Sunday, September 10, 2023 AM

Well, let's go to the Lord together in prayer, Heavenly Father, we. Thank you for these reminders, these truths that we sing to you and to one another, thank you for encouraging us in your truth. We thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit.

By whom we from our hearts know you. As our Heavenly Father, I thank you for giving us your son, Jesus Christ, by which you have proved. Your love and your holiness. Your mercy. Your goodness, your righteousness, your entire name.

Proved through your son, we ask that you would help us this morning to respond warmly to your word. You have given us this. Living and active, sharp and powerful, precise. Powerful word. You have breathed it out by your spirit, by the hands of holy men, you declare to us your son.

We thank you. And ask that you would give us the grace to rejoice in your truth here this morning. We pray these things for the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts and we'll be reading from Acts chapter 11, verses 1 through 18.

Here is the last of seven passages, which all relates to one another. Each one highlights the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. Later on in the book of Acts, we're going to hear some complaining going on about how the followers of Jesus Christ are turning the world upside down.

But it really wasn't them. It was Jesus raising up from the dead on the third day. That's what turned the world upside down. And they were simply living that out and proclaiming that reality. So here we are at our seventh passage.

If you will, the seventh in a range of mountains entitled, Too Small a Thing. Too Small a Thing. I invite you to stand with me as I read God's word, beginning in verse 1 of Acts chapter 11. Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.

And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him saying, you went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners and it came to me.

When I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, rise, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.

But the voice answered me again from heaven. What God has cleansed, you must not call common. Now this was done three times and all were drawn up again into heaven. At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was having been sent to me from Caesarea.

Then the spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me and we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house who said to him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John, indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they became silent. And they glorified God, saying, Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Seems to be a whole lot of people upset with each other. You notice that whole lot of people upset with each other, and they're all online, even when they get mad at each other in public.

It was all arranged online where they were going to go to get mad at each other, not getting along. One group is really upset about all those people who are unscientific, uncompliant, unconcerned, unmasked, unvaxed, un, un, un, un.

All those horrible people. Some of us are saying, Oh, those are my kind of people. And then there's lots of complaints about those who are unpatriotic, uninformed, unattractive, unsociable. Unrelatable.

It might be on some level that we are just upset about too small a thing. There are some uns to be concerned about. There's a lot of uns in the Bible that we ought to be concerned about, you know, uns like unbiblical or ungodly or unloving or unfaithful or unChristlike, just to wrap it.

All up.

There are some genuine uns to be worried about, to be concerned about, to make a stand about, to talk about. But there are a whole lot of uns that are just too small a thing. Just too small a thing. And when we read here in chapter 11 of Acts, after all of the glory, the wonder and the power and the beauty that we see of Christ in Acts chapter 10 and the end of Acts chapter 9, all the amazing things going on, wouldn't you know it, somebody in the church is complaining, you know, missions advancing, people getting sanctified, growing in their maturity in Christ, people getting healed and raised from the dead, but complaints in the church.

You didn't do that right. You did something wrong. It's all well and good that good things are happening, but you ought to do it in a more holy fashion. And I think the complaint, the griping, the grousing is about too small a thing.

And we see that here in the first three verses. In the first three verses, we see that there is godly, and I'm putting that in quotation marks, so-called godly grousing about the Gentiles. Godly grousing about the Gentiles goes on in verses one through three.

And what happens here in these 18 verses, and you tracked along as we heard the story of Peter getting waylaid by the complainers and then how he responded, there is this objection given in verses one through three, and then we have Peter's amazing answer, very well-documented.

I think Luke's impressed with Peter giving this reply in so orderly a fashion, and that's verses four through 17. And then we finally get to the response of those who had originally complained there in verse 18.

This morning, let's just talk about the grousing. Let's just start talking about the so-called godly complaining going on here in verses one through three. Now, Peter is certainly going to take his time and be led by the Spirit in responding to the objection by responding to the complaint.

But I think we should consider the context of the objection that is raised, which is basically some in the church pointing at Peter and saying, you were with them. You were with the Gentiles. You were in the Gentiles' house eating Gentile food, doing Gentile things.

That's a problem.

That's the basic objection.

And then Peter answered and explained, yeah, but God said so. He told me to, and he made all the arrangements, so it's fine. Until finally, they put their hands over their mouths and said, OK, fine. And they glorified God.

But let's talk about so-called, air quotes, godly grousing about the Gentiles. I would say from the get-go that godly grousing is incredibly dangerous. It seems to have legs, but it is lame. It seems to have a lot of fuel, but no engine.

