Acts 15:22-35 - Sacrificial Unity

The Unity of the Church and the Setting of Acts 15

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawan's Podcast. Listen in as our lead pastor, Don Sopec, is in a sermon series entitled Solid Foundation, A Journey Through the Book of Acts.

We're going to be launching into the second part of Acts chapter 15 this morning, and I want to start off by a question. The title of my message is Sacrificial Unity. And I want to ask this question, and I want you to really think about your answer to this.

How important is unity in the church? How important is unity in the church? And think about a church. So how important is unity here at Recast? How important is it that we're unified with other churches that are around us?

So there's an internal unity, but then there's also a unity with other churches that are around us. And how important is that? I think it's important to think about this in this context. We live in a day and an age where church unity is practically a joke.

It's something that we don't put a lot of thought to. And if you really think about it, if you don't like one church, if you don't like the way that we sing songs, or you don't like something about the way that I dress, or you don't like the way that I speak, or there's something that frustrates you or bothers you, I mean, you know there's a dozen other churches out there that you could just jump ship and go.

Somebody offends you, somebody says something that challenges you, somebody pushes your buttons just a little bit, we can just quickly hit the eject button and go someplace else, right? Isn't that the nature of the culture that we live in?

Part of that is just kind of the reality of mobility, right? And people can travel readily to another church, it's pretty easy. Back in the day, it was, you know, how far could your horse take you? And most communities would have one central church, and that you had to work through the nitty-gritty and the messiness of relationships if you're going to go to church in your community.

It's not that way anymore, right? So what does that do for church unity? What does that do for our commitment to working through issues and struggling through these things like we're going to see them in the text?

Here in our passage, we're going to see resolution to a very significant issue that the church faced very early on, when the church was just in its infancy, just getting started, and some massive major issues began to crop up.

And although this topic at face value might not ignite your passion for worship, you know, I'm kind of introducing the worship set here, and kind of coming into singing some songs, and getting excited and thinking about what God has done for us.

The fact of the matter is this idea of reconciliation, of bringing two churches that were in disagreement, bringing them back together, ignited rejoicing in the early church. They rejoiced and were enthusiastic about God reconciling an issue in that early church.

Because real relationships were restored, authentic relationships, people issues were solved. Where there was confusion and fear, through the Holy Spirit, unity was achieved. We're going to see that. And that unity came through a commitment of working through the truth of God's Word, to figure out what He has to say.

Our text this morning does need a little historical background, especially since some of you were gone last week, or some of you weren't here last week. And so I think that setting the stage is kind of important, before we come to worship and read this text.

Last week, some Jewish Christians came down from Jerusalem to the city of Antioch. And it's important for us to understand what these two cities represent. There's a city in the north, far north of Israel, 300 miles out of Jerusalem, straight north, called Antioch.

And then there's the church in Jerusalem. Two primary hubs of Christianity in ancient times. And they were very different, because the people who came to faith in Christ up in Antioch, were people who had come from bowing to idols.

Primarily Gentiles. Gentiles meaning that they followed the Roman gods. They would literally strangle animals out in the woods to these gods, and have statues of gold and silver and temples that they would go to, and all kinds of wicked practices involved in that idolatry and that pagan worship.

And some of them had come to the realization that Jesus Christ is it. He is the answer. He is the solution. And they had been called out from that culture and embraced Jesus Christ. So you get the flavor of what the church would have felt like in Antioch?

These people who were freed, who recognized that they had been freed from all of this pagan lifestyle and idolatry, and the fear that comes with trying to please these capricious man-like gods that the Romans worshipped.

So can you get that in your mind? That's the way that the people felt about Christianity in Antioch. But Jerusalem was a totally different animal. Jerusalem was people who had crossed their T's and dotted their I's religiously.

They thought they were the in crowd. They thought they were it. Religiously raised to be perfect and follow the law and thinking that they were right. And God had called some out from that lifestyle to follow Christ.

And so that's the nature and the flavor of the church in Jerusalem. Can you get that? Where do you come from? Which of those do you most relate to? Think about your upbringing. You're most likely raised in one of those two families, right?

