Love Over Liberty: Finding Harmony Among Believers - Sunday Evening - October 20, 2024

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

for us here today.

All right, well, we're going to go ahead and get into acts 15.

If you have your bibles, turn to acts 15, and we are going to start

in verse number 22.

Now, if you were not here last week, we covered a lot of ground

last week, and so I'm going to try to recap it the best that I can

without preaching the message again.

If you would like to go back and understand the context of what

we're going to be talking about tonight, I would encourage

you to somewhere on the Internet, find it.

There's multiple places you can find it.

You can go to YouTube, you can go back on facebook, or if you listen

to podcasts, it's on the podcast on our church network.

But I would say it would help to have listened to that sermon as

we come forward and listen to this one.

I'm not saying it's impossible for you to understand this tonight,

but it would give you some context.

It would give you some understanding.

But what have we been talking about?

Well, in acts chapter 15, we've been talking about the law,

Acts 15 · chapter mention

liberty, and love.

The law, liberty, and love.

How do those three things come together?

Is the law a real thing?

Yes.

Is it important?

Yes.

But how does the law integrate with liberty?

Do we as christians have liberty, freedom?

Yes.

And so then how do those things, the law and liberty, tie

in together with love?

Well, we're going to talk more about that here this evening.

Tonight's more of a transitionary message to get to our

next story.

But here we're going to see that the believers there in Jerusalem,

after the Jerusalem council, are going to send news.

They're going to send a letter back to the gentile believers, back

to the jewish believers at a place called Antioch.

And so they're going to pass along the news of what the conclusion

was at the Jerusalem council.

What was the issue at the Jerusalem council?

Okay, I know this can be a little bit brainy here, but I.

Follow me because this is important.

There were jewish Christians coming from Jerusalem, which was

the capital, which was the centerpiece, which was the heartbeat

of the church.

And they were going around specifically to churches that had

gentile believers.

So you had Jews and gentiles both Christians in the same church.

And what was happening is that there were these jewish Christians

that were going to the Gentile Christians and telling them, you

have to become a jew to become a Christian.

You have to be a Jew to continue to stay being a Christian.

And the issue was that the Gentiles were confused because they

were hearing from Paul and Barnabas and the other people.

No, it was by faith alone.

And so this was confusing them.

This was causing them issues.

This was becoming a stumbling block.

So now it's faith plus doing all the acts of a person according

to the jewish law, the levitical law.

And so they were confused.

They didn't know what to do.

So they went back to Jerusalem and they had this council.

Paul, Barnabas, Peter, James, and many of the other apostles and

the fathers of the ministry there at that point were going to

have this discussion.

And they had two sides, one side, faith and faith alone.

You dont have to become a Jew to become a Christian.

And the other side was, no, you got to adhere to all these things.

And what they came to this conclusion in this passage was this

salvation and sanctification.

So your salvation, that's your transformation in Christ and your

spiritual growth comes from faith and faith alone.

It does not come from the action of following the law.

The law is important to show us what is right and wrong, but the

law does not save us, and the law does not keep us saved.

But there were people that were confused with this because they

were saying, well, why did God give us the law?

And now he's saying that we have liberty.

Do we need to follow the law?

Well, what they came up with was basically a compromise or a list

of rules, basically guidelines for the Gentiles to be able to walk

in unity with the jewish people.

And so what it was, was this.

You have the freedom to.

In this case, it was eat meat.

Sacrifice to idols.

You have the freedom to do these things in your culture, but

your freedom does not trump your love for your fellow brother

and sister in Christ.

And so the.

The pinnacle of the teaching here in acts chapter 15 was unity.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

I want you to think about that.

It's unity.

It's not your liberty, it's not the law, it's unity.

So how can we have unity when you have two different groups of

people within the same body of believers?

So let's you say, well, what does that mean for us Jews and gentiles?

Okay, well, we don't necessarily wrestle with Jews and

gentiles within our church.

We might wrestle with people that grew up in a very legalistic,

law abiding church and maybe people that didn't grow up in that

environment.

So how do we with people that are offended by certain things that

aren't necessarily listed in scripture, how do we deal with people

in that regard, with people that come in and say, well, why is

it wrong to do this?

Show me in the Bible where it says that what we see here in this

passage, that there wasn't necessarily a list of rules that

they said you have to do to become a Christian, you have to do

become a church member.

But they said these are things that you need to follow so that there

can be unity in the church.

So my love was my.

What?

It was the focus.

So, my liberty, I want you to think about this phrase here this

evening as we jump into our text.

My liberty as a Christian is limited by my love for my fellow

brother and sister in Christ.

I have complete liberty in Christ, but also my liberty needs

to be thinking about the love that I have for another Christian.

I don't want to be a stumbling block for somebody else.

So I have the freedom to live out in my life, my convictions, but

I don't have the freedom to offend a brother or sister in Christ

to allow them to come to a place of sin.

And so there's a passage of scripture in first corinthians that

talks all about that.

And I think it's such an important verse to understand when

it comes to our christian life and our christian maturity.

This is all I believe, talking about christian maturity, because

when I'm a new Christian, I'm like, you know, very much, what does

the Bible say about XYz?

And that's a good thing to be in.

We should always be seeing what the Bible says about XYz.

Okay.

What does the Bible say about love?

What does the Bible say about sin?

What does the Bible say about this?

But then there's a place in our life where we need to have grace

and patience with other people that might be at different steps

of the path that we are on.

And so it's that unity that we're praying for.

Yeah.

We can exercise our judgment upon people within the church.

Let's be honest.

Let's pick out a person every single week.

You know, we pick out a missionary of the week.

Let's pick out a church member of the week, and let's follow him

around the whole week.

