Again, to the scripture in the first epistle of John, chapter 3, verses 1 through 3, and this is what God says, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the word know us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that had this hope in him purified himself, even as he is pure." Amen. This text remind us that Although we need to follow the commandments of God, the law of God, to please our Lord in response to our salvation, our salvation is dependent only in the works of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. By His grace, we are saved. And now, following in His steps, we will become pure like He is pure. We will purify ourselves in order to please Him. Let's pray. to our God. Let's open our Bibles now in the book of Acts, chapter 11. Our sermon today will cover chapter 11, verses 1 through 18. The book of Acts, chapter 11, verses 1 through 18. Acts 11, beginning in verse one. This is the word of the living God, and he speaks to his church by saying, and the apostles and betraying that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, They that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest into men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, a certain vessel descend, and it had been a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners, and it came even to me. Upon the which, when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered and saw four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and foals of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter, slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord. For nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. But a voice answered me again from heaven, what God hath cleansed that call not thou common. And this was done three times, and all were drawn up again in heaven. And behold, immediately, There were three men already come unto the house of where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me, and the spirit bade me go with them. Nothing doubting, moreover, these six between accompanied me and were entering to the man's house. And he shew up how the had seen an angel in his house. which stood, and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call from Simon, whose surname is Peter. Who shall tell these words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be served? And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remember, the word of the Lord, how that he say, John indeed baptized with water, but he shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. For as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, They heard their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then had God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. Amen. Let's pray once again, and then we will meditate in the Scripture. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the Word of God. Thank you for the prophecies, for the teaching of the Scripture. And we ask you, God, that may the Holy Ghost will teach us now, opening our hearts and eyes and ears to listen to you and to see your greatness. And may we will change according to the gospel, and we will become more like Jesus Christ. Help us in this matter, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. We are in a very important chapter of the book of Acts, I'm expounding the Book of Acts in my congregation in Grand Rapids, Walker, URC, for a long time now. And this is one of the chapters that most call my attention because it's very important for the Church of Jesus Christ for all the times. Until this point in the Book of Acts, we saw many miracles and many great things happening among the Apostles and among the Church of Jesus Christ. We saw deaths coming to life. We saw blinds starting to see. We saw people who were completely against the gospel becoming converted to the gospel, like Paul, who was a murderer. and then became one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. We saw a church who start with 120 people in Jerusalem, receiving the Holy Ghost. And in many two or three years, they were already more than 10,000. And they were spreading around the world and not only in Jerusalem, because under persecution, the church were growing and growing more and more and more. All of this is happening in this Gospel, in this book, the Book of Acts, and we definitely can see the works of the Holy Spirit among them. We can see the Holy Spirit guiding them. We can see the Holy Spirit using them. We can see the Holy Ghost showing his power and his gracious love to many people that we never imagined before. And among all these signs and miracles and great things, we come to chapter 11, in a situation that Peter was in face of a trial in Jerusalem. Peter, in chapter 10 especially, he were starting a missionary trip. Many people think that only Paul made mission trips, but no, Peter also did one at least. And in this mission trip, he was used by the Holy Spirit in a different way and to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. This is the main point that we will see in chapter 11. Peter was facing many situations that were completely unexplained by reason. He was facing situations that we cannot understand under the logic of this Word. And that happened because the Holy Spirit was completely changing his idea of the meaning of the gospel and the meaning of what is the church of Jesus Christ, not only for him, but also for the whole church in Jerusalem and everywhere else in the Roman Empire. The idea here is that they were growing among the Jews because they thought the gospel was for the Jews, but then they are realizing now that God is expanding the gospel to all the people in all