WEBVTT 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:06.700 Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:09.080 Sermons. This week we are continuing our sermon 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:12.039 series, Cross Culture, where we are looking at 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:14.980 what it means to be a multicultural church of 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.760 diverse languages, nations, and cultures that 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:21.320 all come together under the name of Jesus. Now 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:24.219 what is your house made of? Is it all brick? 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:27.280 Is it all wood? Is it all one type of stone? 00:00:27.859 --> 00:00:31.179 Probably not. And in the same way, the church 00:00:31.179 --> 00:00:35.479 is made up of a diversity of stones. That's what 00:00:35.479 --> 00:00:37.240 we're going to uncover in today's sermon and 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:41.280 how each one of us is a part of this building, 00:00:41.380 --> 00:00:50.020 this place that is the church. Today's reading 00:00:50.020 --> 00:00:53.280 is from Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 to 22, 00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:56.060 and will be read in Ukrainian. English will be 00:00:56.060 --> 00:00:59.500 on the screens for you to read along. So remember 00:00:59.500 --> 00:01:03.140 that you, once with a bad body, that your so 00:01:03.140 --> 00:01:07.159 -called hand -cut body is called uncut, that 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:09.920 you were without Christ at that time, separated 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:12.719 from the Israeli community and other people's 00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:16.260 promises, having no hope without God in the world. 00:01:16.459 --> 00:01:19.700 And now in Christ Jesus you, who were once far 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:22.620 away, have become close to the blood of Christ. 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:26.200 He is our peace, who made out of two one. He 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:28.579 destroyed the middle of the garden, the enemy 00:01:28.579 --> 00:01:33.519 with his body. He destroyed the law of commandments 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.719 with his science, to build a new man with God, 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:40.760 to make peace, and to make peace with God with 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.599 Christ, both in one body, and to kill the enemy 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:46.900 in this. And when he passed away, he blessed 00:01:46.900 --> 00:01:50.780 you with peace, far and near peace, for both 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:52.980 of us have an approach in the spirit of one to 00:01:52.980 --> 00:02:19.090 the Father. The Word of the Lord. You know, the 00:02:19.090 --> 00:02:24.389 Bible tells us that Jesus was the son of a carpenter. 00:02:24.490 --> 00:02:26.969 And for that reason, a lot of people think that 00:02:26.969 --> 00:02:30.330 Jesus himself was a carpenter. But actually, 00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:33.530 the Greek word for carpenter is a word tekton. 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:38.030 And tekton actually means builder. And so carpenter 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:40.610 isn't necessarily the only or even the best fit 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:43.509 for what Jesus was. A lot of scholars think that 00:02:43.509 --> 00:02:46.550 Jesus was actually more likely a stone worker 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:50.189 or a stone. mason. After all, most of the houses 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:53.969 in Israel were built with stone, not wood. And 00:02:53.969 --> 00:02:56.289 trees were kind of hard to come by. They still 00:02:56.289 --> 00:02:57.849 are kind of hard to come by there. So it'd be 00:02:57.849 --> 00:03:00.750 kind of hard as a carpenter to probably to make 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:04.009 a living for yourself. Archaeologists have also 00:03:04.009 --> 00:03:07.370 discovered that just around the corner from where 00:03:07.370 --> 00:03:10.610 Jesus grew up, there was a large, there's a large 00:03:10.610 --> 00:03:12.889 remnant of a stone quarry there, which is where 00:03:12.889 --> 00:03:16.620 you get stone for building projects. And Just 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:19.439 around the corner from that, Herod was building 00:03:20.270 --> 00:03:23.110 this huge city called Sepphoris, which would 00:03:23.110 --> 00:03:25.849 have meant that there was lots of work for those 00:03:25.849 --> 00:03:29.750 who were in the business of building with stone. 