WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:04.480 We're wrapping up a series that we started a few weeks ago called Dialogue. 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:11.279 Churches, usually you come you hear one person doing all the talking and a monologue, and we've been doing a dialogue, a conversation. 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:12.880 Today I have with me Dr. 00:00:13.039 --> 00:00:16.879 John Kalaga, who is the president of Ohio Christian University. 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:18.640 Would you put your hands together and welcome Dr. 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:19.440 Kalaga? 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:28.800 I've had a chance to be over at Ohio Christian and see the work that you've done, done over there and the students, and there's just so much life and health over there. 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:30.480 So I want to say thank you for what you do. 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:35.200 Why don't you give us just a little bit of background, a little uh kind of introduce yourself, your family? 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:43.840 Well, uh, real quickly, uh, I've been married for 35 years to my wife Lena, and we have four adult children, uh, all who live in Columbus. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.600 You can clap for my wife, that'd be funny. 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:46.000 Yeah, yeah. 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:50.880 That's usually who the people clap for, is my wife. 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:59.600 Um but uh they all live in Columbus, and three of my three sons um all attend here, and uh so we've been enjoying your ministry. 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:09.439 Uh I um graduated from a I grew up in Flint, Michigan, in Pontiac, Michigan, and went to a school similar to the Ohio Christian University, as we like it. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:23.120 Uh that's actually how you pronounce it, um, in Michigan, and then I went out to Kansas to be a youth pastor, which I didn't know at the time, but that was my wife's home church, and uh she was not in my youth group. 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:26.400 Um just thank thank you for clarifying that. 00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:29.200 Being real real uh straight with that. 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.439 Um but uh she was coming home from college and I was just out of college. 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:40.560 We met, got married, and then we have been sort of traveling around um as I've had a little bit of career ADD with higher ed. 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:49.519 I've been in um five universities in four states over the last 34 years, and uh Michigan, Kansas, Kentucky, and now Ohio. 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:50.159 Awesome. 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:54.000 Well, I I want to say thank you for uh being willing to be a part of this conversation. 00:01:54.159 --> 00:01:56.000 You know, we we met up to compare notes. 00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:58.319 We had a topic we were both pretty passionate about. 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:03.680 Compared notes for about four hours, and uh uh hopefully we can get this down to 30 minutes, all right? 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:05.920 When's the next service start? 00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:12.960 All right, so I'm actually gonna start off here uh with man's best friend, the power washer. 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:14.319 Anybody recognize one of these? 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:14.879 All right. 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.120 Um the weather's getting nice out there, and pretty soon you're gonna be cleaning some stuff up. 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:21.280 Um I actually don't have a power washer. 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:22.479 Uh my dad has one. 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:23.520 I borrow from from him. 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:24.319 You you don't have one? 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:25.120 No, I borrow. 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:26.000 Yeah, yeah. 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:27.759 Um power washer, okay. 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:33.280 So if you put it on a certain setting and you you spray something down, you know, of course it wipes the dirt off of it. 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:36.080 But if you crank one of these up, take a finger off. 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:36.800 Yeah, you can. 00:02:36.879 --> 00:02:39.199 I'm I'm telling you, it's like a laser, okay? 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:42.560 And uh you you can actually take off the paint off of something, right? 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:50.639 So people often use a power washer to take the paint, to take something down to the bare wood or to the essence uh of what the real thing is. 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:51.039 Right. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:03:16.319 Um I bring this up today as kind of a uh a metaphor for what we're going to do, and I think it's important to do in general, um, to come back and to look at things, to look at things in God's word, to look at terms or concepts or even words that over time they start to like uh get a coat of paint on them, and and and and even sometimes they can sort of get away from what they were originally intended to do. 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:19.759 I try to do that week in and week out with God's word to kind of take it down. 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:31.120 That's why we'll we'll look at a text and we'll look even layers deep into the text, look at the context, look at what the words meant, the culture, all of that, so that we can get it down essentially to the wood. 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:36.960 And and then sometimes you put a fresh coat of paint in terms of the context that you live in. 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:42.479 Not that we're changing the essence of it, but we're figuring out how to contextualize it into our world. 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:48.400 So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna look in the scripture actually at Jesus doing some power washing. 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:55.120 Jesus shows up to a group of people that when they heard a specific word, they heard a specific thing. 