WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.480 You and I don't love tension, right? 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:08.240 It's a pretty natural thing to our human condition. 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:16.079 We don't love tension, and when we experience tension, we always try to resolve it, right? 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:22.160 Um, but here's something I'm learning more and more about the very nature of God. 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:24.480 Uh, tension doesn't bother him. 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:30.320 And the things that we perceive as tensions in him aren't. 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:39.119 In fact, they're fully and beautifully suspended in this eternal harmony of his person and character. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:43.119 But to us, we see them as tension. 00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:44.880 We want resolve. 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:48.079 But not every tension needs resolve. 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:57.439 Here's what I think you and I could do much better at is actually inhabiting tensions rather than trying to always resolve them. 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.399 Here's what I kind of mean by that. 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:09.680 Last week in Acts 15, the first part of it, uh, the church settled its biggest fight yet. 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:15.680 And it was about the very relationship between works and grace. 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:16.079 Right? 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:23.040 The Jerusalem Council had ruled that salvation is by grace alone. 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:26.879 It's not by keeping the law or the traditions of Moses. 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:36.799 The Gentile people do not need to be circumcised in order to be included and belong to Jesus. 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:47.519 And as a result of this ruling, the purity of the gospel, this good deposit treasure entrusted to us was preserved. 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:49.519 That is a big win. 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:57.920 Now you think after a fight like that, right, that the church could kind of rest, but no. 00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:02.799 Instead, here at the end of Acts 15, we actually see one more fight. 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:06.159 And this one, Paul, he picks himself. 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:14.159 And it's not about theology, it's not about the nature of the gospel, it's actually about a person, a relationship. 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:23.759 See, Paul and Barnabas, they were sent from the church to take the gospel throughout the world, and they were partners for years. 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:36.479 But here in this moment, in the end of Acts 15, it says that they disagree sharply over whether this man named John Mark ought to come with them on their next journey. 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:41.840 And the disagreement was so sharp that they split up entirely. 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:54.479 And then, almost immediately after this, Paul does something that looks like an absolute contradiction to everything he just fought for. 00:02:55.680 --> 00:03:06.960 He seems to be a hypocrite when he turns around and circumcises his new missionary recruit, young Timothy. 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:10.319 Now, was Paul being a hypocrite? 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:12.319 Was he contradicting himself? 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:15.280 Was his theology inconsistent? 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:25.039 Or is Paul faithfully inhabiting a tension that the gospel itself actually creates? 00:03:26.319 --> 00:03:33.039 One that teaches us not just when to fight, but how to pick the right fight. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:35.280 Let's walk through this together. 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:45.199 Acts 15, 36 through 41, we see this partnership crumble and fall apart between Barnabas and Paul. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:54.080 They shared this really deep love for the believers who had just come to faith on their missionary journey. 00:03:54.240 --> 00:04:08.400 And Paul wants to go back to check on these churches that he and Barnabas planted together to see how they're holding up under the pressure of being new believers in a pagan world. 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:12.240 But there's one issue standing in the way, right? 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:17.759 It's Barnabas wants to bring John Mark along, his cousin. 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:23.759 Now, there's this relational uh equity that Barnabas has with John Mark. 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:26.720 He wants to see them, him come along in this journey. 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:28.879 And that might sound simple enough. 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.079 Hey, go ahead and have your cousin tag along with us. 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:36.959 Except it's that Mark had already failed them once. 00:04:37.839 --> 00:04:52.240 On their first journey, John Mark started strong in the beginning and then he quit partway through and Pemphylia and he abandoned the work right when the mission started to get tough. 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:55.040 We read about this in Acts 13. 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:57.439 And Paul remembers that. 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:08.160 Paul remembers that, and he doesn't want to risk that same situation again on this journey to go back and encourage and strengthen the churches and their faith. 