00:03:30.030 --> 00:03:34.330 So imagine, therefore, Jesus is building a house, 00:03:34.449 --> 00:03:36.909 not out of wood and nails, but out of stone, 00:03:37.009 --> 00:03:39.550 and he's got his chisel there with him. He's 00:03:39.550 --> 00:03:44.069 building, and he has the option of kind of building 00:03:44.069 --> 00:03:48.750 that house with maybe one type of brick, in which 00:03:48.750 --> 00:03:51.159 case he would take all the stones and he would 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.900 chisel them down so they're all kind of one uniform 00:03:53.900 --> 00:03:57.560 shape. That's one option he has. The other option 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.479 Jesus would have would be to kind of take various 00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:04.419 shapes and sizes of rocks and maybe they were 00:04:04.419 --> 00:04:06.460 different colors and different materials and 00:04:06.460 --> 00:04:08.300 came from like different sources or different 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:12.340 varieties and to make a house out of a brick 00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:16.279 like that. Now, I think that if he was to use 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:18.939 like this variety of stones, that would probably 00:04:19.269 --> 00:04:23.220 take a lot longer and it would be a lot more 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:25.079 difficult. I think it would be easier probably 00:04:25.079 --> 00:04:27.620 just to build over and over again with one type 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:30.420 of brick over and over again. But I also think 00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:32.740 that a mosaic of stones, of a bunch of different 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:37.060 stones, would look far more beautiful in the 00:04:37.060 --> 00:04:40.860 end. But here is the thing. You know, Jesus didn't 00:04:40.860 --> 00:04:44.860 come to build a physical house or to build physical 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:48.540 houses. Jesus came to earth to be with us to 00:04:48.540 --> 00:04:52.389 build a spiritual house. Jesus came to... build 00:04:52.389 --> 00:04:55.449 a church. I'm not talking about a church building. 00:04:56.089 --> 00:04:59.149 I'm talking about the church, the people of the 00:04:59.149 --> 00:05:02.550 church, which is why we just read, although Daniel 00:05:02.550 --> 00:05:05.170 read it in Ukrainian beautifully, that in him, 00:05:05.370 --> 00:05:09.250 you too, that's you, plural, are being built 00:05:09.250 --> 00:05:11.610 together to become a dwelling in which God lives 00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:14.470 by his spirit built on the foundation of the 00:05:14.470 --> 00:05:17.129 apostles and the prophets. So the question is, 00:05:17.230 --> 00:05:18.529 here's the question I have for you this morning. 00:05:18.629 --> 00:05:21.620 If Jesus is building a spiritual house, he's 00:05:21.620 --> 00:05:25.480 building his church. Is he going to build that 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:29.819 church with just one kind of stone, one kind 00:05:29.819 --> 00:05:32.100 of person? Is it going to be a church where everybody 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:34.720 has the same appearance, everyone from the same 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.079 background, everyone speaks the same language, 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:40.639 everyone kind of looks and sounds the same? Or 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:43.259 is the spiritual house that he's building going 00:05:43.259 --> 00:05:46.600 to involve like different people, different backgrounds, 00:05:46.899 --> 00:05:51.519 a multicultural, multi -ethnic church? Now, again, 00:05:51.699 --> 00:05:54.160 I would argue that if you were to build a church 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:58.279 out of just one kind of people, it would probably 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:00.279 be a lot easier. In fact, there's lots of evidence 00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:02.060 that some of the fastest growing churches in 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:06.139 the world today focus on one homogeneous people 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:10.680 group. It's true. But even though it's more complicated, 00:06:10.899 --> 00:06:13.939 and even though it takes more time, building 00:06:13.939 --> 00:06:17.959 a church out of... People from different backgrounds 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:21.220 and different cultures, a mosaic of different 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:26.100 people is far stronger and more beautiful in 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:29.160 the end. Okay, so we are in the middle of a teaching 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:30.899 series we're doing this January called Cross 00:06:30.899 --> 00:06:32.639 Culture, where we are looking at what does it 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.920 mean for us to live in a deeply diverse and multicultural 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:40.350 community right here in Mississauga. Last week, 00:06:40.370 --> 00:06:43.129 I explained to you that it has always been God's 00:06:43.129 --> 00:06:46.709 plan from the very beginning to gather to himself 00:06:46.709 --> 00:06:49.569 a diverse and multicultural people. And you remember 00:06:49.569 --> 00:06:51.170 last week, if you missed it, you can go back 00:06:51.170 --> 00:06:52.730 and check. I took you through the whole Bible 00:06:52.730 --> 00:06:55.769 from Genesis to Revelation to show that this 00:06:55.769 --> 00:06:59.389 has always been God's plan to build his spiritual 00:06:59.389 --> 00:07:03.250 house out of a diverse group of people, different 00:07:03.250 --> 00:07:05.629 ethnicities, different nationalities, different 00:07:05.629 --> 00:07:10.470 languages, and all that. But like I said, building 00:07:10.470 --> 00:07:14.470 a church that way wasn't easy and isn't easy. 00:07:15.009 --> 00:07:17.329 And today I want to show you how hard it was. 00:07:17.829 --> 00:07:22.329 I want to show you how hard it is to create a 00:07:22.329 --> 00:07:25.709 diverse church. But also I want to show you how 00:07:25.709 --> 00:07:29.129 beautiful it is and how it's way better to do 00:07:29.129 --> 00:07:32.350 it that way. And so what we're going to do is 00:07:32.350 --> 00:07:34.389 we're going to go back 2 ,000 years ago. We're 00:07:34.389 --> 00:07:38.230 going to look at the very first churches that 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:42.629 were being built by God in that pivotal time 00:07:42.629 --> 00:07:44.949 when the church was just forming. And just like 00:07:44.949 --> 00:07:47.269 any building project, what we're going to see 00:07:47.269 --> 00:07:52.089 is in God's church, there were several phases 00:07:52.089 --> 00:07:55.550 to that building project, and it wasn't easy. 00:07:56.079 --> 00:07:58.180 I've given you some sermon notes. You should 00:07:58.180 --> 00:08:00.000 have these. And I invite you to follow along 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.500 to make sure we all kind of leave having learned 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:04.920 something important this morning. So let's begin 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:09.180 with phase one of God's great building project, 00:08:09.379 --> 00:08:12.079 right? When you're starting a building project, 00:08:12.180 --> 00:08:14.920 it is usually a good idea to keep it simple. 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.579 right? You start with one kind of material, one 00:08:18.579 --> 00:08:21.519 kind of brick, you know, but you got to make 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:24.279 sure you got something solid first before you 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:28.100 start making it too complex. And when God began 00:08:28.100 --> 00:08:30.959 building his church, he did the exact same thing. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:34.679 He started with one people, with one ethnicity, 00:08:34.779 --> 00:08:38.940 who spoke one language, who came from even one 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:43.179 city, and all of the first followers of Jesus 00:08:43.179 --> 00:08:49.259 were Jewish. They all lived in Jerusalem. Jesus 00:08:49.259 --> 00:08:54.519 was Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. All the 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:57.460 first Christians were Jewish. They all, in that 00:08:57.460 --> 00:09:01.840 way, looked the same. What God was doing in that 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:06.129 moment was building a faithful community. that 00:09:06.129 --> 00:09:09.950 was being formed within Judaism. The first followers 00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:13.850 of Jesus, they didn't leave Judaism, right? They 00:09:13.850 --> 00:09:16.830 believed that this church was actually the fulfillment 00:09:16.830 --> 00:09:20.870 of Judaism. And that's why Jesus would say things 00:09:20.870 --> 00:09:23.190 like, hey, don't think that I came to abolish 00:09:23.190 --> 00:09:25.370 the law or the prophets. I didn't come to abolish 00:09:25.370 --> 00:09:28.950 them. I came to fulfill them. So you see the... 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:33.639 First church was holy and fully Jewish in all 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:37.039 of its culture and all of its practices. That's 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:39.100 why we read that those early Christians continue 00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:42.740 to meet day by day together in the temple. And 00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:44.139 we might say, well, why are they still meeting 00:09:44.139 --> 00:09:45.860 in the temple? That's a Jewish thing, and these 00:09:45.860 --> 00:09:48.860 people are Christians. Because the original church 00:09:48.860 --> 00:09:53.120 was totally Jewish in its way of life, in its 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:56.779 ethnic identity. They loved the temple. They 00:09:56.779 --> 00:10:02.419 loved the law. They loved the Sabbath. They loved 00:10:02.419 --> 00:10:04.580 circumcision. Well, they probably didn't love 00:10:04.580 --> 00:10:09.200 circumcision, but this was the first phase of 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:12.120 construction. right and so before the gospel 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:14.299 could cross into other cultures it had to start 00:10:14.299 --> 00:10:17.000 in one culture you kind of had to look around 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:19.799 and see what were the bricks that you had around 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:24.159 to start building with and so yes the very first 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:27.440 church was monocultural they were all jewish 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:31.159 christians all in jerusalem and it was only when 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:33.460 the building seemed to kind of get strong enough 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:36.960 that you could start adding different stones 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:40.529 and that's exactly what happened Okay? Every 00:10:40.529 --> 00:10:42.610 building project, I suppose, reaches some moment 00:10:42.610 --> 00:10:47.110 when the materials change. And that first phase 00:10:47.110 --> 00:10:49.590 of formation, which I called it, gave way to 00:10:49.590 --> 00:10:51.169 this next phase of the building, which I want 00:10:51.169 --> 00:10:55.620 to call tension. Tension. See, what happened 00:10:55.620 --> 00:10:59.740 was that those Jewish Christians in Jerusalem 00:10:59.740 --> 00:11:03.820 started to get persecuted by their other Jewish 00:11:03.820 --> 00:11:06.840 friends who felt that this whole Jesus thing 00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:08.980 was nonsense and was actually quite destructive 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:12.379 to Judaism. And so those Jewish Christians got 00:11:12.379 --> 00:11:14.559 chased out of Jerusalem. They got scattered. 