land had little or no interest.

            Now it’s a little confusing when it comes to these Herod’s there are so many & all of them seem to hate the things of God. They were all descendents of Esau Jacob’s brother who sold his birth right. And evidently they were trying to get it back.

  • Herod the Great: He is the one who slaughtered the babies at Bethlehem in hopes of killing the true King of Kings Jesus. He had eight wives, two of them with the same name Mariamme & many children by them. Of those eight he killed six of them. One of the Mariamme’s was a descendant of the Maccabean’s. And before he killed her she gave him a son named Aristobulus, who would himself be one of the 15 children murdered by his father.
  • Aristobulus would father several children, two of which would come into the pages of scripture.
  • A daughter, Herodias: Who first marries an uncle, Herod Philip & latter marries another uncle Herod Antipas also called the Tetrarch who steels her from Philip & then conspires to behead John the Baptist & latter presides over the trial of Jesus in Luke 23.
  • A son, Herod Agrippa I: After his father’s murder by his grandfathers hand at three years old he went with his mother Bernice to live in Rome. He grew up hob-nobing with royalty. He never did amount to much & about the only thing he did was gamble & womanize. He got so much into debt that he had to flee back to Israel & ended up working for His uncle Antipas & Aunt Herodias. He gets into a public fight with them & heads back to Rome & makes some new friends Caligula & Claudius & makes a few new enemies the emperor Tiberius who throws him into prison. Well Tiberius dies & Caligula becomes the new Emperor & he is released from prison & given the territory of the northern most part of Israel. After Caligula’s death Claudius becomes emperor. Claudius gives him as much territory as his Grandfather Herod the Great once possessed. As a slick politician Agrippa along with his Jewish wife learns all the ways of the Jews in order to keep favor. Now His son Herod Agrippa II will be brought in to hear Paul’s defense in chapter Acts chapter 25 & with his death the Herod’s will pass from history.  

Vs. 2 You see Herod did this as he thought it would please the Jewish leaders & make him popular. Now James becomes the second mentioned martyr but the first of 11 disciples. He is one of the three closest with Jesus in the Gospels. With Peter’s three arrests & releases perhaps the Church began to think that no harm could come upon the inner circle. James & his brother John form a parenthesis around the early church James is the first of the original disciples die & John is the last.

Vs. 3-4 Herod seeing how much this pleased the Jews went after Peter during the week of Passover. So here you have Peter in prison awaiting the public trial with a sure outcome, death. Now it seems that Peter’s divine escapes were well known as Herod puts 16 men in charge of making sure he can’t get away. They took shifts of four each with two being chained to Peter himself & two guarding the doors. Now we know that the custom in those days with extremely dangerous criminals was to chain them to one guard. So this shows us that Herod was not going to take any chances in loosing Peter.

Vs. 5 Here we see the action of the Church on behalf of Peter, constant prayer. Now the word “constant” is a word that describes stretching a muscle to its limits. But why did they not do so with James? Perhaps they took it for granted that God would just release James as he had Peter so many times. Folks, I got to tell you when the Lord has been working in our lives doing miraculous things we start to take Him for granted & every now & then the Lord has to allow us to get back to realizing that we need Him & are dependent upon Him! How horrible it is for us to realize that it often takes a tragedy to get us to seek God! They didn’t pray for James & he was beheaded. So they are really exercising their prayer muscles this time.

Vs. 6-11 So what is Peter doing on the eve of his death? SLEEPING! Now is that not great? You say well its no big deal Peter had narcolepsy he is always sleeping.

  • At the mount of transfiguration he was asleep.
  • In the Garden of Gethsemane he slept even after being asked by Jesus twice to stay awake.

Hey that may be true but there is something different about this occasion, on the Mount he sleep because he did not think ant thing was going to happen. In the Garden he sleep in disobedience. Here he sleeps in perfect peace. Peter knew that the Lord said he would live until he was old & then die. He also knew that Jesus loved him & was able to keep him. Can you imagine how it must have blew the minds of those Roman guards? “Hey how was the prisoner Titicous?” “Great, man all he did was sleep!” How about you right now this minute if you were going to be executed for being a Christian tomorrow would you sleep tonight?  

Now look at this Peter was not only asleep he was sound asleep, as an angel shines a light on his face, which doesn’t wake. Then the angel pokes him on the side & has to say, “Get up quickly!”

            So Peter gets up & starts fumbling around & the angel has to tell him what clothes to put on & to tie his shoes. So he follows the angel but is still not sure whether this a dream or what. They go through the two outside guards by two doors & when they get to the big old Iron gate & opens like a department store automatic door. About a block away now in the brisk air Peter comes too. But here is what is interesting to me, who released Peter? Well it was the Lord through an angel. Yeh that’s right but Peter still had to act on what the angel did. You see a lot of us Christians remain entrapped in sin or imprisoned in this or that & are waiting for the angel of the Lord to come but we expect him to carry us. Folks. Its easy Peter followed the Lord out of prison. You may not be sure if what the Lord is telling you is a vision, a dream or what you ate the night before but one things for sure you will never find out sitting in your cell chained to the world! So friends let’s take a chance & follow the Lord, oh it won’t be easy at times in fact it can be quite scary but you will never know what lies behind the walls unless you go.