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Brew City Church
The Revolution Starts With Prayer | Holy Disruption
01:00:26
May 31, 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. Good morning. Good to see you guys. Good to be with you. Let me, let me, let me just pray. We'll get into this sermon time. God, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for all sorts of things. I'm grateful for these ones here. I'm grateful to gather here in this place. I'm grateful for space that's set aside so that we can pray as one community and gather around this table, do what Christians around the world are doing and center around you and your body and blood, Jesus, and center around the scriptures. And this morning as we engage in a story from the scriptures that makes. It's kind of confusing and brings up some problems and seemingly contradicts one set of scriptures, seemingly contradicts another set. These are, what I'm trying to say, God, is that these are complicated things that we're diving into. But I trust you, God, Holy Spirit, I trust you that you are bringing truth, that you are shedding light on truth, that you're teaching us and discipling us and how to walk and how to follow you, Jesus, how to walk out this faith, the spiritual journey that you've called us and invited us into. So would you use this time, continue to use this time in discipling us further and deeper into your kingdom, into your ways, so that we would just kind of grow in this innate knowing where you're leading us and that we would sense and hear your call to us. Jesus, I'm so grateful for the scriptures. I'm grateful that the scriptures have stories like this guide us as we walk through it. In Jesus name, amen. Many of us who are part of this church have had what I would call like a spiritual shift. We've. Maybe you're here at this church because you've heard this is a church where this is safe to do this. Or maybe you're here and you've been here for a long time and you've just observed these shifts and maybe some of them have happened with you within you. But many of us have had these kind of spiritual shifts or theological shifts, things that we once considered just given things that we thought were just this is the way Christians believe. This is what, how Christians live. This is what it looks like to be a Christian. Do you know what I'm talking about? And that something, maybe one thing or a Couple of areas, even kind of just shifted. Maybe that shift was a gradual, just really slow process, but because we were so careful and so worried about getting things wrong in our spiritual journey and our theology, you know what I'm talking about. Or maybe for some of us, it was just an actual moment where we were confronted with somebody or something that changed everything. And it just. Our world, kind of our spiritual world, our theological world, came crashing down on us and kind of disintegrated into a bunch of bits and pieces. Now, if that's a reality for you, that is a jarring thing that's happened to me, those things. And I can tell you that's a de. Centering moment. It's a kind of a. It can make you feel like you're not standing on solid ground. So I want to hear from you guys. I'd love to hear. I know I'm looking at some of you who. I know you've gone through some of these spiritual or theological shifts. I would love to know, how did that feel? How did that. Just. Let's share a little bit about how that shift, how that evolution, how that change, how that maybe a death even. How'd that feel to you? For some of us, a shift meant we knew a change with our family and friends, that they're not going to appreciate this, or maybe even they're going to see us as heretics or outside of the faith. It's going to. If I, If I actually publicly come out in support of this, or if I change my mind about this, or if there's this theological shift, it's going to. There's going to be some shockwaves going through my relationships. Or maybe for some of us, we knew that, like, we might have to change churches. Right? And that's a huge, huge change. Or maybe it's more personal than that. Maybe it's within our own marriages or family. What. What. How did that feel, that spiritual shift? Scary. Exciting. Let's talk a little bit. Anyone brave enough to break the ice here for us? Alice? Yeah. Fundamentalist. And all this Christian guilt that I didn't even know was there. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Alice. For some of us, it's. It's like a. A change in beliefs for some of us. It's just something that happens to us. Right? Like, thank you for being so vulnerable and honest, Alice. A divorce is. Can be certainly one of those things because we're taught our whole lives you don't get divorced if you, if. If you get married, you stay married, and then life just happens to us. And sometimes divorce happens and it's thrust on you. Now you're in this not only kind of relational marital crisis, but you're also in a spiritual crisis because you've been told Christians don't get divorced. And so what does this mean for me now? So there's fear. And if you feel like a terrible Christian, you feel like you're going to hell. Those are real things. Those are serious things that faith sometimes doesn't surprise survive underneath. Right. Thank you, Ellis. Any. Anyone else? How did that spiritual shift feel? Yeah, I'm forget. I'm. I'm sorry, I forget your name. Adrian. Hey, Adrian. I think the doubt and the reconstruction it took about dangerous. There's the social repercussions, but then there's. What if I'm wrong? Yeah, yeah, yes. The doubts. Adrian said the doubts in the deconstruction. Right. So this. This process. It's a word that we use to talk about all this st. It felt dangerous, right? Like even within me. I think Adrian's saying it felt like this is dangerous territory that I'm stepping into. Doubt becomes a dirty word for many of us because we weren't told that we're allowed to doubt or to have kind of second thoughts about our faith. The reality is that if you have faith, you're going to have doubts because it's faith. It's believing in something that we can't prove, of course. But it feels dangerous. It feels like, am I allowed to do this? It feels like I'm stepping out of my tradition. Right. And that's scary stuff. Maybe even. Many of us, maybe even have convinced ourselves. