Christian Essentials In An Ever Changing Culture

In a culture defined by rapid change, Christians must anchor themselves to the essential, ancient truths of the gospel.

In this sermon on Acts 15:22–35, Lead Pastor Neil McClendon unpacks the resolution of the Jerusalem Council to identify four essential Christian distinctives. Pastor Neil contrasts cultural additions to Christianity with true gospel clarity, explores how to align our decision-making with the Holy Spirit, models relational sensitivity, and emphasizes the lost biblical practice of "remaining", lingering intentionally in community and relationship with others.

In this episode, we cover:

• Gospel Clarity: Why adding cultural expectations, politics, or self-righteousness to the gospel distorts the message of grace.
• Decision-Making Order: Shifting from asking God to bless our pre-made plans to seeking what "seems good to the Holy Spirit" first.
• Relational Sensitivity: Understanding the historical context of Acts 15 and how to honor others without compromising core biblical convictions.
• The Practice of Remaining: Why biblical leadership and community require slow, relational presence over transactional efficiency.
• Living for an Audience of One: Embracing ancient Christian distinctives to stand firm in an ever-shifting society.

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This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

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Amen, amen. Let's pray together, church. Lord, we uh we want to just agree with what with you what you say about yourself. You say in the Psalms, you said in Psalm 138, that you've exalted above all things your name and your word. You say in Acts 4 that there's no name given under heaven whereby which men should be saved, women should be saved. Your words also says in Psalms that the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous run into it and find strength. Lord, we're not here to boot to kind of boost up our brand in our name. We're here to better learn and understand how to represent your name in a culture full of people that live for their own. We love our own glory, Lord. And so we we've come today to sing a song of sweet forgiveness because this is every time we open up the Bible, you're singing a song of sweet forgiveness over us. We're here uh not not to engage in some cultural battle. Uh we're here to live in the victory of God. And so, Lord, uh uh your word is great, and every time we open it up, Lord, greatness is brought to bear on our lives. And so, Holy Spirit, lead us today. Say something that has our name on it, Lord. We're tired of the new and the novel. We're gonna embrace some things that are old and ancient and deeply consequential. So, Holy Spirit, point those out in the text today, and we'll be better for it. This is our prayer. We pray in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Acts chapter 15. I'll start reading verse 22 if you're our guest today. We're preaching through the book of Acts. And so it's called expository preaching. Uh, and we're up to uh uh verse 22 of chapter 15. I want to talk to you today about Christian essentials in an ever-changing culture. Christian essentials in an ever-changing culture. And what we're gonna see today in the text is that there were things that were formed to back then, and they continue to be helpful today if you will practice them. Okay? Uh Acts chapter 15 is about this thing called the Jerusalem Council, because uh uh there's Jews, which are very religious people by heritage. Like if you grew up and your family brought you to church, that would be like a Jew today. I'm not saying like the religion, but they were exposed to religious things. And then there were the Gentiles, people like me that grew up on food stamps in a trailer park. Amen. Uh and these are the people that are gonna mess it up. And so when they started coming to faith, the Jews were like, hey, easy, easy, okay? Calm down just a little bit. Uh now it's hard for us to understand what a big deal this was because we can't go back there. But let me take you back to 2009. Uh, there's a thing in town called the rodeo. Matter of fact, it ends tonight. Eric Church is the concert. If you've got tickets, I'm your Huckleberry. Uh, but I digress. Uh 2009, someone came to me and they said, Hey, there's this artist at the rodeo. Uh, she's kind of new. We don't and but we we we can't use our tickets. Would you like them? And I said, uh, sure. My I think my oldest was maybe 11, 10 or 11 at the time on how old she was. Uh, I'll get I'll get in trouble because I didn't do the math. Actually, she's like 12 or 13. Uh, and and and and and I was like, okay, well, she had homework and we just made a prenal decision. We're not gonna go, we're not gonna say anything, we're not gonna mention it to her. And I said to my wife, besides, this girl, I mean, who's I I never heard of her. I'm sure she's not gonna amount to much. It's probably like a one-hit wonder. Uh, she had a song out on the on the radio, uh, I think at the time it was called Love Story. Uh yeah, it was Tickets to Taylor Swift. Now, I've not told my oldest, so please don't say anything to her. She lives in another city, it'll be our secret. Uh, but it's kind of we okay over here? Some of you are like, what an idiot you are. Uh, she was in the fifth grade and she had homework, and and uh hey, she got her college education paid for. Uh touche. Uh but but anyway, I look back now. I've not really talked about that much because I feel kind of sheepish. Uh I'm like, eh. Like earlier this year, some women in our church all went and saw the Taylor uh experience in movie theater, and I thought, ladies, you're too old for that, but I digress. Uh but it's kind of like, I mean, if I'd have known what a big deal that was, I'd have been