Easter: Resurrection - Acts 13:13-52

Hi family. How are you? Happy Easter. Here we are. We made it. The tomb's empty. We can all go home now. No, I'm just joking. One quick thing before we get rolling, is every week we continue our worship to God with giving of tithes and offerings. And that's an opportunity for us to say thank you to God for the ways that He's been good to us.

There's a lot of really easy ways to do that. The first one is there's metal black boxes that are mounted on the walls at every exit out of here, and you can drop whatever you want to in there. Or you can give online. You can give at southeastcc.org/give. You can give on the app. You can literally just walk up and hand me something and run away. I don't care.

But this is an opportunity for us to say, "God, thank you. We're so grateful for all that you've done for us." We have this tension that we're sitting in. It's my tension, not yours, but we're in this extended series on the book of Acts. And so, then you have these holidays that get dropped on the calendar like Easter, which is important.

And so, now we have a dilemma. Do we stay in the series or do we abandon the series and drop a one-off egg in the... Easter egg. See what I did there? And so, we have this tension and today I'm going to try to marry both of those things. So we'll see how we do. I think next year in our build-up to Easter, I'm going to do a series, Through the Stations of the Cross, just as a way to build us into this holiday, which is a big deal.

But we're going to continue in our Acts series. We're going to land on some really strong resurrection themes, but we're going to go on a journey to get there. Are you guys ready to go to work? Okay. Let me begin. We're going to look at the second half of Acts 13, but let me begin by wrestling with this question, what is Paul's message.

I think we get this confused a lot because we assume that Paul's message is, "Hey Jews, you're out. You didn't get it right, so you're out and Gentiles you're in because God loves you now." If we take that approach, there can really be an us and them mentality. There's all kinds who's in and who's out, who's right and who's wrong, who's good and who's bad.

There's that kind of a conversation, rather than saying, "What is God up to in the world? And how do we partner with him to bring that about?" And so, I want to wrestle with Paul's message because we've got to get this right. I begin with a couple of passages, Matthew chapter 16. These are Jesus's words, and He says this on at least two occasions and we don't really know what to do with it. And so, I want to bring it up and talk about it.

The first one is at Caesarea, Philippi. Jesus takes His guys there and he says, "Who do people say that I am?" Then they say, "Some say you're Elijah, a teacher, one of the other prophets." And He goes, "That's interesting. Who do you say that I am?" Peter says, "You're the Christ, the son of the living God." And Jesus says, "Blessed are you, because this wasn't given to you by man, it was given to you by God."

Then we're going to pick it up there. He says, "And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Now we've heard lots of sermons on that part of the passage. "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth should be loose in heaven." We don't know what to do with that statement.

Okay. Let's wrestle with that. One other place where that's mentioned is Matthew 18:18 and 19. Here's what Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven."

So there's this binding and losing thing. Now we often think Jesus is this innovator who comes up with all these new things. Jesus very rarely innovates. He pulls these metaphors and ideas and social constructs that already exist. They're just being extended in a wrong direction. And so, binding and losing isn't a new idea. This is all over the Rabbinic literature. This is something that the Jews practiced from day one from Sinai.

There's a reason why they practiced it. And so, let me help you understand where that's coming from. There's three parts to the Jewish law, 613 commands. There's three general categories. The first one is the moral law, and the moral law is don't lie, don't steal, don't murder, the basics. You get that. Like don't drink, smoke, curse, chew, or hang around with the girls that do. Don't do that.

You guys, girls don't chew. I grew up in Montana. Yes, they do. I'm just going to say, "Trust me," on that one. But the general dos and don'ts, the rights and wrongs, the moral rights and wrongs. And so, those are there. Now let me ask you this question, are we still bound to the moral law? Absolutely, we are. Lying is bad still. Murdering, generally not a good idea. We're still bound to the moral law.

And so, when Paul says that Jesus came to do away with the law, he's not talking about the whole law. We've got to wrestle with, what is he talking about? The second part of the law is the cultic law. Now the cultic law is technically anything attached to the temples, but it's like sacrifices and festivals, but more specifically sacrifices because those have to be done at the temple.

Are we bound to the cultic law? I would say, yes we are. And you immediately go, "Then why don't we make sacrifices?" What do you think communion is? It's our reminder that the sacrifice is made. We're still there. We're still remembering.