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:18.039 And some of them went, they went all over the 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:19.860 place, but some of them landed in this large 00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:24.539 cosmopolitan Greek city that was called Antioch. 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:28.340 And there in Antioch, something really kind of 00:11:28.340 --> 00:11:31.679 unexpected happened. These Jewish Christians 00:11:31.679 --> 00:11:36.279 began to share their Christian faith with these 00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:40.240 pagan Greek speaking foreigners who lived in 00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:44.720 Antioch. And to their surprise, these foreigners 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:49.190 believed. The message of Jesus. A great number 00:11:49.190 --> 00:11:53.129 of people believed and turned to the Lord. These 00:11:53.129 --> 00:11:55.289 Greeks were like, hey, this sounds pretty good. 00:11:55.370 --> 00:11:58.950 Hey, I believe in this Jesus. Hey, can I join 00:11:58.950 --> 00:12:05.070 your church too? Which meant that at Antioch, 00:12:05.090 --> 00:12:09.840 brand new stones. started showing up on the construction 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:13.059 site but these stones were very different these 00:12:13.059 --> 00:12:18.039 stones came from a very different quarry and 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:21.879 and these two groups as you can see looked nothing 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:26.700 alike so for example for example jewish christians 00:12:26.700 --> 00:12:29.600 they observed all the teachings of the torah 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:32.909 but but greek they didn't even know what the 00:12:32.909 --> 00:12:35.409 Torah was and certainly wasn't their story. That 00:12:35.409 --> 00:12:37.870 was the Jewish history. It was the Jewish story, 00:12:38.129 --> 00:12:40.629 right? That wasn't their history. That wasn't 00:12:40.629 --> 00:12:44.230 their background. And Jewish Christians, they 00:12:44.230 --> 00:12:46.470 observed the Sabbath. They didn't work on the 00:12:46.470 --> 00:12:49.429 Sabbath. But Greeks, they didn't have any category 00:12:49.429 --> 00:12:52.389 for that. You know, like that didn't work. That 00:12:52.389 --> 00:12:54.590 might have worked in Jerusalem, but that wouldn't 00:12:54.590 --> 00:12:57.549 work in Antioch, taking a day off every week. 00:12:57.669 --> 00:13:00.809 And Jews, they had especially very strict rules. 00:13:00.809 --> 00:13:02.570 rules about the food you could eat. And there 00:13:02.570 --> 00:13:04.450 was no way that a Jewish person would ever be 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:06.769 found having dinner with one of these Greek foreign 00:13:06.769 --> 00:13:10.409 pagans in Antioch. They didn't follow the food 00:13:10.409 --> 00:13:13.710 laws and they didn't follow the rituals. Paul 00:13:13.710 --> 00:13:16.669 actually writes that in these ways, all these 00:13:16.669 --> 00:13:21.289 Greeks were foreigners to the covenants of the 00:13:21.289 --> 00:13:23.950 promise. God had promised all these things to 00:13:23.950 --> 00:13:26.049 the Jewish people, but this was all foreign now 00:13:26.049 --> 00:13:29.169 to this new brick, these new people that were 00:13:29.169 --> 00:13:31.769 showing up. Oh, and of course, there was this 00:13:31.769 --> 00:13:35.669 other thing. Yes, Jewish Christians were circumcised, 00:13:35.669 --> 00:13:39.539 and the Greeks were like, say what? And in these 00:13:39.539 --> 00:13:43.799 ways, and in lots of ways, these new stones just 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:47.580 didn't fit, didn't match with the original stones. 00:13:47.820 --> 00:13:52.059 And so all sorts of tension was unavoidable. 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:55.740 And the question was, do these new stones need 00:13:55.740 --> 00:13:58.259 to be chiseled down and shaped so that they look 00:13:58.259 --> 00:14:00.580 like the original stones so that they can actually 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:04.190 be part of the building project? This was the 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:06.509 tension phase. And if you had to sum it up, what 00:14:06.509 --> 00:14:09.129 you had was you had two cultures, but you had 00:14:09.129 --> 00:14:13.070 one gospel and a whole lot of unresolved questions. 