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Brew City Church
Faith Takes Courage | Holy Disruption
00:51:21
June 7, 2026 | Brew City Church | Randy Knie
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Welcome to the Brew City Church Podcast. We are a Christian church following in the way of Jesus and located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. We're glad you've joined us, and we hope you enjoy this week's message. Thank you, Shelley. Good morning, friends. Good morning. Let's pause a moment and just pray for a moment. God, I'm grateful for this day, for the beauty of this day and the life that we get to step into the. The reality that we get to listen to birds singing and communicating and listen to these urban noises, and we get to listen to the sound of babies in our midst and children upstairs learning about you. I'm just grateful for all the life and activity. I'm grateful for the songs that we get to sing that remind us and get to stick in our brains and tell us what's true. Song like, oh, come to the altar for the Father's arms are open wide. This reminder every week that God, your arms are open wide to all who will come. And as we open your word now, I'm grateful for the scriptures that teach us and fortify and strengthen this foundational reality that we sang. Come to the altar, the Father's arms are open wide to everyone who will come. This is a story that many of us in the church have tried to avoid or have made us really uncomfortable because it scrambles our theological brains and traditions. It goes against the grain, and it's. It's a dangerous story in our faith tradition, but it's a story that. That also can set us free. And so would you come and continue to do that? Thank you for these stories that we get to center ourselves around and be shaped and transformed by God, just like faithful men and women have done throughout the decades and centuries and millennia even. Come, Lord Jesus, in your name. Amen. So just mention this in my prayer. But the story that we're sitting in and thinking through, we started last week. And this story, it's a dangerous story. The story that we're centered in, we're going through the book of Acts and we find ourselves in Acts 10. This story, this particular story that we're in and that we're going to be in for a couple of weeks. It's a dangerous story for our religion. It's a dangerous story for us religious people in our religious tradition, because, see, this is a story that breaks all the rules. It's a story that breaks. It's a dangerous story because it breaks apart our logical, reasonable, traditional, ordered, clean, tidy religion. See, we have been given a faith and a religious system that is logical and that is systematic. There are classes you can go to in seminary to be a pastor, to do what I'm doing, that are literally called systematic theology. We like systems, we like elegant explanations of the way the world works. It's why we love science and it makes sense because we're post enlightenment Western American people who love formulas. We love scientific explanations of the way the world works. We love logic, we love order, we love formulas. And so we've created this religion in which we've been passed on and handed these doctrines and this dogma in this kind of systematic theology where it explains how God works, who God is, how God works, what God's up to in the world. The this is why we do the things we do. This is theological reflection. This is biblical scholarship. This is the stuff that we've been given and we've been told that God works in certain ways and not in others. That God is ordered and that we have this idea of the Scriptures and how we've interpreted the scriptures becomes this kind of gospel truth that doesn't bend and flex and it's very concrete. We've created these religious rules and explanations and it makes sense. Again, it makes sense to want to order our theology. It makes sense to want to have a spirituality that actually makes sense and isn't just kind of weird and nebulous and floating in the sky. Nobody wants that. So we've been given these systematic theories and explanations and elegance doctrines that kind of work all together so that we can have answers to questions about our faith and why we believe what we believe. These are very important things that we've been given in that we've been told to value. Whether we've been told explicitly or not. It's just in the water. Do you know what I'm talking about? And as I said last week, this is a story that I don't remember. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't remember ever hearing a sermon about or getting a teaching about as I was growing up or coming of age in the church. And I think there's a reason for that. Because again, this story is a dangerous story. If we expect these nice, neat, tidy, logical, reasonable, systematic theologies that explain the way God works in the world and how the world operates. This story breaks apart those understandings and breaks the rules. What we find in this story that we're thinking our way through, that we're right in the middle of is that, check this out, God transgresses God's own rules. God breaks the rules. That we find in the scriptures that are supposed to be inspired by God, given to us by God. That means that what's in the scriptures is God's heart and God's design and God's intent for, for humanity. Right. That just makes sense. It's logical. What do you do as a follower of this God when God shows up and tells you to break the rules that you've been told? God wants you to hold your whole life? What do you do when God shows up supernaturally and tells you to break God's own rules and tells you to go against