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Don't pay attention to that, because this is dangerous. I saw one of your guys. Hands up over here, Ben. Yeah. It felt like the foundation upon which I sort of built the rest of my life. Okay. My friend Ben just said it felt like the foundation on which I built my whole life on. No big deal. Right? And I know that many of you know what this feels like or would echo what Ben just said. It felt like the foundation that I had built my entire life on, which is God. In Christianity, in the Bible, spirituality was kind of. What did you say, Ben? It was just gone. I thought that's what you said, gone or adrift. Feels like I don't have a foundation to stand on. It's not even that other people maybe were telling you your foundation, your spirituality, your Christianity is gone. It felt like to you, you felt like everything I had stood on and I knew and was confident in is now gone or it's shaky ground now. That is scary stuff, Claire. Do I see God's heart this way because I fundamentally believe that that's who he is? Do I see it that way because it's easier in certain faith traditions to make mistakes and know the God's. Okay, can you. Can you say that, like, just a little bit differently? I think I'm. I know what you're talking about, and I really like it. I just wanted. So I still think that Christianity looks like all the other ways that people practice it. We all have our own struggles, things that are going on. But personally, for me, I've often asked myself, did I move from Catholic? Yeah. You know, this different tradition because it allows me to make more mistakes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Thank you, Claire. So this can happen in different contexts, for Claire was moving from Catholicism into Protestantism. Right. Into a different denomination, a very different tradition. And Claire's question is, am I moving? Do I feel like this is where kind of, to me, the spirit of God resides and is calling me into? Because I see God more clearly there, because God is more clearly there, or just because I want it to be so? Right? Is that kind of what you're saying, Claire? Can I trust this feeling and voice inside of me? Is it really God? Is it really the spirit I'm sensing, or is it just my own preferences? That is a very, very familiar feeling for many of us who have gone through these shifts. Right. Thank you, Cliff. Other. John, for me, there's a temptation to regret. I've made this huge investment. God. Yes, yes. There's a temptation to have this kind of. Yeah. Can I. John, you're a chaplain, right? Yeah. And you've been in ministry. Right. So John, my friend John, who's. Who's in active ministry, is. Is sharing that. Like, I. As these shifts happened, it feels like, do I. Did I just throw away. Am I throwing away all a bunch of stuff that I've invested my life in? Am I throwing away. Was all of that wasted time? Is that what you're kind of getting at, John? A little bit and having a lot of regrets and maybe grief, even over the time spent on things that maybe I don't align with anymore? Am I getting at it a little bit or if there's differences? Yeah. Do you know what that feels like? Like kind of a disillusionment almost. And then all of a sudden, I've had moments like that as well, John. And I feel sometimes like, what can I trust? And is what I'm pouring Myself into now worthwhile and valid. Right. Thank you, John Johnathan. And then I've got you, Steve. I find it correctional at times. Can you explain that? Yeah. Really? I'm disaligned or, like, misaligned from what, like, God is really doing. Then it's like, oh, no, we need to, like, rear you back into the right way. Okay. And so this shift is a little bit more like correctional, like, oh, we need to convict. And also. Yeah. So you have seen it at times, at least, Jonathan, as like a really healthy thing, correct? Yes. Thank you. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad one of us who's sharing this morning actually is like. It felt good. Thank you, Jonathan. Like, actually, this feels like the way it's supposed to, I think. And it feels kind of like maybe, even if I'm not hearing you correctly, repentance, like actually moving, changing my mind to move more towards what the spirit's calling me to. These shifts don't always have to feel dark and scary and foreboding. Like the world that we built ourselves on, like Ben was talking about, is kind of gone now, but it actually can feel like fresh air for the first time. Have any of us have had that experience? Maybe sometimes both. And do you know what I'm talking about? Where it feels like everything that I once knew is gone and I don't have any ground to stand on and yet I feel fully alive more than I have in a long time. Yeah. Thank you, Steve. I was excited. I moved down here about 10 years ago, and the church I first went to when I came here was Summerfield. And the first thing that I saw, they had a bread box outside. They had a rainbow flag in the church. I'm like, wow, this is going to be exciting to actually be a part of this group. Yeah. That's really out there and doing the things that. To help people and be a part of. Yeah. Included instead of excluded. So engaging in new tradition that kind of aligned more fully with the way you saw the kingdom of God. Kind of. It felt like. It sounds like liberating, right? It sounded like liberating. It sounded like freedom. It sounded like this. I can actually show up in a space where I can believe what I believe and be who I am and be around people who are kind of seeing the same thing and also still want to follow Jesus. Right. Like some of us, for some of us, being part of a church like that, for the first time, it feels like you're just drinking water after you've been walking in a desert for a Long, long time. Right, Steve? Yeah, we're just about done with this time. But anyone else have their hands up that I missed? So this morning, in case you couldn't tell by my prayer and by what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes here, we're talking about the central character. The central person. Well, the central character in the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit, but the central human, the central person in the book of Acts so far is