God Chooses; Acts 10

May the mumbling commence!

You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family.  So it is with the family of God.  There will be many times you and I will want to decide who belongs to the family of God, but it is not ours to decide.  God alone chooses His family.  It’s the meaning behind the dream that God gave Peter while Peter was praying just before lunch.  You know, the dream of the sheet being lowered from the heavens with all kinds of unclean animals on it.  A voice told Peter to get up, kill, and eat.  Peter refused to eat unclean animals.  The voice spoke a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

I highlight that last statement because it is key to the point of the story.  “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”  Right after the dream, the men sent by Cornelius, a Gentile, arrived at the place where Peter was staying.  The same voice encouraged Peter not to hesitate to go with these men.  When Peter entered the home of Cornelius and noticed the faith evident in the household, Peter’s eyes were opened.  Read Peter’s message to Cornelius and his household:

Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.  You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.  You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-- how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. 

"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.  He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen – by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." 

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.  The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, "Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have."  So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.  (Acts 10:34-48)

Do not call anyone impure who God has adopted into his family.  For the Jewish people of Peter’s day, it was a huge hurdle to accept non-Jewish people.  It wasn’t only a matter of faith or religion; it was also a social matter.  There was the matter of circumcision (which will be a battle a little later in the early life of the church).  There was the matter of diet.  There was the matter of potentially eating food that had been sacrificed to other gods.  To accept Gentiles – non-Jews – into the family of God was a HUGE deal.

But people do not choose who is in and who is out in the family of God.  God alone chooses.

Who are the Gentiles of today?  People who do not look like me?  People who do not act like me?  Are the single parents or the working poor or the “illegal” immigrants or the Democrats or the Republicans or the 99% people or the TEA Partiers or the homosexuals or the corporate CEO’s our Gentiles?  The list can go on and on…   

It doesn’t matter.  None of these things matter.  When God discovers a person who is faithful and welcomes him or her into the family of God through adoption, our task is to embrace them and love them – regardless of their background.  We do not choose who is a part of the family of God.  God chooses.  God adopts.  There is to be no favoritism.

Enough mumbling for now… 

Peace Out