everybody, everything that you've been told? We're in week two of this story and I, I didn't, last week, I didn't give you an explanation for how to, how to logic our way through that problem. Right. I just kind of left it hanging. There was no answer to the question of how do we situate this neatly within, to our idea of God, our theologies, how do we, how do we reconcile this? There's a reason why it didn't. And I'm not gonna today, just a spoiler alert. Not gonna give you kind of the quick easy answer of how to situate this within our theology because I don't think I'm supposed to do that. I think this chapter should be unsettling. I think this story is designed to get us feeling uncomfortable. We're used to coming and sitting in seats like this in church spaces and being reassured that God makes more sense than we think God does, or that the Scriptures are easy to follow and that it's all kind of. It just makes sense. This story upsets those ideas and breaks apart these notions and these, we, we, we want a God who's understandable and knowable and predictable and can I even say controllable. We like God to live in this box that we've created for God. See these religious understandings and doctrines and theological explanations of the way who God is and how God works. It's us trying to understand God. But what we don't realize is what easily happens is that we put God in that box, our theological box, systematic theology. Right. And we expect God to abide by those rules that we've kind of created. That's what these dogmas and understandings and explanations are. There are attempts at trying to understand God. And that's really good. It's a really healthy thing to do. I'm not proposing that we stop doing that. But what I am saying is that when you put too much weight on these definitions and ideas and doctrines and theories and elegantly put together understandings of God. When you put too much weight in that world, a chapter like this comes along and just explodes. Blows that whole world right up. And again, I think it's supposed to. So this morning we're going to continue. There's three parts, three movements to this story. And. And we're in the middle. The first movement was visions that this man named Cornelius got and that Peter got, and how wild they were. And what God was asking. What God was asking of Cornelius was great. What God was asking of Peter was problematic, like a real problem. God's asking Peter, the leader of the Jerusalem church, the leader of church at this moment, to break the religious rules that he's been given, to break the most foundational religious rules that he's been given in his kind of discipleship world, in his religious world, which was everything for him. Again, what do you do when God asks you to break God's rules? That's something to wrap our heads around. And so Peter has this vision, and where God says, I want you to eat these things that you were once told were unclean. Which means that basically, the people that you think were unclean who eat these foods are not unclean anymore. Don't call these foods unclean. But more importantly, don't call these people unclean. So Peter has these guests show up, these people that God says, hey, I've sent them to you. I want you to actually go with them. But instead of he. They couldn't go with. He couldn't go with them because it's at this point in night. So Peter does a very risky thing, and he says, why don't you guys stay overnight with us? If you remember, Peter's already at Simon the Tanner's house, and he's breaking some religious rules just by being in this tanner's house. Because this guy deals with dead animals, which makes him ritually unclean, ceremonially unclean, which probably could make Peter ceremonial unclean. He's already living on the edge, and now he invites these dirty unclean gentiles to stay with him. Now, I don't know if you've ever had a night like that, but I'll bet you any money Peter didn't get much sleep. I'll bet you any money Peter didn't get much sleep. Not because it was too hot out and they didn't have air conditioning, but because he was trying to talk himself out of the idea and the reality that maybe I'm going to be going to hell forever because of this. Have you Ever had a night like that. Peter probably didn't get much sleep and was full of anxiety that night because Peter realize that what I'm doing right now could get me ostracized and kicked out of my religious community, which is kind of everything to him, right? Like, what he's doing right now, what he's considering doing, going, like, following the word of the Lord, what he thought was a vision. But he's probably trying to figure out maybe. He's probably trying to talk himself out of this whole deal at the moment, as he's waiting to depart and go with these guys and do this thing that he knows might actually lose him, his position in the church. Like, the church is probably gonna shrink because of what Peter's doing and going to do, what he feels that God called him to do. Peter's got a decision to make. Do I follow what I feel like God called me to and maybe blow everything up that we've been trying to build and blow up my family and my relationships and have people think that I've walked away from God, that I'm a heretic? Do I do that? Or do I just convince myself this wasn't God and go along with the religious rules that we've been given? Because I don't want to upset the apple cart. I don't want to shrink the church. I don't want to lose my standing. I don't want to lose my livelihood. Have you ever had moments like that? Have you ever had nights like that, torn between what, you know God is calling you to and what the impact of the aftermath might be if you