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:15.199 And Luke, right, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, he doesn't soften what happens here. 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:22.240 Verse 39 tells us this: that there arose a sharp disagreement between these brothers. 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:29.839 This isn't some polite difference of opinion, like, oh, I see how you think, I think differently, maybe we should part ways. 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:45.120 No, it's real anger, real exasperation between two men who had planted churches together, who had been beaten together, who had been imprisoned together, all for the sake of the same gospel. 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:54.959 Now it's worth us pausing and reflecting on why in the world would Luke even include this in his narrative. 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:06.399 A detail this uncomfortable, this revealing about its heroes to the church's founding leaders in open conflict with one another. 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:12.480 That's not something that you invent to make your movement look good. 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:26.959 If Luke's trying to write this great story that's so persuasive to draw other people into this movement that maybe they have even fabricated of themselves, you don't include such a detail within it. 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:31.600 Luke tells us this because it happened. 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:36.639 And because it mattered enough to record it honestly. 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:45.040 And notice carefully, I think this is part of why this is included, what this disagreement is about. 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:51.439 It's not a theological one or about the preservation of the purity of the gospel, right? 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:59.439 Paul and Barnabas, they don't part ways over the gospel itself, they part ways over this practical judgment call. 00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:07.759 Is John Mark trustworthy to be included in this missionary journey? 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:10.879 Can he finish what he starts? 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:12.720 And so what do they do? 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:14.000 They split. 00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:19.279 Barnabas takes Mark to Cyprus, which was their hometown. 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:29.279 While Paul takes Silas and heads through Syria and Cilicia, and verse 41 says they were strengthening the churches as they were visiting them. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:37.759 And so here's the first thing I think this passage wants us to feel before we move any further. 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:42.240 There are things worth fighting for. 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:45.680 There are things worth fighting for. 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:51.120 I think we live in a culture that's lost its fight in many ways. 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:55.600 Or we're fighting for the absolute wrong things. 00:07:57.040 --> 00:08:00.560 But there are things worth a fight. 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:15.040 Paul's not budging here, he's protecting the integrity of the mission from real risk, real abandonment, and he's willing to lose a partnership that he treasured in order to do it. 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:36.320 But that's only half the story because just here later in 16.1 through 5, we watch the same Paul in the same narrative do something that looks at first glance like something completely contradictive to all that he just fought for. 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:42.879 In 16.1 through 5, we see that a convert, young Timothy, gets circumcised. 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:49.519 So Paul is journeying with Silas and he meets young Timothy in Lystra. 00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:56.320 Verse 1 describes Timothy in this way, and this is important for context. 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:02.960 He is the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. 00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:09.840 Goes on to say he was a young man, well spoken of by the believers in both Lystra and Iconium. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:15.360 And so Paul wants him on the team for this journey that comes next. 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:23.519 And then in verse 3, we read this statement that should kind of confuse us or shock us. 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.360 Paul circumcises Timothy. 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:35.519 If we try to set that next to everything that happened in the first part of chapter 15, right? 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:48.480 The Jerusalem Council had just settled unanimously that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to be saved, to be included within the church. 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:52.399 Paul personally fought that battle in Jerusalem. 00:09:52.720 --> 00:10:05.600 He would go on to write the entire letter of Galatians contending against this very point, using some of the most sharp language that is contained in any of his letters. 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:18.879 When anger rose up in Paul about the preservation and purity of the gospel, about how it kept people away from Jesus, when we added things in front of it, you saw his anger come out. 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:21.440 And Galatians is full of it. 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:24.000 So why? 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:35.679 Why almost immediately after this decision had been made, after this fight had been won, does he turn around and do the very thing he had just fought against? 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:46.960 The answer becomes clear once we see how Paul handled a nearly identical situation with someone else, a man named Titus. 