Hitched
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· 13 viewsWhat we should be doing (inspiring people to follow Jesus) is so much more important than anything we aren't doing or want to do.
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In this series, you are going to learn about us. About Beth El Shalom and our mission. You are going to learn about what we believe keeps us hitched: to God, to the Bible, and to One Another and to our world. Our mission is something that is seriously simple but not simplistic:
Beth El Shalom’s mission: To inspire all people to follow Jesus.
Round of applause for the simplest mission statement ever!
Not trying to inspire people to
to show up to church
to build a mega-church franchise
to buy into every single idea or fad that comes out
to change their political party
Our mission is to inspire people, all people, to follow Jesus. Why? Because I still believe that the way of salvation comes through Jesus, the life of faith that really satisfies is found in being his disciple.
I will do anything to keep us on this mission. That means making changes to inspire all people to follow Jesus. This is not easy.
For those who do not know, we have been a congregation that met on Saturdays from 10:30-12pm to honor the Jewish practice of celebrating Saturday as the day of Worship. Lauren and I have been doing this for almost 20 years. We believed this was the best way to inspire Jewish people, part of the all people, to follow Jesus.
So, our decision to go to Sunday worship has caused mixed reactions.
I am going to talk about why we are taking this specific path and not as a defense but because I believe it is connected to something that is central to the Gospel, the movement started by Jesus and his early Jewish followers.
We make a way for one another instead of demanding our way with each other.
This idea is needed now more than it has ever been needed in the past.
What do i mean?
Everything is Demonized
The last year we have all watched the most horrific scene in American political history. This was not just horrible, it is a moral evil at the core of our nation. Good people, on both the left and the right, demonized just for being on the left or the right.
talk bout Anthony Fauci
talk about fight at School, kid with Trump hat
Identity Politics
I have to conform to a group’s identity, race, gender, to and I am not allowed to have an opinion otherwise or i face shame and exclusion.
I will never forget the viral video of a lady eating dinner and a group of predominately white BLM activists claimed that anyone who won’t raise their fist in protest are "white supremacists." And, if I understand the story the woman they were screaming at was an active part of supporting the BLM movement but she drew the line when she was forced to conform to a groups’s actions.
Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/1367895/blm-activists-raise-fist-white-supremacists-diners/
Cancel Culture
If you say one thing wrong or one thing that someone does not like they just quit you. Cancel you out.
I can speak to this because I have had it happen tome and there are some who might be watching today that you did this to me.
Change the liturgy: I am out, I quit. I make a statement that sounds like a democrat I get a nasty email. I make a statement that sounds like I am republican nasty email. In fact, that is why I don’t politics with any of you because my job is to talk Jesus.
This is so far from the principle that Jesus and his followers lived and died by...
We make a way for one another instead of demanding our way with each other.
Matthew 15:21-28, she is called a Canaanite woman, she is an enemy. She wants healing for her daughter who is being cruelly tormented by a demon.
Yet He did not say a word to her. So His disciples approached Him and urged Him, “Send her away because she cries out after us.”
He replied, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Then Jesus replied to her, “Woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want.” And from that moment her daughter was cured.
Jesus makes a way for people even if it means bending the rules of his own mission.
Jesus is not just in the business of creating a win for us but a win for us all. He has a firm mission, he knows what he has come to this earth to do and the people he has come to minister to but he is not inflexible, he bends, he relaxes the boundaries of his own mission for the sake of other people.
Jesus makes a way for others instead of demanding his own way with others.
I am not here to try to give a defense of Beth El Shalom’s move to Sunday worship instead of Saturday but I am going to connect us as a congregation to a principle that I believe exists at the heart of the Scriptures. A principle that says
We are supposed to make a way for each other instead of demanding our way with each other. That’s what the next couple of weeks is going to be about.
We are going to spend the next three weeks looking at one of the greatest Crises moments in Christian history. This moment was the defining moment. Literally, what happens here around 40 A.D. in Jerusalem determines the course of the next 2000 years of Jewish Christian history. And, when we finish this series we are going into our new building and the first thing we are doing? Celebrating Chanukah together, just like Jesus. And, then guess what, two weeks later we are going to honor the birth of the Savior together because the greatest gift ever given was the gift of God’s Son.
Context: Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas just finished their first missionary journey into Asia Minor. And it was a great success.
After they had evangelized that town and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch,
strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them, “It is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God.”
When they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
This is a great success.
The gospel has gone out to the nations.
From there they sailed back to Antioch where they had been entrusted to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. After they arrived and gathered the church together, they reported everything God had done with them and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
Here is where the Problem comes in
Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved!”
But after Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, the church arranged for Paul and Barnabas and some others of them to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem concerning this controversy.
