Several weeks ago, I got a call from my daughter Lydia saying that the transmission in her car was broken. After I arranged to have it repaired down where she attends school in South Carolina, I called her and I said, now when you get the car out of the shop and get the warranty for the new transmission and get the receipt for the repairs and put it all in the glove compartment, Near the end of our phone conversation, I said it again, put the paperwork in the glove compartment for safekeeping. And then right before we hung up, I asked, now what are you going to do with the warranty and the receipt? You know, when we repeat something, we usually do so because it's important to us and we want someone to remember it. And Lydia did, by the way. Well, apparently Luke, the author of Acts, wants us to remember the vision of the descending sheet filled with formerly forbidden, ceremonially forbidden animals, which Peter saw in his vision from Simon the Tanner's seaside house in Joppa, all of which Pastor Sean ably preached about last Sunday evening from chapter 10 in the book of the Acts, which apparently Luke really wants us to remember because He repeats most of it again here in Chapter 11, which we're going to read tonight. This time, it's not so much from the perspective of Cornelius the Centurion, but Peter the Apostle. But it's essentially the same story told all over again. And we must remember it. Because it really represents more than just the opening of one man's mind. What happened in that seaside house was nothing less than a sea change in religious history and evolved a opening of a new way to relate to others and to God. So together now, let us let us learn our lesson of grace in the school of Christ as we hear his word from the 11th chapter of Acts. Now, if you're following along in your pew Bible, you'll find this on page nine hundred and nineteen in that that version, that copy of God's word. So hear God's word, I'll be reading the whole 11th chapter of the book of Acts. Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began and explained it to them in order. I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheep descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners. And it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, By no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven, what God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment, three men arrived at the house in which we were sent to me from Caesarea, and the spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, send to Joppa and bring Simon, who was called Peter. He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as on us at the beginning. I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave the same spirit to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they heard these things they fell silent and they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. This took place in the days of Claudius. So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. Here is the reading of God's Holy Word. Let's pray together. Our Father, as you gave the gift of repentance that led to life for those in the ancient world, give us that tonight, we pray. We know repentance does lead to life and to joy. We thank you for the Holy Spirit and His presence in every age of the church. We call upon your promise to to water your word by the Spirit in our hearts that it might bear good fruit. For Jesus' sake, Amen. You all know how sometimes news travels fast. The news of Peter's controversial, even revolutionary behavior by entering into a Gentile house in Caesarea and eating with those Gentiles made it to Jerusalem before he did. And no wonder, because Peter had crossed the line, the ancient line, the definitional line established by God himself through Moses, the line of official spiritual apartheid between Jew and Gentile. Jewish sects like the Essenes had added to God's biblical distinction, saying, for instance, that a Jew would be spiritually contaminated by any contact at all with a Gentile on the Sabbath day. This was more than a line now. This had become a wall, and a very high wall indeed it was. Perhaps it's important to say at this point that it was not that the Jews had no sense of mission at all to the Gentile world. I mean a thousand years earlier they had built a court of the Gentiles, a kind of great outdoor patio in the temple in Jerusalem where people from around the world could come and honor their covenant Lord, their God. And they were certainly open to anyone who might want to convert to Judaism and adopt their ceremonial identity and follow their laws and their national customs. They're always open to another Ruth who, as you recall, said to her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi, as she immigrated with her back to Israel, your people will now be my people and your God, my God. The very earliest Christians who were all Jews thought this same way. Anyone can become a Christian, even a Gentile can, as long as they're willing to become a Jew like us first. But Peter, as we saw last week, had done something else entirely. In Caesarea, which was a Roman city, he met the Gentiles on their own terms, and he believed that they could become Christians without ever first being Jewish. In this, he was actually following in the way of his master, who recognized that while the Jews were Christ's first priority in time, as he came first, as he said, to the house of Israel, he was ultimately sent for all the peoples of the world. Some of whom, he noted, demonstrated more faith than those with covenantal advantages. So just think about it. After a millennia, after a thousand years of making distinctions between the insiders and the outsiders, and doing so at God's own command, something different and breathtaking happens. As one writer put it, some draw a circle that shuts men out, Race and position are what they flout, but Christ in love seeks them all to win. He draws a circle that takes them in. Now, none of this happened naturally or easily for the Apostle Peter. Nothing ever happened easily for Peter, right? Who had learned his Jewish separatist catechism very well. As John Stott noted, it took four hammer blows from the Lord to break Peter's resistance to truly including the