Acts 11 Round Two: I Don't Know. God Did It

What if the greatest barrier to breakthrough isn’t the world out there but the walls we keep inside the church? Acts 11 throws those walls into the light as Peter returns to Jerusalem with a story that redefines the possible: Gentiles received the Holy Spirit just like the first believers. No insider shortcuts, no second-class status—just the same promise, the same power, and the same unmistakable fruit that silences objections and turns critics into worshipers.

We walk through Peter’s vision in Joppa—a sheet from heaven, a command that challenges tradition, and a voice that reframes holiness around God’s declaration, not our assumptions. When the Spirit falls on Cornelius’s household “as at the beginning,” Peter connects the dots back to Jesus’ promise of Spirit baptism. The takeaway is both bold and simple: when God gives the same gift, we dare not stand in His way. From there, the scene shifts to Antioch, where persecution scatters ordinary believers who speak about Jesus to anyone who will listen. The Lord’s hand is with them, and a mixed community forms that becomes a launchpad for mission and a new identity—followers first called Christians.

Barnabas steps into Antioch not as a gatekeeper but as an encourager. He recognizes grace, strengthens it, and then tracks down Saul of Tarsus because a growing church needs deep teaching. For a full year they shape a people who live generous, grounded lives. When the prophet Agabus foresees a famine, the church responds with practical love, giving as each is able and sending relief to Jerusalem through trusted hands. It’s theology that moves, worship that serves, and a pattern of Spirit-led leadership that still speaks to churches today.

If you’re tired of the myth that only the prominent matter, Acts 11 is your antidote. God uses ordinary faithfulness to start extraordinary work—Peter’s next right step, Antioch’s nameless witnesses, Barnabas’s humble eye for grace, Saul’s steady teaching, and a community’s open-handed generosity. Listen to be challenged, encouraged, and re-centered on the Spirit who still expands the circle. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find it. Then tell us: where are you seeing “God did it” moments in your world?

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast.
Every day, we take one chapterof the Bible, dig deeper, and
discover that the more we dig,the more we find.
You can find out more at theBibleBreakdown.com.
Now let's grow in God's Wordtogether.
Well hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your
host, Pastor Brandon.
Today, Acts chapter 11.

(00:22):
And if I were to give this one atitle, it would be, I don't
know, God did it.
Because that's what's about tohappen.
Peter is about to have to goback to Jerusalem and explain
himself.
Because up until then, allthey've been doing is sharing
the gospel to Jewish people.
But now it's the Gentiles, andall they can say is, ah, God did
it, guys.
I don't know what to tell.

(00:42):
Yeah.
We're going to jump into that injust a moment.
As well as I love the idea thatGod isn't just doing this
through the famous or theprominent, but God is doing this
through everybody.
And we're going to get into thatin just a moment.
But as always, if you like whatwe're doing here, make sure you
like, share, and subscribe toYouTube videos, listen to the
podcast.
Thank you so much for doingthat.
Please be sure to leave us afive-star review.
Also, I'd love for you to go toour Bible breakdown discussion

(01:06):
and let us know what God hasbeen doing in your life
recently.
Give us something good.
I want to, I want to hear somegood news.
What has God been doing in yourlife?
And just bring some praise toGod today.
Because that's what's going tohappen right here is Peter is
going to have to go back andhe's going to have to explain
what just got through happening.
So let me let me catch you up ifyou've been missing a couple of
days.
The Bible teaches us that Jesustold them to wait in Jerusalem

(01:30):
because the Holy Spirit iscoming.
And when he comes, he's going tochange everything.
And that's what happened in Actschapter 2.
The Holy Spirit came down and hefilled everyone in the room.
And as he infilled everyone inthe room, he empowered them for
the work of ministry.
So they went out immediately,started speaking in other
languages as there were peoplefrom all over the known world
that were there.
The Holy Spirit filled uh Peterand he began to preach the

(01:53):
gospel.
And it then predictableresistance started to happen
until eventually Stephen was thefirst martyr.
And so it caused them to scattereverywhere.
But the gospel continued to growand it was amazing and it was
awesome.
Then a guy named Saul waspersecuting them, but then Jesus
just slapped him to the groundand just said, Hey, stop that.