00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:02.560 In order for Jesus to actually tell them what they he really meant, not what they thought he meant, but what he really meant, he had to power wash the concept. 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:07.280 And and and the concept or the word is the word kingdom. 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:08.560 Kingdom. 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:17.040 Um when we hear the word kingdom, it doesn't have a ton of context in the United States because we don't have a king uh in our world. 00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:22.319 But in their day, uh when they heard kingdom, they heard a very specific thing. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:44.319 Uh Jesus, when he showed up, um, actually the forerunner of Jesus, who was John the Baptist, when he announces Jesus in Matthew 3, he says, Hey, uh, behold, repent of your sin for the because the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand, it says in the King James or is near, is as close as your hand, it's here. 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:51.279 Uh when Jesus in Matthew 4 announced himself, he uses the term kingdom, the kingdom of heaven is here. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:05:06.480 Uh when Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6, he said, pray like this, the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, holy is your name, thy kingdom come, your kingdom come to earth as it is in heaven. 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:13.279 So when you read through the Bible, especially Jesus, you'll hear kingdom, kingdom, kingdom. 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:18.959 And a lot of times I think we read past kingdom, and we're like, what is that, what does that mean? 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:22.639 What does it mean for the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God? 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:28.800 You know, we often attribute it to the afterlife or or or a heavenly place, the place we go and we die. 00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:31.519 But what does it mean about earth, right? 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:32.160 The kingdom? 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:43.120 What was Jesus talking about and and what it meant, what Jesus was meaning to them has huge implications in terms of what it means to us, but Jesus had some serious power washing to do. 00:05:43.439 --> 00:05:46.959 Yeah, so um that's a little scary. 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:48.959 Um catch. 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:50.639 Is this a left-handed marker? 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:50.959 It is. 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:51.680 Okay, well I'm right. 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:52.480 That's good luck. 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:58.639 The uh so in when Jesus was talking about the kingdom, we're gonna be in Acts chapter two uh today. 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:04.560 And um, when Jesus was talking about the kingdom to the disciples, you remember he started his ministry with the kingdom. 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:10.720 If you look at Revelation at the end, it says the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:13.519 And um, and everything in between, he told parables. 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:19.279 You know, he went around talking parables, the kingdom of heaven is like, you know, mustard seed, it's like leaven, it's like weeds and weed. 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:25.920 And and he continued to tell these stories about what the kingdom of heaven was like because that was so essential to his ministry. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:35.439 And when we get into Acts chapter 2, you'll see that really the Holy Spirit's job is to connect Jesus' ministry to the church's mission. 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:40.720 And the focus was going to be on the kingdom, and they just couldn't get the kingdom straight. 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:59.199 And so, so bad was it that when Jesus had finally resurrected and was walking around for 40 days, it says in Acts chapter 1 that he presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:06.160 He was very aware that he was going to ascend, and his followers still weren't getting it, if you would. 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:13.600 So I use the analogy or the the acronym, and this is unfortunate for a Jewish uh acronym, but I use the anacronym PIG. 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:18.000 Um, and those of you who study Jewish history, you'll know that's probably an inappropriate acronym. 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:24.959 So when the disciples heard Kingdom, the first thing they thought of was that it was political. 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:34.639 They had been dominated for 10 centuries by Babylonians and Assyrians, and they've been carted off and brought back, and carted off and brought back, and you have Nehemiah and Ezra and all that. 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:39.839 And so for them, this was gonna be a political kingdom, and and we're gonna kick the Romans out. 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:53.040 The current occupier was Rome, and so you know, the enemy was Rome at this point, and so when they heard kingdom, it's yes, you know, the throne, David's gonna, somebody from David's gonna come back, and we're gonna be political. 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:55.920 The the next thing they heard was influence. 00:07:56.079 --> 00:08:00.079 And this wasn't what Jesus said, but it's what it's what they heard. 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:10.000 And so what for them uh this meant that the Jewishness of the temple, all the rituals, all the laws, all the sacrifices were gonna be spread. 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:17.040 When they when they they had scripture that said that through Abraham all the nations of the world were gonna be blessed, they knew that. 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:25.680 But in their mind, what they had been taught from a from they were a child and for generations was we're gonna have to spread Jewishness everywhere. 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:35.279 So it was the temple and the influence of the temple, and the next thing by the way, when they when they said spread Jewishness, essentially what they thought that to be is holiness. 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:38.240 They well absolutely, yeah, yeah. 