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Okay, I’m going to invite you to Acts chapter 21 where we’re going to be together today. Acts chapter 21. And we’re in the final section of the book of Acts. And in this final section, if you remember, we’re coming to the place where Paul has concluded his third missionary journey. The book of Acts records for us three missionary journeys. The Apostle Paul went on. And we know in history, Paul went on more than three missionary journeys. But at the conclusion of his third missionary journey, he, he comes to Jerusalem and he’s arrested and he spends the rest of the book of Acts in house arrest. He spends a couple of years in Jerusalem or in that region, and then a couple years in Rome. And in fact, when you read the book of Acts, I think it’s important for you to know that this this particular book spans about 30 years of history. And the book of Acts ends with the Apostle Paul in prison, even though that’s not where his life ends. He’s released from prison and goes on further missionary journeys. Now, we might be wondering now why in the world doesn’t give us a conclusion. It just kind of ends abruptly with Paul in jail. And I’ll just tell you, you’re gonna have to stay to the end to figure that one out, because I’m not I’m not going to share that with you yet. But but it ends with Paul in jail. And, and as he’s he’s coming to Jerusalem, we know that he’s going to face adversity.
And the reason we know that is because Paul’s already told us that. And Paul’s friends have told us that yet he continues to to move forward to Jerusalem for some very specific purposes. And it’s primarily about honoring God and reaching hearts. That’s Paul’s interest as he ministers to the church there facing some adversity. And we look at that. We might ask the question, why would someone move forward in that kind of a conflict? And, and realizing, hey, wait a minute, we live in a broken world and we’re going to face the same thing. And so we’re going to look at this particular section of scripture and ask the question like, how do we honor God when when we live in a culture that doesn’t? And Paul, in living his life in this particular way, in Acts chapter 21, I’m reminded that this isn’t something Paul just does in this moment. This is something Paul emulated through his entire faith journey as he came to know the Lord. What does it look like for me to honor God and especially when my culture doesn’t? And when you read throughout the New Testament, especially the epistles that Paul writes Paul is constantly peppering his letters with this thought. There’s the truth that you believe. And then there’s how we live. And sometimes when we take the truth of which we believe, and we try to engage the world in the way that we live, the world doesn’t make it easy.
And so what does that look like for us to honor God in a challenging world and the adversity that we might face now? I want you to know, if you grab some notes this morning, great. You might notice that I have some extra verses related to this particular passage. If you didn’t grab a paper copy of her notes, just know on the Alpine Bible Church app, if you open that and click on notes, you get the digital notes too. Sometimes it’s easier because you can just click on the verse and see it. But we’re going to be looking at not only this particular passage, but the way that Paul lives in this passage in light of the way that he encouraged us to live throughout all of his letters, as Paul thinks about our lives in the midst of a broken world, what does it look like for us to honor God in the midst of a culture that may not? And I’ll just dive right into it this morning because we have we have five points in the notes, and I might have to move through this quickly. I was a little worried in first service. I wasn’t going to get through it all, but we did. And so we have to get through it all. Second and third service because I can’t like lag our services behind.
So here’s point number one in your notes. You have to start this way. Rejoice in new life. In fact, honestly, we could just talk about rejoicing, but we absolutely want to rejoice in new life. I mean, it is the lifeblood of the church. And just seeing how how the Spirit of God continues to to move in people. And we see new life found in Christ. And, and that is certainly reason for rejoicing. And this is something that has has marked Paul’s life as is the rejoicing in the way. God’s hand has moved and. And even if it’s not moving in the hearts of other people, Paul knows the way that God has impacted his own heart. He still has reason to rejoice. And in Acts chapter 21, verse 17, that’s how it starts. And talking about Paul, it says, when we had come to Jerusalem. So Luke is including himself here with the word we. We had come to Jerusalem. The brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present, and after greeting them he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through the ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God. So here they are, just rejoicing over what God’s done. As Paul went around the world with several people traveling with him and seeing people come to know Jesus, a new life birthed and churches spreading throughout the Roman Empire.
