Reconciled Community

0:01 Father, we thank you for this opportunity to continue to worship as we open up the text and study your word. Father, we know that your word is living and powerful. So as Rabbi Ari comes forth to deliver this message, we ask that it would bring life to us, that it would search the dark places of our life and show us just what needs to be removed, needs to be transformed in order to bring you glory. Father, I pray that you would continue to use him, strengthen his lungs, father, strengthen his mouth, that he can declare the goodness of your word. In the mighty name of Yeshu we pray. Amen. Amen.

0:49 Good morning, Shabbat Shalom. I can still say good morning for a few more minutes, uh, as I've been doing for the last, I guess now, 15 months-ish. Just wanted to give you a, a brief update on, on what is happening really this week in the Middle East. Last week, I, I was talking, I, you know, I gave several, made several comments about the state of the Syrian government and what was happening. And, and quite nearly immediately after serv our service ended, the, the government of Syria fell last week. And, um, but actually before I, before I get too much into this, I was wondering,

1:35 I just wanna play you guys a, a brief video. Do you guys have that ready? Uh, just a brief video for you to see. The acid regime, which ruled Syria with an iron fist for over 50 years, collapsed under relentless advance of rebel forces. This marks the end of an era of tyranny and the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter. In Syrian history last night, Syrian rebels entered Damascus capturing the city without resistance and taking over the presidential palace. This is just insane because Bashar Alad, the dictator who ruled Syria for 24 years, fled the city

2:22 and reportedly the country as well. Rebel leaders declared the mask is free and announced the end of the asset regime ushering in what they claim will be a new era of peace and justice for Syria. The question is, who will govern Syria? Because the Rebel coalition, the top of the asset regime, is far from unified. The IDF has bolstered its, uh, forces in the area, positioning tanks and troops to secure the buffer zone. It also announced closed military zones, uh, near the border. And to think by the way, that the one man who started this whole recent chaos in the Middle East is no other than Yasir, uh, the former leader of Hamas who led an invasion into Israel.

3:09 That led to a bigger war in Lebanon, which led to the elimination of Hezbollah's leader. And its, uh, pretty much defeat, which led to the Rebels finding a good timing to topple Asad. So instead of harming Israel, Sunir ended up harming his, his allies in Tehran. I, I played that clip for you. Be really for that last, what, maybe sentence or two. It's quite fascinating to see what is, what has happened again, uh, as I think I said it two weeks ago. Is this good or is it bad? Time will tell. Um, it certainly, uh, it certainly had,

3:57 there's some certain positive benefits, which I'll, I'll, I'll address as we're going through here. Um, Assad fled the country and is now dwelling in Russia, uh, and took basically the wealth of the nation with him, uh, in terms of monetary wealth left behind all of the military assets. Uh, and, and so if you were paying attention, by the way, Assad, the, the, I, I know I said time will tell. It's, it's not a bad thing that Assad is no longer in charge. Uh, he was, he was a tyrannical murderer who murdered hundreds of thousands of his own citizens,

4:42 not just, I I'm not saying that murdering people outside your country is better than murdering people inside your country, but usually you're closer to the ones that you live with in, are in, in are, are your, if you will, your people group. But he murdered three, 300,000 plus of his own citizens, uh, using all sorts of weaponry, including chemical warfare, uh, biological warfare, you know, the stuff that we go to movies and, and we watch, and we're like, man, I wish that would never happen. That's what he used. And you can think about the experience of those who were tortured by him. He, he left, he left, uh, fled, fled the country,

5:30 left all the military assets, Israel proceeded. Uh, it is, I, I don't know, it's a, to me, I, I don't know what the word is. It's amazing. I, that's not the right word. But Israel quickly moved into the positions that the Syrian military had held. Um, if you're familiar with the geography, basically Mount Hermon was split on who owned it. And so there was military on either side, and Israel moved into the Syrian military positions to, uh, prevent, prevent any, um, oncoming assault from, uh, potential assault from maybe from some rebels or, uh, by the way, you hear people talk about the rebel group.

6:16 It's really not the rebel group, it's the rebel groups. There are more than 15 groups that are headed by, by 15 different people who are, are a part of a coalition who have helped overthrow the government. When you overthrow a dictator, a tyrannical dictator, it takes a level of viciousness that you perhaps do not want in a democratically elected leader. Maybe you do, uh, maybe you're in a different block of people than me. Um, but, uh, we don't know what those leaders are gonna be. We don't even know who is going to lead the group moving forward. And that's really just the rebel group. There's also a Kurdish group that,

7:02 that is up in northern Syria as well. And I, and I just wanna share just a few things. Israel flew, I think that it was over 300 missions. It might have been over 500 missions. Um, reports from people who lived near Air Force bases in Israel. They said that they had never in their lifetime heard so much, uh, fighter aircraft taking off and landing. Uh, and Israel moved very quickly. I don't know if it was planned or not. Uh, I, I don't know that it could have been planned, but maybe they had a, a, a plan in the back pocket, but they destroyed 86% of Syria's air defense systems.

