Do you know how to do Church
Do you know how to do Church?
Acts 15:1-22
April 3, 2005
Sermon Outline
When I was married some twenty five years ago, there are some issues that I didn't even know would be issues. I grew up using Colgate toothpaste. My mother bought it, so we always used it. Before I got married, I really didn't know that anyone used any other type of toothpaste, nor did I think it would be hard to switch. That was before I married a girl who had always used Crest. Whenever my new wife went shopping, she bought Crest. Whenever I went shopping, I bought Colgate. We eventually adjusted, but it was a preference we didn't even know we had until we learned how to live together.
We've all got preferences. We don't even notice most of them. I guarantee, though, that most of us will notice them once we come face to face with the preferences of someone else.
Spanish
Tenemos todas las preferencias conseguidas. No igualamos aviso más de ellos. Garantizo, aunque, que la mayoría de nosotros nos notarán una vez viene la cara a hacer frente a esas diferencias en algún otro.
Today I want to talk about preferences, not on a personal scale, but on a church-wide scale. Over the years, without even thinking about it, those of us who attended church when we were young grew accustom to church being done in a certain way.
Spanish
Deseo hoy hablar de preferencias, no en una escala personal, sino en una escala iglesia-ancha. Sobre los años, fuera incluso pensando de él, los de nosotros que atendieron a la iglesia cuando éramos jóvenes crecieron acostúmbrese a la iglesia que es hecha de cierta manera.
If we didn’t attend church in our younger years we develop our idea of church on present exposure and experiences.
We never state it exactly like this, but after a while we begin to think: we do church the right way.
Today, I want to tell you an account of a church that once faced the question, "How do we react to new ways of doing church?" It's a question that we have encountered and will encounter in the future.
New people will start attending our church and want to do things differently. How do we react when we think we do church the right way, and someone is pushing us to do it differently? The answer to that question comes in the form of a story. If you have a Bible with you, turn with me to Acts 15.
God through His word has made it clear that Church is important and the mission of the church is to grow the Kingdom of God.
So you see there are no rules in the bible as to how to do church right.
No where in the bible will you find how to have a church service.
Spanish repeat of main idea
Usted ve tan que no hay reglas en biblia en cuanto a cómo a haga la derecha de la iglesia.
Ningún donde en la voluntad de la biblia usted encuentra cómo para tener un servicio de iglesia.
The account we're about to read is one of that illustrates this point from the very beginning of the church.
The crisis that people faced then was one that could have torn the church apart. The wrong response to the crisis could have permanently damaged the progress of the church. The early leaders of the church made a decision which marks us to this day. Let's take a look at the story and see what lessons we can learn on how to react to new ways of doing church.
I want us to discover two main points from this passage
There are no set rules in the bible as to how we are to do church?
No hay reglas del sistema ¿en la Biblia en cuanto a cómo debemos hacer la iglesia?
God give us freedom in how we “do church”.
El dios nos da la libertad en cómo "hacemos la iglesia".
Crisis
Acts 15:1-5 says:
The Council at Jerusalem
1Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2This 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 to see the apostles and elders about this question. 3The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the brothers very glad. 4When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
5Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
I. There are no set rules in the bible as to how we are to do church?
1. What we call Christianity today started off as a movement within Judaism. For the first part of the church's history, it was primarily Jews who followed the rabbi Jesus Christ.
1. Qué llamamos cristianismo comenzada hoy como de movimiento dentro del judaísmo. Para la primera parte de la historia de la iglesia, era sobre todo los judíos que siguieron a rabino Jesús Cristo.
2. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus gave his disciples the command to go and teach other all that He had taught them and expand the Kingdom of God.
3. A man named Paul came along, who started to influence more Gentiles to follow Jesus. As more Gentiles follow Jesus, you have a problem: Do the Gentiles have to become Jewish to be Christians, or can they stay just as they are? You've got a big question there.
4. On one hand, you have those who believe that the Jewish way of doing things is the right way. They had some pretty strong arguments for their case.
5. Most of the Jewish practices came right from God and had been passed down for thousands of years. The Scriptures were full of instructions on the Jewish beliefs and practices.
6. The Jewish people were called God's own people, the people through which God would bless the world.
7. The Messiah himself was Jewish, and observed the Jewish laws perfectly. You could stack up all the arguments, and it would make a lot of sense: the Jewish way is the right way.
8. On the other side, you have some people like Paul and Barnabas. They were working among Gentiles, and many of them were starting to follow Jesus. Although Jesus was Jewish, Paul and Barnabas didn't think that a Gentile had to become Jewish to follow Jesus.
9. The stakes were high. In the corner, you've got a group holding knives and saying that to do things the right way, you've got to be circumcised. You'd really want to think hard about joining the church, wouldn't you?
10. On the other hand, you've got a new teaching that unravels thousands of years of theology and practice. What would you do?