And then the church in Jerusalem shares what’s happening there. And it says, and when they heard it, they glorified God and said to him, you see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law. And so not only are they rejoicing over what Paul had seen take place in his missionary journeys throughout the known world, as Paul comes back to Jerusalem, he’s finding more and more people come to know Christ. And so there’s rejoicing in that. And I, I want you to know that when it comes to rejoicing, it’s it’s a wonderful marker to examine the health of the life of a person in general, but especially for a believer, because all of us rejoice over something, right? But he’s being more specific here and just glorifying God, rejoicing in the things of the Lord. And what you rejoice over is really a way of measuring the health of your life in Christ. Like what you rejoice over tends to be where you also put your worship and things that give you purpose, identity, and meaning. And so just thinking about our own rejoicing, what causes my heart to rejoice is a place to come back and examine. Is it is it really in alignment with the Lord? Are they things of the Lord? Does that really matter to me, and do I rejoice over them? And one of the things I think is helpful to remind us as God’s people, when we think about rejoicing, is just the gift that it is to know Jesus, walk with him and honor him with our life.
Because as you study Scripture, one of the things that you discover is that God honestly doesn’t owe us anything other than his wrath and justice. And the reason for that is because he’s perfect and you’re not. He’s holy in your not. But rather than leave us in that place, the Bible teaches us about a God who pursues us even while we’re sinners and gives his life for us, that we could find forgiveness, freedom, a new identity purpose in him. It’s an absolute gift of God to be able to gather and to be able to seek his face and to have a relationship with him and then and then represent him in this world to help other people discover the the worth and the value that they are. And they were intended to have and their creator and find their lives recreated through the cross, through a God who pursued them and gave his life for him. Because it’s a gift to know Jesus. And until you recognize that you’re not going to want to hunger in your desire to want to know Jesus and walk with him, to realize what Jesus has rescued you from, and also realize what Jesus is offering you, offering to you in him, a future and a hope, and seeing the the grace of God pour out in our life is what invites us, compels us to him because it’s God’s love and.
And as we. We plunge the depths of who he is and we find the. The greatness of him made known in our hearts. It just keeps churning in our souls to want to know him more. Rejoicing as a as an indicator in the the the health of the life of the believer. It’s important for us to take a moment just to see God’s hand the way he moves among us. Like one of the things I love about our staff meetings we do here on Tuesday and, and we kick off our time together with that meeting. And the first thing on our agenda is to look back, look back at what God has done and, and just recognize that we talk about things that were good things that we can improve on next time, but we just look back at God’s hand and, and even thinking of this, this last year or excuse me, this last month for us as a church, like I just took just a quick minute. I’m like, hey, what’s happened in ABC over this last month? And, and you know, realizing it’s April. So that’s, that’s predominantly Easter month for us. And, and our Easter celebration. We had some people give us attendance totals. And I got to tell you, sometimes those, those totals are different when you get a big crowd.
So I just know it’s somewhere over 700 people in less than a thousand people we had at Easter. But that’s a that’s a lot of people. It takes a lot of work and, and we baptize more people we’ve ever baptized at a service with 26 people baptized. And on Easter, we sent out two teams that. That week we sent one during the service, we sent one to Asia, had a fantastic time in serving the Lord. And then we sent another one down to Torrey, Utah to, to serve a, a church in Torrey that not only happens to be the only Bible based church in Torrey, Utah. It’s actually the only church in the in that county, which is Wayne County. Now, there’s a part of that that’s amazing and saying that’s the only church in Wayne County, and there’s no part in Wayne County’s got like three people in it. But that doesn’t matter, right? They still matter to the Lord. Okay, there’s actually like 2500 people in Wayne County, but it’s amazing to think like during that week, our church just sending people internationally and, and here locally. And it’s just about making a difference in the Lord. I mean, even here at the church, after the last couple of weeks when services have concluded. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to people that have just said, I’m new in the faith or I’m examining Jesus right now.