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:40.399 Externally based, yeah, right? 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:44.000 Within the old the Old Testament, Old Covenant, 613 laws. 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:50.399 Here's how you wash yourself, this is the food you eat or don't eat, all of these behaviors will now lead to holiness. 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:58.159 And so so the idea of the kingdom of God coming to earth would be that everyone would behave like them in this manner. 00:08:58.559 --> 00:08:58.799 Exactly. 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:14.000 They'd dress like them, they'd act like them, they'd they'd have little temples, they'd have little synagogues, you know, all over the then known world, which was basically every country that touched the Mediterranean, they were gonna set up and establish synagogues, but everybody was gonna act, even the Gentiles were gonna have to act Jewish. 00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:18.879 I mean, that was the whole point, because of course, you know, the geography was Israel. 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:24.639 The center of the world was gonna be Israel, and it was gonna be a it was gonna be a geographical kingdom of God. 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:27.600 And so it's all about the geography of Israel. 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:37.039 So when Jesus starts teaching about the kingdom of God, this this is the kind of thing that they heard, and this is what had to be power washed. 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:51.440 Otherwise, when he told them that the Holy Spirit is gonna come upon you and you will be my witnesses, when that happened in Acts chapter 2, they were going to think, oh, I have the power now to go out and make everybody Jewish. 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:51.759 Yeah. 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:58.000 And the ironic and then and then Acts chapter 2 happens, and something that they thought would happen didn't happen. 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:02.399 Yeah, they had a very specific idea of what the Messiah would do and what he would create. 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:10.879 And like you said, some of that coming out of ten centuries of of being at the essentially captivity, to going, now we get to be at the top. 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:16.080 And Jesus says in John 18, 36, he says, My kingdom is not of this world. 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:19.759 The word of there is the Greek word ek, which means out of. 00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:22.320 So he's not saying my kingdom's not for this world. 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:24.559 He's saying, My kingdom's not out of this world. 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:26.240 It wasn't birthed from this world. 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:34.399 He says, if it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders, but now my kingdom is from another place. 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:36.960 Okay, so again, that's really important to understand. 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:40.159 The kingdom of God is not from this world, but it is for this world. 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:43.360 Jesus did come to do something and establish his kingdom. 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:47.679 Thy kingdom come on earth, on earth as it is in heaven. 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.159 The question is, what does that look like? 00:10:50.320 --> 00:11:04.240 And when the disciples heard kingdom because of their heritage, because of um the the old testament, old covenant, the way that they were wired, they couldn't see anything influential, powerful beyond this. 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:04.639 Right. 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:04.960 Right? 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:06.480 This is this is what they saw. 00:11:06.799 --> 00:11:21.440 Um that's why in Acts 1's 1 and 6, when Jesus is getting ready to leave, uh He's getting ready to ascend to heaven, it says the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking, Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom? 00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:23.039 Now, right? 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:26.080 So that's that that that's how they were seeing it. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:30.720 By the way, I do think, I do think we could use a bit of power washing ourselves. 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:45.279 Uh, because although, you know, the the the Jews saw it this way then, I think we do have a tendency now, um, although the you know politics and influence and geography aren't necessarily bad things, but they're human things, they're temporal things. 00:11:45.679 --> 00:11:54.080 And and yet sometimes we make them the supreme things, or we think, you know, essentially uh, you know, the the Messiah is gonna roll in in Air Force One, right? 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:55.440 And that's not the case. 00:11:55.600 --> 00:12:00.320 Like God's doing something bigger than these man-made systems, his kingdom is different than just these things. 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:03.200 Doesn't mean I don't participate in politics or that you shouldn't. 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:11.840 We of course that that's the system that of the world we live in, and and we engage and and we we do our best to solve problems and adapt and and change things. 00:12:11.919 --> 00:12:12.399 That's cool. 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:15.200 Uh, influence, of course, we want the church to have influence. 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:18.240 Of course, we want um our community to know we're here. 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:19.279 We want to make a difference. 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:23.759 I I don't know about you, I don't want to be the type of church that if we went away, the community would be like, who cares? 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:25.200 I'm gonna be like, what happened to those guys? 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:26.320 Like they were making a difference. 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:28.720 They were doing something, we want to have more influence. 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:32.240 Um, you know, and we care about the community that we live in, all of that. 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:33.120 That's important. 