the earth. And that's what we will cover here in chapter 11. Peter came back from this trip. He was in Jerusalem. And verse number one says that when he arrived, the notice about what did happen with the Gentiles already came to Jerusalem. They already knew what did happen there. And they were completely confused because they heard that Gentiles had also received the Word of God. And for them, this was something that they never saw before, they could not explain. And then we see in the first part of these verses, verses one through three, Peter being questioned because of this. We need to understand precisely what is happening in these three verses. Otherwise, we will not understand the huge message that the Holy Spirit is trying to teach for the believers in this chapter. In verse 2, we will see that those in the party of the circumcision, they were giving problems to Peter. Remember, Peter was one of the apostles and he was already being argued against his decisions and about what the Holy Spirit was doing against him. Probably this verse is one that the Roman Church doesn't like to see because here we see Peter being questioned by regular members of the congregation. There is no one especially in the kingdom of God and this is what we learn also from this text. Everyone who is acting against the scripture, they should move back and return to what God is teaching to the church, and that includes Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. But Peter, I believe, and I think you will come to the same result, he was right in this matter. But the people of the circumcision, they were completely lost because they could not accept that someone that were never circumcised before, they could be part of the Church of Jesus Christ. The gospel is for the Jews. Maybe they had their past like in the Pharisees, maybe they learned with them, maybe they were still Christian, Jew, something like this, but they were completely lost. So they brought two accusations to Peter. They brought two situations that they could accuse him for a sin against God. And of course, they were thinking about what Leviticus teach to the church, the rules that God gave to the Jewish people in the book of Leviticus. And here they said, accusing him that he entered into uncircumcised houses. He went to them, into their houses, which was a sin for the Jews, and he ate with them, which was another sin for the Jews. A lot of things are basing these accusations, but explaining in a short term, the idea is that when a Jew or when a Christian, they went to a Gentile house, they will probably, for example, eat, food who could be offered for idols? This is another question that will be answered also in this situation. They could agree with their cult. They could partake in prayers or situations that will not glorify God and was forbidden basically to protect the people of God from other influences and from the idolatry existed among the Gentiles. So, the circumcision party, they were saying, you commit grave sin, two grave sins. You wentest into men uncircumcised and didst eat with them. But these two accusations, they are not what really was bothering the circumcision party. The most important thing here is to identify that their problem is that Gentiles were receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ. They could not accept the fact that a Gentile could be part of the church. They could not accept the fact that people who never had the background of the Jewish people, they could partake in the same meeting, they could live in the same kingdom, the kingdom of God, and they could receive the same benefits, salvation and life from Jesus Christ, the Lord. So this was the main thing in these people's heart. And how can we understand that this was the main thing? Because Peter then will start to explain verses 4 through 15. He will defend himself against these accusations. But the goal of Peter is not to defend himself about going to a Gentile house or eating with a Gentile. He's showing in the rest of this text how the Holy Ghost was saving Gentiles for Christ. And by doing this, he brought two situations specifically who were already teached and explained two times in chapter 10. So here, it's the third time that the same situations will be explained in two chapters of the scripture. And we need to learn that when the scripture repeats something a lot, it's because this is very meaningful for the scripture. The Holy Spirit is really willing to teach us something through these situations. And being the third time, we need to pay attention in what God wants to teach by those things. So first, Peter will speak about his vision. his vision, which happened in a house when he was in Joppa. He saw a vision. We already read this vision. I will not go through every detail of this vision. We don't have enough time for all of this here, but the main idea is God Through this vision, he made Peter see a sheet coming from heaven. And on this thing, God offered him all kinds of foods that God created. It's very interesting because these four Animals, kinds of animals, they follow the sequence that we find in Genesis in the creation of God, which explains that God is offering everything he made. all the creation. And the idea here is that God was including things that were not allowed for the Jews, according Leviticus again, to eat. They could not eat those things because they were forbidden and being forbidden, a Jew would ever reject to eat any of those things. But in this vision, God is saying something to Peter that he was never waiting to listen to. God said to him, kill and eat. Take the food, prepared and food, and eat this food. And Peter, maybe he thought