Loving Conflict

Acts  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  37:53
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Yes Ma’am

Karen and I are engaged in one of the most beautiful and important lessons in marriage: learning how to fight.
When you’re dating, that isn’t really a thing most of the time. When you’re stressed, you can just walk away. Get to your own space. Then put your best foot forward. But when you’re married you have to figure some of these things out. You have to. I’ll give you an example:
In California (where I was raised) when someone calls your name, there are many forms of acceptable response. Yeah? ‘sup. Hey. My dude?
In Mississippi… not so much. It is “Yes”, “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am” or go get a switch.
So we have “conflict.” And we compromised. Now we all say “Yes, Ma’am.” :D
It led to a great conversation, actually. In preparation for the trip we made to Mississippi in November, it was almost survival skill training for the kids. But if your habit is to fall back to more respectful, you can always choose the more casual response when it’s appropriate. But it’s helpful to have the instinct so when you’re not paying attention and your boss calls you, you don’t fall back to “‘sup, my dude?”
It started in conflict, but God used that conversation and the outcome of it to shape our blended family, to make it better.
I looked for an example where “my idea” won and made us better but I couldn’t find one. I’ll keep you posted.

Proselytes

Back to Acts! Let’s talk about conflict.
Gentiles are being saved, this is uncharted territory. Cornelius and his household have been saved. Gentiles in Antioch have been saved. Now throughout the missionary journeys of Paul and Barnabus, Gentiles are being saved right alongside the Jews.
And now this raises some theological questions: what is the appropriate process, what are the “right” steps for salvation? That may seem like an “answered” question to us because (I hope) we have been taught “salvation by faith alone” over and over again. But this is the wild west frontier of the church. This is new territory...
And so you have people looking for grounding, looking for examples.
Gentiles can become proselytes. There is a process where they profess their conviction, they sacrifice either of cattle or two young pigeons. They and their family must be circumcised, and then there is an immersion, a ritual cleansing like baptism. There is a period of teaching the precepts that bind the Jews… and learning how those laws sometimes applied differently to the “strangers that dwell among you.”
This is rooted in some Scripture, like the commands concerning the feast of Passover:
Exodus 12:48 ESV
If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.
Devout Jews have doubtless understood all the prophecies about Gentiles coming into the Kingdom of God in light of this existing practice and process… so it really isn’t crazy that they grab onto this practice. And, well meaning or otherwise, some of these folks come from Jerusalem to Antioch to share their wonderful insight.
Acts 15:1 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.”
Now, things escalate a bit. They are not just saying “it is a good idea to get circumcised” but “it is a prerequisite for salvation.” That puts this whole disagreement in something of another category. Paul, who has probably already had the encounter with Peter we read about in Galatians 2. This is when Peter came to visit and ate freely with the Gentiles, but then when “certain men” came from Judea he “separated himself fearing the circumcision party.”
Well, here is the circumcision party.
At that time, Paul “opposed him to his face.” He called him out. The beautiful unity in diversity, the love-without-distinction enjoyed in the Antioch church… it had to be protected and Paul did that. He got up in Peter’s face and called him out.
What do you think that guy is going to do when you start teaching “circumcision is required for salvation” in his church?
I picture this distinguished visitor getting up to preach in the Antioch church. He begins to read from the scroll and concludes: “so you see, to be saved you must go through the proselyte process, be circumcised, and...” he gets dive tackled from the side by Paul.
Acts 15:2 ESV
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.
Now why wasn’t Paul and Barnabus opposing it the end of the story? Remember, this is the wild frontier of the church. The New Testament isn’t written yet, there’s nothing there to reference. The Scriptures don’t have clear and explicit directive on this topic.
What do you do when you have a theological or a biblical argument and you can’t find resolution among yourselves?
They gather together and have a family meeting. Let’s get the best possible counsel we can, the best information we can, the wisest minds we can find, the closest sources to Jesus possible.
They have a family meeting in Jerusalem.
Acts 15:3–4 ESV
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.
They tell the story of all the God has done. There is great rejoicing, there is welcome, there is family… even as the fruit of their mission and ministry is an example of the debate at hand.
Acts 15:5 ESV
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.”
Acts 15:6 ESV
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.
We are going to dive into the details of the actual controversy next week. We are going to examine and analyze the way they solved the problem the week after that. But I wanted to take some time to appreciate this:
This church at Antioch, we have learned so much from this church, it is a loving church, a giving church, a sending church, a missional church, it has incredible leadership, incredible teaching, just the best… And here it is, facing a conflict intense enough that they sent their leaders on a 300 mile walk, likely taking 15 days each way, to get answers.
This is not a minor debate resolved with a Google search or a phone call. This is an intense theological, soteriological, biblical crises kind of conflict in the church!
This church at Jerusalem, ground zero, Jesus taught there, died there, was resurrected there, ascended right over there. Pentecost was there on the steps of the temple down the street. Here are Peter and most of the other apostles, there is James the BROTHER OF JESUS. If there is any definitive answer, anyone that could resolve this in a snap of the fingers, this is them. And they will indeed wrestle with all the issues and come to an answer that affirms salvation by faith alone, by grace alone… and still shows grace and love to Jewish brothers and sisters of the “circumcision party...”
But they don’t come to it right away. They don’t answer and send Paul and Barnabus home all “sorted out.” There is (beginning of verse 7) “much debate...” (zetesis).
With all of the wisest men in the church, the closest to God, full of the Holy Spirit… and yet they still have conflict, debate, disagreement about how God is working out salvation among them!
It would be an easy thing to despair at this moment in time. The best of Christian unity, this beautiful unity in diversity… and it’s all threatened by conflict and crises right here at the start.
How easily can we imagine this becoming a church split, and we have the Church of Grace over here and Church of the Circumcision Party over here. (Although, Wayne pointed out that the words “Circumcision” and “party” should never go together.)
But, as nerve wracking, as scary, even as threatening as this may have felt...
God uses this conflict in the church to clarify His truth. They crystallize their understanding of salvation by wrestling with it. It drives them to Scripture. It drives them to retell the stories of salvation to Jews and Gentiles. It leads them to retell and re-understand what Jesus said.
I don’t think this is an accident. I think this is a huge part of how revelation works. Because God keeps doing this.
At any point, God could have appeared in a blaze of glory and ended all debate. An angel could have appeared among them and settled the matter. Jesus could have popped him and said: “no circumcision necessary.” But God uses this conflict in the church, this debate and disagreement and the working and wrestling towards one another that follows… he uses it to clarify His truth.
And they emerge with a more refined understanding of grace and salvation than they had before.