Okay.

And let's.

Let's judge every single action that they do.

Could we find some stones to throw?

Could we find some issues with every single person in this room.

Of course we could, but that's not the purpose.

The purpose is to exercise love in accordance to our liberty

and not allow the law to be a division amongst the believers.

The law is important because the law tells us what's right and

wrong, but the law isn't what we have to follow to keep our salvation.

And so, first corinthians, chapter ten, verse 23, says this.

We're not going to read the whole passage, but I think that this

is a core tenet to living within a church with different types

of people.

It says, all things are lawful for me.

Paul says, I can do what I want.

I have the freedom, okay?

I'm not bound by the law anymore.

Romans talks all about this.

I'm not under the bondage of the law.

I am now under the freedom of forgiveness.

But he says, all things are lawful for me, but all things are

not expedient.

Expedient means beneficial.

There are things that we can do as christians that are not beneficial

for us.

Okay?

And then he goes on to say, all things are lawful, but all things

edify not.

Now, in this case, we could talk about the own edification in

our life, but the edification of others.

So, yeah, could I exercise my freedom in front of a fellow brother

or sister in Christ?

Yes, but that might not be edifying for them.

So I need to choose in my life with discernment the times where

I exercise my liberty and the times where I.

I limit my liberty for the sake of my weaker brother or sister

in Christ.

Or my brother or sister in Christ.

That's different than me, that has a different background.

So we don't deal with the Jew and Gentile issues so much in our

church, but we might deal with people that come from different backgrounds.

We might have people coming from backgrounds that are very legalistic

or very law driven.

We might have people coming from backgrounds of a.

I mean, maybe a cult.

I don't know.

We have a diverse background, so we have people bringing in a lot

of baggage, and we have people coming in from backgrounds that say,

well, I was at a church that said I could do whatever I wanted

to do and it didn't matter.

And so that, how do we coincide?

How can we live together in peace and unity?

The Bible says it's practicing this liberty, but also in the sake

of love.

So all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient.

Beneficial for me.

All things are lawful, but not all things edify my brothers and

sisters in Christ.

So you might say, well, what, what, what does that look like today.

Okay?

So we go back and we look at what the rules were.

Go back to verse number 20 with me in acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

There's a long Runway here, but we're getting there.

He says, but that we write unto them that they abstain from

pollution of idols.

Now, in this case, in the King James, it doesn't clarify this completely,

but this is specifically talking about the eating of meat

sacrificed to idols.

Okay?

Now, I mentioned this last week kind of as a joke.

None of us are going over to each other's house guessing that,

hey, you know what?

I wonder if they sacrificed this meat to Baal.

We don't have to struggle with that, okay?

That's not common.

Now, if we lived in another country, maybe.

Maybe this is a big issue.

But then we see other things.

Now it says from fornication.

Now, we know that fornication is sin.

But in this case, in their society, they practice, in their

culture, marriage, a lot different than the jewish people

practice marriage.

And so for the jewish people, they were looking at the way that

the former pagans were living in their marriages, and they were

like, the way that you guys are married and remarried, and all

of this is an issue.

And so they said, follow the laws of God when it comes to your

eating, it comes to your marriage.

And then it goes on to say, from the things strangled and from

blood, that's talking about eating kosher food, eating food that

was passed by, passed through the levitical law.

So he says, hey, for the gentile believers at this church

in Antioch, okay, and maybe in Corinth and maybe in some of these

other places, he says this.

He says, eat the kosher meat so that you're not an offense to

your fellow brother and sister in Christ, or at least in their presence.

And so what we can see here is this one commentator put it this

way.

Gentiles had the right to eat meat sacrificed to idols, to continue

in their marriage practices, and to eat food without kosher bleeding.

Because these were aspects of the mosaic law.

They were definitely not under the mosaic law.

However, they were encouraged, or even possibly we could challenge,

required from the early church to lay down their rights in these

matters as a display of love to their jewish brethren.

And so the true question is this.

Am I willing to limit my liberty for the sake of my fellow

brother or sister in Christ?

Am I willing to say, yeah, I have the right to do that, but in

this time of my life, I'm going to not do that so I can be

a better example for that person.

Now, again, we talked about this last week.

There are some people that would say, I don't want you to do

that because I don't like you to do that.

Okay, well, just because you don't like someone doing something,

that doesn't mean.

That doesn't give you the right to limit them.

It's specifically in the case of offending them to sin.

So for an example, let's say, you know, let's say somebody had

a background in a certain lifestyle, and me, as a Christian,

I can kind of dabble in that.

Maybe I can say, well, you know what?

It's okay to watch this or listen to that.

And for them, they're like, no, because when I'm around that,

that brings me back to what I used to be.

And please, brother, please don't do that around me because that

causes me to get back into that life.

Now, that's the way it should happen.

Now then it's my job to say, how am I going to respond to that?

Well, who are you to tell me that that's not a problem.

That doesn't bother me at all.

But that, brother, has asked you in grace to say that just around

me, please don't do that.

Please don't say that.

Please don't listen to that.

Please don't do that.

And then we can say, okay, now I can then exercise my love for that

person and say, you know what, around you, I will guard you from

that.

That doesn't mean that in my life, I have to avoid everything

that person's conviction is.

But around them, I need to be cautious, and there needs to be dialogue.

And so me sacrifice to idols is not something that we struggle

with.

But there's a lot of things that we struggle with.

I mean, I grew up, I could talk about real practical things

here, and I'm probably going to offend some people tonight, but

these are just things that we have to talk about.

I grew up in an environment that going to a movie theater was

a sin.

Okay?

In their mind, like, you can't walk into a movie theater.

If you walk into a movie theater, you have committed a sin.