He seems very endearing to me. I want to know more about this Christ. I mean, there’s even a few services where after the service, you know, I walk out and get a chance to chat with people. And I found myself in multiple circles where different families around me saying, yeah, we all just came to know Jesus or we’re all, we’re all investigating Christ. Like, I don’t know how many times in your life where you’ve, you’ve been in this position where individuals come up at the same time and all of them just saying to you, I’ve just come to know Jesus, or I’m really looking at Jesus. I mean, that’s, that is incredible to think about how God’s hand is moving and it gives us this place of rejoicing and just saying, thank you, Lord. What matters to you matters to us. And it’s a good way of examining because there’s going to be hard days that that come in the midst of those trying times. The the things that cause your heart to rejoice in the Lord are important. And it can be, you know, the way God’s working in people. But honestly, even if that’s not true, it’s the work that God does in your own life. God. Thank you. You didn’t leave me. Thank you. You offered me your grace. I have forgiveness, I have freedom. So not only is there there rejoicing in a new life, but but then when we grow as God’s people in numbers, right? As as we get bigger tends to happen when you have people come to know the Lord.
Like we don’t all come to know Jesus and we’re instantaneously as mature in Christ as we could be. You know, we could say it like this, that when you come to know Jesus, you’re instantly perfected in Jesus. I’ll talk about that in a minute. But there’s also this place of, of maturing in your walk with the Lord. And so it’s saying to us, when we come to know Christ, we come to know Christ sometimes half baked. I’ve got to grow in that relationship with him. And when we come to know Jesus without even realizing it, we kind of bring our experiences and our past with us, and that’s a part of who you are. That’s important. But some of that is not in alignment with who Christ is, right? We kind of just bring some baggage along with us, and God’s got to work that out in our lives. And what does that look like for us to mature in the Lord? And point number two is this, that we’ve got to be patient with maturing believers. Actually, we could just say be patient with each other because in a way, we’re all maturing in Christ, but God’s doing this work in us. And so what does that look like for us to mature in the Lord? This is why the very bottom of this passage is highlighted for you.
They are all zealous for the law. As the church is sharing and saying, look at all the people come to the Lord. That phrase is them also saying, and they’ve kind of come with some baggage. Paul, you know this, this is not a healthy thing that, that, that they’re saying in this passage. Now there’s a place to understand the Old Testament law. We’ll talk about that in just a few. But what they’re saying is they’ve taken this idea of the law and they’ve run with it to a degree that has actually not been healthy for us as a church. And so they’re recognizing that there’s this, this place of maturing that needs to happen in the church, that while people are coming to the Lord, that’s amazing. But while we grow wider, we’ve also got to grow deeper. And so how do we how do we do that? What does that look like? Well, I think it’s critical for us to know everyone is being formed in some way. We’re all being shaped. We’re all being formed. But the question is, what is forming you? And the Bible gives us a couple places of helping us realize, like, how do I, how do I work with people whose lives may not be fully honoring God in the way? Will say, someone who has matured in the Lord. Like, how do I approach that? And I would say, really, there’s, there’s two different types of people that I think are important to understand.
One is an individual who’s just new in the Lord, who’s really growing in him. And then there’s another type of individual who who is just rebellious. They don’t give a rip, right? Like there’s, there is this Jesus. They say they follow this Jesus, but they love the world more. Like, how do you how do you approach that? Well, I would say for us, there’s, there’s two different paths there. Like as a follower of Christ, when I see someone whose heart is given over to the world, I want to come alongside that person and just say, hey, do you recognize this? Or are you aware of this? Do you see how this is not surrendered to the Lord? And, and I want to encourage my my brother or sister in Christ to honor God. What does that look like in the midst of rebellion? But then there’s this other place where you have believers that their hearts are given over to the Lord. And, and they’re just they’re just now being shaped in Christ. And I would say as a pastor or even as a follower of Jesus in general, I would treat that differently And not to say that I don’t want their life to change, but when your life is given over to the Lord and the Lord is working on that, you just let the Holy Spirit just, just use that.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit uses us to point a finger on something for someone else. And you want to do that gently, by the way. And then other times it’s just realizing, oh, they just need time in Christ and they’re going to be, they’re going to be maturing in this process. So, so what does it look like for me to, to be formed, but not just formed, formed in the Lord? Well, in Romans chapter 12, and I want to look at verse two, but I’ll look at both of these in just a moment. The apostle Paul says like this when he talks about your forming, don’t be conformed or with forming to this world, but be rather transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect. So, so what Paul is saying is like, you got to be mindful of this, that you are going to be formed. And there’s this way the world wants to shape you. They want to press you from the outside to get you to conform to this box the way they want you to look. But then there’s what God desires to do in you. And rather than modify your behavior, what God desires to do is transform you on the inside out. It’ll change the way you live. But that journey is different because it begins on the inside that God is transforming me new in the identity that I have in him.
