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  • Praying for Peter in Prison

    May 5, 2026 – Praying for Peter in Prison — Acts #39
    Acts. 12:1-17

    Last week, we looked at the first five verses of Acts 12, and the Holy Spirit took us in a challenging direction.  I talked about Herod Agrippa and how he was from a family line of Herods that were evil and murderous.  Remember that Agrippa’s grandfather, Herod the not-so-great, killed his father, his grandmother, two of his uncles, and 4 other family members, not to mention scores of Jews and all the children under two years of age in Bethlehem.  And then Herod the not-so-great sent his grandson, Agrippa, off to Rome.  

    Agrippa returns and becomes ruler over the same land as his grandfather.  And he followed in his grandfather’s murderous footsteps, killing James, the brother of John, just to win favor with the Jewish Temple leadership.  He locked up Peter, intending to kill him next.  And the question we addressed last week is: How can we possibly forgive someone who commits such horrible murders? 

    And the answer we came to is that forgiveness is not optional, and we are to imitate our Heavenly Father, who has, out of his grace, forgiven us. And our ability to forgive such evil is a gift of grace from God through the power of the Holy Spirit available to us.

    Let’s review last week’s scripture and then continue the story:

    Acts 12:1-17   About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
    Now, when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.”
    And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.   When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
    “When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying….

    There is more to this story, and we will continue it next week, but Today I want to focus on how the followers of Jesus responded to the arrest and expected murder of Peter.  Luke tells us in the beginning of the story that “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. (verse 5).   The Jesus followers in Jerusalem engaged in this type of prayer, “earnest prayer,” and God then did a miracle, rescuing Peter from prison the day before he was to be executed.   Perhaps we need to learn to pray the way that they prayed.

    But what is ‘earnest’ prayer?  Perhaps you could get your Bible Study group together, and you could go around the room, and ask everyone, “What do you think that means?  And that would be an interesting exercise, but I don’t think it would really help us know the answer.   I think the worst possible question anyone could ever ask in a Bible study is: “What do you think that scripture means?”

    Because it really doesn’t matter what you think it means.  What matters is what God meant for that scripture to say when he had Luke write it down, and then what God wants us to understand in light of that. 

    When God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden, he didn’t go around the room to Adam and Eve and ask them, “What do you think about this fruit?  Is it good or bad?”  No.  That is the whole point of the story.  Adam and Eve aren’t supposed to guess about the fruit or use their best judgment about the fruit. But that is exactly what they did, and you know how that worked out.  There are times in life where you have to use your best judgment, but let me tell you what your best judgment should always be:  Follow God’s path and His ways and not your own.  

    Proverbs 3:5-7 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
     In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
     Be not wise in your own eyes.

    Just be obedient.  Don’t try to figure out a better way. We, humans, are very good at rationalizing bad decisions. We can convince ourselves that anything is good.  But we must follow God’s way, his path.  The same principle applies when trying to understand scripture.

    When you read the Bible, you have to lean on the Holy Spirit within you. It is incredible what some people can convince themselves that the Bible means.   Now you don’t stick your brain in neutral.  God gave you the ability to think and reason, but we have to learn to use that ability within the guidelines of scripture. 

    And because the Bible is one story of how God deals with people and his teaching of how we should live, we must use the Bible to understand the Bible.   So we must study God’s word daily and learn it.  This is why the guys in my Bible Study group tell me we jump all over the Bible each week.   Because it is one coherent story of the way God consistently deals with us, and we can use one part of the Bible to explain another. 

    With that in mind, let’s see if the rest of the scripture gives us any clues to discover what “earnest prayer” is.

    We have a couple of ways to use God’s word to help us try to figure out what kind of prayer this is.  Now, most of you can’t read the original Greek, so I have told you before what you can do.  Take a look at several different translations and see what English word they use there.   If they all use the same word, then you can be more certain that the translation is correct.  If you see some big differences, then you know you have to dig deeper.

    An easy way to do this is to, on your computer, use a search engine and enter: “the verse (Acts 12:5) then “Bible Hub”.  The first hit on your search will be “biblehub.com“, where it lists over 40 different translations for that verse.  You will see the following as possible translations for the phrase “earnest prayer”: earnestly praying, fervently praying, praying without ceasing (KJV), intensely praying, fervent and persistent prayer, praying very hard, and long and fervent prayer.

    These are all somewhat similar.  But praying long or without ceasing refers to the length of time of praying, while ‘fervent and intensely” is about how hard you are praying (whatever that means). 

    So which is it, or is it both?  And we want to know how to be effective as a church praying for people.  Praying for others is something we do every time we meet, and many times throughout the day.   So this is important.  And we know that none of these words are the words that Luke originally said, so let’s look at the Greek to see what word he used.

    The Greek word used as an adjective for prayer here is  ἐκτενῶς  or ‘ektenos’.  Ektenos is from the work ‘ektenes’ which means ‘stretched out or taut.’   As in a rope that is pulled taut.  The Bible Knowledge Commentary tells us this Greek word was used to describe the taut muscles of an athlete who strains to win a race.  I am a very visual learner, so let me give you a picture.1

    This is ektenos –  This is Texas A&M Hurdler Infinite Tucker in the SEC 2019 Championships.  Look at this athlete, diving for the finish line in this 400-meter hurdles race.  He is stretched out to his full potential.  This man is going all out, giving 100%.   You don’t see the next frame of this photo finish, but you can tell this is going to be a rough landing.  It is going to hurt.  But this athlete is willing to sacrifice his body to give all he has to win.

    And this is how Luke said the followers of Jesus were praying.  It is not just praying long prayers or praying without ceasing, but that is part of it.  It is giving prayer all you have, 100% of your energy, willing to sacrifice anything, willing to pray as long as it takes.  When you think of prayer, I want you to keep this picture in mind.  

    You find this word used as an adjective for prayer only twice in the Bible, both by Luke.  The other is in Luke 22.  So let’s take a look at that passage and see if we can get a better idea of how these Jesus followers are praying for Peter.

    Luke 22:39-46  “And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.
    And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

    This is ektenos praying.  It is an intense, urgent prayer.  Jesus is praying with all he has for as long as he can. He is praying while his disciples are falling asleep.  The gospels describe him sweating as great drops as of blood.  Like a runner at the finish line, he is stretched out to his full potential before the Father.  Eketnos praying.

    That fierce praying is what the followers of Jesus are doing for Peter in Acts 12.  And I have to think Luke chose this rarely used word in both instances because he wants us to see the similarities between these passages.

    Look at the similarities between Luke 22 and Acts 12:
    Both have ‘ektenos’ prayer (the only 2 instances in the Bible)
    Both happen the same week of the year, at Passover.
    Both involve the arrest of a religious leader.
    Both events happen on the eve of that leader’s death.
    Both passages deal with being asleep or awake.

    In Luke 22, Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives to pray and tells His disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”   Then He withdraws, and in deep agony, He prays.  When He returns, what does He find?     They are asleep.

    Luke 22:45  And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,

    Luke tells us they were “sleeping from sorrow,” which at first seems like an odd phrase.  But it had been a long week for all of them.  40% of the Gospel of John is what happened during that busy last week.   And at the Last Supper, Jesus had just given them some really hard news.  One of you will betray me.  You will all desert me, and Peter, you will deny me three times before the morning.  I am going away, and you can’t go with me.  So this night, they are overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted.  They are unable to stay spiritually alert in a critical moment.

    Now contrast that to Acts 12. Peter, who slept in the garden of Gethsemane on the eve of Jesus’ execution, is asleep again, but this time in a prison cell, on the eve of his own execution. At first glance, these may seem similar. But they are profoundly different. In Gethsemane, sleep is failure—a lack of vigilance in the face of temptation.  But in prison, sleep is a demonstration of trust—a calm resting in God’s control.

    Does anybody here have trouble sleeping?  It is a real problem, isn’t it?  There was a time in my life when sleep was never a problem.  I could stay awake all night if needed (and I did many nights working in a hospital), and I could sleep anywhere, any time.  Now I seem to have little control over my sleep.  I can’t control when I sleep and when I wake.   I recently read about the secret to falling asleep.  It was on Facebook.  But, wait, this is really true. The secret to going to sleep: 1. become over 60 years old.  2. Sit in a chair.  But most nights I am awake at 3:00 or 4:00 and unable to go back to sleep. (And that may explain my nighttime chair sleep.) 

    Have you ever had trouble sleeping at night because of what would happen the next morning?  Have you ever been so worried that you had trouble sleeping?  Peter is in a prison cell, chained on both sides to guards.  This is not the Marriott.  And Peter faces the night knowing that the next morning Herod Agrippa will order someone to take a sword and chop off his head.    And yet Peter has no trouble sleeping because he has faith that no matter what happens, he is in God’s hands.   This is not the sleep of failure but the sleep of faith. 

    Notice that in the middle of the night, while Peter sleeps, the angel slips in right next to Peter and fills the room with light.   That might be enough to wake most people.  And it wasn’t a candle.  This wasn’t a night light.  This is angel light, the kind that can light up the whole night sky for the shepherds in Bethlehem (Luke 2:9-10); it is described as lightning (Daniel 10:5-6) or, in Revelation, as “illuminating the earth” (Rev. 18:1). But that doesn’t wake the faithful sleep of Peter.

    So Luke says the angel “struck Peter on the side” and woke him.   He struck him.  That is no gentle nudge from the angel.  This Greek word ‘patasso’ is a very violent word.  It is a very odd choice of a word to wake someone up.  Let me show you another example of that same Greek word for being struck,  and guess where? In the Garden of Gethsemane story (what a coincidence).

    So Jesus is being taken by soldiers, and his followers ask if they should fight back.  But before Jesus answers, Luke tells us that “one of them” took a sword and struck a servant, cutting off his ear.  Luke doesn’t tell us which follower it was; he doesn’t have to.  We could all guess which disciple acted rashly.  But in case you weren’t sure, the Gospel of John specifies it was Peter. 

    This is the same word Luke uses for what the angel does to awaken Peter.  A violent strike.  Again, an odd word to use to awaken someone.  Luke keeps dropping these bread crumbs to lead you back from Acts 12 to the story he told earlier in his gospel.  He wants us to make the connection to this ektenos prayer and to show us the dramatic change in Peter from before the resurrection to Acts.

    Peter is not the same person who fell asleep in the Garden, who impetuously struck a person with a sword, and denied Jesus the next day.  Instead, he is the apostle so calmed by faith that he can sleep soundly the night before he will be struck by a sword for refusing to deny Jesus the next day.  Peter is a new person.  He has found the truth of the gospel, and he has been filled with the Holy Spirit.  And the result of his surrender to Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is that he is not the same. 

    Peter is not someone who is just trying to do better.  Peter didn’t just tell God, “Hey, I’m sorry.  I know I have a problem with being rash and impetuous.   I’ll try to do better.”  No, for you see that never works.    Whatever your issue, whatever sin you are working on in your life this morning, trying to do better will get you nowhere.  You can’t do it on your own. 

    Peter is not different because he tried harder.  Peter is different because Jesus gave him a new heart.  Peter quit trying to do it on his own and turned over control of his life to Jesus.  He made Jesus king of his life.  He doesn’t follow Peter anymore; he follows Jesus.  The Holy Spirit has come into Peter, and he isn’t a better person – he is a different person.  

    He is being conformed to the image of Christ.  He is becoming who God meant him to be.  He is reflecting the image of God.

    So Luke wants us to look back from Acts 12 to Luke 22 to see the difference in Peter; the difference that the Holy Spirit makes.  And Luke also wants us to understand better the kind of praying we should do—ektenos prayer.  The followers of Jesus are praying for Peter, as Jesus did in the Garden — as we should pray today.

    Now this story continues after Peter’s escape.  And next week we’ll look at the rest of the story and see what else Luke wants us to learn.  But I want us to take a little time and consider our response to these lessons from Luke today.  Of all the responses to the lessons we learn in Acts 12 and Luke 22, let me focus on just a couple of possible responses.

    First, you may be tired of dealing with the same issue over and over, the same sin.  You may have been trying to rid yourself of a particular problem or sin for years.  Today, accept the fact that you can’t do it yourself.  It won’t happen by trying harder.  It will happen when you come to Jesus and ask him to change your heart. 

    It will happen when, like Peter, you quit trying on your own, and you give in to God’s control of your life.  When you ask God to fill you with His Holy Spirit, that will empower you to be the person God created you to be, unencumbered by that burden of sin and failure.  Today is a good day to pray that prayer and submit this portion of your life fully to Him. 

    Secondly, perhaps you realize that your prayer life is not filled with ektenos prayer.  Maybe your prayers are mere words quickly mentioned as if in passing, before you move on to ‘more important’ things.  When is the last time you prayed as the people in Acts 12 prayed for Peter, the way Jesus prayed in the Garden?  When did you pray to the Father stretched out to your full potential, will every ounce of your being?  This is how we should pray.

    This is how we should pray.  This guy in lane 5 thinks he is giving it all he’s got.  But he hasn’t shown the intensity we see from his competitor in lane 4.  So what do your prayers look like?  Maybe your prayers are more like the guys we can’t see in lanes 1-3.  Or maybe your prayers have never left the starting block.   Jesus prayed like the guy in lane 4. The church prayed for Peter like this guy.  Where are your prayers in this picture?

    I am not telling you that every prayer prayed this way will be answered as you wish.  I will remind you that Jesus’ prayer in the Garden was not answered as he wanted.  He prayed that he would not have to suffer.  He said, “Let this cup pass from me.”  But he also prayed that God’s will be done.  And it was, and he suffered horribly…for our salvation.

    No, not every ektenos prayer will be answered as you wish, but I think Luke is telling us that this is how we should pray.  If you really care about someone who is sick or dying, if you are actually heartbroken about a small child in trouble, or people starving in a famine.   If you are truly concerned about the spiritual state of a friend or family member, then do you care enough to go all out in prayer?  So perhaps today will be the day to take prayer seriously and commit to praying as Jesus prayed.

    1. So the opposite of ektenes (stretched out or taut) is a slack rope.  We use the word “slacker” to refer to someone who is lazy or a poor worker.   It is not a new use of a word.
      Proverbs  18:9  “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.”
      So, 3000 years ago, you could call someone who was lazy a “slacker.” (And you thought that was new slang.) 

  • April 28, 2026 – What About Herod? — Acts #38

    April 1, 2026 – What About Herod? — Acts #38
    Acts. 12:1-5

    Acts 12:1-5   About that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

    This Herod is Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the not-so-Great.  So he came from a family of rulers.  Herod the Great ruled Israel under the Romans until 4 BC.  When he died, 3 of his sons, Herod Antipas, Herod Archelaus, and Philip, divided up the territory.    Herod Antipas ruled Galilee and Perea.  He is the one who killed John the Baptist and also saw Jesus on the day of his trial and sent him to Pilate.  Archelaus ruled Judea and Samaria until Rome removed him from office and banished him to Gaul for his incompetence and cruelty.  Philip was the only good leader in the family and ruled until he died in 34 AD.

    But Herod the not-so-Great was ruthless and paranoid, always thinking his family was trying to take his throne.  So he killed his wife Mariamne, and three of his sons, Aristobulus, Alexander, and Antipater.  He also killed his grandfather, his mother-in-law, and two brothers-in-law.  And of course, Herod commanded the murder of all children under 2 years of age in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus.

    But the Herod we are talking about this morning is Herod Agrippa I. So, after his grandfather Herod the not-so-great killed his grandmother, his father, and two of his uncles, he shipped Agrippa to Rome to be raised. Agrippa gets on good terms with the Emperor and is appointed ruler of Judea after Pilate is fired.  

    And here is Acts 12, we see him ruling the same area as Herod the not-so-great and being just as murderous.   He is trying to earn favor with the Sanhedrin and other Jewish leaders, and so he does them a favor and murders James, the brother of John.  And when he sees how much he is appreciated for this, then he finds another leader of the Jesus followers, Peter.  And he would have killed him right away, but it is the time for Passover and Unleavened Bread, so he puts Peter in prison until after the holy days are over.    