Doesn't matter if you're going to watch a kid's movie right now,

is it a sin to walk into a movie theater?

No.

Can it be a sin by going in and watching the thing that you shouldn't

watch?

Or some would argue you're promoting Hollywood, right?

And we could discuss that, right?

But in and of itself, me walking in there is not a sin.

Now, if someone said, hey, it's a conviction for me not to go

there and to support that.

Okay, well, I'm not going to say, hey, we're going to go out and

have a fellowship and Bible study.

We're going to go to the movies first.

No, I've then offended their conviction.

I've offended their biblical preference, and I'm using that as

an example.

There's a lot of other things that we could talk about, and all

of, you know, these hot button issues.

And a lot of people say, there's no gray in the Bible.

There's no.

It's all black and white in scripture, folks.

There's a lot of things that scripture speaks to, principles about

things.

But the Bible doesn't address 21st century items.

Okay, so, for example, the Bible doesn't mention an iPhone.

Okay?

I've got my iPhone up here reading my notes.

The Bible doesn't say, you know what?

As a good Christian, you should not have an iPhone.

But can an iPhone be a stumbling block to someone who is

struggling with certain sins?

Of course.

Of course it can be.

And so for me, as a Christian, I can't go up to someone and go,

well, you don't have an iPhone.

You don't have a smartphone.

You don't allow your kids to have a smartphone.

Oh, come on.

Grow up.

Come on.

It's the 21st century.

No.

If that's that person's conviction within the church, honor

that conviction for them and respect that conviction doesn't mean

that you have to follow that.

Now, we're not talking about items in scripture that are clearly

stated.

So if someone comes up and says, you know what, pastor?

I really do feel that I can lie and cheat and steal all I want,

okay?

I can be unfaithful to my spouse.

I can do all this.

I can do all that.

And no, no, that's not what that's talking about there.

It's talking about issues that aren't explicitly stated in scripture.

And so what we're seeing here in this case is that they leave with

unity.

They leave an agreement.

Now, we could talk about this a lot more, but we're not gonna continue

on in that mind.

We're gonna leave the Jerusalem council in their answer,

and we're gonna leave to them reporting that back to the Gentile

Christians and the jewish Christians there at Antioch.

So let's pick it up in verse 22.

Okay.

We're going to see the product or the result of unity.

We're going to see the product of love before liberty.

What happens then pleased it the apostles and elders with the

whole church.

Now, this is the church in Jerusalem.

They're in unity here.

They all came in in disagreement.

They're leaving with unity.

This is how it should work.

We come in maybe with different opinions, different thoughts,

different convictions, but we should leave here in unity.

And it says, they leave.

And they were pleased to send chosen men of their company to Antioch.

That's the original church with the conflict with Paul and Barnabas,

namely Judas, surnamed Barsabbas, and Silas, chief men among

the brethren.

So you say, what's going on here?

Well, they are leaving with unity, and they're excited to report

this back to the church in Antioch.

And I would say that much of the credit goes to these certain

men listening to the spirit of God walking in unity.

They allow themselves to be convinced by the evidence from scripture

and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit, and they're in agreement.

This is beautiful.

I think of the verse in psalm 133.

Psalm 133, verse one.

It says this, behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren

to dwell together in unity.

There's something miraculous about unity.

People from different backgrounds, different cultures,

different preferences can walk in unity.

And the Bible says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren

to dwell together with unity.

It is the heart of God for christians to walk in unity.

The reality is, is that there's going to be conflict.

How do we deal with the conflict?

We deal with the conflict with seeking after scripture, seeking

after the spirit, and walking in unity together.

When we leave in unity, when we leave in unity, we leave, as it

says here, with joy and pleasure.

It doesn't mean that we'll leave with our way.

You know what happens sometimes with christians when we

come in with a conflict?

We want to leave the room with our way.

I'm the right one and no one could tell me else.

No one could tell me another way.

The truth is, is are we open to have dialogue with a fellow brother

and sister in Christ and ultimately check it with scripture.

Check it with scripture.

And that's what they did here.

And so they wrote letters, verse 23.

And they wrote letters by them after this manner, the apostles and

elders and brethren saying, greeting unto the brethren, which

are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, for as much

as we have heard.

So they heard the conflict that certain men went out from us

having troubled you with words.

So they're admitting wrong.

You see that there part of joy and unity is admitting, hey, we are

responsible for this.

Some of our own people went out and caused issues, they said,

for certain, which went out from us having troubled you with

words subverting your souls, saying, ye must be circumcised and

keep the law.

So they're admitting they're wrong.

They said, some of us went out to you and said, some of you have

to be circumcised to be saved.

And some of you have.

And all of you have to keep the law to be saved.

And therefore, they're admitting where they fell.

They're admitting where they had flaws and admitted that they

had to get this right.

And they said, to whom we gave no such commandment meaning, hey,

we didn't tell them to do this, but they did this anyway.

It seemed good unto us being assembled with one accord.

So they came together in one accord to send chosen men unto you

with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their

lives for the name of Lord Jesus Christ.

So they said, we're sending real legitimate people to you, real

legitimate missionaries to come to you to bring this important

message, verse 27.

We have sent, therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you

the same things by mouth.

And so they said, we have these individuals that are going

to come and they're going to bring this letter to you and they're

going to explain this.

And so the letter gives the express decision of the Jerusalem

council that the Gentiles should consider themselves under

no obligation to the rituals of Judaism except for the sensitivity

which love demands.

You're not under the law, but love might demand you to be subject

to some of the other people there in your fellowship, that is,

to preserve the fellowship of the jewish and gentile believers.

And so this letter was written specifically to those churches where

Jews and Gentiles mix together.