Gentiles. The first hammer blow was through the vision that was recorded here in verses 4 to 10, where that sheet from heaven descends with all those previously unclean animals upon it. Even reptiles and beasts of prey were there. As Pastor Sean pointed out, the four corners of the sheet point to the four directions, north, east, south and west. This sheet was ultimately about everything in the world, everything and everybody in the nations, everything and everyone that had been unclean. The second hammer blow to Peter's Jewish exclusivism is recorded in verses 11 to 12, where God adds a verbal command to the vision of forbidden animals. He says, rise, Peter, kill and eat. Now when he first hears that, Peter's just not there yet. So he says, again, it's so Peter-like, By no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. The voice of God replies, What God has made clean, do not call common. And then we read that for a third time, for a third time, God reissued the command. So Peter, think about this, for three times he had heard the cock crow, or three times he had betrayed Jesus before hearing the cock crow. Three times he'd been told by the risen Lord Jesus to feed his sheep. And now he's told three times that the Gentiles are his sheep too. That's really the full implication of this. For up to now, their forbidden food had made them, you understand, forbidden people. For how can you have fellowship when you can't even share a meal, the most basic act of fellowship? Now God, God had made it all clean. So we have a divine vision and we have a divine command, two great hammer blows to the life of Peter's mind. A third hammer blow to his worldview was divine preparation, and it happens in verses 13 and 14, where Peter becomes aware of how the sovereign God has not only been preparing him to meet Cornelius, he's been preparing Cornelius to meet him. Preparing him through an angelic witness that said, this man is coming to you. The angel had said to Cornelius, I'm sending you a messenger whose message will save you and your household. Folks, that's covenant language. You and your household. The Mosaic Covenant was never just for individuals. It was always for households in that way. So you see, through two visions given to two men who did not know each other, God was supernaturally orchestrating a meeting that would result in an ancient wall being broken down forever. The fourth and final revelation which served as a hammer blow to Peter's lifelong way of thinking and ministering was just seeing how the Holy Spirit fell upon these Gentiles in undeniable ways. In fact, he says in verse 15 that the Spirit had come to the Gentiles just as he had fallen on us at the beginning. Now you know what he's talking about there. He's talking about Pentecost in Jerusalem. What happened in Caesarea was so powerful, so obviously of God, that it's not wrong to call it the Gentile Pentecost, as they were baptized in the divine spirit and enabled to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, we can tell from from verses 16 and 17 that being baptized with the Holy Spirit is not some second level of higher super spiritual Christianity for a few of the super saints. It was in fact simply believing upon the Lord Jesus. And by the way, another aside, that name, Lord Jesus, by which Peter preaches to the Gentiles in Caesarea and later in Antioch, the Lord Jesus, not Jesus Christ, the term Christ being an explicitly Jewish term for Messiah. So Peter emphasized what he knew they could comprehend, the universal Lordship of Jesus, the Son of God. Good preachers, you know, must always think about how people hear their words. It is not enough, though absolutely necessary, to speak truthful words. We also need to think about if words are well suited for a particular congregation. Peter was a good preacher. These four hammer blows left no doubt in Peter's mind as to what God wanted of him. It was clear that God was moving in this direction, and now Peter had to catch up with God. After seeing the Spirit come so powerfully to the Gentiles in Caesarea, he says regarding their water baptism in verse 17, who was I that I could stand in God's way? This is a move of God. Beloved in the Lord, I must ask, has God gotten ahead of us in some way? Do you and I need to catch up with Him? Has God taken a hammer or would He? Should He? Take a hammer to our consciences and set them free. I know that no one here tonight would say that you're against including Gentiles, or Jews for that matter, in the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So, we're all good on this, right? We're on God's side here, the side of the angels. It's too bad about Peter, that old stick-in-the-mud, stick-in-the-ceremonial-Jewish-mud Peter, but That doesn't apply to us. Let me ask the question in a more provocative way then. Do those of you who believe in the doctrine of election, the doctrine of God's predestination of the saints, maybe even what we call double predestination, that is, that God has not only ordained a people for himself, but he's also ordained that some people would serve as vessels of wrath, ultimately, and be bound for eternal destruction. Do we who believe such things, do we also believe that all people and all created things are clean? Are they clean? Do those of us who believe that all people have fallen into sin and that human depravity is radical and pervasive and universal, Do we really believe what verse 9 implies? That God has made everyone and everything clean? Are homosexual activists clean? Are liberals and abortionists and atheists and Muslims clean? Is the upstanding man who attends church for years and acts the part but has never believed in Christ with self-abandoning faith also clean? Has God made them all clean? Well, yes, he has. All of them. In the way the Spirit of God means in speaking to Peter in verse nine, yes, they're all clean. God has made them clean. Brothers and sisters, we're not talking about universalism here. We're not saying that all people are saved or that no one needs salvation or that people do not need to repent in order to enter the kingdom of God. Verse 17 makes it clear that Gentiles were saved when they what? Believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And in verse 18 we read