Now the third part of the law is called the works of the law. In Hebrew, it's _____, which is really fun to say. The works of the law are the part of the law that makes one Jewish. So don't cut the sides of your hair, wear tassels, eat kosher, those kinds of things. For the most part, a lot of the commands are pretty straightforward. It's pretty easy to know which category the different commands go into.

However, some of the commands do this. They make it really hard to figure out which category they go into, because they could fit in this category, could fit in this category. It depends on how you apply it, and furthermore, you obey all the laws all the time. It's actually impossible. You're going to have to violate one command to honor another.

For example, Torah says don't work on the Sabbath. Torah also says, if your neighbor's donkey falls in a ditch, you got to help him get it out. Well, what if your neighbor's donkey falls in a ditch on the Sabbath? You have to violate one command to honor the other. Are you with me? And we would go, "Oh, you help him out. It's not that big a deal." But see, in just making that statement, you've made a decision about what you value over things you don't value.

Are you with me on that? So we prioritize the commands and we categorize the commands so that we know how to live. The Jews call this practice binding and loosing. And you have to do it in community. You cannot do it on your own. You don't get to personally independently decide, "Well, I think it's this and that. And I'm not beholden to anybody about that decision."

No, we're obligated to the community. That we're a part of. And so, as a community, we wrestle together with which commands go where, so that we can figure out how to live. Now here's a question. Are we bound to the part of the law that makes us Jewish? No. And that's Paul's message. Not God decided the law's over, but that you don't have to become Jewish in order to worship the God of that Bible.

You and I ought to be very grateful for that, because bacon is so good, right? It's so funny. I ate kosher for eight years because I wanted to know. I was like, "God, why do you tell your people to eat this way?" And when people found out that I ate kosher, you know what the first thing they always said to me was? First thing, every time, "You mean you can't eat bacon?"

Because it's so funny to me that when God gives us a boundary, our immediate response is, "What is this taking away from me?" Like "Really, bacon, God bacon." You know what, nobody, never one time ever did anyone ever ask me, "Hey, what's God teaching you?" No one ever asked me that question. And I learned a ton of stuff. It was really cool. It was a cool experience. That's why I kept going.

And then, like a lot of laws, it became legalistic to me, and there became like a, "You don't eat kosher?" All the cool kids are doing it. In my own mind, there became a hierarchy based on whether or not you were willing to give up bacon. So I didn't. I was like, "I'm not going to do that anymore, because that's not the part..."

I think that's part of how we have to understand the role of rules in our life, is that we always need to get back to the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law, because we can get ourselves in real trouble with that. We have to know all that stuff going into Acts 13, because what's going to happen is we're going to get really confused about this conversation that Paul's having with the Jews.

Now last week we introduced you to Pisidia in Antioch. And if you weren't here last week, jump online and watch that sermon. This Acts 13 is going to continue in Pisidia in Antioch. It says, "Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos, came to Perga in Pamphylia, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. And after reading from the law and the prophets," and that's a huge statement, by the way, that I don't have time to pull apart. You'll have to come with me to Turkey to get more of that. "The rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, 'Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.'"

Now let me ask you a question. Let's say that there was somebody that was bent on the destruction of Southeast Christian Church, and they were on a campaign. They were on a mission and they were going from town to town to town telling everybody about how evil Southeast Christian Church is. And then they showed up in church one Sunday.

What are the odds that I would say, "Hey, why don't you come up and give the people a word?" I think that we misunderstand Paul's relationship to the Jews when we think Paul hated the Jews, he hated Judaism and Judaizers and blah, blah. He hated them. I don't think so. I don't think so at all. And I think this is a moment that unveils that.

Paul stood up and motioned him with his hand, which is a theme in the book of Acts, motioned him with his hand. He said, "Men of Israel and you who fear God," to which we read that and go, "Oh, that's interesting. Let's move on." No, this is why Paul is going to have the conversation he's going to have. So we have men of Israel. Who's that? That's the Jewish people. These are people who are Jews probably by birth and they've been in Judaism.

They're fully immersed in the Jewish religious faith, and they're absolutely 100% in all the way. And then you have the God fearers. These are Gentiles who want to worship the God of the Jews, but they have not fully converted yet. Now here's the thing. The God of the Jews demands monotheism. You can't worship any other gods.