And I learn what that means then to live that out. And so when Paul is telling us, okay, when you got a new believer, how do you know the difference between what you should do with someone that’s new in Christ and growing and growing the Lord, but still coming with some baggage or someone that’s just walking out, right? Rebellious. Well, when you’ve got that, that new believer in Christ in Romans 12, Paul gives you two markers. He’s saying, look for these two markers like as a believer this morning, if you have these two markers that that God is going to continue to work in your life to shape you, transform you and to bring you to a place to reflect the beauty of Christ in this world. What are those? And Romans one, he says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. What he’s saying is, marker number one is a surrendered life to the Lord. It looks like humility, right? Out of all the things your life could be given over to Paul saying, I beg you, brothers, that you understand the most important thing your life could be given to is Jesus. Are you surrendered to Jesus? Do you show humility towards Christ in the way your life is given over to him? I love that Paul calls it a living sacrifice.
It almost seems like a dichotomy of words here, because when you sacrifice something, it’s supposed to die. But but you’re a living sacrifice, meaning you can always crawl off the altar. So he’s saying this needs to be the posture of your heart as you move through life. It’s not a one time decision. It’s an all time decision that that determines the trajectory of your life. Do they have the mark of humility? And then in point number two, what he’s saying here is, do you have a hunger for the truth? Do you yearn for the truthfulness of God? Because both of those things are saying, look, we might bring baggage with us, but if we’re really surrendered to the Lord and we really hunger for His Word, God’s going to work that out in us. As we’re transformed in his image, we’re growing. You know, I love it when you get to meet new believers and you see they’re excited in the Lord. And, and, you know, they come with all sorts of questions and they’re trying to figure out what this Jesus thing looks like. And, you know, I can tell you as a pastor in those moments, I don’t stress out. I’m like, they’re not, you know, they’re not fully there yet, but they’re getting there. And what God desires to do, I mean, Philippians chapter one, verse six, it says, he who began a good work in you will bring it to the day of your redemption, showing Jesus is journeying with you and all that, and they’re just surrender to that.
And you can just step back and see how the Spirit of God works in his people to, to bring about his the beautiful picture of who he is in their life. He transforms them. Now as we think about what that looks like in our life, I think it’s, it’s, it’s critical for us to think in terms like this. There’s a I’m going to give you a theological word, and then we’re going to probably forget that word. But I want to talk about what that means practically. Okay. Theologians have this word that they refer to as progressive sanctification, right? It’s one that you talk about constantly at the dinner table. I know progressive sanctification. And, and what it means is this when you come to know the Lord, you are made perfect positionally, instantly. And when God looks at you, he sees the image of Christ all over you. He sees the perfection of Jesus. So when you come to know the Lord, you’re instantly perfected in Christ. The Bible to describe that uses two words. It’s the same Greek word our. Our Bible uses interchangeably. It’s justified and righteous. So. So in Christ. Romans five one. If I give you an example, you’re justified in Christ. You’re declared perfect because the perfect nature of Jesus has been placed on you.
What Jesus accomplished on the cross that was for you. And so when when the father looks at you, he sees the perfection of Jesus. So there’s a sense in our life that when I come to know Jesus, I’m justified, I’m righteous, I’m perfected. However, in coming to know Christ, I’ve also got to, to, to grow in my maturity and understanding. What does that what does that mean? What does that look like in the day to day? And theologians refer to that as as progressive sanctification growing in the position I’ve already received in Christ as I reflect Christ more in my life. Hebrews chapter ten, verse 14 is one of those verses that takes both of those ideas and puts it into one verse. I love this verse because this is one of those verses that for people that stress out like, is Jesus really enough? What happens if I sin again? Like, is God really? Can he forgive me? I’ve already asked for forgiveness once, but. But if I sin again, is Christ going to all of a sudden take my salvation? And and, and Hebrews chapter ten, verse 14, it says, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And so he’s saying in that idea of sanctification, God knows you’re not perfected yet and the way that you live, but because Jesus sacrifice is sufficient, you’ve been perfected in who Christ is. So, so there is this maturing that takes place in our lives as believers.