7:48 They destroyed 90% of their MIG fleet and 80% of their suo uh, planes, their fighter aircraft, they d they destroyed the missiles and firepower systems with that were, uh, Syrian military. Their purpose, by the way, was not just to destroy military stuff. Um, their purpose was to prevent any other group, rebel group in particular from coming in and gaining control of those weapons and now presenting a clear and present danger to Israel. Uh, Assad, listen, it's not a great relationship that Asad had with Israel, but you know, you know, when you have that, that enemy

8:35 of yours and you just know how far you can push them before they push back, there was kind of this balance that it, it hadn't been too much back and forth. There was, uh, a, a, a section of the area that was, um, agreed upon that if anybody crossed over, it was, you know, it was, it was now game on and warfare. And that's what Israel moved into because there was a, a power vacancy when Syria pulled out in this process. If you, uh, you, I, I'm, I try to share with you things that, that you won't hear on the news. Um, you may have heard some of this, that's fine. If you have, then you probably consult some of the same sources I do. But, uh, in this process of the Rebel Group collapsing,

9:23 they ended up attacking a un uh, base. And Israel, the Israeli military moved in and defended the UN base, uh, from being overthrown from Rebel Attack. You won't hear any positive news from the UN about that. Uh, but they did help. They also, and, and by the way, I, I included, if you use the u version app, I included two or three different videos that I simply do not have time to show. Um, about 14 to 20 minute videos, uh, that are links in the YouVersion app. Uh, one of those, which is actually only a three minute video, but, but one of those is a, a council of the, uh, population of six different villages that are on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

10:12 Uh, and they are six Drews villages, and they all came together as a population and unanimously voted to ask Israel to annex them into Israel for the sake of the preservation of their dignity. Now, I just, for everyone who promotes the idea that Israel is out there terrorizing and genocidal, this is a group of Drews, uh, non-Jewish people. Who are I, I I, they're not Arabs, but they're also, can I, they're also not Jews. Uh, but they're there in the Middle East. There are J villages, by the way, in Israel. And, and this group realized, and,

11:00 and in the video, they state it's better to be a part of Israel and preserve their dignity because the rebel groups will come and take their men, their women, and their children. These are the things that don't get reported in the media because the media want, well, hmm, some in the media wants you to believe that the Israeli government is genocidal and out to exterminate everyone who's not Jewish, um, when it's just simply not true. So you'll, you, you have that link. There's other links. They destroyed 70 to 80% of all

11:47 of the military strategic military capabilities of Syria. They destroyed all of the chemical weapons facilities. They destroyed all of the missiles, and in that process, they destroyed cruise missiles. I don't know if you realize that Syria had cruise missiles. I didn't realize that Syria was perhaps one of the best armed, uh, def at least defensive militaries in the, in the region. And because of that, uh, you'll see this in one of the videos if you go watch one of the videos, because of that, Israeli Air Force pilots knew that they had to, uh, remain away from defensive batteries in order to not be shot down. And, and so they had to memorize the locations of

12:34 where those batteries were in. In fact, their def defense, you know, I don't know if you guys realize this, but Israel has one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world. And even with that, one of their fighter jets got down, shot down about six or eight years ago by the Syrian military defense. And, and Joshua, can you do me a favor on the fly? Can you pull up a map of the Middle East for just a second? Sorry, I didn't prepare them for this one. Um, but it, it is fascinating because all of this, uh, started even as, uh, Hania said, all of this started when, when Cir invaded Israel on October 7th, and it led to, uh, a military

13:22 war in Gaza. It led to a military war in Lebanon. And, and, and, and in this process led to the, um, death of the leader of Hezbollah, then the death of the next leader of Hezbollah, then the death of the next leader of Hezbollah, then the death of the next leader of Hezbollah within about a 24 hour period. And it led to this power vacuum. Can you, uh, sorry, can you get one that's a little bit more zoomed out? I would like to see Iran in, in the picture for just a moment. Um, if you can get that far out, uh, because this is, this is one thing. If you watch the video, it's fascinating. You'll, you'll see Israel has been surrounded,

14:08 and you probably have seen this for the last 14 or 15 months anyways, Israel's been surrounding his fighting as a seven front war, um, a a against a Iranian proxies. But in this process of this, a fall of the Syrian government, by the way, the Syrian government was the, the largest Syrian proxy and the most, uh, well armed. So in this process, uh, with the fall of the defense system, the aerial defense system in Syria, what has opened up is a direct, a, a near direct, nearly unimpeded corridor for the, for a potential flight corridor, uh,

14:56 military wise that goes directly from Israel to Iran. And I say that, I'm not saying, I don't know, I know what Israel's doing. Uh, I don't even know sometimes if Israel knows what Israel's doing, uh, in, in terms of some things. But you can look, Joshua, maybe you can use, use your mouse, but you can look fly from, you can fly a military sortie from Israel in Syria, and you just go right over the top of Iraq. So you have just this moment in the top of Iraq, and now you're at Tehran, or perhaps you're at some other facilities that are, uh, maybe undeclared or undisclosed to the un nuclear program. Uh, and, and now Israel has the ability to strike without,

15:43 by the way, if you can just look at the distance between Israel and Syria, so that's your first leg, you'll, that's within the first hour. It's a, it's a multi-hour flight to get to Syria, uh, to Iran. If Syria was able to say, Hey, they're coming. You imagine the defense systems that now go, go armed in, in Iran, but now those are no longer, the war, early warning system is no longer active. And, uh, it has led to lots of other, um, speculation. Uh, I read a, a very interesting couple articles. Anyways, I'm saying all of that because what what you have witnessed is, it's not, it's not complete yet, by the way, but you are, is what is now a crumbling alliance

16:32 that seemed to have a stranglehold on the Middle East that was centered in Tehran. But the power structure with the collapse of the Syrian government is it's changing all of the dynamics. Now. You can go read Revelation, you can go read other in time focused books, and perhaps you can see how there might be possible to end up with a seven year peace arrangement in the Middle East among all of these governments that seem to have hated each other. But now there's some big, big power vacuums. Again, I'm not saying that we're there yet. I still, I, I, I stick by what I've said, which is, um,

17:19 we are experiencing the birth pangs of what are associated with the coming of the Messiah. It doesn't mean that he's coming tomorrow. Uh, it doesn't mean that he's coming this year. It just means that we're far closer than when John wrote Revelation. Uh, so you do the math. We are continuing in our study of the Book of Acts. So you are welcome to Open Up Act to Acts chapter 11. Last week I covered about five verses the last five verses of Acts chapter 10. It took me an hour, and this week I'm covering 18 verses