(02:15):
And it was amazing.
He ended up becoming aChristian, obviously, and
started spreading the gospeluntil they finally just sent him
home.
That's he's from Tarzan.
You go on back home for a littlewhile.
And then in the last chapter,the Bible tells us that God
finally said, Hey, look, we needto spread this to everybody.
And so he sent Peter to thisGentile town, this Gentile
household, and they received theHoly Spirit just like in Acts 2.

But here's the thing (02:39):
that hadn't happened yet.
This is the first time that hadhappened, and they're not
entirely sure that that wassupposed to happen.
And so someone's gonna have todo some explaining around here.
So Peter stays with Corneliusand his household for several
days because they didn't knownothing about no Jesus.
They knew about Yahweh, the Godof God of Israel.
Jesus, he's here, you know, he'swell, he is, but but now the

(03:02):
Holy Spirit, you're gonna haveto explain that, Peter.
So that's what he does.
He does it, he explains it.
Well, now we see what happensnext because he's got some some
explaining to do, right?
And so if you have your Biblesopen with me to Acts chapter 11,
let's dive in to see what Peteris going to say for himself now
that all of this is happening.
So chapter 11, verse 1 saysthis.

(03:23):
Soon the news reached theapostles and the other believers
in Judea that the Gentiles hadreceived the word of the Lord.
But when Peter arrived back inJerusalem, the Jewish believers
criticized him.
You entered the home of Gentilesand you ate with them?
How could you, they said.
Then Peter told them exactlywhat happened.

(03:45):
He was like, Guys, I was in thetown of Joppa, and while I was
praying, I went into a tranceand I saw a vision.
Something like a large sheet waslet down with four corners from
the sky, and it came right downto me.
Then I looked inside the sheetand there was all sorts of tame
and wild animals, reptiles,birds.
I heard a voice say, Get up,Peter, kill and eat.

(04:05):
So I said, Oh, no, no, no, no,Lord.
I have never eaten anything thatour Jewish leaders or Jewish
laws have declared impure andunclean.
But the voice, it said again,hey now, don't call something
unclean if God has made itclean.
This happened three times beforethe sheet, and all that it
contained was pulled back intoheaven.

(04:25):
And then three men had been sentfrom Caesarea, and they arrived
at this house.
And the Holy Spirit told me togo with them and not to worry
that they were Gentiles.
These six brothers hereaccompanied me, and soon we
entered the home of a man whohad sent for us.
We told him how the angel hadappeared, or he told us how the
angel had appeared to him in hishome, and said, Send messengers

(04:48):
to Joppa, summon a man namedSimon Peter.
He will tell you and everyone inyour household how you can be
saved.
As I began to speak, Petercontinued, I mean, the Holy
Spirit fell on them, just as hefell on us at the beginning.
Then I thought about the wordsthat he had said, Jesus, John

(05:09):
the Baptist baptized with water,but you will be baptized with
the Holy Spirit.
And since God gave theseGentiles the same gift he gave
us, we believed in the LordJesus, who was I to stand in
God's way?
And when the others heard this,they stopped objecting and began
praising God.

(05:29):
They said, We can see that Godhas also given Gentiles the
privilege of repenting of theirsins and receiving eternal life.
Isn't that the greatesttestimony either?
Uh I don't know, man.
God did it.
All I did was kept taking thenext step, what God called me to
do, and before I knew it, amiracle happened.

(05:50):
Wouldn't that be the greatesttestimony of all of us?
All I know, man, is I kept beingfaithful to what God called me
to do.
And before I knew it, God haddone a miracle.
That is amazing.
Well, watch what happens next.
Verse 19.
Meanwhile, believers who hadbeen scattered during the
persecution after Stephen'sdeath traveled as far as
Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antiochof Syria.