And so how do I mature? Well, it’s the surrender humility to Christ. God, my life was made for you. So take it. And also there’s this hunger to want to know who this God is and what that means for you in light of who he is. What is your identity become now that you belong to him? As long as we have the humility, we have that hunger. We walk with Christ to grow in that. And so I’ve been perfected and I’m being perfected in in the Lord. Now one more passage and I move on. But in second Corinthians chapter three, Paul says it like this. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. And what Paul is saying is like, as you gaze upon the Lord God does that transforming work in you. So, so what you’re choosing to form, you will ultimately determine who you become. Now, let me just give a little push back here and share with us. A problem in the life of believers is that Paul often remark in in his epistles, and if I give you a verse, I’d even say first Corinthians chapter three, verse one, he comes to the church of Corinth often to tell them, guys aren’t maturing like he says to you.
In First Corinthians three one, you should be eating or eating meat now, but instead you can continue to drink milk. You’re still babes. You’re not growing up. You’re not maturing. He encourages him in that. And I would say, guys, it can it can be the same for us if we’re not careful that we don’t, we don’t unintentionally fall into holiness, that you’ve got to make it a pursuit of your heart to want to be more like Jesus and the way that you live your life. And if I’m being honest, one of the reasons sometimes Christians don’t grow is because all they give to God is the leftovers of their life. If you want to know what’s really forming them, it’s their phone. It’s their friends. It’s fear. I guess if I gave you all F’s, but but there are things that shape who we are. And we shouldn’t expect that God’s really transforming me when all I give to God is just simply the leftovers. It’s wonderful to know I’ve been perfected in Christ. And also, I want to honor Jesus with my life. Being patient with those who are maturing is important to understand even even in your life. Like sometimes we want to grow so quick. We’re just like why aren’t I perfect? Why do I keep faltering? And I would just say direction will determine your destination. Keep surrendering, keep hungering. And God will do that beautiful work in you.
And one of the wonderful things about that is you. You can’t claim that it was by your ability that it happened, but simply Christ working in you as your life was surrendered to him. Number three then, is this respectfully approach those in error, respectfully approach those in error. It goes on in verse 21 and says, talking about those who are zealous for the law, and they have been told about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to to our customs. And this, this is simply not true. And what’s being said about Paul. And so Paul has an opportunity to to right this wrong, to help them in their understanding, not simply because not because they have a bad understanding of Paul. That’s certainly a reason. But also they’re just failing to see the importance of the Old Testament in light of the New Testament and how that shapes us. Right? Paul would have never taught, you know, what this Old Testament is garbage. Throw it away. And more than that, what he’s dealing with in this particular passage is, is not only the accusation that Paul is saying, get rid of the Old Testament, but what they’re really worried about is Paul is saying, get rid of your entire culture right now that you know Jesus, you got to just forsake everything that’s giving you a cultural identity as a Jew.
And that’s just simply not true when you come to know Jesus. If you come from some type of cultural background where you appreciate some things of the culture, those are okay to hold on to as long as, as long as they they don’t walk conflict or contrary with who God is. So there’s people in all different cultures in this world, and there’s some things about culture that people might find endearing. And, and continuing to utilize those things are fine as long as they don’t compromise the truth of what we believe or the integrity of the gospel and the way that we live. And so for the Jewish people, they’re they have this system of worship, but their culture is intermixed with that. And, and they’re saying, like, Paul, you’re just telling us to get rid of it all. Like we just lose our identity completely as a particular group of people. And, and they’re frustrated by Paul because of that. And this is not what Paul taught throughout the Bible. In fact, in your notes, you’ll see I give you a reference from Romans chapter seven, which we’re not going to look at, but I do want us to take a moment to look at Hebrews chapter ten, because Paul really helps us begin to understand, okay, How do you view the Old Testament in light of the New Testament? Does that, now that we have a New Testament, make the Old Testament unimportant? And I would just say absolutely not.
