Grace Alone (Part 2): Unity - What is at stake?

Well, have you uh heard the song, Why Can't We Be Friends?

My guess is you've heard the song.

It existed long ago and it seems to get remade every now and then.

And I actually heard it the other day, and I hadn't really listened to it in a long time because the only line that I could remember is the Why Can't We Be Friends line that is repeated over and over.

And so I went and I looked at the lyrics, and basically that is the song.

The line repeats itself over and over, and then the verses are kind of inane in the whole thing, and it just repeats itself.

And I thought the song is very, how can we say this, non-complex, and yet it's had this staying power that when I say it, probably almost everybody in this room goes, oh yeah, I can hear the melody, I can hear some version of that song.

And I think one of the reasons why that song has such a sway, even though it's, as I said, a fairly simple song, is because there's a little cry of our heart that says, Can't we just get along in our culture?

Can't we just be friends?

And this is a cry that that is trumpeted throughout our culture today, and usually when that cry is kind of extended, the idea is we could all get along as long as some of the people who say anything offensive stop saying offensive things, and as long as anybody who takes any kind of exclusive stand stop taking an exclusive stand.

So we could get along if we just do away with anybody who has anything offensive to say to anybody else, and anybody who says anything exclusive.

And in a sense, that that that cry is a good cry, saying, can't we include people?

Can't we work not to be offensive?

It makes sense.

But in a sense, it might miss some important things when it comes to unity, to what it really means to get along.

In a way, you could say that there are two kinds of people in the world in when it comes to unity, and that is there are those who like lines and those who don't like lines.

In fact, you could even say this in general, that there are those who who like boundaries and those who don't like boundaries.

And I, you may know this or not know this if you've heard me speak a few times.

I'm the kind of person who actually doesn't care much for lines or boundaries.

And I think I first saw this when I was a kid in grade school.

I went to a grade school that had uh woods kind of surrounding it, and then across the street there was a field that you could look out across that had like tall, unkept grass kind of thing or weeds.

And so when I was a kid, one of the rules on the playground was you were not allowed to go into the woods.

It was a hard, fast rule and would immediately uh result in terminated recess if you went into the woods at all.

And you know, a kid can only play so much kickball before he's gotta find a new adventure.

And so after some time, I decided with some other guys that we were going to go into the woods.

So the first time we just went into the woods and we kind of stood there, it's like, hey, we're in the woods.

And we got back into the playground, nobody noticed.

So then we went farther into the woods, and then we came back and nobody noticed.

We went farther in.

And after a while, it became can we sneak into the woods during recess, cross the street, either crawl across the field or run across the field without detection, re-enter the woods from the other side, all without detection in 22 minutes or less.

And so that became our little game.

Well, we got good at it and we were able to do it frequently without detection.

So then we said, you know what, this isn't fun anymore.

We need to see how many kids we can get to go with us.

And so we started recruiting kids to go with us, and and after a time, uh it all came crashing down because one of the kids went and told.

And so we were hauled into the principal's office.

Now he didn't bring in all the kids, only the ringleaders.

And so I'm sitting there and he says, you know, I'm gonna have to take away your recess for like a week.

And it's like, okay.

But you know, I think he was actually somebody who didn't care for lines either or boundaries, because he went and played basketball in the gym with us for that entire week.

Now I tell you that just simply because uh you probably have a predisposition.

If if as I tell that story, you have a little bit of a, oh man, you you did that?

You're probably somebody who likes lines.

And if you're somebody who said, Oh, I would have been right there with you, you're you might be somebody who doesn't like lines.

But you know, lines are part of anything.

In fact, when I said that in our culture today, kind of the idea or the thought process of many people is to say we could all get along if people weren't offensive and if they weren't exclusive.

Do you know what that is?

It's a line.

Because it's saying if you want to be part of the enlightened, accepting, kind of tolerant culture of our day, then you better not say anything that we deem to be offensive or anything that we deem to be exclusive.

Because then you're crossing a line.

And if you think about really any endeavor, if there's going to be unity with people, it requires that there are some lines.

If you have a youth soccer team, what do you do?

You don't let one kid come and say, I'm going to play baseball and bring a baseball bat onto the field to play soccer with other kids.

That would be disaster.

And so you have a line.

You say you cannot bring a baseball bat onto the field.

It's a line.

And the only way that you have a team is when you say, Here are some things that we're all going to do.

It's true in business.

If you have a business of some kind, you have some lines.

And in order to be unified and move forward, you have to say, here are some things that we do together, we agree upon, or we can't move forward.

It's true in a family.