    How awful can a person be?  Committing multiple murders just to gain political approval.  He is a chip off the old Herod block.  How would you feel about Herod if he killed your brother or a good friend for such a reason?  Now we usually just speed past this when we are reading the Bible and move quickly to the great story of Peter’s miraculous prison escape.  But I want to slow down for a minute.  Because I think we have something to learn from Herod.

    He is a ruthless murderer, willing to kill to move ahead politically.  If you were one of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem in the first century, how would you feel about Herod Agrippa?  If he killed the number one religious leader of the day?  It would be like if 30 years ago, some political leader murdered Billy Graham to win some votes from certain people.  You would be outraged, you would want them brought to justice, you would want the death penalty for them.

    But let me ask you this.  Could you ever forgive them?  If someone commits a horrible crime and then later truly repents, can you forgive them?  If someone abused or killed your friend or even your child, could you ever forgive them?  If you were a Jew in a Nazi death camp, is there any way you could forgive one of the German soldiers who murdered and tortured your people?

    I read two books in the past weeks that really made me think about this.  The first is The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal, and the second is a book by Brian Zahnd, “Unconditional?: The call of Jesus to radical forgiveness.” Let me share with you Zahnd’s summary of Wiesenthal’s story:

    Simon Wiesenthal was an Austrian Jew imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.  Wiesenthal is part of a work detail being taken from the concentration camp to do cleanup work in a makeshift field hospital near the Eastern Front. As they are marched from the prison camp to the hospital, they come across a cemetery for German soldiers. On each grave is a sunflower. Wiesenthal writes: “I envied the dead soldiers. Each had a sunflower to connect him with the living world, and butterflies to visit his grave. For me there would be no sunflower. I would be buried in a mass grave, where corpses would be piled on top of me. No sunflower would ever bring light into my darkness, and no butterflies would dance above my dreadful tomb.”1 

    While working at the field hospital, a German nurse orders Wiesenthal to follow her. He is taken into a room where a lone German SS soldier lies dying. The SS soldier is a twenty-one-year-old German from Stuttgart named Karl Seidl. Karl has asked the nurse to “bring him a Jew.” Karl has been mortally wounded in battle and now wants to make his dying confession—and he wants to make it to a Jew. The SS man is wrapped in bandages covering his entire face, with only holes for his mouth, nose, and ears. For the next several hours, Simon sits alone in silence with Karl as the dying SS soldier tells his story. Karl was an only child from a Christian home. His parents had raised him in the church and had not been supporters of the Nazi party and Hitler’s rise to power. But at fifteen, against his parents’ wishes, Karl joined the Hitler Youth. At eighteen Karl joined the infamous SS troops. Now as Karl is dying, he wants to confess the atrocities he has witnessed and in which he, as a Nazi SS soldier, has participated. Most horrifying is his account of being part of a group of SS soldiers sent to round up Jews in the city of Dnepropetrovsk. Three hundred Jews—men, women, children, and infants—were gathered and driven with whips into a small three-story house. The house was set on fire, and Karl tells Simon what happened:

    “We heard screams and saw the flames eat their way from floor to floor. . . . We had our rifles ready to shoot down anyone who tried to escape from that blazing hell. . . . The screams from that house were horrible. . . . Behind the windows of the second floor, I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were alight. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child’s eyes . . . then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies . . . We shot . . . Oh God!”  

     During the several hours that Simon the Jew sat with Karl the Nazi, Simon never spoke. At Karl’s request, Simon held the dying man’s hand. Simon brushed away the flies and gave Karl a drink of water, but he never spoke. During the long ordeal, Simon never doubted Karl’s sincerity or that he was truly sorry for his crimes. Simon said that the way Karl spoke was proof enough of his repentance. At last Karl said: “I am left here with my guilt. In the last hours of my life you are here with me. I do not know who you are, I only know that you are a Jew and that is enough. . . . I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn’t know if there were any Jews left. . . . I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.”3 

    With that, Simon Wiesenthal made up his mind and left the room in silence. He was there for hours but never said a word. That night Karl Seidl died. Against all odds, Simon Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust. Eighty-nine members of his family did not. But Simon Wiesenthal could not forget Karl Seidl. After the war, Simon visited Karl’s mother to check out Karl’s story. It was just as Karl had said. Karl’s mother assured Simon that her son was “a good boy” and could never have done anything bad. Simon remained silent again, this time out of kindness. Simon believed that in his boyhood, Karl might indeed have been “a good boy.” But Simon also concluded that a graceless period of his life had turned him into a murderer. Simon Wiesenthal concludes his riveting and haunting story with an equally riveting and haunting question addressed to the reader. Should I have forgiven him? . . . Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong? This is a profound moral question that challenges the conscience of the reader of this episode, just as much as it once challenged my heart and mind. . . . The crux of the matter is, of course, the question of forgiveness. Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of volition, and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision. You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, “What would I have done?” 1

    Let me first say I am not in a position to judge Simon Wiesenthal’s actions.  It was the Lutheran theologian Martin Marty who said, “Non-Jews and perhaps especially Christians should not give advice about the Holocaust experience to its heirs for the next two thousand years.” But I do want to talk about forgiveness, for it is a topic so central to the faith that we share.  It is part of the creed that many protestant churches recite regularly.

    I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;  And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic** church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

    One of the statements we recite is that “we believe in the forgiveness of sins.”   It is, in fact, central to what we believe. The Bible teaches us that there is a great problem in the world.  The problem is sin.  The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23:  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”   All have sinned. This is not breaking news.  This is not the news we need to tell the world.  Everyone knows they have done wrong.  I haven’t met anyone yet who would honestly say they have never done anything wrong.  And if we had time this morning, it would not take you long to make a list of things you have done wrong, mistakes you have made in the past, people you have let down, people you have lost your temper with, and things you should have done but did not. If you are like me, your list would be long.

    The problem with sin is the results of sin. Romans 6:23  “The wages of sin is death.”  When you wrong someone, the relationship is broken.  There are people you know who refuse to even speak to someone because of a wrong that was done and remains unresolved.  Death is the ultimate break in a relationship.  That is what we mourn at funerals, a broken relationship.  Unresolved sin destroys relationships with other people and with God.  And a broken relationship with God is spiritual death.  But the Bible is the Gospel.  It is very good news about a very bad problem.  Both of these verses present the problem and then the solution.

    Romans 3:23-25   For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

    Romans 6:23   For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    You see, the problem is sin.  But the answer is forgiveness. People spend their entire lives bitter over a past wrong done to them—people consumed with hate, or anger, or a desire for revenge.  The problem is sin. People are living under a burden of great guilt because of something they did in the past that they cannot undo.  People who are living with the pain of broken relationships can’t take the necessary steps to be reconciled. The problem is sin.  The answer is forgiveness.

    The theme of the Bible is forgiveness.  We sinned and broke the relationship with God, and the Bible tells the story of how God is making a path for reconciliation by forgiving us and through Jesus paying the debt that we owe. And as people who have been forgiven and reconciled with God, we are to imitate our heavenly Father and live lives of forgiveness and reconciliation.  

    Genesis tells us that we were created in the image of God.  We are his image bearers in this world.  People cannot see God, but we are created to live lives that reflect his image so that they may see God in us.  And last week, we looked at God’s self-description in Exodus 34.  And one of the ways we can best reflect the image of our God is by living lives of compassion for others, being slow to anger, and forgiving others.

    We are disciples of Jesus.  Remember that to be a disciple is to be an apprentice.  If you are an apprentice electrician, we expect you to learn now to do wiring and handle electricity correctly.  If you are a disciple of a great sculptor, then you are expected to learn to handle the tools to create great pieces of art.

    If you are a disciple of Jesus, you should be learning to live as Jesus did.  And you can’t look at the life of Jesus without seeing great forgiveness.  Not just ordinary forgiveness.  Conventional forgiveness is what most rational people easily do.  If someone bumps into you in a crowded lunchroom, they say “excuse me” or “pardon”.  They are asking forgiveness, and of course, you forgive them.  If a server spills a drink on you and apologizes, you forgive her.  That is just ordinary, conventional forgiveness.  It is not hard. But Jesus calls us to radical forgiveness.  It is an unreasonable forgiveness, a reckless forgiveness, a seemingly impossible forgiveness. It is the kind of forgiveness that leads Jesus to pray:

    Luke 23:34  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

    He has been beaten, mocked, and abused.  He was stripped naked, and they nailed his hands and feet to a cross.  He is dying a death of great pain and torture.  And in the midst of this, he prays for those who are murdering him, “Forgive them.” This is radical forgiveness. But that’s Jesus.  Come on, does he really expect that of us?  Yes, he does.  Disciples imitate their rabbis.

    In Matthew 18, Jesus is talking to the disciples about forgiveness. Peter comes to Jesus and asks for some clarification.

    Matthew 18:21-22   Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

    You see, the Jewish religious authorities had said there was a limit on how many times you should forgive.  Three times was enough.  And Peter has listened to Jesus’ discussion on forgiveness and already understood that Jesus’ style of forgiveness was much more than that, so he suggests 7 times instead of 3.  But Jesus says that our forgiveness should go way beyond even what you imagine.  He answers with a number that is seen only 1 other place in the Bible.  Jesus wanted Peter to think about the story of Lamech.

    Genesis 4:23-24   Lamech said to his wives: 
    “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;  you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:  I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.  If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,  then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

    Lamech is the biblical poster child for revenge and retaliation.   He certainly did not abide by the “eye for eye” idea.  You hit me, I’ll kill you.   I take revenge to the extreme.  Jesus’ point is to forgive to the extreme, as Lamech avenged to the extreme.  Jesus said our forgiveness should be way out of proportion to someone’s actions against us.  Jesus’ followers should be known for their extravagant forgiveness.

    As a disciple of the great forgiver, we must practice his type of forgiveness every day.  If we work at it, we will get better at forgiving.  This is one of the reasons we get married, so we can practice forgiving others. I try to do at least one stupid thing every day so that Shirley has an opportunity to practice forgiving.  I actually don’t have to try.  Doing dumb things comes easily to me.  We’ve been married about 47 years, and I can tell you that my beautiful wife has become an expert in forgiveness, thanks to me. One reason marriages don’t last is a lack of forgiveness, which leads to broken relationships.

    Everyone is going to fail you sometimes. Your friends will say things they shouldn’t.  They will forget things that are important to you.  Your family will do the same.  If you don’t become good at forgiving, then you will be a very lonely person.   How important is it to Jesus that we follow his example of extravagant forgiveness?   From the Sermon on the Mount:

    Matthew 5:23-24    So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

    Jesus said, ” Look, if you have done something to offend someone, or if they have done something to offend you, and you haven’t reconciled, you haven’t forgiven each other, and you are about to give an offering at the altar, then stop.  Leave the offering there and be reconciled with your brother first.   If you are coming to church on Sunday morning, and you need to set things right with someone.  Don’t come to church.  Don’t put money in the offering plate.  Don’t try to worship God while you are holding a grudge against one of his kids. 

    Now, if you understand the geography of the Bible, then Jesus’ statement is even more radical. He is speaking in Galilee, just north of the Sea of Galilee. The only place where there is an altar to offer gifts is in Jerusalem.  Jesus says that if you traveled to Jerusalem to make an offering at the altar and suddenly remembered that you need to forgive someone and restore a relationship, then leave your offering there and travel 80-90 miles back to take care of your broken relationship (typically a 5-7-day journey). Then travel the 80 miles back and offer your gift.  It is very important to Jesus that we do all we can to maintain good relationships with others.

    In Paul’s letter to the followers of Jesus in Rome, he talks about Jesus radical ideas on our relationships with others:

    Romans 12:14-21   Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

    If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.   Sometimes forgiveness can be given, and there is peace, but the relationship cannot be fully restored.  Sometimes, distance in relationships must be maintained.  But we are required to do all we can to forgive and restore relationships. And in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, the prayer we prayed this morning together, we ask God to forgive us in the same way that we forgive others. 

    Matthew 6:12   …and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

    \That is a dangerous prayer if you aren’t a forgiving person.  Do you really want to ask God to forgive you in the same way you forgive others? And if you didn’t catch that, Jesus makes it very clear in the following statement found just after the Lord’s Prayer:

    Matthew 6:14-15  “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

    Forgiveness is not optional.  God expects us to forgive as he does.  We should be like him, full of compassion, slow to anger, and full of grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Brian Zahnd sums it up in his book “Unconditional?”

    So, ultimately, for the committed Christ follower, the question of forgiveness is not whether forgiveness is possible, but how we can find the grace to offer it. We may discover that we offer forgiveness to transgressors and offenders the same way that Jesus did—amidst great suffering. In our feelings-oriented culture, it’s easy to equate forgiveness with having certain feelings. Forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is a choice to end the cycle of revenge and leave justice in God’s hands.2

    Forgiveness is not about feelings.  It is about a choice to be obedient to God, a choice to forgive others as he forgives us. How can we who have been forgiven so much choose any other way? How do we find the grace to forgive?

    You know of Corrie ten Boom.   She was a Dutch Christian whose family was involved in hiding and rescuing Dutch Jews during the holocaust and German occupation of the Netherlands.  Her family’s actions were discovered, and they were arrested.  Her father died in prison shortly after the arrest, and Corrie and her sister were taken to a concentration camp in Ravensbrück, where they were tortured and nearly starved to death. Her sister died in that camp, but Corrie survived and, after the war, gained international recognition for her writing and charitable work. She was speaking at a church in Munich, Germany, in 1947, and came face to face with one of the cruelest guards who abused her.

    This is from her book Tramp for the Lord (the sequel to her first book, “The Hiding Place”

    The place was Ravensbrück and the man who was making his way forward had been a guard—one of the most cruel guards. Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!” And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze. “You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard there.” No, he did not remember me. “But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein,”—again the hand came out—“ will you forgive me?” And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that. And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. “Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.” And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. “I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart.” For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love. I had tried, and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Romans 5: 5, “ . . . because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.” 3

    How do you forgive extravagantly?  How do you forgive like Jesus?  Only through the power of His Holy Spirit living in us.  Maybe this is a good time for you to take an inventory of your forgiveness this morning.  

    1. Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower (New York: Schocken, 1997), 14–15.
    2. Zahnd, Brian. Unconditional?: The call of Jesus to radical forgiveness (p. 20). Kindle Edition.
    3. Zahnd, Brian. Unconditional?: The call of Jesus to radical forgiveness (p. 32-34 ). Kindle Edition.

  • April 14, 2026 – Responding to a Need — Acts #37

    April 1, 2026 – Responding to a Need — Acts #37
    Acts. 11:27-30

    Acts 11:27-30   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, every one 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.

    The Bible contains many historical references.  In a way, it is a history.  It is not written as a history of a certain country or region, but a history of how God is redeeming his creation from the effects of sin and death.  But it is not written in a historical vacuum.  There is substantial external historical evidence that corroborates the Bible’s historical truth.   

    You may find historians who say the Bible is historically inaccurate.  They often say that we have no historical evidence for certain events of the Bible.  They often say that because they haven’t found evidence for something in the Bible, it didn’t happen.  Historians said for a long time that there was no evidence for a King David in Israel, or Belshazzar in Babylon, or a whole people group called the Hittites…that is, until they later found evidence for all of these.  But that doesn’t stop them from continuing the same argument, that if I don’t have evidence for it, then it never existed.  Using that reasoning, on most days, my wife’s cell phone and my car keys never existed.

    But this is one of those places where the New Testament aligns remarkably well with extra-biblical sources: the famine discussed in Acts 11 occurred during the reign of Emperor Claudius, around 46-48 AD.  

    The historian Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews (Book XX, 2.5; 5.2), notes “a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food.”  He also said that Queen Helena of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism, provided crucial relief by importing food to Jerusalem.  She purchased grain from Egypt and figs from Cyprus to send.  And her son, Izates, also sent large sums of money to the leaders of Jerusalem to aid the suffering.  Other historians also mentioned the famine in their works:  Tacitus, in Annals XII, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius.  