he was being tested by God, but he clearly said, not so Lord. I will not eat this food because they are forbidden for us. We are not allowed to eat. This is in verse eight. We are not allowed to eat nothing common or clean. I've never ate before and I will not eat now. But for three times, God said, hey, Peter, what I say it's clean, it's clean. Kill and eat. And for three times he said, I will not eat. So if we go back to chapter 10, we will see a Peter very confused because he was trying to understand the meaning of that vision. He could never understand the meaning of that vision without the following acts that happened after that. He was in his, in the upper room there, completely lost. He was, thinking and meditating why God was saying to him, kill and eat. He was completely lost in this situation. But then he continues the story saying, and when that happened, after that happened, someone immediately came to the house that I were, and they called me to go to Caesarea. They came from there, they spoke about a man in Caesarea who had a vision of an angel, and he came here to call Peter, Simon, who was called Peter, to go with them. And something that was clear now is that he says, the Spirit told me to go. So the vision was confused, but the invitation to go to Caesarea was not confused. He was saying, I have no doubt that I should go with these men. They were Gentiles, that's a fact, but the Holy Spirit confirmed with me that I should follow them and go with them. And then, of course, finally he obeyed the spirit and he went to them into a man's house. And when he went to this man's house, He realized that there were more to be seen there. This man, he started to speak how an angel came to him, appeared to him, and this angel guide him to get Peter there. Well, it's very strange that we are seeing an angel appearing for a Gentile telling him to bring one of the apostles to his house from a big distance. Like, why not did the angel just speak with him, spoke with him what he was willing to say? Peter was so important that the angel sent this man to send people from other city to bring him back to say something? Apparently, yes. The angel of God was a messenger of God to bring the people of God to fulfill their mission. And this is another important thing in this text. God could preach the gospel to the whole world using his angels or just speaking to everyone's heart. But he choose his church to fulfill this mission. Uh, and he gave this mission to all of us. And that's why Peter was important in this matter, because, uh, someone from God, a son of God, uh, actual, uh, child of God, they, he should go to Cornelius house to speak the true of the gospel for these men. So the Holy Spirit will work through the preaching of the gospel. And these men will be converted to Christ. The angel could say, for sure, the angel knew the gospel, of course, but God uses his people. So, if we don't do anything related to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, don't expect that angels will do in our place. It's our mission, and we must fulfill our mission to praise and to please our God. But then Peter says what did happen there. The man explained the vision again. He teach it about everything that God said to him. And then Peter, after listening this, he start to Preach, and it's very interesting if you have time in this afternoon, for example, you could cover chapter 10 verses 34 through 43. You see the gospel being highlighted in a beautiful way. It's a very specific sermon that Peter uses. He always followed this pattern with seven important things that he really believes. It's very important when we are preaching the gospel. We have this here. We have this in the other two preachings of Peter in the beginning of the book of Acts, chapters 3 and 5. And the pattern is the same. But the most important thing in this situation is that while he was preaching, something stopped his preaching. And this is amazing. The preacher didn't finish his sermon. Peter was full of words to teach and to speak about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if we move back to chapter 10, verse 44, we'll see that while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. the Holy Ghost interrupt the preaching. And instead of letting them learn more and more, the Holy Ghost visited them in a way that was comparable only with Acts 2, which is the Pentecost. So there the Jewish people they received the Holy Spirit and now the Gentiles they received the Holy Spirit in the same way. Verse 46 will say, For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God, then answered Peter, and he baptized all of them." So the tongue sign, the Holy Spirit coming upon the believers, these signs, they were very specific to show that the glories of the Holy Spirit, expounding the gospel to other people, to bringing other people to God, to showing that the gospel should not stay only in Jerusalem, but also should go to other parts. And of course, Peter, he identified immediately, and we move back to chapter 11, verse 16, The words of his Lord Jesus Christ saying, John indeed baptized with water, but he shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. And then he's showing that actually he was not doing anything by himself. He was being guided by the Trinity. I don't know if you identify the Trinity here, but Peter is showing the Trinity. First, the Father gives him a vision. Then the Holy Spirit shows him what to do. Go to Joppa, go to Caesarea, preach to them. They need to learn the gospels from you to be saved. and now the Jesus Christ guiding him saying baptize them because they have the Holy Spirit they are the people of God. So the