If you have children, chances are that you don't let them just one day come in and say, you know what, I'm taking this bedroom that you've had because it's nicer than my bedroom, and I want the bedroom with the bathroom attached to it because I'm done with the whole like walking down the hall and sharing with my siblings.

Instead, you say, no, no, no, that's not how this is gonna work.

You have lines around some things.

And so what we're going to do today is we're going to look at a place in Galatians chapter 2 where we see some lines that are discussed around the church.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

And you may at first, when you kind of heard this passage, read Galatians chapter 2, 1 through 10, have said, I'm not sure I wanted to come to church to hear a message on circumcision.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

In fact, I didn't really think ahead of time.

I want to go to church and teach a message on circumcision because it seems kind of archaic to us.

But what you have in Galatians chapter 2, 1 through 10, is you have a controversy that speaks directly to what it means to be really unified, what's at stake.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

And we started a series last week that we're calling Grace Alone, and we're looking at the New Testament book of Galatians.

About 500 years ago, the Reformation began, and as the 500-year kind of anniversary of that, one of the books of the Bible that was so central to this was this book of Galatians.

And you may hear Reformation and say, you know, I don't I don't love that that idea because I've been part of the Catholic Church and I don't love that that there were lines drawn.

But what happened was some of the people of the day said the church has gotten it wrong on some key issues.

And as a result, we have to take a stand, we have to draw some lines.

And so Galatians helps us rediscover what it means to be a community of people who live by this mantra of grace alone.

And what happens in Galatians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, is that Paul goes, he was the author of Galatians, to Jerusalem to visit.

Galatians 2:1–10

Now, some people have thought that this was the famed Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.

I think that Acts tells us about five visits to Jerusalem.

I think this was probably the second visit that's talked about in Acts chapter 11, verses 27 through 30, because this was a private meeting.

Acts 11:27–30

And what he did is he went to Jerusalem and he met with some of the leaders, probably taking an offering from some believers who had resources for the believers who didn't have resources.

And when he got there, he spent some time basically reviewing the gospel.

And there were a group of people, we're told, who basically said, here is what needs to happen.

And that is, if you are going to be somebody who's going to be a person of faith, that you will be somebody who, sorry about that, ringing, um, you will be somebody, we'll get that address in a moment, you will be somebody who is in a place where you must get circumcised in order to be part of the community of faith.

That's what must happen.

You must be circumcised.

So if I were to kind of think about this in a picture, what they were doing is they were basically saying, here is the gospel message, and then we're going to add this idea of you must be circumcised.

All right, I'll abbreviate that.

And what Paul comes along and does is he brings Titus, who was an uncircumcised Gentile, basically as a test case to say, are you gonna say that this guy can't believe unless he follows kind of this Jewish custom of circumcision?

And what they ended up doing is they ended up saying, no, he doesn't have to.

Not only that, Paul says in the text that they added nothing to my message, and they extended the right hand to fellowship.

So what they in essence did is they said, you know what, circumcision is not a hard line, circumcision is now a kind of a dotted line or a permeable boundary.

Now, in order for you and me to really appreciate this, we need to understand a little bit about the context and the culture.

And that is, in the Jewish kind of understanding of faith, circumcision was an Old Testament rite that if you were going to be part of the covenant community, you had to adhere to.

And so when all of these Gentiles started coming into the church, they said, you know what, you can't really be part of the church unless you're circumcised.

By the way, Paul later had Timothy circumcised, and so he had different modes of thinking on this issue based on different situations.

With Titus, who was a Gentile, he said, he doesn't need to be circumcised.

Timothy, who was going to help him uh kind of work in Jewish areas, he said, let's get you circumcised because we don't want that to be a stumbling block.

So, how are we to understand this or think about this?

Kind of in our day.

Well, one way, the the easy way would just simply be to say the only thing that's ever in the center is the gospel message that Jesus Christ came, he died on the cross, and those who believe in him have eternal life.

That's the center, and everything else is permeable on the outside.

But I think that misses something.

Because right at the end of this passage, there's something else that we read, and this is verse 10, and here's what we read.

It says, All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do.

So he says, uh, they asked us to remember the poor.

So in saying remember the poor, was he now adding a new line?

Was he saying, okay, the the circumcision line is permeable, but now we have this line where the poor have to be remembered.

Is that what he's saying?

Now I'm not entirely clear that that's what that's about.

In fact, I'm going to show you a different picture here that I think maybe gives us a better overall way to think about this.

But but here's kind of the challenge of that.

When he says, remember the poor, and Paul says, I was eager to do that, I don't think he's adding another line as much as he's saying, things still matter even when you say that there's a center of something that's essential.

