If I See Something I Say Something Part III
Tim Ross | June 28, 2020
“My hope and prayer is that we can find agreement over Scripture, because we will never find agreement over politics. … Because inside the Word of God all of our perspectives are submitted to the Book. All of our opinions are submitted to the Book.”
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Transcription
I love you guys so much. I'm so grateful that you are here and I'm ready to get into God's word. We've been in a series this entire month of June called We Make Dreams Come True. We've landed on a message entitled "If I see something, I say something". We did one, then we did two and today is Part 3 of "If I see something, I say something".
If you have your Bibles, I want you to open them up to the Book of Acts 15. The Book of Acts 15. That's where I will be doing my reading from this morning. I know for a fact that this message is going to calibrate your thinking and give you a context that you haven't had before. The Book of Acts 15, starting at- I think the 22nd verse is where we're going to start. Here's what it says.
"Then the apostles and elders together with the whole church in Jerusalem chose delegates." Let me just pause right here. Last week I read you 15:1-22 and talked about the four takeaways from the Jerusalem council from the meeting that they all had. Now, the outcome of the meeting is what we're going to be talking about today. Just so you have context if you're just joining us for the first time, here is the context of this message. The apostles and elders together with the whole church in Jerusalem chose delegates and they sent them to Antioch of Syria with Paul and Barnabas to report on this decision.
The men chosen were two of the church leaders. That's very, very important. I'll come back to that in a minute. Judas, also called Barsabbas, and Silas. This is the letter they took with them. This letter is from the apostles and elders, your brothers in Jerusalem. "It is written to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings. We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but we did not send them. We have decided having come to a complete agreement to send official representatives along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, whoever risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are sending Judas and Silas to confirm what we have decided concerning your question. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell."
The messengers went at once to Antioch, where they caught a general meeting of the believers and delivered the letter. There was great joy throughout the church that day, as they read this encouraging message. This is so good. Then Judas and Silas, both being prophets, spoke at length to the believers, encouraging and strengthening their faith. They stayed for a while and then the believers sent them back to the church in Jerusalem with the blessing of peace. Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch. They and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord there. This is so good. If you're taking notes, this is "If I see something, I say something" Part 3. Make sure you get that. "If I see something, I say something" Part 3. Here's what's amazing to me about this outcome in the Jerusalem council. After they had got together and after they had really prayed over and discussed at length, I talked about this last week, they had discussions at length. This went on for hours, understanding, and trying to grapple with what is it that God wants us to do with the Gentiles. He has obviously revealed that He wants them on equal footing as us and that He wants them to be a part of this faith, and we should not be making it difficult for them to step into this fellowship with us so that we can extend the gospel message literally around the world.
What I find exciting about this is that because of the tough conversations that they were able to have behind closed doors, it meant that when they came out, they were able to embrace everybody through open doors. I want to give you the four outcomes that came from this meeting. Last week we talked about the takeaways from the meeting. Now I want to talk about the four outcomes that came from the meeting.
Make sure you take notes on this. Why? Because nerds rule the world. Point number one, please write this down. The four outcomes that came from the meeting, point number one is acceptance. The first outcome that came from this meeting was acceptance. Here is how we know that acceptance was fully integrated into the hearts of the apostles and the elders at this Jerusalem council in Acts 15:23. Here's what it says. This is the letter they took with-- Let me just pause right there.
This is the very first time that we see in the New Testament that they wrote something down that they had discussed. Most of the communication was done verbally. If somebody says something verbally, then they gave it to somebody else to repeat verbally, but this was so official, this had to be so on record that they wrote it down. They said, "We're not just making this statement blindly and just verbally saying it like a one-off sermon. What we're going to do is write it down. This is going on the website. This is going on our official documents. This is about to be in the articles of incorporation. This is about to be in our bylaws. I want to make sure that this is written down." This letter is from the apostles and elders. I got to slow down right here. Your brothers in Jerusalem, the first major outcome from this meeting is acceptance.
