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1 the Continuing Acts of Jesus: Liberation Theology Acts 15:1-35

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1 the Continuing Acts of Jesus: Liberation Theology Acts 15:1-35 1 The Continuing Acts of Jesus: Liberation Theology Acts 15:1-35 October 15, 2017 Dan Hoffman I don’t know about you, but a weird thing happened to me about 18 years ago. And that was that I got baptized before I really met Jesus. Now it wasn’t that I didn’t know who Jesus was. I did. I’ve said lots of times that I was born on Easter Sunday 1980, and that was pretty much the only Sunday I haven’t been in church. That’s not quite true, but it’s almost true. So I did years of Sunday school. I worked out at camp. I went to youth group and then volunteered at youth group, and then led a youth group. I went to Christian school from Kindergarten to grade 12. I knew everything about following Jesus. So when my best friend, Trevor Meier, told me in the summer of 1998 that he was getting baptized I decided I was going to do it too. But it was the next year that my faith changed from being my parents that I had grown up under to being my own. That year I met some people who challenged me to start praying, doing devotions and really making my faith personal. But then, if I’m honest, it was about five years after that when I was sitting under the preaching of Pastor Barton Priebe in Vancouver – this was after having gone through a year of discipleship training, four years of undergrad at Trinity Western University, and the first year of my Master of Divinity, that the gospel of Jesus really connected with my soul. … I remember going up to Pastor Barton after the service one Sunday and saying “I get it now. I thought I understood what God wanted from me all this time, but I’ve been wrong. What Jesus wants from me is not that I don’t drink, don’t go to parties, don’t watch R-rated movies, don’t listen to that bad music. And instead attend church, tithe, do my devotions, volunteer, and be a good member of society. Up to this point the message I had taken away from church amounted to a bunch of good morals. I thought God wanted me to be good. And this is still being taught. The other day I was asked to speak at a Christian event for kids and the topic they wanted me to talk about was kindness. They wanted me to tell these kids to be kind to each other. Don’t bully. Be respectful of people who are different from you. God wants you to be kind. Now all of this is good, but it isn’t the main message of the Bible. So I turned them down – I don’t want to talk about kindness, or honesty or faithfulness or friendship or any number of great things. Not because they aren’t good things, but because they aren’t what the Bible teaches. Now I’m not saying there aren’t mentions to good morals in scripture – there are lots of them – but these good morals are not the point of the scriptures. And when people make them the point that is where they become a problem. 2 So I often bump into people who have left the church and they tell me “I’ve tried Jesus, and He doesn’t work.” And as I am talking to them I realize they haven’t tried Jesus, all they’ve tried to do is be good. And they think that is what Jesus is about. But the one thing I see over and over again in scripture is that people aren’t good at being good. And so two kinds of people pop out of this kind of a message. Some people are defeated because they try to be good and fail. And then they try again, and fail again. And if they are persistent then they try harder and harder and harder until finally they give up and say “I tried this whole Jesus thing, and it doesn’t work. I could never win.” And so they stop attending church, and usually become the biggest antagonists of Christianity – after all they really believe they tried it, and it was all a lie. … The second type of person who encounters a truncated gospel like this is becomes a Pharisee. So they get really good at appearing good on the outside. Deep inside they are aware of their own short-fallings, but they don’t talk about these. And so they become a self-righteous regular church attender who always puts something in the plate and attends all the Bible studies. And they end up looking down their nose at everyone around who isn’t quite doing it right. They aren’t wearing the right clothes. They aren’t doing the right things. They aren’t following the rules. And traditionally church is full of these kinds of people. And this is the category of person I was. And my personality and upbringing and education meant I was at the top of the pile as far as the good people at church go. But neither of these kinds of people have really met Jesus or understood the gospel. And without getting the gospel nothing else you might learn at church matters. … Turn with me to Acts chapter 15.1 Use your device or grab the pew Bible in front of you and open up to page 783. If you haven’t been with us, over the last several months we’ve been walking through the book of Acts, which we’ve said is a book that contains the beginning of the story of what Jesus kept doing through the lives of women and men who pledged themselves to Him, after He ascended to heaven. So it is a book about the miraculous. It’s full of healings and spiritual gifts, and exorcisms and the dramatic growth of the church. But it is also mundane. It is full of very normal people living out their lives. But there is one theme that runs through all of this, and that is that Jesus is the one who is advancing His kingdom. And this is just as true today as it was in the early church. … Now last week we dealt with the first intentional mission trip in Christian history. Before this God had overseen the day to day strategic advancement of His gospel. So He empowered His people to speak in tongues in order for travelers from all over Rome to encounter His message, and He allowed persecution to scatter the church, and He sent angels to bring together the Jews and the Gentiles. 1 Outline adapted from Matt Chandler, https://www.tvcresources.net/resource-library/sermons/the-nature- of-the-gospel (Accessed October 13, 2017) 3 But then in chapter 13 His strategy changed as He handed over the advancement of His kingdom to the strategic plans of His people. So in chapter 13 we read: While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. (Acts 13:2-3) And Paul and Barnabas made a systematic plan and set out on a circuit ministry of Asia which took them roughly a year. And it’s after their return to Antioch that our text picks up today. Look with me at Acts 15 starting in verse 1. [Read Acts 15:1-5] So Antioch is a predominantly Gentile church. Last week we touched on how diverse their leadership team was – a black guy, an African guy, some guy who grew up with Herod, and Paul and Barnabas. So it was as intercultural and interracial as was possible in the first century. The only kind of person they didn’t have was some white guy. The church in Jerusalem, on the other hand, was a predominantly Jewish church. And it is out of the difference between these two places that the conflict arises here. Some people from Jerusalem – Christian Pharisees – headed down to Antioch to make sure the rules were being followed correctly. Now very briefly, here is why this was a big deal. The Jews had always been God’s special people. God chose them way back with Abraham and then Moses saying: I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. (Exodus 6:7) So the Jews knew they had been chosen to be God’s own possession from their inception, and then He had established the Law for them to follow to show the world they were His people. So while the Jews were God’s nation there was an open door for anyone else who wanted to come and worship with them. And there are lots of stories about this happening. So Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite, Caleb, one of the two faithful spies, was a Canaanite, Rahab who is in Jesus’ lineage, was a Canaanite prostitute. Ruth was a Moabite. Bathsheba’s first husband Uriah was a Hittite. Gentiles are all over the place in the Old Testament. 4 But when a Gentile decide to become a YHWH worshipper they had to go through the process of becoming a Jew.
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