This is our eighth message from Acts 15.
The primary theme of the chapter is the council at Jerusalem,
And we have reviewed the conversion of Cornelius which helped to clarify that meeting.
James made a statement in verse 14 which pretty-well summarizes the whole question:
“Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.”
When Peter went to Caesarea and gave the gospel to Cornelius, the Roman Centurion,
What God did in that was to take out from among the Gentiles a people for His Name.
This evening I hope to explain the first part of James’ statement by focusing on “a people for God’s Name.”
But first let me summarize briefly to our message last Wednesday.
This James was the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Assuming that his father, Joseph, had died at a relatively young age, we might imagine that Jesus became the spiritual leader of the family.
Remember that James and all the other children of Mary were not converted until about the time of Jesus’ resurrection.
So even though James was well instructed in the Jewish laws, his unsaved perspective probably made him unscripturally legalistic.
He was most likely very much like Paul had been before his conversion.
Whether or not he called himself “a Pharisee,” James was probably highly Pharisaic.
And this way of thinking, and this way of living, was undoubtedly difficult to overcome.
But, James had been thoroughly converted.
And the despite his propensity to side with the Judaizers, he was willing to be lead of the Spirit and to stand for the truth.
What is it to be a people for God’s Name?
It seems that every other message during the last four weeks has come back to this subject.
But the fact is, I keep coming back here, because everywhere I turn in these scriptures there it is.
It’s not Calvinism, it’s scripture.
God sovereignly sent Peter to Caesarea when He could have sent him to Bethlehem.
And the Lord sent Peter to the house of Cornelius when it could have been to the house of some Jew.
Furthermore the Lord clearly told Peter to give that Gentile the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then the Lord saved Cornelius and some of his friends.
The Lord had earlier redeemed the Pharisee Paul, and sovereignly commissioned him to carry the gospel to some of the distant corners of the Gentile world.
The very language of election is heard in God’s instruction to the man who baptized Paul.
“But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way (Ananias): for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.”
And James said, “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.”
First through Peter and then through Paul, God took out from among the Gentiles some of them to be a people for His Name
To be a people for God’s name is first to be a chosen people.
He was of his father the Devil, and he was filled with the lusts of his father.
He was “dead in trespasses and sins;
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; & were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
That kind of people do not seek God or the things of the Lord.
That kind of people don’t receive the things of God.
Until we are born again, we are all rebels against the Lord and would prefer to spit on His Name than to proudly bear it.
And that isn’t to be confined to Gentiles, because the Jews and the rest of Israel were just as guilty.
Only those who have been born again, converted, regenerated can call themselves a people for His Name.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”
That farewell eventually became known as the Apostolic Benediction:
And the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”
Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying,
On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”
To properly wear the name of God, is to be one of people of God.
And to be one of the people of God requires spiritual life and sonship under the Lord.
In other words it requires salvation and the blessing of the Lord.
Towards the end of the Book of Genesis Jehovah sovereignly chose one man to bear His name among all the peoples of the earth.
He even had his name changed in order to denote that new high responsibility.
Genesis 32 describes the circumstances of Jacob’s name change.
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.”
It is difficult to say exactly when Jacob became a child of God, but it’s difficult to prove that it took place prior to Genesis 32.
And here he was given a name which was above every other human name: Israel – Prince of God.
When you and I were saved, we too were given a new name.
I am a Christian, a child of God, a saint, a sanctified one.
Those words may be abused and over used, but they really do mean something.
And they should be particularly meaningful to those who really are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
To be a people for God’s name is to be redeemed people.
Israel had been taught throughout the previous 1800 years that they were the people of God.
And they claimed to have the name to prove it.
They were Israelites, “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”
One would think that James would have been a strong defender of that name and heritage.
And I suppose that for a long time he was.
But now he knew that the sovereign God could give that privilege to whomever He chose.
God has chosen to visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.
“And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down;
Elsewhere Paul refers to other Old Testament scriptures which teach the same thing.
Turn to Romans 9:22-30.
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.”
But for the most part she failed miserably at her assigned responsibilities.
So the Lord sovereignly chose to lay her aside for a while, while he chose a new people to bear His Name.
Now for another two millennia the Lord has been saving handfuls of both Jews and Gentiles, but primarily Gentiles.
And He has been bringing both into churches like ours where we can learn of God and serve Him.
We have been like a wild olive branch that has been grafted into the tree of God’s eternal blessings.
And some day we will stand shoulder to shoulder with other believers from around the world, including Israel and we will mutually praise God for his saving grace.
To be a people for God’s name is to be a part of a new kind of people gathered from the four corners of the earth.
And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.”
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, the purpose of our salvation is that the residue of men might seek after the Lord.
We have been saved not to glorify our name but the name which is above every name.
We have been given the name of God to wear in order to magnify and glorify that name.
No wonder there were many in the church of Corinth that were sick and some had even died, because their lives were not being spent in glorifying the Lord.
When we sin, we cast mud on the glorious name and we magnify His enemy.
In Isaiah chapter 43 we find a statement about Israel, but we are justified in applying it to New Testament saints:
“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.
For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.
Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;
I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;
Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”
The people of God’s Name are a specially chosen, specially redeemed people.
We have become a part of a special mixed people, whose responsibility is to magnify the Name which we have been given.