And in fact, it enhances the significance of what the Old Testament was in light of the New Testament. In fact, in Hebrews chapter ten, verse one, some people don’t think that Paul wrote Hebrews, and this is just me being controversial, I do. So if I just continue with the theme of Paul, Hebrews chapter ten, verse one, Paul says, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of the realities, it can never be the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year make perfect those who draw near. So in one sentence, Paul is really helping us begin to understand, okay, how do we view the Old Testament in light of the new? Because Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. Or another word for that is old covenant, right? Jesus fulfilled the old covenant and. And because of that, we don’t wake up as Christians every day saying to ourselves, okay, the old covenant gives us at least 613 commands. How can I obey 613 commands today? We don’t wake up doing that as believers because get this on the night in which Jesus gave his life for you and for me, he says to his followers in the upper room, a new covenant I give to you. And in giving us the new covenant, he’s declaring us. He’s fulfilled the old and therefore giving us something new.
So rather than try to live our lives to obey 613 commandments, what we do now is we walk according to the law of Christ, which is to love God and love others in the spirit, the fruit of the spirit, as we’re surrendered to the Lord. And so this is the way we live our lives now and living our lives that way. We might we might emulate things of the Old Testament. And the reason for that is because both Testaments declare the holiness of who God is. And in so doing, we walk a path of morality that that is symbolic of what the Old Testament represents, or the shadows of the Old Testament. But our life is about living the the New Covenant. Now, does that make the Old Covenant unimportant? Absolutely not. And the reason for that is like when you read the New Testament, you see over and over again the writers of the New Testament quoting from the Old Testament. And the reason they’re doing that is so that you can see the significance of what God has done. The Old Testament is a shadow of everything God would fulfill in the New Testament. So when you read the Old Testament, you see the promises of God made known. And when you read the New Testament, you see the promises of God fulfilled. And all of it contains the faithfulness of who the Lord is. So that whether you’re reading from the old or the new you, you see this grand redemption story of God told.
And for us, it just gives us reason to rejoice and sing from old to new. It’s been the same story that God has declared through his people and what he desired to do for us at the cross. And so this amplifies the beauty of the Old Testament, and it demonstrates all of it coming to fruition in the new. But Paul also, in this passage, wants us to understand that it’s not the old covenant that saves, but rather the Old Covenant was ultimately pointing to you that to everything Jesus would fulfill. I mean, when you look at the 613 commandments of the Old Covenant, I think it’s important to know God didn’t get to 613 and just say, you know what? This is it. That’s the that’s how many commandments humanity, humanity needs. What he’s what he’s showing us by giving us the laws. And the Old Testament is saying, no matter how many laws you give to us, it can never truly transform the heart. It can never legislate what men really do. I mean, God could have continued to give laws and it would have never it would have never transformed who we are because the laws were intended to recognize that we’re all broken. And what we need is a radical transformation that only Christ can give, which is why he goes on and says. Then he added, he does does away with the first talking about the first covenant in order to establish the second talking about the New covenant.
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And every. Every priest stands daily in the Old Covenant at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. We’ve already read verse 14, but it’s saying the importance in all of it is to point us to Jesus. Now the Jews are worried that that Paul’s just just ripping away their entire culture. And Paul’s saying, no, you don’t have to leave your culture, but you do need to recognize the importance of what Christ has done. And in that, we never compromise. So. So number four in your notes is this we should then exercise compassion without compromising truth. Exercise compassion without compromising truth. Verse 22. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do do. Therefore, what we tell you we have. For men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. Thus all. All will know that there is nothing in what they have have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.
But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from the blood, and from what has has been strangled and from sexual immorality. Let me just stop there, because I need to explain this for for time’s sake. I’ve got to move a little quicker here. Knowing that Paul has been misrepresented in more than that, that they’re not truly understanding the New Testament in light of the old. They’re trying to ask questions like, what’s the best way to honor the Lord in the midst of this? Because we have new believers who are being taught something that isn’t accurate. But then we have a culture that’s ultimately opposed to the Apostle Paul. Two And Paul’s going into Jerusalem as now a follower of Christ. And the majority of people there are going to be opposed to what Paul represents. How do I do that? Well, that’s the noble question they’re asking in this passage. And I don’t know about you, but have you ever lived in a place where maybe you are a minority in what you believe, and then you’ve got to ask the question, what does it look like for me to honor God where I’m at? Because there are certain things about culture that’s just indifferent. And there are sometimes things about culture that completely conflict with the message of who Christ is.