certainly who? Peter. Duh. Yeah. I mean if you've been following her, sorry not to say duh. We haven't gotten to Paul so much yet. Paul Shelley introduced us to Paul two weeks ago. But Peter, Peter is this person that pretty much he has been the leader of the church so far. He has been the catalyst, the person who the spirit of God is using to proclaim this new way that God has made in Jesus. And that catalyst, that person, that leader, that man, that person that God is building the church upon experiences one of these life altering, life changing, theology shattering, disillusioning. I don't think Peter's on liberating and excitement Jonathan and Steve yet. I think we're gonna see Peter having a moment of crisis in our text today. It's a wild text and we are going to spend a number of weeks in it. Just so you know, it's 2,3ish chapters and we're going to spend some time here because this is one of those texts that I never knew was in the Bible, to be honest with you. I never heard this taught, I never spent time with it. It's one of the. We're going to, we're going to get into it, but we're going to. I'm going to jump into Acts 10. Shelley talked through Acts 9, the big first 2/3 maybe of Acts 9 would Saul, then Paul's Damascus Road moment. Beautiful, powerful stuff. Got to know the background of who Paul is in some ways and have really just kind of enter into a vision of love and understanding for the apostle Paul in some really profound and beautiful ways. But I want to just sum up the end of chapter nine because there's some good stuff in there, but I'm not going to actually preach it. Well, I'm going to just like baby, preach it. The end of Acts 9, Peter starts traveling about, visiting and preaching the gospel. And it says visiting the Lord's people who lived in Lyda. Now that Lord's people is the original translation. There is saints. And I just think that's fun that Luke says that Peter traveled about the country. And he went and visited the saints who lived in Lyda. And I just want to draw attention to the fact that, that the scriptures that Luke called people like you and me who follow Jesus and who have different levels of understanding of who Jesus is and what it means and looks like to be a Christian, he called people like you saints. This is one of those old school Christian things. Some preachers even will. Well, I'll say friends or I'll sometimes if I get really kind of old school Bible y, I'll say beloved. I'll call you beloved. But the scriptures are calling you saints. See, because what happened in Jesus where this fallen humanity, a fallen human body was inhabited by the divine life, we call this mystery the incarnation of Christ. When this fallen human flesh is inhabited by the divine life, now we get to be called saints. The sacred is now caving in on the unholy, the fleshly, the sinful, the dirty, right? And now it's all been redeemed in a way that Paul can look at people like you and me and say you're saints, by the way. That's just cool to me. Then Peter heals someone and he moves on to the city called Joppa. And we're told about this disciple named Tabitha. And Tabitha, unfortunately as we come upon her in this story, is dead. Tabitha died. But there's something noteworthy about Tabitha that I want to highlight for us. And that is when she dies, there's a certain group of people who gather around her and mourn and grieve deeply. And that is the widows of her city. The widows in Joppa. I think this crackling and all that stuff, should I just any. I'm just going to keep going. It seems like we got a good enough connection. Tabitha, when she dies, is surrounded by the widows in Joppa. And the reason is, is because ta Tabitha, she's this woman who's a disciple of Jesus. And she gives us a really clear picture of what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus. Because it turns out she spent her life living a life of self sacrificial love, giving herself to the most marginalized in her city. See, widows were if not the most, one of the most marginalized people groups in this culture. They were forgotten. If you were a widow, we without any family, you had nobody to provide for you, no one to keep you safe, no one to bring you into their homes. But Tabitha, this woman who seemed to follow Jesus, had this imagination that was changed by Jesus and just started radically loving the people around her. The widows around her, the most marginalized, the most at risk people. She just loved them to such an extent that when she died, they gathered around her and grieved. I would love to live a life that when I leave this earth, when I die, the people who are most grieved are the marginalized. In the place where I live, I would love to live in such a way that when I die, there's a vacuum among the people who are furthest feel like they're the furthest from the heart of God. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, I want to be Tabitha. I want to live like Tabitha. I want to have a faith like Tabitha. I want to have a faith that maybe people in my church are grieved, but even more than that, the people who feel like they can't step foot in church are grieved. That to me is beautiful, right? I think Tabitha is giving us a picture of what it looks like to follow Jesus. And then we're given. Peter basically just sends all the people in mourning out of the room and heals her. And we get this picture as the church is wrestling with what resurrection looks like and what are the ramifications of the resurrection. Peter just leans into the power of the resurrection and Tabitha is brought back to life. It's incredible story. And then it ends in chapter nine, in Acts nine, it says, it says this. It's just this. It's one of these little kind of throw ins that mo almost all of us would just pass over. It said verse 43. It's just one little sentence. Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon. Now that is again one of those flyover verses is just connecting one chapter to another. But it means something, see. So Peter stayed with a tanner named Simon. What do tanners do? Tan leather hides. They take the skin off of dead animals. Sorry to get gross here. They take the skin off of dead animals. They tan the hide with this kind of elaborate, really cool chemical process that turns into leather. And you can use it in all sorts of ways. What does it mean that you're making leather and you're tanning hides? Philip, nailing it this morning. You're dealing with dead animals, right? As a tanner, which just means that being a tanner is pretty much off limits for Jewish people because you're dealing with, as Philip said again, unclean things. A dead animal is unclean. You're not supposed to touch it. It makes you unclean. Any good Jewish person, which Peter was, would not stay with anybody who is a tanner. Because they are an unclean person. Staying with them probably makes you unclean. This is interesting. Peter is willing to kind of step into the mess. We don't know. We don't get any details on why Peter stayed with Simon the Tanner, but I'm sure it's because they had a relationship. Maybe they had built a relationship or a friendship. I don't know. Maybe Simon was an extremely hospitable person. We don't know. But I have a feeling what Peter experiences, what many of us experience, and that is sometimes you meet a person who your spiritual tradition, your religious tradition would tell you is dangerous. They're unclean. You shouldn't be around them. Have anyone had an encounter like that where you meet a person and your only thing you can think at first is, I should not be your friend. I should not be talking to you right now. This is dangerous for me. But then you actually become friends with that person. You grow in relationship. You become vulnerable. You listen to their story, you hear what's going on in their world. And then something changes. Things begin to shift. And you're really nice, neat, tight, black and white. Theology becomes really messy and gray because this person is in your life. Does anyone have that experience? Because I sure do. I wonder if staying with Simon the Tanner was kind of like that. For Peter, it was the beginning of this shift. He's living in dangerous places and doing things. Maybe, you know, they didn't have the Internet back then. Maybe he didn't have to worry about getting caught in a cell phone photo. And he's staying with an unclean person. He's like, no one will know. I'm just going to do it because I think this is right. There's a lot of real life in these stories. All right, now we get into the real doozy here. Acts 10 at Caesarea, I'm just going to read through the story, and then we're going to go through a few things so we can all be on the same page. At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian regiment. He and all his family were devout and God fearing. So this is a Gentile who follows the God of Israel. He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day at about 3 in the afternoon, he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, Cornelius. Cornelius stared at the angel in fear. What is it, Lord? He asked. The angel answered. Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial Offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. He told them everything that had happened, sent them to Joppa. Go find Peter. So we fast forwarded about noon the following day as they were on their journey. As those three that Cornelius sent were approaching the city of Joppa, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat. And while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four footed animals. This is weird to us if you're ancient Jewish person 2,000 years ago. It's not weird. It makes a lot of sense. It contained all sorts of four footed animals as well as reptiles and birds. And then a voice told him, and it's in red. This is God's voice. Get up, Peter, kill and eat. Surely not, Lord. Peter replied, I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. In the voice of spoke to Peter a second time. Do not call anything impure that God has made clean. This happened three times and immediately the she was taken back into heaven. Now, while Peter was wondering about the meaning of this vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon's house was. And they stopped at the gate. They called out asking if Simon, who is known as Peter, was staying there. Commotions happening outside. And while Peter was still thinking about the vision, just trying to figure out, was that really God, Was it not? Well, you know the feeling. The spirit said to him, simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them. Peter went downstairs and said to the men, hey, I'm the guy you're looking for. Why have you come? And the men replied, we have come from Cornelius the centurion. He's a righteous and God fearing man, don't worry. Who is respected by all the Jewish people. He's not like hunting for your life. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say. And then Peter invited the men to the house to be his guests. What I want to do is I just want to go through just briefly and just highlight a few interesting things so that we can be on the same page. And then I Just want to give you a couple of takeaways as we just literally dip our toes into this text. We're just beginning. Because, man, this text is so monstrous and monumental for our faith tradition, really. So let's do that and go through this. The first thing, I just want to point out a couple of things. The first thing, Caesarea. Caesarea, the city. It says at Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius. Now, Caesarea is a city that's full of Gentile people. The city was built by Herod the Great in honor of Augustus Caesar, hence the name Caesarea. And many good, strict, pious Jewish people would avoid the city of Caesarea altogether because it was just known as being a hotbed for Roman culture and Gentiles and they wanted nothing to do with it. So right off the bat, we're talking about a city that's kind of seen as like Sin City, almost the city you stay away from in Caesarea. Cornelius is this interesting guy who's the second century and we find in the New Testament, the first one, they're both positive, like people in the narrative of the New Testament. You would never expect this. People who are, who are enemies of the state, who are enemies of your faith tradition, people who embody all that stands against Judaism, is a Roman citizen. And we find another Roman centurion who's basically a Roman warrior, who's in charge of about 100 men. And he's more of a leader than a warrior. A modern