Combustible, but not constructive, if you follow my meaning. A whole lot can be said in very critical and negative ways when one believes that they have the moral high ground. But do we have the moral high ground?

As we stated earlier, there are some uns which are just too small a thing. You know, love will cover a multitude of those things. And there are some uns, however, that you are to make a stand for, to not be ashamed of Christ and to make a stand about certain uns.

So how do you know the difference? I talk about that this morning. Let's look at the context of this objection. Verse one, chapter 11. Now, the apostles, we know who those are. Those are Peter's fellow leaders in the church.

They've been given authority from Jesus Christ himself to lay the foundation of the church. They come as his personal ambassadors. They carry with him the very authority of Christ directly. The apostles and brethren who were in Judea.

So there's the apostles and then there's all the other brothers and sisters in Christ, the saints who are living in Judea. And they heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. This was big news.

Now, they had heard that the Samaritans had received God's word, that the Holy Spirit had come upon them and they had believed. And they had heard about the Ethiopian eunuch who had received the word of God and that he had repented, been baptized in the name of Christ.

They had heard about these things. Perhaps they had heard word about Aeneas being healed and Dorcas being raised from the dead and all that news was great. But this news that the Gentiles, which is another word for the nations, the nations other than Israel, the ethnic family groups other than the Jews, that they had also received the word of God.

That news traveled fast because that news was exciting. That news was controversial. That news was powerful and that news traveled extremely fast, faster than Peter could walk, faster than Peter could get up out of Cornelius's house and get on the road and go back down to Jerusalem.

That news went faster than he could move. And so when Peter came up to Jerusalem, he found a welcoming committee. We heard what you've been up to. Those of the circumcision contended with him saying, you went into uncircumcised men and ate with them.

Now, when we read those of the circumcision, how are we to understand that? We know that these are part of the church. They are of the brethren, they are of the saints, we see the apostles and we see the brethren and then we see those of the circumcision.

So we have these three different categories of the saints in the church. And we know who the apostles are and we know how in Christ we are brothers and sisters because he is our elder brother and we are brought together in him to have one heavenly father and we find our unity in Christ by the spirit.

But who are these who are of the circumcision? Well, they might just be all the Jews. Well, Peter's one of them. He's circumcised as well. I don't think that the phrase those of the circumcision is the same group of the apostles and the brethren that we read earlier.

I guess a part of them, some of them, those who perhaps thought of their Jewish identity a little too much. And didn't think of Christ enough, you know, those who would be identifying themselves were of the circumcision, they might be making too big a thing out of too small a thing.

As we see through the rest of the book of Acts and through many of the letters that Paul writes, this becomes a perennial contention in the early church. Where many could not simply shake themselves loose from all of the various threads and trappings of the old covenant to simply embrace Christ as their full identity and begin to bring all manner of restrictions and requirements upon the people around them saying, well, if you're really going to be holy, then, you know, you really ought to be applying Leviticus in its most direct sense.

We hear about those of the circumcision a little bit later on and the fact that Peter himself, even though he stands against their contentions here, even though he gives them a wise and perfect answer by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we see that Peter himself is not a perfect man.

Now, he still has to learn how this actually works and how it is actually to be applied in Galatians chapter two. In Galatians chapter two, Paul relates a story showing how easy it is to be distracted from Christ by these small things.

And so in Galatians chapter two, we read about Peter in verse 11. Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, and for reference, Antioch is pretty far north of Jerusalem, it became a city where there was a very large church.

Antioch was the very first place in which those who followed Jesus were called Christians, meaning little Christs, and there was a big mixture of Gentiles and Jews in the church at Antioch. And the church in Antioch was very mission-minded, sending out missionaries to plant new churches.

Now, when Peter came to Antioch, Paul says, I withstood him to his face, which is how you're supposed to do it. You don't withstand people behind their back. Jesus said, don't do that, because he was to be blamed.

For before certain men came from James, who was pastor in Jerusalem, before those came from James from Jerusalem, Peter, he would eat with the Gentiles. So he would, just like he did at Cornelius's house, he would sit with the Gentiles and have a great meal with them, and that was fine.

But when they came, when those who were obviously of the circumcision showed up in Antioch, well, then he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those, notice, who were of the circumcision. This isn't all the Christians.

It isn't even all of the Jews who were in the early church. But there was a faction. There was a faction in the early church. Now, I just want to pause here. There are a lot of folks who say the best way to have a good church and the real churches are the ones who are most like the early church.

Dear brother, I don't want all those problems. When you pay attention to what went on in the early church, we realized that they had all the same problems we did, but they didn't have the complete Bible yet.