say yes to God? Have you ever had moments like that? That's a heavy night. That's major right there. And we're going to jump back into this story. So if you have your Bibles or you like reading along with me in the Bible, you can grab one that's probably in the seat in front of you, or you can just follow along on the screens. We're in Acts 10. We're going to start in verse 23. Second half of verse 23, story goes like this. It says the next day, after these. This vision, these visions happen. These visitors came from Cornelius, and they say that, hey, my boss sent us to you. And Peter's like, yeah, why don't you guys come and stay overnight, and then we'll go to visit your boss, Cornelius, and I'll probably lose everything because of this. The next day, Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. Some of the Believers from Joppa went along. It's probably a smart move by Peter. Peter knows what he's about to do is dangerous. It's risky to his faith, to all the things. I need witnesses with me, right? In the next chapter, we're gonna find out. There were six men that Peter took with him. The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. The story gets worse for Peter. Now he's got an audience. As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up, saying, stand up. He said, I'm only a man myself. I'm only a human. And while talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. Can you imagine what Peter's feeling at that moment? He found a large gathering of people, and he said to them, you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate or visit with a Gentile. We'll go into this. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask, though, why you sent for me? And Cornelius answered, hey, about three years, three days ago, I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon, like we do in this tradition. And suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me and said, cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. Remember this sacrificial terminology. Send to Joppa for Simon, who is called Peter. This is Cornelius telling him about this dream, this vision. He is a guest in the home of Simon the Tanner, who lives by the sea. So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything that the Lord has commanded you to tell us. You can hear the anticipation. Then Peter began to speak. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts everyone from every nation who fears him and does what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached? How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. And how he sent around, how he went around doing good and healing those who were under the power of the devil because God was with him. This is Peter's standard sermon in the Book of Acts, we are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross. But God raised him from the dead and on the third day and he caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses who God had already chosen by us who ate and drawn, drank with him after he rose from the dead. Luke really wants. This is something that we hear repeated in Peter's sermons. And there's many scholars who think that's Luke trying to get across. Because you see in Luke's Gospel, Luke's gospel is the only one in which we see the resurrected, risen Lord Jesus eating meals and chilling out, hanging out with the disciples. Luke seems to want to let us know this was not probably speaking against Gnostic heresies. That said, Jesus was just a phantom. Those post resurrection encounters with Jesus was just a ghost, was just a spirit, a phantom. And it looks like. No, no, no, no, no. I watched the dude eat and have crumbs fall out of his mouth. That's Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, right? This matters. He was a real person. He's back from the dead. Verse 42. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished by the that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. And it says circumcised believers, just to say the believers who followed the ways of the Torah, the law, the believers who were in the right, who were justified because of their actions and the way they lived, they were blown away, blown away that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So we ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. Now I want to go through and just pick out, do what we do pretty commonly around here. Just point. I want to just point out a few things, a few things within this story, within this narrative that I think matter and help us understand it a little bit more. Okay, so the first thing that we find here is the first. For me, the first noteworthy thing is this rich, influential. And thank you, Montavious, for pointing this out to me last week, this rich, influential gentile, this centurion, this ruler, bowing down at Peter's feet. Peter walks in and Cornelius bows down. Now, Cornelius is an important dude in this world. Cornelius, if you couldn't tell a couple of the people that those three people that he sent to talk to Peter were his slaves. Like they existed to do Cornelius bidding. And Cornelius, if you remember, he's a centurion, which means he's responsible for and in charge of about 100 soldiers under his. Under his office, his rank. He is a powerful man. And when Peter walks in, he bows down at Peter's feet. And yet Peter is picking him up. This is a story that's hearkening back a moment, that's hearkening back to the very beginning of the story in the Book of acts, in Acts 2, to Pentecost. So many things point back to Pentecost because that is like the thesis statement for this entire book in what's going on in this story. And one of the things that happens in the