By the way, here at Orchard Hill, we do a lot of different things to try to remember the poor.

We had a group yesterday who went down under kind of the Elios Ministry.

Elios is a Greek word that means giving of mercy or a mercy gift.

And they spend some time at a place called the Blessing Board, which outfits people's homes who don't have enough resources to do so.

And we had a group go and do that.

We have groups that serve at Light of Life, and we have uh four different mission trips coming up to Haiti this year, where we've partnered with a church there.

We have a medical trip, a cultural immersion trip, we have a construction trip, we have a kids' fest trip.

Ways for people here just to say, I'm engaging in this.

We've received offerings for hurricane relief and are hoping to have a team that can go and be part of that.

In other words, caring for the poor matters when we think about this, but in some ways, if we are adding that as a line, I wonder if we're missing something.

In the book that we've recommended for life groups to go through and read, and if you're in a group that's talking through Galatians and reading along with, this is what the author says in talking about the implication of Paul saying, I'm going to, in essence, preserve the center, that you can't compel Timothy or Titus, excuse me, to be circumcised, but I'm also going to adapt my message to the Gentiles.

Here's what he writes.

He says, The implication of this is that we can adapt the gospel to different people while preserving its essence.

This is an important implication for mission.

If we fail to adapt the gospel message at all to the interests of people, or if we overadapt it and lose its essence, we will fail to persuade and win people into its joy and freedom.

What are common ways in which we might fail to preserve the message today?

Some churches and Christians have adapted the gospel to the modern world by removing anything offensive.

Elements like miracles or any sort of demand that the only way we can come to God is through Christ.

But then the gospel itself is gone, since we are left in a position to having to save ourselves by being good.

This is a failure to preserve.

On the other hand, it's possible to go too far in the other direction and fail to adapt.

Many churches and Christians are so wedded to their music or organization or jargon that they are not willing to make changes to incorporate the tastes and sensibilities of those who are outside the church.

Ironically, if you underad or overadapt, you lose the gospel.

If you raise your traditions to the place of non-negotiables, you essentially create a system of legalism.

You are saying real Christians always do things this way.

So both conservatism and legalism, which is the idea of non-adaption, can threaten the gospel just as much as liberalism, non-preservation, does.

The apostles were determined to preserve the gospel message.

So what he's talking about here is that is that the the concept ultimately is that we say, How do I preserve the message and the unity and purity of the church while still adapting the message as broadly as I can to culture?

And how does that work?

Now, Paul, who gave us kind of this interchange in Galatians and was the human author of Galatians, said this in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

And I just want you to hear this because this helps us also to think about this.

Verses 9 through 13.

He says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

What?

What about these permeable lines?

He says, I don't want you to associate with immoral people.

Verse 10.

Not at all, meaning the people of this world.

In other words, he's not saying that you should go out and say, Oh, you do something I don't approve of.

I'm not associating with you.

Who are immoral or greedy or swindlers or idolaters?

In this case, you'd have to leave the world.

But I am now writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister, but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler.

Do not even eat with such people.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?

Are you not to judge those inside?

God will judge those outside.

Listen to this.

Expel the wicked person from among you.

So what does Paul do?

He goes up, he has this counsel, and he says, Listen, you can't compel somebody to be circumcised.

We should have permeable lines.

And yet in 1 Corinthians, he says, there need to be some lines.

And he draws some of them around lifestyle issues.

I think maybe the way to think about this is to say, if this is the gospel, that there are some first order issues, or maybe major doctrine, you could call it.

And then there are some things that kind of go around the outside that you might call second order or minor doctrine.

And then outside of this, there are our preferences.

Things that we just say, oh, that's kind of what I think or or desire.

And in having said this, I'm not saying that this that this dotted line doesn't matter because this is a place where we think things and we live in community.

But what I'm saying is there's a place for some things that are permeable, but then there are some things that aren't just purely at the gospel level, to which a church may say, you know what, in order to be in fellowship here, in order to be part of the unity here, here are some things that are important.

So let me just give you a few examples.

Here at this church, we practice baptism in two distinct modes.

Most churches all through history have said baptism is either believers by immersion or it's babies as a way to include them in the covenant community, as circumcision was in the Old Testament, so is baptism today.

So here's what we've basically done as a church.

We've basically said, on a whole, baptism is a second-order issue because we're going to let the parents decide which way they want to practice, and we're going to say, as a church, we don't need to break fellowship over that.

You don't have to go down the road in order to practice something different.

We can say the church tradition has embraced both over literally hundreds of years, so we can do something similar here.

