“The Gentile's Pentecost” — Acts 10:44-48

“The Gentile’s Pentecost”

Sunday, May 24, 2020 — Rev. Douglas J. Kortyna, Pastor

Sermon Text: Acts 10:44-48

Worship Theme: “The Holy Spirit sets apart and seals the Gentiles.”

Introduction

Personally, I love thunderstorms. They are both frightening and beautiful. I cannot think of another phenomenon that captures both of those modifiers together. They are also fascinating to watch as they develop. The loud noises and glorious sights make for a fantastic show to watch from your porch or breezeway. I believe preaching is very much like a thunderstorm. Good preaching can be both frightening (we are confronted with our sin) and beautiful because it shares the good news of the gospel (the remedy). When the preacher gets up to speak, the Lord’s voice from heaven comes crackling into the sanctuary like a thunderbolt. It’s an event where God truly speaks to His people. This is the picture I want us to be thinking about as we finish Acts 10 this morning. The thunderbolt that has broken into space and time in Acts 10 is the fact that God has now included the Gentiles into His covenant community. Nobody expected this to happen. It was a divine disruption whereby a thunderbolt came crashing down into their world and completely turned their world upside down. As we move to Acts 11-15, we will work through how these two groups of people come together. This is not just a nice story within the history of the early church. In fact, the Bible is a non-threatening book when we read it that way. However, I want to challenge us this morning that when God’s written Word is preached and the people of God respond by the Spirit, walls come crashing down.

SECTION I: Acts 10:44-46 — Preaching and Inclusion

10:44 – [Gentile Pentecost; God’s Initiative] While Peter was still saying [preaching/teaching] these things, [disruption] the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word [speaking from a biblical text; text points to Jesus Christ; Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ; Jesus ministry is continuing]

10:45 – And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed [shocking; thunderbolt; divine disruption], because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles [big theme throughout Acts 10; not expected].

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10:46 – For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God [response in speech; testimony; when we hear the word of god preached, we should respond; not a historical lesson or life lessons] Then Peter declared,

SECTION II: Acts 10:47-48 — Response and Baptism

10:47 – “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” [salvation has come to the gentiles; baptism is immediate in the early church; we can over intellectualize baptism]

10:48 - And he commanded [notice the tone in Peter’s voice] them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ [Christological conversion; not generic God]. Then they asked him to remain for some days [staying in the home is a sign of table fellowship; Peter at the beginning was with Simon the tanner; now he is staying with Gentiles!]

Fallen Condition Focus

In Acts 10, I have focused extensively on the gospel as speech. Furthermore, all of the sermons in Acts thus far are rather confrontational. The word choices revolve around repent, forgiveness of sins, and stiff-necked people. Not precisely the word choices that would be used to turn the world upside down. This is hard for people who live in a world where we can be constantly fed what we like through algorithms and choice of news media. We hear something we do not like in a sermon, on television, or on the radio, and we respond in outrage, or turn the source off. I chalk myself up to this phenomenon and it is the major reason why I left social media. (I also wasted too much time on it!) If preaching is to be confrontational—and I believe it is—then this means we need to stay clear away from sentimentalism. We could define sentimentalism as “the excessive expression of feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia in behavior in writing or speech.”1 Notice in the Book of Acts that the focus is always on Christ and what He has accomplished through His life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. There is not much, if not any, sentimentalism in the Apostles’ content while they are preaching. Recently, I saw this play itself out regarding a pastor friend for whom I was asked to supply a recommendation to a church that was considering to extend him a call. As the person from the church interviewed me, that person made the comment about my friend that he was: “…a good Bible teacher, but what about relating it to everyday life?” I could hear the echoes of sentimentalism in this person’s voice and it became clearer during our conversation that the church wanted a preacher who played it safe and preached about life lessons or told crafty stories. After the interview, I sent a text message to my pastor friend and urged him that, if he took the call, it would be imperative for him to take his time and pastor the people towards

1 See: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22sentimentalism%22

- 2 - becoming “people of the Book.” I believe my friend is a preacher in the “apostolic tradition” and his method is similar to that of Peter or Paul.

Application

We have now finished the three major conversion stories in the Book of Acts. The Book now turns to the missionary endeavors of the early church. I want to take some time to highlight what is going on in this section of Acts. I hope when you read through Acts in the future you remember these key ideas with reference to how the church is counter cultural.

1) World Turned Upside Down World: The world in Acts is absolutely turned upside down.2 Worth is redefined through the cross. Inclusion is redefined through Israel’s Messiah. We should not be shocked that church is filled with a bunch of people that the world doesn’t like. Just hear Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:23-24:

23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

I cannot think of a better summary of the world being turned upside down and primary message the Apostles preached.