18:05 and Acts chapter 11. So you can do the math. Uh, no, I'm just playing Acts chapter 11. Now, the emissaries, excuse, excuse me. Now, the emissaries and brothers throughout Judea, the West Bank, anybody, brothers and sisters throughout the West Bank heard, I use that term very tongue in cheek because that's the term that's used all around. But here we have in the scripture, this is just one example,

18:54 the text referring it to Judea, talking about the Jewish people being the primary inhabitants of, of Judea, Not that I'm trying to make any case. Now, the emissaries and brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. But when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision took issue with him saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with him. So Peter began explaining to them point by point, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance, I saw a vision, something like a great sheet coming down, being lowered from heaven by its four corners. And it came right to me. I looked inside, considering it carefully, and saw four footed creatures of the earth, wild animals,

19:39 reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying, get up, Peter, kill and eat. And I said, certainly not Lord, for never has anything unholy or unclean entered my mouth. But the voice from heaven answered a second time what God has made clean you must not consider unholy. This happened three times and then everything was pulled up to heaven. At that very moment, three men arrived at the house where we were sent to me from Caesarea. The ACH told me to go with them without hesitating. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man's house. He reported to us how he had seen an angel standing in hou in his house and saying, send to Japa

20:25 and bring Simon called Peter. He'll speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household. As I began to speak, the Ko fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord and how he used to say, John immersed you with water, but you will be immersed in the kodesh. Therefore, if God gave them the same gift as also to us, after we put our trust in our Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah, who was I to stand in God's way, when they heard this, they became quiet and they glorified God saying, then even to the Gentiles, God has granted repentance leading to life.

21:14 We basically have spent the last six weeks, maybe two months, discussing chapter 10. And really this, the bulk of chapter 11, the bulk of this section of chapter 11 is a recounting of what happened in chapter 10. And it's actually relatively close to verbatim to what happened. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at a few things. First, we're gonna start in verses one through three, and then we'll look at the, the middle section verses one through three. We have, we have this primary question, which you should ask is, who heard about what happened with Peter and Cornelius? Well, the text tells us that the emissaries and the brothers throughout Judea, it indicates

22:01 by, by by, its by the statement here. It indicates that the emissaries were not present with Peter in Cornelius's house. So the rest of the emissaries weren't part of the six who were with Peter, that, that went to Cornelius's house, who were the emissaries? We see it in Acts chapter one, just, I know this is, we're going back 10 chapters, and it's really over a year ago. But in Acts chapter one, we have them listed out, I'll, I'll just read 'em to you. In Acts chapter one, verse 13, you have Peter and John Jacob and Andrew, Philip and Thomas Bartholomew and Matthew Jacob's, son of Alpheus, and Simon the zealot and Judah of Jacob. And then in 17, um, they talk about the office

22:47 of Emissary or what, what is often translated as apostle. And they're talking about Judah or Judas maybe is how you know him, uh, and his vacancy of the office because of his betrayal and, and, and subsequent death. And so then in verse 26 of chapter one, they cast lots and they choose one to fill the office. So I, I'm being very particular here because the text of Acts tells us that the office of the Emissary or the apostle is limited to those 12 that Yeshua chose. I'm saying that not to exclude any, uh, understanding that there is an apostolic function

23:35 that that plants and oversees multiple communities. But when I was growing up, it was called the difference between the capital A and the little a i, I don't know if that's still used or not, uh, but there's a difference between the office of Apostle and the function of overseer or, or, or a a, a communal, uh, multicom communal overseer, apostle. Partially, I say that because Paul ends up being one of those, even though he's not one, one of the 12 apostles. We had a fascinating discussion on a Wednesday night with, uh, uh, someone who came, I don't, maybe, maybe he's still here. I don't know about why that person. Uh, who was it his chosen Matthew, I think, uh, Mattias,

24:21 yeah, why It should have been Paul who was chosen. And, and I said, well, we're about eight chapters too early for it to have been Paul. Uh, that doesn't happen. Paul's not around until later in terms of the brothers, the, the followers of Yeshua. Anyways, so here we've talked about the em, ms areas, and now who are the brothers? Well, we have two different options here. And and for those of you who ask me questions, you know, with an either or answer, what's my general answer? Yes, yes. Uh, so I'll give you the two different options, but I, in my, in my belief, it's actually both. Um, so there's two different options. Well, in, in Acts, again, in Acts chapter one, Peter talks about Yeshua's brothers, his physical family,

25:06 his brothers being present in the upper room. So here we could be referencing Yeshua's brothers, uh, in, in terms of Acts chapter 11, but also in Acts chapter one, verse 15, the very next verse, it says, Peter stood up among the brothers and sisters about 120. So this is obviously more, uh, I, I'm pretty certain Miriam didn't have 120, uh, boys. Uh, if she did, y'all know how to pray. Anyways, it's obviously more than just the emissaries and the physical brothers of Yeshua here in Acts one 15. And so now what we have referencing here in Acts chapter 11

25:52 with the emissaries and the brothers throughout Judea, it seems like the emissaries and, and really the brothers. Now, this dates back to Acts chapter nine, uh, eight Acts, chapter eight, uh, with the persecution led by Paul. It says that the brothers were spread, they, they dispersed because of the persecution. They went throughout Judea and Samaria. So this is the group that's now being referenced is this group of followers. And, and actually, the way I read it, probably by and large, they were some of the original followers of Yeshua, those who were present in Acts chapter one and two. So they go, the, the, the brothers in the emissaries hear about this,

26:39 and it seems like if you read some subtext, not in the text, but some underlying currents that might be there, it seems like this actually caused Peter to go up to Jerusalem to give a report. Uh, by the way, I just want to note, I I do this every time there's something in the text that's, that's often overlooked, but the act of going up to Jerusalem is understood generally, uh, well, at this point, only in a Jewish mind, o only Jewish people went up to Jerusalem. Even if you went, uh, geographically down, you know, from the Galilee, it's always references going up because you're going up to Jerusalem. So here we have, again, Luke referencing going up to Jerusalem.