But whenever somebody starts to say, Well, I need to be baptized in order to make sure that I'm going to have salvation, or I need my baby to be baptized to erase their original sin, what's happened?

It's moved from being a second-order issue to being a first-order issue because it impacts the gospel message.

It now is something where you're saying, you know what?

We can't just all say baptism saves people because we believe that the only way that you come to faith in Jesus, or that you come to salvation, is by faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you see how that how that changes based on how it's held?

Let me give you a different issue.

The issue of tongues, speaking in tongues.

Now, this is one that has torn churches apart for a long time.

On a whole, we would say that tongues is a second-order issue, meaning that we look at it and we say, okay, tongues in the Bible in Acts chapter 2, where you first see it, was a known language.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And so what would happen is it would be like me going on a trip to Haiti with our team, and I don't speak Creole.

It would be like me standing up in a church fellowship and all of a sudden speaking Creole and having a bunch of people go, that is unmistakably God, because he doesn't know Creole and he just spoke the word of God clearly through that.

Now there are people today, all around, who will say, eh, you know, that was tongues then, maybe, but what tongues is now is it's a prayer language, it's an ecstatic utterance, it's something I do to communicate more fully with God.

And here's what we would say: if that's your understanding based on 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14, then we'd say, you know what, as a church, we can have fellowship, but here's where again this would become a major doctrine.

And that is, instead of being secondary, we would say that when people start to say things like, every person should speak in tongues, because it's not just a gift given to some, but it's a it's a way that you connect with God.

In fact, if you really are spiritual, you'll speak in tongues.

In fact, if you're saved, even you'll really speak in tongues because it's an evidence of the Holy Spirit.

And if you don't speak in tongues, therefore you don't have the Holy Spirit.

What's happened?

It's moved from being second order to first order to a major doctrine.

Because now it impacts what we do and how we believe.

Now there are lifestyle issues that fit into this as well.

And when I say lifestyle issues, you immediately may say, well, this kind of depends on your perspective.

When I was uh a kid, my experience with the church was that the church was really big on some lifestyle issues.

That it would say things like, you shouldn't drink at all, you shouldn't see any R rated movies, like good Christian people didn't do those things.

And there were some reasons for that.

They were implications, they were seen as second order issues to some, but they became primary issues to others.

And so what happened was it became If you're really a true follower of Jesus, then you wouldn't do those things.

Like those are suspect people.

And here's the point of this.

And that is anytime that we add something to the gospel message that doesn't belong in major doctrine, what we're doing is we're creating a line, a barrier for people to come.

But at the same time, if we're not careful, we can not stand for truth, because we'll eliminate all lines, even lines that should be drawn.

Now, here's where we get in trouble.

We get in trouble when we confuse what belongs where in kind of these different circles.

And when we start to make a preference, a second-order thing, or a second order thing, a first-order thing, or something gospel related that isn't, or when we do it the other way around.

We also get in trouble when we look at things and we say, I don't want to draw any lines because I know that sometimes I don't even keep the lines that I draw for myself.

Because we say, who am I to ever say anything?

In fact, just this little section that that we saw in 1 Corinthians, if I just read these these descriptions again, I don't feel so good about where I stand.

I mean, just listen to this.

But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister, but is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler.

Let me just take the easiest one of those, greed.

Alright, I'll I won't even touch the other ones.

I would love to stand here and tell you that I'm never greedy.

But sometimes I want stuff that isn't mine.

Do you know what greed basically is?

It's a desire for more and more and more.

And sometimes that's true of me.

And as a result, sometimes I'll read things like this and I'll say, well, because I say that that that's an important lifestyle distinction that Paul even says expel such a person, well, I don't want to expel anybody else because I gotta be expelled.

Do you see the challenge?

So how do we address that?

Well, I think it's important that we understand a couple of things.

First, it's important that we understand that theology is ultimately like a map.

This was C.S.

Lewis's analogy.

And what he was saying was that the way that we encounter God is not through a map or through theology, but it's through an experience, but we can't have the full experience without the map or the theology.

If you go into a city and you have no map, no GPS, nothing, and you're just walking around, you may miss some of the best parts or the way it all fits together.

And what theology does is it helps us see how we encounter God, but it's not the actual encounter of God.

And what this means is if we're so busy kind of kind of trying to figure all of this out, we may miss God rather than encountering God in fullness.

But here's the piece that's important.

When Paul talks about these people don't associate with, what he's talking about is somebody who has a settled resistance to the revealed word of God, and saying if that is true in the area of sexual immorality, greed, if that's true in the area of swindling, idolatry, in the area of slander, in other words, that you'll speak ill of people repeatedly without any penitence in yourself.

