What God Has Made Clean

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday the 22nd of May, 2022, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  Our YouTube streaming channel is: 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.]

Not long after the events of last week’s scripture reading, while Peter was still in Joppa, a Roman Centurion reached out to the Apostle, asking him to come and tell his household about Jesus.  Normally, Peter, as a good Jew, would never have entered the home of a Gentile.  But just moments before the Centurion’s emissaries arrived where Peter was staying, he received a clear message from the now ascended Jesus.  So he went with them, entered the Centurion’s home, and told them all about Jesus, and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Peter returned to Jerusalem, the Jewish believers were quite upset with him for breaking with Jewish tradition.  Please listen and follow along to how Peter replied to their complaints, as recorded by the Apostle Luke in the 11th chapter of his Book of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 1 through 18, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God. 2 But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. 3 “You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said.

4 Then Peter told them exactly what had happened. 5 “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. 6 When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles, and birds. 7 And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

8 “‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.’

9 “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ 10 This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven.

11 “Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. 12 The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. 13 He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. 14 He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’

15 “As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. 16 Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”

18 When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”

--Acts 11:1-18 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for allowing us Gentiles to receive Your Holy Spirit just as did those of Your chosen people when they believed in Jesus as Your Messiah.  Thank You for baptizing us with Your Spirit.  Forgive us, please, when we think ourselves better than others.  Forgive us when we let man’s laws or customs get in the way of our worshiping You and serving Your Son.  Please help us remember that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Master, and call ourselves by His name.  Help us to love all others.  Remind us that You created us all in Your image - not just those who believe but every person on this earth.  And Father, please protect us from Satan and from those who do his bidding.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and one purpose in our love, worship, and service, and healthy and safe through these trying times.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this day.  Show us our shortcomings.  Help us see how we can better fill our role in Your great plan of salvation for mankind.  This we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women.  The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of “childbed fever.”  A doctor's daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies.  From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands.  Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death.  His own practice was to wash with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers -- about one in fifty. 

He spent the vigor of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues.  Once he argued, "Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material, conveyed to a wound.  I have shown how it can be prevented.  I have proved all that I have said.  But while we talk, talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying.  I am not asking anything world shaking.  I am asking you only to wash.  For God's sake, wash your hands." But virtually no one believed him.  Doctors and midwives had been delivering babies for thousands of years without washing, and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now! 

Semmelweis died insane at the age of 47, his wash basins discarded, his colleagues laughing in his face, and the death rattle of a thousand women ringing in his ears.  "Wash me!", was the anguished prayer of King David.  "Wash!", was the message of John the Baptist.  "Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me," said the towel-draped Jesus to Peter.  Without our being washed clean, we all die from the contamination of sin.  Fortunately for us, when we accepted Jesus as our Lord, we were washed by His blood, made clean by God.

Isn’t it amazing, from today’s viewpoint, just how long it took to realize that a doctor needed to wash his hands before examining a patient?  In our current medical profession, sanitizing hands is considered and treated with the utmost importance.  All during the pandemic, we were cautioned to wash our hands frequently.  The practice helps prevent us from spreading or ingesting germs and viruses.  And yet, just 200 years ago, poor Dr. Semmelweis went insane and died young because his peers refused to accept the truth he showed them.

Washing saves lives.  Being washed clean by the blood of Jesus saves eternal lives.

In our scripture reading this morning, Peter has returned from Jerusalem after his brief stay in Joppa and his visit to Lydda.  The apostles and other believers there had already heard about what all had happened, and some of the Jewish believers criticized Peter for breaking with their customs and entering the home of a Gentile.

So Peter told them exactly what happened with the Roman Centurion, for that was the specific cause of their complaint.  And that experience with the Roman really began with two visions.

The first vision came to Peter while he was still in Joppa.  Something that looked like a large sheet was lowered from heaven, containing all manner of creatures, both domesticated and wild, that walked or crawled or flew.  And Peter heard a voice telling him to take something, kill it, and eat it.

Now in the version I read, the words of that voice were written in red ink, which means the voice belonged to Jesus.  Peter complained that he couldn’t eat anything unclean because it would violate the Jewish laws that he had always lived by.  But then the voice reminded him that he shouldn’t consider anything unclean that God had made clean.  This was repeated three times, so that Peter would fully understand the implication of the vision.

