Text: Acts 10:34-38
Date: January 15, 2023
Event: The Baptism of our Lord (observed), Year A
Acts 10:34-38 (EHV)
Then Peter began to speak: “Now I really am beginning to understand that God does not show favoritism, 35but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36He sent his word to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
37“You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached. 38God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.
God Anointed Jesus as the Savior of All
Scope creep is a real danger to any project. We’ve wrestled with that a little bit in our recent work on campus. When you start doing some renovations, no matter what boundaries you set for the project originally, it seems inevitable that things will be added to it, either because it becomes necessary or because you had new ideas once you’re into the project that you didn’t have when you were in the planning stage.
But with God, there is no scope creep in anything that he does. He perfectly knows the needs and perfectly knows the complete solution, even if we don’t. And that can produce frustration for us because we approach God in prayer asking for help with problems and perhaps even bringing forth possible solutions, and his response may be that we don’t have the perspective to fully understand the problem and thus to understand the solution.
And so while that can be frustrating, there’s also a comfort in knowing that God’s perspective will lead to the real, best solution to any given problem even if we can’t see it. Sometimes, though, we are able to look back and start to understand what God likely had in mind even if we were blind to it at the time.
That’s the kind of epiphany that Peter has as he speaks in our Second Reading from Acts chapter 10. Peter outlines that God had bigger and grander plans than Peter had even realized, that Jesus was not just the Savior of some, but that God had anointed him as the Savior of all!
This account takes place in the early days of the Christian church. We’re past the time of Jesus’ ministry. His life, death, and resurrection and have come and gone, and now Jesus has ascended to heaven. The apostles are going out with the message of sins forgiven in Jesus’ substitutionary work. The first Christian Pentecost day was an outward, visible triumph as God brought 3,000 people to faith in Jesus through the preaching of the apostles. And while we don’t have many other grand mass-conversations recorded for us, a few chapters before our reading the Holy Spirit tells us through Luke’s pen, “The word of God kept on spreading, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly” (Acts 6:7).
Jesus, though, had promised that the disciples would be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, but then also to the ends of the earth. And this movement toward sharing the gospel with Gentiles, with those who are not Jewish, was a difficult one. It was difficult in large part because of cultural inertia. God had established clear boundaries between his people and the other nations. They were not to intermarry; they were not to work together; even their diets were supposed to be different, labeling many of the foods that the surrounding nations ate and enjoyed as unclean. If we paint with a very, very broad brush, God had made it a sin in his ceremonial law for his people to look and act like the surrounding nations. But, in Jesus those laws had been fulfilled, their purposes were done, and God’s people were entering into a new era.
At the beginning of Acts chapter 10, we hear of a Gentile named Cornelius. He was a centurion in the Roman military and also a proselyte, someone who was not of the bloodline of Abraham who had converted to Jewish faith. He saw a vision of an angel coming to him, directing him to send for Peter. Cornelius immediately sent some trusted people to go and fetch Peter.
While this is happening in Cornelius’ home, Peter was praying where he was staying. He saw a vision of a large sheet or tablecloth being set before him with all sorts of unclean animals. A voice directed him to kill and eat these animals. And Peter, being the faithful Jewish believer that he was, was appalled at the idea. His response in the vision was “Certainly not, Lord, for I have never eaten anything impure or unclean” (Acts 10:14). But the voice he heard responded, “What God has made clean, you must not continue to call unclean” (Acts 10:15). This happened three times.
As Peter came out of the vision, the men that Cornelius had sent to summon Peter arrived at the house. The Holy Spirit directed Peter to go with them, so the next morning they made the trek to Caesarea. Coming into a Gentile’s home was considered wrong—it made Peter ceremonially unclean. But the vision of the animals that God had given to Peter was directing him to see the Gentiles not as unclean people to be avoided, but as people loved by God who needed the message of sins forgiven in Jesus. So Peter began to share the good news about Jesus with them—the beginning of which is our reading for this morning.
And you can see the revelation and epiphany happening in real-time for Peter. “Now I really am beginning to understand…” Peter was a work in progress—just like us. He was growing in his understanding of the scope of God’s plan to rescue people from sin. And even though Jesus and the Old Testament before him had made it plain that this forgiveness was for the world, he, like us, needed nudges and help to process this information and apply it to his life.