like, we're going. Come on, get a turkey leg. Uh the Jerusalem Council, uh, infinitely more important than that, believe it or not, was like that. There was like, hey, this kind of uh set the course for unity and oneness in Christianity. They're not like a Jewish brand of Christianity, a Gentile brand of Christianity. There is one biblical expression of Christianity. And there's some essentials, there's some things that these people decided that are deep. If we'll just go back and reclaim those, I promise you you would be a more consequential and enjoyable person, okay? And so now that you're scorning me, let's read the Bible. Acts chapter 15, verse 22 says this. Then it seemed good. Now what happened? They sent some people uh to Jerusalem to say, Hey, we got to decide this issue. And now they're sending people from Jerusalem back to the church in Antioch. He says, Then it seemed good to the apostles and to the elders and the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Bar Sabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter. The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Greetings, since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from those, you will do well. Farewell. That's the end of the letter. Verse 30 says, So when they sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of the its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they'd spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. Now, what do I mean when I say Christian essentials in an ever-changing culture? When we're reading through the passage right there, there are four things that they did that we should still be doing today, uh that that would make us a more consequential. This is how the salt regains its saltiness. And I just want to point out those four things. Number one, it's gospel clarity. It's gospel clarity. You say, What do you mean? In verse 24, they get concerned because they say, Hey, we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions. We didn't send these guys, okay? These people have got you all stirred up. Why is that? This is what I mean by gospel clarity. What troubled their minds were that they were saying to the Jews, or some of the Jews, uh, the the the a group of Uber, Uber, like, all right, we're really taking it seriously. They were saying to the Gentiles that hey, now you're Christians. You also, if you really want to be real Christians, what you really need to do is stop smoking, stop voting Democrats, stop watching CNN. Yeah, I hear some of you, amen. Uh no, that's Fort Bend County. What they said back then was, hey, what you if you really want to be serious and really prove to us, like you got to prove to people, prove to us that you're really Christians, you got to get circumcised and you got to keep the law of Moses. Well, now, this is not the gospel. In fact, the law drives us to Christ because it constantly reminds us. Now, when he says the law of Moses, what's he talking about? He's talking about the first five books of the Old Testament. It's called the Pentateuch. Learn a big word today. The Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Have you ever read Leviticus? Uh, it it like disqualifies everybody. You cannot keep the rules. Here's the thing Paul says in the book of Romans that the law is like a schoolmaster. It takes us by the hand and it takes us to the principal's office and says, Little Johnny cannot keep the rules. Now, by the way, none of us can. So when they're saying to these people, Oh, you've got to get circumcised, you've got to keep the law of Moses, basically they're wanting to suppress them and oppress them and keep them down because the law reminds us that we cannot keep the law. We need someone who has kept the law with all of its requirements to stand in our place and represent us. This is why Jesus said things that sound innocuous, but it really all fits together. Jesus said things like, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. It's why John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is only possible because Jesus kept the law, which is good news to people like me who can't keep the law. Amen. So I may be the only one, but if you're here today and you're like, man, I have tried, I've said, I'm gonna cut back, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna this, I'm gonna that. The good news for you, the gospel for you is Jesus Christ lived a perfect life for imperfect people to have hope. This is the essence of the gospel. Now, and when I say gospel clarity, I've told you before, Mac Brunson wrote a little book called Evangelism. And in the book he talks about how we lose the gospel. Now, we're not even out of the book of Acts, and they're already engaged in part of this process because Mac Brunson in his book he says, he says there's four steps how we lose the gospel. He said, first of all, the gospel's believed, and then it's assumed, and then it's confused, and then it's lost. Let me say it again: the gospel's believed, the gospel's assumed. Oh, we're all Christians, we live in Texas. Come on, man. Really? I mean, Christianity in the South is like sweet tea, it's part of our culture, but that means part of your experience. And so the gospel's believed, it's assumed, it's confused thirdly. And this is where we're on the book of Acts. We're not even out of the book of Acts. Christianity is in its infantile state, and already people are confusing the gospel. And so it's it's necessary that we be clear. And by the way, since the book of Acts, it's just gotten worse. People add things to the gospel that are not the gospel. So I brought you a couple options here on the uh uh that I just want to point out and just be clear and practice some gospel clarity. Like Jesus plus politics is not the gospel. Remember that between now and November. Jesus plus politics, not