Acts 15:22-35 - Sacrificial Unity

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, there's,

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 mean 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 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? Is 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 could 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.

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 is communicated up in Antioch and what the byproduct of that is and how unity is restored.

And 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. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.

They sent Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter.

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. 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?

It just seemed 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?

It just seemed good to them, so 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 the 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 verdicts 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 to, 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's 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 a 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 gonna go out on a second missionary journey in the next couple of weeks. We're gonna get a chance to see that and he's gonna 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 gonna 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 know, 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 gonna 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 gonna read it out loud.

And those listening to this letter, if you can imagine how they're 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 that's what, 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, a couple more.

A 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 Baptist that broke up and the Northern Baptist 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 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, you know, 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. I mean, 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 at Wagner's.

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 in 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 got to 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? That 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. I mean you 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.

You see what I'm getting at here? How central was unity to Christ? 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? It's 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. 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 some, 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 as that. 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 and 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?

I mean, that's one key reason why we need to be in God's word. I mean, that's not gonna come readily.

I mean, that's not Don, that's God's word convicting me. I just let those things ride.

Do 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 used 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. 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 gonna 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 of 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.

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 that 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.

The church in Jerusalem acknowledges the role of the Holy Spirit in this decision. We see that in the text. And the role of the

Holy Spirit ultimately to accommodate the sensitivities of the Jews by the four things that they are now going to list out as requirements.

But before we get into this one more time, I think it's important for us to look at the end of verse 28, this word requirements can be a little confusing, for it has seemed good to the

Holy Spirit and to us in verse 28, to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements.

When you struggle with that word requirements, especially if you were here last week, you might struggle all the more with that word because now it sounds like, okay, requirements for what?

Are the things that they're going to list requirements for salvation? Like, isn't that what the whole debate was about in the first place?

Wasn't it about what laws do we have to, what hoops do we have to jump through? How do we get saved? How do we have a right relationship with God?

And so I thought it was just by faith and grace and having our hearts cleansed through Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

And now what are these requirements that are added? And so that you don't have to hear it one more time from me, I'm going to quote from one of the commentaries that I read regularly, a guy named

David Peterson. I could have quoted a half a dozen commentaries on this that say the same thing.

I could have said it myself, but I want you to hear it from somebody who's got more authority than me because you can hear it from me anytime. But I wanted you to hear in a concise way what this says.

The word requirements, I'm quoting, the word requirements in verse 28 should not be read as a legal obligation, but as a moral appeal.

Not as a law, legal obligation is a law. Not to be read as a legal obligation, but as a moral appeal, as in what is the best decision for you?

What demonstrates the most character in this? And we know primarily from the very end of our last, in verse 21 of chapter 15, we know that the primary reason for that requirement or that moral obligation was centered around the way that the church interfaces with unbelieving

Jews. So you got unbelieving Jews all out there, and if you are a Gentile in Antioch, and you're trying to reach out to Jews in your community, and you're hanging around the temple precincts and idolatrous practices and all of those things, you're not going to have a hearing among the

Jews that are in your community. So a requirement for you, if you want to reach out to these

Jews, is don't do these certain things that are listed.

As I hopefully stated clearly last week, we do not live under law, but under grace. It is not that we are saved by grace and then we live according to a list of rules and laws.

Did you guys get that that were here last week? It is not by laws that we live. We are saved by grace and we live by grace.

So again, this list is less about the actual rules themselves here in 2011. To take these rules about eating blood or eating animals that were strangled and to bring them up in here.

How many of you know how the food that you eat was killed? Do you even know? How would you even get to the end?

I don't even know who would you call to find out. Where does your meat come from? I don't know.

So it's not primarily about following those rules, but more about the principles by which the early church worked to make accommodations for different cultural issues.

They were a melting pot there in that area. We are here. How do we work in our culture? And that's the primary question that this text is concerned with in regard to these four things.

In their times, put yourself in their perspective. Put yourself in Antioch, on the streets of Antioch during that time.

Idolatry practiced everywhere. It was a significant problem. Probably one of the biggest social and cultural ills of the time was centered around idolatry.

Of course, calling it a social ill, if you lived then and you were a Gentile then, you wouldn't have seen it as a social ill.