00:10:48.639 --> 00:11:01.840 So in this letter to the Galatians, in chapter 2, Paul describes refusing to circumcise Titus, even under this real cultural pressure to do so. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:12.960 These Judaizers had come into the church of Galatia, and they were saying that it's not Jesus alone which is able to save us, but it is adherence to the law. 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:21.039 You must have Jesus and be circumcised also, or else you are outside of the kingdom. 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.639 But see, Titus was fully Gentile. 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:47.200 To circumcise Titus would have actually conceded publicly that Gentiles do need circumcision, works of their own flesh to belong to Jesus. 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:52.639 And that's exactly the principle that Paul was defending at the Jerusalem Council. 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:55.919 And he wouldn't budge there either. 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.480 But Timothy isn't Titus. 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:02.960 Timothy has a Jewish mother. 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:05.279 And that's important. 00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:22.000 Because what that means is that by the reckoning of the Jewish communities that Paul and Silas and Timothy were about to minister among, an uncircumcised son of a Jewish mother wasn't just simply overlooked or dismissed within their culture. 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:25.279 No, he was regarded as an apostate. 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:30.000 He was regarded as a living violation of the covenant. 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.200 And so here's what would happen. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:42.960 He would be seen as a stumbling block before he ever even opened his mouth to talk about Jesus. 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:54.240 If Timothy went into those synagogues uncircumcised, the conversation would have never even reached Jesus. 00:12:54.559 --> 00:13:02.080 It would have got stuck, it would have stumbled over Timothy's corrupt identity first. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:06.639 So Paul removes the obstacle. 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:08.159 Right? 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.720 And so here's something that we've got to think through in our own Christian life. 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:26.080 You and I have a propensity to put stumbling blocks of our own making in front of the stumbling block of the gospel of Jesus. 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:36.960 The only thing that should be in the way of a person coming to Jesus is the stumbling block of the gospel. 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:53.279 So often, out of comfort or cultural norms or preferences or non-essential doctrines, we put stumbling block after stumbling block in front of people who are far from Jesus. 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:57.200 What a horrible thing that is for us to do. 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:50.240 So we see here the same man, Paul, same unmoved conviction about what the gospel actually requires, and yet two completely different actions, with no contradiction in either one. 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:51.840 None. 00:14:53.759 --> 00:15:00.879 Once we see clearly what was actually at stake in each situation, we may understand better. 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:04.639 With Mark, the risk was to the mission's integrity. 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:06.320 So Paul fought. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:13.440 With Timothy, the obstacle was a cultural stumbling block that had nothing to do with the gospel's truth. 00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:15.600 So Paul sacrificed. 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:17.279 Paul adapted. 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.879 And Luke lets us see the fruit of both of these decisions together. 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:28.799 Paul, Silas, and Timothy moved through the cities, delivering the Jerusalem's councils decision. 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:36.559 And verse five tells us plainly the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increase in numbers daily. 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:43.440 See, this is the fruit of sound doctrine and sacrificial service. 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:45.759 Verse 5. 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:47.279 That's the fruit of that. 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:59.919 You see, this happened, the strengthening of the churches, the increase in numbers, it wasn't despite the conflict with Barnabas, it wasn't despite the circumcision of Timothy. 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:04.240 No, the mission moved forward, strengthened through both. 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:16.559 And so what we need to grasp this morning is that we fight, we fight to preserve the gospel, and we sacrifice to serve the culture. 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.279 We fight to preserve the gospel. 00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:22.080 We sacrifice to serve the culture. 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:24.960 Right? 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:30.320 And it's really a lesson in how to pick a fight in this Christian life. 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:33.840 Because it's not whether to have conflict. 00:16:35.679 --> 00:16:38.159 We ought to have conflict in our lives. 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:41.519 The gospel is conflict. 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:50.720 The fact that Christ died for our sin, was crushed under the Father's wrath to redeem us and to reconcile us to himself. 