story is Peter's preaching this sermon at Pentecost to these people. And he quotes the prophet Joel, if you remember. You know, I'm talking about when he's preaching on Pentecost. And he says, hey, this is what's happening has been foretold by the prophets that your sons and daughters will prophesy. The old and the young are going to be doing this stuff. The Holy Spirit is going to immerse and come in and fill up people. You never thought it would be filled up by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is going to do this. I used this theological term called. It's a divine leveling, where God, we have these hierarchies that we build, right? These people who are really important, these people who are doormats and unimportant. And there's hierarchies and levels within this system that we've created in our religions, in our religious world and systems, right? But what God's doing here through the power of the Holy Spirit is this divine leveling. He's bringing the high and the mighty low and the low and forgotten up into show and display that all of us are included. All of us have access to the Spirit of God. All of us have access to life. All of us are the people of God. All of us get to partake in this work. And I don't know why we don't factor verses like this in when we have conversations about things like can or should women lead in the church the way men do. And I want to say that these prophetic texts where prophets like Joel and then Peter points back to them, says. Says that, hey, in my ideal world, just, you know, God says, all of you together are doing this work. Sons, but not only sons, daughters too. The old and the young doing this work together. We like to be segregated and separated and have churches that are full of older people or full of younger people or full of black people or full of white people or full of straight people or full of queer people. See this divine leveling, this heart of God shown through the scriptures as God saying, just so you know, the way that the church exists, the way that my people exist right now, it's not the way I've intended God. I dream of a day when my people are all doing this work together, when all people are included and all people are putting their hands to the plow and doing the work of God together. I don't know why these. We don't talk about these texts when we have these conversations and. All right, I want to move on, actually. Verse 28, so this divine leveling happens where Cornelius bows down, Peter brings him up and said, don't do that. I'm just a man. But in verse 28, Peter gets up and he said to them, he stands up in front of this crowd and he says. He looks at this crowd of Gentiles, and he's like, whoa, Can you imagine? Like, Peter walks into this room and it's full of people that. He's like, holy moly. I should not be here. And he says it out loud, Peter, like biblical scholars, a number of biblical scholars are like, this is not Peter's best moment. Peter here, it's one of those Peter moments. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where he speaks before he thinks. But I'm glad he does because he puts something on display. He shows up and he goes, hey, whoa. You guys know real full well, right, that I shouldn't be here. And as a matter of fact, you guys know full well that you guys, what my people see you people as really dirty. Like, you know full well that we think you're unclean. I shouldn't be here. That is not the way to enter a room. But all Peter's doing is being a product of the religious system that he grew up in. He's. He's being a good man of the scriptures. Friends see, they knew full well because this is what was in the scriptures. You don't hang out with these kind of people because they're, they're dirty. And hanging out, stepping into the same house as them will make you dirty as well. Peter just basically told them, my people think your people are dirty people. Peter hasn't gotten schooled and how to politically correctly engage. And I want to say, actually this sounds familiar to me because as I step into like conversations that I never dreamed I'd be having as pastors, talking about inclusion, talking about including people who I never dreamed would be included, right. I'm talking in real time right now in my life. Sometimes the vernacular and the words you use in the vocabulary, it gets clunky. And you say things you shouldn't because you're trained to say things you shouldn't. And you just hope for grace is extended to you. I'm just trying my best, right? Maybe Peter is just like this Peter. Maybe we can also be. We can, we can have a little fun at Peter's expense. And maybe we can also know, dude, do you know what it took for Peter to show up in that house? But he says, I have now seen. God has now told me that I should call no one dirty. God has now shown me that I should call no one unclean. Friends. And I want to tell you this word that Peter speaks. God has now shown me that I should call no one dirty. No one unclean, no one impure, no one. See what Peter has this revelation that there is no tribe or nation or ethnicity or anything that makes a person inherently dirty. See, he thought that his religious tradition told him that. And he's realizing God just broke that reality to bits. And because here's the earth shattering little kind of takeaway from this moment, this is what God does. We have our religiously endorsed, scripturally rubber stamped ways of seeing the world, which means that we have our ways of seeing who's in and who's out. We have our scripturally biblically inspired and mandated ways of ordering the world and saying who's in danger and who's not, who's dirty and who's clean, who's included and who's