But they're not being fully accepted in that community. But they can't go out to one of the other vast Roman gods of their Pantheon and find another one to be a part of their community either. So the God fearers, at some level, religiously speaking are like people without a country. They're like, "We belong but we don't really belong."

They feel that way. The God fearers feel that in their religious world, this, "I belong, but not really. I mean, they're glad I'm here, but not really glad. They like me, but they don't really like me. I kind of fit, but I don't really fit." Now think about it. Why haven't they taken the full plunge to just become Jewish? Because they really like bacon? Or is it because circumcision is a big deal?

Let's be honest about that. There's a cost to taking the plunge. There's a cost to full conversion. And for them, that cost is pretty intense. So what you have going on in Pisidia in Antioch and the synagogue is you have a much higher number of women than you do men, especially in the Gentile ranks. That makes sense.

But Paul stands up and he says, "Okay, you have been Jewish by birth. And those of you who are here, but you don't really belong. That's how he opens his statement. Let's acknowledge the two distinctions that are in the room. He says, "Listen, the God of these people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm, He led them out of it."

Remember, we've talked about this, but the raised right arm is always a depiction of a God, it's a symbol of power. "And for about 40 years, He put up with them in the wilderness." That is sarcasm all the way. That's like, "For the next 40 minutes, I'm going to have to put up with you guys." It's a joke.

"And for about 40 years, He put up with them in the wilderness," and they chuckle. Everybody who knows the story's chuckling right now. "And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance, and all this took about 450 years. And after that, He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. And then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years.

And when He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king of whom He testified and said, 'I found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.'" I hope that can be written on my tombstone. That's a good aspiration. "Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as He promised.

Now, as we're looking at this, I want you to be thinking about the Jews that are sitting in the synagogue. Where's the part where they blow a gasket? Where's the part where they lose their mind? "Before His coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, 'What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. No, but behold, after me, One is coming the sandals of His feet I'm not worthy to untie.'

Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation, for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize Him or understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning Him.

And though they found in Him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of Him, they took him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead. And for many days, He appeared to those who come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem who are now His witnesses to the people."

What Paul just did is he repainted all of Israel's history through the lens of Jesus as Messiah. Ooh, we're about to see something. "And we bring you the good news, that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.'

And as for the fact that He raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He's spoken in this way, 'I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.' Therefore, He says also in another Psalm, 'You will not let your Holy One see corruption.' For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation fell asleep and was laid with his father's and saw corruption. But He whom God raised up did not see corruption.

Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by Him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed from through the law of Moses."

Now, by the way, who forgives sins? Only God. Think Jewish, only God can do that. So when Paul says "Through Him forgiveness of sins has come," what's he claiming? Jesus is God. Ooh. And He brings freedom in a way that the law never could. So why don't we just claim Jesus is Messiah, claim that our Jewish leaders blew it, claim that He's God, and beat up on Torah while we're at it? These people are going to lose their mind.

"Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about, 'Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish, for I'm doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you.' As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath."

They're not mad. They're curious. I think we misunderstand Paul's relationship to the Jews, and I think we misunderstand, in large part, the Jewish relationship to Jesus as Messiah. Jesus as Messiah isn't their problem. That's never been their problem. Now they have some questions about it, and some of them have real issues with it, but that's not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem's deeper, and we're going to see it in just a second.

"And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism." So these are devout converts. These are Gentiles who have taken the plunge. They have gone all the way. They did everything. "Devout converts to Judaism follow Paul and Barnabas, who as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God."

And I would love to pull that phrase apart, but you have to come to Turkey with me to get that. By the way, we have this conversation in the synagogue where it happened. It's amazing. "The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord." One week. It goes from this little group of Jewish people in a synagogue to almost the whole city. Six to 8,000 people show up in one week.

Wow, God is moving. This is so amazing. This is incredible. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him." I don't know what that means, how they reviled him, but they were like, "You've been reviled."

"And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying it was necessary for the word of God to be spoken first to you, since you thrusted aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. So the Lord has commanded us saying, 'I've made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'

And when the Gentiles heard this, they begin rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord." Why? Because what Paul just said is, because of Christ, you can worship this God fully without having to be Jewish. Come on, Gentiles. That's good news. That's really good news.