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:53.440 That is cosmic conflict. 00:16:55.200 --> 00:17:07.920 What we need to be asking is whether we're fighting for the right thing, whether we're sacrificing for the right thing, and strive to have that without confusing the two. 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:22.160 The first fight is easy to miss because it happened earlier in chapter 15, but it's the whole reason Timothy's circumcision even feels like a contradiction in the first place. 00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:37.839 How could Paul fight against the call to circumcise those who were in the church and then turn around and circumcise a young man in the church? 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:38.960 Right? 00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:48.319 These group of men came down to Antioch insisting that unless a person was circumcised of the flesh, according to the law of Moses, they could not be saved. 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:50.400 That's all of the beginning of Acts 15. 00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:53.680 And Paul would not have anything to do with it. 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:57.359 He fought that battle all the way to Jerusalem. 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:02.240 And the apostles and elders ruled unanimously in his favor. 00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:12.319 Salvation is by grace alone, through Christ alone, and circumcision or any work of the flesh is not a requirement for inclusion into his kingdom. 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:14.559 And what good news that is. 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:18.160 That was a fight worth fighting. 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.240 Because the gospel itself was on the line. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:31.279 So when Paul circumcises Timothy, one chapter later, well, the contradiction seems obvious. 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:33.519 The hypocrisy seems glaring. 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:36.720 Didn't he just fight this battle and win? 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:44.160 You see, he didn't undo the outcome of the fight. 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:49.680 Timothy's circumcision was never a fight to begin with. 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:53.440 It was a sacrifice. 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:59.440 A piece of Paul's own theological consistency on display. 00:19:01.519 --> 00:19:06.559 So that Timothy could reach the very people that Paul was trying to reach. 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:24.480 Many of us we we pick fights all the time, but they tend to be fights over our own preference and comforts, and we call it standing for truth. 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:29.519 Or we go soft on the actual gospel, right? 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:38.960 Telling ourselves we're just loving people well, we're just trying to be kind when really we've just stopped being willing to fight for anything at all. 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:44.400 Paul fought hard, but only for the gospel itself. 00:19:44.559 --> 00:19:50.880 And he sacrificed constantly, but only ever his own comfort. 00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:54.640 He never sacrificed the gospel's truth. 00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:04.640 I love how the writer of Amazing Grace, the hymn that we love, John Newton, talks about Paul's disposition. 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:14.640 He says Paul was a reed, endable, breakable, in non-essentials, but he was an iron pillar in essentials. 00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:24.799 This man who said, I desire to become all things to all people so that some might be saved. 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:27.599 What was he willing to do? 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:34.000 Sacrifice everything but the purity of the gospel. 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.799 So the gospel might win those he loved. 00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:42.079 That's this whole passage here. 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:45.759 That's why he's willing to do this to Timothy. 00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:56.880 And it deeply informs our Christian life, learning to fight for the right things, learning to sacrifice for the right things, and never getting confused in the two. 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:03.680 If Paul managed this so clearly, we should ask honestly, how are we doing? 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:05.680 How are we doing with this? 00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:06.720 Right? 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:16.160 If we're honest, we tend to pick one fight or sacrifice. 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:19.599 And we call that faithfulness. 00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:25.680 But it's really just us leaning into our own comfort. 00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:36.240 Some of us we're always fighting, fighting ferociously, certain that our preferences carry the same weight as conviction. 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:40.480 We turn non-essential doctrines into essential ones. 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:41.359 Right? 00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:49.039 We love to think that the essential doctrines of the faith is this huge bucket that's filled with all of these points. 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:56.160 And reality is that that bucket is so significantly smaller than we want it to be. 00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:59.759 There is a bucket, there is truth and doctrines in. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:00.640 In it. 00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:03.200 It's not as big as we think it is. 