27:25 Peter goes up to Jerusalem to give a report. Now, I, I've, I've said it all along the way, but often most people use, um, the Ethiopian eunuch as the, as an example of, of the first non-Jewish, I mean, not also Nons Samaritan follower Yeshua. I will tell you, the, the coming to faith of the Ethiopian eunuch didn't cause Peter, perhaps we can use the terminology for a moment that's commonly used in Christianity, the head of the church, the most important of all of the apostles to go up and give an accounting

28:13 before the rest of the emissaries for his actions. It didn't cause Philip in that case to do it. And in fact, there wasn't even, and I mentioned this I think last week, there wasn't even an outcry of astonishment when the, the Ethiopian unit came to faith. It leads me to my conclusion that the Ethiopian was Jewish. Uh, but that, that's, that's, uh, my conclusion. So Peter here goes up to give a report concerning the Gentiles coming to faith, primarily, uh, this circumstance with with Cornelius and his family. And while he's giving the, the account, the text tells us, um, those of the circumcision took issue with him.

29:01 Now, it seems the text to me seems to indicate perhaps something more than just being Jewish, because if it's really the, the, the 11 and Peter and the rest of the brothers, well, they were all Jewish, so it seems logical that they were all probably circumcised. And yet here it uses this terminology. This, this circumcision, uh, took issue with Peter. So it seems to indicate that there's a, um, a, a group of Jewish or, or followers of Yeshua, um, within, uh, I don't know, what'd you call it? A subgroup, uh, perhaps a sect within all

29:50 of the followers called the circumcision. And it seems like they could be one of two different options, at least from my, my my thought process. Uh, one, it could be a group of Yeshua followers associated with the Pharis, say, uh, uh, party. Um, or another option could be a group of people who had gone through conversion process and were known as ProSites and had then now become followers of Yeshua. Now, I want, I just wanna step out for just one moment and say they were converts or ProSites, and then became followers of Yeshua. They didn't become followers of Yeshua and then have to convert. I just, I like that will become relevant

30:36 later on in the message. These two options, by the way, are not mutually exclusive. Um, they could have been proselytized a part of the pharis say, prop, uh, uh, party. We we're not told. But we do know that in Acts chapter two, when the, when the, when the spirit of God was poured out on, on, on the emissaries and the, the 120 that were in the room, we do know that Peter then stands up because, because there's some in the, there's this crowd of people witnessing who are watching this, and, and they're, and, and, you know, uh, they're speaking in tongues and they're like, oh, they're drunk. And he's like, it's nine o'clock in the morning. There hasn't even been a bris for us to have some schnapps yet. Sorry, that was a, maybe

31:22 that was too much of an insider joke. Anyways, we haven't, it is not even days, the, the rest of the day, yet, how can we be drunk? And, and then he, he, he begins to move forward. But I, I want to note that in that text, Luke identifies everyone who's in the crowd, and they're all Jewish people who are in Jerusalem and are from the diaspora. And then at the end, he says, uh, they are Jews and ProSites in Acts chapter two. So it's safe to assume that there's this, and by the way, out of all of that grouping of people, 3000 souls came to faith that day.

32:10 It's safe to assume that that 3000 represented a kind of a scattering of the group. So it would make sense that there are ProSites who came to faith. There are, uh, people from Rome, people from all over these places that, that Luke mentions. But here, the text tells us that this faction had two issues. Now we're coming back to Acts chapter 11. The, this faction of the circumcision had two issues with what Peter did. First of all, let me stop for just a moment. We had a fantastic discussion on Wednesday night in our Bible study concerning what, um, the, the, the Jewish idea of who gets saved and, and particular, what,

32:55 what would primarily have been a worldview at that point during the second temple time period, Jews and Gentiles were really there. There was no, there was no overlap. In order to go from being from the nations or a gentile to being a part of the promised people, you had to go through conversion. You had to go through this process, and then you would be called a ProSite. As, as Luke, uh, tells us in the text, What I wanna point out is this uproar by the party of circumcision is not about salvation, their primary objective.

33:42 They don't say, how dare you take salvation to the Gentiles? You know that that would be what we would call a theological concept. You know, we have theology and theology we come up with and we read the Bible, we create this great theology. But the problem with theology is it becomes very difficult when you have a group of more than one, because all of a sudden you have disagreements with the way you live. Now, the way you live, I would say, is not theology, uh, or I, listen, maybe you could make an argument, but when you have a disagreement with someone because of who they are, that's not theological issue.

34:28 That's a social issue. Now, what we do as humans is we try to mask our social issues in theology. And, and, and it comes out in different ways in different groups. Um, one of those ways is God told me to tell you. I'm gonna tell you, if you come to me and tell me, God told me to tell you 99% of the time, my response is, God hasn't told me yet. So you're gonna have to wait until he tells me, because I'm not sure that I, I believe your filter.

35:17 I mean, I like you, great person, but I, maybe your filter's not the same filter that I'm the, the, the, the maybe, maybe it's not God who told you. That's just one of my pet peeves, y'all. So do with it as you will. Um, but the idea of masking something in terms of God said, or God told I is exactly that. You're masking the actual issue. And the actual issue issue is a social issue, not all. Listen, you can have theological disagreements, and by and large that happens. But most of your problems, especially if you're in this room or you're a part of em and you're not here, you're streaming or something like that.