the gospel. Jesus plus Christian nationalism, not the gospel. Not the gospel. What God says to to Israel, He doesn't say to pagan kings like Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar and people like that, okay? Uh you got to be careful about that. Uh, Jesus plus prosperity, not the gospel. Not God's will that everyone should be rich and you should never have any problems. Uh Jesus plus my preferred style of worship, not the gospel. Well, I'll tell you what, I wish we would sing a hymn every now and again. Yeah. Oh, I get your emails. I get them. I'm just like, thank you very much. Thank you. Memo, this may come as a new slice to some of you. Not everybody wants to do it like you do it. You're welcome. Yes. Yeah. Jesus plus socialism, not the gospel. Not you say, what do you mean? A guy the other day reached out and said, Hey man, I need some help. I said, What do you need help for? Well, I'm in a hotel. I need somebody to pay my bill. I need somebody to pay my bill too. I'd love somebody to pay my bills. But see, the Bible says crazy things like if you don't work, you don't eat. And I and he goes, I can't find a job. I said, dude, I I was out at McDonald's just the other day and they're hiring. Oh, that's beneath me. I said, Well, uh, helping you is beneath me too. Because, well, aren't you a Christian? Aren't you supposed to love your brother? I am loving you by telling you the truth. Okay. I cannot stand socialism. And you're living on the dole. The government may give you a check, but we're not going to. Well, I, and then he said things I can't repeat and hung up on me. But I digress. Jesus plus cultural universalism, not the gospel. What is cultural universalism? I hear it all the time. Well, Pastor, we're all God's children. No, we're not. No, the Bible's very clear that we are by nature objects of wrath. We are born as God's enemies. You're God's creation, but you're not God's child by birth. Jesus plus activism, not the gospel. Be prepared to think, oh no, I don't know what you mean by that. Jesus plus activism. Activism is a culturally acceptable form of atonement. It's where people say, I'm going to do good against certain issues. Like right now, there's a big campaign. You saw it. I think they spent like $5 million during the Super Bowl. And the whole emphasis about Jesus is he gets us. He gets us. And Jesus is kind of, he's just kind of this cool guy that hangs out. He doesn't offend anybody. He washes the feet of the homosexual man during the Super Bowl. That's great. Now, now, by the way, I can see Jesus doing that. I don't think that's all Jesus would say to the homosexual or to the angry fundamentalist or whoever you don't like, okay? But to the immoral, I just couch it in big terms. To the immoral, he has more to say than, hey, let me wash your feet. Like I said, he doesn't scream at him. But what he says to immoral people in the Bible, like in John 8, this woman caught in the very act of adultery, Jesus said crazy, powerful, authoritative things like, go your way and sin no more. Stop sinning. Evidence that you've had a God encounters that sin loses its power over you, and you all of a sudden you have a capacity that you didn't have up until then. We've got to embrace with our activism, you've got to embrace that you cannot create with your money the level of conviction that only comes from the Holy Spirit. And we as Christians should not settle for cultural acceptance in place of conviction because this produces people who think Jesus is cool, but they don't submit to him as Lord. And Jesus did not come to be appreciated, he came to be obeyed. And he gets us. I think we're starting, we're starting in the wrong place. Like he gets us. Yeah, that's more bad news than it is good news. You say, What do you mean? I had this conversation about you watch Super Bowl? Yes, I watched the Super Bowl. Yes, I loved every minute of it. I loved not all the commercials. Did you see that he gets us commercial? Yes, yes, idea. And that that phrase is more indicting than you have TV time for. What do you mean? He gets us. The psalmist says it like this before a word is on my tongue, you know it. Because he gets us. Yes. Yes. He gets you. He knows that the heart is deceitfully wicked above all else and beyond cure. Who can know it? And God says, I do, because he gets us. So okay, I get it. So all this stuff is not the gospel. So what is the gospel? It's very simple. Jesus plus nothing is the gospel. Jesus plus nothing is the gospel. Well, you like gospel, I don't know where it simply means good news. Here's the good news Jesus is enough, and he did what he did in your place for your sin. So you don't have to live in fear being found out. The cross makes sinners out of us all. Someone walked in my office for counseling, first session just in the past couple weeks, and a lady walked in and she said, Well, uh I guess you need to know why I'm here. And I said, I already know. You're here because of sin. And she's like, excuse me. And I said, You're here because of sin. Now you may not say it that way, it may take you a long time to get to that, but either you sinned against somebody or somebody sinned against you, and your soul is anxious and a little bit what I call a fractured soul, but you are here because of sin. Well, I I wouldn't have used that word, that much to your chagrin. Yes. And so the first thing you see, what is Christian distinctive? We got to be clear about the gospel. Not militant, not angry, uh, just a non-anxious presence that is very keenly aware about what the gospel is and what the gospel isn't. Like I've been a Christian 10 minutes. I came home from youth camp and I told my I got the Bible out. There's no verses in the Bible. I just didn't know. I was concerned about my mom because my mom smoked like wet wood. And I told my mom, Mom, you're