Were you raised more like a Gentile? Or were you raised more like a Jew? Were there strict rules and regulations? And boy, we don't do that in our household. And you knew exactly what you were supposed to do, when you were supposed to do it.

And when your parents said jump, you said how high. Or were you raised in that kind of lifestyle that was just kind of like anything goes, free flowing? Think about that. How did you come to Christ? That's what we're dealing with here in these churches and it's important to set that stage.

Last week, some Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem. These people who kind of still had in their mind, boy, the law is important. And they came from Jerusalem to Antioch and said, you need to be circumcised and you need to follow the law in order to be saved.

You need to jump through our hoops. You need to act like us. You need to become like us. You need to be religious. And that was troubling to these Gentiles who thought that they were already saved. Can you imagine that?

You think you're already in? You're like, I followed the straight path, right? I've recognized that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, that he was raised again three days later, victorious over sin and death.

And I've given my life over to him and I've said, save me from myself. Save me from my sins. And now you're telling me, but wait, I'm not in?

How would you feel?

What would you feel in your heart? Would there be fear? Wouldn't you be a little bit scared if you thought that there was more and you're like, am I in? Am I not in? Like, was there something more that I have to do?

Can you see that, how that would make you feel? But that's what they're dealing with here. It was so troubling to these Gentiles who thought that they were already saved. So a group of them were sent down to Jerusalem and a huge council was gathered last week and we saw that council.

And Peter, Paul and Mary, actually Mary wasn't there. You just got to say Peter, Paul and Mary sometime, don't you? But it was Peter, Paul, Barnabas and James, the brother of Jesus, all spoke at that council.

And you can go back to the text, the first part of Acts 15. And if you weren't here last week, you can go back and see what that council was all about. And they spoke and the conclusion was that Gentiles and Jews are both saved by grace.

They concluded that. They said, there's nothing more needed. There's nothing more necessary. A person comes to faith in Christ and is acceptable to God on the basis of God cleansing their heart. Not on the basis of them cleansing their own heart.

Not on the basis of them jumping through enough hoops and get, oh boy, look at him, he's catching God's attention because he's so cool. And he does everything just right. No, it's by God's grace alone that a person is initiated into the family of God.

By recognizing that they can't do it on their own. They need Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. But the council also gave four strong cultural recommendations. That if the Gentiles want to have good standing with the Jews, if they want Jews to listen to their message, they said, here's some things in your culture that you might need to deal with.

You might need to address these things. They said, you need to avoid becoming polluted by being around idolatrous practices. Don't eat meat from animals that have been strangled. Don't eat blood and avoid sexual immorality.

We're going to talk about how those tie in and what do those have to do with their culture and what does that have to do with all of this stuff. But thinking about Antioch, thinking about the background of those who were new Christians in Antioch who had come out of that idolatrous practice.

You can kind of start to see a little bit about where that's going. Why would they make those things an issue? So this morning we're going to see the way that the verdict of that council last week in Jerusalem has communicated up in Antioch and what the byproduct of that is and how unity is restored.

I think it's very important for us to see this. So I want you to open your Bibles please to Acts chapter 15. We're going to look at 22 through 35. And that's page 791 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, 791.

So just an easier way to find that. If you don't own a Bible, I want you to take that one with you. If you do own a Bible, don't take that one and sell it on eBay please.

Okay.

What was that? Somebody said, oh no.

Rats.

All right, follow along as I read Acts 15 starting in verse 22. The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us having come to one accord to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourself from these, you will do well.

Farewell.

So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words.

And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also.

Let's pray.

The Letter from Jerusalem and the Official Decision of the Council

As you already heard the introduction, kind of this idea of unity and there's going to be an issue that arises and how that's all resolved here in the text. Right off the bat, we see in verse 22, kind of a bit of a phrase that can be awkward in English and I think something that could be misunderstood.

