WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.320 So, I remember back 20-some years ago, I was right around 20 or so, and I was not a Christian, 00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:20.620 but I remember going through this period of time where I was looking at various religious 00:00:20.620 --> 00:00:25.199 traditions. I resented the fact that I had grown up never really knowing about any other options 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:31.019 out there other than Christianity. I grew up in the South, and I remember after I spent time really 00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:36.399 trying to compare what a different religions teach and believe, I began to realize that as 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:42.939 reluctant as I was to admit it, Christianity is utterly unique. The first time that it ever really 00:00:42.939 --> 00:00:50.519 occurred to me how different the Christian religion is from all other religions and philosophies, 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:55.780 and the reason that Christianity is different is the truth at the heart of the faith, which is the 00:00:55.780 --> 00:01:03.500 gospel. The gospel makes Christianity unlike any other faith or worldview out there, and the gospel 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:10.680 is essentially the good news about Jesus and what he's done and the kingdom of God. And when we talk 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.760 at Church of the Advent, some of you are newer to the church, we talk a lot about this church about 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:22.060 wanting to be a gospel-centered church, and that kind of has a buzzword feel to it, so it's easy to say 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:28.300 that a lot, not really know what it actually means. But what we mean by that is that we want to keep the 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:34.420 gospel at the very center of all we do. If you're around here for any length of time, you'll hear us say 00:01:34.420 --> 00:01:41.040 things like this. As we look at the city of Washington, D.C. and the surrounding region, the DMV as many of us 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:48.840 call it, as we look at this area, we want to see loneliness eradicated. We want to see neighborhoods 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:55.200 become more vibrant and more communal, where people know each other and are involved in each 00:01:55.200 --> 00:02:03.060 other's lives. We want to see systems, both local and national and international, become more just. 00:02:03.060 --> 00:02:13.560 We want to see workplaces become more humane. We want to see racial healing accelerated. We want to 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:22.120 see institutional corruption cease. We want to see people becoming more and more truly human. 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:29.580 If you want to know what kind of city we envision, that's what we envision. To be gospel-centered means 00:02:29.580 --> 00:02:35.980 that we keep at the very center of that, the belief, the conviction, that all of this is only possible 00:02:35.980 --> 00:02:44.680 through the gospel. It's not possible as a result of mere human effort. The reason that it's important 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:50.520 to come back to this again and again and again is because it is alarmingly easy for individuals and churches 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:57.000 to veer away from the gospel. To reach a point where we continue talking about the gospel, but in practice, 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:02.659 we begin to veer away from it. And history is actually filled with examples of churches that 00:03:02.659 --> 00:03:08.139 have done just that. You'll never hear of these churches because almost all of them died. 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:14.740 So the question that we're asking this morning is, how do you know if a church is gospel-centered? 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:21.319 How do we know that this church is truly gospel-centered in practice? And for the answer to that question, 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:25.699 we're going to look at Acts chapter 15 and what is commonly called the Jerusalem Council. 00:03:25.699 --> 00:03:31.019 You don't often hear this text preached on because it's pretty convoluted in some ways, 00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:38.459 but it's very important. This is a gathering that happened around 48 to 49 AD of early church leaders 00:03:38.459 --> 00:03:45.079 to really decide the future course of the church. And it's a defining moment. The question on the table 00:03:45.079 --> 00:03:52.439 is this, will this growing movement of Jesus' followers continue as a gospel-centered movement, 00:03:52.439 --> 00:04:01.840 or will it become just another religion, just another sect within Judaism? And so first what 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:07.500 I'm going to do is unpack the issue because, as I said, you really need to understand what's at stake 00:04:07.500 --> 00:04:13.740 here to get why it matters. And then after I do that, we're going to look at three hallmarks 00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:22.439 of a gospel-centered church. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. And we come to a passage 00:04:22.439 --> 00:04:26.579 like this, and it would be easy just to skip right over it and to think that it doesn't matter or that 00:04:26.579 --> 00:04:32.680 it doesn't matter for me right now with everything I have on my mind. And yet so often, Lord, what we 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:39.879 think we need and what you know we need are two very different things. And we pray for your agenda 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:45.480 this morning to be preeminent. We pray that you, through your Holy Spirit, would lead and guide 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:51.740 this time, these words, our hearts. We pray this not only that we would benefit from it, 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:56.180 but that you would be glorified. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:04:57.939 --> 00:05:01.579 So first of all, let me unpack the issue of the Jerusalem Council. 00:05:01.579 --> 00:05:09.359 The first Christians were almost all Jews. Because of that, almost all of the early Christians 00:05:09.359 --> 00:05:16.360 had been circumcised, if they were men, and they had all grown up following the ceremonial 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:22.500 Levitical law, what some of the people in this passage refer to as the law of Moses. It's the 00:05:22.500 --> 00:05:28.219 ceremonial Levitical law. And so what happened is they would grow up following this law, getting 00:05:28.220 --> 00:05:31.920 circumcised, they would become Christians, and then they would just keep following the 00:05:31.920 --> 00:05:37.420 ceremonial law, because that's what all proper people do. That's what anybody who's civilized 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:44.440 does. But then the gospel begins to spread beyond the Jewish borders. It begins to bring in more and 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:51.860 more Gentile, meaning non-Jewish, converts. And so the question arose in the church, do these people 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:58.180 also need to get circumcised? Do they also need to abide by the ceremonial cleanliness, 00:05:58.220 --> 00:06:05.560 the Levitical law? And so in Acts 15 verse 1, that's the context for these men who come down 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:11.060 from Judea, and they're teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom 00:06:11.060 --> 00:06:18.020 of Moses, you cannot be saved. A lot of people thought that. In other words, if you want a secure 00:06:18.020 --> 00:06:23.660 relationship with God, if you want to know that you know that you know that God loves and embraces you, 00:06:23.660 --> 00:06:29.980 it's not enough to believe in Jesus, you also need to get circumcised and come under the Levitical law. 00:06:30.220 --> 00:06:36.680 You want to be clean, don't you? This is how to be clean before God. And you say, well, what's the 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:41.800 big deal about circumcision? What does that even mean? What a weird thing, and what a frankly brutal 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.940 and upsetting thing to require of your people. What's the big deal? If you know the history of 00:06:47.939 --> 00:06:52.819 circumcision back in Genesis chapter 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham. He says, I'm going to make 00:06:52.819 --> 00:06:58.279 a covenant with you and all of your descendants, all of your offspring. And the way that you made 00:06:58.279 --> 00:07:07.079 a covenant in the ancient world is that you would reenact the penalty that would befall anyone who 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:13.060 broke the covenant, right? So you take animal, and it was very bloody. And in fact, making a covenant in 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:17.780 the Hebrew actually is literally translated to cut a covenant. Because what you would do is, you would 00:07:17.780 --> 00:07:22.300 cut an animal in half, you would lay the pieces down on the ground, and you would walk between them. 00:07:22.339 --> 00:07:27.500 And you were symbolically saying, if I fail to uphold my end of the covenant, may this happen to me. 00:07:27.500 --> 00:07:35.399 May I be cut off. May blood be spilled. May I be cut off from you. May I be cut off from any future 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:42.779 relationship or benefits that I might gain from you. It's over if I break the covenant, right? And so then 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:49.059 God in Genesis 17 commands that all Moses' male descendants be circumcised. And of course, what is 00:07:49.059 --> 00:07:56.339 this a symbol of? Blood being spilled. Being cut off, right? This is the meaning of the symbol. If I 00:07:56.339 --> 00:08:02.899 break the covenant with God, may I be cut off. May blood be spilled. And so along with circumcision then, 00:08:02.899 --> 00:08:09.899 there comes this whole array of ceremonial laws and cleanliness laws that they had to keep in order to 00:08:09.899 --> 00:08:15.739 be faithful to the covenant. A circumcised person who's a covenant person keeps themselves clean, 00:08:16.179 --> 00:08:20.599 ritually clean, through doing all of these things. You can read about it if you want in Leviticus. And 00:08:20.599 --> 00:08:25.919 in fact, at some point, I would love to do a series in Leviticus. And I'm not even kidding. It's 00:08:25.919 --> 00:08:31.459 fascinating. That's not a joke. I would love to. And so at some point, we're going to do it. Maybe 00:08:31.459 --> 00:08:37.740 Jeff's going to do it. But it's a fascinating book. There are all kinds of regulations in Leviticus 00:08:37.740 --> 00:08:41.899 about food, what you can eat, what you can't eat. You know, shellfish, pork, things like that. 00:08:42.179 --> 00:08:47.019 All kinds of regulations about clothing and certain fabrics that you had to stay away from and mixing 00:08:47.019 --> 00:08:51.860 fabrics and lots of regulations about things that you can touch and things that you can't touch. 