going to hell if you don't quit smoking. Not the gospel. Terrible. And to this day, now my mom quit because the doctor said, Judy, if you don't quit, you're gonna die. And my mom quit cold turkey. I'm so proud of her. Now she's just addicted to those little nicotine pills, but that's a whole nother thing. Uh uh I guess you can't get cancer from that. But I remember I, and here's the scary part, okay? I'm laughing at myself. I believed every word of what I was saying. Mom, you gotta quit smoking because you're gonna go to hell if you smoke cigarettes. Not the gospel. Jesus plus behavior modification, not the gospel. Now my mom was like, Yeah, I knew you were an idiot, but anyway. It's like, thanks for suffering with me, mom. Here's the second thing you see this this Christian distinctive is decision-making order. Decision-making order. You say, What do you mean? The order in which you make decisions. One of the greatest things that could come out of today is very simple, is if you would just change, is that if you're single, as a single person, if you're married, as a couple, if you would just change the order in which you make decisions. Look at verse 28. He says, For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. And he gets into those things that we're like, what does that mean? We'll get to that in just a minute. But I see decision-making order. Uh, here's a helpful question you could just ask yourself. In what order do you make your decisions? Do you look around, see what everybody else is doing, and then act accordingly? That's one way. Hey, everybody's blind. Oh, I was on TikTok and everybody went. No. Oh. Do you look around and you just kind of mimic everybody? Secondly, here's another way to make decisions. We decide what we want to do, and then we ask God to bless it after the fact. I'm doing this. You want to get in on this and bless this? Because I really want you to bless this. Or what the Bible says right here is a it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. See, they start off first by saying, Hey, this seemed good to the Holy Spirit. And then secondly, it because of that, it was good to us. Now, beloved, I would submit that most of us fall in that second category. We decide and then we just tell God, hey, would you bless this? This is what we're gonna do. And I and I'm not I'm not mad at you, I'm not hating on you, I'm not mocking that. I I I've been there. I'm just saying, what would happen if we just kind of just thought about it reclaimed as a Christian distinctive in this culture, and we just kind of said, you know what, let let us let us kind of pray and hear from God. That's what the Holy Spirit lives in, God's spirit lives inside of you when you become a believer. Uh, let us kind of pray and hear from God, and then we'll get back to you with a decision. When your children come to you with an issue, uh, do you just jump in, dad? Like, I tell you what, my God, I'm or do you just say, hey, babe, come here. Let me let me just pray right now over you. Are you comfortable if I just put my hands on you? No, Dad, that's kind of creepy. Which my kid said to me one time. I said, Hey, can I lay my hands on you? Can you just pray from there? I said, sure, sure, uh, absolutely. Uh, and it happened multiple times. Yeah, just pray. Just okay. Uh, but I wanted my kids to understand, hey, this is not your dad's logic on fire. You can hear from God, you can know that this is God's will, and then you're kind of following God's will. You're not asking God to follow your will. And so that's what I mean when I say decision-making order. If you just look through there, it's verse 22, verse 25, verse 28. It's he says it seemed good, it has seemed good, it has seemed good. There's this historicity, there's this pattern of, hey, we're gonna figure out all through the book of Acts, not just in here, but in other chapters, you hear this. It seemed pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us. It seemed pleasing to the Holy Spirit and to us. It seemed good, it seemed good, it seemed good. One of the questions that comes up is who or what determines good in your life, and how do you define it? If I always get to determine and define what's good, then I'm really about getting my way. But if I'm willing to say, you know, Lord, you tell me what's good, because I submit to you. I trust you more than I trust me. Which that's where the rub comes right there. It's who do you trust more in decision making? Yourself, your assessment of the situation, or God. One of the most often quoted but least experienced verses in the Bible is Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5 and 6, which says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. Hear the order? In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. This is what I mean by decision-making order. It's a Christian distinctive that they practice in the New Testament. They're like, hey, let's figure out is God pleased by this? Because if God's not pleased by this, I'm not gonna be pleased by this. In the moment I may think this is awesome, but there will be remorse and regret coming soon after. Here's a third distinctive you see in the text: relational sensitivity. Relational sensitivity. Now, here's the part that you're reading down verse 28, you get to verse 29, you're just like, I have no idea what that means. So let me read and explain to you what's happening here. He says, verse 28, for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. And he lists off four things that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell. Now you can read that and kind of go, Whoo, three out of four, I'm not bad. Uh, but but you have to understand what he's saying there. Now, let me ask this question Have you ever gone to someone's house for dinner? And on the way there, your wife