The Baptism That Really Matters
THE BAPTISM THAT REALLY MATTERS Trinity
Acts 10:44 – 11:18 6.10.19
If you think it was easy for the apostles of Jesus to switch from being good Jewish boys to getting what Jesus was on about, I think you misjudge them. Even after 3 years in his company, there’s still a fair bit they still haven’t got straight. One of the things that makes the book of Acts so interesting is that we get to see them still wrestling with a fair bit, as we read through.
Some things had come together for Peter that enabled him to be willing to spend time in the in the Philistine towns of Lydda and Joppa in chapter 9. It was a bigger jump to happily go to the home of the Roman soldier, Cornelius, in Caesarea in chapter 10.
For some, he’s a maverick (an unorthodox or independent-minded person). Some people back at Apostles Central in Jerusalem are not happy about his preaching to the wrong people. As we come to chapter 11, it’s high noon back there. It’s time for a showdown and a shootout.
Peter’s not wobbly about what he’s done – though he sure wobbles later. He is so sure that all that has happened has been God’s doing that at the end of the punch up, he simply asks (verse 17) “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”
It didn’t make any sense any longer to be at cross purposes with what God is doing, not to get on the same page as God.
Had he been at cross purposes with God? As some of the others at Apostles Central still are? They are missing at least three magnificent things that have come with Jesus.
- Jesus has made all of life holy
Every good Jewish boy knew from the Old Testament that everything fitted into one of two categories. It was either clean, approved by God, able to be worn, eaten or enjoyed. Or it was unclean, and off limits for anyone who wanted to be clean.
Gentiles aren’t clean, their plates are not clean and nor is their food. That’s the problem these others at Jerusalem have: “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them” (verse 2). How can he so recklessly have broken all the kosher food laws? Doesn’t he care about what is ritually clean and unclean anymore?
No, he doesn’t. Not after God has three times dropped a picnic blanket down in front of him, spread with both kosher food, and unclean food, and told him to eat all of it. As though it was now all clean. God could not have been clearer: “What God has made clean, do not call common” or unclean (v9).
Hadn’t God called them unclean or common for more than 1000 years? Yes. But with the coming of Jesus, everything has been changed. When he died, he redeemed … primarily people, but not only people. He has redeemed life and the way we now live. It’s as if he now said – I have no made it all clean – go and freely enjoy it all.”
All of it? So that your work is as holy as your praying? Yes. So that Monday is as holy a day as Saturday or Sunday? Yes. So that sport and sex and paintings and hobbies are as much a place for honouring the Lord Jesus as anywhere else? Yes.
Kanye West is a popular American rap singer, earning about $200 million a year. (He is married to Kim Kardashian, which will help some to place him.) He says he has now become a Christian. Last Sunday he organised a church service for 12,000 people, and had a man preach whose sermon was mostly very, very good.
West has just announced that from here on he’ll no longer sing any what he calls ‘secular songs’, but only Christian songs.
I’m hoping no one has told him that these other songs don’t count any more. That if they are not about Jesus, then they are off limits. As though being a builder, or a golfer or a gardener or a landscape painter or a student in a maths class is somehow ungodly.
Godly wisdom says you don’t put yourself in a place – whether a classroom, a golf course, a factory or a relationship – where you will too easily fall into sin. You don’t get a job stoking fires when you know you are made of dynamite.
You don’t keep a song or a hobby or an occupation at arm’s length because it is not a “Christian” activity. Not when Jesus has by his death made everything holy.
Peter no longer kept the kosher rules? How could he? Jesus had made all of life clean. “Who was I to stand in God’s way?”
- Jesus has made everything holy
- Jesus has one gospel for everyone.
Peter had preached one message on the Day of Pentecost when 3,000 Jews heard, and converted to Jesus. Once he has come to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile, does he reach into a different pocket labelled “sermons for non-Jews”?
How could he do that? When the servants came from Cornelius to take Peter back with them, the Holy Spirit made it clear he should go with them, “making no distinction” (v12). His message for Jews was the message he had to preach to these Gentiles.
Which is exactly what he did, as Ross showed so clearly last week. Yes, it was couched in different words, but it was all about Jesus as only Lord, Saviour and Judge. Put the sermon of Acts 2 alongside the one in Acts 10, and you can’t see daylight between them. This was exactly what God always intended.
Having a different message would be to “stand in God’s way”. But God has only one message. God the Father has one Son, Lord and Judge of all, to whom all men everywhere must repent.
I doubt many of us have a problem with this. We don’t carry a gospel in one pocket that is for Anglos, and another for refugees to Australia and another for indigenous people. We may, however get this one wrong in a different way.
