What God Has Made Clean

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John chapter 13 verses 31 -35.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in

Him.

If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself and glorify Him at once.

Little children, yet a little while I am with you.

You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going you

cannot come.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

In the name of Jesus.

Now this morning if you want to look on in your pew Bible you can.

We're going to be looking at our first reading from Acts chapter 11.

This is a misunderstood text.

There are a lot of people who think that this is the text the one where Jesus blessed bacon.

Now, I want everybody to know, I think bacon is its own animal.

I'm pretty sure of that.

There's bacon running around out there somewhere.

Someone's farming bacon.

Now I assure you as Christians we are not forbidden from eating bacon, but this text isn't about God

making bacon clean, or lobster, or shrimp.

Okay, sorry.

My apologies.

My apologies.

I digress.

I enjoy such wonderful foods.

Anyway, but our text today is a little bit complicated also.

And so we're going to have to get a few things settled before we dive in proper.

And I thought to kind of help us sort some of the categories out that are in this text that we would play

the opposite game.

Now here's how we play the opposite game.

I'm going to say a word and you need to tell me its opposite.

Pretty straight forward.

Are you ready?

Here it is.

Here's the first word.

Light.

You guys are great.

Up.

Left.

Man, you guys are smart.

Now, that was the warm up.

Here's the tough one.

In our text in Acts 11, we see the word common.

What's its opposite in that text?

What did you say?

Unique.

Good guess.

The answer is no, by the way.

By the way, by kind of a bunny trail here, literally, how do you catch a unique rabbit?

Unique up on it.

There you go.

Unique is not the opposite of common in this text.

Let's take a look at the text itself.

There in the passage it says what God has made clean do not call

common.

Now do you want to take a stab at it?

What's the opposite of common there?

Clean.

Now, I think it's interesting that our ESV Bibles there translate the word kanao

as, well, common.

There's a couple of ways you can translate the word.

It could be common.

It could be defiled.

It could be unholy.

You're kind of seeing how the synonyms are kind of helping you flesh this out.

If you think of it this way, in the Old Testament, if you ever read through the book of Leviticus, in fact, if you're reading along this

week in the Word that you find in your bulletin,

we're in the book of Leviticus, and there's some dry gravely parts in there where you're learning about skin diseases and things like that.

Well, if you have a skin disease in the Old Testament, you were considered unclean, and you had to

go and present yourself to the priest.

It's like, hey, priest, I've got a rash here.

It's like, oh, this is the worst part of my job ever.

All right, come on, show me your rash.

He's like, all right, you're unclean.

You can't come to church for a while.

And then once it looks like it's getting healed, you go show the priest, hey, remember that rash I had?

Yeah.

All right, can I show it to you again?

Yeah.

All right.

Here, take a look.

Okay.

And he says to you, clean.

Clean, unclean.

Think in the categories of holy and unholy.

These are your kind of categories that we're dealing with here.

All of this is foundation, and with that now is kind of like a framework for how to

attack this text.

We're going to understand that who or what is being made clean in this

passage is really vitally important.

In fact, understanding the truth of who or what is being made clean is going to change everything.

All right, so we're going to return to our text, verse 1, Acts 11.

Now, the apostles and brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the

Gentiles also had received the word of God.

Do you get the feeling like we're jumping into the middle of a story here?

Well, we are.

Now, if you've ever read through the book of Acts, you'll notice that Acts 10 and Acts 11, they

sound a lot alike.

In fact, it's almost as if the Holy Spirit has a department of redundancy department that put the two

passages next to each other.

Well, in chapter 10 you have the account itself, the historical narrative of the very, very

first Gentiles to believe in Jesus.

Up to this point, Christianity was the thoroughgoing Jewish thing.

All of the believers were in some way related to Abraham, and we find out in our

text that we're going to look at today that there was a man -made rule, a

man -made law that was contradicting the gospel and

bottlenecking the gospel so that the gospel wasn't getting out to the world.

The man -made law was in the way, and God had to intervene.

So, in chapter 10, we have the story of the very first Gentile believer, that's the

Roman centurion, whose name is Cornelius, and he and his family are brought to

independence and faith in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized, and now Peter gets to

go and report what's happening.

I guess what happened, guys?

Gentiles are now believing in Jesus.

But we read here, so when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the

circumcision party criticized him, saying, you went to

uncircumcised men and you ate with them.

Do you get the feeling that the circumcision party totally missed the point here?

Hello?

Gentiles are believing in Jesus, you ate with Gentiles.

See the problem here?

So notice their charge.

You went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them.

By the way, Jesus received almost this exact same kind of criticism.