The Gentiles who had been ostracized, the Gentiles, who felt like they were alienated, the first thing that they hear from this for this outcome is, "You're accepted. Your Gentile life just doesn't matter. It's equal to ours. It is equal to our life. Jews and Gentiles are equal in the presence of God. I want you to understand that you are no longer just some Gentile believers that they're going to be treated like second class citizens. You are my brother and you are my sister. The first outcome from this council is you are accepted and it's not just coming from a couple of church members. These are the apostles and the elders of the Jerusalem church."
Can I just pause and say, this is the type of declaration that needs to be made in American churches. When it comes to unity in the body of Christ, we need our leaders. We need those that are most influential to be standing up and sing loudly, "We are equal in the presence of God, that we are a family of believers and no matter who you are and what your background is, if you confess that Jesus is Lord and God raised Him from the dead, you are my brother and you are my sister." This acceptance is very, very important to me. I feel a burden that God has put on my heart to teach His messages. Why? Because I don't know what America's going to do about racism, but I know the church would do something about it. I don't know what America's going to do with their laws to make sure that a heart change happens. I haven't seen it happen a lot, but the church of Jesus Christ, the church of Jesus Christ should be the ones linking arms and saying, "Hey, we're all Gentiles who were accepted by the Jews, so we're not going to make these distinctions what each other because then Jews no longer make that distinction with us. Messianic-Jewish believers accept us as their brothers and their sisters, not second class faith citizens.
Our churches have to be the ones to say we are unified in the fact that no matter what your ethnicity is, no matter what your cultural background is, we profess Jesus Christ and we are accepted because of His grace. "It is written to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Greetings." Can you imagine being a Gentile and getting a letter like this? From the very founding apostles and elders of the Christian Church, and they're saying, "You're my brother. You're my sister. I greet you. You are Gentiles and you all are family. Bring it in." Acceptance is the first outcome.
Point number two, please write this down, the second outcome that was important that came out of this meeting was acknowledgment. That's right. Acknowledgment, acceptance came, but also acknowledgment. Here's what it says in Acts 15:24. “We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but we did not send them!” This is strong. It has the exclamation mark. Let me put some more punch to it. "We did not send them!"
This is what I love about the apostles and the elders coming out of this Jerusalem council. They strongly denounced anybody that had a teaching of division. They strongly denounced anybody that had a teaching of this unity. They didn't just say, "Well, there's some guys over there, but we're not worried about them. I just want you to know we accept you." No, they came out and they acknowledge, "There are some people over here that would love to keep us divided over some really petty stuff, but we didn't send them. I know that they came from my denomination. They don't represent me. I know we might've sent them from our church. We don't represent them. They don't represent us. We did not send them. Whoever these people are that have caused division, we did not send them."
Listen, this is a point right here that I need every single lead pastor to champion. When you hear people that have divisive messages, when you hear people that have racism in their messages, division in their messages, making it at an obstacle course to get to the cross, we need to be able to strongly denounce and say, "We don't sin them. They do not represent us. They are not in the book." They acknowledged it. They didn't just say, "Well, we don't teach that, so we're just responsible for us." No, if it hits our radar and we see it, we're going to say it. If we see something, we say something.
I love that these apostles and these elders took a stand to say, "They don't represent us. If you hear those guys, I know they've caused you trouble, I know they've angered you with the things that they have done, I know that they've expressed themselves, but I want you to know they don't represent us. We're going to send official people from our house to speak on our behalf because these other people do not speak for us." There was an acknowledgment.