"And as many as we're appointed to eternal life believed and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region." God is moving. He's doing a miracle. It's incredible. "But the Jews..." Now this is translated a number of different ways, this word that's translated, Jews, people from Judea.

Another way that it's translated is Judaizers. We're going to have to talk about who they are, "incited the devout women of high-standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district." Why? Because Paul is giving the Gentiles access to the God of the Jews without Torah. Whoa.

That's when they lose their mind. They don't have a problem with Jesus's Messiah. They have a problem with who Jesus's Messiah lets in. Totally different than the conversation you and I should be having. That was sarcasm. You have to put up with me for the next 12 minutes. "But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."

Paul's message is that in Christ, you don't have to become a Jew to follow the God of the Bible. What gives him the right to say that? Resurrection. Remember that whole thing that we celebrate right now this time of year, this weekend, that thing that's really important to us? The thing that gives Jesus the authority to make that call is the fact that He conquered death.

If we don't have resurrection, you and I don't have access to the Father, and we're sitting here wasting our time if the resurrection isn't true. I'm not talking about like, oh, it's a wonderful idea. It's a beautiful story. It's a legend with some great metaphorical and allegorical points and [inaudible 00:25:52]. It's true. It happened. Jesus died and then he was not dead.

And that, and that alone gives you and me access to the Father. And that's Paul's message. No matter what rules you follow, it's being in Christ that gives us the capacity to worship God. No matter what religious system you're a part of, it's being in Christ that gives us access to the Father. And with that in mind, I want to give us one more little piece to the puzzle.

One of the other groups of characters that matter here, and that's these Jews, these Judaizers, who are they? Okay. Now Paul talks about them or talks to them in the book of Galatians, in the letter to the Galatians. Pisidia in Antioch is in Galatia. So when Paul wrote Galatians, he wrote it to these people, among other groups of people that are in that area.

But Pisidia in Antioch, these people that he's having this conversation with, the book of Galatians was written to them too specifically. Okay. And here's what he says. "Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas." That's Peter, "And remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie.

And then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judaea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, 'He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.' And they glorified God because of me.'"

Why does Paul need to say all that about his relationship to the church in Jerusalem? Here's why, Because the Judaizers aren't Orthodox Jews that are trying to make people Jewish again. They're Jesus followers from the church in Jerusalem who still are hanging on to the old tradition saying, "You have to be Jewish in order to follow Jesus."

They go out and what we're going to find out next week, what we're going to find out is they go out without the elder's authority. They go out on their own, like, "We've got to take matters into our own... We got to right the ship. Our elders aren't doing anything about it. So we've got to," to the point where the elders in Jerusalem write a letter to the churches in Antioch and Cilicia apologizing that these people went out from their church without their authority.

That's who the Judaizers are. They're Jesus followers who are saying, "Paul's message is too easy." The Jews loved to make things hard. They loved the pride of carrying Torah. In fact, they called it the carrying the burden of the heat of the day. Jesus uses this language when He tells the parable about some workers that worked in the morning, some in the afternoon, some late in afternoon.

Some only worked one hour and then they get paid. And the people who got started working first were mad because they got paid the same. What did they say? They said, "We bore the burden of the heat of the day." And the landowner's like, "Oh, well, you got what I promised you, or are you mad because I'm generous? Trying to figure out what the problem is here because I'm the boss and you're not."

Listen, resurrection is the access point to upend everything for you and me when it comes to following Jesus, because it's not about what religious practices we do or don't do. It's not about the law that we follow. It's about being in Christ. And you're like, "That's dangerous. You're saying you can believe whatever you want." No, because in Christ you won't believe whatever you want. You believe what Jesus tells you to.

You'll do what Jesus tells you, rather than saying, "I want to get out of hell, so I'm going to say yes to Jesus, but live my own way." And then be stunned when it doesn't work out, "But God, you said you were going to protect me." And God's like, "I did, I did protect you when I said don't do that thing you did." That's protection. My rules are protection for you.

Resurrection is the exclamation point at the end of the sentence, that gives Jesus permission to change the system. And so, for you and I, we fall into this dangerous trap. The longer that we are Christians, the harder it is to make sure that when we're following the rules, that we're not following the rules like the Jews were following their rules, because what can happen is religion, it can become a chain around your neck, an anchor around your neck. And we can start following the rules for the rules' sake. And then we miss the heart of what it was all supposed to be...