There was potential tension and conflict with them.

It was not addressed to every gentile congregation because there

were gentile congregations that would have not had this conflict.

They wouldn't have had any Jews in their midst.

So this wouldn't have been an issue.

This was for congregations that were diverse.

And there are a lot of churches in this world today, in

this country today, that everybody in the seats have the same

convictions.

And there isn't going to be a conflict in that, right?

The conflicts come from the color of the carpet, color of the

paint on the walls.

If they're going to have a potluck on the first Sunday of the

month or the second Sunday of the month, those are silly stuff

that we really shouldn't even be arguing about.

But when we have a church like Middletown Baptist church with so

much diversity, I'm going to tell you, I've been to a lot of churches.

There's a lot of diversity at Middletown Baptist church, and we

welcome that.

Sometimes as a pastor, there's a little bit more of a stress than

that.

Okay, so people coming, you know, I was at a part of a church,

or everyone was there.

They were Baptists since they were born.

Okay?

Everyone's Baptist is just Baptist.

Moved from this church to this church, and everyone's Baptist.

You know, we've had people coming from.

To our church from other denominations.

It's like, okay.

And that's scary for me as a pastor.

Someone comes into my front door and they're like, hey, we came

from so and so church across town, or we came from so and so church,

and I'm like, wait, they're not Baptist?

Oh, man, we got to deal with this.

And so immediately the struggle is, okay, we've got to make

them Baptist before they can come into our church and fellowship.

But the truth is, we are a baptist church.

But the deeper purpose is being christians right now.

We're Baptist by conviction, but it's salvation and faith.

And then we show them scripturally why we have these personal

convictions with the way that we do church.

And so what the difficulty is with that is that when we have a

diverse church with different ages and different backgrounds and

different cultures and different denominations, there is

a challenge to have some conflict there.

Why do you have a problem with that?

You've heard that conversation.

But come on, let's be honest.

All of us have had conversations before with someone

else, and they go, well, I was always taught that that was wrong.

Well, why would you have a problem with that?

Well, that's just what I grew up with.

And so instead of just pushing their conviction aside, there's dialogue

that needs to happen.

And maybe that person can grow in that area, or maybe I can grow

in that area because maybe they have something to teach me about

why I'm overstepping in my legalism.

Because, most of you know, I've explained to you before, I'm

a recovering pharisee, okay?

Each day I wake up and my flesh wants to judge and say, we

have to be a certain way, a certain path.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with having our baggage, because that's

actually what we all have, whether we deny it or not.

We all have a preconceived bias when we come into a situation,

but it's understanding that it's the love of Christ and the conviction

of the spirit that should drive us and not our own personal

preferences.

And so they go back and they say, hey, we're bringing stuff to

you.

We're bringing this lesson to you.

And this message is, this lesson is so that the congregation

here in Antioch can have unity.

So remember, it was James, the half brother of Jesus, who voiced

the decision of the council.

But the unity behind the decision was one of several evidences

that it was the work of the spirit.

How else could all of these really strong headed Menta in the

Jerusalem council come together with this unity?

I mean, you had Peter in the room, you had Paul in the room.

You had Barnabas, you had James, you had all these other people,

and they weren't yes men, okay?

They went out and did a lot of stuff.

So how could they have left?

With unity?

It's a work of the spirit.

Let me tell you, church unity is a work of the Holy Spirit.

That is not something that happens naturally.

It's actually the opposite.

Church unity is foreign to our flesh.

And the moment we divorce ourselves away from the spirit, when

we're making decisions within the church, is the moment our church

unity is severed.

Folks, some of the most dangerous places that we could ever

be is a baptist business meeting.

I've seen some fur fly.

I've seen arrows flown across the room.

Not literally, hopefully.

You've never been to a place where literal arrows are flying.

But the truth is there are going to be conflicts within the

church.

But there's a way to do that in the spirit of unity for the purpose

of the gospel, that we can come together and say, you know what?

We can leave in fellowship because we're in this now.

Are there going to be?

Cause a lot of times people will say, well, I'm in unity, but

the other person is not in unity.

All we can be concerned with is where we stand before God and

how we represent the Lord in our conflicts.

And so in this case, there was unity.

And it was proven by the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of all

these men, so much so that they could say that the decision

was made in the cooperation of the Holy Spirit.

You can see that right there in scripture.

We can see that it actually says there that it was made in the

Spirit.

We can see that he says in verse 40 28, that's right there.

It says, for it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon

you no greater burden than these necessary things.

So they admit here that this was a decision made by the Holy Spirit,

made by God.

And I'm going to tell you here at Middletown Baptist Church, and

it might not always look this way, but the decisions that are made

for this church are bathed in prayer.

Multiple people look at it.

Multiple people, I hope, will consult the Lord on this.

And the decisions that we make, in my opinion, are led by the

Holy Spirit.

Now.

Now, there are certain times where someone might say, that can't

be the Holy Spirit.

Come on.

What's going on?

We should have done this.

This or this.

I understand that.

And we're not perfect, and certainly we can be making mistakes

within the ministry here in the church.

But I can tell you that the heartbeat of the church is that we

follow the spirit.

There's a lot of things that my flesh wants to do.

There's a lot of things that I want to do in the concept of growing

our church or changing things or moving here or doing that.

But, folks, if the Holy Spirit is not strongly convicting us, there

is a time to say, Lord, it's not.

We believe that.

It's not your will.

We believe that.

This is our fleshly desire to do this.

Until the Lord makes it very clear in our lives, we have to be

cautious.

We never want to get ahead of the Lord.

You can see story after story in scripture where individuals try

to get ahead of God.

Let me give you one example.

Abraham.