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:43.519 But to understand that as we live within those things, that we don't take those things to the supreme uh the to the supreme place in our mind, but understand that we're actually citizens of a different kingdom. 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:45.759 It's not the most important thing about you. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:46.240 Exactly. 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:46.639 Right. 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:52.080 It doesn't matter whether you vote for a donkey or an elephant, it's it's that you follow a lamb. 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:52.480 Yeah. 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:52.879 Right. 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:53.360 Exactly. 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:54.720 That's the most important thing about you. 00:12:55.519 --> 00:12:56.240 That was a bar right there. 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:56.879 Yeah, yeah. 00:12:57.360 --> 00:12:59.120 So that's a compliment, by the way. 00:12:59.360 --> 00:12:59.440 Okay. 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:04.960 Yeah, I'm not talking about a place people get drunk, right? 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:09.519 I'm saying you succinctly said something in a powerful way that folks would be able to do that. 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.279 We're gonna talk about getting drunk here in a little bit. 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:12.480 Yeah, yeah. 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:12.879 Yeah. 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:19.039 You know, and so I, you know, the for Christ, the kingdom was the enemy's not Rome, the enemy is Satan. 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:27.200 You know, and it's not about the temple, it's about you being the temple, and it's not about Israel, it's about the world. 00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:34.559 So, in order to get this message out, he had to send the Holy Spirit, and there had to be some power washing. 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:43.679 Yeah, you know, it's uh I've heard it said that when the Holy Spirit comes, it's like you're brainwashed, you know, and the proper response is well, if you knew what was in my brain, you'd want it to be washed. 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:44.480 Right? 00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:46.960 Yeah, uh, you'd be glad it was washed. 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:48.559 Um, and that's what he had to do. 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:57.200 And so he sends the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2, and what happens is at that point, so so what's going on is there's this festival going on. 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:03.120 So Passover was over, that's what we call Easter, and that's when the Jews celebrate getting free. 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:05.919 They celebrate freedom from Egypt, freedom from slavery. 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:07.759 So that's it's their freedom time. 00:14:07.840 --> 00:14:08.960 That's this Passover. 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:15.919 That'd be equivalent to us um celebrating the fact that Christ died for our sins and we're free from sin and we're and we are uh free. 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:17.600 So that's what our Easter time is. 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:34.320 Well, 50 days later, Penta, Pentecost, is 50 days later, and that's when they were at the Israelites were at the mountain and they got the law, they got the Ten Commandments, and that's like, okay, now you're free, and God's saying, now you're free, but y'all have to know how to live as free people. 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:35.919 So here's the Ten Commandments. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:42.000 You all have to, I could I'm gonna tell you how to act because being free changes your behavior. 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:44.159 You act differently when you're free as opposed to. 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:45.279 I got a bar for you. 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:46.480 Okay, okay. 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:50.080 He got him out of Egypt, but he had to get Egypt Egypt out of there. 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:50.720 Exactly. 00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:55.279 Keep going, keep going. 00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:57.120 No, keep yeah. 00:14:57.360 --> 00:14:58.080 There you go. 00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:00.480 There we go. 00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:01.919 Now it's not gonna work. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:04.480 Well, it was left-handed anyway. 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:05.120 Yeah. 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:09.919 So so now it's Pentecost, and so he sends the Holy Spirit, right? 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:21.039 So we he we had Christ die on the cross where salvation happens, and that's an instantaneous thing, but now the Holy Spirit has to come and it's to show us how to work out our salvation, right? 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.159 So you're saved, but you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:25.120 Well, what does that mean? 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.440 I'm saved, but now I've got to work it out. 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.240 Well, that's what the whole book of Acts then is. 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:47.840 And so Pentecost is this pilgrimage feast where people come from all over the then known world, Jews, and the Holy Spirit falls, and instead of coming out and preaching a great sermon in Hebrew, he empowers the 120 to speak multiple languages. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:56.639 Because the kingdom of God was not going to be a Hebrew thing, it was gonna be a multicultural, multilingual, multinational uh kingdom. 00:15:56.799 --> 00:16:00.320 And it had nothing, it didn't have nothing to do, but Hebrew was not the issue. 00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:06.399 It was about every tongue, every tribe, every nation coming into the authority and under the authority of Jesus Christ. 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:12.720 All right, so with all of this context, right, they had a specific concept of what they thought the kingdom was. 