Peter takes us back to Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan in these brief verses. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.” Jesus’ baptism was his anointing, his commissioning, the formal start to his ministry. He took our place under John’s baptism of repentance, even though he had no sin to repent of, because doing so was proper “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). In other words, Jesus’ baptism was part of God’s plan to make us righteous, to rescue us from sin.
But Peter can see now that Jesus’ anointing set him on a path to be the Savior for all people, not a limited group. This forgiveness was not limited to people of a specific time, or place, or race. No, “Now I really am beginning to understand that God does not show favoritism, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. He sent his word to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” Peter began to fully appreciate the scope of Jesus’ work, that God called him to forgive the sins of all people. And lest we misunderstand what Peter is saying, he is not saying that God deems people acceptable who do enough good things. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that without saving faith, it is impossible to do anything to please God (see Hebrews 11:6). So those who fear God and do what is right according to him are those who already have faith in Jesus as Savior. And this faith can and will come to people from all backgrounds and nations.
What does this mean for us? First of all it means that we are included in that people for whom Jesus died. We are not part of “scope creep” that God put a stop to. You were always in his plan. Your sins, no matter how heavily they may weigh on you, were always part of what Jesus suffered on the cross. When Peter says that Jesus came to heal “all who were oppressed by the Devil,” that’s not just the demon possessed out of whom the demons were thrown out. That’s all of us, those whom the devil torments and tempts, those whom Satan wants to be in hell to suffer as he suffers. Jesus casting out demons was a slight twitch of his divine muscles that later strong-armed Satan, that crushed that ancient serpent’s head.
But this also has an affect on us as ambassadors of our Savior and on the work we do together as a congregation. I’m going to guess that hardly anyone was shocked this morning to hear me say that Jesus is the Savior for all people, that those who have faith in Jesus as Savior will be in heaven. For many of us, this has been a truth we’ve known from little on. And even for those of us newer to the Christian faith, it’s such a core tenant of the faith that it’s probably one of the first things we learned about Jesus’ work.
But do we always behave like we know that? Do we always act like we trust that it’s true? Do we decide that the gospel isn’t for this person or that person because, “They’ll never listen to us” or “They believe in a different faith” or “They didn’t listen when I shared before so why would I waste my time?” Do we decide that that neighbor or coworker or family member or friend is beyond the scope of our Savior’s forgiveness, not because his forgiveness is limited, but because we just don’t think it will “work”? Or even more selfishly, do we make these assumptions or declarations because pushing against them might make things difficult for us? Maybe we’ll have awkward conversations? Maybe we’ll lose a friend? Maybe family relationships will be strained? Maybe I’ll feel bad?
Peter was in an incredibly uncomfortable position going to this Gentile’s home to share the gospel with him. He was so far outside of his comfort zone that he couldn’t even see that comfort zone anymore. And yet, he knew God’s direction and he went forward. We haven’t had visions from God but we have the even clearer direction of his Word—our mission is to share Jesus with everyone.
Our area gives us a lot of unique opportunities to do this. People from all over the world live here. People from places where the gospel might not have much of any presence are here in our backyard. They live next to you. They shop for groceries alongside of you. People for whom Jesus died—but do not know it—surround us, and we have the free, glorious message of the gospel to give them.
That task feels completely overwhelming and perhaps we do nothing because we don’t even know where to start. And here, too, scope creep can distract from our goals. Yes, the gospel is to go to the world, but we are not alone in this work. We work with the fellow members of our sister congregations, and more loosely with Christians across the globe who share the good news of Jesus as Savior.
My recommendation right now? Follow Peter’s example and pray. Pray that we see Jesus as the Savior for all of our personal failings, all of our sins. Pray that God may open our eyes to the opportunities that are in front of us to share Jesus with those who need to know what he’s done for them. Pray that we might have the courage and fortitude to share Jesus with them and that the Holy Spirit would give us the words to share it. Remember, even something as simple as, “Do you want to come to church with me? I’ll buy brunch afterwards” will likely connect someone to the gospel if they are here. Or forwarding an email with worship livestream or online Bible Class information will also present an opportunity for them to see and hear what God has done for them.
We won’t convert the nations by ourselves. In fact, we won’t convert anyone on our own; in the end, this is God’s work through us, not our work. Jesus, the Lord of all, will see to it that his Word goes out with power to those who need to hear it. May we be part of that work, to bring the anointed Savior of all to all! Amen.