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:56.199 Things that you can do and things that you can't do. There are all kinds of regulations for every 00:08:56.200 --> 00:09:02.200 aspect of life. It feels very OCD to read it. It's like everything is regulated, right? And there's 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:07.400 this obsession with cleanliness. And there are all kinds of things that would make you spiritually 00:09:07.400 --> 00:09:12.700 unclean. And if that happened, you had to go, you had to purify yourself again before you could 00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:19.560 rejoin the assembly. So it's very important. It dominated Jewish life. So the message was, if you 00:09:19.560 --> 00:09:25.540 want a secure relationship with God, if you want to make sure that God will never cut you off, 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:32.120 then you need to believe in Jesus, but you also need to get circumcised and you need to stay 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:37.820 clean by keeping the ceremonial law. Right? So that's why they say in the midst of this debate, 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:41.879 the party of the Pharisees says, yeah, it's great that they're converting to Jesus, but we need to 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:48.060 make them get circumcised. We need to make them keep the law of Moses. Peter stands up and says, no, 00:09:48.059 --> 00:09:56.779 you've misunderstood what's happening. Verses 10 and 11, he says, why are you putting God to the test 00:09:56.779 --> 00:10:04.219 by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 00:10:05.179 --> 00:10:09.699 He says, listen, I have seen these Gentiles. I have seen them receive the same Holy Spirit 00:10:09.700 --> 00:10:18.440 that we have received. Now, why are you after the fact wanting to put this? Isn't the point of that 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:23.340 covenant faithfulness to get the blessings of the covenant? And yet they're getting the blessings of 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:27.940 the covenant, the Holy Spirit, without even keeping the covenant. He says, why are you going to put a 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:34.460 yoke on their neck? And he says, let's just be honest about this yoke. He says, God never blessed 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:39.000 anyone. This is the implication of his words. God never blessed anyone because they kept the 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:44.240 covenant. Our ancestors, let's just be honest about it, they were covenant breakers. They couldn't bear this. 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:49.440 He's like, I know the truth about you when you go home at night. You're a covenant breaker too. 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:57.139 We can't bear this yoke. And the message is, if we try to get these Gentile Christians to come under the 00:10:57.139 --> 00:11:02.759 law and start trying to keep themselves clean in all of these ways, we're setting them up to fail. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:08.620 We're setting them up to be covenant breakers as well. So here is the real question of this 00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:16.000 passage. How could God save and bless and pour his Holy Spirit out on covenant breakers? 00:11:16.820 --> 00:11:23.799 How is that possible? You know, you can imagine these Jews saying, well, I thought circumcision mattered. 00:11:24.899 --> 00:11:29.299 I thought having a clean heart mattered. Are you telling me that none of this matters? 00:11:29.299 --> 00:11:37.979 And Peter would have said, no, you've got it all wrong. It actually matters more than you can possibly 00:11:37.979 --> 00:11:47.039 imagine. And it matters to God more than you can fathom. This is why the gospel is such good news. 00:11:48.679 --> 00:11:55.159 Right? All human beings, essentially, he's saying, are covenant breakers. No one can ever live up to 00:11:55.159 --> 00:12:03.439 these standards of cleanliness. And because of God being a just God, blood does need to be spilled. 00:12:05.539 --> 00:12:11.500 Somebody does need to be cut off. But the good news of the gospel is that blood has been spilled. 00:12:12.719 --> 00:12:18.360 Right? That someone has been cut off. And he would have pointed to the cross. On the cross, 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:22.759 Jesus' blood was spilled. Jesus was cut off. You say, why did the cross have to happen? 00:12:23.940 --> 00:12:30.480 Why did his blood need to be spilled? Why did he need to hear his father or sense his father turn his 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:34.820 back on him? Why did he need to go to this experience of crying out and saying, my God, my God, why have you 00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:42.680 forsaken me? And hear nothing in response. It's because he was fulfilling the requirements of the 00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:50.120 covenant on behalf of all the covenant breakers. Dying a bloody death. Being cut off. And so what 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:54.019 Peter is saying is, if you understand the implications of the cross, you would understand 00:12:54.019 --> 00:12:59.620 that circumcision is no longer necessary. It's pointless. The thing that it was pointing to 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:07.039 has happened. It's obviated. It's irrelevant at this point. Likewise, the Levitical law, the ceremonial 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:10.979 law, it was all about being clean, but the water never made you clean. 00:13:12.679 --> 00:13:18.279 And he says, faith is what makes you clean. Faith has made these Gentiles' hearts clean. And it's 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:24.899 the kind of cleanliness that we can't even dream of. Right? This is the gospel. The only way to 00:13:24.899 --> 00:13:30.039 become spiritually clean and to know that your relationship with God is secure is by believing 00:13:30.039 --> 00:13:38.859 and receiving the grace of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. Now, this passage goes on, 00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:43.460 and, but what I want to do is I want to, I want to kind of draw out from what we just said, 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:49.800 three implications, three hallmarks, if you will, of a gospel-centered church. In other words, 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:55.240 how do we know that here we are 2,000 some years later? How do we know that we are still in line 00:13:55.240 --> 00:14:02.120 with what happened at 48 or 49 AD among these church leaders? How do we know that we are in that 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:10.360 