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:20.720 And although Jesus articulated over and over again, told them parables, okay, used everything, pictures, okay, everything he could do. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:22.480 Flannel graph, he had a flannel graph. 00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:26.720 They still couldn't get it. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:34.879 And so that so when you look at Acts 2, is this miracle, as you said, they're filled with the Holy Spirit and they begin to speak other languages. 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:42.080 They weren't speaking a heavy heavenly language, they weren't speaking gibberish, they were speaking earthly languages they had no education for. 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:43.840 They had not learned before. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:59.279 And this is a massive deal when you look at the statement or the message that God was giving to these people, to these leaders that were getting ready to go to the ends of the earth with the Great Commission, go into all the world, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.759 What he's doing is essentially giving them the ability to speak another language. 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:07.920 If you go deeper than that, if you study a language, you study a culture. 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:15.920 It's not just uh I speak Spanish and uh, you know, I I can use the prepositions and the phrases the right way. 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:25.519 It's you have to understand the the country you're going into, the culture that you're going into, because culture, culture and language are inextricably linked, they're connected together. 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:33.279 And so what God is doing in this miracle is giving them starting to work on their hearts toward the people that they're going to. 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:37.279 Hey guys, I'm not trying to get you to make everybody act like you. 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:42.160 I'm not getting you to take these 613 laws and cram them down other people's throats. 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.119 I'm not trying to get you to work from the outside in. 00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:48.720 I want to start something from the inside out, but I want to give you a heart for. 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:55.200 I want you to begin to speak the language of, I want you to begin to understand the culture of the people that I'm sending you to. 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:57.839 Otherwise, all you'll do is give them laws. 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:03.359 You won't bring the kingdom, the new covenant, the the kingdom of God to them. 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:06.000 All right, so so it starts with understanding. 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:18.640 Right, and and so that's and that, and you see that in Acts chapter 6, and Acts chapter 10, and Acts as you see the book of Acts play out, these are all baby steps into the culture for the Jewish leaders. 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:30.880 I mean, it it it was the everybody you read about in the book of Acts, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, they were all having to unlearn everything they had learned about what it was to be a good Jewish person. 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:38.000 And so they're so if you look at Acts chapter 6, we have this problem with they have a group of Hellenistic Jews. 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:43.759 These are Greek Jews who lived outside of Jerusalem, all over the world, probably Alexandria, Egypt was a big place. 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:50.720 And they were coming in, but they spoke Greek, they dressed Greek, they were really sloppy with their Judaism, they weren't really good about it because they didn't have a temple. 00:18:50.880 --> 00:19:00.640 And so they were coming, these widows were there in Jerusalem, partly because of the pilgrimage, and the Hebrew Jews were there, the widows, and they had to distribute food. 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:03.440 And the Hellenistic Jews were being discriminated against. 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:05.519 Now, this is a family problem, right? 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:15.039 These are Jewish widows, both groups, both followers of Christ, but there was discrimination going on, and one group was getting slighted over another. 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:26.079 So what they do is they come together and the and they they appoint seven people to take care of the problem, but they appoint seven people from the very group that was being discriminated against. 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:34.880 All the table servers, including Stephen, were Hellenistic Jews, and they were given authority to fix the discrimination problem between the two groups. 00:19:35.039 --> 00:19:36.480 And so this is a baby step. 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:48.400 You know, you get into Acts chapter 10, and you have a situation where Peter has to go into the home of a Gentile, and his great opening line is, you know, you know I shouldn't be here because I'm gonna get in trouble. 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:50.480 Um my people don't like your people. 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:52.000 That was just like his opening line. 00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:53.440 That's a great line to walk in and witness. 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:54.880 That'll really take down walls. 00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:57.440 Yeah, that's that's a great, it's a great bonding thing. 00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:06.799 But he had to have a vision about a sheet coming down and all kinds of animals saying, Don't things say things are clean or unclean until I, you know, don't don't do don't disagree with me. 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:08.880 If I say something's clean, it's clean. 00:20:09.119 --> 00:20:12.400 But this was a Gentile who was a God fear. 00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:17.039 He acted Jewish, he he supported, he built synagogues, and that was even a stretch. 00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:22.480 And these were the baby steps into the culture of understanding that the early church had to take. 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:44.480 So that Acts chapter 10 text, right, where he sees a vision of all these animals that had been declared unclean uh in in the Old Testament, and he it to me that is probably the most profound text about how embedded a mindset, a mentality can be that you would hear an audible voice from heaven telling you to do something and you would tell it no. 00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:45.359 Right. 