They had all the same problems we did, but they didn't have personal copies of God's word to study for themselves. They had all the same problems that we have, but they had a whole lot less freedom. So here we have a faction who shows up and Peter himself has proven that he's not of the circumcision faction at all.

But when they show up, they have such influence and power and perhaps cause so much noise that he compromises. Verse 13 says, and the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with them so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

Obviously not Paul. And so what goes on here is that there is some great concern being brought, objections being brought by a faction within the church called those of the circumcision. And they are they are based very much in Jerusalem, in Judea, Jerusalem and Judea.

Well, isn't that providential? You know how the Lord shuts down factions in the church? How the Lord does it? One way he does it, and it's the best possible way, is that he arranges things so that the factions learn to love each other and serve one another.

You know, we're about to read here in the book of Acts, we're about to read that there is a famine in Judea. And all of these very Jewish Christians who were highly concerned about circumcision and observing certain days and customs and a little bit annoyed and getting a heartburn because the Gentile Christians aren't observing any of these things.

You know what's going to happen to all these Christians living in Judea and Jerusalem? Very shortly, there's going to be a famine and they're going to run out of food. They're going to have to try to figure out how we're going to survive.

How are we going to feed our kids? And you know what's going to happen? Well, Saul and Barnabas or Paul and Barnabas are going to go around and gather together financial support and bring it to Judea, bring food to Judea so that those who are suffering will not have to suffer, which is what Christians do.

Is that we love one another and provide for one another in our needs. But do you know where the money was coming from for all this food for the Jewish Christians? It was coming from the Gentile Christians out in Macedonia.

Well, isn't that just like God? I wonder how many in the circumcision faction got real quiet, changed their minds and began to modify their statements and begin to say things way less forcefully than they used to because all of a sudden they realized that their Gentile brothers and sisters were sacrificing to supply their needs.

So even though we're reading about a faction here at the beginning of chapter 11 that is centered in Jerusalem and Judea, and even though there's going to be future controversies concerning it, we already see how God is providing providentially to answer the problem, the need, the division in the church.

But I think the most important observation about the context of this objection is that the news arrived in Judea and at Jerusalem before Peter did. Now, what happens when news arrives that is perhaps troubling, perhaps potent, perhaps full of mystery and intrigue?

And we get a bit of news, but the person that it concerns, I don't get to talk to yet. I haven't got a hold of them yet. I haven't been able to speak with them face to face yet. What happens when we receive that news?

What tends to happen is all manner of imagination and anxiety and consternation. And we begin to put two and two together and get one million. And that's what's going on here. Let's look at the causes, not just the context of the objection, but the causes of the objection.

Obviously, first and foremost, it's the matter of circumcision. Those of the circumcision contended with him saying, you went into uncircumcised men and ate with them. This is their problem with him. Let's turn our Bibles over to Colossians chapter two.

Now, any student of the Bible that was a member of the early Christian church, the most studious out of all of those who were part of the early church were going to be the Jews who grew up in synagogue, who heard the scriptures read to them at their mother's knee and by the rabbi week after week after week.

The culture was to...the Pharisees literally bound little strips of scripture to their foreheads and to their hands called phylacteries. It was their style. When you grew up, you were to memorize all manner of passages of scripture to know who you were as a Jew chosen by God.

God was in covenant with you. There were responsibilities and needs. Circumcision was first and foremost. When Paul was listing all of his credentials about how important he was in his former life, in Philippians chapter three, he mentions that he was circumcised the eighth day.

That was a big deal. It was your identity. To be circumcised was to be identified as one of God's covenant people. And in the scriptures, it clearly states that if you were not circumcised, then you were to be cast out of the nation, cast out of the people.

And so you can possibly understand that the early Christians, who most of them were Jews, as we saw that thousands and thousands of Jews came to faith in Jesus Christ and rejoiced in his truth. And they certainly left off things like offering sacrifices in the temple, and they began to move away from some of the other customs that they had.

However, many of them could not even conceive of being the people of God and saved and inheriting all of the blessings promised through Christ unless you were circumcised. They couldn't even conceive of a category other than that.

But there's a circumcision that's better than the circumcision. There's a circumcision that's better than the old circumcision. And this is what Paul writes about in Colossians 2. In verse 11, he says,.

So remember, it's not about whether or not you are in Israel. That's the old covenant shadow. What's the new covenant substance? Are you in Israel, Jesus? Are you in Christ? In him, how do you come in?

You are circumcised. See, you can't come in unless you're circumcised.

But how?

In him, you are also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Made without hands.

What is that?

By putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. If any man wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. The old man dies as the new one is born again. How is the old put off?