stream of truth? Three hallmarks of a gospel-centered church. The first hallmark is that there is a 00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:17.159 culture in the church of spiritual freedom. A culture of spiritual freedom. At the beginning 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:21.039 of this, I said that I had discovered that Christianity was utterly unique. It's unlike 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:26.620 any other religion and worldview. And here's why. Every other religion, every other worldview, 00:14:26.620 --> 00:14:33.620 every other philosophy out there gives you a way to achieve your salvation, a way to prove 00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:39.039 that you are worthy. So whether it's the eightfold path or karma and reincarnation or doing more good 00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:45.980 works than bad works, all of these are ways to achieve your salvation. And you say, well, I'm not a 00:14:45.980 --> 00:14:51.299 subscriber to the secular, to the traditional religions. You know, I'm actually not really a 00:14:51.299 --> 00:14:55.080 religious person, and so that's why I'm not a religious person. I don't need somebody else to tell me 00:14:55.080 --> 00:15:01.700 how to live my life. Oh, yes, you do. Don't be so quick to exempt yourself, right? The secular culture 00:15:01.700 --> 00:15:07.840 also does this. And it's every bit as religious, right? So even the most non-religious person, right? 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:14.460 We live in a culture, and it has certain assumptions about what life is about. And our culture focuses not 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:19.920 necessarily on self-salvation, like the traditional religions. We would call it something more like 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:25.719 self-actualization, right? There's a tremendous pressure in our culture. I was just talking to 00:15:25.719 --> 00:15:31.000 somebody about this a few weeks ago. There's a tremendous pressure in our culture to identify 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:38.199 and express your authentic self to the world. This is who I really am, and I'm getting it out there. 00:15:38.959 --> 00:15:45.539 In fact, I would say that in our culture, you are, we are all morally obligated to discover who we 00:15:45.539 --> 00:15:52.959 truly are. Now, we don't talk about being clean and unclean. That sounds very archaic. But the message 00:15:52.959 --> 00:16:02.759 in our culture is, you need to cleanse yourself from all external influences, right? Who have clouded or 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:11.539 obscured your true self, right? You need to cleanse yourself from influences like tradition, like parents, 00:16:11.539 --> 00:16:18.159 like other institutions, right? Like the church or various other religions, these things that have 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:24.459 really oppressed you and oppressed your ability to be true to yourself. And the message is that 00:16:24.459 --> 00:16:29.360 unless you do that, you are inauthentic, which is one of the ways that our modern culture says 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:34.179 unclean, right? To be inauthentic is to be unclean. You're a sellout. 00:16:34.179 --> 00:16:41.419 And so what we are called to do is to cleanse ourselves from these pressures, these external 00:16:41.419 --> 00:16:47.979 influences, and then to construct a true identity that is based solely on our own inner world. That 00:16:47.979 --> 00:16:53.839 is the only way to know that it's really you. And what that means is you need to go out and then find 00:16:53.839 --> 00:16:59.899 the right labels to describe who you are. You need to find the right groups to identify with. You need to 00:16:59.899 --> 00:17:06.079 then find ways to express that identity boldly to the world, hopefully gaining some amount of 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:10.980 affirmation in the process. And this is what I would call the kind of post-modern hero's journey, 00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:18.200 right? The modern hero's journey is the journey of self-liberation, liberating your true self 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:26.740 from oppressive outside forces, decolonizing your identity. It's entirely up to you to construct an 00:17:26.740 --> 00:17:32.720 identity and a life that is meaningful and fulfilling. And the person I was talking to said, 00:17:32.859 --> 00:17:38.420 yeah, that's exhausting, right? She's not a believer. She's not a Christian. She's kind of been 00:17:38.420 --> 00:17:43.839 immersed in this world. She goes, I just feel crushed by this pressure. And we were talking about 00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:48.980 how even though she completely disagrees with what I believe is a Christian pastor on almost every issue, 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:55.559 she would be the first to say, this is as oppressive, as legalistic, as rigorous as any religion. 00:17:56.740 --> 00:18:01.640 Right? It's the same. And the problem with all of this is the same. It's all up to you. 00:18:02.579 --> 00:18:07.039 You have to bear the burden of your own salvation, your own self-actualization, 00:18:07.420 --> 00:18:11.819 your own self-liberation. You have to construct it all. You have to make it happen. 00:18:12.859 --> 00:18:20.579 Only the gospel says that salvation, identity, meaning, purpose, that those are not things that 00:18:20.579 --> 00:18:28.119 we have to achieve. And the reason is that Jesus has already done all of that on our behalf. He's 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:35.460 accomplished salvation on the cross for us all. And because Jesus has accomplished it, it's secure, 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:41.240 it's done, it's finished, it's complete. So it's not something that you can achieve. It's something that 00:18:41.240 --> 00:18:49.220 can only be received. And so when I say a culture of spiritual freedom, what I mean is a culture where 00:18:49.220 --> 00:18:57.160 people know and you are reminded on a daily basis that your relationship with God is secure, 00:18:57.579 --> 00:19:04.240 no matter what, through faith. Right? Knowing that you are loved and accepted by God, that you are 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:11.360 infinitely valuable, that you are infinitely worthy to God. Because that's why Jesus went to the cross. 