    The famine was caused by unusual weather in the Middle East.  At that time, as it had for 1000s of years, Egypt served as the world’s breadbasket.  The annual flooding of the Nile, which brought water for irrigation and rich silt, ensured a harvest almost every year.  But in the mid-40s AD, there was so much rainfall that the Nile rose much higher than usual, leaving much of the farmland underwater.  So several years of decreased production affected much of the Roman Empire.  Oddly, it was coupled with a drought in much of the Middle East, which also greatly reduced crops there.

    Israel was most affected by the famine for two reasons.  First, they were normally exporters of grain, so they lacked an effective import mechanism and struggled to establish one during the shortage.  Secondly, as with any shortage, food prices rise, and the poor suffer the most.   Israel had a very high percentage of the population living in poverty.

    God saw that Israel’s population would starve, so he sent a prophet, Agabus, to urge the people to prepare resources in advance.  God has compassion on the poor. We look at this passage and may be impressed that the prophet predicted the famine.  But what is most striking is not just that a famine was predicted, but how the followers of Jesus respond.  They take the need seriously.  

    “The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to send relief…”

    Notice that there is no debate about whether the prophecy is valid.   There is no discussion of whether they can afford to help, given the many needs in their city.  And there is no assumption that “someone else” will handle it.   The church sees a need and hurries to fill it.  They treat future suffering as a present responsibility. This reflects a deep trust in God’s word and a compassion for others.

    They Give Proportionally and Personally.  “Each according to his ability…”. This is not equal giving—it is equitable giving. All can give, even the poor can give.  Jesus was clear that we should not celebrate the size of the gift but the size of the sacrifice.  We see this same idea in the Old Testament.

    Deuteronomy 16:16-17   Three times a year, all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.

    Here, Moses is discussing the 3 required feasts, during which all were supposed to go to the temple in Jerusalem.  They should not go empty-handed.    Everyone should bring an offering as he is able.  This anticipates Paul the Apostle’s later teaching in passages like 2 Corinthians 8–9: generosity is not about equal amounts but about equal sacrifice and willingness.

    Their giving crossed cultural and geographic boundaries.  Remember that the followers in Antioch are a mixture of Gentile and Jewish believers in Jesus.  They don’t hesitate to support the 100% Jewish congregation.  As we discussed last week, they don’t see any difference between Jew and Gentile in Jesus.  The Gentiles there realize that they have been grafted into the promises God gave through Abraham and his descendants.  The Jews were God’s original chosen people, and we have been joined with them through adoption.  And now we can share in the promises God gave through our father Abraham.

    Now, let me show you a similar situation in Paul’s letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth:

    2 Corinthians 8:1-4   We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints

    Paul says I want you to hear the story of how God has given grace to the churches of Macedonia.  And here is how God gives grace: “in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.”  These Macedonian followers were being severely persecuted for their faith to the point that they could not work or operate any business.  They were economically and socially cut off because of their faith.  Reduced to living in the poverty of a beggar.  Would you look at them and say God has given them grace?   

    We need to understand this.  My wise missionary friend Bob Hunt, looking at a family that has suffered the loss of their child, said,  “They will know grace as I have never known grace.”  He was saying that this family was broken over the death of their child.  They were walking in a valley of sorrow so deep that they could not rely on themselves to walk through it.  Suffering like this reduces you to a point where you have to depend on God to take that next step.

    When you are broken, you are more receptive to God.   But more than that, when you are broken, God comes rushing to you.  I want to build on something I mentioned in an Easter Sunrise Service.  There, I looked at whom Jesus appeared to after his resurrection.  The first person he appeared to?  Not Peter nor John, who were both there at the tomb and left, but to Mary Magdalene.  Why her?  Because she was brokenhearted, sobbing at the tomb.  God is drawn to the broken.  And Brother Bob knew that God would be rushing to the side of this family because of their brokenness. 

    And these followers in Macedonia were hurting, barely finding food for the day, destitute.  People who had come to this point because they followed Jesus.  And God ran to these broken people, and that is grace.  Grace poured out on them so that in their broken, destitute state, they found joy.   And their joy overflowed in a wealth of generosity.  So when you are broken, look up, look for Jesus; He is coming running towards you in your brokenness.

    And how did they respond to the need?  “For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.”  Like the people in Antioch, they gave according to their means.  And like the widow with her small coins, they gave beyond their means.  These are people as poor as beggars, and what does the scripture say they are begging for?  

    2 Corinthians 8:4  “begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.”

    In their extreme poverty, they are begging for the chance to help someone else in need.  They understood grace.  They had received grace from God.   Now they are eager to give grace to others.  Do you want to know how to really understand grace?   Now, by reading about it, not by studying it in books, but by receiving it yourself, and even more by dispensing grace to others.    To really understand grace, you must receive grace, and you must give grace.

    Finally,  in this passage in Acts 11, we see a powerful model for how the church responds to global need.  Today, we might not have Agabus, or some other prophet, but we do have many forms of information – We have instant Global awareness of crises (famine, war, disaster).  We have immediate knowledge of suffering across the world.   So, usually the question is not  “Do we know about the need?” But the question is, “How will we respond?”

    I bet that you can quote the first verse of Psalm 23.

    Psalm 23:1 “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

    God has supplied all of our needs.  God has given us everything.  He is our creator and sustainer.  He gives us life.  He gives us breath today.  Every heartbeat is a gift from God.  The world we live in, the food we eat, our friends, our family.  Everything is from the Father.  He gives us freely out of his love and compassion for us.  You have heard the apostle Paul’s restatement of this verse from Psalm 23:

    Philippians 4:19   And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

    The context for the verse is that it falls right after Paul commends the church at Philippi for their generosity in supporting him.  And there is the connection.   God, in his compassion towards them, has supplied all their needs.  They, in turn, have compassion on others and supply their needs. Anything we share with others, we have only because he first gave it to us.

    When King David was collecting money and items to build the first temple, people overwhelmed him with their gifts.   He had to tell them to stop contributing, for they had more than they could use.  And David praised God for blessing them so that they could give generously:

    1 Chronicles 29:14   Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.

    Anything we give comes from His hand to us.  And it is His love in us, His heart of compassion within us, that drives us to that same love and compassion for others. And if the spirit of God dwells in us, if we are filled with God’s love, then we will respond out of that same love towards others we see who have needs.

    1 John 3:16-18 “ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

    Love is an action, not a thought.  If there are no actions, there is no love.  But there is a problem.  There are so many in need around us.  Practically speaking, how do we respond to the needs around us?  Working with the homeless ministry, or just walking down a city street, you see more needs than you have the ability to meet.  We can’t help everyone.   So how do you determine whom to help? 

    Perhaps you just use your best judgment?  Just use common sense.  Maybe just meet the needs closest to home first?  That’s just common sense, right?  What if we only help the people who deserve the help?  I mean, some of them got themselves into this bad situation.  It is their own fault.  They made their bed; now they have to sleep in it.

    No!  That is not the right way.   The minute we appoint ourselves as judges deciding which needs we meet, we have made the same mistake Adam and Eve made.  That fruit on the tree seemed right to them.  But it was not their judgment to make.  It was God’s call.  He decides what is right or wrong, what is good or bad,

    And we certainly have no right to judge if anyone is worthy of our help.  How could we think this way?   Remember, everything we give we got from God’s hand.   Go ahead and try to tell me that you deserved God’s help.  God reached out to help us despite our unworthiness.   If He only gave to those who deserved it, then we all would have nothing.   If we are His children, we act the same way.  We give to others out of grace and compassion, not out of judgment of who deserves it.

    So how do you handle this?  Here is the rule in our family: when we see a need, and we have the ability to help, unless God tells us not to, we help. That is our default action.   And God sometimes tells us, “not this one” or “not today.” But if we do not feel him speaking “No” to us, then our answer is “yes.” It is up to us to grow close to God so that we will hear His voice when he speaks. So we will know His will.  The needs are so great.

     But the fact that we can’t help everyone is not an excuse to help no one.   I have told this story before, but here it is again:

    A man was walking on the beach early one morning.  He was the only one out that early, except for a boy he could see far in the distance.  As he walked further, he saw the little boy throwing something into the ocean.  As he got closer, he saw that the tide had washed up thousands of starfish on the beach.  They were drying out in the morning sun, but the little boy threw one after another back into the water.  The man said, “Hey, kid, there are thousands of starfish washed up.  Stop wasting your time.   You can’t possibly make a difference.  The little boy picked up another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean, and then replied to the man, “It made a difference to that one.”

    We can’t just be overwhelmed by the amount of trouble and needs in the world and do nothing.  We must do something, trusting that God will honor our actions and enable others to meet the needs we cannot.  Ask God to break your heart with the things that break His heart.    Then we will be moved to act in accordance with God’s plans in the world.  Compassion always leads to action.  And that will be the way God judges us one day, on the final, final exam:

    Matthew 25:31-46  When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
    Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you clothed me, I was sick, and you visited me, I was in prison, and you came to me.’
    Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
    Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
    Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

    Helping others and meeting needs comes from a heart of compassion.  And God has given us a heart like His.  Do you remember in Exodus when God gives his character description to Moses?  Here is how God describes himself:

    Exodus 34:6-7    Yehovah, Yehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty,”

    When we display these characteristics in our lives, we are acting like our Father. He wants us to be a chip of the old block, for we were created in His image, to be His image bearers.  Do you want to make God smile?  Go out of your way to show compassion to someone in need.  And God will say, “That’s my boy!”  Or “Did you see that? She is my girl.”  Your heavenly Father will be so proud of you.  And one day he will say Well done, my good and faithful servant.

  • April 1, 2026 – First Called Christians in Antioch — Acts #36

    April 1, 2026 – First Called Christians in Antioch — Acts #36
    Acts. 11:22-26

    Acts 11:22-26  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.

    As we discussed, Antioch was a large, diverse, multicultural city. about the same population as Atlanta today.   The gospel was flourishing there due to the impact of God’s Holy Spirit and God’s work through Saul and Barnabas.   In Antioch, Jews and Gentiles were worshiping together in the local synagogues.  They found a common belief in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus.  So this was something very new.   

    This is happening at the same time as the story we talked about with Peter and Cornelius in Caesarea, back in Israel.  Remember that God uses a dramatic vision to persuade Peter to go to this Gentile’s house.  And while the Jews up in Antioch, who have accepted Jesus as their messiah, don’t have any trouble worshipping with these Gentile believers, back in Israel, it was still viewed as unacceptable. 

    You see, the Jews living in the lands outside of Israel were much more accepting of Gentiles.  They lived near them, they worked with them, and went to the market with them.  The Jews in Israel were more isolated and wouldn’t be caught dead talking to a Gentile, much less going to their home.  And they built barriers around their temple to make sure the Gentiles wouldn’t worship with them.  And they told the Gentiles they would kill them if they crossed the barrier. 

    So again, this group of followers of Jesus in Antioch, mixed Jews and Gentiles worshiping together, is a very new thing.  And the general population of Antioch recognized that this group was different.  They were in a synagogue, but they weren’t all Jewish.  And unlike the Jewish groups, these people talked about a Messiah who had already come and had risen from the dead.  So they couldn’t call them Jews.  They didn’t know what to call them.  So the last part of verse 26 tells us:

    Acts 11:26   τε πρώτως ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ τοὺς μαθητὰς Χριστιανούς.

    Ok…In case you have forgotten, Luke wrote the book of Acts in Greek.  Fortunately for those of us who do not speak Greek, Bible translators have put this into English.

    Acts 11:26   And in Antioch the disciples were first called Χριστιανούς.

    But wait… they didn’t translate that word.  They translated all the other Greek words that we don’t understand.  They translated this Greek word ‘protos’ into an English word that you know,”first”.    But they didn’t translate that last word into an English word.  They just took the Greek letters and replaced them with their English equivalents, so we get a Greek word written in English letters.  That is called transliteration.

    The job of a Bible translator is to make this foreign language understandable to you.  So most of the time, they choose the English word or phrase that has the same meaning as the Greek word.  This is translation.  But sometimes they just use the Greek word, but write it in the letters of the English alphabet.  This is transliteration.  It is the same in the Old Testament.  Here are some Hebrew words that were not translated but only transliterated: Sabbath, Amen, Satan, Hallelujah, Shofar, and Messiah. These are all Hebrew words.  They just changed the letters to English letters.  Transliteration. 

    Sometimes it is interesting what is translated and what is just transliterated.

    John 1:41   He [Andrew] first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ).

    This is interesting because this English sentence contains a Hebrew word and a Greek word.   This tells us that Andrew was speaking to his brother in Hebrew; he says ‘Messiah,’ but John’s Gospel is in Greek, so he explains to his readers that the Hebrew word “Messiah” is the same as the Greek word they know, “Christos.”  And in Greek Christos means “anointed one.”  And Christian means “followers of the anointed one.”

    But when people read this verse: ‘Acts 11:26   And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians’, they get the idea that a new religion is being formed here in Antioch.  It’s the first Christian Church!   It is the beginning of Christianity.  They have separated from the Jews.   Except this is not what is happening.  No one in the first century would have thought this.

    Instead, I am going to tell you that something else wonderful is happening here in Antioch.  Something that makes God smile.  It is what he pictured in the beginning.  And John, in the book of Revelation, sees it happening again.  It is what Paul talks about in Galatians

    ;Galatians 3:28-29   There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

    Here in Antioch, they all worship together the God of Abraham and His Messiah, Jesus.   Here we see the Holy Spirit working with Jew and Gentile together.   And then in Ephesians, Paul gives another description of what God has done that we first see in Antioch:

    Ephesians 2:11-13   Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

    Hear the good news, Gentiles.  Once we were on the outside, not part of the covenant God made with Israel, the covenant of promise.  There was no hope for you and I.  But now in Messiah Jesus we have been brought in.  Continuing to the next two verses (I will come back to the part I skipped.):

    Ephesians 2:15-16  “…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

    Jesus has broken down the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile to create in himself one group of people, not two.  Jesus, through what he did on the cross, reconciled both Jew and Gentile to God and destroyed the hostility between the two groups.  And that is what we see in Antioch in Acts 11.  Jews and Gentiles were brought together through Jesus.   Now back to the middle section….And how did Jesus do it?Ephesians 2:15 “by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances…” What does that mean?  Well, some people say Jesus abolished the law.  But is that consistent with the rest of God’s Word?  Listen to what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:

    Matthew 5:17-18 “ Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

    Jesus plainly states he did not come to abolish the Law. Now, from Paul:

    Romans 3:28-31 “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.    Or is God the God of Jews only?  Is he not the God of Gentiles also?  Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the [Jews] by faith and the [Gentiles] by faith.   Do we then abolish the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

    Paul agrees with Jesus.  The law was not abolished; it was to be upheld.  And Paul continued to follow Jewish law throughout his life.  That did not change for him after becoming a follower of Jesus.   So it wasn’t Old Testament Law that was abolished.  So what was abolished that allowed the Jews and Gentiles to become one in Jesus?   What changed to allow the Jews and Gentiles to be one?

    First, the old sacrificial system is brought to perfection in Jesus.   As we talked about several weeks ago, the system of animal sacrifices was incomplete.  There was no sacrifice for sins committed purposely.  No sacrifice for intentional sins.  So after King David commits adultery and murder, he knows there is no sacrifice that can cover his sin.

    Psalm 51:16-17   For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

    There is no sacrifice to atone for these sins.  His only hope is to fall broken-hearted before God in repentance and beg for God’s grace and mercy.  But David knew what Barnabus later stated in Hebrews 9:22: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” So David does not know how God will cover these sins, but he begs God to do so somehow.  David is putting his faith in God to atone for his sins.  David doesn’t know the story of Jesus, but he is putting his faith in the sacrifice of Jesus.

    How do people in the Old Testament find salvation through Jesus?  David didn’t know his name or the details of Jesus’ life, but he put his faith in God to provide the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.  And it doesn’t matter that David didn’t know his name.  We call him Jesus.  That is not the name his mother called him.  She said ‘Yeshua’.  We have faith that God will forgive our sins through the blood of Yeshua.  David had the same faith that God would forgive his sins through a means he did not know.

    Hebrews 10:11-14    For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.   But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

    The old system of sacrifices was not complete.  The priests in Jerusalem offered a lamb on the altar for the people’s sins every morning and evening, along with all the other sacrifices.   So there would always be a lamb burning on the altar for the people’s sins.  But the blood of the lambs could never cover all sins. But the offering of Jesus’ blood was the complete and perfect covering for all sin, for all time.  So with Jesus, the system of sacrifice changed.   

