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When 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.”
Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints, we are going to end up right there with that text from Acts chapter 11 that God has granted to the Gentiles repentance. And I want it to impress upon us today really this idea that the Lord is in the business of converting the heart and that we should have that expectation of the Lord, that he is still converting hardened hearts and turning them to himself. We’re going to think about that with Acts chapter 11.
But on our way, I just want to say a couple of things about the epistle text from Revelation chapter 21, because it’s really you just can’t read the text and not say anything about it, because it’s one of these fundamental portions of the scripture, the last two chapters of the entire Bible, which have all of these marvelous parallels with the first two chapters of the Bible. Remember how at the very beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but now in chapter 21, it’s the new heavens and the new earth.
Remember at the beginning there was just ocean, but now the sea is gone. Remember how at the beginning the Lord was creating everything perfect, and now everything is perfect again. There’s no more tears, there’s no more sorrow, there’s no more death, and this beautiful picture. This is the picture that we have of the end of the world, and it’s a marvelous, wonderful, fantastic picture of the new Jerusalem, which is the Lord’s church, all of his people, decked out in glory like a bride, it says, ready for her wedding.
And the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven and is joined to the earth so that in eternal life, on the last day, after the last day, when the Lord Jesus comes back and raises us all from the dead, he will bring an end to all sorrow, all suffering, all misery, all death, all dying, all funerals, all doctors, all the miserable things of this world, which Revelation calls the old things. The old things have passed away. And behold, all things are made new.
Now, we confess this every week when we talk about how Jesus will return in glory and there’s the resurrection of the body and the life eternal. But here’s the point. This is how things end. This is how the world ends. This is the last chapter. And it’s so important that we latch our imaginations and our hearts onto this last chapter because the world and your flesh, and especially the devil, want you to have another last chapter. They want you to think that the world is going to end in another way.
One of you sent me an article this week I was reading. It was really interesting. It was about how artificial intelligence connected to the demons. Yeah. And the article said in there, this is an amazing truth, it said that 50% of the people who are working on building the whole artificial intelligence stuff, I don’t even know the right words to talk about it, but 50% of the people who are working on it say that they believe there’s a 10% chance that artificial intelligence will lead to human extinction. And still they go to work. I asked the chatbot if that was true, and it said no.
Now, I just want you to think about it, because we hear this kind of stuff all the time. All these dual-use technologies that we are inventing. I mean, this has been for a long, long time, but all of these things could lead to these catastrophic end of humanity. And here’s the point. We can live and work and serve and go about our business in the confidence that the Lord Jesus will return and find his church standing, that we cannot bring about the human extinction. I mean, maybe we can start, but the Lord will interrupt it.
This is the point. The end of all of these things is not the disastrous apocalyptic views that we see in the movies and read about in the books and the poems. Now, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be careful to do what’s right and avoid evil and all things that are wrong, etc., etc. We should. But we should know that the end of the last chapter of the universe, the last chapter of this world, the last chapter of the Lord’s church is not about destruction, not for his people. The last chapter is about glory. The last chapter is not about death, it’s about life. The last chapter is not the explosion of the sun or the slow heat death of the universe. The last chapter is the marriage feast of the Lamb and his kingdom which has no end.
And with our hope latched onto that promise, we live and we fight and we serve and we love and we suffer and we live and we die with that hope, clinging to that hope. So this Revelation chapter 21 should be constantly in front of our minds, that the Lord Jesus is on the way back and that glory awaits, that everything started with the glory of God and everything ends now with the glory of God and we’re invited into that glory.
Okay. Revelation 21. Now, to Acts chapter 11. Now, you have homework this week because I’d like for all of you to go home and read sometime this week, Acts chapter 10. And what you’ll find when you read Acts chapter 10, which is, of course, right before our text in Acts chapter 11, is the event that Peter is talking about in chapter 11.
Now, this is pretty amazing. I don’t know another place in the Bible where this happens, where you have a whole chapter that’s dedicated to a particular event, and then the next chapter is telling the story of that event. Maybe with the conversion of Paul, which happens and then is reported two other times in the Book of Acts. But this is really unique. And it tells us that these two chapters, Acts chapter 10 and Acts chapter 11, are very, very important in the history of the early church.