Illustration: I recently read a blog post entitled: “Should Religious Conservatives Aspire to Notoriety?” by Jake Meador.3 In the blog post he says this:

“Yet when one reviews the Book of Acts, one finds St. Paul in Acts 17 going to Mars Hill in Athens. One finds him quoting famous Greek poets and preaching to influential Greek philosophers. In his epistles, one finds him dreaming of going to preach the Gospel in the elite cities of the world, even in the courts of Caesar himself. You could even read his decision to get arrested in Jerusalem as being a play to get himself shipped to Rome for an audience with the Roman elites.”

One could get the impression that Peter and Paul were public intellectuals and not preachers of the cross. As we have seen, this cannot be further from the truth. They were preachers of the cross and were seen as foolish by the elites. What we have witness to in Acts 10 is that through the coming of Christ, everything has changed. Only those who God has saved will have their entire world remapped.

2) People of Providence: What we have witnessed in the conversion stories in Acts thus far is that they are “people of providence.” The Ethiopian Eunuch, Saul of Tarsus, and Cornelius are all people of providence. Again, the Bible is not just a historical book filled with nice stories about the past. It is alive and Christ speaks to us by his Spirit this

2 See: https://www.amazon.com/World-Upside-Down-Reading-Graeco-Roman-ebook/dp/B005RBU8U4/ 3 https://blogs.mereorthodoxy.com/jake/religious-conservatives-aspire-relevance/

- 3 - morning. I think He is challenging us, through the Book of Acts, to look for people of providence in our lives.

Challenge: as we transition to a season of rest in the summer, I would encourage you to look around and think about who might be a person of providence in your life that is ready to hear the gospel, or simply ready to be invited to church in the new program year. If you cannot think of someone, be in prayer for people of providence to be provided by the power of the Spirit. The Lord often answers our prayers. We just don’t like that He answers our prayers according to His will. When I read through the New Testament and think about the scandal of God’s enemies (the Gentiles) now being ingrafted into His family, I am constantly challenged. When I have worked through these texts since my time in seminary, I have always thought: “Who am I neglecting in my life?” I would challenge you this morning to do the same in your life.

3) Conversion: As we conclude this section of Acts, I think we clearly see that conversion is a big deal. Furthermore, I believe that, in these conversion accounts, God’s initiative is always prior. He is the one who does the saving. This is why people are perplexed about those God chooses to save! 4) One of the things that “jolted” me when coming into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, by and large, was the lack emphasis on conversions. Why is that true for churches coming into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church from the PCUSA? I think it’s because most of the ministers trained in the mainline were taught “hypothetical universalism.” I have been reading an excellent commentary by Beverly Gaventa and she fits this particular mold. She taught at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Columbia Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary, and now teaches at Baylor University. She doesn’t even like the word “conversion” and does not use it in her commentary (as opposed to the commentaries by Witherington, Bock, Barrett, and many others!). I think Gaventa is a fine biblical scholar and one of the best in her generation. But, I am worried her way of thinking rubbed off on her students who went into PCUSA churches and thus influenced the average church goer. It has been stated before with Presbyterians: “As the seminaries go, so goes the pastors and churches.” This is why the Evangelical Presbyterian Church does not any longer partner with mainline institutions because the EPC realizes the shaping power of institutions. As I ponder my two years of ministry, I am amazed at how both Dallas Theological Seminary and Trinity School for Ministry shaped me, personally. We all like to think we are free spirited and can choose our own destinies. But, I don’t know if reality affirms that truth. This is the same for those of us who have spent time in the PCUSA. The institution shaped us more than we probably realize. It’s just a fact of life and sociological data would point us in this direction. I don’t think the average Evangelical Presbyterian Church attendee is a hypothetical universalist. But, I do think that, by and large, bad habits have rubbed off on ex-mainline Presbyterians.

- 4 - Finally, just because we believe God is sovereign doesn’t mean we get to be off the hook for neglecting the Great Commission, or the challenges of the text we have been working through.

Challenge: the good news is that the Lord is gracious, and it does take time to transition out of the mainline. In fact, I think it often takes a good decade to do so. But, I want to challenge us this morning. I think Acts summons us to imagine a world where conversions play a key role in the life of the church. Conversions are assumed in the Book of Acts and throughout the New Testament. They constitute a healthy church. Please continue to pray that the Lord always challenges us to see this. Not because we need to grow the church per se, but because the gospel saves. Praise be to God that we live in a free society where we have the freedom to speak and we have plenty of people in Erie who are not “sinners saved by grace.” This is all the reason more to share the good news of the gospel. The Bible is a rather tame book if we just study it through a purely historical lens. But, when we realize it is active and cuts to the heart (Hebrews 4:12), we realize that Scripture creates new realities and new communities centered around the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 10:34-43).

Closing

Let us be a church that knows the world has been turned upside down, that sees the providence of God in our midst, and that battles against the urge to downplay conversion. Christ has broken into time and space and changed everything. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we can accomplish great things for the Lord. Would you pray with me this morning?

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