    Now, if you were not Jewish, there was no way to offer sacrifices for sin.   The Gentiles did not have access to the temple to make sacrifices.   Back to Ephesians:

    Ephesians 2:11-13   Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

    There was no hope, no sacrifice for sin.   But now in Jesus, the Gentiles have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ.  But what else changed?

    Ephesians 2:14-16   For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances… 

    Note that this is the “law of commandments expressed in ordinances”.  We have already noted that it is not God’s Law that has been abolished.   The word for “ordinances” is the Greek word dogma.  Dogma refers to man’s interpretation of God’s law, not God’s law.  It is the word used for the decree that Caesar August made that all the world should be taxed.  It is used for the decision of the council of disciples in Acts 15 

    So what was abolished was something in man’s interpretation of God’s law?  What part of man’s interpretation of God’s law was abolished?  

    If you look in the Gospels and pay attention to what the Pharisees and Jesus had conflicts about, there were two major things.  First they didn’t understand who Jesus was and that, as God Himself, he had authority to forgive sin.  Jesus would say to people he was healing, “Your sins are forgiven”.    And they would in shock say, “Only God can do that”.  And indeed, that  was the point that they didn’t understand.

    Secondly, they were constantly getting onto Jesus for breaking their oral law, the laws of tradition that were not in scripture, but those they added.   They fuss about Jesus healing on the Sabbath.  That was not against God’s law, but only against their interpretation of God’s law, their dogma.  They fussed because Jesus seemed to ignore the laws of ritual purity.

    His disciples didn’t wash their hands in the certain way they prescribed.  He associated with sinners, with unclean people.  And then there was the time that the woman who was unclean because of her medical problem touched him.  And the Pharisees said, “Hey, if you were a prophet, you would not allow that.  She is unclean.”

    Jesus ignores their dogma on ritual purity.   He talks to Gentiles.  He volunteers to go to the home of a Roman Centurion.  He eats with sinners and tax collectors.  He touches the leper, he touches dead bodies.. And he doesn’t become unclean, but he cleanses.  The leper is healed, the dead come to life, and the sinner repents.  Jesus tells them that what makes you unclean is not how you ceremonially wash your hands, but how you act and what words come out of your mouth.  

    So, back to our question, what gets abolished?

    1.  The old sacrificial system that was not fully effective for Jews and totally inaccessible to Gentiles.  There was a 4.5-foot wall that kept them out of the temple proper, with the threat of death. Gentiles no longer have to become Jews to worship him.  That wall has been broken down.

    2.  And the oral traditions that kept the Jews from interacting with Gentiles or sinners, Jesus has dismissed.   These walls have been broken down.

    So God has accomplished the removal of the “dividing wall of hostility” between Israel and Gentiles.  He has “killed the hostility.”    So the Jews in Antioch who follow Jesus as their Messiah, their Christ, now in Acts 11 worship in the synagogue hand in hand with the Gentile followers of Jesus.  Something that just a few years ago would have been thought impossible.  God has made complete peace possible.  

    But when God destroyed the wall of hostility, it didn’t take long for people to rebuild that wall of hostility.

    In the first century, the first followers of Jesus were seen not as a separate religion but as a sect of Judaism.  They were initially all Jews who had found their promised Messiah in Jesus.  And for years, the Romans had allowed the Jews a special exception to practice their own religion, despite being in conflict with the Roman practices.  And the followers of Jesus, worshipping in Jewish synagogues, enjoyed that same freedom. 

    But as Emperors come and go, it seemed either the followers of Jesus or the Jews were being persecuted.  And if the Jews were being persecuted, then the followers of Jesus would say, oh, we are not like them.  So in 49 AD when Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome, the followers of Jesus said, no, we aren’t like the Jews, let us stay.  And in 64 AD, when Nero blamed the Christians for the great fire in Rome, the Jews said, ” Well, that’s not us.

    So the followers of Jesus are no longer seen as a sect of Judaism.   But that also meant that when Nero was gone and the Christians returned, they were no longer given protective religious status since they were no longer seen as a sect of Judaism.

    Simon Bar-Kokhba led a Jewish revolt, and many proclaimed him as the Messiah.  Of course, the Jesus followers did not see him as the Messiah and so were even further differentiated from the Jews.  After Rome put down this revolt, they banned Jews from Jerusalem and made circumcision and the study of Torah illegal.  The Gentile followers of Jesus were allowed to remain in Jerusalem.

    And so the Jews and the Christians are now seen by the Romans and everyone as two separate people groups.  And animosity arose between the Jews and the Christians as these tensions increased. And the walls of hostility continue to rise up, even in the church.  

    As early as the mid-2nd century, we see the writings of Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis calling the Jews “Christ killers” for their part in the trials of Jesus. These are Catholic Saints.  Theologians call them “Church Fathers.”  And this is the beginning of antisemitism in the Church.

    And so it continued until 313 AD when Constantine conquered Rome.  He issued the Edict of Milan, which for the first time made Christianity a legal religion.  They go from persecution to favored status. So now they can build houses of worship.  And the Jews became less favored. Constantine called the Jews “a detestable people” and there is a push by the followers of Jesus to look less Jewish. 

    Constantine then called together all the Christian leaders for councils to agree on doctrine and unify the church. So there was the Council of Nicea, from which we have the Nicene Creed, which is very much like the Apostles Creed we use today.  But these councils also sought to separate the Christian church from the Jews as much as possible.

    Up to this point, most followers of Jesus still continued to worship on the Sabbath, Saturday.   So the Laodician Council issued a ruling that the First day of the week would be the day of worship and rest, not the seventh.  In fact, they ruled that all Christians must work on the Sabbath, because refraining from work on Saturday would make them appear to be Jewish.  They changed the calendar and removed the Jewish festivals.  They changed the calculation of the celebration of Resurrection Day so it would not be dependent on the Jewish holy days.

    Again, these decisions were made in an attempt to separate themselves from the Jewish religion because is was seen as less favored now.  Jews who followed Jesus were forced to renounce their Jewish heritage and traditions.  The wall of hostility Jesus abolished was being rebuilt by the church.

    Just listen to this quote from the council of Laodicea on why they wouldn’t follow the Jewish dates for Passover/Easter:

    “It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. … Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … Let us … studiously avoiding all contact with that evil way. …

    For how can they entertain right views on any point who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. … lest your pure minds should appear to share in the customs of a people so utterly depraved. … Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. … no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews.”[8]

    This is from the council of churches.   This is the same attitude that the Jews used to have towards the Gentiles, the attitude that Jesus came to condemn and to change. 

    This attitude towards the Jews developed into full-fledged antisemitism that led to the mistreatment of the Jews for centuries.  There were the pogroms (riots) that sprang up regularly against the Jews in Russia and Europe.    There were massacres of the Jews during the Crusades.  They were expelled from many countries, including England, France, Spain, and Portugal.  There was torture in the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.   And there was the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime.

    And the reason I have gone through this history of the development of antisemitism is to place it against what God has done in Acts 11.

    Ephesians 2:14-16   For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

    Jesus died on a cross to take away the penalty of our sins from us.  That we may have forgiveness and be reconciled to God.   And as all people are reconciled to God, they become one in HIm.  Paul recognised that while most Jews had failed to accept Jesus as their Messiah, they nevertheless remain “beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Romans 11:28). Paul saw their rejection of Jesus as a temporary state which the Hebrew prophets foretold (for example, Isaiah 6); yet he also believed eventually the time would come when “… all Israel will be saved, ….” (Romans 11:26). 

    When you hear the word “Christian,” I want you to remember how it was originally used: “Follower of the Annointed One.”  And remember that the Messiah, the Christ, was a Jew.  And he came to grant us forgiveness from sin and to tear down the walls of hate that separate people.  We are not to regard anyone as unclean.  We are to love all people and pray for the reconciliation of all people to God through Jesus, the anointed one.

  • March 26, 2026 – Steadfast and Faithful in Antioch — Acts #35

    March 26, 2026 – Steadfast and Faithful in Antioch — Acts #35
    Acts. 11:19-26

    This tiny spot in the red circle is Israel.

      It is a very small area of the world.  Jesus was born there and, after a short sojourn in Egypt, grew up there, did 95% of his ministry there, and was crucified and resurrected there. The book of Acts begins with Jesus’ ascension from a mountain. there, and then the coming of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem.

    There are 3000 baptized that day, but then trouble starts, and several apostles are thrown into prison.  Then Stephen is stoned because he professed Jesus, and the more serious persecution begins.  And up to this point, almost everything has happened in this tiny area of the world, about the size of the state of New Jersey.

    But this persecution causes a scattering of the followers from Jerusalem northward into Israel, into Galilee, and then into Damascus in Syria, and as we will read in our scripture today, even further north into Cyprus, Phoenicia, and up to Antioch.  The gospel is spreading.

    Acts 11:19-20   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 Gentiles also, preaching the Lord Jesus.

    This is happening at the same time as the events in the previous chapter.  While Peter and Cornelius are having their visions and Peter is learning that the Gentiles can be accepted by Jesus, some followers of Jesus from Cyprus and Cyrene are sharing the gospel with Gentiles in the city of Antioch. The gospel is spreading geographically as well as to other people groups.

    Now, when you hear ‘Antioch’, you think of just another town.  But Antioch is very different than any town we have spoken of in our study of the gospels and Acts. Antioch was founded in 300 BC by Seleucus I.  He was one of the 3 generals of Alexander the Great who were given control of the kingdom after Alexander’s death.  Seleucus named the new city after his father, Antiochus.  (This Antiochus was the great-great-great-grandfather of Antiochus Epiphanes, whom we know for his rule during the Jewish Maccabean Revolt.)

    The city was built on the Orentes River about 18 miles from where it enters the Mediterranean Sea in what is now modern-day Turkey.  It became a center of trade routes and grew into one of the three largest cities in the Roman Empire.  The largest city in the Empire was Rome, of course, with a population of around 1 million.  The next was Alexandria, Egypt, and then Antioch.  Antioch had a population of around 500,000, about the size of Atlanta today.  

    So imagine these first-century followers of Jesus, many of whom had grown up in small towns and villages of a few hundred people, their idea of a huge city being Jerusalem, the size of Rome, Ga.  Then they go to a city the size of Atlanta.  And they see what we see —  life is different in the city.

    Antioch was a very Roman city, with temples, forums, public baths, gymnasiums, and amphitheaters. The main streets were paved with granite.   Now, Atlanta has the Georgia Dome, which is huge, seating almost 72,000 people.  But the stadium in Antioch, built for chariot racing, was bigger.  It was built 200 years before Jesus and could seat over 80,000.   Antioch was no small town. 

    Antioch was known primarily for 4 things: trade and commerce, cultural diversity, religious pluralism, and low moral standards.  It was the kind of place many religious people might avoid.  But it was to this city that some of the Jesus followers who fled the initial persecution after the stoning of Stephen arrived.  There, in the midst of the paganism of a typical Roman city, they found a Jewish community and naturally would have settled there.  So Antioch becomes an experiment to see how the message of Jesus will fare in a metropolitan setting.  And did they find success with the gospel?

    Acts 11:21   And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

    In this pagan city, the gospel flourishes.  News of this great response reaches the apostles in Jerusalem, and they send Barnabus to visit the city.  

    Acts 11:22-24   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.

    We spoke of this earlier when we talked about Barnabus.  He was an excellent choice to send there as he was from Cyprus and thus more familiar with the Roman culture he would find there.  And Barnabus did there what he had done elsewhere.  He preached to the people, encouraging them to be faithful and steadfast.  

    There are some real churchy words here (grace, faithful, steadfast purpose).  Now I just want to stop right here.  I may be odd, but I think that when you are reading, it is nice to know what the words actually mean.  And especially when you are reading the Bible, God’s Word to us, it is very important to understand what you are reading.  If you had to take a pop test this morning, could you write the definition of these 3 words?  

    You might say, “ Well, I can define grace,  but I am not sure I can explain the difference between faithful and steadfast.”  We’ll come back to grace in just a minute, but first, let’s look at steadfast and faithful.  Perhaps some dictionary definitions would help.

    steadfast – resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering.
    faithful – remaining loyal and steadfast

    Perhaps the dictionary definition will not help much in distinguishing these two words.  But Barnabus’s use of these two words together comes from his knowledge of the Old Testament, where they appear together over 50 times.  Here are a few examples:

    Psalm 108:3-4   I will give thanks to you, O Yehovah, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.   For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
    Psalm 115:1    Not to us, Yehovah, not to us, but to Your name give glory,  for the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness!”
    Psalm 117:2    For great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of Yehovah endures forever.  Praise Yehovah!
    Psalm 85:10  Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

    Again, these words appear together over 50 times in the Old Testament.  We have to go back to the original Hebrew words to really understand the difference between these two words and why they go together.  You can get a sense of the difficulty that our English versions have with these Hebrew words by looking at Psalm 85:10 in different translations.

    NIV  –  Love and faithfulness meet together….
    KJV  –  Mercy and truth are met together…
    NASB  –  Graciousness and truth have met together…
    NASB 1995  –  Lovingkindness and truth have met together…

    So which is it?  The word in Hebrew that is variously translated as “love”, “mercy”, “graciousness” or “lovingkindness” is hesed.  Why is it that these different translations of the Bible give us all different words for the Hebrew “hesed”?

    To answer that, let me tell you a story of a tattoo.  In 2019, my daughter told me she wanted to get a tattoo.  I am not the biggest fan of tattoos (well, I wasn’t until 2019 anyway).  She said she wanted to get the Hebrew word for “Grace” tattooed on her wrist, and she wanted it in my Hebrew handwriting.  I couldn’t exactly turn that down.  But I told her if she was going to have a word permanently placed on her arm, she should really understand what that means.

    There are two Hebrew words that people frequently translate as ‘grace’. In fact, if you Google images for “grace” tattoos, you will see both.  Hen (pronounced ‘chen’) and hesed (pronounced  ‘chesed’) In both the ‘ch’ sound is a guttural back of the throat sound, not like the ‘ch’ in our word ‘children’.  Hen is best translated as ‘favor’ or ‘grace’, and it is found 69 times in the OT, as in this verse

    Genesis 6:8    But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yehovah. 
    Genesis 6:8  (KJV)  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. 

    Now this was a wicked time in the world.  But think about this: no other humans outside Noah’s family found favor with God.  They all drowned.  Why did they not get grace?  Why was Noah spared? 

    The answer is in the next verse

    Genesis 6:9   Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.

    This verse tells us why Noah found favor with God when no one else did.   God called Noah righteous.   That is where the grace comes in.  Noah wasn’t perfect, but God’s grace allowed him to look on Noah and see someone who sought to do right and walk in God’s ways, so God, with great grace, calls Noah righteous.  

    Don’t think for a minute that Noah earned God’s favor.  There is nothing Noah could have ever done to deserve any favor from God.   Nor is there anything we can do to earn God’s favor.   God is so full of grace that, despite all our bad qualities, he still sees something in us that leads him to show us favor.  He sees us leaning in towards Him.  That effort to do the right thing.  That one step in God’s direction.  Even though Noah failed and even though we fail, because of grace, God sees enough in us to grant us favor in His eyes.  That leads us into a covenant relationship with Him.

    This is important.  If someone taught you that the Old Testament is all about law and the New Testament is all about grace, then let me apologize on behalf of whoever misled you. The Old Testament is full of grace.  There is not one person in all of the Old Testament who was worthy of God paying a second of attention to.  None.  They were all sinners.  Only because of grace did God interact with any of them.  The children of Israel understood grace.  They thanked God every morning that they woke, that they had air to breathe.  They knew they needed the grace of God.  All those sacrifices they did —they knew they could not atone for sin.  None of those sacrifices covered the sins they committed on purpose. There was no sacrifice you could make for any premeditated sin.   And they knew that they had all committed intentional sins.   They knew their only hope was God’s grace to forgive them anyway.