day army captain is what Cornelius is. And it says that he and all his family were devout and God fearing. He's a God fearer. That's a New Testament way of saying that they're Gentiles, but they've adopted the. They've kind of adopted the faith. They said yes to the God of Israel. They believe in the God of Israel and they go through the customs. He's praying at the appointed time of prayer. He goes through all the customs, he and his family. And he just stops short of becoming a true Jewish person because of probably kosher laws and, and circumcision. I'm going to stop, I'm going to stay out. I'm good enough here. Right? Understandable. But he's a devout man. It says. And again, it's about three o' clock in the afternoon, which means that this is a time for Jewish prayer. We're confident that Cornelius, the reason that he had this vision is because he's already in prayer in this moment. The language that the angel uses, when this angel shows up to Cornelius and he Says Cornelius. And what is it? Lord and the angel answered your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. This is sacrificial terminology here. Does it not sound like God's talking about the prayers rising up like incense in the Old Testament in the Hebrew scriptures, it's a sacrificial terminology. The way that Cornelius is caring for the poor and the marginalized around him has actually come up to God as a memorial, as an offering. Again, just like Tabitha, God cares about the marginalized and expects God's people to care about the marginalized. Then we stop in verse nine, about noon the following day, as they were on their journey and approaching, Peter went up in the room to pray, up on the roof to pray. He became hungry, wanted something to eat. While the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened up and he has this vision. Now this is interesting to me is that Peter gets a vision. In other words, because Peter needs a vision. And follow me here, it's interesting to me that Peter needs a vision because I don't think think it should be a no brainer that Peter should need a vision. See, because Peter, as I said just a few minutes ago, Peter is the leader of the early church. Peter is the one that Jesus said I am going to build the church on you. And he's doing it. Peter starts in Acts 2 preaching at Pentecost, preaching this message of repentance, this message of Christ and Christ crucified. And tons of people come to faith. And Peter starts healing people, preaching the gospel fearlessly, standing before the religious and governmental rulers, talking and saying I'm called to listen to God, not you doing amazing things. And this guy who God is building the church on, the guy who's supposed to know what God is like and the guy who's supposed to know what God is up to in the world still needs a vision from God about what God is up to in the world and what God thinks. Like, I just want to point it out sometimes and we're going to think about this a little bit in a few minutes. Sometimes the people who need that vision the most are us religious insiders. I never think that Peter would need a vision to know what God is up to in the world. But it turns out he did see because no self respecting God following Jewish person would, would step foot in the home of a gentile of an unclean person. But that's what happened. But Peter needs this vision, right? And I find it interesting that Court the, the, the way These visions happening happen, see? Cornelius gets an angel, right? Unmistakable. Unless he's, like, under the influence of something, it's very easy, very clear. He gets an angel. I want you to go to Peter. He. Here's where he's staying. Send your people right. Peter, however, falls into a trance. It says when he's hungry and praying, and he sees this sheet with animals on it, it's this weird vision. And then he hears this voice. He doesn't get an angel. Peter gets a voice within. See? It feels like Peter gets kind of a junior version of this prophetic word from God. And I actually am comforted by this, see, because I. I don't know about you, but I've never encountered an angel. Has anyone encountered an angel or a messenger from God? See? But I got this voice within that when it feels like I'm hearing from God, sometimes it's really confusing. Do you know what I'm talking about? Sometimes when I feel like I'll spend some time in prayer or I'll just be living my life and I'll feel kind of addressed or kind of. Yeah, just seen by God. And I'll feel like there's this thing that's welling up inside of me, and I don't know if I can trust it sometimes. I don't know if it's my voice or the voice of the spirit of God. Do you know what I'm talking about? I think this is what Peter was wrestling with. We're going to go into why he was wrestling with it. In verse 14, Peter says that we see the sheet come down with all these animals on it and says, get up, Peter. Kill and eat. And Peter in verse 14, says, Surely not, Lord, for I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. And the voice said to him a second time, do you not call anything impure that God has made clean? What's going on here is that literally this vision that we take, that we're being told is a voice from God, is telling Peter to disobey the scriptures. I'm gonna say that again because it's weird. This voice that we're told is God, that Peter is. Is processing as God. That is God is telling Peter, giving instructions to Peter, calling Peter to disobey the scriptures that he's based his whole life on. Kind of like what Ben was saying felt like my whole reality, everything that I stood on was just vanishing. That's Peter in this moment. See this? What do you do when God tells you to disobey God? What do you do when when this. When it feels like the spirit of God is telling you to do something or believe something or step into something that goes against what you've known to see in the Scriptures. And just in case you think I'm making too big of a deal out of this or stretching the truth a little bit, let's go to Lee. Can we go to Leviticus 11? The Lord. That's Yahweh, by the way, the big Grand Poobah. It's not the Elohim word for God. It's the Lord. Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, this is God saying it. Say to the Israelites, of all the animals that live in the land, these are the ones you may eat. And it goes through this list. You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. It gets really personal. It gets really into detail. There are some that only chew the cud, or they only have a divided hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though, chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof. It is ceremonially unclean. For you. If you want to go into Leviticus 11 and in these ceremonial kind of foods that make you clean and unclean, you can if you want, but it just goes further and further, talking about, these are animals that you can eat, and these are animals that you cannot eat. You are not allowed. They will make you unclean if you eat them. And unclean means not acceptable, unacceptable to God. It's in the canon, in the scriptures. Thank you for keeping on going, Lee. I'm not gonna read through it all, but you can see it right there. What do you do when you get a word from God that says, I want you to dispute, obey the scriptures? Some of us. I spent a considerable amount of time in a charismatic tradition, kind of Assemblies of God, Pentecostal tradition, formed and shaped me in some beautiful ways. But as we were taught and discipled on how to process prophetic words, we are given these criteria, these kind of filters to say, how do you know if that voice within you is from God or it's of yourself? Is this language familiar for any of you who grew up in these traditions? Right. And what's the. What's the cardinal rule, the. The main rule as to how you discern whether that voice that you hear is of God or of your. Or of the world or of. Of yourself? What's the main rule? I heard it in different cadences and times, but God will never give you a word that goes against the word of God, right? That's just basic. That's good way to interpret what the Holy Spirit is up to and what those voices inside of you are, are not. If you hear a word from that, you think is a word from God and it goes against the Scriptures, it's not from God. Maybe Peter was told that rule as well. But I want to say, if this word came to any one of us who were taught that way, we would probably dismiss it out of hand. We would even say, man, I saw this vision. I thought I heard this word. I thought I heard the voice of God. And we would tell it to somebody who's a trusted person or a leader in the church. And they would say, well, you know the first rule about prophetic words, right? God never will contradict Scripture. What if Peter got that same advice? What do you do? Right? This is a dilemma. This is the world getting the world as you knew it getting ripped out from underneath you. And this is just a tiny little lesson to us that I think all of us religious people, all of us Christians, would do well to keep in mind. And that is the law is really, really good. Like the Torah is really, really good, but it is not God. I'm going to say something that's more personal for us. The Bible, the Bible, it is a gift from God. It is worth basing your life on. I'm trying to do it myself. I've been trying to do it my whole life. And it is a miracle, I believe, but it is not God. Let us not get confused, because we religious people, it's understandably easy for us to say. We need to make formulas and make our faith understandable. And so everything that we know about God is from here. And so let's just make this, turn this into a member of the Trinity. But really, I want to just tell you the Bible is not God. God is God. And I know that's confusing. I know that we call this God's Word. I know that we believe that's inspired. And I do. But only God is God. Scholars have wondered whether Peter, as he's getting this word and as he's processing, has the words of Jesus. The story in Mark 7 where Peter was around for. Do you remember this story in Mark 7 where Jesus disciples start eating food and it's. It's kosher food. It's good, it's all right. But they haven't washed their hands. Their hands are still uncle. And the Pharisees take that stuff really seriously. And so they call out Jesus disciples to Jesus and they say, Jesus Why are you letting your disciples eat with unclean hands? That means they are now unclean, ceremonially unclean, unfit to be in the presence of God. And what did Jesus say to the Pharisees? He said, look, dudes, it's not what goes into the mouth and into the body that makes you unclean. It's what comes out of the heart. Right now that makes perfect sense to us. High five for Jesus. Great theology. But the thing is, Jesus was going against the scriptures right there. Jesus was saying, look, you guys obsess about these kosher laws, about this food that makes a person unclean. And that's the main beef that Jewish people had with Gentiles, is that they were unclean because of the stuff they ate. And Jesus says in that text, you don't get it. It's not what you eat that makes you unclean. It's what comes out of you. It's kind of a play on words by Jesus. But I wonder if Peter bet you any money, have you ever had that experience where you've read a Bible, a text in the Bible, a million times and never really even noticed it, and all of a sudden something happens? You get a word from God, or do you have an experience and all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah, that's in there. I wonder if Peter was like Jesus. Holy moly. Jesus was saying this exact same thing. And I never even realized it. Maybe for some of us, for me, you know what one of those texts have been like that Acts 10, where I didn't pay any attention to Acts 10 until this spiritual shift happened in me. And I was like, wait a minute, how has this been here the whole time? And I never even realized it? Peter, the man that God built the church on, goes through this spiritual shift and nobody's paid attention to it. Last thing I want to point out is the place that this is happening and the irony of it that we were. What city is Peter in? What city does Simon the Tanner live in? Anyone paying attention? Joppa. Way to go, Shelley. Joppa. We've seen the city of Joppa before in the scriptural narrative. Now I would expect no one to know where. Say what? Good grief, Montavious. Welcome back. Congratulations on your beautiful baby. Is that Micah? Right, let's give it up for Micah. Way to ruin my fun, Montavious. It's in Joppa, in Jonah. The book of Jonah is where we've seen the city of Joppa before, and it's eerily similar. Check this out. The word of the Lord. Yahweh, same thing. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Am, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. Now pause there for a second. Lee, now this seems. Well, actually, let's keep going. Go to Grace city of Nineveh, preach against it, for its wickedness has risen against me. But Noah, Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port, and after paying the fare, he went aboard, sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. In other words, what's going on here? We the way I always took that verse of hey, go to preach against Nineveh, the city of Nineveh, because their evil has risen before me. It sounds to me like God is saying, I want you to condemn the city of Nineveh. That is not why Jonah's running away from God. This is another one of those, those texts that we just really generally misunderstand in the church. Jonah is not running away from, from God because he doesn't want to confront of particularly evil people and get crucified for it. That's not why he's running away. What he's running away is because God wants to go have Jonah go preach to the city of Nineveh that, hey, your sins are real, but God wants you to turn from them, to come to God, to have life. God, in other words, God loves the people in Nineveh. The people of Nineveh are enemies of the Israelites. They're enemies of Jonah. Jonah hates the Ninevites. And the last thing that Jonah wants to do is go preach a message of repentance and life to the people that he loves to hate. And so he runs away from God in the city of Joppa. The irony here, friend, I think, is not. I think is not accidental. I think it's just this little clue for us, for people who are kind of really diving into the scriptures, that God is doing what God has always been doing that is getting us to love the people that we love to hate. This is nothing new. This is what God has always been trying to do amongst God's people, letting us know, I love the people that your tradition loves to hate. And I'm calling you to them now. Two things, because I know that time is almost done. Two things, my two things that I want to just point out. And again, we're just dabbling, dipping our toes in this text. We're just getting started. But two Things is something is going on here. There's two things happening in concert, in stereo, and that is when God wants to. Like, this is a revolutionary moment in the church. Just so you know, this is a revolutionary moment for the. For the Christian tradition. Nothing will ever be the same. You and I get to be included because of this story. And what happens. What the. The two things that are happening in concert is. God's talking to two different kinds of people, the marginalized and the religious insiders. Cornelius is the marginalized, the ones who. Who will find Peter is going to say some kind of really untactful, like, not relationally cool things because they're such outsiders. God speaks to the marginalized first, and then God speaks to the religious insider. And here's where I want to point out that the one who has the hardest time believing what God is up to in the world is the religious insider. See, when God wants to do something new, and this is God doing something new, friends, when God wants to include people who have never been included before, it's the religious insiders who usually have the hardest time with it. The people who you would think know God the best, know God, are most intimate with God and have a beautiful and active prayer life. And who know the scriptures and who have been raised on the traditions. You would think those would be the people who know what God is up to in the world. But those, the people like us are usually the last in on the joke. The people like us are usually the last to say yes to what God is doing in the world. Because, see, sometimes it goes against our religious sensibilities. Sometimes, often when God is calling us into something new, it goes against what we've been taught. It goes against sometimes even. Can I say it, the scriptures. Sometimes, oftentimes when God is doing something new like this, it's the religious insiders who get in the way of what God wants to do in the world. It's people like you and me who are the obstacles to the work of the Spirit of God. Because we think we have God all figured out. We think we know God. And I want to tell you there is no greater barrier to truly knowing God than thinking you've got God all figured out. This is why I think epistemic humility and being humble about what we know and how we know it, and being humble about how intimately or well we know God is so important because it will open you up or close you off to the movement of God in your life. Friends, just a little step of humility to say, God, I Don't know the truth. I don't have a full understanding of who you are and what you're up to. Show me, Lead me, Invite me. That's why those prayers are so powerful. It's us insiders who get in the way more often than not. And the last thing I want to make, the last point I want to make before we're done here is there's a commonality, a common thread in these two encounters, these two words that God gave both Cornelius and Peter. Did anyone catch what the common thread is, what the common bond is in these two encounters? Prayer. What was happening with Cornelius at about 3 o' clock in the afternoon? He's given a vision. And we know that 3 o' clock in the afternoon is one of the appointed Jewish times for an ancient Jewish person to pray. It's highly likely Cornelius was in prayer when this angel visited him. And we're told Peter at noon goes up. It's not one of the appointed times for prayer, but Peter goes up on the roof to just pray. See, when God wants to do something revolutionary, friends, when God wants to usher in a new way, the way that happens, I don't think we can get away from this is in and through the place of prayer. See, this is one of those sermons and one of those chapters that people like me, I'll just make a. I don't like making blanket statements, but like us progressive Christians, we like this story. We like stories like this. This is a sermon that, like, if you popped this