00:19:11.559 --> 00:19:16.779 That's why we spend so much time talking about the cross, looking at the cross, meditating on the cross. 00:19:16.779 --> 00:19:23.299 It's all because of the cross, all because of grace. The problem is, I'll say this last point 00:19:23.299 --> 00:19:28.879 before we move on, even if a church says they believe in this, even if you hear great gospel 00:19:28.879 --> 00:19:35.339 preaching every Sunday, it's easy for other things to slip in. And it's easy for there to be a 00:19:35.339 --> 00:19:39.319 disconnect, right? It's on the flyer, it's on the website, it's on the promotional lit, it's in the 00:19:39.319 --> 00:19:44.420 sermons. But in the day-in, day-out life of the congregation, there are other things at work, 00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:51.220 right? So in some churches, they preach the gospel, they preach grace. But everybody knows, 00:19:51.300 --> 00:19:57.000 anybody who's anybody knows, that if you really want God to love you, you also need to avoid 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:01.080 drinking and smoking and dancing and gambling and R-rated movies, right? Some of us grew up in churches 00:20:01.080 --> 00:20:07.940 like that. In some churches, they preach the gospel, you hear the gospel every Sunday, but everybody 00:20:07.940 --> 00:20:13.200 who's really in the know in the church knows that if you really want God to love you, you need to be 00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:19.480 passionate about social justice, right? Somebody told me about a church that they used to attend 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:24.559 down south, and I won't name it because that's not the point, but it was a church where the pastor 00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:29.819 would regularly say things like this, if you drive into our parking lot and you have a Clinton sticker 00:20:29.819 --> 00:20:33.660 on your bumper, I'm just going to tell you right now, you're probably not going to feel very welcome 00:20:33.660 --> 00:20:40.279 in this church. So he preached the gospel. This is a gospel-centered church. It was on the website, 00:20:40.279 --> 00:20:47.000 gospel-centered church. What's the underlying message? True Christians, real Christians, 00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:50.799 right? If you really want to believe in God, if you really want to be welcome in the church, 00:20:50.899 --> 00:20:56.019 you need to be a Republican, right? So there are all kinds of ways on both sides of the aisle that 00:20:56.019 --> 00:21:02.660 that kind of thing plays out. Gospel-centered churches cultivate a culture of spiritual freedom 00:21:02.660 --> 00:21:10.620 where grace and grace alone sits at the center of our spiritual life. That's the first implication. 00:21:12.279 --> 00:21:17.720 Implication number two, what's the second hallmark of a gospel-centered church? Cultural openness. 00:21:18.700 --> 00:21:23.840 Cultural openness. And this next point is really related. It's a kind of an outgrowth of the point 00:21:23.840 --> 00:21:28.380 that I just made. Gospel-centered churches are culturally open because they are spiritually free. 00:21:28.380 --> 00:21:35.820 By this, I mean that the gospel is not tied to any particular culture, right? It's what you might 00:21:35.820 --> 00:21:43.720 call transcultural. So the gospel is meant to be planted like a seed in all different kinds of 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:52.220 cultures. Ajith Fernando is a Sri Lankan missionary and Bible teacher, and he makes this point. He's 00:21:52.220 --> 00:21:56.920 looking at this passage and he says, you know, just as some of the leaders in Jerusalem thought that the 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:03.500 Gentiles should become culturally Jewish in order to become true Christians, he says there are many 00:22:03.500 --> 00:22:09.700 missionaries and evangelists who have made the same mistake throughout history, right? Expecting the 00:22:09.700 --> 00:22:18.620 converts to adopt the culture and the language as well as the religious beliefs and the gospel. And this 00:22:18.620 --> 00:22:26.500 is the, you know, we often talk about confusing Christian missions with cultural imperialism. And, you know, 00:22:26.500 --> 00:22:33.380 this is true of our own tradition, and we have to admit and fully own that, right? That often in other 00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:39.480 parts of the world, you had missionaries who are coming from the same country and culture as the 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:47.880 colonial rulers in a given area, right? Now, there's a way of seeing that where you say that amidst all of 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:54.279 the evil and the brokenness that may have been happening, God is not hindered by those things. And amen to that. 00:22:54.279 --> 00:23:01.059 Absolutely believe that. But we also don't want to whitewash that. We want to recognize the reality 00:23:01.059 --> 00:23:06.920 of that, the damage that it does when you associate a particular theology or a particular religion, 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:14.099 right? Especially the gospel with colonial rule, slaveholding, right? The damage that that does. 00:23:15.700 --> 00:23:21.779 Gospel-centered churches understand that the gospel is like a grapevine. You know, and I use this 00:23:21.779 --> 00:23:27.399 illustration a lot because I think it really makes the point clear. You can plant the same grape, 00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:35.940 the same variety, in different places, in different regions, and that same grape, it's the same grape, 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:43.160 will produce