Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You in God's Way? | New Testament | Acts 11

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

What in your life is working against God's plan? Does anything feel particularly difficult? Does your attitude, pride or critical spirit stand in the way of God's plans? Tanya uses Acts 11 to discuss on today's episode. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Acts 11

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmoth. One summer, our riding lawnmower got a thorn in one of the tires, and instead of fixing it, we just let it have a slow leak for a really long time. So as long as we would air it up, right before we started mowing, it was fine. But then we'd leave it alone for a few days between mowings, and of course it was the Lilloo's air. This was also the same summer that one of our daughters was learning how to mow.

and while she was getting the hang of the lawn mowing part, she wasn't so much getting the hang of the airing up the tire part. Eric and I were coming back from something one day, we saw her out in the yard, Air pods in, crime podcast on, making her way up and down one of the rows. And she was tilted slightly to the right and moving really slow. And the grass looked like Edward's or her hands had popped by for a visit.

She was almost finished doing the entire yard on a flat tire. When we pointed out the problem, she was like, oh, that's why it felt so weird and took so long. Isn't this kind of like us sometimes? We're going through life on a flat tire and we don't even know it. And we, unfortunately, are the flat tire, or our hearts are anyway. We can have things going on within us that make our life and our relationships feel choppy and feel challenging.

And not only our relationships, but also our ministry, because that's part of who we are as people who follow Jesus. We are part of his missional plan to reach the nations with the news that His kingdom has come to earth in Jesus Christ. It's even better than people can imagine. But sometimes it comes from us

kind of choppy and challenging. In Acts chapter 11, Peter says, Who was I that I could stand in God's way? Peter's talking about a vision that God had just given him about taking his message now to the Gentiles. Now, that's more than just a word for people who weren't part of the Jewish nation. And it's more than a word for Peter and the Jewish teachers and leaders,

because the Gentiles were people who weren't circumcised. So the vision that God gave Peter about going to them was a major readjustment in perspective and in thinking. God wasn't telling Peter to go to them and tell them that they needed to be circumcised and that they needed to become Jews so they could be part of God's family. See, if the Gentiles were going to come into the church that way, the church would have remained a limited community. But from this time on, people were to become part of God's family through Jesus,

not through circumcision. It was by faith in Jesus alone that they would be brothers and sisters with Christ and heirs of the kingdom. there was to be one church, not a circumcised one, and an uncircumcised one. Because this was such a major readjustment, it needed to be addressed clearly and forcefully. And this is what the Holy Spirit was doing through Peter in Acts 11, giving him the vision and the corresponding witnesses and the directive to take this message out of the walls of Jerusalem and to the other nations.

Now, if Peter had been the only one who saw the Lord, leading in this way, he might have questioned himself, but Peter's friends experienced the same things and saw what happened the same way. So he wasn't alone in this important matter. The way God placed people around him was significant. So when Peter responds to the vision from the Holy Spirit and says in verse 17, if then God gave the same gift to them, meaning Gentiles, as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way. He's actually developing his mission statement for his ministry and for the church. Not Peter nor anyone else should stand in the way of what God has ordained should happen for his church

to expand across borders and across ethnicities. And no one should hinder the message or skew the message by thinking that these new people that were going to hear it should become like the Jews before they could receive the baptism. All they needed was faith in Jesus. And we don't have this exact same problem today, but we do have similar ones. We are often glad to have people join us in our churches as long as they're willing to become like us. But the point of Peter's message is that God takes people as they are. They don't have to become something before they can come to Jesus. So it's good for us to take a little tune up and ask, like Peter, who am I, to stand in the way?

God is sovereign, so his will is going to be done, his church is going to advance, even if we are running on a flat tire. God indeed works in spite of us, but he also works through us. Peter's question is valid, and Paul in 2 Corinthians 6.3 confesses that he doesn't want to do anything to hinder the gospel from advancing. It's helpful and necessary then to think about how our attitudes and heart issues stand in the way. How do they keep us on the sidelines? How do they make things harder than they might have to be? When I consider this question, I'll be honest. A critical spirit definitely comes to mind.

I can justify the heck out of why someone does or doesn't deserve my time, my affection, my forgiveness, or my generosity. What about you? Do you fight a critical spirit? Have you given in to it? God's purpose is to unite all things in Jesus. When we live in unity with one another, we declare that God's kingdom is greater than any flag, any government, any ethnicity. We honor him above all earthly things that could divide us.

There's a lot that could be unpacked here, but we can easily misuse things that were meant for good. Social media was meant to unite us with people we don't see all the time, but we use it to defight ourselves from our next door neighbors that post things we don't agree with. What are you believing about the people in your school and your community who aren't like you? Does what you believe align with the message Peter was getting ready to take to the Gentiles about Jesus Christ? What about pride? Pride also comes to mind. I can get in my own way when I think I'm not qualified to share the truth about Jesus with someone. I know that doesn't sound like pride, but it is because I am prioritizing my sense of self above God's. Being in God's family is being qualified to share his gospel message with others.

A relationship with God is really the only requirement. Can you relate to thinking more about how people view you than what God's purposes are for you? And right along with pride, at least for me, is a closed hand. When my hand is closed to the needs around me, I think I'm standing in the way. The root of my closed hand is pride. It's a forgetfulness that I was an orphan, that I was the prodigal son. that I was the one who needed a Savior to rescue me. Only because of Jesus, have I been welcomed into God's family.

But I can forget this and forget the real needs of people around me, even in my own family. Proverbs 327 commands us to do good for others. It says, Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in your power to act. Such strong language makes me think that a closed hand isn't just standing in the way,

but actually in opposition to God's will. When Peter followed through with God's will, his life did not get any easier. In fact, the opposition grew against him the more he preached to the Gentiles. But Peter's comfort came from the inward gift of the Holy Spirit, confirming with him that he was okay with God and he would be okay.

We probably don't have such a big obstacle to work against today like Peter faced in this critical moment. But what we do does matter. we need to have quick reflexes like Peter to see where our own attitudes might be standing in the way of God's good purpose to bring people to himself. If our relationships with people constantly feel choppy and challenging, we can ask Jesus to reorient our hearts. He does this through his word. He does this through our prayers. He does this through community with others.

He uses His Holy Spirit. but we can also close our doors to our friends who care about us and our God who wants to change and grow us and we can miss out. Where is your heart today? Will you invite him to reorient you? Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for listening.