Who Was I to Stand in God's Way? | May 17, 2026

The Setup: You Ate With Them?

Sermon number thirty brought the story back to Jerusalem, and Pastor Justin opened with a personal confession, that there have been seasons in his own walk with the Lord where God was clearly doing something new and his first reaction was not yes, Lord, but wait, hold on. He walked through Acts 11:1-18 to show how the wider church responded when word reached them that Gentiles had received the gospel. Rather than celebration, Peter is met with criticism from the circumcision party, sincere, Bible-believing Jewish Christians who were not questioning whether God could save Gentiles, but whether those Gentiles were acceptable enough to eat at the same table as Jewish believers.

Pastor Justin's first point was that when God moves, expect resistance, even from sincere, committed believers who love Jesus but have let tradition calcify into a boundary God never intended. He noted that the accusation in verse 3 was pointedly about table fellowship, you ate with them, because sharing a meal in the ancient world was a public declaration of belonging, and Peter had crossed a line held for over a thousand years. He was direct that resistance to God's new work in this story did not come from Rome or from pagans, it came from inside the church, and he challenged the congregation to ask honestly whether they are more committed to how church has always been done than to what God is doing right now.

Peter does not get defensive. He simply recounts, step by step, exactly what God had done, from the vision on the rooftop to the Holy Spirit falling on Cornelius's entire household, echoing the very language of Pentecost itself. Pastor Justin's second point was that when questioned about what God is doing, the best response is simply to tell what God has done rather than growing defensive, and he pointed to the church's own practice of recording video testimonies with Reagan Brown as a modern version of exactly what Peter modeled, letting a changed life speak louder than any argument.

The third lesson came from Peter's closing question itself, who was I that I could stand in God's way, which Pastor Justin called not false humility but theological clarity. When God has clearly acted, clearly granted the Spirit, or clearly opened a door, the only right posture is to fall silent, glorify God, and get out of the way, exactly as the Jerusalem church finally did. Ephesians 2:11-22 rounded out the message, the reminder that Christ himself is our peace, who has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between insiders and outsiders and made both one new people through the cross.

Pastor Justin tied the church's own mission statement, we are the community, directly to this passage, insisting there are no outsiders at The Crossings, only people Jesus has not reached yet, and that no one gets to stand at the door deciding who looks acceptable enough to come in.

This Week's Application

So this week, is there a person or category of person you have already quietly written off as too far gone, not our kind, or not ready, where God may in fact be doing something new that you are the one standing in the way of? We would love for you to join us this Sunday as we continue walking through Acts together.

The Crossings Community Church is an evangelical church plant in Brunswick, Maryland, led by Pastor Justin Wyckoff. We meet Sundays at 11:00 AM. Learn more at thecrossings.cc.