It was just life. It was society. Everyone hung around the temple around sacrifice time to buy the best cuts of meat.

The best cuts of meat were defined by the fact that the animal was strangled so the blood was kept in. Then it was roasted on an altar and it was nice juicy meat.

And you'd stand down there and you'd hang out at the market waiting for the roast meat to come right off the altar so that you could buy the best juicy cuts.

You getting that? Making some of you hungry here? Some of you are grossed out. Some of you are hungry. So that was their culture.

That's where they lived. That's what they did. They hung around there. But not only that, so the animals were strangled.

The blood was kept in there for the sacrifices. Then the meat was sold right away hot off the grill.

And in their culture, there was significant sexual immorality. There was a literal brothel attached to the temple right there.

And there was prostitution involved in the worship of these Roman gods. So you've got all kinds of immorality that's going on right then and there.

And that was very common in the Roman Empire. So hopefully you can see how clearly this letter that the church in Jerusalem writes to Antioch applies directly to their culture.

Do you see that those four things that they're showing concern about tie in with what is best?

What is it that would define doing well in that culture? Stay away from your old lifestyle.

Stay far away from those things that caused you grief and struggle and have caused the problems in your life.

You see what I'm saying? That's what's going on. It is an issue of culture.

And in every era of church history right down to our own, the churches had to make a choice about the way that we interface with culture.

Do you struggle with that? How much do we adopt? How much do we adapt? How much do we work and look like our culture around us?

The whole churches have to make this decision. And you have to make that decision when you start a church. Everything from style of music to what we wear, to what this place looks like on the inside, to what the cultural feel.

How many of you know that that has to be decided? Do you know what I'm saying? And so you're trying to figure this out.

And I'm going to point out four ways that I see American Christians interfacing with our culture.

There's four primary ways that I see that we can have interaction as Christians with our culture. And not all of them are equal.

You're going to start to see where I lean on this pretty quickly. The first and fairly common way for Christians to interact with their culture is to flee their culture.

To hide from it. To run from it. You get that? Can you imagine what that looks like?

So many Christians look at the culture around them. They become fearful of the things that they see. And there's significant wickedness and evil.

Would you agree with that? There is genuinely wickedness and evil in this world. There is in our culture. And so many retreat into the church.

Hiding out and hoping that Jesus returns soon. And praying and hoping that none of them from out there find their way in here.

Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, can you get in your mind that kind of church? That's fearful and flees the culture wholesale.

I can't be out there. I've got to be in here. And obviously, I'm using that figuratively. Not like I'm talking about having tents set up in the back hallway and people living here.

But you understand the figure of speech, right? The second thing is to wholesale adopt the culture.

Christians can do that as well, right? And it seems like humans tend to congregate at the extremes of any issue.

So you have those who are hiding from the culture. And then you have those who are just bathing in the culture.

Just totally immersed and marinating in what our culture has to offer. A wholesale adoption of it.

This is like an anything goes mentality. Rated R for nudity? So what? Jay -Z is a lyrical genius, right?

Sorry, I can't get together that night because two and a half men is on. It's my show. Hopefully, stepping on some toes, maybe.

I don't know. And I'm not making rules for you. I'm not.

I'm talking about the way that we interface with our culture. And a few in this camp would be genuinely trying to be cool for the sake of reaching people out in our culture.

But I would dare say and dare guess that the majority of them are really just trying to be cool. You know what

I'm saying? It's a little bit less about how many people I'm reaching and ends up being just kind of like, well, people think of me.

Do they like me? Am I witty with their humor?

Am I connected with their culture? Am I able to talk with them and make them laugh?

I mean, you know that that's a primary thing in our culture. You make somebody laugh, they'll like you, right? But what kind of compromises do you have to make to be witty in our world and in our culture?

And I think we all know that that's an issue. But the problem here in this adoption of culture is that if you boil everything down to what it is that we're called out to do as a church, as a people bought by the blood of Christ, we will have nothing different to offer them if we seek to be just like them.

Do you understand? We are a called out people. There is to be some distinction and some difference.

Not flaunting that in their face or being like holier than thou or self -righteous. That's not what

I'm talking about. Are you getting the differences? Not a wholesale adoption of that.

