Disagreements in the Body

Intro

Good evening everyone, and welcome to Wednesday night bible study.

Tonight we are going to be looking at one of the first disagreements in the early church. So go ahead and turn in your Bibles with me to Acts chapter 15.

I’m sure all of us in here have at one time or another experienced disagreement within the church. Quite honestly, I have heard of some church fighting over the goofiest things and they will really their disagreements to a ridiculous level.

This week I read a pretty interesting story about a goofy disagreement in a church in Wales.

An amusing news story from Wales told of a feud in a church looking for a new pastor. It read: "Yesterday the two opposition groups both sent ministers to the pulpit. Both spoke simultaneously, each trying to shout above the other. Both called for hymns, and the congregation sang two -- each side trying to drown out the other. Then the groups began shouting at each other. Bibles were raised in anger. The Sunday morning service turned into a bedlam. Through it all, the two preachers continued trying to out shout each other with their sermons. "Eventually a deacon called a policeman. Two came in and began shouting for the congregation to be quiet. They advised the forty persons in the church to return home. The rivals filed out, still arguing. Last night one of the groups called a let's-be-friends' meeting. It broke up in argument." The item was headlined, "Hallelujah! Two Jacks in One pulpit." It could have been bannered, "Two Factions in One fellowship."

In Acts 15, the still new church faced the challenge of what to do with the Gentile believers. This chapter is actually really important to me. A few years ago, I experienced a group of Christians who believed and taught that Torah observants is expected for New Testament believers. These groups are known as Hebrew Roots and it is kind of a cult and it was Acts 15 that really protected me from this erroneous belief.

Acts 15 is really important and to be honest, without this council in Jerusalem, none of us would probably be here today.

So just a quick review of where we are at in Acts 15,

Over the last few weeks, we have been studying the First Missionary Journey of the Apostle Paul. If you remember, Paul and Barnabas went on a mission trip that lasted about a year and a half. They went from Antioch in Syria to Cyprus to Pisidia to Iconium to Lystra and then back to Antioch in Syria.

They covered a lot of ground and they discovered something really important, especially to us as Gentile believers, they discovered that Gentiles are receptive to the gospel and that they are receiving the same Holy Spirit that the Jews received at Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit was gifting these Gentile believers in the same ways that he was gifting the Jewish believers.

So what we are seeing in Acts 15 is a debrief from their journey. This is kind of like when we went out prayer walking, we came back and shared what we experienced.

It’s important to debrief when we are doing mission and ministry. This is where we can share things that we learned on the field, we can share encouragements from the field, we can pray for the different situations that had come out during our work.

This is exactly what the church in Acts 15 is doing here. And the controversy of the Gentile inclusion sparks the very first council in church history.

So let’s begin reading in verse 1 and then we will talk about it for a few minutes,

Acts 15:1–21 ESV

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

There is a lot going on here in this passage but I think the key verse for this study would be verses 19-20. And I’ll tell you why in just a second.

But here are three principles that I want to share with you from this text:

We must fight for what is true.

I preached on this before out of John 17 but this is important… Unity is something that we have to actively fight for in our church. There will be times when there is disagreement in how we do mission and ministry or even in things that don’t really matter. Like the color of the carpet or something like that.

We have to remember the bigger picture and keep the mission at the center of what we are doing.

You guys remember that St. Augustine quote about unity? He said,

In essentials Unity,

In non-essentials Liberty,

In all things Charity.

What we are seeing in Acts 15 is actually a disagreement on an essential thing. Justification by faith and Gentile Inclusion are essentials that are worth dividing over. The argument that they are facing is regarding what the Gentiles needed to do in order to be disciples.

In Acts 15:1, we are back in Antioch in Syria, the missional hub of Paul and Barnabas. Their headquarters.

In verse 1, Luke mentions that there were some men came to Antioch and were teaching that circumcision and becoming a Jewish Proselyte was essential to salvation.

You see, first century Judaism was pretty different than it is today. In the first century, the Jews were pretty evangelistic. They would go out on mission trips and make proselytes of the Gentiles in different communities.