00:14:13.149 --> 00:14:16.549 Two types of stones trying to build one spiritual 00:14:16.549 --> 00:14:21.769 house, and they didn't fit together. Now, the 00:14:21.769 --> 00:14:23.509 Jewish Christians could have said this. They 00:14:23.509 --> 00:14:26.960 could have said, okay, listen, Greek. our greek 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.259 brothers and sisters we love you we're so glad 00:14:29.259 --> 00:14:30.980 that you found jesus but here's what you should 00:14:30.980 --> 00:14:33.860 do go over there and build your own church and 00:14:33.860 --> 00:14:35.980 kind of speak your own language and do things 00:14:35.980 --> 00:14:37.820 your way and we're going to go over here and 00:14:37.820 --> 00:14:40.080 we're going to build our own church and do things 00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:42.559 our way that way the things that we're doing 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:45.059 don't annoy you and the things that you're doing 00:14:45.059 --> 00:14:48.870 don't like disgust us kind of a thing That was 00:14:48.870 --> 00:14:51.210 one option. Use this brick to build one church. 00:14:51.250 --> 00:14:53.110 Use this brick over here to build a separate 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:55.889 church. But, but, but, after a lot of prayer 00:14:55.889 --> 00:14:59.309 and after a lot of debate and after a lot of 00:14:59.309 --> 00:15:02.429 struggle, the leaders of the church decided, 00:15:02.649 --> 00:15:06.169 no, it'd be way better if they could find a way 00:15:06.169 --> 00:15:09.779 to build this church together. If they could 00:15:09.779 --> 00:15:14.000 find a way to get these stones to fit together. 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:16.799 And so what they did is they had this big meeting 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:19.840 down in Jerusalem. And at that meeting, actually 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:22.840 it was Jesus' brother, James. Jesus had a brother 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:24.940 named James who got up during the meeting and 00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:28.440 he says, here's what I think. I think we should 00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:31.480 not make it difficult. for the Gentiles who are 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.120 turning to God. And they decided it does not 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:37.039 make sense for these Greeks to have to observe 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:39.899 all the Jewish food laws. And it does not make 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:43.440 sense to make Torah observance an entry requirement 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:46.940 into our new church. And it does not make sense 00:15:46.940 --> 00:15:51.669 for these Greek men to get circumcised. And this 00:15:51.669 --> 00:15:53.909 wasn't James saying, by the way, none of these 00:15:53.909 --> 00:15:56.629 laws matter anymore. No, this was James saying 00:15:56.629 --> 00:16:00.409 that the church we are making cannot be reduced 00:16:00.409 --> 00:16:06.710 to one cultural way of life. Now, you would think 00:16:06.710 --> 00:16:09.450 that that would have resolved all the tension, 00:16:09.570 --> 00:16:13.220 but the truth is that just creates... tension 00:16:13.220 --> 00:16:15.919 because now you've got these two groups and they're 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.500 trying to figure out how to live together you 00:16:18.500 --> 00:16:20.600 know for if you're a jew for example how do you 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:22.840 live faithfully in this foreign city in this 00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:25.039 pagan city where for example nobody observes 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:27.240 the sabbath how do you how do you keep observing 00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:29.500 the sabbath and if you're a greek how do you 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:34.360 now follow a jewish messiah without being a jewish 00:16:34.360 --> 00:16:36.659 person yourself you had all these clashing of 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:40.320 cultures and and ideas and and if we're honest 00:16:42.279 --> 00:16:45.139 was really straining the bricks. It was really 00:16:45.139 --> 00:16:49.639 straining the mortar at that time. I want to 00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:51.500 just pause for a second. I want to say this kind 00:16:51.500 --> 00:16:53.799 of tension still shows up in churches today. 00:16:54.139 --> 00:16:58.279 It even shows up here at Trinity. And sometimes 00:16:58.279 --> 00:17:03.360 our diversity as a church can lead things to 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:06.980 not line up so neatly either. Like, for example, 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:09.059 some of you here, you come from a cultural background 00:17:09.059 --> 00:17:11.940 where you really appreciate quiet prayers. And 00:17:11.940 --> 00:17:14.079 you grew up, when you went to church, it was 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:17.960 just lovely, beautiful, quiet liturgy. And you 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:20.440 find all the loud music we sing very distracting. 