Acts 10:9-23 (reading from verse 1)
Open for Interruptions – living by God's agenda
Our summer series is entitled Tales of the Unexpected. We are looking at unexpected ways in which God is recorded to be at work in the pages of Scripture. And this morning we are looking at a wonderful chapter of Scripture in which we read of revolutionary and world-changing events as the message of the Gospel begins to break out of the confines of Judaism to touch the lives of Gentiles – people from a non-Jewish background, people like us. This is the beginning of a story that will go on to fill the remaining pages of the Book of Acts. It is this story that has rolled on down the years until it at last reached and touched our own lives. This chapter tells an important part of our story.
But if we are to understand the truly revolutionary nature of what is going on here, we need to understand the context in which it occurred. We need to understand a little about the food laws that God gave Israel through Moses.
Peter, along with the other apostles was Jewish – as, of course was our Lord Jesus. The way they lived was shaped by the laws God had given them through Moses. And in particular, their lives were shaped by the Jewish food laws which detailed what they should, and more importantly, should not eat.
What was the purpose of the complex and rather strange food laws of the Old Testament, such as those we read of in Leviticus chapter 11?
Some have suggested that the food laws were all to do with health and hygiene; it’s best to avoid eating pigs as their meat can easily give rise to food poisoning if not properly cooked. But it is difficult to find health reasons for why rabbit may not be eaten while goats may be eaten. Moreover, if these rules were given to protect the health of God's people, why were the food laws set aside by Jesus rather than being abolished with the invention of the refrigerator and temperature controlled ovens? In Mark 7:18-19, Jesus says, "Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body." And Mark himself adds his own commentary when he explains that, "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean."
What, then are these food laws all about?
The food laws formed part of the holiness code of Leviticus where holiness is described in terms of distinctiveness or separation. The law teaches God's people not to mix up things that don’t belong together: don’t sow a field with two types of crop; don’t wear clothes made of two types of thread. Similarly, animals that seem to be a mixture of two sorts are viewed as unclean. Animals that chew the cud and have a cloven hoof are clean, but if they do one and not the other they are unclean – they are mixed up animals. Animals/fish that swim in the water and have fins and scales are clean but those without fins or scales, such as seafood, are unclean – they are hybrids. By these laws, which seem so strange to us, God was teaching his people to be separate. The food laws kept them physically separate from those who did not follow these laws – they could not eat or live with those who did not follow their food laws. These laws were designed to keep the Israelites distinct from the nations around them, and that was important for preserving the distinctive revelation God had given them.
But with Jesus, everything changed. God’s people are no longer ethnically and culturally separate from other peoples. When Jesus died upon the cross, the curtain in the Temple which separated the Most Holy Place where, symbolically, God dwelt, from the rest of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. It was as if God himself was bursting out of the confines of the Temple to embrace not only those in the court of the Jews but also to embrace those in the court of the Gentiles. No longer was there to be a distinction between Jew and Gentile or between male and female, slave and free. All those walls of separation had been broken down through Jesus' death and resurrection. God's love in the Lord Jesus embraces all without distinction. Jesus and faith in him is the sole distinguishing mark of the people of God. Holiness no longer means physical separation from the rest of the world. Holiness flows from a heart captivated by the Lord Jesus and transformed by his Spirit. Like Jesus, we are not to separate ourselves physically from those among whom we live but are to live out our lives in, among and before this world, shaped by his Spirit and bearing witness to him. God’s purpose is to redeem for himself a people from every nation and culture.
This may seem obvious to us, but it was a hard lesson for Peter to learn, a lesson he needed drummed into him by God.
Peter was staying in the house of Simon the tanner who lived by the sea in Joppa. At about noon, he was up on the roof of the house for a time of prayer. As he prayed he became hungry and so he asked his host for something to eat. While it was being prepared, Peter, still hungry, carried on praying. Suddenly he received an extraordinary dream or vision. He saw a great sheet lowered down to him by its four corners, a sheet containing all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds. And a voice told Peter to "Get up; kill and eat."
Now Peter had never eaten anything unclean. We do not know how many of the animals he saw were unclean animals but even the 'clean' animals could not just be slaughtered and eaten. God had commanded that his people should not consume the blood of any animal and so an animal needed to be killed in a way that would ensure that its blood was properly drained out of it before it was declared kosher, fit for eating. The suggestion that Peter should take and eat any of the animals that were presented to him was completely repugnant to him and he cried out, "Surely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." And in response, the voice from heaven declared, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Twice more this great sheet containing all manner of animals was lowered down to him, presumably with similar dialogue.
Peter was perplexed and wondering what on earth this could mean when there was a knock on the door and the Spirit said to Peter, "Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them."
The lesson of the vision had already begun to shape Peter's behaviour as he invited these Gentiles into the house to be his guests and presumably to eat with him. Before the chapter is over it will result in Peter travelling to the house of a Roman Centurion in Caesarea, telling him the good news about Jesus, he and his family coming to faith in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in them, them being baptised and Peter staying with them for several days. Not the kind of company you would expect for a good Jewish boy, but Peter has learnt the lesson of the vision for he says to Cornelius the Roman centurion, "I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right". Wow!!
I want you to notice with me from this chapter is that it is God himself, the Triune God, working through the gospel of Jesus Christ and by the power of his Spirit, who is driving forward his mission to reconcile the world to himself. The initiative does not start with Peter having a good idea, nor does it start with Cornelius. It is God himself who is on the move defying the plans and expectations of Peter and the Jewish believers from Joppa and, as you will see if you read on in Acts, surprising and challenging the Jewish church in Jerusalem and forcing them to think afresh about the nature of the gospel. God is shattering the complacency of his people.
And this is what we read of time and time again in the Book of Acts. It was the persecution of Steven that was used by God to drive Christians out of Jerusalem to take the gospel to Samaria and beyond. It was newly converted Jewish Christians from Cyprus and Cyrene who went to Antioch and preached Christ not only to Jews but to Gentiles, to the puzzlement of the church in Jerusalem but to the delight of Barnabas. God is the one who is constantly defying expectations as he drives forward his purpose of making Christ known.
Are you ready for God to work in unexpected ways today? Are you ready for the character of the church you love and in which you are comfortable to be radically transformed by the work of God's Spirit? Are you praying that our churches may be places where divisions are broken down rather than reinforced and that they may reflect the variegated character of God's kingdom and celebrate the breadth of his saving purposes? Do you pray that the Lord may surprise you with the profligacy of his grace, teaching us afresh the wideness of his love and mercy? Pray for these things. Pray for a fresh vision of the purposes and power of God in Christ, and pray in the confidence that he is able always to do more than we ask or imagine.
And always be ready to be used by God for in unexpected and unanticipated ways. Don't limit God to your expectations. William Carey the great pioneer of modern missions defied the expectations of his own day by going to India to tell people of Christ. He said, "Expect great things of God. Attempt great things for God." May God give us the same spirit.
But lastly, let me say to any here this morning who have not yet come to know and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The good news is that Jesus came into the world for you – that you might know forgiveness and cleansing. He came that you might know God. Whoever you are and whatever your background and history, God shows his love for you in Jesus and wants you to come to place your hope and trust in him. Jesus loved you and gave himself for you on the cross that you might be reconciled with God – brought into the embrace of his love. Place your trust in him that you may have eternal life and find everlasting joy in him. Do it this morning.
Peter Misselbrook: Christ Church Downend – 17/8/2025