The reason is because the Lord Jesus said to the apostles, promised to the apostles, that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That’s his promise. But the disciples were a little bit slow about that. And they were fine being witnesses in Jerusalem. That was hard enough, but they were fine doing that. But then to go to Judea, the county around Jerusalem was difficult. But then to go beyond the borders and boundaries of the Hebrew nation and go into Samaria and then beyond Samaria into the Gentile world, that was very, very difficult.
And so the book of Acts, if you could think of it like this, there’s Jerusalem and then Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, and there’s these walls or hurdles, and the Holy Spirit has just grabbed the apostles by the scruff of their neck, and he’s just dragging them over these hurdles. And it’s Acts chapter 10 and 11 that the Holy Spirit is dragging the gospel into the Gentile world.
It starts with Peter and Joppa, and it’s the window that’s right here. It’s my favorite of all of our stained glass windows. There’s Peter on the roof of Simon the Tanner in Joppa, the seaport, and the Lord gives him a vision of this sheet that comes down. I think it’s my favorite because you can see the pig and the snake and the rat and the spider in the sheet, at least from my angle here, you can see it, all these unclean animals.
And the Lord lowers these unclean animals before Peter, like some sort of anti-kosher picnic and says, “Kill and eat.” And Peter says, “Lord, I can’t do it. No, nothing unclean has ever touched my lips.” But three times the Lord does it. “Kill and eat, kill and eat. What I’ve called clean, do not call unclean.” And while Peter is thinking about this, two servants come and knock on the door from, that have come down from Caesarea, from the centurion who sends them down, this Gentile, Cornelius, sends them down to call Peter.
So Peter says, “Well, I guess that’s what the vision means. I’ve got to go.” So he goes from Joppa up the sea to Caesarea, and he goes into the centurion’s house. And Cornelius has gathered up his friends and his family to hear what Peter is going to say. And Peter comes into this Gentile house, and he preaches the gospel. He preaches about the promises of God in the Old Testament. He preaches about the death and resurrection of Jesus. He preaches about, this is, it’s one of the important verses in Acts, chapter 10, verse 43, Peter says, “All the prophets testified that the forgiveness of sins would come through the name of Jesus.”
That’s one of those verses that tells us that all of the Old Testament prophets are about, not only Jesus, but about the forgiveness of sins that Jesus brings. And as Peter is finishing his sermon, the most astonishing thing happens. The Holy Spirit comes and falls on all of those Gentiles. And some of them even start speaking in tongues. And Peter looks and he says, “Well, how can we not baptize them?”
Now, do you see the hurdle there? I mean, Peter already, can I go to that house? Can I talk to that man? Even if they become believers, what should I do? It seems like Peter is not even going to baptize them. But now he says, “The Lord Jesus has given them the same gifts that he gave to us.” And this is what Jesus promised. “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit.”
Now, just as an aside, when we’re reading the book of Acts and we see someone baptized with the Holy Spirit in this way and they start to speak in tongues, I think the best way to understand it is that the Holy Spirit is ordaining them, making them a pastor so that they can preach. And sometimes preach even in languages that they don’t understand. But look at how it’s out of order. You’re supposed to be baptized first and then ordained. You’re supposed to be baptized first and then trained and then become a preacher. But the Lord just sends the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and these guys that are gathered around there.
And so Peter, who it looks like was not going to baptize him, says, “Well, I guess I better baptize him.” And he does. And now there’s the first Lutheran church of Caesarea, right there in Cornelius’ house. Now that’s chapter 10. Now Peter goes back up to Jerusalem. Right. And news of the event had gotten there, and this is our text. So news of this event had gotten to Jerusalem, but it got to them like this: Not that, “Hey, Cornelius and all of his house became Christians, and they were baptized, and they were holy,” but that, “Hey, Peter was eating with the Gentiles.” That Peter had crossed that barrier that Jewish people were not supposed to cross. That they were unclean.