that God had granted them repentance that leads to life. It's clear from this passage and from the whole New Testament that Christ is, of course, necessary for salvation and that reading Universalism into this passage is, as John Calvin described it, an exceedingly childish error. Peter would never have disagreed with his brother Paul when he told the Roman church that he was not ashamed of the gospel For it was the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. So if it's not a universalistic salvation here, what is the meaning of God having made everyone and every creature clean? A part of it, of course, is simply the straightforward command to take the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles. That's the most immediate first century application of this. But there may be a larger truth here as well. The best way I can speak to that meaning is to quote the Dutch reformed theologian Herman Bovink, who once said that a person must be twice converted. First, from the natural to the spiritual life, and then from the spiritual to the natural. It's an overstatement, of course, to say a person needs to be converted twice, but I think what Bavinck was saying here is important. The first conversion Israel had to have, for instance, was from worshiping the moon of the Chaldees, if you were Abraham, or from worshiping Ra, the Egyptian god, if you were Moses, prince of Egypt, to worshiping Yahweh, the one God, the great liberator of the Hebrew tribes, who was not found in any created thing but was above the sun, above the moon, above the stars. He'd made them all for his glory. Converted from natural religion to spiritual faith. Israel had to be taught that she was not like other nations for she had been redeemed by the Lord and that her relationship to him was unique and purposeful. She could not just act naturally, but she had to act spiritually or covenantally. She could not just include the Lord in the pantheon of ancient Middle Eastern gods. She couldn't be pluralistic like everybody else in the world was willing to be, but she had to learn to reject the world's gods and follow the Lord exclusively. So the whole ceremonial administration of the covenant of grace in the Old Testament. From the sacrifices, to the temple, to the festivals, to the food laws, to the clothing regulations. All of it spoke of turning from the natural to the spiritual through making distinctions between things holy and unholy, things clean and unclean between a people called into covenant and people who weren't. It's an oversimplification, and I'm going to make several oversimplified statements tonight, but I'll say it anyway. The spirituality of the Old Covenant principally involved a turning away, turning away from the world's false deities, turning away from the lawless behavior of the world, and even turning away from many things that were not in themselves inherently evil, like eating shrimp or pork. or uncircumcised male flesh. All in order to reinforce the spirituality of separateness, uniqueness, and exclusivity. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone. But brothers and sisters, though it was all commanded by God, the entire Old Testament administration except for the moral law, which continues, all of it was provisional. It was all temporary. It was a school to prepare them for the coming of Christ. And in a very real sense, when he came, when he came and was incarnate in our human flesh, when he spoke to the non-Jewish Samaritan woman at the well, when he said it was not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what proceeds out of him that can defile him, then the old code, you could tell, was not suitable anymore and would become in the time of the apostles a profound hindrance to the gospel. For while it is another oversimplification, I will say this too, there is a real sense in which the spirituality of the New Testament involves a turning to the world and to the peoples and to the goodness of created things. Hope you heard that fantastic quote by Dr. Barkley several Sundays ago where he quoted another theologian saying that, you know, in the old I'm not getting this precisely right, but in the Old Testament that you have that picture of a forbiddenness, you shall not eat of this tree in the center of the garden, a tree of the knowledge of good and evil of that you shall not eat. And it took a dying savior. to bring us to the point where the command now is, take and eat and see that the Lord is good. It's a different tonal emphasis in these things. In Christian mission and theology, where we turn back to the world and all its people and all created things with a new attitude, a new openness, a new gratitude for them, and God willing, a new love for them. We don't abandon our faith in our one Lord Jesus Christ, but we turn to His world in a new way, with a new spirit, because He, it says here in the Word, has made it all clean to us. North, south, east, and west. These movements of turning away and turning to are not just for Israel and the new Israel, which is the church, but they are reflected in every single growing believer. You know, when we were first converted, you remember how it was we we had to turn away from the world and its evils. We turned away from idolizing material things, be it food or wealth or sex or politics or popularity or work. This turning away aspect of our spiritual life is, of course, essential. The Lord draws us not really out of the world per se, but out of worldliness. out of evil practices. We understand just what the psalmist meant when he wrote, Whom have I in heaven but you, O Lord? Earth has nothing I desire beside you. But brothers and sisters, there is also a turning to the world that we must do. It's almost like a second conversion for some, like taking, as it must have been for Peter, taking the gospel across that line to the Gentiles. A couple of more modern examples. Let's say a person has embraced New Age pantheism and radical environmentalism. Many have today. In essence, they worship the earth, try to perhaps spiritually channel the energy of the cosmos. And then, by God's grace, they come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Now they see the spiritual blindness in worshiping created things, and they see that nature