Some Gentiles were what they would call God-fearers. This is like Cornelius in Acts 10. The God-fearers would worship the God of Israel as Gentiles. But the God-fearers were not Jewish until they received circumcision and lived under the laws laid out in the Torah. This is when they would become what they would call proselytes.

The Pharisaical practice of making proselytes is also where the concept of synagogue worship came from.

Jesus had some serious criticisms of the Pharisees who were making proselytes. He said in Matthew 23:15,

English Standard Version Chapter 23

15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

This is because they were raising their traditions higher than the commands of God and they were teaching their proselytes these same traditions.

What we are seeing in verse one is that some Jewish men were going around and teaching that Gentiles will have to become Jews before they can accept the Jewish messiah.

Verse 2 says that Paul and Barnabas had some serious issue with this teaching. I mean, what these guys were saying was in direct opposition to what they experienced on their mission trip.

Paul and Barnabas went to these Gentile cities and planted churches, raised up leaders and elders and they witnessed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles without them becoming Jews.

The result of this debate in Antioch was a council being formed in Jerusalem. This was a big enough controversy that the church in Antioch needed the opinion of the Apostles. I think it is clear that the church in Antioch was on the side of Paul and Barnabas simply because they were sent as delegates from the church to Jerusalem.

In the same way that Paul and Barnabas fought for the truth, that salvation is strictly received by faith alone, we should have such a high view of the gospel that we will fight for it. We cannot experience unity with those that put these kinds of barriers between the lost and Christ. In other words, we cannot put up barriers that Jesus doesn’t put up.

To say that Gentiles have to become Jews in order to be saved, is a false teaching. The language of verse 2 leads me to think that this was an intense disagreement, which again is why the apostle were made privy to it.

Paul even talks about this very situation in his letter to the Galatians. You see, in the epistle to the Galatians, Paul is doing a little damage control because these false teachers had made their way to the church in Galatia and were teaching that Circumcision was absolutely necessary for their salvation.

He says in Galatians 2:4,

Galatians 2:4 ESV

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—

From Paul’s description, it sounds more like these guys were coming in quietly and undermining all the discipleship that he had done in this church. Paul says, no, you do not have to become a Jew.

This is the second principle from Acts 15,

We must remove barriers between the Outsider and our Community

This is particularly challenging for a Legacy or an established Church. Church Plants are great at having a passion for the outsider but as soon as they come established, they quickly drift from having a passion for the outsider to pacifying the insider.

We begin to do things to make the people that we have happy so that they don’t leave. What we ought to be doing is looking for ways to engage with those that are outside of our community for the purpose of bringing them in.

At the time of the Jerusalem Council, James, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus, was leading the church and this is what his estimation was:

Acts 15:19 ESV

Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,

What barriers are we putting up between our community and those who are outside?

The first ministry job that I had, I was a youth pastor at a small church here on the Westside. The church itself was made up of white senior citizens that have been there forever. The issue everyone that went to this church were commuters, meaning they did not live in the community in which the church was located.

As a young guy in ministry, I saw an opportunity to reach the apartments across the street. I put up some basketball hoops in the parking lot and made flyers and invited the kids to come out, play basketball, and join me for Bible study after.

To my surprise, this upset my leadership. Their words were “those types of people do too much hootin and hollering for us.”

This is a major barrier with deep roots in just racism, honestly.

Churches can so easily elevate their traditions to the point that they become barriers for those who are outside of our church.

What is it that Mike says about the words of a dying church? “We have never done it like this before.” This is the wrong attitude for a church. Instead, we should be saying, what is it that we are doing that is causing people not to want to come here.

This is different from being a seeker sensitive church. We don’t dumb down the gospel and we aren’t trying to be attractional. But we do not want to add to the requirements of the gospel.

Churches can put up all kinds of barriers! Things like:

Politics - There are churches where if you do not vote the right way, you are not welcome. This is a point that I am in complete agreement with Mike. This is why we do not have an American flag in our sanctuary, because this room is about Jesus and you can worship him regardless of your political leanings.

Cliques - This is something that I kind of struggle with, in full transparency. We have this tendency to only hang around those that we know instead of introducing ourselves to the new guy that walks in not knowing anybody. This is the job of the entire church, not just our greeting team. As an introvert, this is something that I am working on and we all need to.

