Acts 11:1-18
But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’
Sermon Transcript:
Good morning. Good morning. All right. You’re awake. That’s good. That helps. That definitely helps. All right. If you wanna open up the Bibles, uh, we’re gonna be focusing on acts 11 today. Uh, if you have a pew Bible it’s page 8 65, so you can flip to that real quick and find that. Um, but as you get there, I’ll give you a second to get there.
We’re gonna be talking about Peter once again, here in acts and just, I, I love who Peter is. I love, uh, just how the Bible describes him. Um, cuz I can relate, uh, and very much in, in his personality and how he says things. And, and today we’re gonna see a little bit more about that, but as you open up acts, we’re gonna read it first.
So we’re gonna be acts 11. We’re gonna read from, uh, one through 18 says 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 from Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him saying you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.
But Peter began 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 a closely 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 by mouth. The voice answer a second time from heaven. What God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times and all was drawn up again into heaven and behold at that very moment, three men from Caesarea or three men arrived at the house in which were sent to me from Caesarea.
And his 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 a Joppa and bring Simon who was called Peter. He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved you and all your household.
as I began to speak, the holy spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you’ll 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 father, as we come to your word this morning, as we look at this report, Lord, I pray that you continue to remind us of what is happening here. Lord, continue to show us who you are and how you work.
Lord, allow us to see this passage, allow us to, to put ourselves there Lord, to, to think how, how would we respond? Well, Lord, I pray that you continue to show us our hearts. Just like you show them their hearts allow us to be changed, to be molded, to be more like you pray that you go before us today. Lord, fill us with your spirit, fill this room with your spirit and allow your words to be spoken here this morning in your heavenly name.
Amen. As we look at this text, it can appear like a normal thing, right? Peter’s going and talking to people and he’s sharing and, and he goes, and he travels, right? Someone has a vision, they come and they say, go get Peter, right, go get Simon. Who’s called Peter. So that, you know, the specific one to find, right?
He goes, he shares, he teaches, right. This miraculous thing happens like pastor mark was saying last week, right. It’s the Gentile Pentecost. Right. This amazing thing happens right then and there. Right, right. And it, it feels like it’s a normal report. Right? That’s great news. Right? We’re all rejoicing over this.
As we look at the text from, from our perspective, right? This is an amazing gift. That’s come. It’s an amazing opportunity that the Gentiles have. Now they’ve access to the holy spirit. They’ve received the holy spirit. They can go before the Lord, right? They can come into his presence. They can pray. They can talk to him.
They have salvation. And for us, as we sit here and we look at this, it it’s a great seems pretty cut and dry, a quick report back to the group. But as we dive a little deeper, we have to put ourselves in their shoes, right. These are the Jewish believers that are here. Right. And as we come about it, we have to think about how would they be accepting of this?
How do they see what Peter is doing? How do they view it? What questions might come about?
And so we look at the slide and we see that Peter, in the map here, we see that he’s going from Joppa all the way up to Caesarea. I know there’s a map. It’s coming well, picture yourselves. Okay, here we go. All right. So we have Joppa, right? And it’s about a day’s journey up to Caesarea. Right? And so Peter travels there with this group, with these three guys, and he brings six of his own to go there.
Right? And so it’s a day’s journey and he stays there for a few days. And this sets the stage of what’s about to happen. And as we dive in, we’ll see verses one through three. And as we look at it, it says this. So read it with me. It says now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea, heard that the Gentiles had also 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. Right. This sets the stage, right? Peter is there for a few days. It takes him a day to travel. He stays for a few days, and then he travels back down to Jerusalem. He’s there for it takes days to do this.
So right now we hear news is going around, right? Peter went to this group, Peter ate with them. They receive the holy spirit, right. They now know about the Lord. Right? And we think about this from their perspective, right? They receive the word of God. And this is huge because the Jewish believers right.
Have some questions. Right. And all of this is they’re hearing this it’s great news that is spreading, but as word reaches, the circumcised party as word reaches them, right. Questions start to come up. What do we do now? right. How could Peter do this? How could he go to them? Right. I put myself in their shoes and I say, well, what about all of my traditions that I’m holding onto, that I’ve done over and over and over again, right?
That are Jewish relatives that are Jewish family. That those that have come before us have done for over 1200 years. We’ve been with these traditions and these things that the Lord has showed us. And that God put before us, where are they gonna worship? How are they gonna worship? Are they gonna eat the same food?