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:21.200 The essentials of the Christian faith are so simply put in things like the Nicene and the Apostles' Creeds, less than a whole page of this is what we must believe about God and His Son, of whom He sent, and the Spirit who now fills us, and the church that's established by that finished work. 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:39.119 Many of us too, and in the way that we put forward these preferences and these personal convictions, here's what we tend to do in our relationship with others: we put sanctification before salvation a lot of the time. 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:45.279 If you could just kind of get this stuff right first, then you could come to Jesus. 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:52.240 If you could conform to our subculture first, then maybe you'll be accepted. 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:56.799 Why do we do that? 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:06.319 Why do we have this propensity to put sanctification, a work of the spirit alone, before salvation? 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:15.119 Saying that somehow, if in your own flesh and self-determination you could get it right, maybe you could come to Jesus. 00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.839 Ultimately, we're busy fighting battles that never win the war of a human heart. 00:23:24.079 --> 00:23:27.039 Others of us, we've stopped fighting for anything at all. 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:30.559 We're lovers, not fighters. 00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:36.720 We offer acceptance without any cost. 00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:45.039 We offer this generic forgiveness and belonging without any consequence. 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:52.079 But that acceptance, that forgiveness cost heaven everything. 00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:54.319 It's not cheap. 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:05.279 We mistake the absence of conflict in our relationship for the presence of love, and that's a lie. 00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:06.640 Right? 00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:08.160 Because we've traded something. 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:18.319 We've traded this hard, gritty, patient work of discipleship for the easier feeling that we all long for to be liked. 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:29.599 How many of us have changed or exchanged these truths of what it means to really love someone, to tell them the truth, to share the gospel? 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:37.440 Well, we've exchanged that for this pursuit of maybe if I can just get them to like me, they'll like Jesus too. 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:46.160 But the gospel and its mission never lets us settle for fighting alone or sacrificing alone. 00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:53.359 So how do we work this out between the two? 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:59.200 Many of us, we sacrifice to serve the culture, but we fail to preserve the gospel. 00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.559 We sacrifice to serve the culture, but fail to preserve the gospel. 00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:04.880 This is the side of hyper-inclusion. 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:11.519 This is the side of just being nice and kind and random acts of kindness, right? 00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:12.400 Thing. 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:19.039 I don't know if anybody's ever been saved by paying for their fast food meal behind them. 00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:25.920 But what happens is we offer this acceptance, this forgiveness without cost or consequence. 00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:29.599 Someone shares how they identify in their person. 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:30.880 And what do we do? 00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:32.160 We affirm it. 00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:40.559 We embrace it without ever telling them about the Jesus who alone can tell them who they really are? 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:55.119 The Jesus who spoke life into their being and knew them intimately as they were being formed by the hand of the Father in the womb of which they were developing can speak to them and tell them who they really are. 00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:59.200 They don't have to just depend on some figment of their own imagination. 00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:11.359 Or maybe you have a friend that describes their relationship that you know is wrong for them, that won't bring life that they hope, but only death. 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:16.960 And we celebrate it rather than tell them about the Christ who died to free them from that. 00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:23.519 To free them from exactly the thing that somehow we're trying to defend for the sake of relationship. 00:26:24.319 --> 00:26:26.720 And notice what's actually missing here. 00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:30.079 It's not about calling them to moral correction. 00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:34.079 The danger is we never get to Jesus. 00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:40.240 We've confused withholding judgment with withholding the gospel. 00:26:41.440 --> 00:27:00.559 When what people most need, the way that we can most love another person is for us to tell them about Christ, the one who forgives completely, the one who accepts them as they are, the one who transforms them from the inside out by his spirit, the one who can give them hope. 00:27:01.839 --> 00:27:04.799 Now, this reality isn't new within the church. 00:27:04.960 --> 00:27:09.200 Paul faced very similar things in Rome. 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:15.599 A people who had heard, salvation is by grace alone, not by any works of our flesh. 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:21.039 They concluded then that grace meant sin can no longer matter then. 