Standing in God’s Way

Acts 11:1-18

¹Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying,

³“You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁴But Peter began and explained it to them in order:

⁵“I was in the city of Joppa 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.

⁶Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air.

⁷And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’

⁸But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’

¹⁰This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven.

¹¹And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea.

¹²And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.

¹³And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter;

¹⁴he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’

¹⁵As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.

¹⁶And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Peter has gone off into Gentile territory and is returning to Jerusalem with a whole new set of sensibilities. The Jewish community from which he sprang is alarmed. The news of Peter’s change of heart has already reached them and they are struggling to come to grips with his new thinking. “The circumcision party” was a group of Jewish Christians who believed that you had to first become Jewish (thus circumcised) in order to embrace Christ. Already in the church there were men imposing their ideas as to how God should do things upon His people. In that regard, things haven’t changed much over the last 2,000 years.

Peter simply tells his story to the believers in Jerusalem. He doesn’t argue or cajole. He just tells them of the visions that God gave to him and how it changed his thinking about the place of Gentiles in God’s Kingdom. I love the phrase “who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” There it is in a nut shell. How can I possibly stand in God’s way? Suddenly a group of people, who are not in agreement with this new idea, are silent. This might always be a wise stance to take when standing before a holy and perfect God, despite His newfangled ideas.

When I was a kid my dad always asked me if I was being a part of the solution or a part of the problem. This phrase was coined by ad executive Charles Rosner, back in 1967 and made famous by Eldridge Cleaver in a speech in 1968. Perhaps we might ask ourselves this question today as well when it comes to our actions inside of God’s Kingdom. Could I possibly be standing in the way of someone hearing the Gospel because of my prejudices or biases? One would hope not but must also admit it could be possible. The members of the circumcision party (or as they would later be known, the Judaizers) probably believed they were preserving the church for God. They were helping out and doing something important. In fact, I’ll bet they felt very strongly about their convictions. But they were wrong and standing in God’s way. I’m not saying all of our sensibilities are wrong or even harmful but maybe they should at least all be held up for scrutiny.