Right. All of these questions. Start to go through your mind. If you are sitting there wondering why Peter, like the Peter went to this group when he knows it’s wrong.
For the Jewish Christian. There’s a lot to consider here about your own reli, religiosity about your own beliefs, about what the Lord has established within you and within your people group. Right? Jesus came for the Jews. He came to the Jews first and they received right. The Jewish believers here are just probably wandering in their minds right now, over and over again.
What does this mean? What does this mean? What does this look like? It’s a new time. It’s a new thing, right? And for us being in this position here, we’re happy. Right? We’re excited. We read this and we rejoice and we think this is amazing that it’s come to them.
But Peter, are you still with us? Did you abandon your faith by going to them? Did you leave us for them? Has your allegiance changed? All of these thoughts are going around and around and I’m sure all of these thoughts have started to populate the minds of the believers that are there that are having time to wrestle time since Peter’s still traveling, as they heard about it.
News got back and as he’s coming, right, they’re thinking and talking and sharing and better yet. He goes to a Centurion,
the very people that stand in opposition of the Jewish nation.
And so these questions play out. Are they gonna travel three times a year? Right? We have Pentecost, right? We go to the temple. We worship. we pilgrimage, right? Three times a year. We have this mandatory time to go. And Peter, you threw all of this up in the air, and now we’re trying to see where it lands.
We’re gonna see what happens. We want to know why we wanna know why you messed with what we had going on. We had these nice things, laid out that for over 1200 years, we did this and we did this and we did this and we did this and we had this perfect time line of going of when we did it, what we knew, how we worshiped, where we worshiped, what we were allowed to eat, what we weren’t allowed to eat.
We had this perfection going. It felt like, and now you throw it all up in the air to see where it lands. Now
I can imagine that these are the questions. These are questions that arose. When I finally looked deeper than just a report back when I dove in and I put myself in their shoes and I wanted to see, well, how are they gonna respond?
And two words popped into my head, not fair.
How is this fair that we’ve done all of these things and now you just went to them and they got it. What’s on time. Have they put in what commitments do they have? Where’s their allegiance fall, right? Who are they? Jesus came and walked with us. Peter, you walked alongside of him. Doesn’t seem fair.
And so he comes back when he goes up and he gets confronted by this group of people, which not the party that I’d sign up for right away to be named. But you know, the circumcised party when he comes in and, but. It shows us what they value as important, right? This isn’t just a group that says, you know, this is what we’re gonna be called, but this goes back to their roots to Genesis 17.
And so you have this idea of, we have the uncircumcised versus the circumcised now. And we have, after these questions arise, Peter gets confronted by them. Cuz they’re sitting there wrestling and they want questions and they want to know what is going on.
We go back to the Abraham at covenant, Peter don’t, you know that don’t, you know, that this is where it was founded. This is what we’re based on. This is what this first came about. And now you go to uncircumcised group, you know, the group that wasn’t a part of this covenant that wasn’t given this gift that wasn’t factored in.
Peter. This is our outward representation of our inward worship. And now you’re going somewhere else where it’s not there.
Right? For thousands of years, this has been a key part of their belief system that they’re holding onto these traditions, that they have the traditions of worship, the traditions of circumcision, right? And not just traditions, but these are laws that were given that you do this. This is part of your worship to the Lord.
This is part of your covenant to God. This is a command that was given Abraham, handed this down from family to family generation, to generation, to generation.
And it’s one that separates them, separates the Jews from everyone else. because of the covenant there so much thought goes into the histories of these two people groups. As we look at at the, um, circumcised, the circumcised, the Jew, and the Gentile. And as we go back, we see that right tracking with the history of the Jewish people, the Jewish culture, God established covenant after covenant with this people, right?
He led them through the wilderness was there when they begged for a king sent prophets to correct them and to rebuke them from their sinful nature in the rebellious times. And it was quietly watching in awaiting the sending of his son to rescue them. This is what they were waiting for. This is what this group is holding onto.
This is what they had in their history. This is what their traditions, their past was built upon. And all of this culminates right here at this very moment, because Peter goes. that’s what they see. Right? They don’t know about the vision yet. They don’t hear about that yet, but they just see all of this leading to this point where Peter now decides I’m gonna go.