In Mark chapter 2, verses 15 through 17, we read, as Jesus reclined at the table, I think this

is Levi, the tax collector's house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples,

for there were many who followed him.

And the scribes and the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors,

note to self here, Pharisees and scribes are sinners too.

But when they saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, why does he eat with tax

collectors and sinners?

And when Jesus heard this, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those

who are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

In other words, if you ain't one of them, Jesus ain't got nothing for you.

If you ain't a sinner, you don't need Jesus.

He didn't come for those who are healthy.

He came for those who are sick.

In other words, Jesus didn't come to call the clean.

He came to call the common, for the defiled, for the unholy.

Now, another note here, this in our reading of Acts 11, this is the first appearance

after Jesus' resurrection of the circumcision party.

In the scripture, this is their first appearance, and this won't be their last.

Again, here's their charge, you went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them, so here's the

question, you already know the answer to this, where in the Old Testament does it say that Jews cannot eat with someone who is

uncircumcised?

It doesn't say that anywhere in the Old Testament.

In Acts chapter 10, the previous chapter, when Peter shows up at Cornelius' house, he says this,

you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of

another nation.

Peter recognizes that it's unlawful, but unlawful according to whom?

God?

No.

This is not a biblical law.

This law is from the scribes and the Pharisees.

Remember in Mark chapter 7, the scribes and Pharisees had that little law about washing

your hands when you come into the house after you've been among the Gentiles, right?

And they criticized Jesus' disciples and Jesus himself because they didn't observe that law.

That law was part of the corpus or the body called the tradition of the elders.

And Jesus roundly criticized them saying, you are teaching as doctrines the commandments

of men.

And now we've got a problem, because we're seeing here in our text that there are Christians

who are doing the same thing.

So this man -made scribal law, let me give you a little bit of background here because it's fascinating.

This scribal law said that the dwelling places of Gentiles were, here's this word again,

unclean or common.

This is what they said.

Now if you remember when Jesus is on trial in the Gospel of John, we get this little tidbit, when they had led Jesus from

the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters, it was early morning.

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters.

This is Pilate's house, right?

So that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.

Remember that?

So Jesus is on trial, we had our little puppet trial over here at Caiaphas' house, so now we're taking

Jesus over to Pilate's house, and they would only come to the door.

They wouldn't go any farther than the door.

You go on in, Jesus.

We can't go in, right?

You think, where are they getting this idea from?

Because it's not found in the Bible.

It's not in the Old Testament.

Now according to the scribes and Pharisees, this is kind of also fascinating, fun little twist here.

According to their man -made laws, they claimed that the dirt from a Gentile country was also considered

unclean.

So if anyone happened to track some dirt in from a Gentile nation, that dirt remained

defiled and it never, according to them, actually ever mingled with Israel's soil.

It just continually defiled the dirt of Israel.

Consequently, whenever travelers left a Gentile country, like if they were up in Syria or coming through Samaria,

they would always shake the dust off their feet so they wouldn't bring Gentile pollution into

Israel.

Okay?

Interesting little note.

So that gives us a little bit of what's going on here.

When Jesus, in Matthew chapter 10, he sends out the 72 to preach the gospel, right?

And he says if they don't listen to you, if they don't repent and believe in me, you know what you're to do to these

Jewish towns?

Shake the dust off your feet.

Treat them like they're Gentiles.

So Jesus takes their man -made laws and just like flips it and throws it right back in their face.

You gotta love Jesus.

Anyway, all of that's just a little bit historical note right here.

So, coming back to our point.

As is often the case with man -made laws, they end up conflicting

with the gospel itself.

They do.

We see an example of this very clearly in Galatians chapter 2, where we also run

into the circumcision party.

If you want to flip over, it's Galatians chapter 2.

I'll start at verse 1 and take a look at two portions of this chapter.

Here's what it says.

Paul, talking after his conversion, says, I went up again to Jerusalem with

Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.

I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately, before those who seemed influential, the

gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.

A little interesting note.

He then says this, but even Titus, who was with me, Titus is a person who was a

Gentile before becoming a Christian, was not forced to be circumcised though he was a Greek.

And listen to how then Paul describes the circumcision party yet because of false brothers

secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they

might bring us into slavery.

To them we did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the truth of the

gospel might be preserved for you.

So notice here, Paul literally is modeling for us those who are inventing

man -made laws that are conflicting with the gospel.

We are not to yield to them in submission even for a moment for the sake of the gospel.

You don't compromise with those who are inventing dogmas and saying you have to obey the rule I just came up with

because often it's going to end up conflicting with the gospel.

And verse 11, it actually starting from there, you'll see it.

It's very explicitly stated.

Here's what it says starting at verse 11.