Abraham was told he was going to have a son, and God was going

to promise it to me.

And then he was like, well, God, I know he said it, but, like,

let me try to help him out with this.

Let me try to get ahead of him.

And so let me go with Hagar.

Let me go do this.

That's sometimes what we can do in church.

Do we know that God wants this church to grow?

Yes.

But sometimes what can happen is we can say, you know what, God?

It's not happening at the speed I would want it to happen.

So let's get.

Let's get ahead of it.

There's an issue there, and so we have to be cautious with that.

So it was a spirit led decision.

And then he explains what that decision was in verse 29.

That you abstain from meats offered to idols and from blood and

from things strangled, and from fornication, from which, if

ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well, fare ye well, meaning this

is going to give you unity within the church.

This is going to.

This is going to demonstrate love to your fellow church member.

So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch, and when they

had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle

or the letter.

So they're delivering this letter from the church at Jerusalem,

which, when they read, they rejoiced for the consolation.

There was joy because they were encouraged by this letter.

You know, we would think, you know, the gentile Christians hear

this message and go, what we have to follow these things that

these jewish people know.

They received it, as it says here, they received it with joy and

encouragement, which, when they read, had read.

They rejoiced for the consolation.

It means encouragement.

And so how relieved they were to see that the principle of grace

had been preserved here.

They heard that they were saved by faith alone, and they were

right with God after all, and they had a path to move forward in

unison and in fellowship with each other.

So it says verse 33, and after they had tarried their space, they

were let go in peace from the brethren unto the apostles.

And so we see that the results of this unity is exhortation, consolation.

That's encouragement and peace.

Anytime we see the unity of the spirit within the church and

the spirit's guidance in the church, we see comfort, we see exhortation.

So let's say it this way, encouragement, exhortation, and we

see their peace.

They were let go in peace.

Now, these are all things that we should strive for in our church.

Exhortation is challenging each other, encouraging each other

to love and good works.

The Bible says that's our job within the church, to spur each other

on to love and good works.

You know, I think a lot of times we think in the very western

mindset of, like, I'm an individual within the church, and

I'm doing my thing here and everyone else is doing their thing,

and, you know, just don't get in my way.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches is that it is the role of the church to exhort

each other to love and good works, to challenge each other to

love and good works.

And that doesn't come with judgment.

That comes with, hey, you know what?

I'm doing this.

Hey, you want to come do this with me?

You want to pray along with me?

You want to do this Bible study with me?

You want to come share the gospel with me?

And it goes on from there.

And so we see that there's encouragement, we see that there's

comfort, and we see that there's peace.

And then it says here, verse 34 notwithstanding, it pleased Silas

to abide there still.

And so Silas actually stays there.

Silas says, you know what?

We're going to stay there.

And we actually see that Silas and Judas stay there, and so we see

that they are going to stay, and, well, actually, actually, Silas

stays and then Judas returns, leaving Silas and Antioch for the

future ministry.

So Silas stays there longer.

And so they linger there for a time.

Both of them linger there for a time.

One leaves and then Silas stays.

And I think that we see the heart of Silas here as a heart of

a pastor to encourage and to minister.

And that's really what the church should be.

The church should not just be a place where we give them the truth

and we walk away.

How many times?

Maybe this hasn't been what you have seen, but we've had an event

or an opportunity and we've preached the gospel to people and

then we just let them go and figure it out on their own.

That's not what the church is for.

The church is there to be a long term partner with people.

So I give you the gospel.

But now, as the great commission says, I teach you the

gospel.

I teach you what it means to obey Christ.

I teach you what it means to go through the difficulties.

You know what?

That's sometimes what happens in our society is we have a very

transient society, meaning, like, we're here at a time until

we need to move on and there's no investment.

The average lifespan of a person in ministry is like two and

a half years.

You see that happening so often.

I mean, Middletown Baptist Church has been, has been graced

with longevity, with pastors.

And I'm going to tell you, that's not the norm.

The norm is pastor comes in for two or three years, something

more interesting comes along.

Or maybe God does call them away and we see just a lot of movement.

A lot of movement.

And the truth is, is that that isn't necessarily always what God's

will is.

God's will is that there's long term investment with the fellow

brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so for me, I could say to you, hey, you know what?

Be faithful in the ministry.

But if I don't demonstrate to you what it means to be faithful

in the ministry, how can you know what it means to be faithful

in the ministry?

Hey, love your brother and sister in Christ.

But if I'm teaching you and demonstrating to you what loving

my fellow brother and sister in Christ means, and I don't show

that to you, you know, it would be like me, like, yeah, I don't

know if some of you played sports or maybe you didn't play sports.

Maybe you had a, maybe you played an instrument or maybe you

took up a hobby or something and you had a teacher, okay, or a

coach.

And the coach came up to you and said, hey, let's use baseball

as an example.

I grew up playing baseball.

I had a lot of coaches.

My personal coach, my one on one coach, used to play in the major

leagues.

He played for the San Francisco Giants.

Coach, Coach Redmond.

He's an awesome guy.

He taught me a lot about baseball.

But he would sit there with me, and he would say, okay, when

you hit the ball, you need to keep your eye on the ball.

You need to twist your hips.

You need to hit the ball like that.

And I would say, okay.

And I would do it wrong.

And guess what helped me?

When he would show me how to do it, he said, let me show you how

it looks.

And then he would walk me through it.

He would show me every step of the way.

And that meant so much more for me than some of the coaches that

I've had in my life, that, go, come on.

Go.

Hit the ball, son.

Well, how do I do that?

We'll just do it.

That doesn't help, right?

And so it's that demonstration of the actual principle being taught

that helps out a lot more.