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:23.700 Others of you, you grew up in a setting where 00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:26.500 you would love loud praise and worship music, 00:17:26.579 --> 00:17:29.740 and you find quiet prayers and liturgical prayers 00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:34.359 to be completely lifeless. Guess what? Maybe 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:36.279 you're both right. Maybe you're both wrong. It's 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:39.019 just that you're different. Or let's take the 00:17:39.019 --> 00:17:41.380 idea of time, for example. Some people grew up 00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:44.819 in a culture where time is, you have to be very, 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.440 very punctual. And that's why if the Sunday service 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:50.700 is running late, you're like, why are they always 00:17:50.700 --> 00:17:52.660 running behind? And you are looking at your watch. 00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:55.359 Other cultures have a very different view of 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:57.539 time. I mean, they could, the service could go 00:17:57.539 --> 00:17:59.599 on forever and ever. And they would be like, 00:17:59.700 --> 00:18:02.359 why are they cutting things short? Why is Rob 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:04.579 rushing to get through the service? He should 00:18:04.579 --> 00:18:07.680 just let it be. Why are we always trying to watch? 00:18:07.690 --> 00:18:09.769 Watch the clock, right? You see, there's different 00:18:09.769 --> 00:18:11.750 cultures. For example, I want to tell you this 00:18:11.750 --> 00:18:15.569 Christmas Eve. I had someone tell me, Rob, that 00:18:15.569 --> 00:18:18.769 was the best Christmas Eve sermon I have ever 00:18:18.769 --> 00:18:21.529 heard. And then the next day I had someone tell 00:18:21.529 --> 00:18:23.950 me, Rob, that was the worst Christmas Eve sermon 00:18:23.950 --> 00:18:26.589 I have ever heard. And I'm not even joking about 00:18:26.589 --> 00:18:29.910 that. I had someone say to me, Christmas Eve 00:18:29.910 --> 00:18:32.490 is no place for the celebration of communion. 00:18:33.069 --> 00:18:35.150 And they sent me a letter about it. Can you imagine 00:18:35.150 --> 00:18:37.349 how many letters I would have got if I had canceled 00:18:37.349 --> 00:18:41.109 communion on Christmas Eve, right? What I'm saying 00:18:41.109 --> 00:18:44.490 is this does not mean, uh -oh, something's gone 00:18:44.490 --> 00:18:48.569 wrong at Trinity Streetsville. All it shows us 00:18:48.569 --> 00:18:51.589 is that our churches, like that church in Antioch, 00:18:51.609 --> 00:18:55.410 we are made up of stones that are cut from different 00:18:55.410 --> 00:18:57.450 quarries, and we bring all that with us when 00:18:57.450 --> 00:19:01.500 we gather together. And in Antioch, The walls 00:19:01.500 --> 00:19:03.839 were creaking and cracking and the mortar was 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:07.220 straining. The question was, could the gospel 00:19:07.220 --> 00:19:09.380 that had brought these two groups together, was 00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:11.759 that gospel strong enough to hold these two groups 00:19:11.759 --> 00:19:14.119 together? Or would the church end up splitting? 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:17.359 Well, the answer to that question is actually 00:19:17.359 --> 00:19:21.440 found. Years later and hundreds of miles away 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:24.759 in a different church in a city called Ephesus. 00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:28.359 Because it was there that this tension was finally 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.920 understood and finally resolved. I want you to 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.980 think of it this way. Antioch was like the construction 00:19:33.980 --> 00:19:38.180 site. It was dusty. It was noisy. Things were 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:43.420 unfinished. But years later in Ephesus. This 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:47.599 other church gave us a glimpse of what a truly 00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:51.960 integrated spiritual house could look like. Jews 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:55.519 and Greeks, different stones, different people, 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:59.400 different backgrounds. A church that Paul says 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:03.720 was held together by Christ himself. Paul writes 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:05.880 about this church in Ephesus. He says, for Jesus 00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:08.940 himself is our peace, who has made these two 00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:14.210 groups one. and has destroyed the barrier, the 00:20:14.210 --> 00:20:19.109 dividing wall of hostility. Now notice, it wasn't 00:20:19.109 --> 00:20:22.750 that the Ephesian church achieved this amazing 00:20:22.750 --> 00:20:24.809 unity by ignoring the difference. They didn't 00:20:24.809 --> 00:20:28.210 just say, oh heck, agree to disagree, go along 00:20:28.210 --> 00:20:30.990 to get along. But no, what they're saying is 00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:34.109 Jesus actually created this unity between us. 00:20:34.210 --> 00:20:37.829 Jesus brought us together. It was actually Jesus 00:20:37.829 --> 00:20:43.299 who was doing something. In our midst. And the 00:20:43.299 --> 00:20:46.700 reason was, Paul said, that this diverse church 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:49.099 was able to hold together was because they were 00:20:49.099 --> 00:20:52.559 built on the foundation of the apostles and the 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:57.559 prophets and Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 00:20:57.660 --> 00:21:01.299 Now, the cornerstone isn't just another brick. 