Peter, a Jew, went to visit Cornelius, a Gentile. In doing so, he broke protocol, he broke the law among Jews that said such a visit was anathema. But he did it because God had called him to do it. It was certainly uncomfortable and disorienting, and Peter must have surely felt out of place. But he did it anyway, and in the process, he confessed that he was learning new things about God, too.
He must also have been putting this experience together with Jesus’ final words to him. “Go! Get out there in the wide world and take My message to everyone!”
Peter and the rest of the early followers of Jesus probably thought Jesus meant them to take the message to all the Jewish people who lived in the wide world. But this experience shed new light on His command. Maybe when Jesus had said “everyone,” He actually meant “everyone.” Not just Jewish people everywhere, but all people everywhere.
We commonly refer to non-Christians as “lost people.” The term comes from Jesus’ stories about the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son recorded in Luke 15. Sadly, the term, which in those stories meant loved, precious and sought after, has become synonymous with “impure” or “unclean.” Sometimes we call people lost with such derision in our voices, passing judgment on them as if we’re so much better for having been found. God doesn’t look at them and say, “Good riddance!” They are treasured and missed.
It’s enough to make you wonder who’s really lost. After all, if you sent a letter to someone and it never arrived, you would say the letter was lost — not the intended recipient.
God has sent us into the world as His letter to people He misses greatly (2 Cor 3.3). We’re His ambassadors, sent out to make known His loving and gracious intentions to everyone (2 Cor 5.20). And when He says “everyone,” He means “everyone.” And yet so few of us actually arrive at our destination.
In light of that, who is really lost?
Jesus promised His followers that He would always be with them, and that’s a promise we can claim, as well. But there was a command attached to the promise. Do you remember what it was? It’s called the Great Commission (Mt 28.19-20).
Jesus will be with us as we spread the message. There are lessons we can only learn as we, like Peter, follow Jesus out of comfortable positions and places, allowing the Holy Spirit to stretch us. He will be with us as we engage in spiritual friendships with people like Cornelius, learning as we teach, refusing to place ourselves on a higher plane and showing respect for those to whom we have been sent. Jesus will be with us as we go to everyone.
Do we really believe what He says or not?
Prayer
Dear Lord, through my new birth and identity in Your Son, I now have an entirely different orientation in life. I have become a steward, and I no longer manage my possessions, but Yours. I have become an ambassador, and I am no longer on my own business, but on the business of Your kingdom. Because I am a new creature and now Your ambassador in Christ, You have given me the ministry of reconciliation in this world. Through Your resources, You have made me adequate as a servant of the new covenant to become a living letter about Christ that can be known and read by others. Jesus, as You promised in Your Great Commission, You will be with me always as I serve as an agent of Your life-giving Word. Give me a growing willingness to move out of my comfort zone, and stretch me by Your Holy Spirit to see and do new things in Your power.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
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