Northside Church - Sydney
To The Ends of The Earth Part 2 – Week 2: Examining PM
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, that is from a scene of a legendary movie at night at the Roxbury, those two weird-looking characters, two very uncool, two very ugly brothers, Steve and Doug Butabi. Their dream, their dream is to party at the Roxbury, a fabled night club where they constantly are waiting outside in the cold and constantly being rejected by the same hulking bouncer at the front door and after a continual failed attempts, they pitched this idea. What if they came up with a club where the outsiders were on the inside and the inside of the club was really on the outside of the club. And so the movie ends as they open up this hot new club and the building is unique because the outside, the exterior of the club is constructed to resemble the interior of the club and the interior of the club is constructed like a streetscape. People waiting on the line on the inside, you know, "What has this got to do with the book of Acts?" It's got to do with Y. Paul when we were looking at the break out of the gospel instead of heading westward to Rome, instead of advancing, he's going backwards from Antioch down to Jerusalem. Why is Paul heading backwards to Jerusalem? It's because people were beginning to night club the gospel. People, Paul, guys had come down to Antioch, they began to set up the ballads. The boys had begun to get out their clipboards and they were beginning to do what the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were in danger of in Matthew 23 which Jesus says, "You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces and you yourself don't end up it, you keep everyone else out." And these new Jewish Christians are standing there with their clipboards, checking to see if everyone's doing the regulations, they were not clubbing the gospel. So what was happening is the earliest Gentile converts from Christianity to what had happened in the early days is that they'd already become Jewish culturally and that was easy to deal with. They were going to Christianity via Judaism. But as we saw from last week's passage in chapter 13 and 14, you see that Paul, on hearing that the Jews reject the gospel, says, "Fine, I'm going to preach directly to the Gentiles. I've taken the gospel to market." And as a result, people who weren't culturally Jewish were believing the gospel, they were believing in Jesus and they weren't going via Judaism, they were heading straight for Christianity. And so the result was some of these overzealous bouncers of James from the Jerusalem church come down to the church in Antioch and they start acting like these bounces for the kingdom of God. You can't come in and so a stout begins to arise. But guys tonight, the church is not a nightclub. And Paul and Barnabas were outraged, they got up with Peter, who learned his lesson well as we'd read in Galatians 2, it's believed that this event happened in Galatians 2 that we read about when Paul said he's not acting in line with the gospel, Peter understood the nature of the gospel. And what we see at this first council meeting in the history of the church, the Jerusalem council, is that there's disagreement about nightclub policy, who do we let in? We also see that there is a debate, the question is, well, who's the owner letting in, who does a nightclub owner let in in the first place? And then we see a decision as to what they do moving forward, we guess we'd better do the same. You see, the reading tonight is going to come from Acts chapter 15 verses wonderful, that's where we'll see this disagreement, this debate, this decision, Acts 15. Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers, unless you were circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem and to see the apostles and the elders about this question. The church sent them on their way and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told the Gentiles, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. And this news made all the brothers very glad when they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders to whom they reported everything God had done through them. And then in verse 19, after the big debate, the decision, it is my judgment, therefore, this is from James of the Jerusalem church, it is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood, where Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest of times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. You might have seen that I have seen it on Friday nights when I have been out and about on the town. It is normally a little bit of a ruckus down at the orient there, down at the rocks or a number of Jacksons on George or something like that. Normally, there is a couple of pommy blokes out on the footpath and they go, "What? What you mean I can't come in? What you are saying about my shoes?" And you see these guys there that call on each other, "Gits" or something like that. What are you talking about? You see them arguing with each other and there is a big bouncer like we saw in the video clip and then you see some other guy with a gorgeous, gorgeous walk straight past. He is going, "Why is he getting in? Why is he getting in, brother?" They are asking the question, "On what basis is he accepted?" Now what is really funny at the other end of the spectrum, I see a similar process as a pastor. I get asked these questions all the time, "I've got a friend who doesn't believe in God. Can they come to your church?" I've got a friend that is struggling with homosexuality, would they be accepted into your church? I've got a friend that is a divorcee, would they be allowed to get into your church? Why can these people come in and others can't come in various churches around the places? How come they are allowed to come in? What is Northside's policy? What is their basis for acceptance of letting people into the church? Now isn't it funny that the same issue that has been playing in the church for thousands of years is the same sort of issue that