Acts
11:1-3 (NIV)
1 The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the
Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up
to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said,
"You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."
It has been seven years at least since Jesus
ascended into heaven and the church and her leaders are still in Jerusalem with
only one exception, the Apostle Peter. You remember the great commission given
to the church in Matthew 28:19-20 was to reach the ends of the earth and
include every ethnic group and language under the sun.
If this is the case why are the leaders still
in Jerusalem? Comfort and known surroundings can keep the church from being
what she is supposed to be. I think it may have been something like this in
Jerusalem. So God did what he had to get the church outside of her walls. We
call it persecution, but God calls it his sending strategy. (Check out Acts
8:1-4)
In our text today we find Peter, the apostle,
sharing his mission experience with the elders from Jerusalem. The elders had
heard that an entire household family of gentiles had come to faith in Christ
so they had to find out what was happening. When they arrived they had some
fairly sharp words for Peter.
"You went to the house of the
uncircumcised and ate with them?" This was most offensive to the elders.
How could anyone go beyond the Jewish nation? Wasn't the gospel for the Jews
only?"
The leaders of the early church actually
thought they were protecting the gospel when, in fact, they were serving as a
destructive poison to the gospel. The gospel is meant to be shared and
proclaimed to a lost a dying world. When the gospel is contained behind the
walls of the church it ceases to be the gospel.
When those who belong to Christ go beyond
their comfort zones and follow Christ to the unreached peoples of the world it
then is free to do what it was meant to do, convert the lost and demonstrate
God's glory to his children.
May you go about your work today with this in
mind, God has given you his gospel to share and it is his plan that you speak
of Christ as you go about your daily routines. Let us open our eyes to those
right around us who need to hear a word from God today.
May the Lord make you bold enough to share
His truth with those you see today
Pastor Phil