And to them, it looks like abandonment. I’m sure it looks like change of allegiance. I believe to the Jewish people, they see a chasm of differences between themselves and the Gentile nations and the people that don’t believe in God.
And as I sit there and I see Peter being confronted with this, I know when I’m confronted my mind goes, wait, wait, you gotta, you just gotta hear me out. You gotta wait. I got a story, right? I got a story to tell you. I got something to say before you dive in, before you try to just arrest me before you come after me, before you pick up those stones, let me share what happened.
And I picture Peter on this edge here of waiting and waiting for them to stop and waiting for them to so that he can have that moment to share why? Because if we just stop here, it seems like Peter abandons, all of the stuff that came before, all of the religiosity, all of the traditions, all of the things that God ordained and directed for this Jewish people.
If we stop here, it looks like Peter just threw it all up in the air and said, I’m just doing what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go. If we don’t dive back in and see what is actually happening. If Peter doesn’t get a chance to speak,
they don’t know why.
And I can see there, Peter, as he’s saying, you know what, guys, this is not on my idea. I didn’t want to go. Right. I didn’t want to do it. I’m minding my own bzz business. I’m praying. On my roof, right on this roof here, that I’m staying, I’m praying, I’m talking to God. And then this is what happened, right? And Peter has this vision as he is praying.
And as we look to the second point, we see that Peter’s gonna recap this vision. As we look on the screen, we see a picture of just many different animals being lowered down
animals that obviously are not allowed to be eaten as Peter’s looks at this. And he sees, and he sees the many different things going on, the many different animals there. Right? He’s confused. And, and as he’s sitting there, he’s praying, right? This is the vision. This is what he is wrestling with. This is what he sees.
I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance, I saw the vision, something like a great sheet, descending being let down from heaven by its four corners. and it came to me looking at it closely. I observed the animals and beast of praying reptiles in the birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, rise, Peter Killan.
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 made clean do not call common. This happened three times and was all drawn up into heaven again and behold at the very moment, three men arrived at the house in which we were sent, which we were sent to me from Caesarea.
And the spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers accompanying 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 Jo and bring Simon who is called Peter he’ll declare to you a message by which you will be saved you and all your household.
And as I began speaking, as I began to speak, the holy spirit fell on them just as us at the beginning. And Peter gets the moment and he says, you know what, before you guys gather the jury, before you, you make your decision before you throw me out, before you cast me away, right. Just hear what happened.
Right. I’m praying in this vision from God comes to me and right there, you’re gonna stop and say, okay, I’ll let you go, right. God, God send you a vision. We’ll listen. Right. I want to hear then, right. Fellow believers, just listen. I want to tell you what happened. I wanna share why I went, why it seems like I did this crazy out of the blue thing by going.
I want to tell you why I did it, how it happened, how it came about that. I found myself traveling with three men and my six brothers here to Caesarea how I went from Joppa to there. And he says, this is why, right. This spirit told me. And so I feel as here, as we look at setting the spirit straight, as we look at Peter, right?
In, in typical Peter fashion, I’d like to say, right, this isn’t the first time that he’s been, been told to do something in how he’s responded. So if we look back to Matthew 26, 31 through 35, we see my boy, Peter, right, coming up and it says, then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night for it is written.
I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered them though. They all fall away because of you. I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.
Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. All the disciples said the same. As I look at this and as I ponder it and I look at where Peter is, right. I, I get a sense as I read this, my mind jumps back to this moment where Peter right is correcting the Lord, right? Peter’s spirit has a spirit of just kind of walking through things, not much thinking, but maybe like a bull in a China shop where he’s just stumbling around, bumping into things, saying what comes to his mind?
Lord, I’ll never leave you, Lord. I’m not gonna do that, Lord. That’s not me. I’m here. That’s everybody else. That was the other 11. Right? Scattered. They’re gonna be scattered, but if I have to die with you, I’m gonna be by your side and three times, right? The Lord says you’re gonna deny me, but I just get this sense of Peter trying to correct the spirit, trying to correct the Lord in this here.
And as I jump to this passage, I feel it’s the same way. Right by no means Lord. Right? I don’t feel that as a timid response from Peter, but I, I feel that as one that he’s standing firm and saying, Lord, that’s not, I right. Don’t you know, I’m Peter, right? Don’t you know who I am, Lord, I’m faithful. I follow the law.