So you see right away in verse 22, this phrase, it seemed good to the apostles and the elders. Am I the only one that thinks that that sounds like a phrase that's a little bit wishy-washy? You just seem good to them.

So they just are going to go do this thing. Is that how it hits you? Does it kind of feel that way a little bit? I just seem good to them. So they just kind of like they're kind of trying to figure this out as they go.

Well, ironically, it's a Greek phrase that's going to be used three times in our text, this idea of it seeming good to them. But it occurs in official Greek documents all throughout ancient documents that we have from Greek legislation and from Greek court decisions and things like this.

And this is literally a phrase that's used for verdict or decisions by figures of authority. So where it sounds wishy-washy in English, it's actually a statement of a definitive decision on their part.

But the way that it's worded kind of has this idea of the human but official element in the decision that on their basis of their own authority, they decided to go this way. They decided this is what we're going to do.

And that's kind of what it is. So one might say it seemed good for Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of the trial of Jesus Christ. It seemed good. And that's what we would see in documents and things like that, statements like that.

And so we are seeing here in our text the official plan that is set forth by the church in Jerusalem, by this council that is gathered to remedy this rift, this division that's happened between them and the church in Antioch.

And the elders and the apostles and the whole church decide unanimously to send Paul and Barnabas and two of their own leaders, Judas and Silas, elders in the church there in Antioch, with a letter. And a side note on these two figures, we don't really see, this is Judas' highlight here.

Judas Bar Sabbath, this is what he does. This is the only accounting that we have of him in the entire New Testament. But then this guy Silas that we see here in the text is going to become a partner with Paul on the second missionary journey.

Now we've already seen Paul go out to southern Turkey and share the gospel and see Gentiles come to faith in Christ. You guys remember seeing that a few weeks ago? But we've seen that happen and now he's going to go out on a second missionary journey in the next couple of weeks.

We're going to get a chance to see that. And he's going to take this dude Silas with him. Now just a side note for those of you who have studied the Bible for a while, you're going to encounter another name in other books of the Bible written by the Apostle Paul.

So his letters, he refers to this guy named Silvanus. And Silvanus is the same as Silas. It's like Henry and Hank or Chuck and Charles. It's just different ways of saying the same name. You shorten it up and there you go.

So Silas is the shortened form of Silvanus. So wherever you see him in the writings of Paul, you're talking about the same dude here that ends up going from Jerusalem back up to Antioch to carry a letter to them.

And in verse 23 through 29 in our text, we're going to see the text of the actual letter that they are going to send to Antioch to attempt to reconcile the broken unity that's there. So we literally are going to get to read an ancient letter here that was sent by the hands of these guys up to the north.

In verse 30, the delegation makes the 300-mile journey to Antioch. They arrive and gather the congregation and they're going to read this letter aloud. When Paul wrote letters to the church in Corinth or wrote a letter to the church in Galatia or these letters that we have in the New Testament, they were read out loud in the congregation.

So they gather the people together. They're going to read it out loud. And those listening to this letter, if you can imagine how they are listening. Remember that sense that I tried to evoke in you of how would you feel if you were being told you had to jump through all of these laws and all of these hoops in order to be in with Christ?

How would that feel? The tension that's going on there in Antioch? And I picture them leaning forward on their seats, ready and eager to hear the words of this letter as it's going to be read in their midst.

You see, they've been told that they must follow Jewish law to be acceptable to God. And if that is true, then the gospel that they have received and believed is not true. It's not sufficient to believe in Jesus Christ then.

There's more that's necessary. And so everything is at stake here. Do you see what is at stake in the rift between these two churches? The church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch? Would you say that there's a significant division here?

That this is reasonable for them to be concerned about? Yeah, some of you. About three of you think that that's a concern and the rest of you are kind of, okay, okay, a couple more. Couple more joining in there late.

It is a significant issue. But I want you to notice the tenor and the feel for this letter. As we dive in and we look at the text, it's cordial, it's warm, it's concerned. It's very important. It's not clinical, it's not harsh, it's not even defensive.