And so I would encourage you, as a church member, a ministry leader,

possibly, if you want to be a discipler, demonstrate what it means

to do the things that you're expecting your students to learn.

And so, you know, for me, there is that struggle, because I

get to preach to you a lot.

And the truth is, is that a lot of times, people get the perception

that pastors are perfect, and we expect you to have perfection.

But the truth is, is that we're, you know, when I preach to

you, I'm preaching to myself.

Okay?

When I do my notes in the week, I can tell you some of the

most convicting moments of life is when I'm sitting there planning

my sermons, because I'm sitting there going, wow, it's gonna

be a tough one for me to say, because I struggle with that today.

And so let me tell you, when I'm preaching, if, if, big, if.

If there's conviction in your heart out there from the preaching

of the word, the conviction is also here.

I can tell you that.

And so, so what I want you to understand is that here, as we conclude

this passage, that Silas wanted to stay.

He wanted to be planted in.

And so these certain Mendez who had come from Judea, they were

teaching and preaching, it says there in verse 35, Paul also,

and Barnabas continue in Antioch, teaching and preaching the

word of the Lord with many others also.

And so they had a desire not just to give them this message, but

to teach and preach what the word of the Lord.

Paul didn't preach his way.

Paul didn't preach his opinions.

Paul preached the word of the Lord.

So because of the situation and because it was handled correctly,

the christians here were strengthened, and the word of God

pushed forward.

Let me tell you, one of the hindrances to the word of God being

pushed forward is disunity within the church.

If the proper measures are taken to conflict, the word of God

is pushed forward.

That's the best testimony when we can come in with a disagreement

and leave in unity.

And that's what we see happening here.

The word of God.

That's where it ends.

The thought here ends with Paul and Barnabas.

And Silas taught and preached the word of the Lord with many others

also.

And so Judas and Silas came.

These two men served well in Antioch.

And after visiting from Jerusalem, Judas returns, Silas stays.

We see for a time, Paul and Barnabas stay, and everything seems

to be going well.

And I wish I could tell you that after that first conflict is

fixed, then we're set.

I remember thinking, as a pastor, when's the first problem

gonna drop, okay?

How are we gonna deal with this?

And I remember a problem was there.

And you know what?

I had a pastor friend one time tell me, you know what?

The problem that you're going through right now is not gonna be

the problem you're dealing with next year, okay?

So in my mind, I'm thinking, well, that means that I'm gonna be,

if I get rid of this problem in my life, if we deal with this

problem properly, everything will be okay.

The issue is, is that I realized very quickly within ministry

that after this problem is resolved, there's another problem

that comes right in its place.

And so that's what we're gonna see here.

In acts, acts 15, it says in verse 36, I'm just gonna kind of

whet your appetite for next week.

It says, oh, actually, not next week.

I'll tell you more about next week.

In two weeks says, in some days after, and we don't know how

many days after, you could, you could have your gospel imagination

and think, seven days, 30 days, 50 days.

But, and some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, let us go again

and visit another brethren.

And, hey, sounds great.

And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname

was Mark.

And Paul thought, not good to take them.

And so we're going to see that Paul and Barnabas have a conflict,

and we're going to see how they deal with that conflict, and

we're not going to see necessarily the resolution in this

passage, we're going to see the first part of it.

We are going to see the resolution in another passage of

scripture later on.

And we're going to see that some conflict doesn't get fixed over

a Jerusalem council.

Some conflict takes years and humility and struggles to get fixed.

But what we're going to see here is that there always is a biblical

resolution.

Sometimes it's not the resolution that we want.

Sometimes the resolution is, is that we can't be together.

The Bible says to live peaceably with all men if possible.

And so there is a conflict sometimes that we have to say, you

know what?

There isn't unity here, and both sides have to be in agreement

to unity or there isn't going to be unity.

And that's all the more reason why we have to take the responsibility

for ourselves to do the right thing in our place.

And so, you know, sometimes it's the classic example of, well,

I'm in the right place, but it's that person's fault, why I'm

this way.

Well, you know what?

Get where you need to be.

And that's, and that's the best way.

That's the best remedy for peace and unity.

I heard recently there was this individual that they said, I

really want to find a good spouse.

They were single.

It was a young man.

He says, you know, I want to find a good spouse.

I want to find a christian woman.

I want to find a lady who is faithful to me, loving, checking

all the boxes.

And this guy said, okay, I've got some advice for you.

I want you to get a piece of paper out, and I want you to write

down all the qualifications that you want for a wife.

And he's like, okay, okay.

So he wrote down 55 things down on the paper.

He was like, 55 qualifications that I want for a spouse.

And then he says, okay, write your name up at the top of that.

And so he write.

So he writes his name up, or actually, he said, write the name

up at the top.

He said, I messed up the joke, or it's kind of a joke.

It's an analogy.

He says, write up at the top my future wife at the beginning.

And then at the end, when he wrote all the qualifications, he

said, okay, now erase future wife and put your name in the blank,

right?

If you want that type of spouse, you need to be that type

of spouse in preparation for that, you know?

And so, so many times we say, okay, we want good church members

in the church.

And so we want people that are dedicated.

We want people that are faithful.

We want people that are loving, forgiving.

Well, you know what?

If that's our goal for church members within Middletown Baptist

Church, maybe we need to erase that and put our name in the blanket,

say, that's what I need to strive for.

And I think that's something to think about when it comes to conflict

and unity within the church.

Putting the responsibility on ourselves.

Putting the responsibility on ourselves as a qualification to be

that church member.

Desiring unity.

Folks, I'm going to tell you, the average Christian within the

church isn't dwelling on unity.

They're dwelling on what does this mean for me?

How can.

What can I get out of this?

And.

And that isn't.