not. This would be like, this would be like a fundamentalist Baptist preacher today stepping foot into pride going on today. This would be like a 1950s segregationalist pastor who believes the silliness that because of Abraham or because of Noah's sons and one of their sins, that black people are inherently remedial in less than all other people groups. And stepping into that room and being like, holy moly, what I just step into. My tradition told me that all these people are dirty and not included and not part of the world that I live in. And I don't have to think about them or worry about them. I just have to stay away from them. And now God called me to them because this is just what God does. God breaks apart religious divisions and hatred and isolation, and God brings people together. This is just what God does. Friends, when we feel that pressure within our world of people trying to separate us, remember this is what God does. God joins people together, not breaks them apart. This is just what God does. Let's keep on going. In this narrative, Peter, first he puts his foot in his mouth, but then he does something that's really, really important and really, really brilliant. I mean, like theologically brilliant. Do you know what Peter does that's theologically brilliant? He just listens. Next we see in verse 29, Peter says this. So when I. So when I was sent for, I came without any objection because God gave me this vision. But he says this. May I ask why you sent for me? And then you know what he does? He just shuts up. He doesn't, like, interrupt I'm guessing and be like, wait, wait, wait. He just listens. Which I want to say is probably pretty. I would think is pretty unlike Peter. But see, I want to tell you, I think what Peter does here in listening to these Gentile people, these Gentile believers, is a theological act, because what he's doing, and he is. He says, may I ask why you sent for me? And what he's doing when he does that is he's looking for the activity of Jesus and these people that he never imagined Jesus would show up to. When Peter listens, what he's listening for is the evidence and the fruit of the Holy Spirit in these people that he was just, up until yesterday, convinced could not hear from or be around or connected to or spoken to by the Spirit of God. Peter is doing the theological work of saying God is doing something here unexpected. And I just want to listen. And I want to say, friends, our tribe, our crew, our religious people, our tribe, we are not good at this theological work of listening. See, I grew up in a faith tradition that I think is probably similar to the faith tradition you grew up in. And my faith tradition told me to preach sermons. My. My tradition equipped me with memory, verses and all, like the. The laws and the rules and the theologies to be able to regurgitate them at moments like this. Do you know what I'm talking about to. To. To proclaim the truth of God. Instead of doing that theological work of regurgitating the theological understandings and dogmas and doctrines that Peter has. He says, just tell me about what's going on in your world. Why'd you send for me? Why is this happening? And he listens. And I want to ask friends, are we willing to listen to the people that our tradition excludes? See there, we have people like the Gentiles for the Peter. We have people groups. This is just human behavior. We have people groups that we innately inherently fear because they're just different. We don't understand. And so we've been told by the people in our tradition that you have to actually be skeptical of them. These people groups are currently actively scapegoated within our world. And there's politicians and religious leaders saying the reason, one of the main reasons that our world is the way it is so broken and ugly and nasty is because of those people right there. This is just human nature. And what breaks apart that nastiness and that ugliness that we baptize and say that it's the work of God when it's actually. Couldn't be further from it. As we say, this is what we're called to do. This is who we're called to be. I think we're called to listen to people's stories and do the theological work of listening for the Spirit of God and watching for the Spirit of God, expecting to see the Spirit of God at work in these people that we think are excluded. And our tradition tells us to forget about and to move on because they're dirty and not included. This listening, friends, is deeply theological, Christlike word work that we need to do. Couple more points. Almost, almost getting to the end here. Before we even move on, I just want to ask, will we be a people who listen? Well, that's just. Can I just ask that real, practically, will you be a person who chooses to listen to people's stories? We're about to have an election happen. Another one. Yep. It's always happening. And I promise you, you're going to see commercials that are going to tempt you to point your finger at certain people groups. What if the people groups that we're told to be skeptical of and to be afraid of, we actually made a decision. I'm going to just try to. I'm going to try to be a listener and a learner from that people group without an agenda. Tell me why you sent for me. What did God do that Brought me here. That's beautiful. Theological, life changing, world changing work. Next thing, we got a couple more here and I'm gonna go faster, I promise. Next thing is verse 44 and it's this. Peter's talking and it says this. While Peter was still speaking these words, While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard this message. And here's just the simple, simple reality that I want to point us to in this