(06:13):
And they preached the word ofGod, but only to Jews.
However, some of the believerswho went to Antioch from Cyprus
and Serene began preaching toGentiles about the Lord Jesus.
Power of the Lord was with them,and a large number of these
Gentiles believed and turned tothe Lord.
And when the church of Jerusalemhad heard what had happened,

(06:34):
they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
And when he arrived and saw thisevidence of God's blessings, he
was filled with joy, and heencouraged the believers to stay
true to the Lord.
Barnabas was a good man, full ofthe Holy Spirit, strong in
faith, and many people werebrought to the Lord.
Then Barnabas went to Tarsus togo look for Saul.

(06:55):
Remember, they had sent Saulhome, they didn't know what to
do with him.
So it was like, hey, look, look,man, just go home.
And so he went home.
But when Barnabas found him, hebrought him back to Antioch, and
both of them stayed there withthe church a full year, teaching
large crowds of people.
It was at Antioch that thebelievers were first called
Christians.

(07:16):
During this time, some prophetstraveled from Jerusalem to
Antioch.
One of them's name was Agabus,and he stood up with one of the
meetings and predicted by theSpirit that a great famine was
coming upon the entire Romanworld.
This was fulfilled during thereign of Claudius.
So the believers in Antiochdecided to send relief to the
brothers and sisters in Judea,everyone giving as much as they

(07:39):
could.
They did this, entrusting theirgifts to Barnabas and Saul to
take to the elders of the churchin Jerusalem.
You know what I love about thissecond half?
Is up until this time, the mainchurch was in Jerusalem.
But now, without any promptingfrom anyone prominent, just
listening to the power of theHoly Spirit, these people who

(08:02):
had been scattered because ofpersecution had started
preaching the gospel to Gentilesas well.
And they started a churchprobably of at least half
Gentiles.
We don't know, but a lot ofGentiles in Antioch.
And what we also know is thateventually Antioch became one of
the prominent churches of thetime, and we have no idea who
started that church.

(08:23):
It was just people who were justobeying the Lord, trusting him,
taking next steps, and beforethey knew it, they had started a
church and it was doing greatthings.
As we said earlier, if you havealways been voted the most
likely to succeed, if everythingalways goes your way, you always
get the job, you always havethis, whatever, I've got great

(08:44):
news for you.
God can still use you, but oftenGod uses the least likely to
succeed, the ordinary, thenormal, the ones that won't
stand out in the crowd to do thegreatest things for him so that
he can receive the glory andthat we can just be part of the
kingdom of God.
Man, what an amazing lesson forall of us.

(09:04):
You don't have to be prominent,you don't have to be the top of
the ladder.
You don't have to, everyonedoesn't have to know your name
and you don't have to build aplatform.
Just be faithful.
That was the message that Petertold them.
Guys, I didn't do this.
I was just being faithful withwhat God gave me.
And look at what God did.
And then you have these namelesspeople that go to Antioch, just

(09:25):
being faithful with what God wasdoing.
And God started to do amazingthings through their
faithfulness.
God does amazing things throughdaily faithfulness.
So never let anybody lie to youand say that you've got to do
something significant in theeyes of men to do something
amazing in the eyes of God.

(09:46):
Faithfulness is one of thegreatest things you can do
because when you are faithful toGod, God can take it and do more
than you could ever imagine.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much for yourgoodness and your mercy.
Thank you for giving us theopportunity to walk in
faithfulness.
I pray today that you will fillus full of your goodness, your

(10:06):
mercy, and your power so that wecan stay faithful and do what
you've given us to do today.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Amen.
Jesus said in Acts 1, verse 8,he said this.
Say it with me.
You will receive power when theHoly Spirit comes upon you, and
you will be my witnesses to theends of the earth.
My prayer today is that you willreceive the power of the Holy

(10:29):
Spirit, and you'll be a witnessto your world.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for Actschapter twelve.