36:03 Most of your issues that will happen with the rest of us are not theological in nature. They're really social in nature. And if we can recognize that, it will actually help us enter into a deeper relationship with someone else who we disagree with. Okay? I just, soap box, lemme put it to the side. The, the mask that is being used here is these are gentiles and, and salvation, but what they actually say is this. Their complaint is not that the Gentiles got salvation. Their, their complaint is you went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them. Now, tell me what part of that is theological in nature.

36:50 All of that is a hundred percent social. You went beyond what the way I live my life. And, and you, I'm complaining now because you went and did something with someone that I, I don't think you should talk to. And not only did you go do something over there, you ate with him. Yeah, this is really bad, really, really bad. Again, This is what we do all the time. So I want you to, I want you to take some of what I'm going to say over the next, I'm gonna call it 30 minutes, and let's hope we stay within that 30 minutes. I want you to take some of

37:36 what I'm gonna say over the next 30 minutes. And I want you to understand that the way you understand the Bible today and the way you live your life socially, it is unfair, fair, and not only unfair, but not right for you to take that lens or, or understanding and put it upon the apostles, the emissaries, the brothers of Yeshua, the family of Yeshua, and this early first century community, because we live in a day when we can drive somewhere instead of catch the closest mule we live in a day. I read an article, it doesn't matter. We live in a day where you can go

38:21 get your meat from a grocery store, and you never have to see an animal die for you to eat meat. In fact, you can go to the grocery store, one grocery store and get everything you could potentially need for food for the entire week. We live in a different time. It doesn't mean that there's principles that don't still apply. I'm just saying their lifestyle is different than ours, and it's not right to overlay what we do and put it upon them. Okay? So that being said, in Acts chapter two, we talked about this on Wednesday night in Acts chapter two, Peter stands up

39:09 and he says, he's quotes from Joel two. And he says that these, the, the speaking of tongues, uh, that it is being experienced in Acts chapter two, which maybe I should qualify here, everyone in the crowd understood them in their native language, their na, their birth language, where they were from, and you say, I don't understand when they've all been speaking Hebrew. They're all Jewish people. You just said they're all Jews. Yes, they're all Jews, but they're birth, it, it lists 10 different nations or 12 different nations where they're coming from. And the reality is, my birth language, I, I think I said this last week, my birth language is actually Texan. I mean English. So if I were to, to witness that,

39:56 if this were to happen today, I would hear them in English. And that may be different for some of you. It may be Spanish, it may be Portuguese, it may be whatever, whatever your birth tongue is, that's what they're hearing. But Peter stands up and he, and he quotes Joel and he says, this is a sign. This is, these men aren't drunk. This is a sign that God spoke of through the prophet Joel, about the end of days when the spirit of God would be poured out on all flesh. He uses the term flesh here, not all ethnicities or, or all, um, nationalities. Thank you. I was like, there's another word I'm looking for. It's fascinating because it's the, it's, it's this idea

40:45 of meat that occurs in chapter 10 where the Lord says to Peter, Peter, who stood up and said, the spirit of the Lord will come upon all flesh, by the way, flesh and meat is the same word. And, and, and it's the meat that now is put in front of Peter. And the Lord says, kill and eat. And he says, Lord, I've never eaten anything unclean, all by the way. Everything that was on the sheet that comes down would be what, what Jewish people would call tra or, or unclean animals. And he says, I've never killed an Eden. And the Lord does it three times And says to him three times, kill an eat. And, and this passage, by the way, Axton has often been used

41:33 to justify that the kosher laws were thrown out when, when Yeshua came. Um, but the reality is, is Peter never eats the text, never says that Peter ate. The text immediately says that the Lord told him, now that there's three men at the gate who want to come in and who aren't Jewish, and you shouldn't consider them unclean, you see Peter's in, in the mind of meat. And yet the term terminology unclean is still applicable to these pe to these three people. He says, don't call unclean what I have not made unclean or unholy.

42:21 Peter. In Acts chapter two, he's speaking to this crowd of more than 3000. We know that 3000 came to faith. He's speaking to this crowd, and he has in his mind, he's looking at them and they're from all the nations. They're Jewish people representing all of the nations, and they've gathered there, this is what Peter's mindset is. You can't judge him for only thinking about Jewish people at this moment, because he hasn't, he hasn't gotten the filter from God by which to see that it's not just the Jewish people that he wants to save. And now we have Acts 10, and here we are in Acts 11, and we're gonna continue through verses four through 17.

43:07 And I'm not going to read them because it's, it's almost a verbatim account of chapter 10. And you can go read chapter 10 and also chapter 11. But I will tell you, just, I'll, I'll go through it real quick. Peter explains his vision. He's explaining it to this party in particular of the circumcision, um, or let me rephrase, rephrase. He's rebutting the accusation. So if we're in a courtroom, the party of the, uh, of the circumcision, they are the, uh, the prosecutors, but the judge, those who are actually making the communal ruling are the, the rest of the 12. So there's 11 plus Peter and Peter's explaining to everyone present, this is what happened. So Peter says, he explained this, this vision and this sheet with four footed creatures and about the voice who told him

43:53 to kill and eat, and he refused. And it repeated three times, and then the sheet went back up into the heavenlies, and the voice told him that what God has made clean he must not consider unholy. And at that moment, I know I just said this, but I gotta catch up with my notes. Um, the Lord, the Lord said, there's three men at the gate. Don't consider them unclean. Don't go, uh, don't, don't hesitate to go with them. And Peter at this point then says, he, if you remember from when he was with Cornelius, says Peter, and he has six from the circumcision, is what we find out in chapter 11. And, and at the end of chapter 10, he has six from that party, six from that group. And so Peter goes, you can just imagine Peter's facing this accusation.