11. put it this way just imagine growing up you were taught over and over that the only way you would ever do good in math is by memorizing the times table, learning formulas and theories and you work hard at this all your life because you wanted to be an engineer. Now your on the hiring committee of a large engineering firm and yare interviewing young people who never memorized the times table would didn’t then you go to a large company that is hiring engineers and as you sit in the waiting room you s that
Let's find out what happened here.
Freedom
II. God give us freedom in how we “do church”.
The leaders of the church made a decision that was revolutionary in its day. It still is today. They embraced a freedom that allowed the church to expand. It's a decision that has marked all of church history since. It's a decision that if replicated today would lead to freedom and expansion of the Kingdom within our culture.
6The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10Now 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? 11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
We don't know most of what happened, but we can imagine. Verses 6 and 7 say, "So the apostles and church elders got together to decide this question. At the meeting, after a long discussion..." We already know that this issue generated strong emotions. I don't think that they had a nice, calm, rational discussion. I'm sure there was a little bit of heat. The discussion probably moved in a certain direction, but I imagine it was far from easy.
The keys to how I believe the church is to conduct itself how we are to Do Church is in verses 8-11
How do we react to new ways of doing church? This decision sets a pattern for us.
a. We have incredible freedom in how the church expresses itself.
1. Early in the church's history, they faced the decision whether to be monocultural or multicultural, whether to do things one way or to allow freedom. They had to choose between controlling or giving permission. They chose to give permission. There is no one right way to be the church. We have freedom in how the church expresses itself.
This is where New Song Bible Church stands today.
God placed a vision of establishing a new local church a multicultural multiethnic church.
You see the church here on earth is to be practicing how it’s going to be in heaven.
WHAT IS A MULTICULTURAL CHURCH?
We will be working from a definition drawn from an April 23-24, 1999 Multiethnic Church Pastors Think Tank held at First Baptist Church in Palatine, Illinois: The multicultural church is a Biblical community of believers: 1) who have as a current reality or hold as a core value the inclusion of culturally diverse people, and 2) who come together and serve as a single body to live out God’s call to be a New Testament church.
I WAS.... BIBLE WORD:
Planned for God’s pleasure Worship
Formed for God’s family Fellowship
Created to become like Christ Discipleship
Shaped to serve God Ministry
Made for a mission Evangelism
ERA....BIBLIA WORD:
Planeado para Dios placer Adoración
Formado para Dios familia Beca
Creado para convertirse como Cristo Discipleship
Formado a servicio Dios El ministerio
Hecho para a misión Evangelism
I wish I could take you on a tour around the world and show you all the shapes that the church takes. I worshipped in a very different church last week in the United Kingdom - same label, different contents. They did things very differently than what we do here. It was different, and it was good.
This morning churches have met that started early in the morning and went right to lunch, which is when they took a break before coming back for more. There are churches that have met in cathedrals and in huts. They've met with all different kinds of music. Some have centered their services around the Eucharist. Some have centered them around the sermon. Some don't have a pastor. Some don't meet on a Sunday. They're all different. The differences are good. God allows us the freedom.
Churches are taking new shapes in the new culture that is emerging. We may be tempted to be scared. Not everything is good by virtue of being different, but things aren't necessarily bad either. God allows freedom. He's given incredible freedom in the way the church takes shape.
III. There are two conditions in this passage.
19“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20Instead 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. 21For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
The first condition is this:
a. Don't let the shape stop the mission.
Humor
The job of the church is not to impact the church, but to impact the world. It’s like a huddle in a football game. 67,000 people don’t pay $25.00 a ticket to watch the Titans huddle. What if you went to a Titans game and for 2 ½ hours you watched 11 men stand in a circle and talk? That’s not what you pay for!! 67,000 people pay $25 a ticket to see what difference the huddle makes. What they want to know is, having called the play in secret, does it work in public? The challenge for the church is not what we do when we call our Sunday morning huddle, but what we do when we break our huddle and head to our Sunday morning assignment. When Satan lines up against us, what difference does it make that we are Christians?
The second condition is this:
b. Don't be unnecessarily offensive in how you express the church.
We have freedom, but that freedom is bounded by concern for the wider church. We are part of something bigger. We have freedom, and we're called to exercise that freedom with love.
I have preferences. Those preferences can never get in the way of what God is doing around me. We are called to let the church take shape according to what God is doing, and to relinquish our structures and our preferred shapes when they get in the way.
Our values as a church are to be people-centered and evangelistic. This year, as we move to stay in step with God, may we grant freedom to others, the same type of freedom God has granted us.
Like Bill Hybels, I believe that there is nothing like the local church when it is working right. In addition, I agree with what he says after that sentence:
“Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed, and offers belong to the marginalized of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.” Hybels concludes, “Still to this day, the potential of the local church is almost more than I can grasp. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.”