says, Okay, here's the things you cannot bring up at dinner. Okay, so it's just me. Okay, thank you for that. Uh hey, don't bring up, don't, don't talk about this. Don't talk uh and so when I say relational sensitivity, here's what I mean by relational sensitivity. It's not being a coward, hey, I'm gonna stand up for what I believe, blah, blah, blah. But it is being sensitive to the people that you're around. And this is what the Jews are saying to the Gentiles. They're not saying, hey, we want you to eat kosher meals all the time as much as this. When you're with us, could you be sensitive to why these things are important to us? Let me say that again. When you're with us, could you be sensitive? To why these things are important to us. Not saying agree with me, but consider us in these four areas, okay? Now it's my responsibility when you get to something like this, it gets kind of thick and kind of chewy, and it's easy to just go like, eh, make a grocery list. We need bread and we need eggs. This part, you need to understand this part, okay? You're smart people and you can understand it. He says, hey, here's the four areas that we want you to consider us in the way you you you respond to these things. Number one, abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols. Now, one thing that would happen is they would offer meat to idols, and then it was kind of had a bad taboo on it, and they would sell it for like 50% off in the market. Well, people that had a clean conscience, like, hey, I'll take that because I don't believe in your idol. But this is more than just meat. This is anything that had anything to do with idolatry because a lot of the Gentiles they come out of an idolatry background. It's not just meat, it's foods, it's women. A lot of women were that they uh they acted in service to idolatry. I'll say it that way with little ears in the room. They acted in service to idols in their morality. Uh one of the things I want you to notice is the Bible doesn't say a lot about unbelief, but it says a lot about idolatry. Now, one of the things you have to do is you have to distinguish between unbelief and believing nothing. There's a world of difference between unbelief and believing nothing. Unbelief typic means I don't believe that. I don't, and the Bible doesn't really talk much about unbelief, it talks a lot about idolatry. Why? Because it's impossible to believe nothing. Everyone in this room believes something. Even if you think right now, dude, I cannot stand you. The coffee's bad, I'm gonna pinch the baby and get out of here. You believe something. Now you say, well, what do you mean by idolatry? One of the things that we make an idol of is our opinion and our preference. We love those two things. We bow down to them all the time. So when he says abstain from sacrifice to idols, it's not just meat sacrifice to idols, it's anything. Hey, it's make a clean break with your former way of life. You people that didn't worship God, you had all these idols, get away from that. Have nothing to do with that because that's a big thing that bothers us. We don't want you bringing that into the church, okay? The second thing, from blood. This is not from shedding blood, but from eating it. So if you like your steak medium rare, you're going to hell. No? Okay. No, it's not at all what it means because my wife likes her steak like rare and she would be there. Uh, no. When he says from blood, the second third one go together. He says, you know, abstain from blood. This is not murder, not shedding blood, it's eating it. And he says, What from what has been strangled? Now you should read that and kind of go, that's kind of creepy. I don't want to touch that. No, what he's talking about is the blood hasn't been drained from it. Why is this such a big deal? At this point, you should be thinking, okay, what's the fascination with blood? It's a great question. A lot of these prohibitions that they're talking about, it's the law. Remember, I said the law of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, Leviticus. There's two chapters in Leviticus. Don't turn there. Chapters 17 and 18, where these things are taken right from. Okay? Now I want to read to you from Genesis 17, 10. This is why the blood was a big deal. He says, This if anyone of the house of Israel or one of the strangers, uh, that's Gentiles, again, if anyone of the house of Israel, Jews, or of uh, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, Gentiles, eats any blood, I, this is what God says, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and I will cut him off from among his people. Why? It's right in verse 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you, given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore, I've said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. Now again, you're like, it's a lot of blood talk, bro. Can you help me out here? Uh basically, God is saying, hey, this is what you sacrifice an animal with the blood in it, and the blood covers your sin. That's in the Old Testament. But if you go forward to the New Testament, you'll be this in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 29. They're talking about people that profess to be believers and that they just live totally unchristian lives. He says, How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and outraged the spirit of grace? If you have an NIV translation of the Bible, it says, Who is treated as an unholy thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctified them? Now, let me put it all together for you. By eating blood, uh, you were treating it as an unholy thing, as a common thing, and you're not recognizing that the life is in the blood, and the blood is what covers your sin. And so God said back in Leviticus, hey, don't eat anything with blood in it, because when you