Blind Men and the Elephant

It is the old story of the blind men and the elephant. One feels the leg and says “an elephant is like a tree.” One feels the side and says “an elephant is like a wall.” The tusk and “it’s like a spear”, the tail and “it’s like a rope”, the ear and “it’s a fan”…
and they’re all a little bit right and a lot a bit wrong… because the reality is bigger than what any of them have apprehended so far.
But it isn’t a story about subjective realities making objective reality incomprehensible… if those men have a little healthy conversation.
Come over here, I’ll prove it to you. “Oh, that does feel like a spear… but if you follow it over here, see how this feels like a tree.” And they can together wrestle to a new understanding of the elephant.
Now, some of these “circumcision party” folks aren’t going to listen. They are like the blind man that just shuts their ears, screams at everyone else and insists “an elephant is like a snake and I don’t care what you say!!!” Eventually it comes down to rebuking and casting them out as false teachers, but we aren’t there yet.
Here and now, God uses this conflict in the church to clarify this truth: salvation by grace alone.
He uses the diversity of thought and perspective, of background and culture, of religious history and experience, he uses diversity to reveal a deeper and truer understanding of Himself.

Now… Fight

What do you do when you find yourself in a conflict?
With family? With friends? Especially about the real stuff. Especially about the God-stuff.
Conflict can be nothing but a fight. I defend my position, you defend yours, nobody learns anything really.
Or it can be an opportunity to hear, to listen, to understand, to explain and seek His revelation.
Conflict can be an opportunity to understand the elephant. Even when your friend is dead wrong… there’s a reason this came up. There is something behind the emotion, the passion, the concern.
And often I discover “oh, I’m the idiot in this conversation.” So whether I am right or wrong, there is something to learn in that conflict, and always there is a person or people on the other side of it that I am commanded to love, so this isn’t an optional thing.
This is a hard thing to do. I am trying to learn how to explain my position without sounding (or being) condescending. God burn that within me with fire, I don’t want to be that, it’s gross.
We will examine some of the how in the coming weeks. I don’t think it’s an accident that they do so much story telling in this chapter. And they wrestle with all the dimensions of the problem, they don’t trivialize it. And they come to an answer, that while clearly asserting the truth, still addresses some of the concerns of the “circumcision” party.
We will talk more about the “how”. But let’s take a moment just to reframe how we see conflict among us. Not as a crisis… but as an opportunity to learn, and above all, an opportunity for God to move and reveal Himself to us more clearly.
God can use the conflict in your life to reveal himself, to reveal Himself, to shape you and teach me too.

DNA of a Church

This is written into our DNA as a church. We put very few things in our “Statement of Belief” for this reason. We are actively inviting these kinds of conversations, even conflicts, among us as we wrestle to understand who God is more clearly.
Our Statement of Belief starts this way:
Seventh Day Baptists consider liberty of thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be essential to Christian belief and practice. Therefore we en¬courage the unhindered study and open discussion of Scripture. We uphold the individual's freedom of conscience in seeking to determine and obey the will of God.
And then we list out the Ten articles of faith that we believe are important enough or distinctive enough to say we are in “substantial agreement” on all these. Salvation by faith alone is one of those things, by the way, informed by the clarity the church in Acts understood.
But there are many, many issues on which we have purposefully said “we are going to study and discuss these things… support / uphold” freedom of conscience in seeking these things. We are going to wrestle with these things together and, we pray, God uses the piece that you’ve got a hold of to teach me and some of what I am understanding to teach you.
It doesn’t mean we are both equally right, that’s silly. In Acts, one of the groups was just wrong.
It doesn’t mean that we aren’t passionate, you think Paul held back on passion in defending salvation by grace alone?
It does mean this: we are family. We are in it, committed to wrestle with these things together. And when we find that we have different convictions about Christian belief and practice… we support and uphold one another’s freedom of conscience even as we figure out what that means for worshipping and fellowshipping together.
When I was a teenager, this worship music was the conflict for many churches. What is the right proportion of hymns to “praise” songs?
Church, we have some things to talk about. We have some conflict. Yay!
We have different ideas about women in leadership or women preaching in our church. How is God going to use that to shape us, to teach us, not only about Himself but about how to love one another. How to “uphold one another’s liberty of thought” and “freedom of conscience”?
As we approach this PULSE team, we will have different ideas about where that should or is taking us as a church. My prayer, our prayer needs to be that God will use the beautiful diversity He has given us to shape and reshape all of us, to reveal Himself to us, to bring us to Him.
Because He doesn’t leave His people in conflict, in chaos, in strife or in stress. Ultimately, He has called us to unity.
Writing to a group of people, potentially also divided by this Jew-Gentile thing, a diverse church, likely even to all churches spreading across the world Paul writes these words.
Ephesians 4:1–6 ESV
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
May God use our diversity of every kind to draw us into His unity. Amen.
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