Let the Walls Fall Down
Acts 10 March 30, 2003
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=acts+10&version=NIV
Intro: Labels, we encounter them all the time. One label on our clothing informs us of what the fabric is made of and how it should be washed. Another one tells the world how important we are by declaring the designer.
Labels, we use them all the time. We identify gifts with labels, we identify prices with labels, we even fight over what should be included in food or medicine labels. They apparently are very important.
Labels, we use them all the time. And they are very hard to get rid of. I once heard a person who worked for Good Will tell a group that people will donate pure trash at times. They will receive couches that are torn, whose frames are broken, that smell of spilled beer, but every one of them still has attached the label that says, “Do not remover this label under penalty of law.” I have to confess something, I have on my person today, a potential problem, here is a label from a mattress from my basement.
Labels, they are everywhere, and they are nearly impossible to remove. The problem is, we do not hesitate to read a believe the labels we encounter every day. And when we do, we often use them to build walls. And we use them as excuses to ignore people. What are some of those labels?
He is just too Liberal, or
She is such an attention grabber, or
He is just of another generation, or
He’s a fundamentalist, what do you expect, or
They’re just Kids, one day they’ll know better, or
He’s an anti-patriotic peace freak, or
She’s just a flag waving patriot who has given up her ability to think for herself, or
She’s Pro-choice, or, a New Ager, or Pro-gay rights, or a computer Geek.
Labels, they are everywhere, and they are dividing, no splintering the Body of Christ. And they break the heart of God. Why do we use them? Why do try to put one another in boxes? I think it’s because it’s our way of feeling better about ourselves. For some reason, we think that if we are in a different category, we are somehow better and more acceptable to God.
That is what Peter thought. The passage Jack read for us earlier is from one of the most important stories for us in the New Testament. In Chapter 1 of Acts, Jesus provided the disciples with a pattern and an outline for the growth of the church. He said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." In chapter 2, the message was preached to Jerusalem with tremendous results, quickly it spread to Judea. Then in Acts 8, Phillip went to Samaria and preached the gospel and there the word was received with open hearts. But up to this point, if you were not a Jew, or a proselyte, or at least a half-breed, like the Samaritans, you could not be a part of the church. The Apostles had been unwilling to carry the message to Gentiles because they were not God’s kind of people.
During the exile of the Jews in the 6th Century, they had been treated with terrible cruelty by the Babylonians. They had been sent from their land, they had seen their temple destroyed, they had watched their homes crushed. While in Babylon they were forced to abandon many of their faithful practices and some even gave up on God. The Non-Jews were the enemy. Even after the exile, when the Greeks over ran Israel the situation became even worse. Antiachus slaughtered pigs on the altar of the temple and placed an idol of himself in the holy place. The Gentiles were clearly the enemies not only of the Jews but of God himself. Finally, when the Romans came in, it got even worse. The Romans would force the best young men into service, they would take the most beautiful Jewish girls and make them slaves to the rich, they would take the best of the harvest for taxes. The Romans were the epitome of evil Gentiles.
And it was a Roman Centurion, a Captain of 100 soldiers in the city of Caesarea, (that means Caesar’s city), that God used to open the church to the Gentiles. Peter knew what God demanded. He knew that God expected his people to be pure and godly. He knew that God had told them to eat only certain food because that would set them apart from the rest of the nations. Peter knew what God expected and he knew how to label his food. He knew what was clean and what was unclean. He knew that anything that did not chew it’s cud was unclean, he knew that any seafood that did not have scales was unclean, he knew that any bird that ate flesh was unclean. Peter labeled his food well. And in the same way he labeled people. The Jews were acceptable, the proselytes were acceptable, it seemed that even the Samaritans were acceptable, but the Gentiles, they were off limits. Peter quickly labeled them unclean.
That is why he had the vision of the animals. That is why the words at the end of the vision were so important, “Do not call unclean, anything that God has called clean.” And in the vision, God had declared that all people were clean. God had pulled off all the labels, even that labels that had been put in place under penalty of law. God removed the labels and now there were no people who were to be considered unclean.
And that, my friends, is why you and I can be Christians today, because God declared all people clean. And so, we must ask, Have we reapplied the labels? Are there people we would classify as unclean? Are there people we try to avoid? Are there groups of people we dismiss and label as less important than ourselves?
It has been said that the first act of war is to label the enemy as evil. During the Crusades, that is what the European church. As part of the Entifada in Palestine, the Jews have been declared Evil. Among Al-qada the first act of war was labeling America and all western nations as evil. An in our response we have labeled Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and North Korea as evil. Without a doubt there are people in these nations who are evil by anyone’s definition, but the label has enabled us to approach these nations with moral superiority that has justified out prejudices.
Why was God so insistent that the label of unclean be removed from the Gentiles? It is because the walls that had been built could not be torn down, until the labels were removed. In the book of Galatians Paul wrote, “In Christ there is now neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are all one in Christ.” And in Ephesians 2:14 we read, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two, (Jew and Gentile) one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, for through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”
But how do we get past the labels that are a part of us, how can we let the walls fall down? I think there are several steps we can take. First, Pray for God’s eyes. The scriptures clearly teach that God has not limited his love in this world. John 3:16 clearly states, “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If God loves those I have labeled as untouchable so much that Jesus died for them, what right do I have to push them aside? In the Old Testament, God revealed his dream for the world. When he called Abram he closed his promise to Abram with these words “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." God’s dream excludes no one. To remove the labels and tear down the wall, pray for God’s eyes for the world.
Second, learn about and pray for the people of the world. There are several wonderful prayer guides that describe the unreached people of our world. For example, at prayerwatch.org I learned that there are 10 different language groups in Iraq where there is no Christian witness currently occurring. At infomekong.com, there are 18 groups of people from the area around Vietnam that are described in detail to help with your prayers for them. As you pray for the people of the world, the Holy Spirit begins to tear down the walls that we build so quickly. If you want to tear off the labels that keep us from dreaming God’s dream of blessing the world, then pray for the people of the world.
And finally, to see the walls fall down, enlarge your circle. Each of us have a circle of friends with whom we are comfortable. There are people who are like us that we prefer to be with. However, if we are ever going to dream God’s dream of walls being removed, we must open that circle. Maybe it will be a person of another race, that is what we often think about, or perhaps it will be someone who is of another age group, or another religion. Maybe you can open your circle to include someone from another national background, or language group. Perhaps there are neighbors you have never gotten to know because they are different in some way. You see, the labels that we are afraid to remove are among the biggest obstacles to our dreaming God’s dreams for us.
As I close this morning, I want you to identify a label that makes you uncomfortable. It may be old-person, or black, or biker, or gangbanger, or gay, or divorced, or homeless, or Arab, or some other label and when we pray in a few minutes, I am challenging you to pray for an individual with that label. Pray for their salvation, but not only for their salvation, pray that God would bless them. Pray that you might get to know them, pray that you may learn from them. Pray that God would open the door for you to impact their life. Pray that God would open your circle that you might bring them in.
Hear the word of the Lord,"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.”