00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:05.160 You guys know that this stone, the cornerstone, 00:21:05.259 --> 00:21:08.900 is the big one that determines how all the other 00:21:08.900 --> 00:21:14.180 stones line up. Which means different stones 00:21:14.180 --> 00:21:18.339 don't have to match each other as long as they're 00:21:18.339 --> 00:21:22.640 aligned. Different people don't have to match 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.759 each other as long as they're all lined up with 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:28.670 Jesus. And so what was happening was, in Ephesus, 00:21:28.710 --> 00:21:31.869 these different bricks were becoming one building 00:21:31.869 --> 00:21:34.609 in Christ. Jewish believers didn't stop being 00:21:34.609 --> 00:21:36.509 Jewish. Gentile believers didn't have to become 00:21:36.509 --> 00:21:40.650 Jewish. Both groups were being built into something 00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:43.109 that neither one of them could become on their 00:21:43.109 --> 00:21:44.549 own. And this is really important, that when 00:21:44.549 --> 00:21:48.490 you build a church this way, two incredible things 00:21:48.490 --> 00:21:53.279 happen. First, the church becomes stronger. Home 00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:54.980 builders will actually, I think, tell you this, 00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:56.819 that it's not necessarily the strongest way to 00:21:56.819 --> 00:21:58.839 build a house to use the same material over and 00:21:58.839 --> 00:22:00.779 over and over and over and over again. Use different 00:22:00.779 --> 00:22:03.700 materials. Use stone. Use timber. Use steel. 00:22:03.779 --> 00:22:06.559 Because each one can kind of carry the weight 00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.900 differently. Strength does not come from sameness. 00:22:10.420 --> 00:22:14.240 It comes from how different materials work together. 00:22:14.420 --> 00:22:16.720 And that's exactly what happened in the Ephesian 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:23.470 church. that the other needed and as a result 00:22:23.470 --> 00:22:25.210 the church got stronger now i want to give you 00:22:25.210 --> 00:22:27.349 one little example of this but here's one example 00:22:27.349 --> 00:22:32.329 jewish christians spoke about jesus as the messiah 00:22:32.329 --> 00:22:34.950 and that was a very very rich word for them it 00:22:34.950 --> 00:22:37.390 had to do with their their ancient story the 00:22:37.390 --> 00:22:40.890 torah the story of of who jesus was that meant 00:22:40.890 --> 00:22:43.730 so much to them that's how they understood who 00:22:43.730 --> 00:22:46.369 jesus was he was the messiah but for greek -speaking 00:22:46.369 --> 00:22:49.289 gentiles That word meant absolutely nothing to 00:22:49.289 --> 00:22:51.250 them, right? That they didn't share that history. 00:22:51.410 --> 00:22:54.690 So they needed a word that made sense to them 00:22:54.690 --> 00:22:57.029 about who Jesus was. And they found that word 00:22:57.029 --> 00:22:59.950 in the word Lord, the Greek word Kyrios, right? 00:23:00.509 --> 00:23:02.970 That was a word they understood because in their 00:23:02.970 --> 00:23:05.170 old pagan days, they had used the word Lord to 00:23:05.170 --> 00:23:07.009 talk about their deities. And they actually used 00:23:07.009 --> 00:23:09.349 the word Lord to talk about emperors. They used 00:23:09.349 --> 00:23:11.529 the word Lord to talk about anything that had 00:23:11.529 --> 00:23:15.930 supreme power and authority. Now, to Jewish ears, 00:23:16.089 --> 00:23:19.650 when they heard the Greeks calling Jesus Lord, 00:23:20.009 --> 00:23:22.779 it sounded really risky. It sounded like, you 00:23:22.779 --> 00:23:24.880 know, they were distorting the faith. It was 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:26.880 a very poor substitute, they would have said, 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:30.119 for the word Messiah. But to the Greeks, the 00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:33.660 word Messiah was like outdated, foreign, and 00:23:33.660 --> 00:23:36.440 confusing to them. But something really surprising 00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:40.740 happened. Having both words turned out to be 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:44.890 better than having just one. Because Jews then 00:23:44.890 --> 00:23:48.529 started to think about Jesus as Lord, Lord of 00:23:48.529 --> 00:23:52.150 all creation. Jesus, Lord with authority over 00:23:52.150 --> 00:23:54.390 all things. That is actually something we haven't 00:23:54.390 --> 00:23:56.930 maybe thought about that way before. And of course, 00:23:56.930 --> 00:24:00.190 when Gentiles learned that Jesus was the long 00:24:00.190 --> 00:24:03.089 -expected Messiah of Israel, that changed their 00:24:03.089 --> 00:24:05.009 thinking. And now their faith was more rooted 00:24:05.009 --> 00:24:07.309 in Israel's scriptures, right? And this is why 00:24:07.309 --> 00:24:10.410 Andrew Wall said that crossing a cultural frontier 00:24:10.410 --> 00:24:13.759 like this led to a creation. movement in theology. 