Broken Processes - We need people to serve in the different ministries of the church. Things like Children ministry. When we have a family visit our church and they drop their kids off at Kid’s Corner, they have to know that there are people that will take care of their kids.

We need to do everything we can to make people feel welcome into our community.

Look at what James requires of the Gentile believers,

Acts 15:20 ESV

but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.

He tells them to abstain from sexual immorality which is really a Gentile problem and to abstain from food that was sacrificed to idols. Really things that are offensive to the Jewish believers.

I think what James is saying is that the moral laws laid out in the Torah should be important to the Gentile believers but they are not required to follow the laws that are intended for the Jews.

So really, we should not put up barriers and those that come into our community should also abstain from putting up barriers.

Our goal should be to make it as easy as possible for the outsider to come in to our community. What things are we doing to welcome in the outsider.

I think a big thing is this new DBS thing that we are doing. I don’t know about you guys but I left so encouraged by the direction of our church on Sunday night. It’s like when Mike said that he met a couple of men while he was out prayer walking. These guys are believers but they had been hurt by a church in the past.

To them, a church building is a barrier. This is why having a DBS in every neighborhood is so important. Removing barriers needs to be a priority in our church.

In our culture, a major barrier is the church building and the things that come along with “going to church.” People who have been hurt by the church will go to someone’s house for Bible Study before they go to a church service.

This is exactly what James is saying in Acts 15. He’s says, “why would we add this burden to these Gentiles when God never did that.” James and Peter and Paul all were Jews from birth. They had kept the Law of Moses and it never saved them. It was never intended to do that. It is Jesus alone that saves.

When the mission is center to everything that we do, we will, by nature, be welcoming to those who are not yet in our community.

This leads to the final principle for this evening and it is this,

We must be united by the mission while being grounded in Scripture.

Back to Acts 15, the Apostles sided with Paul and Barnabas because the gospel requires only faith in Jesus and repentance of sins. They recognized the power of the gospel and they have seen the Holy Spirit move on the Gentiles.

Peter says in verse 11,

Acts 15:11 ESV

But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Peter is looking back to his experience with Cornelius back in chapter 10. You remember the vision he had and how he went to the house of a Gentile God-fearer and preached the gospel and the Spirit of God just fell on that household.

James quotes Amos 9:11 and 12 to demonstrate that Gentile inclusion has always been a part of the plan.

Acts 15:17 (ESV)

that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,

and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,

says the Lord, who makes these things

And so now they decided that the last thing they want to do is put requirements on people that God never did. And thank God for that because we wouldn’t be here without this council’s decision. None of us are Torah observant, none of us in here are Jews. And God still saved us.

James writes a letter to the Gentiles to encourage them.

Let take a look at what happens.

Acts 15:22–35 ESV

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

You got to put yourself in the shoes of the Gentile converts back in Antioch. They are waiting for the results of this meeting. These false teachers have been to this church. Likely, some of the Antiochian Christians were confused as to what they were to be doing.

And then this letter shows up from the Apostles. Is this not what we have in the Scriptures. I mean, most of our New Testament is made up of letters from an Apostle to a real church.

In the same way that these first century Christians were desperate for acceptance into the family, we too know our desperation and how we need a savior. And just like these Christians in the first century received a letter affirming their acceptance into the family of God, we have been given this letter from the same Apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is why we should be the most open to outsiders joining into our community. This is why we should do whatever it takes to reach the lost. Because we were outsiders. We were the unreached. And God, through his grace has brought us into his family. Do you remember what the Lord Jesus said,

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

His yoke is easy. He does not require us to live as Jews because we aren’t Jews. He does require our lives. He requires that we fully submit to his Lordship and that we live in obedience to what he has called us to do. Namely, to spend our lives seeking him and helping others seek him through discipleship.

So may we be a community that does whatever it takes to reach those outside of our church. May we fight for the truth because people’s lives depend on it. And may we seek the Lord Jesus with all our hearts because we love him and are so grateful for how he saved us when he didn’t have to.

Let’s pray and then we will spend some time in prayer together.