Although we're going to see one statement that does in a sense defend the church in Jerusalem, but it's very important the way that they defend it because they're going to say, we didn't officially teach this.

And it's important that they understand that. But it's not defensive, it's not clinical, it's not harsh. Verse 23 shows that the church in Jerusalem sees this as a family affair. You see the word brother here multiple times.

And calling themselves brothers and addressing it to the brothers that are Gentiles in the districts of Syria and Cilicia and Antioch, Antioch being the capital city of these two Roman provinces that are basically shared, Syria and Cilicia.

So they're calling each other brothers. And this is a brother to brother conversation is what they're looking at here. They are not enemies, but this is a family issue. Do you see how that softens things a little bit?

This is an issue within our family. You're one of us and we're with you. And there's unity expressed just in the way that they say that. And I wonder how many breaks and splits in the church. Now, how many of you know there's been a few breaks and splits in the church over the years?

A couple of them, would you say? The church in America, you got the Southern Baptists that broke up and the Northern Baptists that broke into several pieces and just have all different kinds of churches out there, right?

And I'm not against, by the way, I'm not against denominations. I think that they have a place and a time and that there's some significance in the way that people join together with like and common beliefs and common practices.

And I don't think that's inappropriate. But when it's divisive, I mean, there's a good way for a church to split. Like today at an open house, we're going to be celebrating a church split of sorts, but it's a good, it's a healthy church split, right?

It's a geographical split. And that's okay. Not everything that splits is bad, but I wonder how many of those hostile ones could have been avoided by someone stepping up and reminding everybody involved in the process, you know, like saying, hey, we're brothers and sisters in Christ here.

We have a lot in common together. We're all saved in the same way, right? Aren't we? We all saved in the same way. It's all by grace. It's all by the blood of Christ. All because he had to die because we were just really that evil.

We were really that wicked in our hearts and that's, we needed a savior. And he came for us. To even say we are unified in Jesus Christ. He is the reason we have been brought together. When you look around and maybe, you know, maybe some of us, if it wasn't for ReCast, if it wasn't for Christ, if it wasn't for a church in the community, we might run into each other, or Wagners, and I've said this before, but you might run into each other at the grocery store or somewhere, and you might politely say hi, and that would be the only connection you'd have with one another, right?

So you look around this room and we are people who are gathered together and have been called together for what purpose? What unifies us? What has brought us together? I mean, you look at our backgrounds and our past, and I mean, some of you were jocks and some of you were cheerleaders and some of you were geeks and some of you were, you know, we're all, you know, where would we have been?

Would we have hung out in high school? You know what I'm saying? Are you getting what I'm saying here? The way that God makes a composite of people and brings us together, unified under what? Unified by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Do we have something in common? Do we have something in common that matters?

Yes.

And what if we would have jumped into the text here in those situations where churches are splitting and there's hostility and there's vehemence and there's anger? What if we had maybe just read this passage?

Let's listen to this. John, if you're taking notes, write this down. John 17, 20 through 23. This is a prayer that Jesus offered to his father in the presence of his followers. Now, you gotta put this in context to understand exactly what's going on here.

He's in an upper room in Jerusalem. He's going to be crucified the next day. That very night when he offers this prayer, Judas is going to betray him. Come in the garden, betray him with a kiss. He's going to be toted off.

He's going to be beaten and abused all night. He's going to be hung on a cross the next day. This is one of the last recorded prayers that we have of Jesus Christ other than his utterances from the cross.

One of the last things that he says, and he says it in the presence. He literally prays in the presence of his followers. And he says this. He's got the 12, his closest friends there. And he's praying for them, and he's praying for us.

And I believe when you hear the words here, you're going to see that he literally has the church in our age and in our time in mind in his prayer. Listen to what he says. John 17, 20 through 23. I do not ask for these only, speaking of those who are present in the room with him.

I don't only ask for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. That's how I believed. Wait a minute. Jesus is praying for me. He's praying for us here in this text. What's he going to pray?

Many of you are kind of interested to hear what he has to say about this because he's praying for us. Jesus, I do not believe that recast was far off from Christ's mind. His church, his people were in his mind at this time when he's praying this.

Pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. How much one? How much one does he want us to be? They may all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

How much one? As much as one as the Father is with the Son. We're talking about an inconceivable oneness here. An inconceivable unity. How much one? And for what ends?

To what purpose?

So that the world may believe that you sent me. There is something about the unity in the church that reflects the glory of God. That says that Jesus really is all that. When we can dwell together and work together and work out our issues together, there is a beauty that the world sees and honors Jesus Christ because they see that in the church.

And we know it works the opposite as well. When they see us fighting and bickering and dividing and being divisive and have it our way or else, we know that that runs counter to glorifying Christ. The world looks in and mocks Christ because they see us lacking unity.

See what I'm getting at here? How central was unity to Christ? Father, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one.

I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. You get the impression that unity matters to Jesus Christ. Does unity matter to us?

Does it matter to you? So often we can get caught up in our one issues. Do you know what I'm talking about? Everybody's got a soapbox or a primary issue or there's an offense that we've received. How many of you have been offended by another human before?

How many of you have been offended by a Christian before? This is just the nature of what it means to be alive, isn't it? I mean, we've all been offended and so we can choose to grow bitter and to harbor ill will towards others and boy, we can just let them have it.

Or like I said, just flee. Just run from the situation, right? Tend to do one or the other. Either just dig our heels in and dig the trenches and fight the siege warfare or we just hit the eject button and off we go and we don't deal with the issue as it ought to be.

But unity matters.

The Trouble in Antioch and the Need for Clarification

Verse 24 sets up the problem in the historical context here. Some people had gone from Jerusalem to Antioch and they have troubled the Gentiles. Okay, so some people went from Jerusalem and we saw that in our text last week.

A couple people, we don't know how many, they went up there and they were troubling the Gentiles. The text uses the word trouble, shaken up, intensely disturbed. There's mental anguish that's going on here.

We're meant to see that these people are genuinely fearful for their salvation. They are unsure if they are really in Christ and they are being told by another church, you're not in and they're worried.

There's an actual stress and tension that is there. And so then the result in this letter is that the church in Jerusalem acknowledges how that made the church in Antioch feel. We even see here in verse 24, the words, they've gone out from us and troubled you.

And then these other words, unsettled your minds. The word that is there means there is significant internal distress, unsettled minds. Just wrestling with this and unsure. But we see the church in Jerusalem recognizing how they have made Antioch feel.

Do you see some parallels there to maybe some beneficial lessons we could learn in our interpersonal communications with others? Acknowledging how we have made them feel. If we were to just take for a moment the time to say, I know that I did blank.

And I know that that made you feel, and you can insert whatever word it is, I know it made you feel angry or hurt or belittled or upset or whatever it might be. Now, if you're taking notes, guys, don't insert that in and read that back to your wife at some point.

I know that I did blank and it made you feel whatever. Whatever wasn't one of them, okay? So don't use that, okay? And certainly don't have the cue card in front of you when you're apologizing. That's not as good either.

I had to do this just this morning with my wife, and I'm sitting here getting ready to preach this, and it was like, we get in a discussion this morning over something, a nice gentle discussion, and I had to back up and go, Don, are you gonna preach that?

Either you're gonna have to take that out of your notes, or you're gonna have to say how you just made her feel right there. And I had to go ahead and do that and say, I know that wasn't very kind. That wasn't very gentle.

And that's the way the word of God works in our lives, isn't it? How, I mean, that's one key reason why we need to be in God's word. I mean, that's not gonna come readily. You know, that's not Don, that's God's word convicting me.

I just let those things ride, you know what I mean, in my flesh. But it's God's word changing us and transforming us. Quite often, we really go straight for the simple path of forgiveness, right? When we've wronged somebody, a lot of times, our sorry sounds more like, leave me alone and get off my back.

Do you know that kind of I'm sorry that I'm talking about?

I'm sorry. Come on, I'm sorry.