So we'll have nothing to offer if we just become chameleons and just become like them.

But I want to point out that before I jump into the third way to interact with culture, I want to point out that every culture has things that ultimately pertain to these categories.

So we have fleeing culture, adopting culture, and then the third one is transforming culture. And every culture

I'm going to tell you has things that need to be fled, has things that can be adopted, and has things that can be transformed.

And that's Middle Eastern culture. That's East European culture.

That's Central American cultures. That's Madeleine's culture.

That's the UP's culture. Every culture has things that need to be fled.

Every culture has things that can be adopted and things that can be adapted or transformed. So we get to this third one, transforming culture.

And this is where I would have placed myself a few years ago. I would have said, boy, you just got to be out there transforming culture.

This is the idea that the main role of the church is to bring about a cultural shift. We need to be leveraging politics and social reform and the gospel in order to transform our culture.

Transforming culture for Christ. Does that sound like a good idea? That's not bad.

And I'm not going to disparage people who are there. I think that can be a fairly healthy place for people to be.

But often people in this camp lack a framework for what it is that they are trying to change. So you can say,

I'm trying to transform culture, but what is it that you're trying to transform and how are you going about transforming it? There's things in culture that cannot ultimately be transformed for the glory of Christ.

Would you agree with that? So what I would pose to you is a fourth option, and that is sifting culture.

This requires work. The other three, you can be lazy in those.

But this one requires significant work. What I'm recommending is this fourth way, a way that breaks down our culture into three categories.

So I've given you four ways that we can interact with a culture, but this last one has three basic buckets that you put things in in your culture.

There are some things in our culture that we need to flee from. Some things that America at large says are good, that God has forbidden.

Would you agree with that? Values that our culture holds that we ought not hold to.

The worship of money, the worship of sex, the cult of self. Much like the idolatrous practices common in Antioch, the church cannot redeem idolatry for God.

It's not going to happen. And likewise, in our culture now, despite the many attempts of a whole brand of Christianity called the prosperity gospel, a loathsome, evil, and wicked doctrine that says that if you are in Christ, and if you have enough faith, you will be wealthy, healthy, and have everything taken care of for you.

And not only that, but the flip side they would teach as a false doctrine, and that is that if you don't have health, if you don't have wealth, then you don't have enough faith.

An insidious, horrible, wretched doctrine. And God is not going to redeem the worship of money.

He is going to judge the worship of money. There are things in every culture that are worthy of condemnation.

And whole cultures buy into them wholesale. You see what I'm saying? But there's a second category, a second bucket to put things in.

Every culture, and I really believe this firmly, every culture there are things that can be wholesale adopted by Christians.

There are good things, common graces in every culture, things that quite naturally point to God and are already beneficial towards proclaiming

Christ. Some examples of that in our culture might be things like this. And granted, because we're human, we can conceive of ways that even these good things can be twisted and used wrongly.

But at their basic essence, think about their basic essence of what they are, they can be adopted.

A strong work ethic. Liberty and freedom. The value of family. Generosity.

Would you say Americans tend to be generous people? Generally speaking. We value that at least.

And mercy. As a matter of fact, if anything, we take mercy to a fault, don't we? Open arms, embrace everybody.

Everybody's truth is the same, and everybody's, you know, getting the same place and all of that.

All things, all of these are things that we can hook into that can naturally lead to bridges of truth in our culture, right?

Things that we can adopt. But lastly, there are things in our culture that are really quite neutral. Examples like music, all kinds of media, technology, advertising.

Things that the church and that Christianity can grab a hold of and use for good, pretty readily used for evil as well, right?

Things that we need to just be careful and cautious about the way that we use them, and that we actually have the right motives in using them correctly.

So you can see as I go through this sifting of culture that it takes work to have a Christian worldview, right?

You think that sifting one sounds like a little bit more work than others? Can get a little messy. It's certainly hard to regulate in other people's lives, isn't it?

And we don't really like that. I mean, it would be easier to have something we could just easily regulate. It'd be easier to declare our culture bankrupt and sinking and then just hide out.