By the circumcision of Christ, verse 11 concludes. Where'd that old man go?

Verse 12,.

Oh, that kind of baptism. Jesus, in the gospel of Luke, set his face like flint towards Jerusalem. And even though Peter tried to tell him, you don't have to go and suffer. He said, get behind me, Satan.

I'm going. This is the will of my father. And he was heading towards Jerusalem. And he turned to his disciples and said, I have a baptism yet to undergo. And how I desire it to be accomplished. Well, he had already been baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.

What baptism is he talking about? He's talking about his death, burial and resurrection. Hence the symbol, hence the ordinance that has been given to us. So buried with him by faith, raised with him by faith.

Verse 13,. See, your flesh was circumcised. Your old man was put away in the death of Christ. And by being raised with Christ in his resurrection, you are made alive and you are forgiven all of your trespasses.

Listen, how forgiven are you? How forgiven are you? Forgiving you all trespasses. Verse 14,.

Look at the scroll.

Unrolled all the commandments of God. Scratched out your offenses before a holy God. Your record of guilt before him. This is your condemnation. And it guarantees an everlasting burning in hell. And it is taken out of the way and it is nailed to the cross.

He became sin who knew no sin. He bore our transgressions upon the cross. And it has been taken out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Has been removed as far away from us and from our Lord as the east is from the west.

He is not only is our atoning sacrifice, the blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat in the holy of holies, the true holy of holies, but he is also the scapegoat upon whom all of our sins are placed. And he is taken away, never to be seen again.

Verse 15,. So how do you get in? How do you be a part of the people of God? That's the concern of the group called the circumcision in Acts chapter 11 that Peter has gone and eaten and fellowshiped with and welcomed and embraced uncircumcised people, the Gentiles.

Those ethnic groups that are not Jewish, thus not caught up in the customs of their divinely ordained covenant.

Hmm.

So, Paul knows that's the issue. Peter learns over time that's the issue. Well, do we need circumcision? You bet we do. We need circumcision. If we're going to be in, we're going to be a part of the people of God, welcomed before the face of God.

But if you need anything to be in the people of God, if you need anything to be welcomed to the presence of God, if you need anything to receive the smile of God as he looks upon you, there's only one person to whom you need to look to find that, and that's Jesus Christ.

Do you need any kind of Jewishness? Go find it in Jesus. Do you need any kind of circumcision? Go find it in Jesus. Look to him. He's our only Savior. Now, this has an impact, therefore, on the customs.

Now, when you go to eat in a Gentile's home as a Jew, you're likely to find there all manner of items on the menu that you're not allowed to eat. Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy are very clear on the matter.

And so what was Peter eating there? Who knows how unclean and filthy Peter is, ungodly, unholy Peter coming back to Jerusalem. You look there in Acts, and he comes up to Jerusalem. They're like, stay away, unclean.

What are you doing?

You're going to defile us. Well, it was not about whether you're in Israel, but whether you're in Christ. What about all those customs? What about all those things that you were supposed to do to manifest and reveal and to foreshadow the cleanliness and holiness and majesty and glory of the coming Messiah?

All those things that the Jews were called to do. Remember what Jesus did when he came by a wedding in Cana and found massive water pots outside the entryway where you're supposed to do all your ceremonial cleansing?

What did he do to all that ceremonial cleansing water? Turned it into wine. Welcome to the new covenant. What does Paul say in Colossians 2 verse 16? So let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

The word substance means body. So you can think of it in two ways. You think of the light of God's revelation shining upon Jesus Christ and it casts a shadow throughout the entirety of the old covenant.

It may look strange, shadows often do, but wherever you find that shadow, trace it straight to the feet of the one to whom it belongs. You can also think of this word body, and it's used in other places of heavenly bodies like the sun.

It's been written somewhere, I think by James Jordan, that the old covenant was at night and the new covenant is at day. There were the sun, moon and stars, the lesser to govern the night and the greater to govern the day.

The one moves into the other. As you move from night to day, what time is it? It's called dawn, isn't it? You know, even when the sun comes up and it's bright outside, you know what you find up in the sky sometimes?

You find the moon, don't you? What's the moon doing up? It's day. My kids ask that all the time. The moon's not doing its job. Why is it still up there? Well, it might be up there to remind us there's a greater glory and a lesser glory.

And what are these men of the circumcision doing? Are they not walking in the light of Christ? Oh, they had the light of Christ. They're saints, they're brothers, they believe in Jesus. But you know what they're doing when Peter gets back from Caesarea?

They're pointing at the moon. It's like, brother, what about the moon, the moon?