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:48.079 Because no, no, Lord, I've never eaten anything unclean. 00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:49.119 Well, he knew it was God. 00:20:49.200 --> 00:20:49.920 He said no, Lord. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.680 So it was like it wasn't just a voice, it was like God's telling him to do something and he's arguing. 00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:58.240 What would an audible voice from heaven have to say to you that you go, No, I ain't gonna be able to do it? 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:04.720 I mean, seriously, I mean, but but but that's how embedded, that's how hard the power washing can be in our mindsets. 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:11.119 It takes tremendous courage, tremendous humility, tremendous courage and power to be able to undo this. 00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:17.839 This is why, again, the power move that God was doing wasn't to take their Jewishness and put it on the world. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:26.400 It was actually a move that takes that kind of power to actually get you to understand or to even try to understand and to give you the ability to understand somebody different than you. 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:31.599 By the way, sometimes we read through these spiritual stories and and these miracles in the Bible. 00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:36.160 We just kind of read past them or we talk about them in church, and what does it have to do with my life? 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:38.240 It has everything to do with your life. 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:43.440 Think about the fact that we live in a world right now where many cultures have come together, right? 00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:49.599 In their day, they had to deal with ignorance because they were being sent to places they knew nothing about. 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:59.759 I actually think we do certainly still deal with ignorance, but we actually deal with irritance because we live in a melting pot, so we actually have an opinion about their. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:00.960 Other cultures. 00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:02.000 We have the internet. 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:03.359 We have social media. 00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:04.960 So people are sounding off. 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:11.359 And so we we have a tendency to kind of pick silos and put people into profiles and stick them over here and there. 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:14.240 And so we're not dealing with as much ignorance as they were in that time. 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:16.960 They they had to walk into countries they knew nothing of. 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.200 And yet we we have different thoughts. 00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:28.319 And I would say, not just even in the ways you think of off the bat, but like we have cultural issues within our own families, right? 00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:35.839 Generational issues that very easily a parent could say to their kid or the kid could to the parent, I don't get you, I don't understand you. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:52.480 And the same Holy Spirit that shows up on the day of Pentecost and gives them the ability to understand other cultures and speak other languages can give you the ability to speak the language of your family members or your own neighbors that have a different cultural point of view than you do and yet bring you together in unity. 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.680 Unity isn't doesn't mean we're all exactly the same. 00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:57.519 It's actually unity in diversity. 00:22:57.920 --> 00:22:58.160 Right. 00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:00.319 What we like is uniformity. 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:05.680 You know, like when I married my wife, I told her I don't mind becoming one as long as I'm the one we're becoming. 00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:09.759 Um and that that didn't work out very well. 00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:13.839 Um actually, as I look back, it's the opposite's happening. 00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:15.920 I could have predicted that. 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:25.519 But um but we want we want people to look alike, and if and if you if you travel around, you'll see that a lot of churches in America, you know, are they they're very homogeneous. 00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:30.319 They look alike, they sign and they want you to fit into the try to squeeze you into its mold. 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:31.759 And that's uniformity. 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:39.680 Uh the other thing we could like is union, which is um, you know, I say if you tie two cats by their tails and throw them over a clothesline, you've got union. 00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:43.200 Um but you don't you don't have you don't have unity, right? 00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:48.160 Um you you've got you've got friction, but there's and and and so we don't don't do that. 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:49.200 Don't do that. 00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:50.319 I'm not encouraging. 00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:55.759 So please don't hashtag me, don't hashtag me, don't at me. 00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:56.960 Okay, that's Dr. 00:23:57.039 --> 00:23:57.519 John Cole. 00:23:57.839 --> 00:23:58.079 Exactly. 00:23:58.240 --> 00:23:58.480 At Dr. 00:23:58.559 --> 00:23:58.880 John Cole. 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:01.359 This is just in-house, this isn't online or on the internet. 00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:01.759 Yeah. 00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:06.319 Um the point is we focus on union. 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:11.279 And so the you'll you'll go to you go to churches and it's like um, you know, just be a member. 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:13.039 So confirmation, membership. 