And so Peter tells the story. He says, “I was there. I had this vision. The servants came. I went up there. I was preaching. And as I was preaching, it was over. The Holy Spirit fell upon them. And I realized that God had called them also. So how could I hold back baptism? Surely I had to baptize them and give them the gifts of new birth and water and the spirit that the Lord gives in holy baptism.” And all of the people are listening to Peter. And it says they marvel that God had granted repentance to life also to the Gentiles.
And this is this, in some ways, the final hurdle, although that hurdle is going to be over and over in the book of Acts, that the Holy Spirit is dragging the gospel to get it to every place, every corner of the world, so that every ear can hear and every heart can be cleansed by the promise of the forgiveness of sins that comes from the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in the hope of his resurrection.
Now, theologically, in the book of Acts, it’s a very, very important text, and we just need to know that. But the question for us is what’s the application? Because I think most of us are probably Gentiles. Most of us are on this side of that Jewish-Gentile hurdle, and all of us are rejoicing that the Lord got the gospel also to us so that we could hear it and we could believe it. But here’s how I’d like to apply it to our own particular circumstance.
There’s a thing that I think the Lutherans are generally bad at. And maybe I’m just preaching to myself. Maybe I’m projecting on you guys. Maybe I’m just bad at it. But let’s see. I think that we are bad at expecting the Lord to convert the heart. I don’t think we operate with the expectation of conversion.
Right? We think that the way someone is now is probably going to be the way that they always were. And maybe this is because a lot of Lutherans started Lutheran and grew up Lutheran, God be praised and have it all along. You just think that that’s just how it goes. That you just kind of stick around close to the beliefs of your parents, to the beliefs of your family, or to whatever you were handed as a child. And so we think that if someone is a Christian, then maybe they’ll stay. We hope they’ll stay a Christian. But if someone’s not a Christian, they’re probably going to stay a not Christian. Someone’s Buddhist or Muslim or someone’s Islamic or someone’s an atheist or someone as a completely secular-minded or whatever, that that’s the way they are. That’s going to be the way that they stay.
And here’s, I think, the problem. I would just like you to reflect on this. Do you think that way or do you expect that the Lord is in fact working in their hearts through the word to change their hearts, to grant repentance? Yes, to call them into his kingdom. This is, after all, what we confess the work of the Holy Spirit is.
I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way that he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the entire Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.
That the Holy Spirit is working, and through the Word, the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of all people who are hearing the Word of God and drawing them and calling them and bringing them into the Lord’s church. Now I think this expectation of conversion that we just know that the Lord can and does change hearts should be part of the shape of our own imagination as a congregation and also for us individually.
That we might think, “Oh well, here we are in the midst of hard-hearted Austin.” Ha ha. And it doesn’t want to hear the gospel, and it doesn’t want to believe the gospel, and it wants to go on its happy way in unbelief. And we say that that’s just how it’s been and how it’ll be. No, no. The Lord, look at when Jesus is going there, sending Peter to the house of Cornelius to claim him and his family as his own, this is how the Holy Spirit still works, still gathering people, still calling people to his name and his goodness and his love.
And the same thing is true for each of us and our families. I would love for you to imagine the people that you think are farthest from Christ, farthest from the kingdom, farthest from believing and trusting the good news. And every time you come to the Lord’s Supper to pray for them, every time we pause in the prayer of the church to pray for them and to expect… in your prayers with the hopeful promise of the gospel, that the Lord is working and calling and converting and crushing hardened hearts and taking out that heart of stone and putting in that place a heart of flesh.
After all, the Lord has done it with you. You were born an enemy of God. You were by nature a child of wrath. And yet the Lord Jesus has called you, has given you faith, has forgiven you all of your sins, and has given you the hope of living forever with him in the new heaven and the new earth, feasting with him in the marriage feast of the Lamb.
So we rejoice that this is who the Lord is. And when we see the Holy Spirit dragging Peter into the Gentile world in the house of Cornelius, we should smile with awe and wonder and confidence that the Lord who does that is still doing that. And we live in that confidence. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.
Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah. The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.