You ate with uncircumcised men.

What are you doing?

Look at the moon.

Peter's going to preach to them about the sun. Well, it wasn't just that there was circumcision and the customs that made up the old covenant that was so near and dear to these brothers who had grown up that way.

And they treasured these things. There's provisions in the scripture, for instance, in Romans 14, about people who have treasured customs and treasured days and how we're to bear with one another and accept one another in Christ.

But it wasn't just that, you see. Back in Acts chapter 11, we read in verse 2, and when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him. Contended with him. The verb is placed in a certain tense that means that they were doing it over and over again.

This was something, you're not meeting a puddle, you're meeting a stream, a brook. This is something that was ongoing. It wasn't that they were simply contending, they were contending because they were contentious.

This was their way.

This was their way. And they might have a sour disposition, and they might be overly burdened, and they might have a lot of indigestion because they're still trying to figure out what to do with all their old covenant trappings in a new covenant world.

They might be trying to figure out why the new patch on the old garment keeps on shredding the old garment. They're trying to figure out, well, why is it that the new wine keeps busting up my old wine skins?

And they're having all kinds of problems, and they're being contentious. Now they're being contentious with Peter. In Titus chapter 3 verse 9,.

Paul says to Titus,.

Instructing him on how to do ministry there on the island of Crete,.

He says,.

But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.

Why?

For they are unprofitable and useless. Well, these are a bunch of Cretans. I mean, they got a hold of the Old Testament now. And they're going to talk about genealogies and going to find secret knowledge in the genealogies, and they're going to find this aspect or that aspect of the law.

And they say, well, you know, you didn't circumcise your child the eighth day. It was the ninth day, and my kids are circumcised the eighth day. Yeah, but the eighth day was the Sabbath, and so on and so on and so on.

And Paul says that this is foolishness. This is unprofitable. But not just because they were contentious, but also because they were careless. Let's go back to this issue of not having all the information.

Why was their so-called godly, I have the moral high ground, I'm more biblical than you, style of complaining and grousing going on in this situation? It was because they didn't let Peter tell them what happened.

They told Peter what happened, and they didn't know. Well, it's true, isn't it? He did eat with Gentiles. He did go into uncircumcised men and eat with them, didn't he? Yes, that's true. But that's not true.

Not the way they mean it. See, they were careless. Proverbs 18, 17 has some sage wisdom for us.

It says,.

The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. So they got the news. The Word of God went to the Gentiles.

And they believed it.

And Peter was there. He was in a Gentile house, eating Gentile food, and he baptized these Gentiles. The Gentiles are now part of the church. And they go ballistic. No, this cannot be. But they didn't know the whole story.

They didn't know about the vision that Cornelius was given and that Peter was given, and about the witnesses who saw what happened and the Holy Spirit coming down and anointing the Gentiles and the preaching of the gospel and the salvation of the lost.

They didn't know about all of those details that Peter is about to set before them. So let's beware of so-called godly grousing. You know, there are contentions worth having. There are things about which we cannot simply say, oh well.

It would not be loving to try to cover all kinds of sin. Multitude, yes, but not every single kind. And we need to make a stand about some of the uns. How do we know if it's too small a thing? Well, as the Lord wills, when we look at verses 4 through the rest of the passage, we're going to see that Peter, as he deals with their contention and their objection, he shines the light of Christ on the matter to see what remains.

The only contentions worth striving over are those which survive the blazing glare of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If it's still there after he looks at it, then it's there. And it must be dealt with.

And it's an opportunity to do something for his glory. And it will be gold, silver, and precious stones. But if it's not, then it's just wood, hay, and stubble. And we're complaining about too small a thing.

John says in Revelation 1 verse 12,. And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, in the midst of the churches, is the head of the church, one like the son of man, Daniel's language for the king of the kingdom, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace. And his voice was as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars.

And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, the word of God. And his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. Does your contention survive that, or does it melt away? I would say, speaking from personal experience, most of it melts away.

And even when I think I have a contention, you bring it before the holy gaze of Jesus Christ, and you bring the word of God to bear with all the weight of Jesus' glory upon it. And even if there is a nugget of a real contention there, there's a whole bunch that burns off before you get down to it.

Oh, we need to make a stand. We need to stand for what is right. But let's make sure we're not complaining about too small a thing. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the time that you've given to us in your word.

Lord, I know I needed this passage and these reflections in my own life. I pray that you would help us to rejoice in the truth of your word. Lord, we recall your promises. We recall the hope that we have in Christ, and ask that you would help us to love one another as you have loved us.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.