    Psalm 51:16-17   For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

    We looked at this verse last week, but here it is again.   David knew that after he designed a plan to take another man’s wife and then murder that man, no sacrifice on an altar could cover his sin.  He had no hope except to fall down on his knees before God in repentance and pray for grace.  Now David had no idea who would pay the penalty for his sins; he didn’t know about Jesus and how he would die for all of our sins, but he threw himself on the mercy and grace of God to somehow take care of it.  The people of the Old Testament knew very well that there was no way to stay in good relations with God only through sacrifices – they knew they needed grace. 

    So you see this word “hen” for grace all through the Old Testament.   There is the initial grace granted by God that allows him to look on us with favor.  As we talked about last week, God looks on a sinner and, in grace, gives us the gift of repentance to initiate our relationship with Him.  So there is grace and repentance, and then we enter a covenant with Him.  You can read about Abraham’s covenant in the Bible, or the covenant at Mt Sinai between God and Israel.  And there is the covenant we make with God when we take that step towards him in repentance. 

    In most covenants, both parties have obligations.   We promise to turn over control of our lives to Jesus, to make him king of our life.  We promise to follow his path, to obey his commandments.  And God promises to forgive our sins and remove the penalty of sin from us, to lead us in the right paths and watch over us, to cause everything to work towards our good.  There are so many promises in Scripture that God makes to us when we enter into a covenant with Him.

    And that is where the other word, ‘hesed’, comes in.  Hesed is the way that God acts towards us, based on the obligations of a covenant relationship.  It is the description of God’s behavior towards us, acting as he promised in his agreement with us.  So you can see why our English translations struggle to give us the full picture of God’s covenantal actions towards us.  Because God responds to us in all these ways: with love, with kindness, with mercy, and with grace.  And that is all summed up in the Hebrew word, hesed.

    Remember we looked at some of the 50 verses where the aspects of God’s character, ’steadfast love’ and ‘faithfulness’ go together.  Steadfast love is hesed.  It is the mercy, love, and kindness God shows to us as members of the covenant.  And the word for faithfulness is emet.  Emet is the word for truth.  Sometimes ‘emet’ is not translated into English in the Bible but just written as the Hebrew word with English letters, “amen” or “truth”.   So these words together describe covenental love that is true, trustworthy and unfailing.

    The reason emet is sometimes translated as ‘faithfulness’ is that it means that, when it comes to the covenant God made with us, He is true.  We might say a friend is a ‘true’ friend, meaning they are loyal and trustworthy.  We say someone is ‘true’ to their word.  That means they are faithful to what they say.

    And that is why these two words are often seen together when they speak about God.  Because God’s hesed, his covenantal love, is true and trustworthy.  God acts as he promised to us, always, every time.  As in this verse:

    Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)   It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

    And it was this verse Thomas Chisholm put to music that you know so well. “Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;  There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not; As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.”1   Great is your truth, your emet, Father, that your hesed does not fail.  Though I continue to fail you, you do not fail; your hesed is new every morning.

    Acts 11:22-24   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 Barnabus exhorts the Jesus followers in Antioch:  remain faithful with steadfast purpose.    Be true to the covenant you entered into with Jesus.  God will be faithful.  There is no doubt.  The question is, will we be faithful to God?  Will we be true to the promises we made to Jesus to follow his ways, keep his commandments, and make him king of our lives?

    As we read through the First Testament, we see God constantly sending the prophets to ask the people: “Why haven’t you been faithful to me?  Why did you go off worshiping idols?  Why did you mistreat the widows and the strangers in the land?  Why haven’t you kept my commandments as you promised? I have been faithful to you, but you have been unfaithful.” God looks on us and the covenant we made with him.  And he asks the same questions of us.  Why haven’t you been faithful?

    We have a real problem in the church today.  We have not understood the concepts of hen and hesed.  We cling hard to the concept of God’s grace and favor on us, but we have forgotten that we made a covenant with God and that we have responsibilities under our covenant with Jesus.  As Skip Moen says, we have divorced hen from hesed.

    “The logic of Hen hasn’t changed. But you would never know it listening to today’s contemporary evangelism.  Today, we have a God who is expected to show favor on all, regardless of their willingness to demonstrate true repentance. Today, the only requirement is some modest  indication of remorse and an intellectual acknowledgment of the fact that “Jesus is the Son of  God.”
    By disconnecting hen from hesed, the Church has effectively removed any continuing transformation of behavior in the life of the disciple. Today, repentance does not entail acting differently when there is an opportunity to repeat past sinful behavior. Today, repentance means just asking for forgiveness again. Today, evangelism does not come with a clear message of the necessary obedience to God’s instructions for living.”2

    Barnabus knows that the only way the followers of Jesus have a chance to grow in the huge city of Antioch is to live lives faithful to the covenant they made with Jesus.  Because the temptation to depart from His path will be strong in this pagan city.  They must live as they promised to live.

    God’s grace is so amazing.  That he can see someone like me, with all my failures, and not be disgusted but can look on me in love.  And then show favor to me, undeserving me, and give me the gift of repentance, that I might fall to my knees in sorrow and mourning for my sin.  Grace that He, the creator of the universe, would enter into a covenant relationship with me.   And God is faithful, and he is true.  He will keep His promise to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  And what does God want from us in return?  God speaks the answer in Hosea 6:6.  

    Hosea 6:6 “For I desire hesed and not sacrifice,”

    What God wanted from the people of the First Testament was never sacrifices.  They were just a demonstration of the covering for sin until Jesus came.  What God really wanted then, and what he wants now, is hesed from us.  If hesed is the way God acts in response to his covenant with us, that is what he wants from us.   He wants us to act as we promised in our covenant with him.

    If we are going to be God’s people in a sinful world, we have to be true to our commitment to Him.  To walk in his ways, to obey his commandments, to treat people as He treats us, to forgive others as He forgives us.  To do all he asks, because he is our king.  

    May we walk faithfully in Him. 
    Oh, and the tattoo.  Here is the picture my daughter sent me right after it was done.  (I added the words)

    Hesed.  It is how God treats us every day, with grace, love, kindness, and mercy, just as he promised.  And it is what he wants from us. To be true to our promises we made to Him, to follow his ways and live as he instructs us. Barnabus tells the people in Antioch and us today, this is the way to spread the gospel.

    1.  Chisholm, Thomas Obediah.  1923.
    2.  Moen, Skip.  “Under His Wings” Jan. 6, 2012 on skipmoen.com.

  • March 19, 2026 – The Other Gift the Gentiles Receive — Acts #34

    March 19, 2026 – The Other Gift the Gentiles Receive — Acts #34
    Acts 10:9-43

    Last week, we continued our discussion of the story of the centurion Cornelius and Peter, their two visions, and how God chose this moment to finally get Peter to understand the lesson he had been trying to teach His people for over a thousand years.   And the lesson that was so hard for them to grasp was this:  “God’s message of love and grace is for all people, Jew and Gentile, and He seeks to establish a covenant with all people who are willing.  

    When God created people, he did not intend any divisions.  People were to be one, united in Him.  God told them to be fruitful and fill the earth, but they congregated in one city to make a name for themselves.  God wanted them to live in unity in Him, but they sought their unity in themselves.  They built a tower in Babel.  And because of their sin, God had to divide their languages to force them to scatter so that they would fill the earth as He intended.

    And each of these people groups created idols for themselves, false gods that they worshiped.  Each nation had its own gods to worship.  You are familiar with the gods of Egypt (they had over 1000).  We know from scripture that the Canaanites worshipped Baal, the Moabites worshipped Chemosh, the Ammonites worshipped Milkom or Molech, and the Sidonians worshipped Ashtoreth (Numbers 21:29, 1 Kings 11:5-7).

    Most nations other than the Jews worshipped a pantheon of gods, each performing different functions.  One was responsible for the sunshine, another for the rain, one for war, another for the crops.  

    So in Acts 10, Peter finally realizes that Yehovah is not only the God of the Jews but also accepts all other people.  It is hard for us to understand just how radical an idea this is.  The idea of a single god over all things and over all people was unthinkable.  So when word gets back to Jerusalem of what happened with Peter, they need some explanation.  And the first part of Acts 11 provides a good summary for us of our past 3 weeks.

    Acts 11:1-9. 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 sheet 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.’

    Acts 11:10-18  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 is 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. And 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 gift 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.”

    Don’t miss that, when the passage begins, they’re upset with Peter.  “What was he thinking, going to the house of a Gentile?  And preaching to the Gentiles?  He is just wasting his time.”But then Peter tells his story of the remarkable visions and what happened at Cornelius’ house, how they had a similar experience to the disciples’ at Pentecost. So Peter tells them, “If then God gave the same gift 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?”

     And the Jerusalem leaders’ reaction when they found out that these Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit?

    Acts 11:18a   When they heard these things they fell silent…

    They were shocked.  Something they thought unthinkable had just happened.  The God of the Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who brought their forefathers out of Egypt,  the God of Moses and David — their God, Yehovah, was God of the Gentiles also.  One God for all people.  All people united under one God.  They were speechless.  And after having a moment to process all of this:

    Acts 11:18b  …and they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

    Now, note that Peter’s review of the events in Acts 11:1-18 mentions two gifts that are given to the Gentiles in Cornelius’ home.  First, there was the gift of the Holy Spirit that we talked about last week.  Did you notice the second gift?

    “God has granted repentance that leads to life.”  God has given the gift of repentance.  Does that sound odd to you, that God gifted them with repentance?  You might expect that to say “God freely gave them forgiveness”.  Because we often talk about repenting as if it is something we do ourselves.  We repent, and God gives forgiveness.   But let’s look at how the Bible talks about repentance.

    I remember once seeing a preacher demonstrate the concept of repentance by walking one direction that he called “the path of sin”, and then stopping and turning around to walk back the other way “towards God”.  He said that this is repentance.  It is not just stopping on the road to sin, but turning around and walking back towards God.   It is that moment of stopping and then turning around and taking that first step back to God that I want to look at.

    The Greek word for repentance is metanoeo.  The word is composed of meta (meaning “after” or “beyond”, implying change) and noieō (meaning “to perceive” or “think”).  To repent is to change your thinking and change your direction.  And what the pastor’s physical example of turning around really doesn’t communicate well is what happens in the moment before he turns.  What happens to cause the stop and change of direction?  

    Last week, we read a portion of the prophecy of Joel in the second chapter that told of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all flesh.  Let me read a few earlier verses in that chapter.

    Joel 2:12-13  “Yet even now,” declares Yehovah, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to Yehovah your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”

    This word ‘return’ here is the Hebrew “shuv”, which is repentance, turning around and turning back towards God.  In Joel’s day, people would express their grief by tearing their clothes, putting on sackcloth, and sitting in ashes.  But here, God is asking them not just to show signs of their grief, but to have true weeping and mourning, being grieved over the sins they committed.  Grief and remorse over sin is the first step in repentance.  David expresses this in his psalm of repentance following his sin with Bathsheba:

    Psalm 51:16-17   For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

    David knew that what God wanted from him as a response to his sin was not simply another animal sacrifice.  What was necessary was for David to be heartbroken over his own sin.  This is much more than regret. This is brokenness before God over his sin. 

    We should grieve our sin.  Far too often, what I see happening is people grieving another person’s sin.  Oh, I have done it too.  Perhaps you’ve said something like this:  “I can’t believe he could be so heartless.”  “How can people be so mean?”  “How could they ever think that God would approve of that behavior?” 

    I caught myself saying this next one not too long ago, after seeing yet another example of someone trying to scam a friend out of money.  I said,  “God must have a special place for people who deceive older people and steal their money.”   Have you ever said that? 

    Well, God does have a special place for those people.  It is the same place he has for you when you sin. It is the same special place he has for me when I sin.  It is a special place in the heart of God where he wants all of us to come to terms with our own sin, not the sins of others.  God desperately wants us to understand what we have done wrong so that we can turn around and not do it anymore.  He wants us to be true followers of His, walking on His path.  

    So repentance is coming to the moment when we stop and consider our own sin, and then truly grieve it to the point that we never want to commit it again. We are heartbroken over our sin.  So we then turn around.  How do you get to that point?

    The Scriptures tell us the answer.  Repentance is a gift from God.  That is what the people in Jerusalem were saying:

    Acts 11:18b And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

    God has given the gift of repentance to the Gentiles also.  Perhaps this idea that repentance is a gift is best seen in this passage in 2 Timothy:

    2 Timothy 2:24-26   And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

    We are to pray for our evil opponents, that “God may perhaps grant them repentance.”  Paul instructs Timothy to ask God to give the gift of repentance to these evil people who oppose him.  (By the way, if you have someone oppressing you, this passage is a great prayer.) 

    Someone who sins must first reach the critical point where they stop what they are doing and change their mind, realizing how wrong their rebellion against God is.  Then they must grieve their sin, mourn their mistakes, and turn around, desiring never to walk that way again.  We can’t get to that point on our own. We need God to lead us to that point.  That is the gift of repentance. 

    So we must pray that God will lead us to repentance.  We must ask God to soften our hearts to the hardness of our sin.  We need to ask God to break our hearts for the things that break His heart. And let me tell you, the first thing He will do is break your heart about your own sins. 

    And I can’t leave this passage without quickly pointing out another important point.

    Acts 11:18b  …and they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

    We are part of the “also.”  Most of us were not born of the chosen people of God.  We are not Jewish.  We can’t trace our family tree back to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham.  God chose the people of Abraham as His chosen ones, the ones to carry His message to the world.  We were not born into that family.  As Peter told the Gentile believers in Jesus in Mesopotamia:

    1 Peter 2:10   Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

    Once we were excluded, but now we are included.  We weren’t born into this group of chosen people, but, as Paul says in Romans 11, we have been grafted in.  We have been adopted into God’s chosen people.  We are the “also” who are now the chosen, as Peter tells these Gentiles:

    1 Peter 2:9-10    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

    God is the giver of all good gifts. He gives us life, he gives us grace, He gives us love and acceptance.  He gives us forgiveness through the gift of His Son dying in our place, and this through the gift of repentance.  It is God’s gift to us to bring us into His way of thinking, to a brokenness over our sin. Repentance requires mourning over our sin.

    This is the season of Lent.  It is a time of reflection as we prepare to celebrate the greatest gift: our savior, Jesus, going to the cross in our place and rising from the dead, so that we may follow him in how we live and how we are raised to life.  The ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday remind us of the people of the Old Testament, who showed their grief by tearing their clothes and sitting in ashes.  It is about repentance.  Have you ever reached the point of brokenness for your sins?  Let us all pray to our Father and ask Him to break our hearts for our sin that breaks his heart. Then we can put that sin behind us as we turn and walk with our Father in His path.

  • March 7, 2026 –  God Seals the Deal — Acts #33

    March 7, 2026 –  God Seals the Deal — Acts #33
    Acts 10:34-43

    For several weeks, we have been looking at the story of Cornelius, the centurion, and Peter in Acts 10.  It is a huge moment in God’s plan to redeem the world.

    First, we looked back at Jesus’ first attempt to teach this to his disciples, with the first centurion in Matthew 8, and at how he tried to teach it again in his final words before ascending to heaven.  Then, 10 years later, God sends Cornelius a vision to send for Peter, who had a message for him.  So Cornelius gathered friends and family to hear Peter’s message.

    Meanwhile, God uses another dramatic vision to finally convince Peter to abandon the idea that Gentiles were unclean and had to convert to Judaism to be accepted by God.  And Peter does come to Cornelius’ home, and here is the message he has for them:

    Acts 10:34   “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

    And as I said last week, I can almost hear God speak, “Well, it’s about time, Peter!” God called Israel His chosen nation for a purpose that He revealed at Mount Sinai more than a thousand years before Jesus came.  The purpose was to be priests to the world.  But they kept God to themselves and said you must become like us to worship God. So part of Jesus’ reason for coming was to correct this misconception.  But they were still unable to abandon their prejudice and fulfill their mission for the rest of the world.  That is why God is doing all this in Acts 10.  And when Peter arrives at Cornelius’ house and finds the house full of Gentiles waiting to hear his message, here is what he says:

    Acts 10:34-43   So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. 
    They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

    Peter makes 4 important points here:

    1. Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit and power.
    2. He did many good things and healed many who were oppressed by evil.
    3. They killed him, but God raised him from the dead (and we saw him)
    4. Jesus commanded us to preach to the people.

