Sermon Tone Analysis

Being The Church (Part 2)

Part 1

Defined Burden

Hebrew word

maśśāʾ

++Physical Load

++Psychological and spiritual load

2 Greek words

Greek word is φορτίον (phor-ti-on)

++A necessary load

++The load you have to carry

βάρος (baros)

++Can be transferred to another

++Can be relieved by another

++Carried by another

Everyone has a burden to carry.

Coming to Jesus

++Can lighten the load

++Can make the load bearable

How does this happen?

Acts 15 the apostles faced a challenging issue.

The scripture gave them what they needed to decide.

++They did not just rely on their own thinking.

++James looks to the Scriptures

​They did not just rely on their own thinking.

James looks to the Scriptures

++James recognized the Lord's work

James has grasped the very heart of Amos’s eschatological message concerning the nature of the salvation that Messiah brings to the Gentiles.

In so doing, James has replaced a proselyte model of Gentile salvation with an eschatological/christocentric one.

The Lord has chosen to place his name on Gentiles as Gentiles, without requiring that they surrender their ethnic identity.

That name, “the Lord Jesus Christ,”

++The basis on which they have repented and believed

++The identity they have adopted in baptism

Acts 11:36

++The reason they will suffer

.William J. Larkin Jr., Acts, vol. 5, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), Ac 15:13.

It seem Good

++To the Holy Ghost

++To them

This is

++not religion

++a relationship

Why these four requirements

++These were fellowship breakers

++Jews and Gentile believers

The four requirements suggested by James were thus all basically ritual requirements aimed at making fellowship possible between Jewish and Gentile Christians.

John B. Polhill, Acts, vol.

26, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 331.

Why These Requirements?

++The old testament

++Cultural distinction was the standard

++Ceremonial distinction was expected

++God separated a people group to himself

The New testament church

++The church would be cross cultural.

++Culturally and ethnically different

++Unburdened

We recognized God is no respecter

++of person

++of culture

++of politics

++of the things that divide us

He came

++not to build walls

++to tear down walls

James’s proposal, then, teaches us three things about life together in a culturally diverse church.

We must say no to any form of cultural imperialism that demands others’ conformity to our cultural standards before we will accept them and their spiritual experience.

We must say yes to mutual respect for our differences.

And we must live out that respect even to the extent of using our freedom to forgo what is permissible in other circumstances.William J. Larkin Jr., Acts, vol. 5, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), Ac 15:13.

No additional burden.

We will

++carry a load

++not carry it alone

We are

++not alone

++the church

Christian Responsibility

++to bear the load

++to share the load

++to carry the load .....together.

Be the Church

++Stand fast

++Be Strong

++God’s grace is enough

Being The Church (Part 2)