The second vision came to the Roman Centurion, Cornelius, in the city of Caesarea.  In his vision, Cornelius was told to send messengers to Joppa to seek out a man named Simon Peter who could tell him and his entire household what they needed to do to be saved.  Now Cornelius believed in the one true God and so he obeyed the vision, sending his trusted friends and servants to Joppa to find Peter and ask him to go to Caesarea with them.

Normally, Peter would never had entered the Centurion’s home, so that the Jewish believers would have had nothing to complain about.  But because of the message in his vision, he did not hesitate to go speak with the household of Cornelius, enabling them to be washed clean by the blood of Jesus and to receive the Holy Spirit.

When we get too concerned with the things of man, we tend to lose sight of the things of heaven.  Because Peter was shown the importance of listening to God’s word and putting that ahead of any of man’s customs and rituals, the Gospel message was first given to Gentiles.  And because Peter set that precedent, others followed his example.

Let me continue with today’s scripture reading, picking back up in chapter 11 of Acts with verses 19 through 30…

19 Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews. 20 However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. 21 The power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord.

22 When the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw this evidence of God’s blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord. 24 Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord.

25 Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. 26 When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)

27 During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.) 29 So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, everyone giving as much as they could. 30 This they did, entrusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem.

--Acts 11:19-30 (NLT)

Because Peter was willing to go against the common custom and rituals of his day, the church of Jesus grew and spread into all of Asia Minor.  And by the way, because of that growth, started by Peter’s simple act of entering a Gentile’s home, we first came to be called Christians.

Barnabas was sent to Antioch to witness evidence of the church’s growth.  He went to Tarsus and brought Paul back to Antioch with him, where they both stayed a while and shared the Gospel.  And in Antioch we believers in Jesus as Christ got our new name: Christian.

One other little benefit of Peter’s actions in Caesarea is that prophets of God also came from Jerusalem to Antioch.  One of them, Agabus, rightly predicted, by the Holy Spirit’s prodding, that a great famine would soon strike the entire Roman world.  So the Christians in Antioch took up a collection for the apostles and believers in Jerusalem, sending it to them by Barnabas and Paul.  In this way, these new Christians helped save the first Christians.

What God has made clean we must not call unclean or common.  Peter made one little comment in his defense to the Jewish believers that may go unnoticed.  At the end of verse 17, Peter asked, “Who was I to stand in God’s way?”

If God has made something clean, who am I to question Him and call it unclean?  If God has created us all – all of mankind – in His own image, who am I to counter Him and call someone common, or less than I?  God has a plan for the salvation of man, and He has a role for me to play.  Who am I to stand in God’s way?

In modern times, the church has been shrinking.  Could it be because we’ve become too focused on the things of man, losing sight of the things of heaven?  Have we let customs and rituals replace true love and worship?  Or maybe we’ve just too often stood in God’s way.

Family, we need to get back to our first love and serve our Lord Jesus, loving our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and loving our fellow man whom God created the same as He did you and I.  Let’s be sure not to stand in God’s way, but instead to do His bidding as Peter did.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for everything You ensured would be saved for us in our Bible.  By these words You remind us that You created us all in Your image, so that we should never consider anyone beneath us.  What You have made clean should never be considered common or unclean.  Thank You, Father, for washing us clean in the blood of Your only Son Jesus.  Father, sometimes we let our rituals and customs get in the way of true worship.  Sometimes we forget that You love us all, and command us to love, too.  Forgive us, Father, when we forget the lessens shared in our Bible.  Forgive us when stand in Your way.  Please help us to always honor Your word.  And Father, please help us remain strong, faithful, and true through all that we face in this age.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You spoke to Peter and told him and us not to let rituals stand in the way of doing God’s will.  You showed him what it means to share the Gospel.  Through You and Your blood spilled on our behalf, we are baptized by the Holy Spirit and born again into God’s great family.  Thank You, Lord, for washing us clean.  And thank You for letting us share Your love with others, just as You love us.  Please, Lord, forgive us when we put ourselves and our own desires ahead of the needs of others.  Help us be more conscientious in our service.  Remind us that we were all created in the same way and that God loves us all.  Show each of us how we can share the Good News You brought into the world.  And Lord Jesus, please heal the hurts that separate and divide us.  Help us remain trusting and obedient no matter what we go through.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on what this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.