So when Cephas came from Antioch, that's the apostle Peter, I opposed him to his face.

Whoops, there goes the idea of an infallible pope.

Anyway, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.

For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles.

But when they came, he drew back and he separated himself, fearing here's that party again, the

circumcision party.

Now I don't know about you, but a circumcision party doesn't sound like a party I'd ever want to go to.

Okay, but when they show up, they show up,

Peter who had been eating with the Gentiles all of a sudden kind of backs up and he takes a breath mint, puts it in his mouth,

hoping they'll never taste the bacon on his breath or smell it, right?

So Paul says this, and the rest of the Jews, they acted hypocritically along with him so that even Barnabas

was led astray by their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel,

notice this behavior is absolutely antithetical and the opposite of how

we are to behave and treat each other according to the gospel.

When I saw that their conduct was not in step with the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, if you

though a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force Gentiles

to live like Jews?

He goes on, but you kind of get the point, right?

So Paul explicitly states there that their conduct was contrary to the gospel

and it's because of this law that we're looking at in Acts 11.

You can't eat with Gentiles.

Well, as is often the case, God has a way of weighing in, if you would.

It's as if Jesus Christ is actually the head of the church.

And when people try to usurp their authority and by doing so subvert what He's

commanded us to do so clearly, He intervenes.

He intercedes.

Because remember this.

Remember the Great Commission?

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

Jesus was pretty clear.

If Jesus were like one of those stern, firm, southern dads, He might say something to the effect

of, what part of all are you guys not getting?

Right?

But Jesus isn't like that.

But anyway, you kind of get the point, right?

So, this rule is contrary to the gospel and it's causing Jesus'

clear command to preach the gospel to all nations to not be happening.

So we return now back to Acts 11.

So Peter's called on the carpet.

Good news, guys.

Gentiles are believing in Jesus.

Rather than praise the Lord, you wait with Gentiles.

So Peter began and explained it to them in order.

Alright, guys.

I was in the city of Joppa.

I was 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, beasts of prey, reptiles,

bacon, lobster, shrimp, birds of the air.

I put that in there, by the way.

And then 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.

This happened three times.

And all was drawn up again to heaven.

Three times.

Well, let's see what that sounds like.

What God has made clean, do not call common.

What God has made clean, do not call common.

What God has made clean, do not call common.

It's as if the Father has spoken, the Son has spoken, and the Holy Spirit has all now

spoken.

The Trinity Himself is united.

This man -made law must go.

Keep in mind, Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Which then is really cool, because we then understand this.

The ones who have been made clean are not the shrimp, the lobster,

and the bacons.

The ones who have been made clean are you and me.

And that makes the difference of the whole world.

And when we lose sight of this fact as Christians and begin thinking like the circumcision party in

false ways regarding false dichotomies between clean and unclean, holy and

unholy, then we, like them, end up subverting the gospel and impeding the Great Commission.

Now, Dear Abby was not exactly known as an astute theologian.

Just want to make sure you understand this.

I'm not saying you should read her theological works.

But Dear Abby actually said something one time, and here was a quote that she gave.

The church is a hospital for sinners.

It is not a museum for saints.

That's a good quote.

Now, I would tweak it just a little bit.

I would tweak it to say the church is a hospice for sinners.

Not a museum for saints.

Right?

Oftentimes and this is sad, unbelievers will cite as their reason for not coming to church

their belief that, are you ready, the church is full of hypocrites.

Have you ever heard that one?

Yeah, so have I.

Sadly, this can become the case, especially when the good news of the forgiveness of sins

is put on the shelf and then the church becomes a country club or some kind of a spiritual gymnasium

or a place where we end up singing our own praises and pat each other on the back for how holy and sanctified we

are.

And while we thank God that we're not like the other people, you know, those unclean sinners out there.

While we fail to see just how sinful and in need of the forgiveness of sins we are.

I know I am.

Self -righteousness is the root of all of this hypocrisy and the only way that someone can deceive themselves

into believing that they are somehow righteous in and of themselves is because of their

own holy life and thoughts is by actually abandoning God's law and it's killing work and then

substituting it with their own man -made rules and regulations.

Right?

Keep in mind in our gospel text Jesus did not say they will know that we are his disciples if we

don't dance.

That's a man -made law by the way.

Now it may be that the reason why someone doesn't dance is because they're Norwegian.

Right?

Jesus did not say they will know that you are my disciples if you don't drink alcohol.

This again is a man -made law.

Maybe the reason why someone isn't drinking alcohol is because they're a recovering alcoholic or a Mormon.

Or maybe they just don't like the taste of beer.

There's a million different reasons why not to drink alcohol and that is not a sign that you are a Christian.