Point number three, please write this down, the third thing, the third outcome of this meeting was agreement. Acceptance was first, then acknowledgment and then agreement. I love who they came into agreement with. Here's what it says in Acts 15: 25-27, “So we decided having come to complete agreement to send you official representatives, along with our beloved Paul and Barnabas, who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are sending Judas and Silas to confirm what we have decided concerning your question." This is a big point for me because if we don't have an agreement about this spirit being driven out of our churches, then there's going to be more division. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that's good. There's going to be more purging that takes place in his body. If we can't get into an agreement, that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is responsible for driving the spirit of racism out of our houses of worship, then we're going to see more purging take place in the body of Christ.
You know what? Purging is good. I don't know if you notice, but the amount of stuff that you consume comes out of you. I don't know if you're aware of this or not. Whatever you've had to eat over the last two days or so has hopefully come out of you by now. If not, you might need a laxative. When we intake, there's going to be some outtake. When we bring stuff in, we got to bring some stuff out. Here's what I know. When we bring the Word of God into our situation, it purges us of anything carnal, of anything fleshly, of anything that is in our heart that's prideful, anything that's egotistical. It drives it out. The more word we get in, the more sin we get out.
That brings me to an incredible observation. I'm going to get a little personal here, and this might come across a little bit strong. The last three weeks that I've been teaching this message, the responses that I've been getting from several people has been eye-opening. It's actually been surprising because I thought teaching from Scripture, what God would have to say about some of the events that are going on in this country, would all bring us into an agreement on the fact that racism is a spirit and is still alive in the church. We have an obligation as believers to make sure we get rid of it. In the same way that we do a series on madmen, we teach people how to tie, or grace, and we teach people not to live religiously by the law, or we'll teach you how to have a better life for four or five weeks, or we'll teach you on how to have a breakthrough for three or four weeks, and nobody has a problem with that.
I started teaching against the sin and the hypocrisy of racism and injustice in this country from a biblical-theological point of view, and some of the residents of Embassy City have sent me Fox News clips. You sent me YouTube clips responding politically to what I've taught theologically. It's been a revelation. I'm not mad at you, but you've given me some things to think about. I'm thinking about the fact that maybe I haven't been your pastor for the last one to five years at this church has been open. Maybe Embassy City is not your church. Perhaps Fox News is. Perhaps maybe one of the anchors on Fox News is your jurisdictional Bishop or maybe he's your pastor, maybe she's your evangelist.
I thought we should come into agreement and stay on the topic that racism and injustice is not something we stand for in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, but the responses that I've gotten have given me some insight that many of our people are being more disciple-d by Fox News, CNN, and some other news outlets than they are Scripture. Maybe there needs to be a purge. I'm okay with it. I'm not going to stop looking into Scripture to find answers to the culture we live in. I will not allow the news to inform my opinions. I'm going to keep going back to Scripture to find out what God wants to say about the seasons that we're in. My hope and prayer is that we could find agreement over Scripture because we'll never find agreement over politics. We will never come into an agreement over some of our perspectives outside of the word of God because inside the word of God, all of our perspectives are submitted to the book. Inside of the word of God, all of our opinions are submitted to the book.
The Jerusalem council was about everyone having an agreement. I fear that going into the book has caused more disagreements than agreements. I just want to say I'm fine with it. I just want to say that if this series has drawn the line for you and just informed you, you might've already left, this message doesn't even apply to you because you stopped listening maybe when I started the first message.
I've noticed something else, and oh, Lord, I'm just going to say it, it's really interesting. Our giving's going down since I started this series. I know it's not a summer dip because we haven't been in the physical location since March. We got through all the Corona and the messages I was teaching, everybody was like, "Amen," but then I started teaching on this and the giving is going down a little bit. I just want you to know I'm not scared. This is not my church and it's not yours. It's not my church to control. It's definitely not yours to control. We're going to come into agreement about what Scripture says about this spirit. If we can't come into agreement, we didn't send you. You don't represent us. "They used to be at Embassy City. I will send official representatives to speak on our behalf. They used to be here, but they're not here anymore. I know they've been putting some stuff on Facebook and it's kind of weird. We didn't send them."