Trinity is involved in all of these to show to these people that the gospel is not only for a people but for all the humankind. And this is what we will see in the last part of these verses, point three, verses 16 through 18, Peter's submission to God. Peter, like the circumcision party, he was being against, opposed to Gentiles coming to God. He was reluctant about everything that was happening. He rejects to eat that food which was representing the inclusion of Gentiles to the people of God. But everything here will be connected because the Holy Ghost was showing something that could not be contested. They receive the third person of the Trinity. And that matters a lot. That's very important for the understanding of the purpose of God for the people of God. Then in verse 17, we see Peter arguing, for as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God? Peter is recognizing something that all the believers in Jerusalem, they should also recognize. God is teaching us something. God is guiding us to a place. God is revealing his will. We cannot fight against God, Peter was saying. If God is teaching that Gentiles should be included into the people of God, He will not be against God. He will not reject the gospel, the teaching of the Holy Spirit. He will never do anything against their Lord and their Savior. So he just said well they must be baptized and he baptized all of them and they were received in the people of God and they are part of the kingdom of God and they are brothers and sisters like everyone else and they have all the benefits of their salvation and Jesus Christ is their Lord Everything is together, it's connected. It's one people and this people is made with tribes of all nations, with people that speak every kind of different tongues, people from all the parts of the world. They're all connected together into the name of Jesus Christ. And it's funny, the result of this here that happened in the first century, it's here now. We came from nations that should never receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not Jews. We are from many parts of the world. We have many kinds of different tongues. And here in America, More than 2,000 years later, we are the result of the teaching of this same teaching. The gospel is for everyone, and they will submit themselves to God. What is interesting here, is that in verse 18, when we look to this teaching, when we identify the result of Peter's defense and the result of his submission, we see the people of Jerusalem following Peter in his decisions. Instead of continue to be opposed of that, instead of saying, no, you are wrong, all of this, it were invented, like we should never include the Gentiles, they are uncircumcised. Instead of all of this, the scripture says that they hold their peace. In other versions, and I think the Greek brings this idea to they stay in silence. They could not say anything. They could not bring any word against the works that the Holy Spirit was showing to them. How can them, any of them, just say, well, we reject them. It doesn't matter if the Holy Spirit is also upon them. It's impossible. Can you see? How could they say, ah, this is an invention of man? They saw the results of those things. These men, these Gentiles, they became the people of God. They follow Jesus Christ. They start to pray. They start to proclaim the name of the Lord. They confess the name of Jesus Christ as their only Savior. They were together with every Christian with the same gospel, with the same salvation. So instead of fighting against this, they hold their peace and they glorify God because they saw that God was also granting repentance unto life to Gentiles. And this is a miracle until today. I don't know if you realize the meaning of this, but these verses, this chapter 11, it doesn't bring more great signs. There is nothing amazing here besides what we learned from what happened in the past. But something new is being presented here and that is salvation is being granted to Gentiles. Until today, this is the most biggest miracle that we can find in the face of the earth. We are not seeing people who never walked, starting to walk before. We are not seeing blinds being healed. We are not seeing people coming out of the grave. Those signs, they are not happening around us anymore. But the biggest miracle that the scripture shows is still happening around us. When someone who was a slave of the devil, someone who was a slave from their traditions, their culture, they were against God. They were living a life completely opposed to the commandments of God. They were rejecting the creator of the universe. They were living their lives as they want. They had their own gods or they were themselves their own God, when they bow down to Christ, after listening the preaching of the gospel, and they become part of the people of God, when they receive the Holy Spirit, and this is happening everywhere today, this is the real miracle of all the generations. when an unbeliever starts to believe and their lives are completely changed forever. I don't know if you already saw that. clearly in your life, maybe with your children coming to Christ, living a godly life, maybe through your preaching of the gospel, but there is no other biggest miracle than an unbeliever coming to God's presence. I don't know how many times I saw that, and every time I see, I recognize the real power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other power like this. There is nothing comparable to what the Holy Spirit can do in someone's heart. People that hate God, are now willing to give their lives to the glory of Christ. That's amazing, and that's a miracle, and that's a