people ask a question today? "On what basis am I accepted?" And chapter 15 is almost a centerpiece of acts because what we had here is that the gospel is almost going to compound in on itself like a black hole. There was a gravity of legalism that was stopping the expansion of this incredible movement and threatened to just turn it into another sect of Judaism. The entire gospel was at stake here and Paul was furious because he's out there trying to advance the gospel to the end of the earth and these deputies are setting up roadblocks. I mean you've been there, how frustrating it is that when you're trying to get on to Epping Road from Lane Cove and there's this funny sign that goes up, you can see it's just about one block's length and if you could just go down the street you can just cut about 10 to 15 minutes off your journey and there's this big sign on there that says local traffic only. And what was handy here is that these bounces for the kingdom were setting up roadblocks I was saying local traffic only and making these new converts to Christianity you take a detour that's as bad as 15 minutes of peak hour traffic in Sydney. Look these were Jewish Christians, these were Christians new converts that were still insisting that new converts are made by the myriad of rules of the Jewish faith, their food laws and their dress laws and for the blokes, their circumcision laws which wasn't a nice thing to have to do. And see here's the thing, a religiously based person will always ask what's the line in the sand, what are we to do on the basis of practice? You just tell me the rule and we'll just do that. And Paul comes up to Jerusalem to the council and he says the gospel is not a matter of practice a gospel is a matter of principle. And that's so encouraging to us because it's far more powerful in ministry, there's so many different situations that we have in life we don't have to keep inventing practices you don't have to come to church every Sunday to work out how I'm going to answer that question to my friend, you want the principles, what is the principle? The real question here at the heart of the Jerusalem council the issue that we had there should these new converts go via Judaism, the real issue, the real question was is the work of Jesus Christ alone enough to beautify you and make you acceptable before God? And really what's saying is can he alone get you into the Roxbury? And for the Judaeos they're saying no you need to be circumcised, look they're doing what every person out there on a Friday night is doing it except it's towards God, they're trying to bribe their way in, they're trying to know the right people, they're trying to take out a membership plan, they're trying to dress the right way in order to be accepted. And Paul says if is the work of Jesus Christ alone enough Paul says yes. And the really funny thing is as one commentator says is that the whole lynch in the fulcrum of which this council balanced on was really a central point here was not so much the content of the gospel but the order of the content of the gospel. And it was in these three key steps because the Judaeos were saying that the order of the gospel is that you believe in God and then you obey and then you're accepted by God. You believe, obey and accepted and Paul says no, no, no, you got it or wrong, it's you believe then you're accepted and because you're accepted you obey. Judaeos is believe, obey and then maybe you'll be accepted Paul saying you believe you're accepted by God and therefore you obey and here's why he went all the way back to Jerusalem. This is why he was going backwards, it's because the difference between this order of steps is not just the difference of a definition, it's the difference of two entirely different religions, a religion of law and a religion of grace. This was serious issues, the issue at the debate, who do we let in, those who are obedient to the law, those who are out trying to bribe their way into the nightclub or those who are just doing the faith thing, that's what got them stirred up initially. And so we go from the early verses one to five into the debate in verses seven through two eighteen, the debate, the question, the bouncers are asking themselves then what is the boss's policy? What's the boss's dress code? What is the thing you see at the RSL, the nice big sign that say you can't wear thongs in or what is the church's dress code as such as far as religiosity is concerned? And in response to that question who is acceptable before God, Peter says hey guys, let's have a little look at a case study here and in verses seven to ten he talks about all the incredible things that God has done. He's saying that in verse seven it was from his own lips that God spoke to the Gentiles. Remember the conversion of Cornelius as his funny dream comes down, talking about what youth once thought was unclean, I've now made clean, don't get bothered in that sort of stuff. God is speaking directly to the Gentiles through Peter and it's Peter now the one and his last appearance in the book of Acts that is up there arguing the case of the gospel and then he says not only that, the Gentiles have received the Holy Spirit directly. The Holy Spirit doesn't seem to have had to go via Judaism. The Holy Spirit took the shortcut to Epping Road and then he says in the clincher he says even the Jews can't obey the law. He's saying guys we were given it, it's part of our natural heritage, it's part of our history, we've had thousands of years to deal with it and analyze it and look at it, we've had years to get used to that and after all of that we understand that even we can't live up to the standards of the law. Why should they? Verse 10 he says now then why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear and in verse 11 he says the gospel in a nutshell, he says in verse 11 no we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved just as they are. He says we're accepted by God on the basis of faith, not what you do, so what's a conclusion that Peter comes to in his argument? It's