We are going to be in agreement here. If this message purges everyone that disagrees, I would rather be in the house would unity right over Scripture. Not over politics, not over the way that we decided to communicate it, but over Scripture is fine. I want to be moving forward with those we're in agreement with.
Point number four, the fourth thing that came from the outcome of the Jerusalem council was access. I want you to think about these four points again. We have acceptance, acknowledgment, we have agreement. This last one is so good. It is access, because if you agree that we are brothers and sisters and you acknowledge that for the past 120 years in this country our churches have still been mostly segregated and there is a spirit in the church that needs to be addressed, if we can acknowledge that, then we come into agreement that we want to drive that spirit out.
If we agree on those three things but don't implement this fourth thing, we might as well go back and have another meeting because it must end with equal access. It must end with all of us on the same footing with an understanding that God has made us equal in His sight. This would be a completely different message that I would have to approach if we were actually in these biblical times because I will be reliant on a Messianic-Jewish rabbi to be speaking up on my behalf to make sure I have these rights as a Gentile. What is still blowing my mind and I know I've said it every single week, is that I'm a Gentile talking to Gentiles about how Gentiles need to get along. I'm a black Gentile talking to white Gentiles about how us- how we need to get along. I'm a black Gentile talking to Hispanic Gentiles, talking to Southeast Asian Gentiles, talking to Chinese Gentiles, talking to Croatian Gentiles, talking to South African Gentiles, talking to all the Gentiles about how we need to be getting along.
It can't just be something that we accept and something that we acknowledge and something that we agree upon, there has to be access. Here's what it says in Acts 15:28-29. "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us." Can I just stop right there? I'm so grateful that the Holy Spirit's the one leading these conversations. I'm so grateful that people have submitted to the Holy Spirit and saying, "Lord, we want to know your will and your way as it relates to what's going on here." The Holy Spirit said, "No, this is good. This has always been God's plan."
These guys don't get the credit. Look at who I gave the credit to first. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us because without the Holy Spirit being involved, we will not be in the same room together. Without the Holy Spirit transforming our heart, without the Holy Spirit giving us His perspective to us as believers, we wouldn't be here together. It seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements. This is so good. Talk about lowering the bar.
"You must not abstain from eating food offered to idols." You shouldn't do that anyway. I just want you to think about, you're about to pray over your burger, but you pray over it and offer it up to Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, that would be an idol. You think about praying over your spaghetti, but then offering it up to Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol, that would be ridiculous.
"Check, Gentiles, oh, there are some things you got to do Gentiles. You must abstain from eating food offered to idols." "That's good. That's not circumcision. That's great. What else is on that list?" "You can't consume blood or the meat of strangled animals." "It sounds pretty nasty, but yes. No, I don't want to do that anyway. Thank you, Jesus." "And from sexual immorality." That might be hard for some of you, but you put it in there. If you want to know all the immoral things that can be done sexually, go look in the Book of Leviticus. I know that book is a cuss word to some of you all, but there's a lot of great stuff in here that still applies today.
Then they say this. "If you do this, you will do well. Farewell." Remember how high that bar was that the Judaizers tried to set? You got to be circumcised, you got to basically become a Jew. You got to follow the Mosaic law to a tee. The Jews lowered that bar. They said, "No, just three things. Abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell." Oh, this is access right here.