miracle until today. Let's apply this, all of this, and then we will finish. What kind of applications can we learn from these texts? The first one, We must be ready to learn and change our concepts according to the gospel. It's amazing to see how Peter and the Jews, they were against the fact that uncircumcised people or Gentiles, they should be included in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what happened in their culture. But today, we still face the same trials. Because sometimes when we know someone who's a sinner who shows their sins and they are opposed to God, we sometimes don't believe they deserve the gospel. We don't believe they deserve salvation. You can apply that to What is happening in our culture today? Transgenderism, homosexuality, all these creepy things happening around us. Well, the only power that can save these people is the gospel. a father who abandoned their children, a mother who abandoned their family. The only one who can save these people, it's the Holy Spirit, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who reject the Christianism, those who reject the Scripture, those who hate God for any reason, the only thing that can save them, it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we must understand that only through our preaching and through the works of the Holy Spirit, it's when these people will change their lives. Salvation is still happening and we must trust in the power of the gospel and in the power of the Holy Spirit. And then we will see our society changing. We will see the results and the glory that Jesus Christ is giving to us through this mission. The gospel, we must apply in that way also. It's for the church, but the gospel is also for the ungodly. It's amazing to see how apply that for us. It's difficult sometimes. Someone from my church, it's also very strong in the Dutch tradition. This person came to me one day and she said, Pastor, I struggle a lot with the fact that if I invite someone to our congregation, they will not handle very well. Like we have so many traditions, like we have a time to stand, we have confessions that they never heard about. We have many singular things. So she said, I don't know, I don't feel comfortable inviting anyone to come here. And the question I made to her, it was, do you have the gospel in the congregation? Do we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do we have Jesus Christ being magnified here? If someone comes here now, they will see the Savior of our souls? Because if they see Him, it doesn't matter our traditions. It doesn't matter what we like to do or how we like to dress, the Holy Spirit can work in anyone if Jesus Christ is there. So, why are we saying how the Holy Spirit should work? Why are we showing the way that He must work? we should, instead of doing all of this, just follow our mission and bring as much people as we can to listen the gospel of Jesus Christ, to teach them about salvation, to teach about the good news of the most precious moment in the world, when Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. If they stay, awesome, that's good. If they decide to go to another church, much better maybe for them, it's okay. But our mission is being fulfilled. But I doubt they will go away. I believe they will be very connected if we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many churches today full of people and empty of the gospel. And if we have the gospel, We must bring the gospel to the ungodly, and we will see Jesus working through the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Ghost will change their hearts, and they will glorify the Lord like we are glorifying the Lord. So the gospel, it's not only for us. The gospel, it's for everyone. It's for your neighbor. It's for the people in your work. It's for the person that doesn't like you and is acting against you. It's for those who are involved in a woke agenda. It's for those who are saying they don't believe in God. The gospel is for everyone. So don't keep the gospel only in your mind. put it out through your words, and you will see the power of Jesus and the glory that can come through the preaching of the gospel. The beginning of the church happened 2,000 years ago, but now we are continuing the church today. We are the ones who has the same power in our hands. We are not apostles, of course, we are not Peter's, but we have the same gospel that Peter has. And we are working by the works of the same Holy Spirit. Trust in the gospel, trust in the Spirit, rise and preach with boldness. Let's pray. Close your eyes, let's talk to our God. Our Heavenly Father, thank you once again for the teaching of the scripture. Thank you for this wonderful text from Acts 11. Thank you because on that day, you include all of us in the family of God. We are so blessed, God, because you found ourselves in our sins. We were lost. and you found us. We were slaves and you gave us freedom. We were condemned, but now we are saved for all the eternity. Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Thank you for your work of salvation. We are so happy, so blessed, God, for being part of all of this. And now we ask you, Lord, that may you work on us through our mission in this world. Give us opportunities to preach the same gospel that Peter spoke on that day, and work through our preaching with the works of the Holy Spirit, and help us to find the elect of Jesus Christ around us. and help us to see the salvation that is only possible through the blood of Jesus Christ. And may we will glorify the name of God. May your name will be blessed everywhere. Stay with us, God, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.