I'm gonna speak in love to you tonight.

I hope I've proven to you that I love you.

The Bible doesn't say that that is the first and foremost priority

within the church.

The first and foremost priority in the church is unity and

edification and exhortation.

The Bible says that the gifts of the spirit that are given to us

are not for our own good.

It's for the good of others within the church.

That shows you right there where the priority is.

The priority is others.

The priority is Jesus others.

And then you.

You heard that acronym, Joy?

Jesus others.

You.

It's not.

It's not about you others and then Jesus.

It's.

It needs to be flipped.

And so I would encourage you to think about that within the church.

I would encourage myself to think about that within the church.

This isn't about getting what I want.

It's about getting what the Lord wants and how I can love and.

And sacrifice for other people.

And that's how we have unity.

That's how we can resolve issues within the church.

Well, you.

I can't believe that your family goes here and does this.

Okay, well, let's do a real life example.

I've got.

I've got, like, seven minutes here to the end of the hour.

Let's do a real life experience.

Okay?

So I've got brother a over here and brother b.

Brother a and brother b, brother a goes, I can't believe that

your family does this.

Okay?

We don't do that in brother a family.

Brother B, you're a sinner.

Okay, well, if he has a problem with brother b, his issue

should be, hey, brother a goes, talk to brother b, and we talk

this out.

Why would you do that?

Can you show me in the word of God, why that's wrong?

Why that's right.

Whatever the problem comes is when brother a goes over here and

says to brother c, can you believe what brother b does with

his family?

Oh, you know what?

He's just.

He's a second class citizen because he does that.

But pray for him.

The problem is, is now brother a has one issue here with brother

b, and now he's created another issue with c.

And now there's an issue between a and c and c and B.

And c and b would have never had an issue.

Right?

You see how that goes now?

And then c over here goes to, I'm gonna go over here to d.

And then D has.

You can see how that it's a ripple effect and a poor poison can

spread.

But if a says, you know what?

Brother B has his own convictions, I'm not going to judge

him for that.

I won't.

I don't.

And then brother B could say, you know what?

I didn't know that you had a problem with me going here.

Well, you know what?

I don't need to do that.

Or maybe I won't do that around you, or we won't go there

and do that together.

Do you see how it's that deference deferring because of my

love?

It's not pride.

It's not, I get to do this.

I have the right to do this.

I will be willing to die to myself so that that person can be

edified.

Now, there's some silliness with that.

Like, sometimes we can get silly within the church, okay?

And the truth is, is that when I'm thinking about myself and myself

alone, I've got more issues that are going to come because everything's

an offense to me.

But when I'm thinking about others, I don't take things as personally.

Hey, you know what?

Maybe they're having a bad day.

I can tell you there have been times where I have had a tough day,

and in no way was I trying to be rude to somebody, but I came across

as rude.

You know what?

And so what I need to do is I need to assume that in my brother

or sister, okay?

The bible says in one corinthians, chapter 13 that true

agape love does not assume the worst, does not assume evil.

What happens within church?

Is this, okay, walking out, someone else says something to me

or has a bad response.

Ugh, they must hate me.

You know what?

I knew they didn't like me.

I saw that from the very beginning.

When they started coming into church, I knew they had a problem

with me from the very beginning.

I bet you they're talking about me right now.

And the truth is, is that maybe they are.

Maybe.

But the initial assumption should not be that that is the case.

That's biblical love.

Getting to the bottom of it.

Now, the way you get to the bottom of it is go right up to him

and say, hey, you know what?

You did that to me.

Is that.

Is that an issue?

Like, did I do something?

I apologize if I did, and then go from there, and then the reality

will come forward.

Yeah, I do have a problem with you, and I don't like that you do

that.

Okay?

Now we go from that to something else.

Now we go to conflict resolution.

Okay?

And so that's.

That's how we have to go through these things.

And so it's like what we talked about this morning.

Think biblically about something.

See it through the lens of scripture.

You ever heard the statement, rose colored glasses?

Like, you put red glasses on, everything's red.

Okay?

See, have your gospel glasses.

Have your Bible glasses.

And so see everything through the lens of scripture and say, you

know what?

It's not about me.

I am not the protagonist of scripture.

Okay?

A lot of times, we think we are the main character of scripture.

And there's a lot of churches out there that preach that.

You are the main character.

Right at the end of the day, you are the main character.

It's all about you.

This lesson's about you today.

And the lesson can apply to me, but I'm not the main character

of scripture.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And we know that it's profitable for all these things in

my life.

But scripture is not.

I'm not the centerpiece of scripture.

Jesus is.

We sang a song about it tonight.

Jesus is that sure foundation.

Jesus is the centerpiece.

And so when we fight, you know what the Bible says when we fight

in the midst of our church, when we struggle within the midst

of our church, we're actually offending the Lord.

We're actually causing issues for his kingdom to move forward.

Not my kingdom.

My kingdom means nothing.

My kingdom is zero, zilch, nada.

Like, I don't have a kingdom.

And even if I think I have a kingdom, that kingdom is not going

to last.

Think about all the dictators that have passed throughout history,

okay?

All of them have died.

All their kingdoms have fallen.

Okay?

Think about the greatest ones.

And the truth is that our kingdoms don't matter.

And so if we see it from that perspective, we can leave with unity.

So how does liberty, law, and love mingle together?

Well, the law is given to us to show us that none of us can meet

God's standard.

It shows us the heart of God.

It shows us how we can follow him to the best of our ability, but

it also shows us that we need Christ.

And so liberty is that I'm saved from the bondage of law and

I'm now in grace, and I can live with freedom to know that I

am going to fail.

But my failure is ultimately swallowed up in Christ's victory.

And so that's my liberty.