very different wines with distinct qualities that result from the specific locale, 00:23:43.160 --> 00:23:50.920 right? The quality of the soil, the climate, right? The humidity, how much sun it gets, right? So you'll 00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:56.840 have one side of the hill versus the other side of the hill, same grape, producing different wines based 00:23:56.840 --> 00:24:03.660 on the sun exposure alone. And this is in the wine world called the terroir, right? And in the same way, 00:24:03.740 --> 00:24:10.740 when the gospel is planted in different cultures, it is meant to produce culturally distinct forms of 00:24:10.740 --> 00:24:16.759 Christianity. Versions of Christianity that have a kind of terroir to them, right? So there's not just 00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:22.380 meant to be American Christianity, there's meant to be an African Christianity, there's meant to be 00:24:22.380 --> 00:24:27.700 within African Christianity all different sub-varieties, right? Depending on the country and the culture 00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:32.640 you're in, and there are many of them, right? There's meant to be a Chinese Christianity, Korean 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:38.220 Christianity, Arab Christianity, there's meant to be all of these different versions of Christianity. 00:24:38.220 --> 00:24:42.920 Christianity. The theology is hopefully the same. The gospel is at the center of all of them. 00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:50.480 But the terroir, the feel, is different. The expression is culturally distinct, all rooted in 00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:56.319 the same vine of Jesus Christ, right? So this is the vision for the gospel going out to the world, 00:24:56.319 --> 00:25:03.319 right? And it's part of what makes it so beautiful. Right now, we are recognizing and talking a lot about 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:09.539 the fact that Church of the Advent is a culturally white church. And, you know, that's to some extent 00:25:09.539 --> 00:25:13.159 unavoidable. I mean, it would be very, you know, people say, well, why can't we just undo that? It's 00:25:13.159 --> 00:25:19.119 like, well, you know, every church has a dominant culture, you know? And so there's no way to not have 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:23.419 that, right? And so no matter what you do, you're going to make cultural choices that are going to 00:25:23.419 --> 00:25:30.000 appeal more to some people than other people. The conversation that we're having, though, is recognizing that 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:36.160 this is true about the gospel, are there unnecessary barriers that we're creating, right? Are there ways 00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:42.119 that we are unnecessarily creating barriers for people who live in and around this community 00:25:42.119 --> 00:25:47.859 that are, and are there changes that we can make to reach more people with the gospel, 00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:54.420 right? Are we blind to things that are creating barriers for the gospel to go out? That's the 00:25:54.420 --> 00:25:59.539 question that I think a whole lot about these days. But this is the second thing. You have spiritual 00:25:59.539 --> 00:26:05.019 freedom and you have cultural openness. And then the third and the final quality of gospel-centered 00:26:05.019 --> 00:26:14.220 churches is this. They are marked by compassionate orthodoxy. Compassionate orthodoxy. To me, the most 00:26:14.220 --> 00:26:21.539 moving section of Acts chapter 15 is the place where you see the concern that these Jerusalem leaders 00:26:21.539 --> 00:26:28.399 have, the apostles have, for these Gentile converts and for the Jews who are feeling such 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:34.220 attention over circumcision and the law, right? They're concerned, and they write the letter, 00:26:34.280 --> 00:26:39.060 they're concerned that they're being troubled, that their hearts are being troubled, that they're 00:26:39.060 --> 00:26:44.960 being thrown into distress, and that they're questioning their salvation. And under that concern 00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:51.680 is tremendous compassion. You know, they say in verse 28, it seemed good to me, it seemed good to the 00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:57.019 Holy Spirit and to us, which by the way, can you even imagine saying that? You know, it seemed good 00:26:57.019 --> 00:27:02.320 to the Spirit and to us. We were talking with the Spirit, we all agreed. That's an amazing thing to 00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:08.440 say, and they're not being flippant. So it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. The Holy Spirit is 00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:18.840 leading this, right? To lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. One of their main, so they 00:27:18.840 --> 00:27:28.680 have two concerns here. Two main concerns. Theological orthodoxy, compassion. Theological orthodoxy, 00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:37.299 compassion, love, tenderness, understanding, empathy. On the one hand, they know that if these Gentile 00:27:37.299 --> 00:27:42.919 Christians start going to the same church as the Jewish Christians, and they live wildly different 00:27:42.919 --> 00:27:49.299 lifestyles, that's going to scandalize many of the Jewish Christians. And they know what's down the road 00:27:49.299 --> 00:27:57.019 from that, Gentile churches and Jewish churches. They know that's coming, unless they intervene, right? 