Acts 15:1-21 The Church that Knows How to Fight Sermon preached October 20, 2013 Opening A real-life

minster named Michael Lindvall has written an amusing little book called The Good News from North Haven. He begins his story like this: I am the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church. There is no first Presbyterian Church in town and there hasnt been for years. More than a century ago, the newly founded First - and then only - Presbyterian Church enjoyed a fine church fight. Folks still tell the story of the Sunday in June when half the congregation walked out during the sermon and founded Second Presbyterian. All memories agree as to what the fight was about: whether young women ought to lead discussions at Christian Endeavor meetings or keep a low profile and ask questions when they got home, as St. Paul seems to have counseled. What memories do not agree on is who was on what side. Some people now say that the Second Presbyterian group that left was in favor of women speaking at meetings, some say they were against it. Whatever the truth, everyone agrees that Second Presbyterian Church was squarely established on the firm foundation of an important principle, even if no one is quite sure what that principle was. First Churchs building burned to the ground a few years after the split, and most folks assumed that this was a sign...Most First Church folks switched over to Second Church after the fire. But a handful of stalwarts refused to yield on a matter of Presbyterian principle and became Methodists.1 If youve been hanging around churches long enough, you no doubt have been through a church fight or two. Some things are practically guaranteed to cause a church squabble. Remodel the sanctuary, and try to decide what color the new carpet should be, and watch the sparks fly. The denomination publishes a new hymnal, and someone proposes getting it, and watch peoples faces turn red. Call a woman minister for the first time, and batten down the hatches! And really, its no wonder why. The church of Jesus Christ pulls all kinds of different people together, and you end up, in the same congregation, with people who come from different backgrounds, with different educations, diverse theological commitments, different ways of understanding the world, different personality types, human beings who are flesh and blood and whose behavior is affected by stress and blood sugar levels and brain wiring and family of origin 1

stuff....and a hundred other subtle influences. Its a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit that most churches get along as well as they do! Sometimes conflict is necessary and good Sometimes, churches fight over trivial stuff. And thats bad. Sometimes, churches develop a spirit of meanness and contentiousness. And thats bad too. But sometimes, conflict is good and healthy. Like when the conflict is about something of real importance. You see, God lays challenges before the church, and sometimes we have to puzzle and ponder, examine and argue, before we can discern the mind of Christ. And if the issue is important and people really care but have different convictions....there is going to be disagreement and conflict. And in those cases, when something really important is at stake, a church must learn how to fight in love, if its going to do the work of Christ. And thats the idea we will explore this morning. Now Im not preaching on this because were about to have a church fight! You visitors are wondering, is there a fist-fight about to break out, are people going to start hurling tomatoes at the preacher? Nope, Im preaching through Acts, this is what came up on the schedule today. But I think, every church needs to learn how to fight in love. Should be part of every churchs skill-set. Scripture passage Our scripture reading is the story of the first church fight. Paul and Barnabas had just returned from the first missionary journey. During the journey, their practice was to go from city to city, and head first to the synagogue. Guests were invited to share a teaching, and Paul or Barnabas would then preach a sermon proclaiming the good news about Jesus. And everywhere they went, some of the Jewish folk believed. But then something surprising happened during their missionary journey. Large numbers of Gentiles - non-Jews - were attracted to Pauls preaching, and many of them became believers in Jesus. Up to this point in Acts, a few Gentiles like Cornelius had come to faith in Jesus, but the church was almost entirely made up of Jewish believers. Now, all of a sudden, all these Gentiles are coming into the Church. Nobody expected that. Now, in the same congregation, standing together in worship, sharing the Lords Supper, eating together in fellowship, you have Jews who were raised to believe in one God and to follow the Law, along with Gentiles, who had just come from polytheism - believing in many gods - with some interesting ways of worshiping, like visiting temple prostitutes. People who had no tradition of a Law, and who many Jews viewed as sort of religious barbarians. 2