Or maybe for some, it might be easier to just be like a chameleon and blend in with the culture around you and adopt just a little too much.

You know where your heart is on that, and you know where God is hitting you right now on that. But the church in Jerusalem has declared to the church in Antioch that there are four things that they should not adopt as Christians in their pagan culture.

And last week we saw that the motive for avoiding these things was to avoid offense to the Jews around them. That was the reason.

And that brings us back to this idea of unity. The church in Antioch rejoices when they hear this letter because of the encouragement and comfort of this letter.

Did you guys get encouragement and comfort from that letter when you're reading it? It might be a little bit hard to get there because it's like that doesn't seem to be very direct, right?

I think that the primary encouragement came from what is not there. What is absent from the letter provided more encouragement than what is there.

Think about what issues are running through their mind. Two primary things, the law of Moses and circumcision. Those are the two things that are going through these people's mind when they're listening.

They're eager and they're ready and they're like, do we have to be circumcised? Do we have to have that initiation right into the old covenant and then follow the law and go back to dietary laws and start sacrificing goats and lambs and doing all of this stuff?

What does the letter say? How does the letter address that? It doesn't. The word circumcision does not occur in the letter.

No law of Moses. Just some cultural sifting that they're encouraged to do. Things that anyone in the spirit would easily be willing to avoid in their idolatrous culture, right?

Things that are just kind of like, that makes sense. Judas and Silas, the text tells us, stay on.

They give a long speech to strengthen and encourage them. And then they head out for Jerusalem.

I think it's interesting that they gave a long speech. And it's still encouraging. Paul and Barnabas stay there teaching and preaching the word of the

Lord, it says. And the unity of the church is restored. And Antioch and Jerusalem are back in the fray together.

Side by side, one big happy family. Messy, gritty, and in constant need of forgiveness and grace.

And that is what it means to be a church united. Willing to work through the grit and the mess of our everyday lives together.

It can be messy being a church. Man, I can't think of a better place to be. I love this community.

I love gathering together with you guys on Sunday morning. And this is what it's about, doing life together.

Sharing in our heartaches and our struggles and our difficulties together. And pointing each other to Christ. Acknowledging what he has done for us.

Communion is intended to have a lot of different facets to it. There's all different kinds of ways. I mean, when you get up there and you take that bread and that juice, you can have all different kinds of things running in your mind.

But always at its core is to be a remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice.

What it costs to cover our sins. But it's also intended to be something that the church does together.

Jesus said, as often as you gather together, do this in remembrance of me. Together. When we take communion, we are remembering the most powerful thing that binds us together.

The thing that unifies us. The reason we're committed to working through our disagreements and our issues.

The cross. Sacrifice of Christ. And so as we come to communion, I want you to consider what

Jesus Christ has done for you. But not just what he's done for you, but what he's done for me.

And not just what he's done for me and you, but what he has done for us. For us.

The church. The bride of Christ. His people. Again, gritty and messy, but like a family.

Do you run into issues with your family from time to time? Do you love your family?

Are you committed to working through those things with them? Yeah, but it can be really hard. And I know it can be really, really dark and difficult at times.

But that's the way it is in the church. Thinking about what he has done for us. If you're here and you do not believe that Jesus Christ is

Lord and Savior, or you're wrestling with that and you're not sure, it just doesn't make sense for you to stand up and eat a piece of bread and drink some juice and act like you do.

That's what this is about. This is primarily about remembering what Jesus Christ has done for you. If you're not there yet,

I totally respect that and I get that. Nobody will judge you for staying in your seat and taking in the song and thinking about this message.

But I want you to please consider what is preventing you from joining this family of Christ? What is preventing you from giving your life over?

And maybe it's information. Maybe you need more. Maybe you need to know and you're kind of like, there's a barrier there of knowledge.

I'd love for you to come and talk with me. Come talk with Dave or somebody in the band or whatever. Anybody would be willing to talk with you further about what that means.

If it's a barrier of knowledge, maybe it's just that you're recognizing that sin is in the way right now and you need to confess that and give that over to God and say, you know,

God, I need you to change me. Maybe that's what it is. But if you're here and you have not given your life over to Christ, I'd encourage you to come and talk with somebody at the end of the service.