sacrifice an animal on the altar, it has blood in it, and the blood is what atones for your sin. It's a foreshadowing of what's to come in Hebrews chapter 10, the New Testament, when he says, Hey, do not treat it as an unholy unholy thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctifies you. Now, what does that mean for us today? It means that you could have your steak rare, medium rare. If you have it well done, you should go home and never eat steak again. But I digress. Why? Because remember, Jesus fulfills the law. And when Jesus was sacrificed once for all, it was so sufficient we no longer make sacrifices for our sin. Does that make sense? And so when you read things in the Bible that you're like, it doesn't mean you're stupid. It just means the preacher's never taken the time and done the homework to explain to you what's being said here, okay? And then the last thing he says, abstain from sexual immorality. Now, listen very carefully because I'm going to say something that sounds crazy. He's not talking about sexual immorality as we know it, because it was common knowledge for Christians that morality matters. So they're, I mean, they understood, hey, one of the things that distinguishes us from unbelievers, people that don't know God, is our sexual ethic, our sexual morality. So the church in Jerusalem did not need to write a letter to the believers in Antioch and say, hey, there's this new thing called morality, and you guys should check it out. You should know about it. No, we're the ones that act like morality is a new idea. However, back then it was very common knowledge. So what's he talking about? He says, abstain from sexual morality. Again, uh Leviticus 18. The whole chapter talks about basically speaking here uh is marriage within different degrees of blood relationship. Uh now, if you're from Kentucky, this may offend you, but you can't marry your cousin, okay? Somebody's from Kentucky. I'm gonna get an email. Uh no, the whole thing it says, actually, the language of Leviticus is you shall not uncover their nakedness, and you shall not uncover this person's nakedness, and you shall not uncover this person's nakedness. Why? What's the big deal? He goes into great detail about the different relatives you could not be involved with. And here's the reason, okay? Don't miss this. It's you think that's a no-brainer. You would think that. And nowadays it is, but back then it was a big deal. And here's why. The nations that God drove out before them, they all practice these things, and you were to not be like them. God was saying, hey, your sexual morality and your sexual ethic is one of the main ways you can tell who Christians who are Christians and who aren't, okay? You believe the gospel, and I believe the gospel in as much as I apply it to my biggest appetite. And what God was saying was, hey, this is going to distinguish you. These people all did this. My people will not do that. And it's not just what isolated, buried somewhere back in the Old Testament. Uh, it's all through the New Testament. I'll just read you a problem with more accessible, simple ones. This is 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting in verse 1. He says, Finally then, brothers, we ask and we urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. See, they're already thinking about, hey, what seems good? What's pleasing to God? How you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. This is how you become more and more like Christ and less and less like your old self, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. There's the Gentiles again, the people that grew up like me on the wrong side of the tracks and didn't know the rules. You don't live like these people do, because they don't know God, that no one transgressed or wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things. As we told you before and solemnly warned you, for God is not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. I couldn't tell you how many times people said to me, Well, that's just your opinion. It's the 21st century, bro. I'm like, Well, actually, the Bible is very clear and it says you're not disregarding man, you're disregarding God who gives you his spirit. And so uh again, one of the things I want all of us to see is it's just it's very simple. One of the things that this is how you tell who Christians are and who just go to church is that we apply the gospel, the good news, to our our our our sexual morality. Now, here's the fourth thing we see, and I want you to put a star by this one, okay? This is one of those Christian distinctives. I call it the practice of remaining. The practice of remaining. Look at verse 35. He says, but it at the very end he says, but Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord uh with many others also. Uh now the word remain means uh the picture behind it is to rub two things together. And one of them, you rub them together because it creates friction, but also they begin to rub off on each other. Uh and so when he talked about remaining, when I read that word, I was like, I seems like I've heard this a lot here. Here's my concern. I lay my cards on the table, okay? That we're such a transactional and transitory transitory culture uh that we've forgotten how to be relational. We know how to like do for people, but we do not know how to be with people. And when we're with people, we are in an absolute hurry most of the time. Like we had a couple over at our house for dinner, and we were thought, hey, we're gonna have dinner, then we'll have coffee and dessert, then we'll sit in the living room and just chat, and blah, blah, blah. They sit down to dinner, and the guy goes, Hey, listen, we can't stay long, so as soon as we're done eating, we gotta go. And I said, You want to take it to go? That's not remaining. That's