not that God lets anyone in, what he's saying is that God doesn't determine your acceptance with him on the basis of your culture, on the basis of your history, on the basis of your identity, on the basis of your religiosity, God doesn't determine his acceptance of you on that basis, so why do you as Christians dictate the acceptance of other people on the basis of their culture and their religion and their identity? Can you see how effective it is when you begin to examine, when you begin to examine the gospel not only that begin to examine your own life with the gospel, begin to use it as a principle, it's not just about thinking about the rules, because when you say something is just a rule then you're only ever looking at it from a point of external conformity and you're not uncovering the spiritual roots, you can't do anything about it. If you say to someone hey you're being exclusive, you're not letting people in, what are they going to say to you? I'm not being racist, I'm not being culturally exclusive, it's just going to end in confrontation. But Paul says, and he did the same thing in Galatians with Peter, he says let me show you the reason why you're being exclusive guys. Let me show you why you're being a bouncer in front of the kingdom of heaven and the reason is that you're trying to find something other than Jesus Christ to make you feel accepted. You're adding something to the gospel, Jesus is not ravishing you like he should, Jesus is not enough for you forgetting the gospel, you're forgetting the God has accepted you on the basis, not on your pedigree, but on the basis of Jesus' pedigree, not on your past but Jesus' past, not on your identity but Jesus' identity, not on your background but Jesus' background, not on your performance but Jesus' performance, you're forgetting that guys, and as a result because you're forgetting that you're using your race and your culture to feel righteous, you're saying you're using your race and your culture to feel superior, you're using your race and your culture to put a burden on these guys of unnecessary external conformity, you're using your race and you're using your culture to exclude people. So the owner of the nightclub accepts everyone in on one conditional loan and it's got nothing to do with what you're wearing, it's got nothing to do with how much money you've got in your wallet, it's got nothing to do with what school you went to, it's Rob at Exchange this week in doing his little son bite at the gospel, he said it's the gospel according to the Backstreet Boys, I was so proud of him, nice work Rob, you said God says to us tonight, I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did as long as you love me. Sound bites for the gospel, the nightclub owner doesn't care, this is as long as you love him and so the disagreement was what sort of people we've got to let in, those that are doing their own work or Jesus's work or resting on Jesus's work and the debate was how has God accepted people and what they saw in the debate was that God was making no cultural distinctions for acceptance, so why are you making them? And then we go to the decision, the scene, it's like two kids pulling at either end of a stick, that's what was happening here, the Jude Ais is on one half or one side of the stick and Paul and Peter on the other and they're pulling at each other, one saying you've got to be circumcised, the other one saying no, it's all about faith and it's about grace and big brother James, the brother of Christ himself comes in, he breaks it right up right down the middle and he says in verse 19, my judgment, he says it's my judgment therefore that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. What he's saying is that the Gentiles shouldn't have been forced to accept these cultural conditions in order to be accepted into the faith community and here's the funny thing although they were free from all sorts of requirements in order to be saved, James agreed with that, he doesn't go so far as to say it doesn't matter what they do in the midst of Christian community. He doesn't say it doesn't matter, listen to what he says in verse 20 to 21, he says instead we should write to them telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood, where Moses has been preached in the city from the earliest times and he's read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. Now hang on we go, wait a second here, come on James, which one is it big fella, are they all free over on this side of the stick or is it all legalism on the other side of the stick? Which one is it James, when I was thinking it through, it's a bit like gospel golf, I don't know if any of you guys are golf players here but I don't have a very good set of golf clubs, they're all right, from time to time I'll borrow my dad's clubs because he's got a really cool club, it's called a one wood, if you're not a golf person it means it's got this big fat head on it, it's really hard not to miss the golf ball, in fact it's called big birther. I love mucking around with dad's big birther and sounds a bit weird but before we go out to the golf course, look if you're an avid golfer what do you do, you go to the driving range because one thing I learned with the big birther is that thing can drive that ball for 250 metres, it can drive it out of sight, the only way I know that it's gone somewhere is you can hear the screams of an Ibers or something when it's hit it off in the distance. That thing hits the ball out of the park but when I first got ahold of this thing I was swinging and I could not control this ball for life nor money, I'm either slicing it off to the right or I'm hooking it to the left and after about 100 shots I don't think I've got one right down the middle, it's difficult, it's difficult. So too is it with the gospel, we have a bias and we are always either slicing the gospel off to the right or slicing it off to the left or either slicing it off towards legalism or hooking it off into towards license and licentiousness and going crazy in our life and