We are Witnesses | Ruler Breakers, May 15, 2022

Acts 10 and 11; Revelation 21
May 15, 2022
“Will we allow the Holy Spirit to prod us today, to give us a vision, to drag us, as it dragged our apostolic forebearers before us, kicking and screaming, all the way toward the wideness of God’s mercy?”[7]

In just a few minutes, we will pray that Charlie is so filled with the same Holy Spirit that moved the home of Cornelius that he is never the same. And because he will not be the same, we pray that we will not be the same. The work of the Holy Spirit moves us beyond our bolted down pews, and our Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, toward the wideness of God’s mercy.

Do not misunderstand. Doctrine, disciple, and practice are necessary for the church, just as the law was necessary for Peter and Israel. But our attachment to constancy in doctrine and practice puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to the work of God because we often see the way things are (or the way things were) to be more powerful than what God is doing before our very eyes.

Still, the witness we bear to the world is to the One who does not see our comfort in constancy as a hurdle to the wideness of God’s mercy.

This was the case when Peter received a vision, and Holy Spirit descended upon the home of Cornelius.

It was the case when Jesus dined with Zacchaeus, extending grace to a man who had cheated his neighbors.

It was the case when the power of Sin and Death could not hold back the gravestone.

And it will be the case in just a few moments when the waters of baptism clothe Charlie in new life. And oddly enough, new life that all of us have been clothed in as well because of the wideness of God’s mercy.