Right? Nothing unclean has ever touched my mouth. I’m not gonna rise. I’m not gonna kill. I’m not gonna eat. Don’t you remember this law that you gave us Lord. And I feel as he’s talking, as he’s standing, right, he continues to show that this is this isn’t gonna happen. This isn’t me. This isn’t what you directed Lord.
Same with this passage, right? Lord. That’s not me. I’m not gonna fall away. I’m not gonna deny you.
I feel that Peter tries to step up. Okay. In these areas, step into his pride and respond.
I’m not gonna flee. I’m not gonna falter. I’m gonna stand strong. I’m gonna stand firm. Lord, I have my religious pride. I have my traditions. I’m not gonna eat anything I’m not supposed to. I’m not gonna dive into that. I’m not gonna kill anything. I’m not gonna eat it. Lord. I don’t want a part of that.
Right. And, and we go from this sense of feeling like Peter’s trying to just correct and set the Lord straight on what’s happening on who he is to the point where what has to happen is the spirit has to set Peter straight. Peter, this is what you’re gonna do. Right? I’ve deemed this, I’ve worked this out.
I’ve prepared this for. because Peter says by no means Lord, nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time. What God has made clean, do not call common. And this happened three times. Peter feels that he has to set the Lord and the Lord just humbles him and says, no, Peter, this is what’s really happening.
Stop bumbling around. Stop trying to, to step into this. I understand that you’re using the tradition in the law, but this is what you’re gonna do. This is where I’m gonna take you. This is what I’m gonna do. This is what I’m gonna show you. And Peter’s still wrestling about feels that it’s about food. And then he gets to the point where three men show up and it changes perspective for him, right?
It’s not about eating. it’s about people. It’s about moving. And I feel that Peter has to learn like me, like probably many of you, but through the pains of hearing things time and time and time again, I raise your hand. If one time doesn’t sink in for you. Nope. If you’ve ever been a youth in your life, that’s probably true, right?
That one time just doesn’t work. Right? One. Time’s not gonna be enough. And so like Peter, like my life, right? The Lord uses this three times thing. I feel like in Peter’s ministry throughout his entire life. Right. Peter, you’re gonna deny me three times, right? You’re gonna, you’re gonna say no three times, even though you’re gonna try to correct it, you’re gonna, you’re gonna deny me three times when Jesus is raised from the dead, he’s gonna restore Peter three times.
right. How many times does she get lowered? Three times. How many men from Caesarea show up three men? I feel for Peter, he has to see this many times over, and I’m not a, numerologist where I don’t wanna convince you of signs that you’ll find, but I decide, I said, you know, what, what does that mean? Is there a reference, is there a meaning with three in the J in the Jewish culture?
Is there something that they would see this as that maybe we don’t maybe that we’re not gonna pick up on. And so, as we dove in, as I looked, I found that the number three will help us. It’s gonna help symbolize what’s going on one, symbolizes unity. If you have won, it’s cohesive, it’s unified, right? That’s there’s no opposition to it.
There’s no conflict within it, right? Because it’s singles it’s it’s on its own. It’s it’s unified together. This one thing. right. And when we add two to it, right, or when we have one, it exists alone, nothing disturbs. It remains completely at peace without regard for anything else. And we take a second and two symbolizes duality, complexity, something else going on something.
Now that might be an opposition against this other one here, something that’s gonna cause both of them to react differently. And what I found interesting was that the number three symbolizes harmony symbolizes a harmony that includes and synthesizes two opposites coming together. The unity symbolized by the number three, isn’t accomplished by getting rid of number two,
but rather by merging them together. Rather by taking both of them and bringing them before this, right. Peter denies the Lord. He has his pride that he steps up and says no, but the Lord has to humble him so that we have Peter on the other side. So he’s taking one side and the other, combining them to unify who Peter becomes, right?
They work harmoniously together. When the Lord brings us about, and Peter is learning this right? When the two opposites merge, they work together. The resulting unity is greater than the unity of being on its own of being either one or here or here by bringing them together. It draws them closer. Cause the number one symbolizes peace that is achieved by excluding all others.
Two stands for disagreement and three stands for the harmony of opposites coming together. I see this being played out here. In Peter’s life, the harmony of bringing two things together, the harmony of having this side here and this side here, and then the Lord merging them.
I see that he’s done that many times in my life. And by combining my pride in my humility, by taking pride, my pride and humbling me with circumstances so that I can focus on the Lord. On the other side, he doesn’t get rid of my pride, but he changes and uses it in a different way.