Do you know that one? You ever use that one before? That's not saying I'm sorry. That's saying, what do I have to do to get you off of me right now? Okay, I'm taken by the chuckle that some of you have done that before.

It's really not funny. Don't do it. I can be guilty of that, like I said. I can say something insensitive or harsh, you know, to somebody in my family, to my wife or whatever, and I want her to be okay, so I just quickly say I'm sorry without ever really understanding that I've unsettled her mind.

I've caused some internal anguish that needs to be addressed and that for me to recognize it and say I know that I have caused you pain. I have belittled you. I've done this. Do you know that acknowledging that helps?

You've been on the receiving end of that where somebody has acknowledged how you feel and that feels a little bit better at least being understood. Here in our text, though, the church in Jerusalem is not just simply trying to make amends for some harsh words.

They're literally trying to correct heretical teaching, and so it's important that they do not completely own this problem. Now, so the illustration into our interpersonal communication only goes so far because some of us tend towards defensiveness, right?

And tend towards justifying our behavior. We did it this way because of this.

Or it wasn't our fault.

Well, here it really actually is very important that at the end of verse 24 that they actually, the church in Jerusalem says.

We're not going to own this.

We did not give instructions to these people. That's because it's fact. It's true, and it's very important that they communicate that. This was not the official teaching of Jerusalem, and the church in Jerusalem did not send out official teachers with instructions to go to Antioch and say, you need to be circumcised and you need to follow the law in order to be saved.

These are rogue teachers who broke off from the church in Jerusalem and did their own thing. They went with their own agenda, their own mission, and they went and they went up there and disturbed these people.

And so can you see why that would be important that the church in Jerusalem distance themselves from that teaching and from those false teachers? We didn't send them. Go ahead and look at it. Verse 24, since we have heard that some persons have gone out from among us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, no means none.

We didn't give them instructions to come to you. We didn't give them instructions to teach this about circumcision, about the law. We did not send them out from us. They chose to go do that on their own.

And they went out and they caused that internal distress on their own accord. And so they don't own the problem completely because the false teachers went out on their own. But verses 25 to 27 are explaining the decision of the council again in the letter just saying, so here are some of the things that we put in place to help remedy the situation.

We've sent two, they sent two of their own with Paul and Barnabas. Now where are Paul and Barnabas from originally? Where is their base of operations? Where are they leaders in the church? Up in Antioch.

So they've gone down to Jerusalem. They've been to this council and now they're going to get sent back to Antioch along with Silas and Judas ultimately to reiterate and clarify the contents of the letter.

So how many of you think it's valuable for the church in Jerusalem to send some people to Antioch to validate what's being written in this letter? You see what I'm saying? Because I mean, these others had gone out on their own and they're like, well, we haven't heard officially from the church yet.

We haven't heard from their official leaders what they think about these things. So they're going to send Silas and Judas to give an official report. Now, these are the ones that we are sending to you.

Those other ones, we didn't send them. Here's our official stance. And Silas and Judas, we're going to see here in the text, are actually prophets and they're going to share the word of God with them and they are going to settle their minds and put their minds at ease.

Ultimately, again, reiterating and emphasizing what's going on at that council down in Jerusalem. If only Paul and Barnabas report, by the way, think about that. So if only Paul and Barnabas are the ones to come back, they're only getting the Antioch side of the equation of what happened in the council.

It's very beneficial for somebody who is represented by the offending parties to actually be there to correct that. Does that make sense? Why you'd want somebody from Jerusalem there? Notice that both churches esteem Paul and Barnabas.

Okay, Paul and Barnabas are elders where? Where did I just say? Up in Antioch. And the church in Jerusalem in this letter says we love Paul and Barnabas. That's a nice touch towards reconciliation here.

They recognize them in verse 26 as men who have risked it all for the Lord. And those are words of encouragement. If you love my people, you love me. You know what I'm saying? And that's what's going on there.

So we just see a gentleness about this letter, a way about reconciliation that is owning the problem, not to the extent of owning what was not their part in ultimately perpetuating the lie, but taking ownership of the correction.