verse. It's that Peter speaks and God works. And it's almost as if God can't hold God's self back. See, because God doesn't. Even the Spirit of God doesn't. The Spirit of God is kind of impolite to us preachers. The Spirit of God doesn't even wait for Peter to be done with his sermon. And God, the Spirit of God just starts moving and acting while Peter was still speaking. All of a sudden it'd be like me right now, I'm giving you the sermon and all of a sudden you guys just start speaking in tongues. That would be a wild morning. Who's coming back? We're gonna have unprecedented numbers watching online next week, right? Or maybe it is spark of revival, I don't know. But as Peter's still speaking, the Spirit of God baptizes all of these gentile people who these good religious, God fearing people thought would never, could never be around with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God comes over them and they start giving evidence of the Spirit of God in their lives. And this tells me, friends, this might be the most like challenging one for me personally, because this tells me in some way, shape or form and I don't want to get into that rigid rule making stuff that I was speaking against at the beginning of this. I don't want to be a hypocrite, but it tells me in some way, shape or form, it seems like God. See, God wants to move, God wants to act and include the people that we've excluded. But it seems as if God waits for us to take these steps. It seems like God waits for God's people to move towards the excluded. And then the miraculous happens. Do you know what I'm talking about? Peter speaks and then the Holy Spirit comes on these, on these Gentile believers as giving evidence to the Spirit of God, saying, I'm doing something new here. But it seems as if God waits for Peter to step into that situation, that awkward, uncomfortable situation that could lose him everything. God waits for that to happen. What if there is liberation to bring for excluded people, groups in our world who don't think they're welcome to this table and in most realities in this religious. In our religious world as we speak today, aren't included in tables like this. What if God's waiting for believers, for followers of Jesus like you and me to step into those dangerous and dirty places? What if God is saying, I am chomping at the bits to do this work of reconciliation, to do this gospel centered work, but I need you to step into it? That's challenging to me. And then this is just me pointing out the obvious. Let me just ask you, and I think I'm going to get a right answer here. Who caused this work to happen? Not Peter. Right? Not the leaders of the church. This wasn't an elder decision. Wait till Wednesday, next Wednesday night, and we'll talk as elders and we'll tell you what we think. It wasn't a moment like that. This was God's doing. And that I find fascinating again, because God, when Peter is going to be held to an account and asked why he broke God's rules, you know what he's going to tell him? God broke God's rules. And that's what we have. And as Peter is, and as Randy Nye saying this right now, and that's what we have to actually interpret right now is this reality that God broke God's rules and we got to figure this out now, what does this mean for us? Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you feel the weight of that last thing, last point? Peter says here in the, in the very end of the storage, in verse 47, he said, surely no one can stand in the way of these folks being baptized with water. They have received Holy Spirit just as we have. This is often called the Gentile Pentecost. Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. Where have we heard words almost exactly the same as that? Anyone been following along Centurion? Or just a couple weeks ago, even the Ethiopian Unix. Thank you. Another person who. There's all sorts of reasons that person shouldn't have been baptized. And he says, there's water. Who can stand in the way of me being baptized? And Philip, remember, said nothing. Now it's Peter looking at this situation and seeing the second Pentecost happen. The Spirit of God baptizing these believers in the Spirit's presence. And he says, what can stand in the way of them being baptized? And here's two things I want to tell you. First is the early church had a much higher ideal and understanding of baptism than we do. See, for the early church, baptism was like the entrance card, the membership card to being part of the covenant community. And if you were baptized, that meant you are with us, you are in fully. They would even renounce people's baptism who committed, who maybe renounced Jesus. Because of pressure from the Roman authorities, they would sometimes renounce their baptism. That's how seriously they took baptism. And Peter says, who can stand in the way of their being baptized? And here's the deal. He's got six guys with him who probably, if they didn't say it out loud, they're probably thinking all sorts of things can get stand in the way of them being baptized. As a matter of fact, I have memorized a dozen verses that says why they should not be baptized. God says they should not be baptized. That's what can stand in the way of them being baptized is the word of God. Do these conversations sound familiar? See, there's all sorts of good religious biblical reasons why they shouldn't have been baptized. There literally were. And Peter says, who can stand in the way? See, when Peter says this, friends, this is not just like Peter's not just existing in this biblical vacuum where his life is just a petri dish for us. He has real life problems and real life realities, real life relationships. And when