not remaining. Matter of fact, that's an offense to remaining. Uh you said, What do you mean? One of the patterns, you just think about this. When's the last time you went to see a doctor? And the doctor said, Hey, listen, you got any more questions? Because I got all the time you need. Yes. Now, here's my concern: is that preachers and people in ministry have become like doctors. Okay, that's it. Gotta go. Boop, yep, yep, yep, and you're like, oh, okay, uh, all right, I guess we're going now. But if you look at leadership of the book of Acts, those cats remained. They were laid back with the mind on the money and the money on their mind. Rolling down the road, sipping gin and juice. They never got in a hurry. Never did they get in a hurry. Yeah, you say, What do you mean? They consistently wanted to remain, to spend all the time necessary. They knew how to be with people, and they were consequential and helpful and encouraging. I want to demonstrate, I'm just going to read. So I just went back and looked. Hey, why do I feel like this word appears a lot in the book of Acts? I'll just read just some of the places. This is uh Acts 14, 3. So they remained a long time speaking boldly for the Lord. Acts 14, 28, and they remained no little time with the disciples. Acts 15, 35. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching and teaching the word of the Lord with many others also. Acts 16, 12, we remained in the city some days. Acts 17, 14, then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. Here's a simple question: Is there anybody in your life that you need to practice remaining with? Because my concern is that the pace of our life doesn't allow for meaningful relational engagement. My concern, men, is that we're so busy taking care of our wife and our kids and work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that we do not make time to have meaningful relational engagement. Where we say, I my concern is that we say to our wives a lot, well, all I need is you. And she may not voice it, but what she thinks is that's not true because you're about to suck the life out of me, bro. Yeah. Yeah, you were made. You were made. I was made to remain, to linger, to rub yourself up against another man's life to where you rub off on each other. Uh a friend of mine said the other day, hey, I want to get lunch. I want an hour, I want a lot more time than an hour. And I said, Absolutely, come over to my house. And we remained. It was great. This is what you see, this is the pattern you see of the preachers and teachers in the book of Acts, is the practice of remaining. Paul said it like this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. He said, We were gentle among you like a nursing mother, taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. Look at me. What you should look for in the leadership of this church is men and women who are willing to share the gospel, but also their very selves. Their very selves. You shouldn't look and go, ah, my pastor's kind of like the president. I recognize this picture when I see him, but I don't really know him. That's not a biblical model of leadership. Not at all. And so these are Christian distinctives that in the New Testament that cause Christians to stand out from the culture. Look at me, not as better than, but just as just calibrated different. My friend, he goes to uh a different church. Uh, it's a good church, it's different. It scares me when I go there because there's banners waving and people, I'm like, easy, easy. Uh, but I'm like, hey, knock yourself out. And he goes, You want to wave a flag? No, I'm good. I hold my coffee. Uh uh, but when we go to lunch, it's three hours. Easy. And some of you women are like, yes, and you men are like, that's not very efficient. You could be getting some stuff done, pal. I know, I know. But I mean, we'll be talking, and he'll go, hey, you're not in a hurry, are you? How do you answer that? Because what I think in my head is, I kind of am. I got a lot to do. And he says multiple times, you're not in a hurry, are you? I asked him one time, I said, Hey, uh, you ask me that question a lot. Do you think I'm in a hurry? And he said, I don't think you're in a hurry, but I don't think you're as fully available to me as I want you to be. Shut up. And I'm like, I'm here. And he said, Yeah, but you're not available. You keep looking at your phone. I just want you to be available to me, Neil. What do you want? I'm here! You're not available to me. I don't know if you've ever had another man say to you, you're not available to me, but it's kind of creepy. And I'm just like, okay. Here's more availability. And he said to me one time, he said, I don't want you to turn up the volume on your authenticity. You're plenty authentic, but you're not very available. Waitress came, you guys have anything else? No, we'll take a check. And he said, We can be done. And so I walked away from that table, thinking, I want to get better at remaining. I want to get better at just lingering in people's presence and just being fully available to them. Here's a question I want to ask you. What do you walk away from this morning? Thinking, I want to get better at. Let's pray together. If you're our guests, just relax. We like to teach the Bible and then give you some space to think about it. So I'll voice a prayer. Some questions come up on the screen, that's for your consideration. You can jot one down, you can take a picture. We talk about these in our community groups when they meet all over our city. Uh, but right now let's just kind of pray and think for a little bit. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that it's thought-provoking, it's soul-nourishing, and it's mind-bending. It causes us to get our mind around things that we by nature wouldn't, like remaining. We're tired of being so efficient, God, that we're not available. So, Holy Spirit, if there's anybody in our lives that we need to linger, learn to linger with, would you just bring the stir their name up in us right now? We don't have to fix everybody, we can just be with them. As broken as they are, we can just be with them. Though they've made promises to us, they're gonna stop, they're gonna quit, they're gonna cut back. We're not gonna avoid them, we're just gonna be with them. Only you, God, have the power to fix people, to change people. But we have the responsibility of being with them, of remaining. So, Holy Spirit, just brood over us, press in on us everything necessary, let everything else fall to the ground. Lord, that's where we stand today. We just stand on the gospel, we want to be clear about the gospel. We don't want to add a bunch of stuff to the gospel to make the gospel look more appealing or or or or more restrictive than it is. So, Holy Spirit, I pray we just uh we'd we'd stop being fascinated with new and novel, and we would embrace old and ancient, things that people in the Bible did, like cultural sensitivity, like remaining, things that sound innocuous and and boring, but when put into practice are deeply, deeply powerful things. So, Holy Spirit, thank you for this time today. We're grateful. Say thank you in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen, amen. If you're our guest today, I want to say thanks for being here. If you have any questions about anything you saw or heard today, some of our pastors will be available down front. We would love uh uh to answer any questions you have or pray with you. If you're new to our church and you grew up in a Baptist church, which this is, you may be thinking, why don't you have an invitation? There's an invitation every Sunday, okay? And and this is it. We think it's more natural to have authentic conversations at the end of the service than when everyone's standing singing just as I am 14 times while you talk to the preacher. Uh, and so that's why we do that. Well, that's why we're standing down here. We invite you to come. We want to pray with you, we want to know you, we want to learn your name, okay? I saw uh I met a man about probably three or four Sundays ago. His name's Randy. He's a personal trainer. Every time I see Randy, I suck my gut in, like, what's up, Randy? Uh I saw Randy walking in today, and I kind of sucked my gut in, like, hello Randy, how you doing? I've been counting them carbs, buddy. I'm glad you're here. Uh no, but I met Randy standing right over here and got got to pray for him. So now when I see him, I know his name and I know what he does for a living. Uh, and and I'm not gonna go join his gym. Uh I like kalaches too much. But anyway, uh that that that's the invitation is always open every so we get asked that every once in a while. Like, why don't you have an invitation? There's always one. Uh, we just think life is an invitation. Does that make sense? Say amen. All right. So if you're our guest, if you just test text welcome to that number, it gives us a record that you are here, and we'll pin you back a text and we'll let you move at your pace. Here's what we want to do more than anything we want to help you take the next step in your spiritual journey, whatever that looks like. Sometimes just asking questions, sometimes just remaining with one of our pastors saying, Hey, I want to get coffee or breakfast or lunch or dinner, whatever. We'll be glad to do that, okay? We have always have things going on in the life of our church. We make you aware of those by way of our video announcements. So let's check them out this week.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Park Way Baptist Church. On March 20th, there will be a welcome team meeting. This is a training for Welcome Team members and an opportunity for new volunteers to learn what the Welcome Team is all about. Holy Week is the week leading up to Easter Sunday to commemorate the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Be sure to visit our website for the schedule and the registration link for Good Friday's Childcare. Registration for children zero through five years is due by March 26th. Finally, the Apostle Peter wrote two letters in the Bible, yet one of them gets overlooked a lot. The words in 2 Peter are some of his last words to people he cared for deeply. Join Marcy McKendon as she leads this four-week study starting on April 10th to see how practical and relevant these words are for us today. For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org. If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Also, I want to remind you that these are our devotionals for three months, March, April, and May. It's just a little half page writing each day. It has a Bible verse and just a little half page. These are free. They're on the stage. We we sold out, they're free. We gave them all away last week, so we ordered some more. So if you'd like one of these, you can just come out on the stage and just grab one, grab two, give one to neighbors. I don't care what you do with them, but it's a great way to kind of start your day on a spiritual note. It's not cumbersome, it's not hard, it's easy to read, okay? Because I tell people it's not a it's not a book of Jesus pop quizzes. Uh it's it's things that you would read and understand and go, yes, I get that, okay? So avail yourself to these as as you desire. Would I conclude our service with a smoking blessing? So if you would stand to your feet and hold your hands out. He's not out to get you. He loves you. And he wants to remain with you. Remain with him, and these behaviors will begin to change because of impartation and understanding, not self hatred and desire. So depart now. Remain with Jesus in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless you.