Acts 11: Don't Stand in God's Way

Introduction

Maybe you have come home with what you thought was wonderful news, only to get a reaction you never expected. That is the picture Charlie Skrine uses at All Souls Langham Place in London to open this fourth message in the "No Favourites" series, on Acts 11:1-18.

Peter returns to Jerusalem with huge news: the Gentiles have received the word of God. The gospel has crossed the borders of a single nation and can now spread everywhere. But in verse 3, the circumcised believers criticize him: "You went in to uncircumcised men, and ate with them!"

This Sunday is also Partnership Sunday at All Souls. The preacher chose these chapters for the occasion, because they show what kind of church God wants to build. His message comes down to two ideas: the book of Acts is a church-shaping book, and Peter's challenge is clear: don't get in God's way.

Outline of the Message

1. Satan's Biggest Firebreak

A few weeks earlier, David Turner had offered an image: the book of Acts is like a forest fire. The gospel and the Holy Spirit set out from Jerusalem like a fire that cannot be stopped, and the whole world is like dry wood waiting for a match.
Try to picture the scene from Satan's point of view. His clever plan to put Jesus to death has become his worst nightmare: everywhere, people are fleeing death, guilt and sin. In Acts, he throws everything he has at slowing the blaze: threats of violence, internal divisions, sin.
He is like a water-bombing helicopter, but he also builds firebreaks to limit the damage. The biggest of them all is in verse 3. There are already thousands of Jewish Christians. If Satan can stop the faith from crossing the barrier between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, 98% of the world might stay his.
The critics' response amounts to this: "You shouldn't even have gone into their house. Whatever you say about what they received, we will never eat with them."
From the other side of history, in a church made up mostly of Gentiles, that barrier looks appalling to us. But the preacher thinks we have heard similar things said. He cites what people may have read about a convicted criminal, about Russell Brand or about Jonathan Aitken: with everything they have done, how can anyone believe they have become Christians? And even if they have asked forgiveness, you should never sit down at a table with them.

2. A Church-Shaping Book

In verse 4, Peter retells everything from the beginning. Luke has told the story, then Peter told it to Cornelius, now he tells it to his critics, and Luke will tell it again in chapter 15. Why so much repetition?
The vocabulary of verse 4 points to a carefully ordered account, Luke's favorite kind of language, as in the first chapter of his Gospel (Luke 1:1-4). No historical book of the Bible is a random collection of events.
The book of Acts aims at a finished product: building healthy, Jesus-centered churches. It is the story of the church from day one to the ends of the earth, told to help us become the church Jesus wants.
"If a lesson is repeated four times, I think it is because Luke expects us to struggle with it." He thinks we may be slow to learn on this point.

3. Partners, Not Just Members

On this Partnership Sunday, Charlie Skrine makes a request: unless you are just passing through or a member of another church, don't be a visitor week after week, or a mere spectator.
He is not even asking you to be a member. What do members of a club do? They pay their dues, get a card, and show up to work out on the rowing machines when they feel like it. "That is not what we are asking of you. We are asking you to be partners."
To be a partner is to say: this is the church I have invested in, the place where I work, where I serve, where I give. The place I think about when I wake up in the morning and pray for every day.
The reason is simple: we are all partners in the great project of becoming the kind of church Jesus wants, the one we see in the book of Acts.

4. A Church of Reality and a Church of Grace

To recall what the series has shown, the preacher takes up some names for churches. First, the "church of reality": Peter is sure of the reality he lives in. In Acts 10:42, Jesus has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. He is firmly seated on his throne.
He had preached on Acts 4 at a conference: when Peter is ordered to stop speaking about Jesus, the church gathers to pray and reads Psalm 2. It does not matter that all the empires and all the powers agree against him, which is what they did when they killed him. In Psalm 2, God laughs at the idea of people uniting to change his decision.
Jesus is Lord of London, as of every place that does not want him. When you step out onto Regent Street, will you go out with your head held high, as the servant of one who cannot be dethroned?
Next, the "church of grace." Peter was preaching in Jerusalem the message of Acts 10:43: everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name. The believers in verses 2 and 3 fully embrace it: for them it was a free gift. Grace is what you can neither earn, nor pay for, nor deserve. You can only receive it.
Here is Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a Gentile, who has received the word of God. In the account in chapter 11, notice the emphasis on the gift: even to him, God has granted the repentance that leads to life (11:18). Luke's refrain returns in verse 9: "What God has made clean, don't you call unclean."
Hence the question: is it impossible to imagine that a convicted criminal could find this message as attractive as I do, a sinner in need of mercy, and turn sincerely to Jesus?

5. A Pentecostal, Catholic and Apostolic Church

The "Pentecostal church": the only new piece of information in the passage is in 11:16. Peter remembers the word of the Lord: "John indeed baptized in water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit." Each of the four Gospels begins with this promise of a better baptism and ends without it being fulfilled. It is fulfilled at Pentecost, in Acts 2, when the age of the Spirit, the age of the church, begins.
John's baptism washes with water, from the outside, and remains mostly a symbol. Jesus really baptizes and washes from the inside, with the Holy Spirit and fire. In 11:15, the Spirit falls on Cornelius just as on the apostles at the beginning.
So the preacher says he disagrees with his Pentecostal brothers and sisters if they claim that some Christians have the Spirit and others do not, or that some have him better than others. There is no true believer who has not received the Spirit. In that sense, there is no true church that is not Pentecostal.
He admits a fault on his own side: our "stiff English faces" and glum looks are not convincing evidence that we believe in a living God who lives in us. Yet nobody becomes a Christian without a miraculous intervention from God. In retelling the story, Peter leaves out the sermon and the journey, but keeps the visions, the angel and the coming of the Spirit.
The "Catholic church," in the original sense of the word: universal, as in the Creed, "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." The preacher, raised in his mother's Catholic faith, smilingly describes himself as "a lapsed Catholic forever." According to Acts 10:47, someone whose sins are forgiven, who is filled with the Spirit and declared clean, cannot be kept from baptism and full belonging in the same church.
You might have expected one church for the Jews, one for the Samaritans, one for the Gentiles, then a Nigerian church, a Singaporean one, an English one. That is not what the text says. For Peter, repentance, forgiveness and the Spirit are enough: you are clean, you can be baptized, you belong to the same church.
The "apostolic church": in 11:14, the angel told Cornelius that Peter would bring him words by which he would be saved, he and all his household. Being apostolic does not depend on what kind of bishop you have, or on a flame sticker on your minibus. It depends on your faithfulness to the message Jesus entrusted to his apostles.