44:40 And then Peter says, this all happened. And by the way, these six brothers, they came with me and they're all throwing, are going like, don't throw us under the bus. Like, we don't wanna stand up to the accusation, but they're all there because they witnessed it. So these circumcised believers, uh, he, he says they were with him and he shared with them that the ruok was being poured out on this group from of Cornelius and his family and friends, just as it was on us at the beginning. So it seems to me that Peter, the six, the 11, and at least the, the, the, what I would call the inner, the inner wrapping of the circle of people who were listening were all there

45:26 and all experienced Acts, chapter two, experienced in terms of the Ruok was poured out on them because he says, he says, it happened to this group of people just as it happened to us. And he says he moves on and he says, God gave them the same gift as us. Who was I to stand in God's way? That's the basic recount of, of chapter 10. But I wanna point out a couple differences before I move on. Uh, in the text, it is quite fascinating. Um, there's about three or four that I wanna point out in verse 14. Um, in verse 14, lemme just read it,

46:15 he'll speak where, this is what Cornelius is saying, uh, concerning, Uh, the interaction with the angel who gave him the vision and told him to go get Peter. He'll speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household. By the way, this is different. This is not at all present in Acts chapter 10. The vision between the angel and Cornelius is, but this, this idea of Peter speaking words to you by which you will be saved, is not present in what Cornelius is recorded as telling Peter In Acts chapter 10, in Acts chapter 10, Cornelius asked Peter to share with him all that the Lord had commanded him. And now Peter is, is crafting this argument to be persuasive. And maybe he did say that, maybe it's just not recorded.

47:01 We don't know. Verse 15, Peter says that the Ruach fell on them as he began to speak. Now, I will say that's a little bit different Than I got, you know, through 0.2 in my message. Well, I know technically 0.3, I talked about me, I talked about them, and then I talked about us, got into 0.3, and I was going for 0.4, and that's when the Ruach fell. So Peter's like whatever Peter experienced, it seemed to him as if it was immediate, like he opened his mouth and then the Ruach fell. And then he says there's a, there's a slight difference in verse 16, uh, in terms of what happened in, in Acts 10, Peter says, can anyone refuse water immersion when they received the ruach as we did?

47:47 And here in Acts 10, alright, acts 11, Peter gives a little bit more depth and a little bit more line, a logical line of reasoning that centered on their experience with Yeshua. He says, I remembered the word of the Lord, how he referencing Yeshua. So now he's, he's pulling a circumstance that all of this group of, uh, of followers who are listening would have heard and witnessed with John. He says, I remembered the word of the Lord and how he used to say, John immersed with water, but you will be immersed in the kodesh. And he uses that as justification for the Rak fell on them

48:32 just like the Rak fell on us in Acts chapter two, who was I to stand in God's way? Do you see how this is Peter? I I don't know if it was intentional by Peter, but it is a well-crafted argument that is actually impenetrable to, to any sort of opposing view, because he now has, he has, he's invoked God's way. He's invoked what Yeshua taught us, and he's invo, invo, uh, invoked what we experienced. All of that is irrefutable at this point. Now.

49:17 So we, we get to the end of this section to verse 18, when they heard this, they became quiet and they glorified God saying, then even to the Gentiles, God has granted repentance leading to life. Let's talk about, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go phrase by phrase here for just a minute because I, I feel like there's some implications for us when they heard this. Now, this is the, if you will, the the what I set in the example I've set out earlier. This is the prosecutors and, and also those who were perhaps doubting when they heard this. And, and probably you could even extend it to the whole group because they all probably doubted it at least a little bit. When they heard this, they became quiet.

50:06 It's interesting that there's a contrast here in terms of speech, because the reality is if you are hearing, you're not talking. And if you're talking, you're not hearing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna quote my father here for just a minute. My father always used to say, still says, God gave us two ears so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. And if you talk twice as much as you listen, perhaps you should reconsider.

50:52 That wasn't my dad's growth, that was mine. But here we have an interesting contrast between them becoming quiet and the recording of the experience, the recording of the experience with the ruach falling involves speech. They come out talking, speaking, and the opposite is happening here. They become quiet. It's interesting. I just want, again, I say this every time there's something, this is descriptive, not prescriptive, although I might say it would be behoove us to, to do this. When we see the Lord moving, we should probably stop talking and observe and listen

51:39 Because The reality is he has something for us to gain out of this. But there is a note in terms of he's, Peter is using the speaking in tongues as an evidence of what happened with the ACH falling. And now I should probably take a pause for just a moment because I want to explain something. Um, because the speaking in tongues has become, what did we say on Wednesday night? One of the top three, top five perhaps, um, uh, contentious issues in the body of Messiah in the world today. Well, I speak in tongues. Well, I don't, well, if you don't speak in tongues, you can't be saved. Uh, I don't know. Maybe you've heard that. Maybe you haven't. If you haven't, that's good.

52:26 If you have, I wanna tell you, I I don't see any justification for it. And also the argument often includes the text here in Acts paired with Paul. Now, let me just tell you, Luke and Paul are two different people who are writing with two different purposes. So what Paul is doing, and I say that Paul actually writes with a purpose to an individual specified community in all of his letters. It's, it doesn't mean that we can't gain some wisdom from them, but he's addressing particular issues in every single one of his letters that are present in whatever community there is.

53:12 But the tongues that Luke is quoting is, is recording here, I'm gonna say is at least different in the way we interpret it than the, when we interpret Paul. Now I say that because the experience that Luke records is that the audience hears their own language being spoken, okay? Maybe the Holy Spirit translates for the hero. Maybe the Holy Spirit translates for the speaker. I don't know. But I know that they were understandable. I'm not saying that there's not some another experience, I'm just talking about Luke here, Because it becomes such a contentious issue in the body of Messiah, and we focus on it.