Jesus shows also when he says three times feed my sheep to Peter. Jesus is showing forgiveness to a most likely a person feeling unworthy since denying Jesus. You have two opposites coming together and here we have two separate distinct people groups. one, the Jewish culture feels that they are one they’re unified they’re together.
They’re traditions, they’re histories, the Lord coming to them, right. Unifies them together because it is based off of promises and what they’ve done. And the Lord now coming with the Jewish believers, we have that. And then we have this Gentile group that is almost in complete opposite and opposition to what the Jewish believers are going through and what they’re doing and what they stand for and what they believe.
And we have this Gentile nation being welcomed in
the Lord is taking two separate groups here and molding them together. It’s not fixing all their problems. It’s not correcting everything, but he is bringing it to be one body. He’s taking the unified group in the beginning and he is moving from the, the opposition group and he is bringing them together to form this new body of Christ, this new entity that we will now have, that will move forward with that will now be welcomed into the kingdom.
As we look at it, this is a beautiful thing because it’s a promise that all of us, at least majority of us fall into majority of us are Gentile backgrounds. And we’re being brought into this new beginning. And we see this as Peter is hearing this as he’s following, as he responds and goes to this new people group to bring in this opposition, to be molded to the new body.
We see that as he’s sharing this, as he shares the message, as he preaches the spirit comes to the. And we see this new beginning happening. We see a new beginning for Jewish Christians. At this time, we see a new beginning for Gentile believers. At this time, we have this coming together, this one, because what God offered and in verse 16 through 18, we see this 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 God gave the same gift to them.
As he gave to us, when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that 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, this gift that they’re gonna receive, right? It’s not based off of anything that they’ve done.
It’s not based off of things that they’re going to do. It’s not based off of things that they have. Right. It’s based off of a need and a gift and a willingness that God says, I want to give this to you. All of us have that believe in the Lord, that trust in him as our savior, have this gift. It’s been freely given to us, right?
We didn’t pay for it. We didn’t die for it. We can’t do anything to earn it. We can’t do anything to purchase it, but it’s a gift freely given poured out from the Lord. And Peter wants the Jewish believers here to understand that this is exactly what the Lord is doing. This is exactly what God is doing here.
He is giving this free gift and he wants to remind them guys, this is what it was like us. In the beginning, we have this gift. We were given this gift, right? We can’t forget what happened in our beginning at our Pentecost. When the holy spirit came to us. Acts one. We can see that we read that the disciples were commanded to wait in Jerusalem because the father had promised someone to come, right?
I’m I have to leave, but I’m promising that someone will come that’s better than me. That will be in your stead. And when he comes, you’ll be filled with power. The holy spirit is the gift that you’ll receive. And he wants to remind the Jewish believers here, that this is where we were. We were at this exact place in our beginning.
We were just like them. When we received this, when the holy spirit came upon us, we need to remember that. It’s not about these traditions. It’s not about our pilgrimages. It’s not about our history. It’s about the future of what God is doing. and he wants to remind them in this moment that if this is what God is saying, that he’s coming to baptize them and he’s giving them the holy spirit.
Why would I wanna stand in that way? Right. Peter here, it says, right. I’m not, I’m not gonna touch that. If Lord tells me to go because of this is what he’s doing, I’m going now, right? I’m not gonna stand in the way of what Jesus is pouring out here. I don’t wanna stand in opposition of what the Lord is going to do, what plans to do and what he’s doing in the future.
I don’t want to step into that space.
I wanna be led by him. I don’t wanna stand in God’s way. I wanna be led by God along the way.
And the Gentiles receive this same gift.
Peter sees first hand. The Gentile Pentecost as mark explained it last week that this is happening right before him in this house, in Cornelius’s house, this is what happens. This is what went on. And as he’s finishing this up, right, the, we see that these people there, it says right, when they heard all these things, they fell silent.
They were speechless that they had nothing to respond to. They had to take a second to process. What they just heard that the holy spirit is now gonna be with the Gentiles, that he’s not just our God anymore, but that he’s their God. And they have access to him and they can come to know him and they can come before him.
If they rejoice in this moment and they say, And they glorified God saying then to the Gentiles also God gives granted repentance that leads to life verse 18, none of these verses right. Didn didn’t correct. All of these other questions now that are gonna come about, right. That didn’t lay out the whole plan for the Gentiles being grafted in being welcomed in it.