Let's translate that to maybe 2020. I can grow my hair out like this here without getting crazy feedback from our white brothers and sisters, that's interesting. I wish I could do that. Maybe cut it a little bit, we could just have a style here. Can we lower the bar? Can I just be me and still be accepted? Or do I have to change and turn into you to be accepted? Can I show up on your platform and dress the way I would usually dress that's comfortable for me, or do I have to take on everything you've done? Do I have to like your music? Do I have to like your delivery and teaching style? How are we going to put the bar? Because based on this Gentile list, it's only three things. Some of you all would be arguing right now about the blood because you like your meat rare or medium-rare or something. God is trying to lower the bar so that more people can get into the Kingdom. You do know that Calvary's cross was on a hill, but I fear in a lot of churches, we've turned it into an obstacle course. Jack and Jill could get up the hill,
but we make people jump through so many hoops to come into the Kingdom. "We have a 12-month discipleship program, then you get your membership." "Oh, I can't be committed to nothing. For 12 months before I can be considered in?" "Well, we want people in the praise and worship team, but we have a pretty rigid process." "Is that why it's still all white? Is that why it's still all black? Is that why it's still all Hispanics? What is your criteria?" "They don't dress like us, they don't sound like us." "Well, what do you expect these Gentiles to do?"
I see something, so I say something. Acts 15 was the greatest equalizer that the church had to go through to get equality. I believe we need to come back to an Acts 15 moment to get the modern-day church in America back to its equality. There is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free. The strongest implication of those words inspired by the Holy Spirit is that if there is no Jew or Gentile, if there is no slave or free, if there is no male or female, there cannot be black and white.
I've come back to Scripture to present this context. I have not gone through a new source to present this context. I've come back to Scripture to get this perspective. I didn't listen to a politician to get this perspective. I have come back to Scripture to speak with this authority. I did not watch a YouTube clip to speak with anger. I've seen something, I've said something. The Bible is clear that we need to do something. So take these messages in their entirety and ask yourself, "Holy Spirit, what are you trying to say to me through this message?"
I'm just telling you all, if what I've said in any of these three messages have been offensive to you, we can talk about it, I'm a big boy, I can handle the conversation, but it's just been amazing to me to not see people that remotely got a hold of this message, but people in our own house decide this is not their church anymore after one sermon. I guess everything else that I've said over the last four, five years, however long you've been here, has been safe enough for you. If I preach the full counsel of the gospel right, I'm going to offend you at some point and I'm going to offend me too because God presents Himself to no one without turning their world upside down. I've seen something and I've said something. This has been your series for the month of June. I hope it's been a blessing. Bow your heads and close your eyes. What is the Holy Spirit is saying to you through this message?
My hope and my prayer is that God has highlighted something for you that will bring us into an agreement over this issue. There's a lot of nuances to what needs to go on to fix racism in America, but as it relates to the church, God already addressed this. It's an open book test, He gave us Scripture to know how to deal with this situation, any type of division. He gave us Scripture to know how to deal with it. My prayer, my hope that the Holy Spirit is saying something to you like he's saying to me, I got to be a part of getting this out of the church. I got to be a part of ridding this from my household. I got to be a part of making sure my friends have an understanding theologically to what God says about what's going on culturally.
My prayer is that He's speaking to you, and now you're getting a little riled up, there's something on the inside of you that says, "I want to be a part of changing this." Somehow some way from 1900 to 1999, we were able to successfully accomplish as the church 100 years of preaching the gospel and never addressing racism in a way that has changed us at our core.
I feel like we got into the first 20 years of this century and God said, "Timeout. I won't let this go another 100 years. We'll give you all 80 years, figure this out. I'll give you 80 years so that your grandchildren won't be having the same conversation you're having right now. I'll give you 80 years, so your great-grandchildren will have to scratch your head and say, 'Huh? That was happening in the church? I've never been to a church like that in my life.'" I'm part of that 80-year plan and I hope you will be too.
If you're watching and you've never given your life to Jesus, it's really, really simple. He lowered the bar really low. You can get in right now, just confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Romans 10:9, I want to welcome you into the family of God if you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you've repented and renounced the life you've been living now that you have experienced the life of Jesus Christ. I want to welcome you as the newest citizen of the Kingdom of God into the family. You are my brother, you are my sister. Father God, thank you so much for this message and its impact on this culture. Holy Spirit, do with these messages that I could never do, transform hearts and minds so that souls, lives will be saved and changed in Jesus' name.