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:30.079 If we do live lives of grace, ought we not be able then to just sin if grace covers us? 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:33.680 We call this anti-nomianism. 00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:36.480 Paul wrote about it in anger. 00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:38.160 Romans 6. 00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:44.720 This rhetorical question in verses 1 through 2, shall we go on sinning then that grace may abound? 00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:47.119 Paul asked, by no means. 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:48.640 By no means. 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:51.359 Grace is what freed us from sin. 00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:54.000 Grace is what delivered us from sin. 00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:07.200 The apostle who refused to add anything to the gospel also refused to let it be a false covering for anything that it was meant to free us from. 00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:15.279 Now, this pursuit, this desire to love people well, it often doesn't come from a bad place. 00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:20.720 In fact, it's a scriptural calling on all of us to love our neighbor. 00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:23.599 We should love well. 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:34.480 We genuinely want people to feel welcome and apart and loved, but somewhere along the way, welcome becomes silence. 00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:42.640 Silence becomes a version of love that never actually offers anyone Jesus. 00:28:43.359 --> 00:28:45.599 And what do we do as the church? 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:47.519 We call it grace. 00:28:48.799 --> 00:28:50.319 We call it grace. 00:28:51.200 --> 00:29:03.759 But the sad thing is this at the end of the day, it's cowardice wearing grace's clothes, and it has no power for anyone. 00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:07.599 That's one way we get this wrong. 00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:08.799 Here's the other. 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:16.720 We fight to preserve our culture, our own personal culture, and we sacrifice the power of the gospel. 00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:27.200 Many of us we turn non-essential doctrines into essential ones, or personal preference into these commanding convictions for all to embrace. 00:29:28.319 --> 00:29:31.279 Be gracious with me in some of these examples. 00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:39.279 But we make a political party, the assumed posture of any serious, real Christian. 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:52.240 We make the presence of alcohol evidence of worldliness instead of wisdom, an issue of wisdom that the Bible leaves to personal conscience. 00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:58.720 We make certain schooling methods become the only faithful choice for a Christian family. 00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:06.079 Hymns become the only reverent way to worship, as if God's people only really started worshiping him around the 1700s. 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:08.079 That doesn't make sense. 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:14.559 Right? 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.599 This isn't new. 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:34.880 In fact, it's the same instinct and pursuit that the Judaizers had in 15.1, insisting somehow that a work of the flesh, a matter of freedom in its own context, the circumcision be added as a requirement for salvation. 00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:36.960 Let me say that again. 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:49.680 Even in Paul's time, because of the gospel, an issue like circumcision became a matter of freedom to the individual's conscience. 00:30:51.359 --> 00:31:01.759 You see, Paul called that when we tried to bind someone to such a thing in Galatians 5. 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:04.480 He called that a yoke of slavery. 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:08.319 And it wasn't because the practice was evil. 00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:09.519 Hear that. 00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.079 It's not because circumcision was evil. 00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:15.279 He would have never done that to Timothy if it was so. 00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:29.119 It was because making us it an essential distorted the gospel into something we contribute to in our own flesh rather than something we simply receive by grace. 00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:35.440 None of the things listed above are unimportant. 00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:38.079 In fact, they're all really good. 00:31:38.319 --> 00:31:48.480 They're great conversations to have about how we engage with politics and how we educate our children and how we engage with the culture around us, all how we worship. 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:54.240 All of those things are wonderful things, good things. 00:31:55.200 --> 00:32:09.279 But what happens is we so often make them essential things and we bind the conscience of image-bearers of God that the gospel brought freedom to. 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:18.799 You see, we've moved these things from wisdom into gospel. 00:32:21.279 --> 00:32:25.599 And once we do that, we put sanctification before salvation. 00:32:26.559 --> 00:32:35.519 We bind the conscience of others, we fight battles that will never win the war of the heart of man because they aren't about the gospel. 00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:43.200 And so we end up smuggling through the back door of the church this Jesus plus gospel. 00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:48.079 Jesus plus, plus one more thing that you have to get right. 