00:27:57.059 --> 00:28:01.519 So they know that's a concern. On the other hand, they don't want to impose anything on these new 00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:07.279 believers that is going to be unnecessarily burdensome and discouraging for them, which is 00:28:07.299 --> 00:28:11.419 an amazing thing for them to be caring about. You know, you would think they would just say, oh, you 00:28:11.419 --> 00:28:15.240 need to get with the program. If you really appreciate what Jesus did for you, then you will 00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:19.799 blah, blah, blah. They don't say that. They say that the point of the gospel is that you would be free, 00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:26.460 and we would be very sensitive to any burden that we put on you. Jesus, after all, says, my yoke is easy, 00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:33.480 my burden is light. They want to make sure that's true. So they agree to give four basic 00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:38.759 prohibitions at James' suggestion. And what you need to understand about these, we don't have time 00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:43.079 to get into them in depth, but these would have been very reasonable to the Gentile Christians. 00:28:43.339 --> 00:28:46.079 These would have been things, if they read them, they'd be like, oh, oh yeah, okay. 00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:52.380 Okay, well, we thought it was going to be a longer list. Oh, yes, absolutely. That's how they would 00:28:52.380 --> 00:28:58.539 have reacted, right? If you look at these four items, there's some quibbling over how exactly to 00:28:58.539 --> 00:29:03.980 translate and understand them. But what's most likely is, in part, they're prohibiting some of 00:29:03.980 --> 00:29:09.139 the pagan temple practices that these people would have already given up after their conversion. 00:29:10.659 --> 00:29:17.200 Right? Blood, like drinking blood, right? Or, you know, kind of blood rituals, right? Most of these 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:21.039 Gentiles would have already given that up, right? But they're saying, hey, just make sure that you 00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:25.899 don't go back and do that anymore, because that's going to really, really scandalize your Jewish 00:29:25.900 --> 00:29:31.580 brothers and sisters, right? Meat or eating food that had been ritually strangled, don't do that. 00:29:31.640 --> 00:29:37.680 That could also refer to infanticide, a common way to practice infanticide and abortive practice 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:41.160 would have been to strangle, right? So it could very well mean that as well. They say, 00:29:41.500 --> 00:29:45.140 that was very common in the ancient world. They're saying, Christians, don't do that. We don't believe 00:29:45.140 --> 00:29:49.340 in that. We don't believe in that. So don't do that, right? That's going to scandalize people. 00:29:49.540 --> 00:29:53.080 Now, they're not saying you're going to lose your salvation if you do this. Their concern is, 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:58.199 even though you will technically not lose your salvation, that is, if you're a Christian, 00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:03.619 this is something that you don't do, right? And then if we look at the other two prohibitions, 00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:10.039 right? You look at the other two prohibitions of idolatry, eating food sacrificed to idols, 00:30:10.099 --> 00:30:15.619 which is essentially idolatry, and then sexual immorality. These are just basic, almost summative 00:30:15.619 --> 00:30:22.439 aspects of God's moral law, which does still apply to Christians. You say, wait, I thought that you just 00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:25.860 said that we were free from the law. And I want to get into this. It's a bit of a side point, but it's 00:30:25.860 --> 00:30:29.160 worth it. We've got an extra minute or two. It's worth it, okay? I don't know when we're going to come 00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:35.140 back to this. A lot of people accuse Christians, and listen, I can't tell you how many times people 00:30:35.140 --> 00:30:40.519 have said this to me. Often it's in a conversation around sexuality and sexual ethics. And people will 00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:44.580 say, this is the thing I hate about Christians. You guys pick and choose what laws from the Old 00:30:44.580 --> 00:30:48.799 Testament you like to follow. You're obsessed with sex, and so anything in Leviticus that talks about 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.480 sex and what you can and can't do. You're willing to apply that. But what if I want to eat shellfish? 00:30:53.079 --> 00:30:56.819 What about mixing fabrics? Why don't you apply those laws as well? And there have been entire 00:30:56.819 --> 00:31:03.339 books about these issues written from that frame of reasoning, right? The problem is that people who 00:31:03.339 --> 00:31:07.099 are reasoning that way don't understand the difference between the ceremonial law and the 00:31:07.099 --> 00:31:13.259 moral law, right? The ceremonial law, these are all of the ritual cleanliness laws. These are the ways 00:31:13.259 --> 00:31:18.659 that you would keep yourself clean ritually. And following the death and resurrection of Jesus, 00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:23.099 they're no longer necessary. So all that stuff about shellfish, mixing fabrics, or whatever, 00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:26.960 all of that is no longer necessary because of the cross, right? That's what we're talking about 00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:33.480 here. That's what the council is all about. The moral law is a different category. The moral law, 00:31:33.539 --> 00:31:37.919 when it talks about things like, you know, the Ten Commandments, idolatry, sexual immorality, 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:43.500 the moral law, that is a reflection of the character of God. It is not a reflection of the character of 00:31:43.500 --> 00:31:48.039 God to say, don't eat shellfish, right? It's a reflection of the character of God to say, 00:31:48.039 --> 00:31:55.659 don't worship other gods, right? Be faithful. And by the way, the connection between sexual 00:31:55.659 --> 00:32:00.779 immorality and idolatry is so strong in the Bible, they're so related, that actually in the Old 00:32:00.779 --> 00:32:04.500 Testament and the Hebrew, it's the same word. The Bible uses the same word to describe both 00:32:04.500 --> 00:32:09.700 things, right? So it's very easy to understand why then they would put this in the list. Oh, 00:32:09.779 --> 00:32:14.500 and of course, no longer practice idolatry, no longer practice sexual immorality, 00:32:14.500 --> 00:32:19.299 right? And there were lots of instances in the early church where you'd have Gentile converts 00:32:19.299 --> 00:32:25.180 come in and they'd have two, three, four wives. And that's why they had to write in places like 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:28.859 1 Timothy 3, hey, if somebody's going to be a leader in the church, they can't have multiple wives. 