Lent

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

David Chupp Acts ,

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.

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #13

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 2 Going where you don’t want to go

It is getting time for the evening meal, and you don’t want to eat at home.  Then comes the classic question, “Where do you want to eat?” with the classic answer, “Anywhere is fine with me.”  This must be very common because all across the country, restaurants have sprung up with names like “Anywhere,” “Anything’s Fine With Me,” “I Don’t Care,” and, of course, “It Doesn’t Matter”1.  When we have a group deciding on a restaurant, and no one has a preference, we then do eliminations: for example, ‘I ate at Applebee’s last week, so not there’ or ‘I don’t feel like Italian food tonight.’  This seems to be more productive.  Sometimes it is easier to know where you don’t want to go.

There is some discussion in the commentaries about whether Jesus fasted for 40 days and then was tempted or if he was tempted the entire 40-day period and then had the final three temptations that Matthew and Luke discuss.

Mark 1:12-13   The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Our English version seems clear that Jesus was tempted for the entire 40 days, and the Greek version even more so.   Matthew and Luke then record the 3 specific temptations, but Mark does not.  It’s not hard to imagine 40 days of temptations.  We are told to expect trials and temptations.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  1 Peter 4:12

We are told that this is the norm.  God told Cain that “sin is crouching at the door”.  Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).  We are surrounded by trials and temptations — that is the fallen world we live in,

So the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness”.  The Greek verb is very forceful.  ‘Ekballo’ means to ‘throw out’.  This is the verb used when Jesus drives out the moneychangers in the temple, or when Jesus ‘cast out’ demons, or when Stephen is ‘cast out’ of the city and stoned.    It is the same as when the people in his hometown of Nazareth throw him out of town and then take him to throw him off a cliff.  This was not a friendly suggestion to Jesus by the Spirit to go to the wilderness.  This was no gentle nudge.  The Spirit forced Jesus to go where he did not want to go.

As we have discussed, the wilderness is not a place many would choose to go.  On a trip to Israel in 2016, the bus stopped at the edge of the Judean wilderness, and we were instructed to go off by ourselves for 40 minutes.  It was oppressively hot and dry.  There were no trees, no shade, almost no vegetation, and no signs of water.  40 minutes was long enough.  I could not imagine 40 days.  And in Jesus’ day, it was dangerous.  Mark tells us, “he was with the wild animals.”  That seems an odd detail to throw in a short passage.  That area used to be home to large and small predators.  (We were told the large ones (like lions) were no longer there.)  But this is not a place you choose to be day and night alone. I wonder if Mark was painting the wilderness as an anti-Eden place — Eden was a place of abundant vegetation and fruit of all kinds, the wilderness was desolate.  Eden had abundant water, “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” such that a river flowed out of Eden, but the wilderness was dry.  The animals in Eden came to man without fear, but the animals in the wilderness are “wild.”2  But both were a place of testing and interestingly, Adam and Eve’s temptation was about something to eat, just as the first of Jesus’ temptations by the devil.

No one would choose to go to a place of testing, with an encounter with the devil after 40 hard days.  Jesus was forced there at the beginning of his ministry.  He will be forced to go somewhere else he doesn’t want to go at the end of his ministry.  

Matt. 16:21   From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is “greatly distressed and troubled.” He prays and asks if there is any other way to accomplish God’s plan of redemption.  The way of the cross was not the way anyone, including Jesus, would want to go.  But praying in the garden, Jesus makes a choice that Adam and Eve should have made. 

God asked Adam and Eve, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

“Will you follow my will or your own will?”  Adam and Eve fail at the tree of discerning good and evil.

God asked Jesus, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

And Jesus answered, “Not my will, but your will be done.

  Jesus is obedient about the tree.

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree”  Acts 10:39

God sent Jesus somewhere he didn’t want to go, as he did other Bible characters.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, Moses didn’t want to go back to Egypt, Ananias didn’t want to go pray for Saul.  Abraham left his home, having no idea where he would end up. And then there is Peter.

 Jesus tells Peter, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Then Jesus gives Peter the same instruction he gave him at the beginning, “Follow me.” I have been to Rome and have seen the spot where, 34 years later, Peter was led, a place where his arms were stretched-out and nailed to a cross. Peter had learned to be obedient, to be faithful to go somewhere he didn’t want to go.  I believe at some point in all of our lives, God will ask us all to go somewhere we do not want to go.  It may be to minister to an enemy or to people who don’t like you; it may be leaving your home to unknown places, or it may be to a place of desolation or testing. It may be to martyrdom. 

Jesus followed God in everything, even to desolation and death.  