00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:14.240 Be a member, but don't go. 00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:20.799 There are a lot of churches that will have twelve hundred members and two hundred in attendance because the issue is union, it's just membership. 00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:23.519 That's not what the Holy Spirit's trying to do. 00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:24.720 He's trying to bring unity. 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:33.839 And and and to your point about the fact that it wasn't trying to push the Jewishness out, he wasn't also asking the disciples to relinquish their Jewishness. 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:34.559 Right. 00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:35.039 Right? 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:43.920 So they were who they were, but they were to go out and let people be who they were because this was going to be a diverse kingdom of God. 00:24:44.079 --> 00:25:00.480 There were going to be no borders, and every culture was going to be, you know, m taking them the gospel, which is why we spend millions of dollars now on uh Bible translation, because every culture needs somebody to take it in their language, make it culturally relevant, and take it to them. 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:03.359 And it's not about you becoming like me or me becoming like you. 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:06.000 I don't dress like you and you don't dress like me. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:10.079 That's not the the the issue is for the kingdom, we have a king. 00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:11.920 And we're to be like the king. 00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:21.279 The kingdom of God is you know God's people in God's place, doing God's will, experiencing God's blessing, under God's authority, wherever you are. 00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:21.920 Yeah. 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:28.160 I I I love I love that in the book of Acts we get this narrative because you're able to follow the story. 00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:32.400 Acts one, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you'll be my witnesses. 00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:36.480 Acts two, they have this miracle where they're speaking each other's languages. 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.720 Acts three, they live happily ever after. 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:39.039 Yeah. 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:40.000 Wrong, right? 00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:45.920 It's it's baby steps, it's choppy, it's hard, there's tension, there's conflict, it's difficult. 00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:51.039 You know, they're they're smack dab in the middle of a miracle, and in Acts six, they're fighting over food distribution. 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:52.000 You know what I'm saying? 00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:53.279 It does, it goes that granular. 00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:53.680 You know what I mean? 00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.359 Imagine if Paul had showed up with his Gentile friends in Acts chapter three. 00:25:57.519 --> 00:25:58.400 Yeah, they couldn't move. 00:25:58.640 --> 00:25:59.359 It would have been the wrong time. 00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:00.400 It would have been a bad time. 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:08.720 Yeah, so so they they had to go like to the ends of the earth was a process of learning how do we how do we actually learn to love one another the right way? 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:16.319 Um, how do we learn, you know, have our hearts developed for each other internally, and then to be able to move our way on the way out. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:18.079 And guys, I'm gonna tell you this. 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:26.960 I believe this was not only a miracle in in the book of Acts, this is a miracle that God is doing and still wants to do today. 00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:28.319 Still wants to do today. 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:39.680 And I do believe it takes a miracle because my flesh, my flesh loves to silo, my flesh loves to be in echo chambers, my flesh loves to argue for how right I am and how wrong everybody. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:46.079 That's my flesh doesn't understand and kind of doesn't want to understand and feels kind of holy uh up on my pedestal. 00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:53.440 Um my flesh often fights for conflict, and yet the Holy Spirit can bring a diverse group of people. 00:26:53.519 --> 00:27:00.079 I was talking to a friend the other day um just trying to understand how we could, you know, do better and reach more people and everything. 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:07.680 And he he goes, he goes to the church and he goes, he goes, if I was if I was making a t-shirt for one church, he said, I'd say, we love tension. 00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:09.680 I was like, really? 00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:11.039 He said, yeah. 00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:11.759 I said, why? 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:18.559 He said, because he goes, every week I come in and I'm forced to wrestle with something, maybe a concept I'm not terribly comfortable with. 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:21.119 I sit next to somebody that doesn't necessarily look like me. 00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:23.440 I'm around people that don't all believe the same thing. 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:27.119 If you ask if people ask me from time to time, hey, what does one church believe about this or that? 00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:29.759 You know, I'm like, well, I can tell you what I believe about it. 00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:50.960 There's a lot of people who believe a lot of different things, and yet it's a miracle in a time that I think is never needed it more than right now, where people are being pushed, pushed into homogeneous environments to say, do do we believe, do we believe that the Holy Spirit is still active in doing this, doing this miracle within the body of Christ, and frankly within families. 00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:53.839 I'll say this one thing, I gotta be careful because we're getting close on time here. 