    This is Peter’s testimony, giving witness to what he saw himself.  Now, when we give our testimony, we usually talk about the good things Jesus did, and we always talk about his crucifixion and ascension.   And we may even talk about his command to us to spread the word.  But I wonder how many times we include that first point Peter made, that Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit? 

    We know that happened, but I don’t think we understand the importance as much as Peter did. Peter has not only seen Jesus anointed by the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, but Peter was also anointed by the Holy Spirit.  At Pentecost, God poured out his Spirit on those disciples.  And we talked about that turning point in their lives.  The difference it made, taking these scared young men hiding in a room and making them bold witnesses for Jesus, publicly preaching and healing.  That is the difference the Holy Spirit makes.  So to Peter, this anointing of Jesus was an important fact.

    And that fourth point, “Jesus commanded us to preach to the people,” is what this section of Acts is all about.  To whom, Peter, were you commanded to preach?

    Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

    Well, here is the Great Commission, the command Jesus gave before ascending to heaven. And it is a command, not a suggestion.  Which people does the command say?  Just the Jews?  No, it says all nations.  All people.  That is the lesson Peter finally understood 10 years later in Acts 10.  The lesson that Israel didn’t understand for 1400 years.  

    But look what happens next.   Peter’s sermon gets interrupted after his fourth point.  We will never know what Peter was going to say next.  And it is God who interrupts Peter’s sermon.  God doesn’t wait for Peter to finish his outline.  (By the way, anytime God, if you want to interrupt me, that is perfectly okay with me.)  And here, God interrupts in a very dramatic fashion. 

    Acts 10:44-46   While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. 

    So look at the scene here.  Suddenly, these people listening to Peter became filled with God’s Holy Spirit.  And they start speaking in different languages.    Do you see what God is doing?  He is showing Peter the day of Pentecost happening again.   The Holy Spirit comes and is evidenced by these tongues, just as on Pentecost in Jerusalem.  But there is one big difference.  These people are Gentiles. 

    The greatest day of the manifestation of God’s Spirit on humanity is happening again.   Except this time it is with people who would have been arrested if they had entered into the temple area on the last Pentecost.  As we have discussed before, the Jews said Gentiles were forbidden to approach the place of God, under penalty of death.

    Here is one of the actual notices placed on the wall, the 4.5-foot barrier that kept Gentiles out of the temple.   It was discovered by archeologists in 1871 and is now on display in a museum in Istanbul.  It says, “No foreigner is to enter within this wall around the temple and enclosure.  Whoever is caught will be responsible for his ensuing death.”

    They said Gentiles can not approach God.  But here in Acts 10, God has the last word.  He says, yes, they can be accepted by me, even if not by you.  God says, “You won’t let them approach my temple, but I will approach them myself, and I will make them my temple.” This pouring out of God’s Spirit on Gentiles is an undeniable proof of God’s acceptance. 

    Can you imagine it from Peter’s point of view?   Why does God pour out his Holy Spirit with tongues just as he did at Pentecost?  Because he doesn’t want Peter or anyone else to miss it.  It is the same thing, the same experience. Gentiles who seek God are no different than Jews who seek God.  

    And again, this is not late-breaking news.  God didn’t change his mind about Gentiles on this day.  This was his plan all along.  It was clearly prophesied in Joel:

    Joel 2:28-29   And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
     Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

    Who will he pour His Spirit out on?  God said he would pour out his Spirit on all flesh.  On everyone!  Peter even quoted this same passage from Joel in his sermon on the day of Pentecost.  But when he quoted it then, he assumed that everyone meant ‘everyone of the Jews.’  That is the way it had been understood for 800 years.  But God is putting the finishing touches on this lesson.  Everyone means everyone.  Even the servants.  Even the women. Even the Gentiles.  On all people.  Joel said this 800 years before Peter was born.  But the understanding does not come until here in Acts 10.  And how does Peter respond?

    Acts 10:44-48   Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

    Peter says, “I can’t argue with God.  If these people are receiving the Holy Spirit in the same way that the other disciples and I did on Pentecost, then obviously God has proven his point.”  The work of the Holy Spirit before him is the evidence of God’s approval. They are ready for that next step, baptism.  The same next step in Act 2 at Pentecost.  Here is what Peter said in Acts 2 when the Spirit came on Pentecost:

    Acts 2:38-39   And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

    Repent and be baptized, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It was true for the 3000 Jews who were baptized on that day in Acts 2, and it is true for all of the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ home here in Acts 10.  And it is true for us today.  If you read the New Testament closely, you will notice that the order is not consistent, but it always follows the same 3 steps: repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Spirit.   Those in Acts 2 were baptized and then received the Spirit. These, in Acts 10, received the Spirit and were then baptized.  The order does not matter, but it is a package deal.

    When you repent and accept Jesus as your Lord and the King of your life, as your savior, then you receive the Spirit.  You can call it a baptism of the Spirit if you want, like the picture of the Spirit being poured out on everyone that Joel uses, or you can say the gift of the Spirit, as we see in the New Testament many times.  But it is the same.  Because when you receive Jesus, you receive the Spirit.   It is an initial blessing and a universal blessing for all who believe.  Paul says it this way:

    Colossians 2:9-10  “For in him [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

    When you receive Jesus, since the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus, you are filled with His Spirit.  And if Christ dwells within us by his Spirit, then what more can God add to that?   If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit already dwells in you. The question is: do we follow the Spirit? Do we listen to Him?  Or does He dwell in some small closet of ours, locked away and ignored?  

    We all have the spirit, but not all of us are filled with the spirit.  We fill our lives with other things that take priority over the Spirit of God within us.  We pay attention to other voices.  We follow other paths.  Receiving the Spirit is a one-time event when you repent and commit to Jesus.  Being filled with the Spirit is a continual process of letting the Holy Spirit have His way in our lives, filling every corner of our lives, and changing the way we live.

    That is why you see commands in the Bible to be filled with the Spirit.  But there are no New Testament commands to be baptized by the Spirit, for again, if you are in Christ, his Spirit is with you.  We are all baptized in the Spirit, but we are only filled with the Spirit as we allow the Spirit to have his way with us. 

    Paul says in Ephesians 4 that we can grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin, by how we talk or how we act.  Our response to that is to seek to be filled more with the Spirit through repentance and a renewed effort to listen to and follow the Spirit.

    The church in Corinth provides a good example of this.   Paul is clear that they had all received the Holy Spirit.

    1 Corinthians 12:13  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

    He then describes that they had been enriched by all spiritual gifts.  Yet in that first letter, Paul rebukes them for being unspiritual, that is, not being filled with the Spirit.  In that letter, he shows them that the evidence of being filled with the Spirit is not the exercise of gifts (which they had in abundance) but the fruit of the Spirit (in which they were found lacking).  They had been baptized and gifted by the Spirit but were not filled by the Spirit.

    So if you are in Christ, you have received the Holy Spirit.  But the important question is: “Are you filled with the Spirit?”   (Warning: personal opinion here — as usual, feel free to disagree with me — I have friends who differ with me here and we love each other.)  Now, some believe that if you have not spoken in tongues, then you have not received nor been filled with the Spirit.  But in all of the book of Acts, only 3 groups who received the Spirit spoke in Tongues.   (Acts 2 at Pentecost, here in Acts 10, and a group in Acts 19.)    Speaking in tongues is but one of many gifts mentioned in Corinthians 12, and nowhere does the Scripture call it an indispensable sign of the Spirit. 

    So what is the evidence of the fullness of the Spirit within you?  How do you know you are spirit-filled?  The evidence is not the gifts of the spirit but the fruit of the spirit. The only passage in Scripture in which Paul describes the consequences of being filled with the Spirit is Ephesians 5:18-21.

    Ephesians 5:18-21  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

    Paul says the consequences of being filled with the Spirit are not gifts like tongues or prophecy, but are all moral qualities — how you behave.

    Why does he mention being drunk with alcohol as a contrast to being Spirit-filled?   It is all about what you cede control of your life to.  We all know the effect alcohol has.  In sufficient quantities, you lose your inhibitions. You lose emotional control, and if you continue, you lose control of your motor abilities (you can’t walk straight), and then finally lose control of your consciousness.

    Paul is saying, ” Don’t give up your control of yourself to alcohol; give up control of yourself to the Spirit.”  When we follow the path the Spirit leads, then we act like the person described here.   We could spend hours discussing the 4 individual behavioral results Paul sees as evidence of being spirit-filled: how we speak to one another, how we sing to the Lord, how we give thanks for everything, and how we submit to one another.  

    The other list Paul gives is the fruit of the Spirit.  In other words, what is the result of the spirit living in you?   The result you get if you plant apple trees is apples.  The fruit you get from a stalk of corn is corn. What fruit does a person filled with the Spirit bear? 

    Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

    Again, this is how we can tell we are filled with God’s Spirit: this is what someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit looks like.  

    We all need to seek to be filled to overflowing with God’s Holy Spirit.  And we do that by listening to the Spirit, then following Him, and letting Him change the way we talk, the way we treat each other, our attitudes about life, and our relationship with the Father.  Let me share what John Stott said in his book, “Baptism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today”.

    “But disobedience and our unbelief have robbed many of us of our full inheritance. It is still ours by right, because we are Christ’s, but we have failed to enter into it. We are like the Israelites when they had been given the Promised Land but had not yet taken possession of it. We need to repent and to return to God. We have indeed been baptized with the Spirit, but we continue to live on a level lower than our Spirit-baptism has made possible, because we do not remain filled with the Spirit.”

    You can call it being filled by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, or walking by the Spirit.  They are all ways of saying the same thing.  God’s Holy Spirit is in you.  He placed it there when you repented of your sins and accepted Jesus.  What have you done with the Holy Spirit within you?  Does the Spirit guide you in how you speak and how you act, or have you ignored the voice of the Spirit for so long that you no longer hear it?  If that is you, then today you need to repent of grieving the holy Spirit.  You need to commit to learning to listen to that Spirit within you and following Him.  Then you will bear the fruit that God designed you to bear: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

    1.  Stott, John. Baptism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today (p. 85). Kindle Edition.

  • March 1, 2026 –  Double Visions — Acts #32

    March 1, 2026 –  Double Visions — Acts #32
    Acts 10:9-43

    Last week, we started looking at the story in Acts 10 of a centurion.  And we came to understand that this centurion is the second half of a duo of centurions that God uses to teach a very important lesson.

     So we looked at the first centurion that Jesus encountered in Matthew 8 and discussed Jesus attempt to teach his followers that Gentiles are accepted into His kingdom.  It is a message they should have learned from the Old Testament, but they chose to cling to their prejudice rather than scripture.  Jesus offers to go to this centurion’s home, something the Jews would have seen as impossible.  Then Jesus shocks his listeners further by telling them that this centurion’s faith is greater than that of any Jew he has ever met.  And then he tells them that many people from all over the world will join with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in that great banquet with God.  But they didn’t understand.

    Jesus told them in the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.  But they still did not understand, and now ten years later, in Acts 10, they are spreading the Gospel to primarily Jews, with the idea that you must become Jewish to follow Jesus.  So God chooses to use a second centurion to convince Peter that Gentiles are acceptable to Him.  

    And while this centurion, Cornelius, is praying, God sends a messenger in a vision.  The messenger tells him that God has heard his prayers and seen his good deeds to the poor. and that God has accepted his prayers and deeds just as He would accept a burnt offering.  God tells this Roman Centurion, this Gentile, that even though his Jewish followers do not accept him, he has found acceptance by God.  Cornelius is to send for Peter to come to his house.  And Cornelius is wondering if Peter would actually come.  None of the Jews in his town would be caught dead in his house.  Would Peter be willing to come to the house of a Roman soldier?

    God knew very well that Peter would not go with them to a Gentile’s home.  So while Cornelius’ delegation is on the way to Joppa, God has to do something drastic to change Peter’s thinking.  His attempts to teach Peter with the first centurion, other teachings, and then finally with the Great Commission just before he ascended to heaven didn’t work.  Peter and the others stubbornly clung to their prejudices.  God knew it would take something dramatic.  And let me tell you, God is awesome at drama when He needs to be.  

    So to make this lesson finally stick with Peter, God produces 2 visions.  One to Cornelius the centurion we talked about last week, and now this second very dramatic vision to Peter.  Our scripture is Acts 10, starting in verse 9.

    Acts 10:9-16   The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened …

    So it is noon, and Peter goes to a place by himself to pray.   And Peter is hungry.  Perhaps he missed breakfast.  Noon was not a typical Jewish mealtime.  They usually had a light breakfast and a more substantial meal in the late afternoon.  But while someone is preparing some food for Peter, God comes in a vision.  

    Acts 10:10-16  …he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.  In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.  

    Close your eyes for a minute and try to imagine what Peter saw.  I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture of what Peter saw, and here it is:

    (Hey ChatGPT, those are some really bizarre animals.)

    So if you are Peter, up on the roof, how do you interpret this vision?  What is God trying to tell Peter?   Here is what it says in the Tyndale Commentary on the Book of Acts:

    “The effect of the vision was thus to announce to Peter that the distinction made in the Old Testament between foods that were ‘clean’, and therefore fit for human consumption, and those that were unclean, was now cancelled, so that in future Jewish Christians could eat any food without fear of defilement.”   (I. Howard Marshall, The Tyndale Commentary)

    The Biblical laws that define food are spelled out primarily in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.    Land animals must have divided hooves and must chew their cud (cattle, sheep, goats, deer, etc.) In contrast, pigs, camels, and rabbits, for example, are not food.    Swimming creatures that are food must have fins and scales, so shrimp, lobster, octopus, catfish, etc., are excluded.   Birds that were not defined as food were primarily birds of prey or scavengers, such as hawks, eagles, and vultures.  Chicken and turkey were allowed.  Let’s continue with the scripture.

    Acts 10:17   So Peter understood from the vision that God changed the Torah rules about food, and he immediately called downstairs and changed his lunch order to bacon-wrapped scallops. 

    No, that’s not quite right.

    Acts 10:17   Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean…

    Wait a minute.  How is it that Peter is “inwardly perplexed” about the vision?  He must not have had his copy of the Tyndale Commentary handy.  They seem pretty clear about it.  But Peter is utterly at a loss to explain what this means.   He knows God isn’t just rewriting his law book that has been in place for over 1000 years.  So the vision confuses him.  While he is thinking, Cornelius’s men arrive.

    Acts 10:17-18   Now, while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was lodging there.

    While they are approaching the house, this is happening upstairs with Peter:

    Acts 10:19-20   And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.

    The Holy Spirit tells him to accompany these strangers wherever they are going.  He is to go “without hesitation.”  Let’s look at this in a few other translations:

    Acts 10:20 (ESV)   Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.
    Acts 10:20  (KJV)  Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.
    Acts 10:20  (NASB)  But get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them Myself.

    These are all ways of translating the Greek into English.  Have you considered the idea of doubt as hesitation?  That is a very Hebrew way of thinking.

    In fact, there is no word in Biblical Hebrew like our word for doubt.  The idea of mental indecision leading to uncertainty is foreign to the Hebrew mindset.  In their worldview, God is king.  He is the ultimate decision maker.  Whatever God determines is law.  You don’t have to think about it and consider the options.  You don’t have to consider the good and the bad.  You don’t vote on it.  God says something, and whatever God says is good.  God gives instructions for living, and you obey them.

    The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). does have a word for people stopping to consider what to do, what action to take.  You see it in Genesis 3.  Adam and Eve stop to think whether they should eat the fruit or not.  Does it look good to me?  The word for that kind of thinking is sin.  It is a sin to refuse to accept God’s determination of right and wrong.  It is a sin to think you can make those decisions for yourself.

    In 1 Kings, when the people in Elijah’s day are wavering between worshipping God and worshipping the false deity Baal, Elijah holds the contest on Mt Carmel.  He does not ask the people, “How long are you going to doubt God? He doesn’t have a word in his language to express that, so he says,

    1 Kings 18:21  How long will you go limping between two different opinions?

    Elijah uses a picture of a man hobbling at a crossroads, trying to take both directions at once and effectively going nowhere. This is the only way he can discuss the ridiculousness of not being obedient to God.