he's, when he's about to say this, when he seeing, witnessing what the spirit of God is doing in ways that are breaking where God's, where God's breaking the religious rules. Peter probably is having a crisis to say, I can't get in the way of this, but if I step into this, I might lose some relationships. And if I, if I go with the spirit of God here, I might get kicked out of my leadership position in the Jerusalem church. If I follow the spirit of God here, the church might shrink. Luke loves telling us about how the church grows and grows. Peter might actually be putting a bomb in the middle of the church in the growth capacity. These are things that pastors and leaders think about. And even more than that, my family might not accept me when I go home if I do this. The religious teachers, who I esteem highly and I would never want to disappoint, might think I've completely left the faith and tradition and I'm a wolf, I'm a heretic. Now, this is the reality that Peter's dealing with. And Peter stands and says, who can stand in the way of their being baptized? And here is just the point. I want to leave us with friends. See, Peter took a huge risk Here. But I think God's asking really similar things of us because, see, here's the deal. Faith takes courage. We've been told too many times and the Christian story has been packaged in a way too often that says that, like, you say yes to Jesus and your life is going to be pure bliss. It's going to be great, it's going to be comfortable. Nothing bad's ever going to happen. It's going to. And it's just, ooh, it's going to be so tasty and delightful. But the reality is, friends, if the Bible tells us anything, it's that faith following Jesus takes some real courage of us. And Peter was finding that out right here, right now. It took some real bravery and courage for Peter to do this because he's risking everything going against the scriptures, potentially risking relationships. Have you had a moment like that where you're convinced the Spirit of God is leading you into something? And you see the fruit of the Spirit manifesting you, you're convinced that God is calling you into something and you know that if you say yes, there's gonna be a cost. It's gonna cost you something. Like your, your faith tradition that you were raised in is going to turn their backs on you, maybe, or your family. It's going to be different in your family because you said yes to the spirit of God. Have you had moments like that? Or the, the, the, the neat and tidy black and white religious world that I am really comfortable in. And there is no shame in being really comfortable in a safe, tidy black and white religious world. That's a comfortable world that all of us would gravitate towards. But we've got these moments. I've had many of these moments where I know if I say yes to God, that means that my nice, neat, tidy religious world is going to get blown up. And I don't know what it's going to look like on the other end. I'll bet Peter didn't know. See, faith takes courage, friends. It is not just God asking you to come on this magic carpet ride. God is asking us to step into these dangerous places and write some dangerous stories ourselves for the sake of including the excluded. That's what this story is about. And God is asking us, are you willing to have the courage it takes to step into those dangerous places, to let the fallout be what it is and to trust the work of the spirit of God. See, because what happens is pure beauty and miracles. When Peter has the courage enough to say yes to God, if you're able, let's Stand and pray as we finish up our time together. God, this story is dangerous. We've said the story is strange and peculiar. The story is unsettling. The story is exciting. The story, in many ways is thrilling. What I'm trying to say is it's so much here, but I am so grateful to be part of this tradition, to follow a God who's willing to break God's own rules in order to include the excluded. I want to say that this looks nothing like the faith that I grew up with and the faith that I was given. And I want to say, man, I prefer this so much more. I love following you, Jesus, into these dangerous places because it always, always makes gives me. It helps me see more color and more beauty and more goodness in the world. You are changing and reshaping and transforming the way I see people. You are changing and reforming and reshaping the way I see myself. You are changing and reforming and reshaping, transforming the way I interact in the world. And I just want to say I want more of it. God, Holy Spirit. May we be a church that in a people who reflect this courage that Peter has that changes the church forever. May we be a people who are eager to say yes to you, Jesus. May we be a people who are eager to listen to people's stories who we've been told don't matter. May we be people who are willing to. To be flexible enough to follow you into spaces we never thought we were allowed to go into, to engage with people we've been told are dirty. All for the sake of you and your gospel, Jesus. All for the sake of the God who is willing to become a man and then be misunderstood and rejected by the religious leaders, murdered and crucified and tortured by those religious leaders, only to be raised to life again to prove that the way of love wins in the end. To prove that all are included. I'm so grateful for the story, Jesus. Would you continue to shape us and mold us through it and by it? And so we sing to you one more time as a church together. Thank you again for being with us. We would love to have you join us if you are ever in the Milwaukee area. And we hope you have a healthy place to gather wherever you are from.