And so how do I navigate that? And Paul’s looking for a way to build a bridge. And keep in mind he’s doing this during time period where the Old Testament temple hasn’t been destroyed just yet. The New Testament hasn’t been written. It’s still being compiled. And so these believers are learning what it means to live in light of what Christ has done. And so Paul’s taking the opportunity to build that bridge in order to communicate with a believing and unbelieving world. The significance of who Christ is. It’s the same for us. We should be able to ask the question, what does it look like for me to honor God in the midst of this? And here’s the reason why I know this is cultural, not so much a theological debate over the gospel. And it’s because of verse 25. Verse 25 is actually a quote from Acts chapter 15. If you remember in Acts 15, the debate was do you have to follow the law and be circumcised in order to be saved? In Acts chapter 15, the church clarified in verse one, verse 20 and verse 29. Absolutely not. But then they turned around to the church and said. However, knowing that Jesus alone is what saves you. If you want to honor Christ in culture, it tells them to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols. And the reason it says this is because the church, they had the freedom to partake of meat sacrificed to idols.
We’ll talk about in a minute. But the reason they’re saying this is because when the early church would go around and they might partake of meat sacrificed to idols, other people couldn’t hear their message, including the Jewish people, that their actions screamed so loud at them that they couldn’t hear the message of Christ that gave them freedom. And so Paul’s encouragement to the believers in Acts 15, and even repeated here, is sometimes we give up our freedom for the benefit of others. And in fact, this is peppered in multiple places throughout Scripture. Galatians five for you were called to freedom. Brothers only. Don’t use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. First Corinthians eight, verse nine, but take care that the right of the right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. Meaning in Jesus I have freedom, but in my freedom I might surrender that to the benefit of others. What does that look like? And one of the things we also have opportunity to do is redeem what’s broken in culture. There was a few years ago here at church where we had a Christmas or we had a Sunday service on Christmas, December 25th. And and we knew probably we were going to have a lighter crowd, but my wife had fun with it. She decided to dress up like a Christmas tree and which was hilarious. And but we had someone that watched, I don’t know, like a 32nd YouTube video and came in and decided to tell us that’s not honoring to the Lord because pagans use trees to worship pagan things.
And I love my wife without skipping a beat, just leaned in and go goes. But I’m not asking you to worship me like that. I thought that was awesome. And she said, but here’s, here’s something that I think is important to recognize and important to just think in terms of culture is like at some point in history, did, did a group of people ever bow down to a tree? Yes. Like people, people do weird things all the time and they worship all sorts of things. Like if you read the Old Testament, you’ll find that anytime they build idols, they tended to do it under trees, on hills, under trees. They would just worship in those places. If you ever go to Oregon, people worship those trees all the time, right? Like like people do that. But just because, just because people take things and use it for the wrong reasons doesn’t mean you have to look at it and say, well, someone did something bad with this. We got to just ignore it forever because everything created in this world really ultimately belongs to the Lord. And so we, as God’s people were called to redeem things for his glory, including maybe even Christmas trees. I don’t know, but if you want to know where the Christmas tree tradition came from, it was 16th century by a man named Martin Luther walking in the woods during during the December Christmas season.
And he looked at a. He looked at an evergreen tree and realized like, here’s life in a tree when all other trees seem dead. And as he looked at it, he. He saw the stars shining through which reminded him of the Star of Christ or the. The light of Christ. So he brought it home, and they used it to celebrate Christmas. And even today, like the tradition has continued where usually if you decorate a tree at the top, you put a star or an angel and on when Jesus was born, if you read the Gospels, the two things that appeared in the sky were a star and an angel. Now it might be. You might take a tradition and completely divorce it to the significance of who Christ is, right? And that whatever we do, we should do it for the glory of God. So just putting a tree up for putting a tree up is just weird, right? You drag a tree in your house and just put it up to put it up. That’s weird. But but if you’re a follower of Jesus, you see, the reason we do that is because of the life that’s in the tree and what we hang on the tree, representing the light of Christ, and even the the star and the angel that represents the story of who Jesus is.