00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:34.680 They need to only have one wife. It was this whole process of re-enculturating Gentile converts. 00:32:35.539 --> 00:32:39.619 And the Jerusalem council in this decree that went out played a big role in that. 00:32:39.619 --> 00:32:47.519 How do you enculturate pagan Gentiles who have become Jesus followers into the Christian community, 00:32:47.659 --> 00:32:55.099 right? So it required an enormous amount of discernment, right? So the reason the moral law 00:32:55.099 --> 00:32:58.779 still applies to Christians is because this is a reflection not only of God's own character, 00:32:58.879 --> 00:33:03.039 but it's a reflection of the kind of character that God desires for all human beings to have. 00:33:03.659 --> 00:33:08.599 The point of the gospel is that we would then be able to be sanctified and one day be able to fulfill 00:33:08.599 --> 00:33:13.740 the moral law, exceed the moral law, make the moral law no longer necessary. 00:33:14.980 --> 00:33:20.179 That's the point. And that's the difference. To go further would be to go in a different direction 00:33:20.179 --> 00:33:24.059 homiletically. I'm not going to do that. The main point I want you to see 00:33:24.059 --> 00:33:32.779 is the combination of orthodoxy and compassion as a mark of the gospel. Francis Schaeffer, who has 00:33:32.779 --> 00:33:40.579 deeply formed me, in the God who is there, says this. He says, there's nothing more ugly than 00:33:40.579 --> 00:33:47.519 orthodoxy without compassion. And I fully agree. You know, the gospel is a lot like a song. 00:33:48.500 --> 00:33:52.539 I know I've probably said this before, but, you know, a song is really words and melody. 00:33:53.399 --> 00:33:58.740 If you have just the words, not really the song. If you have just the melody, put any words in, 00:33:58.740 --> 00:34:02.440 it could be a different song, right? You need both words and melody for a song to really be a song. 00:34:02.779 --> 00:34:09.380 And in the same way, there is such a thing as gospel truth, the words, and a gospel tone, 00:34:10.039 --> 00:34:15.800 right? The melody, the melody of the gospel. The truth is the message itself. Here's what Jesus 00:34:15.800 --> 00:34:23.539 has done for you. The tone, which is the way that message is delivered, is a tone of compassion. 00:34:24.139 --> 00:34:30.900 It's a tone of sincerity. It's a tone of humility. It's a tone of love. I would go so far as to say, 00:34:30.900 --> 00:34:38.240 if you speak the words of the gospel without any love, without any compassion, there's a point at 00:34:38.240 --> 00:34:43.320 which I question whether or not it is the gospel that you're proclaiming. You're singing a different 00:34:43.320 --> 00:34:50.000 song at that point, right? It's vitally important that we have the right theology. I don't want you 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.660 to go away and say, Tommy said that the theology doesn't matter. No, it's vitally important that we 00:34:54.659 --> 00:35:00.739 have the right theology. But if we wield that theology like a hammer, which is so common, 00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:06.639 and forgive me, I'm conservative theologically, but man, a lot of my conservative brothers and 00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:12.759 sisters, they wield their theology like a hammer. If you use it to crush people, then you have lost 00:35:12.759 --> 00:35:20.679 something essential to the gospel. Gospel-centered churches are marked by at least these three 00:35:20.679 --> 00:35:25.579 qualities. They have a culture of spiritual freedom centered on grace and grace alone. There 00:35:25.579 --> 00:35:33.919 is no implicit, if you really want God to love you kind of stuff going on. Grace. Cultural openness, 00:35:35.279 --> 00:35:40.639 meaning we are constantly asking, is the gospel being communicated, being celebrated in a 00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:48.839 transcultural way? Or are we creating unnecessary cultural ties and barriers? Right? And then finally, 00:35:48.840 --> 00:35:55.960 compassionate orthodoxy, not wielding it like a club, but extending it with love, grace, and 00:35:55.960 --> 00:36:01.820 compassion. The reason for that is that the greatest thing about the gospel is not what Jesus did, it's 00:36:01.820 --> 00:36:09.640 why he did it. He did it for love. He did it because of his unfathomable, infinite compassion for you and me. 00:36:10.180 --> 00:36:17.900 Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for the gospel, and we thank you that 00:36:17.900 --> 00:36:24.119 the power of the gospel is not limited by us. We can't get in the way of it. Your word goes out, 00:36:24.240 --> 00:36:30.420 and it never returns to you empty despite us. It does everything that you intend it to do. 00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:37.180 Lord, I pray that we would be a church that is on board with that and not thwarting it. I pray that 00:36:37.180 --> 00:36:44.760 we would be a church that is aligned with this gospel, aligned with the church as it was in 48 or 49 AD, 00:36:44.760 --> 00:36:51.660 aligned with the decree that went out, aligned with this vision and this truth, the gospel truth, 00:36:51.720 --> 00:36:56.780 that is literally transforming the world under our feet. Lord, I pray for this in the power of the 00:36:56.780 --> 00:36:58.600 Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.