I mean, in our terms - it would be like somebody whos gone to church all their life, coming to church dressed nicely on Sunday and someone sits down next to them in the pew with body piercings and tattoos wearing a wife-beater shirt with spiked green hair and smoking a Marlboro. This was a big deal. A big change. So, when Paul and Barnabas returned from their missionary journey, some Christians who were also Pharisees (yes, Pharisees, too, became believers in Jesus), had some questions about what to do with these Gentiles. Note that their issue wasnt trying to keep the Gentiles out of the church. They believed the gospel was for everybody. The Christian Pharisees wanted to make sure these new Gentile believers believed enough and did enough to be saved. And to be saved, in their way of thinking, it wasnt enough just to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, your Lord and Savior - that was step two in a two-step plan of salvation. And step one was, you had to become a Jew first by coming under the covenants God made with Abraham and Moses. And the way you became a Jew were - if you were a guy, you had to get circumcised, and everyone, men and women alike, had to follow the law of Moses.2 So Paul and Barnabas are giving the report of their missionary journey at a potluck dinner and theyre so excited about all these Gentile believers - but the Pharisees say, Wait a minute... And Luke tells us a sharp dispute began. Now this was a fight that mattered. Imagine it this way - imagine that if to join our church, not only does one have to confess faith in Jesus Christ, but if youre a guy, youve got to make a trip to the urologist and be circumcised. Then, male or female, you have to agree to obey the Mosaic law - all 613 of them, plus the thousands of interpretations, like keeping kosher, that have grown up over the centuries. Thats what the Pharisees would have had us do, because they felt those things were essential to being saved. How to fight right Now, anybody can have a fight. But not everybody can do constructively. Lets see how the church in Acts handled this conflict. 1. First, dont avoid the conflict. One of my favorite stories concerns a professional carpet-layer who just finished a job and stepped back to look over a newly installed carpet. Reaching into his shirt pocket for a cigarette, he realized his pack of Marlboros was missing. At the same time, he noticed a lump under the carpet in the middle of the room, about the size of the missing cigarette pack. There was no way to retrieve the cigarettes from under the carpet without ripping it up. So he decided to stomp the object flat, thereby destroying any evidence of his mistake. 3

Gathering his tools, the carpet-layer walked out to his truck. There on the seat was his pack of Marlboros. As he lit one up, the homeowner hurried out of the house and asked, "Hey, have you seen my son's gerbil?" Listen, folks, its no good trying to stomp out a conflict that matters. Denial of conflict only makes matters worse because it leads to more passive forms of aggression and unhappiness. Bring the conflict out in the open and deal with it! Conflict is only a negative when its done badly. And conflict avoidance is deadly - Ive seen so many relationships be broken because there is a conflict that the parties wont confront. Were told in one of Pauls letters to speak the truth in love to one another. Thats not an option, its a command from the Lord. 2. Second thing - treat Christs church with care. In 1994 a Korean Air jet crashed while landing during a storm when the pilot and copilot argued whether the runway was long enough, then fought each other for control of the aircraft as it touched down, causing it to skid off the runway and ram into a safety barricade. All 152 passengers and eight crew members survived by jumping down an escape chute moments before the Airbus A300 exploded into flames, but pilot Barry Woods and copilot Chung Chankyu continued their argument, blaming each other for the crash.3 Church fights done badly can be destructive. To the church, and to the people too. Some of you know my last call was to start a church in Columbia, South Carolina. We ended up with a lot of survivors of church fights - people whod been badly wounded by the meanness, vindictiveness, gossip that went along with church fight. And they would stumble and crawl their back into Christs church through the church I served. And we were there last stop, we were the last chance they were going to give the church. I heard so many stories of pain and grief from wounded people. One of the strongest warnings in the New Testament comes from Paul in First Corinthians. And we normally misunderstand it completely. It reads: Dont you know that you yourselves are Gods temple and that Gods Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys Gods temple, God will destroy that person; for Gods temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17). People have traditionally thought that the you means us as individuals, and to destroy the temple meant committing suicide - and deduced from that misunderstanding that people who commit suicide automatically are damned. Thats not just ignorant and insensitive - its horrendous biblical interpretation. The you is plural - Paul is referring to the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit - where the Spirit of God dwells - and says, you destroy that temple, Christs church - God is going to 4