Didn’t lay everything out and say, well, this is step a step B step three, step five, right? This is how you’re gonna work this out. Right? He just said, this is what’s happening. This is a movement that is going on. This is something that is going to be fluid that is going to move. That is going to change.
That is going to shape the future of things. The future of my people, the future of those that believe in me, but there’s still traditions that have been held onto for over a thousand years by the people. , he’s not saying throw that out. He’s not saying to throw out and now you have to circums every Gentile believer coming in.
We’ll see, later on that, there are still these struggles that this church right now is wrestling with that there’s still gonna be disagreements. There’s still gonna be challenges that they face.
It’s still changing.
And so as I read this, and as I look at this, I know there are things that I can apply. And so three things that I wrote down that I felt that we need to learn from this is that we continually need to exercise brace on the. right. There are people groups, there are things there are, whether it’s a political party or whether it’s a stance or whether it’s, I believe in this, or I think about this, or I shop here and I shop there and this is what I wanna live like, and this is where I wanna do.
As we fall under the Lord, as we look to serve him, we will need to exercise brace daily. There are people that may, that we may feel stand in contrast to us that are believers, but they may stand in contrast to some of our political views. And we need to still exercise grace.
We need to continue to do this daily. We might not agree with the way someone is raising their children, maybe how they’re spending their money. Right. We’ve been around other believers that might do something a little different than we do, but we need to not be an opposition of them or think that they’re wrong in that, but we need to.
Exercise grace daily, because I know in my toughest struggle times, the Lord gives me grace continually, right? When I am at my lowest, God is giving me grace. And the people around me are showing me, grace, can we show that to others? Can we go this week? Can we show grace to those that, you know, we might not get along with?
We might not a hundred percent agree with, can we continue to exercise this grace to, we need to continue to be straightened out by the spirit, right? We need to continue to walk step in step with this spirit. If he directs us and guides us one way, we need to be following him as the Lord leads. We need to follow.
I don’t want to be a Peter and say, Nope, I’m not gonna do it. I’m not going, but I wanna be like, all right, Lord, where you lead. I go. If you open that door, I’m gonna walk through it. If you say that, I need to talk to that person. I’m gonna talk to them. If you see, I need to go there, I’m gonna go, right. I need to be continued to be straightened out by the steer because I’m stubborn.
Right? And I want to dig my feet in at times and I wanna stand still. And I don’t wanna talk to that person because I know that conversation’s gonna be an hour and a half long, or I don’t want to go over there because I know that I don’t necessarily get along with them. But if the Lord leads, I need to,
follow’s similar to that. When the Lord says go, I need to go without hesitation. What he has made common, what he has cleaned. I don’t ever want to come to the point of saying it’s unclean, right? The Lord died, right to wash offs of our sins. And I want to continue to share that message as I go as the Lord leads as the Lord deems, as he opens up doors, I don’t wanna hesitate and drag my feet into that.
I wanna run and be in step with the spirit and follow the spirit because after all right, the great commission doesn’t stop within the scriptures. The great commission gets carried out daily by us as this second part as this next part continues, right? It says to the ends of the earth, well, the earth isn’t over the earth hasn’t ended yet.
And so we’re directed to continue to fulfill that great commission that the Lord has told us to. And that might mean go to your neighbor, go to that coworker, go to that family member. Here. Peter was told to go to some other outside group that was in opposition. Who is he telling you to go to?
Are we listening to the Lord as he is moving as he is guiding as he is directing? Am I in step with what the spirit is doing here in my life, in my house, in my family and around the world. Am I keeping in step with where he’s leading and directing father? I pray that we will continue just to be at peace with where you are.
Lord, we get challenged by things that we don’t understand from you. Peter was challenged here and I pray that you’re challenging each one of us in our own lives. It’s a scary thing to say, but I pray that you challenge us. to move, to not be still to not be hesitant, correct us from the spirit Lord. As we pour grace out, as we exercise this grace daily Lord, we are grateful that this report is here, that this chapter is here because this is our beginning Lord, where we are grafted in to you.
I pray that you receive the honor and the glory here. Lord, as we look to praise you and worship you throughout this week, Lord, as we look to make your name known, I pray that you be shown in us that your spirit be ever present
and that we walk in your name and your heavenly named father. Amen. You are dismissed.