is not in itself inherently spiritual, and it's never really loved them. And they see that man is given dominion over the earth from a God who does love them. The Christian convert is now, you understand, turning away from the world, and even away from the earth. And that's good. It is necessary in that context. You understand. How blessed such a person is. If they can later turn back to the earth with deep admiration for its splendor, for its fecundity, its life giving qualities in creation. Admiration for the Lord's handiwork. And with a deep sense of stewarding the earth as a treasure from God. It was the Christian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning who wrote, and truly I reiterate, nothing's small. No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee, but finds some coupling with the spinning stars. No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere. No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim. And glancing on my own thin-veined wrist, In such a little tremor of the blood, the whole strong clamor of a vehement soul doth utter itself distinct. Earths crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries. As followers of Jesus, the King of creation, we must be converted back to the earth and to the world in a certain wonder-filled way. Second example, when we're first converted to Christ, we see, as I certainly did in my conversion because I was very politically involved before I became a Christian, we see the utter futility of human politics to save the world or to usher in the reign of God, the kingdom of God. We see the presumption of political parties, the sins of particular politicians, and were tempted to say, I wash my hands of such polluted things. I'm done with politics and choosing between lesser evils. From now on, I will serve Christ and Him alone. But serving Christ does mean serving other people, does it not? And one way we do serve others in this world, especially in a representative democracy, means being involved in the political life of our state and our nation by voting and praying at bare minimum. For you understand, God has made politics clean for us. Romans 13 says that it is even a ministry of God. A third and final example, God has made lawful pleasures clean for us. And I'm not just talking about shrimp and pork, you know, Chinese takeout. So that's great. Back when we were living for ourselves and not for the Lord, pleasures condemned us because we misused them, we abused them, we idolized them, we pursued them at all costs. When we were first converted, we may have even needed to abstain from some good things for a time until we became mature and learned how to use things in the way God intended them to be used. Where they bring forth true gratitude and praise to God. And how blessed we are if we can later turn to all good created things and enjoy them in a good and grateful way. A very pious person once told Martin Luther that considering how much people abused wine and drink, it all ought to be outlawed by the state. Luther responded by saying, we must not reject or condemn anything because it is abused. And then he added with a good bit of Lutheran sarcasm, he said, wine and women bring many a man to misery and make a fool of him. So we would need to kill all the women and pour out all the wine. Christian faith allows us to have abundant life. Because in addition to the gifts of the Spirit, which are primary, it involves a holy turning to the world and to its peoples and to its gifts. Paul says to Timothy, everything created by God is good. And nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy. It is made clean by the Word of God and prayer. When God makes something holy or clean, you understand, He doesn't change the thing. He changes the one praying about the thing. The problem was never in the thing created. It is our own consciences that are made clean by God's Word and by a life of prayer and reverence. And yet this new openness to the world as God's theater of redemption and His glory, which Peter initiated in Caesarea, did in fact change the world greatly. In verses 19 to 26, Luke records the exciting and even astonishing flourishing of the gospel in the Gentile population of Antioch. Antioch being the farthest thing, not geographically, but the farthest thing from Jerusalem you could imagine. the third largest city in the Roman Empire, full of idol worship and cultic prostitution and commerce and brassy attitude. Antioch was the New York City of the ancient world and there of all places the gospel of Jesus the Lord now spreads like a holy wildfire through the population. Antioch and the rest of the world had been declared clean for missions, clean to be loved, and served. And it was now part of that great theater of redemption in which the glory of God would be manifested until the knowledge of God covered the earth as the waters would cover the sea. Those Gentile believers there in Antioch even begin supporting the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem when a famine hits them. And Luke includes that because that's the proof of their faith. Just as the Jewish Pentecost had resulted in a sharing of goods among the believers, Acts chapter 4, so the Gentile Pentecost in Caesarea and Antioch was doing the same thing. So friends, here is what it means to be clean. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Praise the Lord. Let's pray together. Our God, we thank You that You continue to cleanse our consciences through the Word of God and through prayer. We thank You that You have declared the world clean in this way. that you have opened up every field for mission and service and for grateful appreciation as we rightly and lawfully use your gifts. Thank you for the relevance of your word to our lives. Thank you for the high calling to represent the love of God to everyone that we meet. We bless you that though there are the elect and there are the reprobate, nevertheless, the gospel is to be preached to everyone, to every creature. as we do our part in this great economy of redemption that you've given us. So, Father, bless us and help us to live joyfully and thankfully for you. For we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who has destroyed the walls of separation. Amen.