    Elijah would not call this doubt; he would call it disobedience.  Let me give you one more illustration: I have used it before, but it is worth repeating.  When Jesus is walking on the water in the storm, Peter sees him and says an interesting thing:

    Matthew 14:28   Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “Command me to come to you on the water.”

    And Jesus does.  But why does Peter ask Jesus to command him to walk on the water?  Because if Jesus wills for Peter to walk on water, then Peter has no choice but to follow his Lord and King.  And if Jesus wills for Peter to walk on water, then Peter knows that Jesus will certainly give him the ability to follow through. And Peter is initially successful, but then he looks at the wind and becomes afraid.  He takes his focus off the power of Jesus and looks at the power of the wind.  

    And when Peter stops walking, he starts sinking.  As long as he is being obedient to Jesus command, Jesus is empowering him to do the task. But Peter stops walking and then starts sinking.  And when Peter is sinking, first Jesus reaches out to pull him back up, but then he says, 

    Matthew 14:31   “Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

    This is the ESV rendering, but that is not exactly what Jesus said.  Jesus was a Jew.  Like Elijah, He did not have that word or concept of doubt that we had.  The Greek word there is distazo, which isn’t about mental confusion but about a lack of action or hesitation.  Jesus wasn’t asking why Peter was thinking wrong.  He was asking, “Why did you stop walking?”  Peter hesitated; he stopped walking; he stopped being obedient.  So Jesus really said, 

    Matthew 14:31   “Oh, you of little faith, why did you stop being obedient?”

    And now, 10-11 years later, this same Peter is faced with another problem in Acts 10.  He gets a clear word from the Holy Spirit to 

    Acts 10:20    Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.

    So, like the command to come to Jesus on the water, Peter gets another direct command from God to go with these men.  And the Spirit throws in there, “And this time don’t hesitate!” So Peter heads downstairs.

    Acts 10:21-23   And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” So he invited them in to be his guests.”

    Peter invites them in.  (It is ok for a Jew to have a Gentile into their house.)  But now Peter has another problem.  Not only is he still puzzled about that crazy vision, but these men are Gentiles.  And just like the command from Jesus to Peter to come to him on the water, Peter now has a command to do something that seems more impossible than walking on water.  God has commanded him to go to the house of a Gentile, a Roman Centurion.  This goes against everything he learned as a Jewish boy growing up.  You don’t go to the house of a Gentile.  They are unclean. 

    But Peter remembers the last time he disobeyed a direct order.  He thought he was going to drown.  He has learned to be obedient.  He doesn’t understand why God wants him to do this, but he goes.

    Acts 10:23-24  The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day, they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.

    So picture this:  Cornelius is excited.   God has a message for him through this disciple, and he is anxiously awaiting to hear what Peter will say.  He has called everyone over, and the house is full of friends and family.  Meanwhile, Peter left on this journey thinking, “What am I doing?  Why am I going to a Gentile’s house and breaking every rule my mother taught me?”   But on the way there, Peter figures it out.

    Acts 10:25-29   When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.

    Peter apparently now knows that the vision he saw on the roof with all the animals wasn’t about food at all.  It was about people.  If God says they are acceptable, then Peter has no right to say they are not.  Apparently, the people who wrote the Tyndale Commentary missed Peter’s explanation in verse 28.  Oh, Mr. Marshall, you also missed it in verse 34:

    Acts 10:34-35   So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

    And I can almost hear God in heaven saying, “Well, it’s about time. I have been trying to teach Peter this lesson for over 10 years.”And just in case you are still confused about the vision, I can tell you that Peter didn’t hit the Red Lobster when he returned to Jerusalem and partake in the Crab fest.  In fact, if you read the rest of the New Testament, it is apparent that none of these Jews changed their dietary habits.  There is ample evidence that the Jews who are following Jesus continue to observe the Torah that God gave them in Leviticus and Deuteronomy throughout the NT, including circumcision, Nazarite vows, dietary laws, required prayer times, and the appointed times of the Jewish calendar.  

    This is completely consistent with what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:

    Matthew 5:17-18   Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

    Jesus didn’t come to erase the laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus; he came to show people how to live them correctly.  He fulfilled them all and erased not a single letter.  Just because the Jews have now met their promised Messiah, doesn’t mean they can throw out all the things God said before.  None of those commandments is going away for them until heaven and earth disappear.  And last time I looked, the earth and the sky are both still present.

    So if you are Jewish, and you find your promised mesiah in Jesus, you continue to follow the laws as before.  What Jesus corrects in the Gospels and here in Acts 10 are not God’s laws but man-made ones.  That stuff about Gentiles being unclean and not entering their houses.  That wasn’t God’s law; man made it up.  And Jesus spent much of his ministry correcting what man got wrong about his laws.

    What is the lesson we are to learn from Peter’s vision, now that we know it was not about what food to eat?  If God has called someone clean, we should not consider them otherwise.   God makes the rules, and we follow them without question and without hesitation.  If you find yourself wanting to make your own rules or argue with God about the rules, then ask Adam and Eve how that turned out.

    No group of people is beyond God’s grace and mercy; the gospel is for all.  It is for all of your friends and all of your enemies.  It is for people who like you and hate you.  It is for people who agree with you and people who don’t.   It is for the rich and the poor, the person with the nice home and the homeless.  It is for your best friend and the beggar on the street.  God calls them all.  And if God approves them, we have no right to dismiss them as unacceptable.  

    But I want to look at one more aspect of this lesson that we often miss.  God sent his son, Jesus, to solve our sin problem.  He suffered and died for our sins and removed the penalty of death for the sins that we committed, the penalty we deserved.  When we turn over our lives to Jesus and make him King of our lives, accepting his sacrifice for the remission of our sins, then God pronounces us clean.

    But have you ever just dwelt on your sins and felt that you were unworthy?  Have you ever looked at yourself and decided that you couldn’t speak up for Jesus, because you know your friends have seen your own shortcomings?  How can you pretend to be righteous in front of them?  How many times have you refrained from doing some work for God because you felt you weren’t good enough?  How many times have you sat by yourself feeling guilty for all the wrongs you have done in your life?  Is there some sin from your past that hangs over you that you can’t seem to get beyond?   Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong in the family of God?

    There are too many of God’s people paralyzed in their Christian walk because they keep recalling past sins and just can’t let go.  If you still think about your past sins that you have confessed and repented of, and if you still carry guilt for these things, then I have something to say to you that you need to hear. It is what Peter would say if he were here this morning, because it is the message God sent him in Acts 10.

    How dare you call someone unclean that God has cleansed? 

    God has cleansed you.  You have no right to say otherwise.  His blood has washed you whiter than snow.  Don’t wallow in your guilt.  God is faithful and just.  Jesus took on your sin; he suffered the penalty for sin.  If you want to keep remembering it or want to punish yourself, then you are saying that Jesus didn’t do what he said he would do.  God is no liar.  

    God does not want you to live in the shadow of your past sins.  Look at what God says:

    Jeremiah 31:34   For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

    And in case you missed it in Jeremiah, here it is in the second testament.

    Hebrews 8:12   For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

    If God has forgotten your sin, then why do you keep thinking about it?  Those thoughts come from the adversary himself, the father of lies.  Any time those memories pop up, then you should rebuke them in the name of Jesus.  

    We must learn the lesson that was so hard for Peter to learn. What God has cleansed, I cannot call unclean.  You can walk out this door today knowing that the blood of Jesus has cleansed you.  You are righteous in God’s eyes.  And share this incredibly good news with everyone you know.

    John 8:36   So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

  • February 26, 2026 –  Double Vision – Two Centurions — Acts #31

    February 26, 2026 –  Double Vision – Two Centurions — Acts #31
    Acts 10:1-8

    Double vision is an odd thing.  I only experienced it once after a car accident when my jeep rolled several times and ended up upside down on the road.  I had a bit of a concussion and was hanging upside down by the seatbelt.  By the way, if that ever happens, do not release the seatbelt without bracing for the fall on your head.   But I was disoriented for a bit and saw double for just a few minutes.  It is an odd feeling.  

    This morning, as we continue in Acts 10, we have a story about a Roman centurion.   But I see not one but two centurions here.  Because this story is tied to another centurion’s story in scripture, and the story of the first centurion is found in Matthew 8.

    Matthew 8:5-9 (NIV)  When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
    Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
    The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.

    Centurions were the backbone of the Roman army, the equivalent of our highest-ranking non-commissioned officers, commanding 80 men.  (It originally was 100 men, thus the name (century =100), but the Romans later reduced the squad to 80 for efficiency.  And what makes this centurion unique is that he recognized Jesus’ authority.  This happens right after the Sermon on the Mount.  And remember that one of the things that most impressed people in Jesus’ sermon was this:

    Matthew 7:28-29  And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

    Jesus said many good things in the Sermon on the Mount, but what most impressed people was the manner in which he spoke, for he spoke with authority.  He didn’t sound like a commentator or a teacher giving an opinion; he sounded like the author.  

    Jesus speaks with authority about the scriptures because they are his scriptures.  And he is trying to correct their misinterpretations of His scriptures.  Several times in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you.”  What He is doing is telling them that they need a correct understanding.   And he has the authority to give the interpretation.  Jesus has come to correct what people got wrong about His word.

    Then what is the first thing that happens when Jesus walks down the mountain after the sermon?

    Matthew 8:1-4 “When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

    Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.””

    He has just astounded them by his authority over scripture.  And now he shows them he has authority over disease.  He will later show his disciples that he has authority over the wind and waves by calming the sea.  Just as Jesus had authority over the scriptures because they are his, he has authority over the world because it is his as well.  He created it.

    So this centurion comes to Jesus and recognizes his authority. Then Jesus volunteers to go to the centurion’s home. Most translations have this as a statement by Jesus: “I will come and heal him.”  But the NIV has Jesus asking, “Shall I come and heal him?”  Greek scholars agree that this indeed should be a question, and it is worded in such a way as to emphasize the “I” — Shall I come?  Because this would be very surprising.  Jews in Jesus’ day did not go into the home of a Gentile, much less a Roman soldier.  The original idea behind this was to avoid ritual impurity from food or utensils, but it had morphed into more of a racial prejudice.  They were the enemy, and they were unclean.  No one would enter his home, certainly not a prophet or holy man. 

    Then the centurion reveals his belief in Jesus’ authority.  He is convinced that Jesus is the owner of this world and all that is in it.  He can will for something to happen, and it will happen. But let’s look at Jesus’ response:

    Matthew 8:10  When Jesus heard this, he was amazed…

    First of all, Jesus was amazed.  Matthew uses this Greek word many times to explain how people, again and again, were amazed by what Jesus did or said.  But this is the only time he uses it to show that Jesus is amazed by somebody.  What left Jesus amazed?

    Matthew 8:10-12   When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    Jesus is amazed by the centurion’s faith.  This man is convinced beyond any doubt that Jesus has authority over everything, including sickness.  Jesus recognizes that this centurion’s faith is on a completely different level from that of his disciples or any Jewish person he has met.  This didn’t sit well with the crowd.  Jesus points out this Gentile, this Roman soldier of all people, he has more faith than any Jew?   Why, Jesus, he is not Jewish!  He can’t even be part of the faithful!  He is an unclean Gentile!  How can you say that?  But Jesus doesn’t stop there.

    Jesus speaks of something his listeners knew well, the great Messianic banquet, when God gathers all his faithful together in the last days for a great feast.  The true faithful are invited, and others are left out.    And every Jewish person there believed the same thing.  The Jews would be invited, but the Gentiles would be left out. They will all dine with God and their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   And here is Jesus saying that foreigners will come from all over (the east and the west) to sit at the table, many of them.  This is a radical statement.

    Peter and the others are standing here listening to this.  Do they understand what he is saying?  No, and this is very important, they didn’t get it at all at this point.  Jesus is not speaking in riddles.  It is stated very clearly.  Still, they did not comprehend.   Because this is counter to everything they have been taught their whole life about these unclean Gentiles.    

    Jesus tried to tell them.  And he tries to tell them later.  It is in his Great Commission.  And you all know the Great Commission.  But do you remember how it begins?

    Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…

    Oh, did you see that…. all authority has been given to me.   He is trying to get them to see what the centurion in Capernaum in Matthew 8 knew.  I have all authority.  I created the world, I am the Torah. I am the Word of God. I am the Son of God.   Keep reading….

    Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all of the Jews, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….

    No, that is not what he said. But listen, that was still what they thought.  Even after Jesus’ encounter with the first centurion, they still think God is only for the Jews.  But Jesus said this:

    Matthew 28:18-20   Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.   
    Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

    Go and make disciples of all nations.   Jews and Gentiles.  Greeks and Romans.  Americans and Iraqis.  No one is off limits.  The Gospel is for everyone.  There is no one so unclean that they can not be my disciple.  But they still didn’t get it…

    So this encounter with the centurion is the first time Jesus shows that He is here for all people.   Jesus will concentrate his time on earth with the Jews as predicted in the scriptures, but he is very clear that it is not the end but the beginning.  As Paul stated it:  

    Romans 1:16  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

    There is salvation for everyone who believes.  “Jews first and then Gentiles.”  But again, at the time Jesus gives the Great Commission and then ascends to heaven, and even 10 years later in Acts 10, Peter and the other disciples don’t get it.   They are still thinking “Jew only, not Gentile.”

    How will God pierce their prejudice and finally teach them this lesson?

    That is why we have the story of the other centurion.  So we return to Acts 10.  Last week, we discussed Peter’s travels along the coast and through the plain of Sharon, including the towns of Lydda and Joppa.   The action in today’s story takes place in Caesarea.

    Many cities in the times of Roman Emperors were named “Caesarea” as a way to honor the emperor, Caesar.   If you want to get in good with the new emperor, build a big city and put his name on it.   There were two major cities in Israel with that name.  Caesarea Philippi was located north of the Sea of Galilee, and was where Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  But we are speaking today of Caesarea Maritima, or Caesarea “by the sea.”  This city was built by Herod the (not-so) Great between 22 and 19 BC, and he named it after Caesar Augustus.   It became the administrative and military capital of the Roman province of Judea.   This is where Pilate and other Roman officials stayed.

    Acts 10:1-8   At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.

    Cornelius is described as a “devout man.”  He and all of his household are worshipping Yehovah, the God of Israel, but they have not converted to Judaism.  The common name for people who worship but don’t convert to Judaism is “God-fearer.”  He was generous to the poor and prayed continually, meaning he kept the Jewish order of prayer throughout the day, reciting the Shema 2-3 times a day and maintaining regular prayer times.  Two of the regular prayer times coincided with the Tamid offering in the Temple at 9 am and 3 pm, and then there was an evening prayer time, typically after sundown.  But he had not become a full proselyte, which required formal questioning and circumcision.  So the Jews in Jerusalem would have considered him pagan.  Like the centurion in Matthew 8, no Jew would ever enter his home.

    But that attitude didn’t stop Jesus from entering the centurion’s home in Matthew 8.  And it didn’t stop God from being willing to send a messenger from his throne room to Cornelius’ home.

    Acts 10:3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.”

    It was the 9th hour of the day, that is, 9 hours from daybreak, so about 3 pm.  And Cornelius is in his regular prayer time, the same time all devout Jews gathered to pray.  And God sends him a message in the form of a vision.  An angel who calls his name.  And he reacts the same way everyone reacts to one of God’s messengers.

    Acts 10:4  “And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

    The language the messenger uses to address Cornelius speaks of his donations to the poor and his prayers, as if they were the smoke of a burnt offering ascending to God. Have you thought about this?  We bring offerings in the form of money to God, but have you stopped to consider that our prayers, devotion, praise, and good deeds are also offerings to the Father?

    After the Jerusalem temple was destroyed and they could no longer do animal sacrifices, Jews today consider their prayers, their giving of alms, and their praise as acceptable sacrifices instead. This thought is seen throughout the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments.

    Psalm 50:23 “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
    Hebrews 13:15 “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

    Paul said it this way:

    Romans 12:1  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

    Our devotion to God, what we say, what we do, our whole life is a living sacrifice.