The one who restores our soul may lead us through paths of righteousness that look to us like the valley of the shadow of death. There are some dark valleys in this world.  Some of you have walked in the valley. Some of you are walking there now.  There is the valley of pain; there is the valley of depression, the valley of despair, the valley of illness so severe it is the shadow of death, the valley of grief over a loved one.  We all will walk through those valleys — places we don’t want to go.  And on that day, may Jesus remind us:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There they are, the most common command in the Bible (“Do not fear.”) and the most common promise in the Bible (“I will be with you.”).  They are inextricably linked.  As God told Joshua before they entered the land:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”    Joshua 1:9

The same promise is given to the disciples right after Jesus tells them to go into all the nations.  Jesus’ last words in the gospel of Matthew:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Matthew 28:20

Jesus willingly went into the wilderness and willingly went to the cross with no fear, knowing God would be with him.  God promises to be with us in the deepest, darkest valleys of death, comforting, healing, and feeding us with cups running over with goodness and mercy. 

Jesus continues to say, ‘Follow me’.  If we follow him, we know he is there with us.  And if we follow Jesus, we are sure to end up going somewhere we would have never thought about going.  But we will never go alone. Are we willing to go where we do not want to go?  Have you been to the wilderness this week?

1. I have heard the “It Doesn’t Matter Family Restaurant” just below Montgomery, Alabama is a great place.

2. Talking about the ‘wild animals’ in Mark, Skip Moen said, “This sinful world into which Jesus enters to accomplish his mission is less like a pristine garden and more like Jurassic Park.”  Yikes!

The Year of the Lord’s Favor #9 – A note on the timing of Lent and our journey this year

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

In 2024, Lent begins on Wednesday, Feb. 14 (Ash Wednesday) and concludes on Thursday March 28 (the Thursday before Easter Sunday). The word ‘Lent’ comes from an Old English word meaning ‘spring season’ from the Old Dutch ‘lente’ or the German ‘lenz’ that referred to the ‘lengthening’ of the days in this season from winter to spring.  The observance dates back to around 325 at the council of Nicea when a 40-day time of fasting before Easter was established. The dates for the time of fasting have been altered several times, as have the fasting requirements.  Currently, the most-followed dates are 46 days, as the 6 Sundays in the season are not fast days.  

Depending on which source you read, it may have originally been a time of fasting before a candidate was baptized.1  As baptisms in the church began to be done primarily on Easter Sunday, then a more official fasting period was recognized.  It became a 40-day fast, following the 40-day fasts of Elijah, Moses, and Jesus.  The requirements for the fast have also varied tremendously through the years, originally requiring only 1 meal a day after 3 pm with no meat, fish, or dairy.  Currently, in the Catholic Church, only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are mandatory fast days.  And now, ‘giving something up’ for Lent has replaced the food fast for most who follow the tradition.

We will talk in the coming months about traditions that are contrary to scripture, and how Jesus said “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8) to the Pharisees.  But not all traditions are contrary to scripture.2  I believe any time that you set aside for God is good.  And there are, as mentioned above, Biblical models for a 40-day fast.  This year, the 40-day fast of Jesus in the wilderness will begin this Saturday, Feb. 17 as his baptism in the Jordan was Feb. 16 in 27 A.D.  In that year, the sacrifice of the Passover lambs would have been April 11 (remember the dates of Passover and Easter vary every year.)   Jesus would have concluded his 40-day fast on March 28, which is, coincidentally this year the conclusion of Lent on the Thursday before Easter.3

While Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness is not a preparation for the Passover/Easter event, this year the dates do overlap.  So this year, whether your church tradition observes Lent or not, we can all observe this time of preparation.  Jesus’ time in the wilderness was a preparation for his year of ministry.  We can follow with him and use this time to prepare to follow him through his ministry in the 4 Gospels.  

This Friday, our study will be on Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, on the day it happened in 27 A.D.  Then we will follow Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days.  We will take that time to examine the idea of wilderness in the Bible, the ideas of testing and tempting, and the idea of fasting.  Then on March 28, when Jesus’ 40 days ends, we will discuss the 3 temptations as recorded in Matthew and Luke.

1. The Didache, a 1st Century Christian text, recommended that the candidate for baptism and ‘others that were able’ to fast and prepare for the sacrament of baptism. (Didache 7:4)

2. During the time of the Reformation, many theologians pushed hard against any Catholic traditions including Lent.  This is very interestingly like the hard push against anything Jewish in the 300s and following, when at the same Council of Nicea it was forbidden to share a meal with Jews or worship on a Saturday.  John Calvin in Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) said “Then the superstitious observance of Lent had everywhere prevailed: for both the vulgar imagined that they thereby perform some excellent service to God…”  In both instances, the church, I feel, overreacted and ‘threw the baby out with the bath water.’  They were so against the Jews and later the Catholics that they renounced everything Jewish or Catholic.  And because of this, for hundreds of years, the Church missed out on the Jewish roots of our faith and the rich history of our faith that was maintained by the Catholic Church.  Sorry, Mr. Calvin, I have to disagree with you here.  Now that being said, let’s not make the same mistake of throwing Calvin out with the bath water.  I own a set of Calvin’s commentaries and find his thoughts very useful (sometimes).

3. For those of you who are detail-oriented and count the days, we will have 41 days instead of 40 because this year is a leap year.  Jesus’ calendar in the 1st Century had a ‘leap month’ and this 13th month comes into play in the year Jesus is crucified.  We’ll talk all about how this works when we get there next year.