Do you recall how Luke described Cornelius back in 10:2? He was “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously and prayed continually to God”. If Peter were reluctant to tell him about Jesus because he was not a Jew, we might have been reluctant because he was so good, so sincere and so religious.
Did he really need to hear the gospel? Wasn’t he already good enough without it? No he wasn’t. An angel had told Cornelius that without the gospel, he was a lost, lost man. He had said “Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare a message to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.” (11:13,14) Good, prayerful, generous, but not converted to Jesus. But not saved.
We all know some absolutely wonderful people, much like Cornelius. Generosity and kindness pour out of them. We don’t stay away from them because they are not Anglos, or because they are so good, but they do not belong to Jesus … they have not believed his gospel, and God has not yet “granted repentance that leads to life” (v18). To hold the gospel back from them is to be on a different page from God.
I read the story of a man this week, who, when he was 26 was excelling in his work in a big company. The big boss called him in, to commend him. Very respectfully, the younger man said he worked hard because he was a Christian, and his aim was to honour Jesus who was his true Boss.
The big man knew he was on a winner with this guy – he could be trusted. It was all going well until he said “But you don’t try to convert others to your beliefs, do you?” he asked.
What should he say? He says he gulped hard and said “Of course I am. Because Jesus is Lord and Judge of all, and the only one who can rescue lost men, of course I do.”
One gospel for the Jews and another for Gentiles? One for bad people, and another for good people? The way of repentance for people who are down, and a free pass for people who are up?
It can’t be like that.
If you are on the same page as God, there is only one way, one message, and it is the same for everyone, everywhere.
- Jesus has made everything holy.
- Jesus is the message for everyone everywhere.
Those who believe win everything
Do you remember how on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell on Peter and co, and they all spoke in other languages?
What’s happened in the home of Cornelius? Luke says that “the Holy Spirit fell on them” (10:44) as “the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles” (v45). And like Peter and the others, they all spoke in tongues or other languages (v46).
Why another Pentecost? To make it clear that in Jesus, by the gospel, Gentiles who turn to Jesus have the same blessings as Jews who turn to Jesus.
Does it keep happening like that every time someone becomes a Christian? Back then? Now? That may be what some people say, but that is clearly not what the Bible says.
This happens only 3 times in the book of Acts. When the Holy Spirit comes to Jews (chapter 2). When he comes to Gentiles – here, and when the gospel goes from Asia to Europe, in chapter 19.
How many times does God need to say that gospel blessings do not stop at the border? Once will do it. Jews who turn to Jesus win it all. Gentiles who turn to Jesus win it all. People in Europe win it all.
What a clever thing to do to give them all the ability to speak in other languages. What a brilliant way to say “It doesn’t matter what language you speak. This is a gospel, with full blessing for all people who believe, whatever their colour, ethnicity or religious background.
Were Cornelius and his family baptised with water? Of course they were. Just like others we have come across from the start. That’s what usually happened.
For Luke, that’s not the big deal. Not what they do, but what God has done. They pour water, but he pours the Holy Spirit. Hadn’t Jesus himself said “John baptised you with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit” (11:16) That’s what really matters.
Gospel. Jesus. Receiving the Holy Spirit. Repentance. Same story all the way through. No matter who you are.
I was talking recently to a man who used to live in Tamworth but who now lives elsewhere. I asked him which church he now belonged to, and he named a fine Sydney Anglican Church.
When I said what a blessing that must be for him, he very quickly reminded me of 5 things that were wrong with it, without saying one thing that was positive. Loud music, the use of the Prayer Book, a wrong word in the Nicene Creed, as he saw it, and so on. I could see an attack on infant baptism coming down the track fast.
It was bad enough that he was so disloyal, but the worst thing was that he didn’t talk about his delight that the gospel was being preached, and people were repenting to Jesus? Or that God was pouring out his Holy Spirit on those who believed? Or that there are now people from more than 30 nationalities together, as a wonderful statement of the uniting power of the work of Jesus?
What excites you, here at Trinity Church? That people agree with you on this doctrine … or line up with that practice? Do you keep listening for where people get it wrong?
Does it matter more to you when someone signs up for one of your causes, or when they repent to the Lord Jesus? When someone is baptised and possessed by the Holy Spirit, or baptised with water this way or that way?
Should you have convictions? Of course. I am asking what matters most. You can be wrong by believing what is wrong … but you can be just as wrong by putting first what God puts second.
It would be seriously sad to find that you might be standing in God’s way, don’t you think?
On the other hand, what a delight it is to be able to celebrate that in the Lord Jesus:
>> all of life has been made holy – this is really big and really radical – no one else has a message that gets even close to this one
>> he has only one gospel for all people, no matter who they are or where they are
>> those who are given repentance and the Holy Spirit, win everything, absolutely everything.
God’s page is a brilliant page to be on, don’t you think?