    So the messenger tells Cornelius that God sees his devotion as an acceptable sacrifice.  Can you imagine how Cornelius felt?  He has been worshipping the God of the Jews for some time, but the Jews who claim this God do not in any way see Cornelius as acceptable.  The Jews do not accept him, but God does accept him.  This is good news!

    And then the messenger says:

    Acts 10:5-8 “And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter.   He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.  ” When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.”

    Cornelius is to send for Simon Peter to come to his house.  He has heard of Peter.  He is a Jew.  And he was also one of Jesus’ 12 disciples.   What could this mean?   Will Peter come to the house of a Gentile?  Even if God has accepted Cornelius, does that mean Peter will?  And if God’s messenger asked him to send for one of Jesus’ disciples, does that mean that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, as some people say?

    What do you think?  Will Peter ignore the Jewish ban on entering a Gentile’s home?  Will Peter accept an unclean Gentile Roman Soldier?  We will discuss this next week, but I am going to let you know now.   Peter will end up coming.  But it is going to take something really big for God to convince Peter that it is okay to visit Cornelius.  God is going to have to do something dramatic to change Peter’s prejudice against the Gentile world.  It will take something big to end Peter’s racism.   You see, the prejudices that you were raised with die hard, because you don’t even realize those things you learned were racist.  You were just told that is how it was.  And you accepted it.  Many of us here were raised in an area of the country that embraced racism for many years.  And it took a lot to break us out of thought patterns that were embedded deep within us.  

    Peter was taught all his life that Gentiles were ceremonially unclean.  There was no hope for them unless they converted to Judaism.  They ate unclean food and did unclean things.  And if you went around them, you would also be unclean.  But that wasn’t God’s teaching.  That was man’s perversion of God’s teaching.   God never said an entire people group was unclean.  But Peter learned these things as part of the tradition of his faith.  Not scripture, but tradition.  Jesus told the Pharisees:

    Mark 7:8 “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

    We cannot accept things just because tradition says so.  We have to put everything to the test of scripture.  I am reminded of a discussion I had with a friend back in 2015.  We had been discussing the doctrine of Original Sin in our Bible Study, and it turned into a several-month-long email discussion with others.  

    So we exchanged emails for months discussing scripture as it pertains to this doctrine, and I learned a lot from our discussions.  But at one point, one of my friends in the discussion said to me, “You just frighten me because you’re really smart and apparently read everything ever published. But you’re also a bit of an iconoclast, which makes me nervous.”   While I appreciated his compliment, I have to admit I had to look up the word ‘iconoclast’ to make sure I understood what he meant.  

    According to Google, an iconoclast is “a person who attacks or challenges cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, or widely accepted practices, often viewing them as superstitious or erroneous. The term originates from the Greek words for “image” and “breaker,” historically referring to those who destroyed religious icons.  A sacred image breaker, challenging cherished traditional beliefs.”

    Well, once I knew what it meant, I thanked my friend for the compliment.  Yes, I told him, I feel the responsibility to challenge all traditional beliefs in light of the scripture God gave us.  I told him that the best compliment I had ever received was that it was exactly what I saw Jesus doing with the religious leaders of His day, challenging all their traditions in light of scripture.  

    When I was young, I read a tract that someone left in our mailbox from the KKK that used scripture to say how people of dark skin color were cursed by God.   I bet some of you saw it too.  God, please forgive them for this perversion of your word.  Racism runs deep in my part of the country.  Who is acceptable and who is not.  That is what is at stake here in Acts 10.   Do you have to be Jewish to worship God?  Do you have to be Jewish to encounter Jesus?

    Peter’s answer on the day that Cornelius got his vision would have been, “Yes, you do.”   But God will deal with Peter, and next week we will talk about Peter’s vision and why it is so critical to Jesus’ movement in Acts.   But for now, consider these two centurions.  They are not random characters. 

    The centurion in Matthew 8 is a prophecy.  Cornelius in Acts 10 is the reality, the fulfillment of that prophecy.  The first shows that Gentiles can have faith.  The second shows that Gentiles are fully welcomed into the family of God.  God did not change His plan; He revealed it progressively. Together, these two centurions reveal that from the beginning, God’s plan was never limited to one nation.  The gospel was always meant for the world.   As God told the children of Israel after they passed through the Sea, 

    Exodus 19:4-6   You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

    A kingdom of priests to take the message of the one true God to all the nations.  But they held the gospel too close.  They kept it to themselves.  They said, ” You must become like us to share in our God.  You must become Jewish.”  It is no different than the mistake made by early missionaries to the Native Americans here, who forced them to become like us to worship our God.  You must wear our clothes, follow our customs and traditions, and sing our hymns to worship our God.   

    God does not want us to become like someone else.
    He wants us to become like Him.

    But the nation of Israel never accepted the role of priests to the world.  They were priests only to each other.  So God comes in the form of a Jew who is not bound by the tradition of isolationism.  Jesus comes as a son of Abraham who will be the priest to the nations, and lead a group of his brother Jews to become priests to the nations.

    Oh, they came reluctantly, but they came.  It took many years to convince them.  God has to shock Peter; he has to basically hit him on the head to wake him up to the truth that he tried to explain way back in Matthew 8 with the first centurion.  And don’t think Peter totally understands it yet in Acts 10.  We will see how he still does not completely buy in.  But he eventually does.  And when Peter finally understands, he goes 100%

    For it is Peter, just another Jew who hated the Romans; Peter, who at one time would not dare consider entering a Roman house; who at one time felt they were not worthy to worship his God.  It is Peter who ends up going to Rome to lead as many Romans as he can to Jesus.  And from Rome, he writes a letter to the Gentile church in Asia Minor.  And he gives them the same charge that God gave his ancestors thousands of years ago:

    1 Peter 2:9-10    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

    Peter has finally understood what God said back in Exodus.  And now he preaches that same message to the Gentile followers of Jesus in Asia Minor.   Once you were not a chosen people of God, but now you are the chosen people; in fact, all people are chosen by God, and we are a nation of priests whose job it is to spread the name of Yehovah to everyone, for no one is unclean.

  • February 23, 2026 –  Don’t Waste the Healing — Acts #30

    February 23, 2026 –  Don’t waste the healing — Acts #30
    Acts 9:26–30 

    Today, we discuss the purpose of healing in God’s story.  Now, it may seem obvious that the purpose of healing is to remove disease, restore physical function, and relieve discomfort.  But the scriptures are clear that God has an even higher purpose when He heals.  And if we focus only on the healing itself, we miss the most important thing.  

    Acts 9:32-35   Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda.

    So Peter is traveling west of Jerusalem and along the coast, through Joppa and on to Caesarea.  (You should be able to draw from memory a quick map of Israel, at least with the Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, and Dead Sea, along with a few major cities.)  Note the following on the map below:  Lydda is the Old Testament town of Lod. Joppa is the port from which Jonah sailed when he was running from God (modern-day Tel Aviv).  Note the town of Gaza, for you are, of course, very familiar with the Gaza Strip.  And the New Testament port of Caesarea, from which Saul departed on a boat back to his hometown of Tarsus.  

    Peter is traveling from Jerusalem to Lydda and then to Joppa in our scripture today.  He is following the path Philip took earlier.  We read about that in Acts 8.

    Acts 8:40  But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

    Peter is back in the same area, teaching the new followers and spreading the good news of Jesus.  And in the book of Acts, Luke tells us two stories of healing:  a man who had been paralyzed for years and a girl who had died.  Luke, whom Paul calls “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14), focuses more on healing in his Gospel and the book of Acts than in other New Testament books, and frequently provides more detailed descriptions of physical problems.  But in our scripture today in Acts 9, we will see more than just two miraculous healings. Because here, Luke pulls the curtain back a little and shows us not just that God heals, but why God heals—and what healing is meant to accomplish.  

    These are powerful miracles. But Luke’s focus is not on the person being healed, or on Peter, or even on the physical healing itself. Luke keeps pointing us to one truth:  Healing is a signpost. It points to the glory of Christ and invites people to believe.

    Acts 9:32-35   Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. There, he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. 

    Aeneas has been bedridden and paralyzed for eight years. Eight years is a long time.  Long enough to endure many unsuccessful treatments.  Long enough for hope to disappear.  Long enough for people to stop expecting any change.   But then Peter comes in and says something very specific:

    Acts 9:34  And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.”

    “Make your bed,” may seem an odd thing for Peter to say.    He is saying, “Your time of lying in a bed all day is over. You don’t need that now.  Roll up your bedding and resume life.”  Now, what was the result of this healing?  Verse 34 ends with this:  “And immediately he rose.”  But this is not the end of the story; it is only the beginning.  Keep reading.

    Acts 9:35  And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.1

    Luke does not say, “They admired Peter,” or “They were impressed.”  He says they turned to the Lord.  The healing was real. The healing was compassionate.  God wants to heal his children.  But the primary reason for the healing was evangelistic — it revealed the living power of Jesus.  That is the reason for the healing.

    The miracle is not the end of the story, but only the beginning.  The healing was not the destination; it was but a doorway to faith.  Next, we meet Tabitha.

    Acts 9:36  “Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity.

    She isn’t introduced by illness. She’s introduced by her life:  “She was always doing good and helping the poor.”  What a great way to describe someone, Dr. Luke.

    I was in the third year of Medical School and had just started seeing patients in Grady Hospital.  My first rotation was in the surgery department.  Morning rounds went like this: The medical students and interns gathered several hours before rounds to examine the patients and collect all labs.  And the whole group traveled from room to room, a parade of white coats.  If it were your assigned patient, you would present the patient to the team like this:

    “This is a 67-year-old male who presented to this hospital with right lower quadrant abdominal pain.  He is status post appendectomy 2 days ago. He is afebrile with stable vital signs and a well-healing incision.  Labs are significant for…. “  You had better have memorized all the facts, vital signs, and lab results, for if they asked you and you didn’t know, they would then ask you why you didn’t want this patient to get good care.  It could be brutal for the students.  But then, later in the year, I did my first rotation in pediatrics.

    We had this wonderful Pediatrician who was the attending doctor for our team.  He had been a private practice pediatrician for 25 years and was now teaching at Egleston Hospital.  I remember the first day on rounds well.  One of my friends had the first patient and began the presentation outside the patient’s room just as we had done in surgery.  “This is a seven-year-old female who presented with fever and diffuse bruising 2 days ago…” He went on to describe the pertinent labs and her current therapy.  When he was done, our attending doctor calmly asked, “What is her name?”  Who in her family is with her?  Does she have any brothers or sisters?  What is her favorite color?  Do you think she is scared?”

    My friend just stood there silently.  And our attending said, “Remember, you are treating a little girl, not a disease.  She is definitely scared, and you can’t offer her any comfort if you don’t take the time to get to know her.  Her parents need to know that you care, or you will not be giving her good care.”  So Dr. Luke was not from the surgery department at Grady Hospital.  He tells us something about Tabitha.  She did many good works to help the poor in her town and became well known for them.  With that in mind, let’s get back to the story.

    Acts 9:36-39  Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days, she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them.

    You get this touching picture of the people she had helped, likely poor people who loved Tabitha, wearing the clothes she made for them.  It always leaves a hole in the world when someone dies who was a force in this world for Jesus.  My mind, like yours, goes to many funerals I have attended for people whose Christian walk made an amazing difference in the lives of others.   And here in Joppa, they aren’t just mourning a person; they are mourning love, kindness, practical mercy. Tabitha’s life had already been a testimony.  But at the time of her death, she was just getting started.

    Acts 9:40-41   But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.

    A miracle of resurrection, very similar to what we saw when Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter back in Luke 8.  Remember, He sent everyone out of the room except Peter, James, and John.  Jesus took her by the hand and said almost the same thing Peter said to the girl in Acts 9.  Here we see  Peter walking in the footsteps of Jesus.  But again, this resurrection is not the end of the story but is only the beginning.  Then we see the results.

    Acts 9:42  And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

    This is the result. There it is again.  Not just amazement.  Not just a celebration, but the birth of faith.  The healings in Lydda and Joppa did not end with healthier people — they ended with new believers.  God used healing to reveal His mercy, His power, and His Son.

    Tabitha had already brought glory to God through quiet, faithful service. Her healing would now amplify that witness.  Sometimes God is glorified by a life that displays compassion.  Sometimes God is glorified by a miracle that displays power.  But this is the result.  God is made known to people, and God is glorified.   Throughout scripture, God uses healing as a means to reveal Himself to people.  

    After delivering Israel from Egypt, God heals the bitter waters of Marah, and He tells them:

    Exodus 15:26   If you will diligently listen to the voice of Yehovah your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am Yehovah, your healer.

    I am your healer.  The healing isn’t just practical — it’s revelatory.  God is showing Israel who He is.   Healing becomes a means of self-disclosure.

    And do you remember Naaman, the Aramean military leader who had leprosy?   He comes to Elisha, who tells him to wash in the Jordan River.   And when he is healed, Naaman says:

    2 Kings 5:15  “And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”

    The healing leads to confession.  It leads to worship.  It glorifies the God of Israel before a Gentile military leader.  And Naaman returns to his country with knowledge of God.  His healing brings the knowledge of God and glory to God.  That is the point. There are so many stories in the Scriptures that illustrate this point.  Just one more.  When Jesus is told that his friend Lazarus is very sick, He says:

    John 11:4   This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

    That is one of the clearest purpose statements in Scripture.  Jesus even delays coming, allowing Lazarus to be dead for 4 days — not out of indifference, but so that a greater glory might be displayed.   When Lazarus walks out of the tomb, many believe in Jesus.  And it becomes the final straw that leads the religious leaders to pursue Jesus’ death.    

    When we discuss the Lazarus story, someone always asks, “I wonder what happened to Lazarus after that?”   The scriptures don’t say it, but you have to know that everywhere Lazarus went, he was a billboard pointing to the power and the glory of God.  Yes, Jesus wanted to heal his friend.  He did not want his friend to die.  But his mission here on earth was to bring glory to the Father, and this resurrection and his own crucifixion and resurrection brought glory to God.

    We can’t miss this important point.  We pray for healing as if that is what we need.  Every time we meet, we pray for healing.  We text each other prayer requests for people to be healed.  And Yehovah is a God of great compassion.  He desires our healing.  In fact, He created this world to be a place with no illness or disease.  But sin cursed the world.  So we all suffer.  We all need healing. 

    We have celebrated many healings in our congregation in the past several years.  As a doctor, I can tell you many instances of when I saw miraculous healing of a deadly disease or an advanced cancer.  And there have been times I have seen God’s people pray fervently in large numbers for a healing that did not happen.  It can be frustrating to see some healed and others not.  But we have to remember that healing is never the endpoint.  As in these stories in the Scripture, healing is good; healing is out of God’s compassionate heart.  But healing is for so much more than the relief of our physical problems or pain.  It is to bring glory to God.  It is to bring others to the knowledge of the God who heals.

    Don’t waste the healing.  There is such a danger that we become so focused on physical needs or so fascinated by physical healing that we forget the most important part.  To bring glory to God, to make him known to others.  That is our purpose.

    So what are people seeing in us?  In Lydda and Joppa, people saw something they could not explain — and it led them to Jesus.  We may not be called to raise the dead.  But we are called to tell others about the one who can raise the dead.   We can bring glory to God for the healings we see, to let people know it is not just about the healing.  It is about the God behind the healing.   We are called to live and serve in ways that point beyond ourselves. 

    1 Corinthians 10:31  “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
    Colossians 3:17  “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

    When God answers prayer… give Him glory.
    When God brings restoration… name His kindness.
    When God works in your life… tell the story in a way that leads people to Christ.
    Because in the end, the purpose of every act of divine healing is this:
    That people would see the power and compassion of Jesus — and turn to the Lord.

    1.  Sharon is the Hebrew word for “field”, and usually refers to the area of fertile land on the coast extending just south of Mount Carmel to south of Joppa.  In Song of Solomon 2:1, the King James version translated the Hebrew phrase as “Rose of Sharon,” leaving out the definite article – it is actually “rose of the sharon” (field).  Translations before the King James had translated the Hebrew more literally as “rose of the field.”