00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:52.000 Jesus plus, one more way you need to fix yourself. 00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:58.640 Jesus plus, one last thing that you've got to do before you really belong to him. 00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:07.680 Paul would recognize that instinct instantly and reject it with righteous anger. 00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:20.319 You see, both of us, the lover who never fights, the fighter who only does so, all for the wrong things, we both need the same rescue. 00:33:20.559 --> 00:33:22.960 And the answer is Jesus. 00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:31.519 You see, Jesus became like us to reach us, and he became our sin to save us. 00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:38.160 When we look at the statement of Paul, I have become all things to all people so that some might be saved. 00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:50.720 We have to look at Jesus as the most grand, majestic, and cosmic demonstration, an example of that. 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:00.559 You see, both halves of this statement. 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:05.279 He became like us to reach us, he became our sin to save us, they matter. 00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:14.559 Neither one is optional in our understanding of the gospel and the pursuit of God after his people, of whom he's made a covenant with. 00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:26.800 The letter of Philippians tells us that Christ Jesus Himself, though he existed in the form of God, did not consider such an equality with him something to cling to. 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:32.800 Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. 00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:46.320 This is the same missional sacrifice that you and I are called to by the Spirit in Christ, but Jesus has taken it to its furthest, most cosmic possible extreme. 00:34:46.639 --> 00:34:54.079 When we're called to become all things to all people so that some might be saved, Jesus is the reason that we can. 00:35:56.800 --> 00:36:14.880 Not once was he disobedient or rebellious, but our guilt of our sin was truly credited to him there, fully on the cross, as if he had committed every sin and act of rebellion that we ever have. 00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:21.599 And the Father's wrath that our sin deserved fell on him instead of us. 00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:45.679 Paul tells us that on the cross, Christ Himself disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame, triumphing over them in his flesh. 00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:58.960 You see the very sin and death that holds us captive, that we can't fight our way free of, no matter what, or be kind enough to be excused of, no matter how hard we might try. 00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:02.159 Jesus already defeated it. 00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:05.119 Not partially, but completely. 00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:10.719 This is what neither of us manages to fully hold together on our own. 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:20.480 We fight for the wrong things or we sacrifice the wrong things, but Jesus did both, fighting and sacrificing perfectly. 00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:21.920 And he won. 00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:23.920 And he won. 00:37:24.559 --> 00:37:26.000 That's the gospel. 00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:28.559 The gospel's not about your fighting. 00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:31.760 The gospel's not about your sacrificing. 00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:33.199 It's about his. 00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:38.480 And because it's his, church, we're finally free. 00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:46.000 We're free to be all things to all people so that we might win some. 00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:51.840 The Spirit makes us fighters for truth and servants to the world. 00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:59.760 You see, that's not something that we can manufacture in our own flesh, in our own um insistence. 00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:10.000 It's what the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead does in us, because Jesus already fought the fight and made the sacrifice that actually mattered. 00:38:10.239 --> 00:38:15.519 So we don't need some formula for knowing when to fight and when to sacrifice. 00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:26.960 The gospel is worth dying for. 00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:29.760 The gospel is worth dying for. 00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:36.639 And almost everything else is worth sacrificing for. 00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:41.679 When we know what the gospel actually requires, right? 00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:50.000 And more importantly, when we actually know what it doesn't require of us, we're free. 00:38:50.239 --> 00:39:04.000 We're free to hold the line where Christ Himself drew it clearly, and we're free to lay down everything else: our comfort, our preferences, our need to be right, our personal convictions. 00:39:04.719 --> 00:39:08.960 We get to lay them all down for the sake of the people that we're trying to reach. 00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:12.400 This is how to pick a fight. 00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:17.840 Preserve the gospel, sacrifice for the culture. 00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:21.039 That's what it looks like to be a part of a church. 00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:29.679 As we see at the end of Acts 16 and 5, still being strengthened in the faith and increasing in numbers daily. 00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:33.039 So let us fight to preserve the gospel. 00:39:33.679 --> 00:39:36.000 Let us sacrifice to serve the world. 00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:38.400 Let's pray.