54:00 And now, again, I'm falling back on my father's teaching, but when we focus on contentious issues that bring division, guess what will happen? Contention and division, when we, again, it doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about 'em. It means that they shouldn't be our primary focus. Our primary focus should be what unifies us, what brings us together. And then in that process, oh, you have a disagreement with me. Let me hear your disagreement. Oh, that's an interesting perspective. It's, you can say it's an interesting perspective when you know and have a relationship with the person. Uh, lemme just start here. Lemme go back to earlier. When you have some deep social trust in the person, you can, you can hear their perspective.

54:46 And when you have zero social trust in the person, I will tell you, you will never be able to have a, have a conversation and disagree and have a conversation, disagree, and be friends, because it, you're already not friends. Like that's the premise of the whole complaint here. So when you bring up contentious and Divis di divisive issues with people you don't know, you're looking for a fight, you're not looking for a cause to have reasonable discussion. So here we finish, it says they, who's the, they, the emissaries and the brothers, they glorified God. How did they glorify God? They spoke.

55:33 Now, see, they listened and now they speak and they speak, and they said, God has granted repentance leading to life, even to the Gentiles. That is what they used to glorify God. It, it wasn't, oh, Lord, glorified be your name or, or whatever we used today. They stood up and spoke the fact of what happened and what they realized. And, and in reality, the what changed their mind, because their perception has changed. Now, they get up and they say they glorify God by speaking forth that God has granted repentance leading to life. In other words, this is the opportunity for repentance leading to life, given to now,

56:21 understandably, everyone, or as Peter said earlier, all flesh, he just didn't catch that it meant all flesh. So I forgot to email the media team something I just realized. Love you guys back there, but there's no way you're gonna find it quick enough for me to you to, to have a visual for you. But, um, My father in establishing the congregation, and I've continued with it, created a visual that helps understand the, the vision of em. The visual is a three legged stool.

57:06 I, if you're not familiar with a three-legged stool, a three legged stool has the minimum number of legs that will keep a stool upright. Also, it happens to be used for milking, uh, in a, in an agrarian, uh, farmer farmer culture. The three legged stool at em represents or is represented. We are a messiah centered community. By the way, I'm going through our vision right now. Why? Because someone said to me this week, you give the vision class every, every semester to the new members. How many people in the, in the congregation have been here for 10 years and have never, or or don't even remember it? So we're gonna talk about it for just a few minutes because it's pertinent to this conversation from Acts chapter 11.

57:53 Our vision is to be a Messiah centered community, and we rest upon three different legs, one of which is being a light for Yeshua, one of which is worshiping in a contextually messianic Jewish, uh, manner. And the third is being a reconciled messianic community. The reconciled messianic community is what we find addressed in this text. Reconciled meaning we are Jews and gentiles who dwell together and worship God together and remain, um, Remain distinct or able to be told apart. If that makes sense. Why,

58:42 why do we do this? Why do we include this reconciled messianic community as part of our vision of what we, of what we do to in our existence? Shouldn't this have been solved back in Acts 10 and 11 and or maybe not, maybe you're like, ah, 10 and elevens. Maybe not okay, at least 15. Wouldn't we thought that this would've been an issue that was gone 1900 years ago? Well, in a perfect world, it would've been gone 1900 years ago. But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world inhabited by us, where we make up social issues to bring division

59:28 among one another, or we listen. We don't even have to make 'em up like they exist. So what does this mean? We're Jews and gentiles who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob while remaining distinctly Jews and, and Gentiles. And you should, your response should be, well, Paul's tells us there's neither Jew nor Greek in, in, in Galatians, yes, in regards to salvation. That is a hundred percent true. There's no difference as to who has granted the ability to repent. Granted the ability for repentance that leads to life, bringing it back to Luke's words. But what else is in that verse? Men and women? Mom, are you different than me?

1:00:15 Quite, can I tell you? I I wish my wife was in here when she's in the nursery and probably should be texting me in about 10 minutes saying, you're going too long. I wish my wife was in here, because the reality is my wife and I are very different in appearance and function. The way we operate. We're different in almost every way. But can I tell you something? I love the way my wife is, and she loves the way I am. And because we love the way we are, we're able to multiply in a very positive manner.

1:01:01 But we're distinct. We're very different men and women. The same verse talks about remaining distinctly Jewish and Gentile, or not Jewish. It's not a matter of better or worse. It's a matter of together. We have the ability to multiply when we, when we, when we, uh, when we love each other in our distinctiveness, in our distinction, all of a sudden we are granted the ability to multiply. And what is Paul, what is, is it Paul? No, it's John. What does John say? I think it's in John 14.

1:01:48 They shall know us by our love for one another When we are able to remain distinct and be different, and the world looks at us and goes, but I hate people like that. Or you see it around the world today. We hate Jewish people. They're killing Palestinians. Whatever the line of reasoning, we are able to exist together. And it's through our love for one another that the world will go. But why? Why are you guys different? Like, that's a little bit odd, maybe a lot odd. There are distinct roles that are found scripturally

1:02:36 regarding Jewish people and people from the nations. Paul, I'm gonna, I'm gonna reference Paul here in Paul in Romans, in Paul, in Paul chapter 11. In Romans chapter 11, Paul says, salvation has come to the gentiles. Why? To provoke Israel to jealousy. Now, let me just fill in the blank here to jealousy for their own God. Why? Because it says prior, some have stumbled and fallen away, but salvation has been granted to the gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy for their own God. And we see a little bit further in Romans chapter 11, verse 13. Paul says, I'm speaking to you who are gentiles, insofar as I'm an emissary to the Gentiles, I spotlight my ministry.