Or if you don't use tobacco products or if you vote for a particular political party.

I think this year's political season will prove that one to be completely bunk.

Or they'll know that you're Christians if you keep those people out of your church.

I don't know who those people are but it kind of changes from place to place.

Think of yourself living in the South before the end of segregation.

Those people would be God's bled for and died for African Americans.

Right?

And how evil and wicked is that?

Instead we hear from Jesus, a new commandment I give you, that you love one

another just as I have loved you.

And notice this is love grounded in the gospel.

How are we to love each other?

The way Christ has loved us.

How has Christ loved us?

Sacrificially.

By bleeding and dying for us on the cross.

The way the world will know that we are his disciples is if we have that love

for each other.

It's a lot easier to not drink alcohol, isn't it?

Or to not dance.

Or to never smoke.

That's easy.

Having this kind of love for each other how do we say it?

Ufta.

Right?

Yeah.

Let me remind you how Christ has loved us.

Romans 5 says this, for while we were still weak,

while we were still sinners, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

That's me.

That's you.

One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die.

But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

And it's through Christ's blood shed for us on the cross that we who were born common,

born defiled, born unholy, born sinful, sinfully

unclean, it is through Christ's shed blood on the cross that we are made clean by God.

And as forgiven sinners, we can now take the good news of the forgiveness of sins to

everyone.

Everyone.

Because we understand rightly that there is no one as sinful as we are.

And that other people's sins do not defile the righteousness of Christ given to us as a gift.

Self -righteousness teaches us to see ourselves as the ones who have cleaned themselves up, gotten

themselves right with God.

While the gospel teaches us to rightly understand that there is no way for ourselves to clean ourselves up

and that God had to clean us.

And because we have been cleaned by God, we cannot be defiled by someone else.

And where has Christ cleaned you?

Right there.

Right there in the waters of your baptism.

Christ's blood and the water and the word mixed together to wash all of your sins away.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they're made white as wool.

So the gospel, and that's the thing about the gospel, it tears down self

-righteousness and it totally obliterates all of these man -made distinctions.

They don't apply anymore.

And here's the thing.

There's a lot of people who have a lot of power in the church through these man -made distinctions.

And so they will guard these distinctions, well, murderously

if they must.

Coming back to Peter.

Peter says, Behold, at that very moment, three men arrived at the house in which we were

and sent to me from Caesarea, and here's what he says, and the spirit told me to go with

them, making no distinction.

The spirit wouldn't make any distinctions like this and it wasn't.

So you know what Peter's doing?

Hey guys, I know you're upset that I ate with Gentiles, but hey, the spirit made no distinction.

Take it up with God.

That's what he's saying.

So these six brothers also accompanied me.

We entered the man's house.

He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and say, Send a Joppa.

Bring Simon who is called Peter.

He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved.

You and all of your household, including your infants.

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.

And I remember 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, who was I that I could oppose or stand against God?

And when they heard these things, the circumcision party acquiesced.

They were checkmated by God himself.

Their distinction had to fall at least on that day, but don't worry, they'll come back to fight another day, right?

They often do.

So when they heard these things, they fell silent and then they glorified God saying, All right, well, then to the

Gentiles.

Also, God has granted repentance that leads to life and that they got

right.

It is God who grants repentance.

So the reason that God makes no distinction, by the way, why is it that God makes no distinction?

Well, it's quite obvious.

In Romans 3, verse 9, we read, the Apostle Paul says, What then, are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, the whole world,

they're all under sin.

As it is written, none is righteous.

No, not one.

No one understands.

No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one.

Notice verse 22 begins with these words,.

For there is no distinction.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a

gift.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation, an atoning sacrifice by

His blood to be received by faith.

You see, God makes no distinction because what Christ did on the cross wasn't for one group of people.

It wasn't for one group of genetically engineered people or a particular line of descent from

one person.

It was for the whole world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Your sin and mine.

And He is determined to give us this gift of salvation.

And He has sent His pastors and preachers and teachers out into the world

to proclaim to all tribes, all nations, all languages that God was in Christ,

reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men's trespasses against them, so that they would

be saved.

Saved.

And have true eternal life saved from the fires of hell, which we have all deserved.

So we are not look at any group of people, any nation of

people, whether they are white or brown, Muslim or Buddhist

and say, no, not them.

We're not going to share the good news with them or alcoholics, prostitutes, tax

collectors, people who work for the IRS are evil, by the way, right?

We're not to exclude anybody because we all know this.

What God has made clean, we are not to call common.

Christ has bled and died for the sins of the world.

Therefore, as penitent believers who have received this cleaning from

God, we dare not say, not them, because by saying

not them, we run the risk of saying not us.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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