6. Don't Stand in God's Way

Luke tells the story four times so that we don't miss the chance to become this kind of church. Is this the church where you would want to be a full partner, body and soul, with your hopes, your dreams, your life, your prayers, your money, your time and your energy?
Peter answers his critics forcefully, and he wins his case. In 11:18, they change their minds and glorify God. The preacher sums up the scene like this: "No further objections, Your Honour."
His formula is found in Acts 10:47 and 11:17: "Who was I, that I could withstand God?" Hence the second point of the message: don't stand in God's way. Charlie Skrine draws two consequences from it for partnership.

7. Reaching All Souls and Eating With Everyone

First consequence: reaching all souls ("All Souls"). The mission of the partnership is to carry the gospel to all the souls of London and of the world. The church is too small to do it, at least this year, but it will turn no one away because of who they are. No firebreaks. In recent weeks, the church has been thinking about the people to whom we don't announce the gospel, perhaps because we fear them.
If you are a Gentile by origin, look at Acts 11: they did not expect you to be part of this church. If you had gone to Jerusalem and said "I am English," they would have answered: "This is not for people like you." That should fill us with gratitude and destroy any idea that we are better than those who come after us. It would be terrible to pull up the ladder behind us after being saved by pure grace.
All Souls is one local church among many, but it sits at the top of Regent Street. Sixty mother tongues are spoken there, and millions of people from all over, including from countries very closed to the gospel, flow through the surrounding streets.
The preacher mentions the statistics on the Muslim population in Britain, which has gone from 3% to 6.5% in twenty years. Is that a great opportunity for you to open your home and share Jesus, or is your instinct fear and suspicion? He notes that people today seem more worried about Islam than about atheism.
He also asks the question: has immigration undermined the Christian character of the country? In the Catholic church where he grew up, he knew only Irish priests all his life, never English ones; today there are only Indian and African priests. London, he says, is the first city in the world to be coming back from secularization, largely thanks to Christian immigration. And what undid the Christian heritage was often people who look like it, sometimes with the title "Reverend Doctor," who dismantled what they had sworn to preserve.
He makes clear that this is neither a partisan position, nor an economic debate, nor security advice: he keeps his political opinion to himself, in the British tradition. The question lies elsewhere: what kind of church do we want to be, and to whom will we go with the gospel? We follow a Middle Eastern man named Jesus. Middle Eastern men and women might even help us understand him better.
Second consequence: eating with All Souls. This is not pressure to attend the community meal, though the church would be happy to see you there. Are we going to reject the attitude of verse 3? Every person, every soul, should be able to join us on the basis of their faith and repentance, and then be fully welcomed. Eating together is a powerful biblical symbol, and sharing a meal changes us.
The church's name comes from this. Two hundred years ago, when the building was put up, pews were still rented out: the best seats for the rich, the worst ones up in the gallery for the poor. The founders said no, and called the church "All Souls," without charging for seats. They did not always succeed, and the church today does not either, the preacher admits. But it is a magnificent goal.
Partnership at All Souls means belonging, praying, serving and giving. Not more committed members, but something else: partners, each to the extent that suits the work they are part of, "exactly like me or anyone else."

Key Takeaways

The book of Acts shapes churches. Luke repeats the story of Cornelius four times because we are slow to learn that God has no favourites.
Salvation is a gift: the repentance that leads to life is granted, not earned. No one is too far away to receive it.
Every true believer has received the Holy Spirit. What God has cleansed, we have no business calling unclean.
Don't stand in God's way: do not put up firebreaks between the gospel and those you fear or judge unworthy.
To be a partner is to belong, pray, serve and give, and to open your table to every soul who repents and believes in Jesus.

Personal Application

Are there people you find it hard to believe could truly become Christians? What does the grace Cornelius received change about how you see them?
In your church, are you a visitor, a member who pays their dues, or a partner who thinks about it and prays for it every day?
Who around you would you tend not to share the gospel with, out of fear or mistrust?
Who could you share a meal with this week, so that someone different from you feels fully welcomed?
When you go out into your city, do you go out as someone who knows that Jesus reigns and that God's Spirit lives in them?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Luke tell the story of Peter and Cornelius four times?

For Charlie Skrine, the book of Acts is a church-shaping book. Luke writes a carefully ordered account, and if he repeats a lesson four times, it is because he expects us to struggle to learn it: God welcomes into the same church everyone who repents and believes in Jesus.

What does "not standing in God's way" mean?

In Acts 11:17, Peter answers his critics: if God gave the Gentiles the same gift he gave us, who was I to withstand God? Today, it means closing neither the gospel nor the table to anyone because of who they are, where they come from or what they have done.

Have all Christians received the Holy Spirit according to Acts 11?

Yes, according to the preacher. In Acts 11:15-16, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius just as on the apostles at the beginning. There is no true believer who has not received the Spirit: Jesus baptizes and cleanses from the inside everyone who repents and believes in him.