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.