252 – Acts 11: How to Join What God is Doing
Stay
religiously flexible
Soon the news reached the apostles and other
believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God. But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the
Jewish believers criticized him. “You entered the
home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said. Then
Peter told them exactly what had happened. “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. When I
looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles,
and birds. And I heard a
voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’ “‘No,
Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have
declared impure or unclean.’ “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call
something unclean if God has made it clean.’ This happened three times before the sheet and
all it contained was pulled back up to heaven.” ACTS 11:1-10 NLT
How to stay flexible at Sandals Church:
It is easier to criticize God’s movement than
to join it.
Remain
rigid
on people’s need for Jesus
“Just
then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we
were staying. 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. 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. He will tell you
how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’” “As
I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he
fell on us at the beginning. Then I thought of
the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be
baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 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?” 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 11:11-18 NLT
Give
generously
to the growth of God’s Church
…some of the
believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching to the
Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. The power of the
Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to
the Lord. When the church at Jerusalem heard what had
happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 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. Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy
Spirit and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord. Then
Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. 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.) During
this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. 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.) So the believers
in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea,
everyone giving as much as they could. This they did, entrusting their gifts to
Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem. ACTS 11:20-30 NLT
Community Group Discussion
Guide