He's saying, these are people who have now not let God work in them in such a way that you need to draw some lines.

Now again, we don't like that.

But here's how A.W.

Tozer wrote about this generation ago.

He said this 100 pianos, all tuned to the same fork, are automatically tuned to each other.

They are of one accord by being tuned not to each other, but to one standard to which one must individually bow.

So 100 worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in the heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God and strive for closer fellowship.

And here's what I think he's pointing to.

And this is my final picture.

And that is, I think rather than focusing purely on lines, not saying that they're not important, not saying that there's never a time to draw any for unity, but that the way that we actually create the kind of community that Paul was trying to create is that we look to the center and that that is our focus rather than our focus being on the boundaries.

Now that doesn't mean, again, that there are no boundaries, but it means that when we're centered on what's in the middle, on Jesus Christ, and we draw boundaries when it's appropriate, what will happen is then we will experience unity.

I'm told that if you want to keep cattle, that there's two ways you can do it.

One is you can build fences, and the other is you can build wells.

And what we want to do, and I think what this passage is teaching us, is build wells.

Not that you never have any fences, but build wells.

Become people who are repeatedly coming to the center.

And then the kind of community that you're part of will have real unity.

And you'll understand that even though there are times to draw some lines and there are some squiggly lines, that the way that we actually create unity is by focusing on who we are in Jesus Christ.

Dorothy Fortenberry, who is a screenwriter, is currently working on an adaption of The Handmaid's Tale, was quoted in an article in the LA Review of Books called Half Full of Grace.

I don't know anything about her life theology, but evidently she goes to worship and as somewhat of a noted personality says this.

I do not impress anyone at church.

I do not say anything surprising or charming because the things I say are wrote responses that someone else decided on centuries ago.

I'm not special at church.

And that's the point.

Because according to the ridiculous, generously imperfect applied rules of my faith, we are equally beloved children of God.

We are exactly the same amount of special.

The things that I feel proud of can't help me here.

The things that I feel embarrassed by are beside the point.

I'm a person, but for 60 minutes I'm not a personality.

You know what that is?

That is understanding what's at the center.

You see, if we focus on lines and boundaries, what happens is we start to say, here are the people who are in and out, but when we focus on coming together as people in need, people who say, I have nothing to offer apart from what Jesus Christ has done on my behalf, that is when we begin to build something beautiful.

And I know if you're here and you're saying, you know, I'm not sure I'm a person of faith, this is even the kind of thing that sometimes bugs you about faith, where you say, people of faith are always drawing lines, and I don't like lines.

But again, remember, everything has some lines.

Even that is a line that you just kind of say in your mind.

But the way that we really get unified is by celebrating and savoring what Jesus Christ has done and our lack of ability to bring anything.

That's what grace alone is.

That's what Paul was fighting for.

So he was saying, don't add something to Titus.

Don't add anything to this message.

But at the same time, was saying there are some things where we can have a permeable line, but there are some things where we need to say this is true.

And we'll fight for it.

Now you may be here and you may be saying, okay, this is something that I'm not sure I see or understand or care about.

Let me just put it this way.

When you walk into a room, one of the things that you're likely to do is turn on a light.

Now there are people who understand a lot about light.

There are electricians who've spent their lifetime studying electricity and how currents work and how to wire things.

And there are people who studied mechanical engineering or electrical engineering, excuse me, and have the capacity to say, I understand all kinds of things about it.

But here's what's true: whether you understand everything about it or not, you walk into a room, you flick a switch, the light comes on.

And if you want light, all you have to do is flick the switch.

You don't have to understand all the nuances and all the important things about current and loads and different things like that.

Those are things for people who have pushed on.

And that doesn't mean it's not important to ever understand any of that, but what I'm saying is this.

And that is, you can take a step toward God without saying I understand all of kind of the theology of what is truth, what isn't truth, if you come to a point of saying, but I believe that God, through Jesus Christ, has shown me the light of the world.

In fact, that's what Jesus called himself.

He said, I am the light of the world.

And if you're you're drawn toward that, then without even having all the perfect understanding of everything else, you can say, I'm taking a step into faith and into Jesus.

And then I'll figure out some of those other things down the line.

But that's how, as a community, we'll build unity, and in that unity, create something in this community that's a true unity, because it won't be unity about boundaries and lines, it'll be a unity around something that we savor and celebrate together.

And that is our standing in God comes through Jesus Christ, not our effort.

God, I thank you that you uh call us to not just improve ourselves and build fences as much as you call us to celebrate what you've done on our behalf.

And I pray in that celebration we would be moved to celebrate you fully.

And we pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.