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.039 All right, but I'm gonna say this. 00:27:55.119 --> 00:28:15.039 Probably my biggest takeaway from our conversation uh when we were working on this together was you talking about your relationship with one of your sons, and you said, you know, we lived in the same house, but we, because of the different eras we lived in, because he, you know, he's connected to the whole world on the internet and he has different uh music choices than you have, and all this and so in many ways, of like, who is this kid? 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:17.119 Because he's he's so different than me. 00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:27.359 And yet, as a father, and I would say it's very easy as a father or a mother when when you experience that sort of um dissonance within your own home, to just go, I don't get it. 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:31.440 I don't get it, because you can have a cultural difference under your own roof. 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:35.519 Y'all live in the same address, and yet there's a cultural difference. 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:56.400 And what you did was you modeled the kingdom of God and the gospel to your son by by praying and and studying him and working to understand him, not so that you could develop his taste in music or his taste in style or whatever, but to understand him because he matters so much to you that you could find unity with your son. 00:28:56.720 --> 00:28:58.960 Okay, that's a work of the Holy Spirit. 00:28:59.119 --> 00:28:59.200 Right. 00:28:59.359 --> 00:29:01.039 That's a work flesh doesn't take you there. 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:06.960 A lot of families end up polarized because they didn't find unity in the diversity in their own house. 00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:09.119 How are we gonna reach the ends of the earth if we can't do that? 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:19.200 Every fruit of the spirit, if you look at it, most if uh every fruit of the spirit requires an irritant in your life. 00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:23.279 So long suffering, uh, kindness. 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.359 Someone has to be tempting you to not be kind, for you to display kindness, gentleness. 00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:39.279 It's easy to respond harshly, that's the flesh, but you gotta have an irritant in your life to produce the spirit of the fruit of gentleness, long suffering, patience. 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:45.519 Someone's gotta be getting on your last nerve, right, in order for you to display patience. 00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:48.400 We don't want any irritants, but we want all the fruit. 00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:54.079 So we have so so they they wanted this, right, but God wanted to do this, right? 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.680 Understanding, unity, and then the last is uninhibited. 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:03.119 In fact, um when when they were when they were speaking these other languages, people literally thought they were drunk. 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:05.519 Yeah, they thought Peter was plastered. 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:09.920 Yeah, they um so they said, Oh, he's drunk at nine o'clock with new wine. 00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:17.519 And in Ephesians, the being filled with the Holy Spirit is also compared to being drunk, and it says, you know, don't be filled with new wine, but be filled with the spirit. 00:30:17.599 --> 00:30:27.759 And I think the reason that being filled with the spirit is uh related to drunkenness is because, first of all, in order to be drunk, you have to make a decision. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:32.880 It's a choice, and being filled with the spirit is a decision, and you have to make a choice. 00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:39.440 And then I think also when you are filled with alcohol to the point of being drunk, it changes your behavior. 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:44.240 And when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, it changes your behavior. 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:45.119 Amen. 00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:53.839 And the disciples who scattered when Jesus was taken by the guards, they were known for their timidity. 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:55.759 They were known for being cowards. 00:30:55.920 --> 00:31:06.559 And yet, on when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they come pouring out of the room, speaking not any language that they had ever learned, preaching the gospel, and 3,000 people were added that day because they were uninhibited. 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:17.599 Like a person who's drunk who becomes uninhibited in the wrong ways, they were filled with the Spirit and they became uninhibited witnesses for the gospel and for the kingdom. 00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:18.240 Amen. 00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:23.279 Alright, so let's let's take a moment of reflection. 00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:25.599 But before we do, I want I want to kind of summarize this thought. 00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:27.920 What is the kingdom of God? 00:31:28.079 --> 00:31:28.960 What does that mean? 00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:30.480 What does that mean for us? 00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:37.599 The power washing that had to take place uh for the people Jesus was talking to and ministering to kind of needs to happen to us too. 00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.519 A certain sense, I've got to learn how to be in the world, not of the world. 00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:43.519 That I'm a citizen of a different kingdom. 00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:45.599 I have a different king. 00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:52.960 And so God bless politics, influence, and geography, but but but but I'm I'm I'm thinking higher than that. 00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:59.680 My my loyalty is to him, and I'm not looking to have the kingdom of God go from the outside in, it goes from the inside out. 00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:04.000 To to be a citizen in the kingdom of God, it is a it is a heart transformation. 00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:12.319 I'm gonna tell you, I'm convinced, I'm convinced we completely underestimate the power of a transformed heart. 00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:14.160 The love of God. 00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:34.720