1:03:25 Paul's ministry is what to go teach Gentiles about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But in that process, he never once enters into a place without going first to the synagogue. His ministry is magnified when people are operating in their correct role. What? And, and so his ministry, I will say, reflects the mini, the, the calling or one of the callings, at least upon the Jewish people. And that's to be a light for the nations. You find this in Isaiah 40, 49, 6, further on in the same chapter I I'm giving you,

1:04:11 I'm giving you multiple different roles here, depending upon who you are. In the same chapter, a little bit further on talking about the nations who come to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It says, they will bring your sons on their chest and they'll carry your daughters on their backs. What does this mean? It means that as a community, we dwell together in unity, not uniformity. We dwell together in unity, and we love one another so that the love can be seen by the rest of the world. Why? Because they're gonna go, how, how did, like I think I've said this so many times, perhaps you just are burned down in this example. I can look out over the sanctuary and, and I don't see anybody who looks the same as anybody else.

1:04:58 In fact, I'm pretty certain we cover the spectrum of the way the world wor looks in this room, which means, Again, I i i, y'all please don't get old. Don't, don't get bored with my example. Just by looking out and having a a, a spectrum of a, a complete spectrum of the way the world looks, gives me a clearer vision of God. Because each of us are created in the image of the Lord. And when you have, the more people that you bring into that, the more variety, the clearer the image of God. So I love it.

1:05:44 All of us being different, the problems that arise are problems that we shouldn't focus on. Doesn't mean we don't deal with them, but we shouldn't focus on them because it's not our focus. Our focus is being a community unified together, reconcile Jews and Gentiles, men and women. If you want to include that, that's totally fine with me. There's a whole lot of issues between men and women. Some of us are from Mars and some of us are from Venus, is what I've heard. But, uh, I guess that makes us all aliens. Uh, But I'm telling you that this chapter, chapter 10 and chapter 11 form a backbone

1:06:32 of the way we operate at em, which means, and by we're gonna get into Acts 15, and you're probably gonna get bored because we're gonna spend so long in Acts 15. Because Acts 15 is, I'm gonna say a foundational or core scripture for us. And we're gonna have lots of different perspectives when we get there. I can't, I'm, I'm really like, I'm kind of like, can we just fast forward and can we like skip to the good part in the movie? Um, I'm looking forward to 15, but just step at a time. So what did it, what does the rest of this text mean for us in our, in our community? I just applied basically the middle chunk, the middle 14, 15 verses.

1:07:21 Let me just give you a couple questions regarding the first verse and the, the first three verses in the final verse. What is your reaction when you hear someone else has been ministering to a group that you don't believe should have the opportunity to be ministered to? What is your reaction? Because that's what's being addressed here at the beginning of Acts 11. We have lots of groups in our society today. This is something that we love to do. We like to label people. Oh, you're a boomer. Oh, you're a Gen Xer, you're a millennial, you're a Gen Z, or you're a gen alpha. Man, we got lots of them going on now you're a man, you're a woman. You used to, uh, I mean,

1:08:07 there's all other issues that we have in our society today in terms of labeling. I'm just gonna tell you labels aren't super helpful. They may help you understand someone else, but when you begin to, when you begin to pigeonhole someone into a particular group, all of a sudden you've made them other than who you are. And when someone is other, it allows for their demeaning in the future. It's the same, same, same process that happened in in Germany in World War II is, oh, this person's other, this person's other. And it eventually led to a genocide, a, a, a real one Or a real attempt. Finally, in the, in the last verse,

1:08:52 is there anything in our life preventing others from receiving the opportunity of repentance leading to life? I, this is a variation of the same question I've asked for the last three weeks, and I'm pretty sure Rabbi Sean asked it the week before. So we have been a month with a variation of the same question. Is there any in, you're gonna find out every time I speak, it's a variation of this question. Is there anything within you, is there anything in the way you behave? Is there anything in the way you socially interact with others that prevents others from receiving what God has for them? Is there anything that you do? It could be speaking twice as much as listening.

1:09:39 It could be you're gonna, you're gonna laugh at me. It could be listening and not contributing and not speaking, because some of us may be what are called in a group, introverts, and we don't like to speak in crowds or in public or ever. But can I tell you something? If, if that's, if you've labeled yourself an introvert, can I just tell you, God has something for you to share. And if you hold it in, you're preventing someone from receiving repentance that's able to lead to life. Everything that you have been have classified yourself. Everything that you do, there's something that speaks to the opposite that you, if you don't let God move,

1:10:27 by the way, we, we try to put God in a box, just like we try to put everybody else. God, you're this. You're that. God is, he was. He is. And he will always be. It doesn't matter what we do. We have to let him move in our lives, even when it becomes difficult for us, because he uses us to minister to others and to allow for what he wants, which is repentance, leading to life. And that leads to disciples and that leads to followers of Yeshua who become mature at some point. Maturity, by the way, is not immediately. I mean, for some of us women you may for say for men, we,

1:11:16 we just have never matured. Like, I don't know if you ever hear, basically you can be an 80-year-old man, but you're still 12 maturity wise is a joke. All you can kind of giggle, it's okay, but the reality is maturity that happens when we go through trials, when we go through sufferings and we endure and it becomes perseverance. Paul talks about this in Romans five, by the way, and James talks about it in James one. But we, when we endure all of a, all of a sudden the Lord begins to create and shape character within us. And that character becomes evident later in

1:12:03 what some of us hope to be a mature life. So Avius Sha Mayim, our Father in heaven, Lord, we come to you, Lord, we just ask that you would, that you would guide us, Lord, that you would reveal to us if there's anything in our lives that you would have changed. Lord, we, we seek your guidance, Lord, and we ask that you would remove anything that you don't want in our lives. We bless you and praise you, and you show his name. Amen. Amen. Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

1:13:27 In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua.