ZIONSVILLE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 22, 2009 Rev. Glenn McDonald
Acts 10

Back to the Blueprints
(12) Following God Outside the Box

Dave Workman, pastor of the Vineyard Church in Cincinnati, recently came up with one of the best sermon titles I have heard in a long time: Jesus Loves You, But Everybody Else Thinks You're a Jerk. Workman intended that to be just one message, but he had so much material that it turned into a series.

What exactly did he mean? People who claim to follow Jesus do not score particularly high when it comes to public esteem. That's because so much of the time we act like jerks. We get hung up on petty issues. We come across as arrogant, rude, and unshakably right about all of life's big questions. In America these days Christians are often associated with what we stand against, instead of the most urgent bedrock matters that we stand for.

Worst of all, we publicly suggest that God is backing us up in our current biases. We put God into a box. God has made this beautiful world, but in every generation God's own people mar that world with their attitudes and behaviors. We announce, with great relief, that God (surprise) always turns out to be the champion of our personal perspectives.

This weekend, in our ongoing study of the book of Acts, we come to a hinge point in history. The early church follows God outside the box. Prior to the meeting of two men - a Jew named Peter and a Gentile named Cornelius - Christianity seemed exclusively reserved for the descendants of Abraham. Do you remember the promise God had made to Abraham back in Genesis chapter twelve? He would be blessed with countless descendants whose special call it would be to bless the world. The Jews were blessed to be a blessing.

Jesus' words at the beginning of the book of Acts are the direct fulfillment are that promise to Abraham. In Acts 1:8 Jesus said that his followers were to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, the place where the Holy Spirit would descend upon them. Then they were to take his good news to Judea, which was the surrounding district of southern Israel. Next they were to cross the border into Samaria - an announcement that must have stunned Jesus' disciples, since they had made it a lifelong practice to avoid contact with Samaritans. Finally, the opportunity to trust Jesus was to be taken to the ends of the earth. That could mean only one thing: Jesus expected Gentiles to be invited into God's family.

It is difficult to overstate the resistance to this idea amongst many of the earliest Christians. They had put God in a box. God's box was called Israel. Many of the Pharisees, who were considered the nation's most spiritually mature individuals, woke up every morning and prayed this prayer: "Thank you, O Lord, that I am not a Gentile, a Samaritan, or a woman." Do any of you have any issues with that prayer, by the way? Gentiles were labeled as dogs - and Palestine did not exactly feature a chain of PetSmart stores where dogs were honored as adorable companions. In the ancient world, dogs were consigned to one of the lower rungs of creation. Some rabbis even taught that if a Jew saw a Gentile woman struggling to give birth, he should in no way stop to help her. Why would anyone want assist the arrival of another Gentile into the world?

Now before we start posturing about the spiritual blindness of those who lived in the first century, perhaps we should own up to the fact that we also presume that we know whom God wants to bless. It's easy to imagine this prayer from the 21st century: "Thank you, O Lord, that I am not a Democrat / Republican (I'll let you sort that one out), a member of Al Qaeda, or an investment manager with AIG."

How do we know when we've put God in a box? It's when we feel revolted at even the possibility that God might extend grace to certain people whom we feel do not qualify for grace. Shouldn't the people on this screen get straightened out first? Shouldn't they be compelled to change their politics or pay for the fact that their greed has wrecked our economy? Shouldn't terrorists be given what's coming to them? Never mind the fact that God recruited a murderer named Saul on the road to Damascus. These people want to murder us.

If we think that we have God's best interests in mind by hating, and hurting, and putting up walls that define the boundaries of God's mercy, then we have utterly failed to understand our rabbi, Jesus. We must lead with love and grace, just as he did.

Christianity almost became a Jewish club. A remarkable amount of space in the book of Acts is devoted to showing why this didn't happen. We're fairly sure that the book of Acts was originally written on a scroll. Such scrolls could be up to 35 feet long - but not 36 feet. Thus there were only so many stories about the early church that Luke, the author, could squeeze in.

Luke is the only New Testament writer whom we believe to have been a Gentile. It therefore appears he had ample personal reasons for including this story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius, a "Gentile dog" - and a despised Roman commander at that - is about to have an encounter with the most famous of all the original apostles. Let's open our Bibles together to Acts chapter ten, beginning at verse one:

"At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, ‘Cornelius!'
"Cornelius stared at him in fear. ‘What is it, Lord?' he asked. The angel answered, ‘Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.'"

Peter is staying at the home of Simon the tanner, whose house is by the Mediterranean Sea. Keep in mind that the Jews of the ancient world were afraid of the sea. It was wild and unpredictable. Therefore during spring break nobody went to the beach. Simon probably lives by the sea because nobody wants to live near him. He is a tanner - a man who regularly touches the dead bodies of animals and has to use manure in his daily work. Since both those things brought about ritual impurity for the Jews, "tanner" was not something that typical Jewish parents hoped that their son would grow up to be.

Now Luke is passing along this little detail for a reason. Peter - who has the highest credibility amongst all the early Christians - has chosen to stay at Simon's house. Apparently it's begun to dawn on Peter that God isn't as hung up on what is "clean" and "unclean" as most of his Jewish brothers and sisters believe. He's beginning to see that God is operating outside the box. Let's pick up the story in verse nine:

"About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city [that is, the people from Cornelius who were coming to fetch Peter], Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'
"'Surely not, Lord!' Peter replied. ‘I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.' The voice spoke to him a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven."

Now what's going on here? Peter is a Jew. He has spent his entire life avoiding non-Kosher foods. He would gladly eat beef, but never ham. Tuna would be great, but a shrimp cocktail would be appalling. The Jews had reached the point where they felt physically repulsed by what the Torah forbade them to eat. The point of our text isn't just that Peter is creeped out by non-Kosher foods. His fellow Jews have developed an overwhelming creep factor concerning non-Jewish people.

Some of us may have grown up in parts of America that had racially separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, and swimming pools. In the same way, in the first century no Jew was allowed to cross the threshold into a Gentile's house, or to allow a Gentile to pass through the door into his. So why would God suddenly be telling Peter to get over his taboos about forbidden foods? God is not so much preparing him to eat bacon as he is preparing him to share the good news with people who have previously been considered outside God's walls.

Philip Yancey helps us feel what Peter might have felt about all this by suggesting a modern equivalent. Imagine a convention of Southern Baptist pastors. All of a sudden a giant sheet comes down from the ceiling. Inside is a fully stocked bar. A voice from heaven shouts, "Baptists! Drink up!" Do you think there might be just a little resistance and misunderstanding in the minds of people who have spent their entire lives avoiding alcohol?

It was hard for the Jews to leave behind much of what Judaism had become. Yet that's the very thing God was asking them to do, so that the whole world might be blessed by the good news. In the same way, it's hard for Christians to leave behind much of what Christianity has become. But that's the very thing God is asking us to do, so that we might pay more attention to Jesus and his priorities than to the kinds of things that people can get hung up about at church.

Up on a roof in Joppa, Peter gets schooled. Spiritual life does not come down to regulations about pork and seafood. The real issue is that God wants us to be the carriers of his gifts and his good news to people whom we have never honestly pictured ourselves relating to. Just so Peter grasps how serious God is about this, look at verse 16: "This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven."

Three was a key number in Jewish thinking. When God wanted to emphasize something, he said it or did it twice. When God really wanted to emphasize something, he said it or did it three times. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty" - which means that God is seriously holy. Jews paid attention to how often a story was told. In Acts ten and eleven this same account is reported three times. Luke takes up valuable scroll space to assure us that God is certifiably opening the door to a whole new era.

Right after Peter sees this threefold vision, the message bearers from Cornelius arrive at the tanner's house. They report the angelic vision their master experienced. Look at Peter's response in verse 23: "Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests." This is a huge moment in church history. Gentiles are crossing the threshold into a Jewish house. Peter is saying, "On behalf of Jesus...welcome."

The next day Peter and some of his Jewish Christian colleagues follow these men back to the home of Cornelius. Look at verse 25: "As Peter entered the house [here he goes again, breaking the old Jewish taboo], Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. ‘Stand up,' he said, ‘I am only a man myself.'" What a new thing this is. Jews had always expected Gentiles to look at them and say, "You da Man!" Peter is saying, "We're both men on an equal plane before God."

Verse 27: "Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them, ‘You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.'" And look what Peter says down in verse 34: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right."

Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? Are you convinced that God listens to the prayers of those who didn't vote the way you voted last November? That God cares for those who have hurt your feelings, or inflicted deep wounds upon your heart? Do you believe that God is willing to show grace to your horrific supervisor - and that you may be the one to whom he is assigning that mission? Do you believe that God is willing to answer the prayers of people whose sex lives have violated biblical commands, as well as those who are quite certain that all Christians are jerks?

Dave Workman's church down in Cincinnati hosted a car wash not long ago. Their sign said, One Dollar Car Wash. Every car that came was washed and dried, and then a church member would hand the driver a dollar. Now that's grace. If a service is provided, someone ought to pay. Grace is offering a blessing on top of a gift. That's how God wants us to picture his world. But even when we blemish God's picture of how life ought to be, he extends to us the amazing grace of working in and around our biases and fears to accomplish great things.

That's what happens with Peter. The Gentiles who are gathered in the home of Cornelius not only believe in Jesus, but the Holy Spirit descends upon them in a dramatic second experience of Pentecost. Since that moment, the church has never been the same. Look around this room. Unless you are blessed to have Jewish roots, you are sitting here because Peter had the guts to obey God, to walk across a Gentile's threshold, and to speak the good news.

What will it take for us to participate in the drama of following God outside the box? What are our action points? We must imitate Peter and Cornelius. It all starts with prayer. Both these men ended up in a brand new place because they were regularly keeping company with God. Ask God, "Is there something new that you want to show me?" Next, question your assumptions. This takes tremendous courage. Most of us surround ourselves with people who read the books that we like to read and listen to the teachers whose perspectives we appreciate. Every Christian - in fact, every generation of Christians - has to make the jarring discovery that God is bigger than our hottest hot button issues, and that God's grace is far crazier than we have yet allowed ourselves to imagine.

Finally, trust God. When we blow it - even if we've blown it for a very long time - God is not about to give up on us. Even if we've marred the picture that God has always had in mind for us, he has a way of making it right.

In the 1930's Josef Stalin ordered a purge of all believers and all Bibles in the former Soviet Union. Millions of Bibles were confiscated and multitudes of Christians were sent to prison camps, where most died for being "enemies of the state." Recently a mission team in Stavropol, Russia, heard a rumor that there was still a warehouse outside of town where confiscated Bibles had been stored for more than 70 years.

Local officials gave the mission team permission to look inside and to distribute whatever they found. Inside they discovered a mind-boggling mountain of Bibles. The next day the team returned with a truck along with several Russians to help them do the loading. One of the helpers was a Russian college student - a hostile skeptic who said he was there only because he was promised a few rubles.

As they were loading the Bibles, a team member noticed that the young man had disappeared. Ultimately they found him in a corner of the warehouse, weeping. He had slipped away hoping that he might quietly take a Bible for himself. What he had discovered had shaken him. On the inside page of the one Bible he had picked up he had found the handwritten signature of his own grandmother. Of the thousands of Bibles there for the taking, he had put his hands on the one that belonged to a woman who had faithfully prayed for him.

God is faithful. God pursues us across generations, and beyond the boxes by which we presume he must be confined. This is a God we can trust. Are you willing to follow him wherever he leads?