on progressive Christian chatboards, I have no idea what exists on there, or whatever. Maybe a Reddit chatboard. Hey, check this out. A pastor was preaching on Acts 10. It would. It would catch. We would like that, right? This is one of those sermons. But here's a little moment in the sermon that I don't know if us progressive Christians really like very much at all. See, because the way God brings that revolution that we've been hoping for and dreaming about, the way people who our tradition is exporting become included, the way the new way of God crashes in with the old way, seems like it's always through prayer. And that for some of us is not the most ideal thing. Because for some of us, for many of us, I know that for me, I've had my ups and downs with the idea of prayer. Sometimes prayer for me is scary thing. It's a daunting thing because I just am in one of those phases where I just feel like I can't connect with God. Do you know what I'm talking About am I on my own there? Where it just feels like a dry desert ground and I kind of drift away from it. And I think many of us Christians who are open to these kind of a spiritual shift and a deconstructing, if you will, prayer is one of those things. But we feel like maybe we leave that behind a little bit. But I want to tell you, friends, I personally hope and pray I never get so progressive, if you will, that I move beyond something as foundational as a prayer life. So I want to tell you if we dream of God moving in these new, expansive, inclusive ways like many of us dream about, because here's the deal. I don't think God is done working like this. I think this is just what God is like. I think God is always trying to expand our imaginations as to who's in, who's an insider, who's included. I don't think God's done and I don't think God ever will be done expanding our vision and our imagination as to who God loves and who God is calling us to love. This isn't just a one time deal in the way that we get tuned into the heart of God and getting to know who God's including and who God wants us to reach out to is through the place of prayer. Friends, God moves miraculously in the place of prayer. So I just want to encourage you and I want to ask you, what is prayer like for you these days? Maybe for some of us, I hope for some of us it's this. It's a dynamic place. I mean, we're in a place that kind of prayer has kind of been revitalized to us. I know for many of us it's like a kind of a thing that we more often than not forget about or don't really feel like we have the fluent language for anymore. And here's where I'll just encourage you. This is just one of those. I don't think it's. I was going to say, I don't think it's optional. I do think it's okay to step away from prayer and say, I just need a break. But I think what's more appropriate is to say, let's shift the, the way we think about prayer. What if we could do that for some of us who struggle with it? What if prayer becomes me being attentive to the presence of God? Have you tried that? What if prayer becomes me being attentive to the attentiveness of God? Me being present to the presence of God, that for me Oftentimes is prayer. Sometimes that's all I've got is to just. But see, that takes intention because that takes me quieting myself, taking a walk or being attentive in the car or wherever I find myself to just be attentive to the presence of God. And prayer just kind of happens, whether it's spoken or kind of the presence becomes prayer. And then maybe for some of us prayer is actual like interaction. And for me, prayer kind of the rebirth of prayer in my life grew out of that attentiveness to the presence of God. Once I became familiar with that again, all of a sudden I felt like I was sensing things in the spirit more and hearing things a little bit more and I could talk to God more. And it felt like this is becoming more natural for me. What I'm trying to tell you is I hope we are a praying church because it's impossible to find follow God where God wants to go without being a praying church friend. And it's impossible to be a praying church without being a bunch of individuals who give themselves to the place of prayer. So I just want to ask you, as this is a sermon where we're going way into the new way of things and the new spirituality where God is leading us into new places with new people that we never thought were included. And we're doing it the old fashioned way that we've been discipled in, in and through the place, place of prayer. It doesn't change. I love that we get this collision of the old and the new. And in the middle of that collision is the spirit of God bringing us into places we never imagined in our faith. We're going to continue in this story and see the radical nature of it and how Peter wrestles with it as we continue in the weeks. But let's, let's be done for now if you're able to. Would you stand with me as we briefly pray and sing one last song together? God, I just ask over the course of these next few weeks that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear what you're telling us and where you're leading us. Spirit of God, I'm convinced that this is not a one time deal, that this is just who you are and what you're up to in the world. You, you're always trying to open our eyes to who's included, who you want us to include, who you want us to open our arms to, who you want us to embrace as your people, as your church, God and God. I don't want to get that wrong. I don't want to get it wrong. I want to be for who you are for. And I believe that's all humanity. And so would you continually invite us, call us, pull us into these dangerous waters where you center around? And would you invite us into these places of prayer? Would you for some of us, reacquaint us with this place of prayer, with this activity in life of prayer? Maybe just dipping our toes and being attentive to your presence. But would you cultivate this place within us as individuals and as a church to keep in step with you Holy Spirit? I'm thankful that the new ways come in through the old sometimes, even though sometimes I would rather have it a different way. Would you form us into shape us to be disciples of yours who listen and follow in Jesus name? Amen. 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.