what Paul is saying here he says in In Galatians that the gospel is a truth, the gospel has a path, the gospel has a trajectory and that's why he says to Peter that you're not orthopedalia, you're not walking straight, that's why he says to Timothy, remember in the last series that you need to ortho tomorrow, you need to cut straight a path when you're handling the gospel, the gospel is a straight path right down the middle between legalism and license and so the key to understanding the implications of the gospel is to see it as a middle way, a third way down the fairway between the mistaken opposites of a hook and a slice, a slice off towards legalism or hook towards licentiousness or a slice off towards law keeping or a hook towards lawlessness, you know if you're asking where do I sit in that spectrum, where do I sit in that, you see the fundamental question is not whether you're doing right or wrong, it's who you're living for, both a lawbreaker and a law truster are living for themselves in order to get their own acceptance and the Christian on the other hand is radically different because they pursue a third way right smack bang down the middle of the fairway, how, look at the cross the gospel shows us a God for the legalistic person that is far too demanding, so demanding that Jesus had to die in order to fulfill the law, if you want to go and try and be a really really good person you're going to find a God that is so demanding you couldn't possibly live up to his standards, see how this whole gracing is not about chucking the law out the window and on the other side for the person who wants to live the crazy life wants to go absolutely nuts, wants to live with a bit of license, they find a God so loving, so wonderful and so accepting that there's no crazy thing that you can do in your life that would ever stop him from loving you and wanting to be with you, we find a God who is far too demanding, a God is far too loving to be on either side the Christians says right down the middle they say is the Christians says because I've got all that I need and desire in embryo form in the smallest of forms that legally I fulfill the law because of Jesus and as far as license is concerned because I can do whatever I want now because I'm not judged on the basis of how well I perform and here's the thing this is what happens the Christian now begins to obey God for God not because they're trying to get stuff out of God, so it's not one way or the other they're not hooking or slicing Christians and the newcomers to the faith to accept the cultural, look are they to accept these newcomers to accept the cultural customs or chuck them out the window, are we to sort of accept cultural customs or throw them out the window, no it's a third way it's fair way Christianity we've got to live right down the middle and this is what James does you see he instructs them and we often miss this, he instructs them to live in a way that doesn't stress or offend other Christians who are culturally different, that's a funny thing he actually sends the instructions to the newbies and says don't offend the old hands at the faith, don't offend the Jews by going do crazy stuff in front of the Jews don't go deliberately eating a ham sandwich in front of your brother because it might upset him and there could hardly be a better case study to illustrate the old Luther proverb that expresses this balance of the gospel he says we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone, we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone that is it means although we're not saved by how we behave although we're not saved by how we're behaved it's saying once we are saved then we are to behave in love and Paul demonstrates that principle in 1 Corinthians 8 where he's dealing with the issues to whether Christians should or shouldn't eat food, sacrifice to idols in front of new pagan converts and he says this 1 Corinthians 8 verse 9 be careful however that the exercise of your freedom doesn't become a stumbling block to the weak for if anyone with a weak conscious sees you who have this knowledge of eating in an idols temple won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols so this weak brother for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge, what's he saying there he's starting to see the principle what is he saying there it's the how do we principle how do we it's his great artist of the 90's and he features on the soundtrack of the night at the Roxbury and how do I says I don't know why you're not fair I give you my love but you don't care so what is right and what is wrong give me a sign what is love baby don't hurt me don't hurt me no more baby don't hurt me don't hurt me no more you see to be to be fair to each other as Christians is not about asking what is right and what is wrong Christian fairness Christian obedience out of love is to desire not to hurt the other so what is James conclusion it's a how do we principle what is love do whatever you like the baby don't hurt don't hurt each other don't hurt each other no more the conclusion on the council the disagreement was how do we let people in who we're going to lend in the debate was that well look God doesn't discriminate and so the decision we see here in Acts 15 that is if God doesn't discriminate in his acceptance of other people if God made absolutely no distinctions then who we to discriminate in our acceptance of other people under the church and because to be a Christian is to receive his indiscriminate love then we choose as Christians to love our brothers and sisters in response to what God has done in our life does that make sense we don't love because we have to we love because we want to and what he's done in our life if if God makes no distinctions then who we to make distinctions guys the church is not meant to be a night club and yet the challenge for us is we're always instinctively putting putting up the ballads every now and then you see because the ungospelized hard will always put up conscious or unconscious ballads and barriers