Events
Sermon
As you can see by today’s sermon title. We are going to be talking about wrestling with God. Wrestling can bring strong imagery. When we hear that word our thoughts often first go to the sport. Combat. Martial arts. Striving to achieve a goal. Achieve a mission. Speaking of mission, do you know Christ’s Redemption Church’s mission?
“Sharing the Gospel through worship, the Word, and inclusion.”
What do you believe this mission statement means?
How is/should it be carried out?
Note that not everyone who answers will have the same exact view of our mission statement. Or they said it in different ways. This is pretty similar to how the first disciples wrestled with the Gospel. They literally walked with Jesus. And yet, they still wrestled.
“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood self-condemned, for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?”
-Galatians 2:11-14
These verses explain a conflict between Peter (Cephas) who walked with Jesus and Paul who met the risen Christ. They were arguing over how a person is saved. Via Jewish law? Or the belief in Jesus?
The church at that time and place was made up of a diverse crowd. Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews). This melting pot in many ways is like our own. Diverse backgrounds and interpretations. Because of that, there was wrestling within the church and especially amongst leadership.
What is the difference between division and wrestling?
The wrestling in these verses forced a council to gather. They had to come to an agreement. Prior, the Holy Spirit had revealed to Peter that God accepted Gentiles. They were not unclean. But his refusal later to no longer eat with them was telling. He wasn’t living out what the Lord had revealed to him. That’s where Paul comes in. God used Paul to challenge Peter. Peter was worried about what other Jews who were pro-law for the Gentiles would think of him. He became a hypocrite. He withdrew from people whom the Lord was moving in. He was betraying the message the Holy Spirit delivered. Peter caused other people to do the same. He was showing them that FAITH wasn’t enough.
This was resolved thankfully. By meeting at the first ever council, recorded in Acts 15. Instead of letting disagreements sew division they met to wrestle with these views. To settle things once and for all. Let’s read what was decided.
Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
The whole assembly kept silence and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,
‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen;
from its ruins I will rebuild it,
and I will set it up,
so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
even all the gentiles over whom my name has been called.
Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.’“Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
-Acts 15:10-21
They quoted from the prophets to show that the inclusion of non-Jews would come to pass. They agreed that these people had the hand of God on them. So, they found a middle path. They only asked the Gentiles to observe the following:
- Not to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
- Avoid secual immorality.
- Not to eat blood.
- Not to eat strangled animals.
These were to keep unity and to not offend their neighbor. All to encourage them to be able to share meals together.
Was this story division or wrestling?
If you are wrestling for the same mission does that equal division?
Does division have to end things? Does it mean death?
Wrestling with God is actually both biblical and traditional.
- Jacob wrestled with a mysterious man. An angel of the Lord. Israel, his new name, literally means “he struggles with God”. (Genesis 32:22-32)
- Habakkuk, a prophet, argued with God about why evil and injustice go unpunished.
- Job argued his case directly to God’s face.
- Just open up Psalms and you’ll see this theme a lot.
Even within Jewish tradition wrestling with Scripture, questioning authority, and debating the application of God’s word is not a sin or a lack of faith. Instead, it is considered a sacred duty and a form of worship.
When Paul and Peter publicly fought in Galatians 2, or when leaders argued in Acts 15, they were acting completely within their Jewish cultural and religious framework. They did not see their disagreement as a sign that the church was failing. They saw it as necessary and a historical way to wrestle out the true application of God’s word.
We’ve seen what true division can do. We just have to look at our city. There’s a church on every corner. They got upset at something. Split off and formed their own. And so on and on. Heck out church in some ways came from division. So, how can we prevent that from happening to us?
I want to ask you the question we started with: What is the difference between division and wrestling with God?
Division is easy. Division is quiet. Division packs its bags in the middle of the night, slips out the back door, and leaves a trail of broken relationships behind it. Division says, “If you don’t see it my way, you are my enemy.”
But wrestling? Wrestling is loud. Wrestling takes breath. Wrestling requires you to hold onto someone tight, to look them in the eye, and refuse to let go even when your muscles ache. Wrestling says, “We see this differently, but we share the same mission, so I am not going anywhere.”
Church family, don’t let our disagreements sew division. Let them be the Holy friction that refines us. Let’s step up to the mat together, lock arms, and wrestle out the truth of the Gospel until the world looks at us and sees love that cannot be broken.
Amen!
Pastor
Alex Burchnell
Recommended Reading
- Making Sense of the Bible by Adam Hamilton
- 1 Enoch: The Hermania Traslation
- The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs by Peter Enns
- The Bible Jesus Read by Phillip Yancey
- The Complete 100-Book Apocrypha: Expanded 2024 Edition With the Deuterocanon, 1-3 Enoch, Giants, Jasher, Jubilees, Pseudepigrapha, the Apostolic Fathers, Sibylline Oracles, & Key Early Church Writings by Covenant Press with Covenant Christian Coalition
- Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: A Discussion Guide for Personal, Group & Bible Study Use by Kathy Baldock
- How Jesus Became God by Bart D. Ehrman
- The History of the Bible by Bart D. Ehrman
- The Witness of Early Christian Women by Mike Aquilina
- Jewish Views of Life After Death by Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl
- The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
- Mysteries of the Messiah by Rabbi Jason Sobel
- Inspired by Rachel Held Evans