But my love says this.

Okay, I'm not going to extend the law to someone, but I'm also

not going to extend my liberty to a point where I limit them in

their specific spiritual walk.

And so are there things that you can do as a Christian?

Yes, you have the freedom to do it.

Paul says it, all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient.

Now, all things are beneficial for your christian walk.

So if you come up to me and you say, pastor, can I do this?

You know, like, theologically, my answer to you is, yeah, you can.

You had the freedom to choose whatever.

Now some of your choices are going to have really bad consequences.

You can choose your sin, but you can't choose your outcome.

But what I will say is this.

Yeah, you had the freedom to do that.

Well, am I sinning?

Well, I can't show you a chapter, verse that you're sinning,

but let me ask you this question.

Is this beneficial for your spiritual growth?

Is this going to hinder your spiritual growth?

Some things are just going to be neutral, like, okay, me going

to McDonald's or Burger King today.

Okay, is that neither one?

Some of you might say, well, it might hinder you in other ways,

but the idea is, is that there are some things in our life that

aren't going to necessarily edify us and build us up to Christ,

but there are going to be some things that do pull us down.

There are going to be some things that hold us back from our

spiritual growth.

So that first check is this.

Is it expedient for my spiritual walk?

And then that second check, is this.

Is it edifying to the saints?

First Corinthians 1023.

Is it edifying?

Is it building up other christians?

Or is my decision in my freedom gonna tear somebody else

down?

Well, you know what?

They need to grow up.

Yes, they do.

Okay, maybe they do.

Maybe they need to mature.

But who is going to demonstrate to them that spiritual

maturity to get to that place?

And so that's where it's at.

That's where our christian life is.

And so, as a servant of the living God.

We have an opportunity to exercise our liberty, but not at

the sake of hindering others in the process.

And so I know that's difficult because it would be a lot easier,

it would be a lot more easy for me to say, hey, guys, if you're

a christian, just follow these rules.

I want it to be that way.

I want it to be where I can give you a list of rules.

And if you follow all these rules, you'll be a perfect Christianity.

But even if I give you the list of rules and you check your

box, it's not going to be where your heart is in the right

place.

It could be, but it might not be.

We can all follow a list of rules.

And so the christian life is not about list following.

You say what?

I've never heard this before.

Okay.

The christian life is not about list following.

The christian life is about following Jesus.

And our hearts change to where many of the things that we do because

of our love for him do align with that.

Listen, not going to want to say these things anymore.

I'm going to love my neighbor.

I am going to live a life of forgiveness and grace.

But it's not because I'm checking a box to get closer to God.

It's because he's already shown me the love and I'm reciprocating

that.

And that's the natural change that happens.

Or let me say it this way, better the supernatural change that

happens in my heart with a transition for loving myself to loving

God.

And so a lot of people struggle with that.

But Romans, chapter six, Paul addresses that.

Cause Paul gets done with preaching all about grace, and then

he goes, oh, wait, they're gonna think that they can just abuse

grace.

So what does he do?

He says, guys, don't continue to sin, that grace just abounds.

Don't abuse grace.

He says, God forbid, why would you wanna go back to that sin that

God saved you from?

And so when you understand God's grace, you don't wanna abuse

it.

When I was a young Christian and when someone really sat down

with me and explained to me grace, I was like, wait, that means

that I can just go sin and ask for forgiveness?

And they're like, no, that's not what that's saying there.

You don't understand grace yet.

So when you grow in grace, you grow in your understanding of, yes,

you do have the freedom and God's forgiveness is mighty and vast,

but you don't want to do that anymore.

You don't want to do that anymore.

It's kind of like this.

I'll end with this.

When I was growing up with my parents in the house, they had rules,

okay?

They had things that they expected me to do and not to do.

And I felt like it was oppressive.

Come on, guys, all my friends are doing this and I can't do this.

And so now I catch myself.

And the reason why I obeyed them, I'm just gonna tell you the

reason.

When I was a little kid and I obeyed my parents was not because

I love them, because I feared my dad.

Okay?

Just gonna be honest.

I feared him.

It's like, dad, I do not want to get dad mad at me.

But as I grew, I started to understand that, that discipline.

Cause he used to tell me this thing, son, this hurts me more than

it hurts you.

I'm like, no way.

This is so wrong.

But as I saw his discipline over the years, I saw that it was

out of love.

So then after a time, it wasn't so much that I would obey

him out of fear, it was out of love.

You know what?

There was a time where I got stronger than my dad.

It's like now I can overpower him and I can stop him from getting.

But then I was like, you know what?

No.

Now is the time where I don't want to do that.

Now's the time where I say, dad, you know what?

I understand what you're saying.

And then there was a time when I turned 18, 1920, and I'm not under

my dad's rules.

And now I'm saying, you know what?

He's talking in the back of my mind and I'm going, yeah, this would

not be wise for me to do.

And so then it became something that was ingrained in me

and it was something that I did because I love my dad and I respected

my dad.

And that's that progression of maturity in my life where that's

the same thing as a Christian.

When we start out, it's like God's going to strike me down.

And then it gets to the point where knowing that he's not going

to strike me down, but then knowing that he expects this out

of me, out of love, and he disciplines me out of love, and therefore

he doesn't enjoy doing that.

And let me tell you, the moment that I really realized that

my dad did not enjoy disciplining me, when I had to start

disciplining my children, that's when I'm like, oh, you know

what?

I know what he was saying now.

I totally understand this now, but I want to discipline them because

I love them.

And that's the process.

God disciplines us and guides us and corrects us because he loves

us.

And it is that love that we can understand in our lives.

And so we'll end with that.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find [email protected] or

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You can also email me [email protected].

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.