in order to manufacture its own sense of acceptance and significance and its beauty guys although I you know one of the things that's just blowing my mind at the moment and what I'm so thankful for is we we are we are moving to here in this church and we are seeing levels of of diversity in this place levels of acceptance in this place of people from all sorts of backgrounds that is just unseen it was seeing ever increasing racial and socioeconomic and religious and theological diversity at Northside today and yet the Jerusalem Council it's it's it's a good reminder it's it's a good challenge to us Peter's stoush with Paul in Galatians and and and and the Jerusalem Council it shows us whenever we think that we've got the gospel or stitched up we haven't got it at all and we must continually examine ourselves with it and so the challenge tonight the challenge tonight is is universal the challenge tonight is universal but it's personal in its application and what I'm trying to say is you guys have got to work out from the principle of the gospel how this applies to your life tonight. My question is are there signs in your life that you're acting like a kingdom bouncer. I don't know some of the questions could be who do you make a beeline for the minute that you walk in this place of a Sunday night are you afraid of hanging out with the work mates because you might be worried that they make you unclean in the spiritual sense is their language with friends and family in the workplace that suggest an air of incitedness because you're a Christian us and them do you do you inwardly balk at Christians who look like they don't have their life together my hope and prayer this week that look if if one of your friends happens to ask if they haven't already on what basis does your church accept people the basis of language or music or subconsciously or unconsciously exhorting people to be good good persons you know what there's there's going to be no place on the website there's going to be no 10 page PDF that the ministry team have worked out for you know I tell you why because we've got the gospel we've got the principle of how it works and that's what we've seen this passage tonight is that to the that there is that if there is to be a basis of acceptance at the basis of the gospel the god accepts all of us unconditionally and so as a result we accept others in this place unconditionally guys it's not our job to be bouncers for the kingdom of heaven it's not our job to get the clipboards out where if anything where to be the spruquers on the street you know they hand out the funny little a five postcards if you should really check this place out if you want to take the analogy that far got go and start spruquing the church go start spruquing the club look why why why should you why why should we accept others unconditionally how do we become more accepting as a church how do we become even more accepting look guys deep down the gospels is everyone wants to get into the rock spree it's the place where you still feel special it's a place where you feel beautiful it's a place where you feel accepted it's a place where you feel on the inside it's a place where it's the happening place to be i mean that's what a nightclub is all about right i mean people don't go to nightclubs where there's no line outside the door have you ever seen that phenomenon uh you see outside of the gospel you're only ever finding inclusion at the expense of someone else's exclusion you can only ever outside of the gospel you can only ever manufacture acceptance at the cost of someone else's rejection so how does the gospel change that you know look what was jesus doing on the cross look 2344 it says that it was now about the six hour and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour for the sun stopped shining and the curtain of the temple was torn in two and jesus called out with a loud voice father into your hands i commit my spirit and when he had said this he breathed his last temple curtain torn in two oh what's that torn in two jesus jesus he blew open the doors to the rocks spring jesus did what the batabi brothers did you think those guys were the first ones to think of that concept a club where the insiders are really on the outside and the outsiders are really on the inside jesus jesus blew open the ultimate rocks spring jesus brew brew opened the ultimate club and so he started a party that has begun and will continue forever where the outsiders are now on the inside and the insiders and now on the outside and only until you see it the cross jesus becoming ugly so you can become beautiful only when at the cross you see jesus being rejected so you can be accepted only until you see that will you continue in this world and outside of the gospel continue to line up in the cold forever trying to bribe dress right know the right people in order to try and get in jesus extends that invitation to you tonight paul knew that examining the gospel getting it straight was just as crucial to the mission of the church as explaining the gospel and last week we saw he can't beauty queen the gospel that the secret of ministry power is keeping the gospel clear and tonight he's saying to us don't knight club the gospel that is it's we shouldn't make it difficult for people to turn to god and it's all only work if we examine the gospel and with it examine our own hearts with the gospel let's pray heavenly father we thank you for all that jesus has done and lord we pray that as we move into this week we are you three holy spirit i'll make us aware of all the nuances and the idiosyncrasies in our lives in which we're making it difficult we are we want to move out into into our worlds this week not with a sense of guilt or condemnation but of great excitement the father you have flung open the doors for the club that no longer people have to wait outside in the cold and the dark to come in because you've extended an invitation of love and accepted acceptance through your son jesus christ and it's in his name that we pray these things amen