Now here's the thing. Religion's not evil. Religion's not evil. It's a really good servant, it's a bad master. Religion exists to give a voice and a practice to your faith. It's not evil, but it can become lifeless because we can start serving religion for religion's sake. And that's not okay. That's not okay.

What happens though, if we're going to play this game, is that we start seeing people who genuinely love Jesus, who don't see the world the same way we do. They genuinely love Jesus, and they're genuinely trying to figure out how to serve Him with their whole heart. And yet, they do different things than we do. And we can be really easily like...

I'll tell you a quick story. This is bonus material because we don't even have kids' ministry at this service to get back to. So let's preach. I was a co planter in a church in 1998, that became... Something that very few people experience in their life. It was such an incredible experience. There was more than one year where we would have over 800 baptisms in a year. We just had thousands of people coming to Christ. It was ridiculous.

At one point, over 80% of our congregation was brand new believers. I was like, "What do we do with that? Here's what's funny, we had people that came into our church that were like, "Hey," and this is just where they were at, which is awesome. Love this. They were like, "Hey, you talk about Jesus and Christ. Is that the same person or are those two different people?" And that's just where they were at.

I was like, "I love you, man. You're my people," because they haven't had the life sucked out of them by religious practice. It was just pure and innocent and good and like, "Whatever God says, I just want to do that." What was interesting was we did our communion at a certain point in the service and one of our families that was brand new believers, they were brand new believers, they went to a different church.

They were on vacation and they went to a different church while they were away. And they've never been to church. Our church was their only church experience, and they went to this other church and they did communion in a different spot. So they came back and they were like, "You'll never believe. They had communion in a different spot." How quickly good, wonderful, beautiful religious practice becomes a dividing line amongst people who all love the same God. How quickly that happens.

Paul's message is, cut that stuff away. In Christ, there's room for everybody. In Christ, there's room for everybody. Now you don't get to push your way in and be whoever you want to be. In Christ, there's room for everybody. That's Paul's message. And it's the resurrection that gives Paul's message authority, like if we don't have this weekend, your faith is futile. That's what Paul says, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.

I have some implications for us. Number one, it is important for us to stay in community so that we can follow God well. You will never follow God well in isolation. You need to do it in community. And by the way, community is hard. Let me just validate every fear that you have about getting into relationship. They will hurt you, and betray you, and weaponize your heart, and it will be all kinds of...

Get in relationship anyway. That's God's command. It's God's invitation. By the way, it's still better. It's not easier, but it's better. It's better. Number two, religion is an amazing servant, but a terrible master. Religion's an amazing servant, but a terrible master. Number three, the resurrection gives power to the good news.

Number four, resurrection says, in Christ, everyone can worship God the Father. Everyone can worship God the Father. Here's the thing. That means we've got to be willing for people who are different than us to be in the same community with us, people who don't look like us or smell like us. People who watched the Simpsons growing up, because they have all these different cultural influences.

I never was allowed to watch the Simpsons growing up. My mom was like, "No, that's of the devil." Now the good news is, it's still on in syndication and I'm like... Every weekday night, I've got a Simpsons date. We do that with stuff where we really bear down on things and we start to make dividing lines of, "Oh, you watch Harry Potter? You celebrate Halloween?"

Listen, if you don't want to celebrate Halloween, don't celebrate Halloween. But I promise you, it's not a scriptural dividing line. Follow your conviction, but don't look down your nose at people who choose to think differently. Because in Christ, everyone can worship regardless of where we've come from, regardless of what we've done or what's been done to us. Regardless of where we're at, in Christ everyone can worship the Father, everyone.

And so, as we move into communion time, I just want us, especially this resurrection season, to be in thought about that. What's going to happen is our worship team, we know that those cellophanes take a minute right to undo. And so, our worship team is going to come up and sing a song so that you have time to open those things.

But we want you reflect on what they're saying and on creating space in your life for God to work as He sees fit. The resurrection says that even death doesn't have the final word, even death doesn't have the final word. God's going to move as He sees fit, but we've got to be willing to go with Him. So where are we getting hung up? Where are we getting hung up...