It seems like they came to the church in Antioch while Paul was on mission, according to Gal 2:4-5
This issue arose because of false brothers smuggled in, who came in secretly to spy on the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us. But we did not give up and submit to these people for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would be preserved for you.
Then the apostles and the elders assembled to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them: “Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe.
We don’t think there was much debate but there was.
Jewish tradition at that time meant Gentiles had to be circumcised according Genesis 17:12-13 and then they would take a ritual bath, symbolic of their old gentile life being cleansed.
But Peter stands up...
And God, who knows the heart, testified to them by giving the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us.
Holy Spirit tells the Law what to do, the Law does not tell the Holy Spirit what to do.
He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.
Peter says you can’t demonize them for being Gentiles because God did not.
Peter says God did not put our ethnic identity and rules first, there was no identify politics.
God did not cancel them out because they said things he did not like or acted differently than us.
He made no distinction and cleansed their hearts by faith.
But it is the next statement that is the real big one...
Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
A yoke was used as a restraint, enabling animals to pull heavy loads. Figuratively, the yoke was used as a metaphor for political or social control (e.g., 2 Chr. 10:10; Ps. 2:3; 1 Tim. 6:1).
Peter is referencing a very Jewish idea, to be circumcised is to accept the whole yoke of the law controlling your life.
Peter says if you do this you are going to be testing God. Not a good idea.
Putting God to the test (peirazete ton theon; cf. Ex. 17:2; Dt. 6:16; Ps. 95:9; Acts 5:9 [Ananias and Sapphira]) is another way of talking about hindering his purpose (cf. 5:39 [Gamaliel’s warning]; 11:17 [Peter’s previous warning]).
Peterson, David G. The Acts of the Apostles. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.
The Acts of the Apostles a. Debate (15:6–21)
Insisting on something which is against his will stretches his patience and invites his judgment.
Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
Peter implies that the divine command for foreigners to be circumcised, and thus become members of the covenant community (Gn. 17:12–14), has now been superseded by God’s action in bringing Gentiles to faith through the preaching of the gospel and giving them his Holy Spirit.
God has moved on in his dealings with humanity, and it is sinful to demand obedience to the old way (cf. Gal. 2:18). Peter also insists that the old way was unbearable (‘a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear’).
Jesus used the image differently, challenging the weary and burdened to take his yoke upon them and learn from him, claiming that his yoke was easy and his burden light (Mt. 11:28–30). Matthew 11:30 As the one who came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Mt. 5:17), he offered the way that leads to eternal life (‘rest for your souls’, 11:29).
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Peter makes a statement that we should all memorize, literally...
On the contrary, we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”
What Peter disputed was thus the need to obey the law in order to be saved;
whether Jews kept it for other reasons was a secondary matter. We are going to look at this next week..so come back
Then the whole assembly fell silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul describing all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
To sum up, here is what Peter was saying...
We make a way for one another instead of demanding our way with each other.
We do this because of the grace we all received.
We dot this because this is what God has always been doing.
There is no first or last. There is no Jewish privilege nor Gentile privilege.
It’s not about what is best for us, it is about creating a win for all of us.
This is how we are choosing to love our neighbors, the good of our community over our desire to observe our traditions.
I am not fearful, I am a concerned that we will fret over what we are not doing instead of what we are supposed to be doing. I am concerned that people will fret that we are not meeting on Saturday, not doing more and more traditional liturgy, not being more like a synagogue.
Our mission was never to keep the Shabbat.
Our mission was never to keep the Holy Days.
Our mission was never to keep the Diet laws.
Our mission has always been to inspire people to follow Jesus. (Matt 28:18-20).
Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Don’t get distracted by what we are not doing but get focused on what we should be doing.
Why are we doing these things: we want God’s kingdom to come, we want all people to be influenced by Jesus.
Do you know that even the early Jewish rabbis prioritized God’s kingdom over God’s laws. There was this question about the order of Deut 6:4-12. Why the Shema before the command to obey God’s laws? Here was the response:
The Mishnah Berakhot
“So that one may first accept upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of heaven and afterwards may accept the yoke of the commandments.
Relationship always precedes rules.
Why are we doing this?
Our mission has always been to inspire people to follow Jesus. (Matt 28:18-20).
Do I think every messianic congregation should do this? No, it is on each person to make these kind of decision.
I don’t want to and as long as I am the rabbi/pastor of this congregation I will not let us be consumed by what we can’t do versus what can and must do.
I want to give you four applications
1 - establish a Shabbat routine
2 - help our mission this year 1000 x 3
3 - keep your kids connected and grafted-in.
4 - pray for our congregation: innovation, influence, impact
Repeat the Four applications:
1 - establish a Shabbat routine
2 - help our mission this year 1000 x 3
3 - keep your kids connected and grafted-in.
4 - pray for our congregation: innovation, influence, impact
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