We can redeem the things in this world for the glory of God. Do you have to do that? No. But culture does it. And can we use that within our culture to glorify God? Absolutely. And this is what Paul’s doing in the midst of this moment. In fact, if I just highlighted this and moved on, you see the particular topic on meat sacrificed to idols in verse four, he’s saying, therefore, as the meat of food offered to idols. We know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one. And so the early church, when they would go to the market to buy some meat, they would realize and go to the market that these idols that these animals were sacrificed to weren’t even real. And the cheapest meat in the market happened to be the meat sacrificed to idols. They’re like, sweet, I know this idol means nothing and I can get cheap meat. This is a win, right? So they would eat it. But then there came a time where people coming to know the Lord are investigating. Christ might have come from that idolatry. And they say to the church rather than them partake of it, how about for the sake of someone else’s soul, you would be willing just to buy the more expensive meat so that you can honor Jesus in their life, because their hearts are weak.
And so there’s a place in the life of the believer to surrender that the gospel could shine more brightly in our lives, even when we might have the freedom to do otherwise. I’ll give you one more example, and I got to give you the last point and close. But in Galatians, there’s a passage where Paul talks about Titus. It says, who was with me was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that we that they might bring us into slavery to them. We did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved. So here’s, here’s, here’s Titus, who’s not circumcised. And the reason he’s not circumcised is because this is the debate in Acts chapter 15. Do you have to be circumcised to be saved? Paul says, absolutely not. And to take that stand dogmatically, we’re going to make sure Titus is never circumcised, because we don’t ever want to suggest that this is necessary for salvation, to obey the laws necessary for salvation, to be circumcised as necessary for salvation. However, right after that, Paul takes Timothy, and Timothy is circumcised right after this moment, and they go on their second missionary journey. Now you look at this and think, Why is Titus circumcised? Why is Timothy circumcised? And why is Paul talking so publicly about private things? Could you imagine if you’re Paul and Timothy is like, could you could you leave my private parts to myself? It’s just but but this is all about the gospel.
In one instance, he’s saying, this is this would have been gospel compromising. But with Timothy, what he’s saying is, if this doesn’t happen, people in the culture aren’t going to listen to you because we’re ministering to the Jews. So in one way, it’s to honor the gospel. But he does the same thing. He like what he’s standing against. At one moment he stands for in another. And it’s simply for the gospel to go forward because it’s the same for us. It’s exercise and compassion without compromise. And I got to close the last one. So you can have in your notes, recognize not everyone will be for you. Recognize not everyone will be for you. And even Paul after he goes through this. This is where in verse 27, he’s arrested, he’s beaten, he’s thrown into prison. And they accuse him of bringing Gentiles into the temple, which he did not do. And on the screen is a tablet in the background from the first century, written outside the temple that says, If a Gentile comes in the temple, you, you will be killed or you’ll be executed. And by accusing Paul of doing this, they’re trying to get Paul executed. So certainly culture is not always going to stand for us.
But here’s what it reminds me. There’s there’s a Japanese practice called kintsugi where they will take something broken. And rather than throw it away, they’ll turn it into a piece of art, and they’ll even highlight the parts that are broken through this art form called kintsugi, where they’ll, they’ll, they’ll take the cracks and they’ll fill it with this lacquer and powdered gold, sometimes platinum, sometimes silver. But as if to say it’s the broken parts that become more beautiful because of the value that’s placed in them. Because I would say this is exactly what Acts chapter 21 is about. Paul’s life as a man that was broken, put back together more beautiful in Jesus. And as Paul moves in this world because of what he has in Jesus, he looks to do the same in the broken culture around him. That the beauty of Christ would not cause us to hide our cracks, but honestly amplify them because Christ has redeemed them for his glory. In fact, in Ephesians chapter two, it says, you’re his workmanship. You’re his artwork created in Christ Jesus for good works that God has prepared beforehand for you to walk in them. God’s got a path for you to honor him in this world, the way you humble yourself and hunger for his truth. Let’s the transformation of Jesus be made known that you would glorify him in the midst of culture, even when culture does not.