Cnr Alice and Edward Sts Mittagong | Sundays at 10.30am
Micah 4.1-7 Acts 11
A ground breaking message
The church of Jesus Christ is like a shock absorber which is called to face constant pressures even from the Lord Himself.
The Lord is stretching the thinking of His people as we more and more face the challenge of multiculturalism in the community and nation. How does the church respond to the influx of new people groups and how does the Lord’s Gospel relate to them?
Peter learns in his day that “God accepts from every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right” (Acts 10.35). Regarding Jesus Christ: “All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His Name.” (Acts 10.43)
Thus God calls on His community to reach out beyond its own cultural borders to communicate the Gospel to others.
This process causes inevitable clashes of culture. Therefore it can cause crisis for believers not prepared to make changes.
In the case of the early church it was pressures caused by God’s inclusion of Gentiles within the Jewish Christian Church, that brought stress. Movement of the Gospel, under the Holy Spirit beyond Jerusalem to such centers as Antioch in the Roman Empire, involved leaders and the people being open to change.
Thus Peter explains recent events and reinforces them Scripturally, leading the church to accept new ideas. The new message was for all the nations and God’s elect had no cultural or national restrictions. It was a community authenticated By God who gave the Holy Spirit to whom He pleased. This included the Roman household of Cornelius just as it had to Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.
The challenge of the church of Jesus Christ was to see that God is a God of world mission. The church at Antioch was now a new base for world mission and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch (Acts 11.26). As Christians they were built up with the clear intention of seeing the church spread across the Roman world.
Today, we are being lead by the Spirit in our nation to include other cultures in our mission. As we step out we too will find God’s confirmation in this process. It will also produce pressures for change