wipe you out. There are people who for whatever sick reasons, love to create conflict and division, love to set people against each other. They are doing the work of Satan. They are subject to Gods judgment. The point here is - treat Christs church with honor and care when you fight. Christs church is precious to him. Dont hurt it. 3. Give your opponents motives the benefit of the doubt. One of the ugliest things we can do to one another is question ones motives. It renders one incapable of hearing the other side, and it is subtle yet powerful form of personal attack. Its what has gridlocked our government - each side doesnt just think the other is mistaken or misguided - they are the enemy. Remember, the Pharisees were proceeding from good motives, and had a good argument on their side. As the writer Patrick Lencioni puts it, Assume positive intent when dealing with others who have a different opinion than you. 4. Look for answers not in opinions or gut reactions, but in the sources of authority the church used in our passage. The Christians in Antioch realized this conflict was beyond them, so they went down to Jerusalem - to the mother church - and asked the leaders there what to do. Now James - the brother of the Lord Jesus - was the big kahuna of the Jerusalem church. But notice that he didnt tell everyone what to do based on his authority - he looked to Gods word - a passage from the prophet Amos in the Old Testament - that showed that it was Gods plan, from long ago, to include the Gentiles in his plan of salvation. For centuries that scripture had sat there with nobody paying much attention to it - now the Holy Spirit directed James to it - and the Word spoke with authority - and the church obeyed it. Our constitution says that insofar as the will of Christ is revealed in scripture, it is to be obeyed. And if the church is to resolve conflict, we have to agree that the Lord, speaking through the Scriptures, has the final say. If we dont, then all we have is a bunch of opinions. 5. Keep your mind open! God sometimes opens our minds to truths in his word that weve never noticed before. This is easier than it sounds. And example. For years and years, I despised Apple products. Overpriced cutesy products for artistic people. I was a former systems designer, I liked to get into the guts of hardware and software - Apple, was for wimps! Well, couple of years ago I decided I wanted to get a tablet. And I did my usual obsessive research, went to stores, tried them out...and got an iPad. An Apple iPad. And I was 5

converted. Now I have an iPad and an iPhone. Think Apple products really are superior to the alternatives. Thats just a trivial kind of change - but it took months for me to admit I was wrong about Apple. The Jerusalem church, was able to open its mind to Gods purpose of including the Gentiles. And when it comes to us today, the question is, do we have an open heart, an open mind, to hear Gods word in new and surprising ways, like the church in Acts did; to discern what Christ was doing among them even though it was new and suprising and scary. Closing Dawne Olson, a South Dakota mother of four, was preparing to give a talk on unity at her women's Bible study. She woke up early to type out the scripture verses. She wasn't quite finished when her four children began coming downstairs asking for breakfast. She could hear the children just around the corner in the kitchen as they rummaged through the refrigerator and cupboards for something to eat. At some point they discovered half of a toaster pastry on the counter from the night before. They all began screaming and fighting; each claiming the half-eaten Pop Tart. As Dawne made a couple of futile attempts to quiet them down, she finished typing the verse in Matthew 5:9 that says, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." Taking her cue from scripture, she hollered into the kitchen above the noise, "Would somebody PLEASE be the peacemaker?!" There was a moment's silence and then Garret, age 6, piped up, "I'll be the piece maker, Mom!" Then to his brother and sisters he said: "Here's a piece for you and you, and a piece for you and one piece for me." Friends, Jesus Christ has entrusted his church to us. When we argue, lets fight fair, and fight only over what really matters. Amen. Endnotes 1. Michael L. Lindvall, The Good News from North Haven, pp. 2-3. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. 2. William H. Willimon, Acts, pp. 128-129. Atlanta: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1988. 3. Dynamic Preaching, Jan-Feb-March 1999, p. 32.