00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:16.539 Can you imagine that? Creative theology, where 00:24:16.539 --> 00:24:20.220 the eternal Lord was also understood as the Messiah 00:24:20.220 --> 00:24:23.000 of Israel. And at first, it always felt like 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:25.960 something was being lost, right? Oh, we're losing 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:27.859 our thing. We're losing our thing. No, no. But 00:24:27.859 --> 00:24:31.339 it always resulted in gain, right? Jesus wasn't 00:24:31.339 --> 00:24:34.619 either Messiah or Lord. He was both. And only 00:24:34.619 --> 00:24:37.720 together could they see the full strength of 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:40.839 who Jesus was. That made the building stronger. 00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:42.759 It didn't just make the building stronger. It 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:45.960 made the building more beautiful. Because, I 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:47.920 don't know, I think when I walk around and look 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.279 at houses, a house that is built of just one 00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:52.559 material, it may be efficient, but it is rarely 00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:57.240 beautiful. But a mix of stones. brings out all 00:24:57.240 --> 00:24:59.759 the color, brings out all the beauty. Paul puts 00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:02.000 it this way. It's in our unity. It's when we're 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.700 together that the knowledge of the Son of God 00:25:04.700 --> 00:25:08.940 becomes a full picture, a whole picture. And 00:25:08.940 --> 00:25:11.940 we can see the fullness of who Christ is. You 00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:14.339 can't see the fullness of who Christ is from 00:25:14.339 --> 00:25:16.839 one culture alone, but it's only when we come 00:25:16.839 --> 00:25:19.380 together, right? Jewish believers didn't see 00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:21.380 the whole picture without the Gentiles. The Gentile 00:25:21.380 --> 00:25:23.359 believers didn't see the whole picture without 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:26.259 the Jewish believers. And here at Trinity, I 00:25:26.259 --> 00:25:28.119 think it's safe to say sometimes we might worry 00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:30.119 about the same thing. We might worry that our 00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:33.500 differences will result in some kind of loss. 00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:37.980 But again and again, differences actually result 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:42.359 in gain for everyone. I mean, it's true that 00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:44.819 we, let's say we don't all come from a culture 00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:47.240 that reads the scriptures the same way. Some 00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:49.059 of us come to the scriptures as a story. Others 00:25:49.059 --> 00:25:50.960 come to the scriptures as more of like a source 00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:53.809 of all truth. But when we read it both ways, 00:25:53.890 --> 00:25:57.650 we gain. We don't lose anything, we gain. Theologically, 00:25:57.769 --> 00:26:00.890 we don't all come from the same spot, right? 00:26:01.009 --> 00:26:03.589 But that is not a loss because when we come together, 00:26:03.670 --> 00:26:06.670 it helps us learn and grow and see more of the 00:26:06.670 --> 00:26:10.369 beauty of who Christ is. And Ephesians tells 00:26:10.369 --> 00:26:13.369 us that as long as we're in Christ, that's important, 00:26:13.529 --> 00:26:16.470 as long as we're in Christ, those differences 00:26:16.470 --> 00:26:19.480 are not a loss. they're always a gain it isn't 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:23.140 subtraction it's always multiplication we gain 00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:27.619 strength we gain beauty when all of us are here 00:26:27.619 --> 00:26:31.940 and now i'm going to kind of quickly move to 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:35.339 the last two phases of the building project as 00:26:35.339 --> 00:26:38.819 beautiful and as hopeful as the ephesian moment 00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:41.299 was it didn't last and it wasn't because they 00:26:41.299 --> 00:26:42.920 did something wrong it wasn't because the vision 00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:46.460 was wrong it's because history intervened You 00:26:46.460 --> 00:26:48.319 know, every building project eventually faces 00:26:48.990 --> 00:26:50.990 something out of its control, and the early church 00:26:50.990 --> 00:26:53.490 was no different. In the year A .D. 70, Rome 00:26:53.490 --> 00:26:57.849 destroyed Jerusalem. Rome destroyed the temple. 00:26:57.910 --> 00:27:00.109 And for all of those Jewish Christians, it was 00:27:00.109 --> 00:27:01.930 like their heart had been ripped out. It was 00:27:01.930 --> 00:27:05.750 like they lost their center of gravity, and they 00:27:05.750 --> 00:27:08.130 were unanchored and unmoored, and they really 00:27:08.130 --> 00:27:11.509 began to drift. And pretty soon, Jewish Christians 00:27:11.509 --> 00:27:15.289 gathered together with each other in synagogues 00:27:15.289 --> 00:27:18.480 more than they gathered together in church. And 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:21.559 so over time, this church that had, you know, 00:27:21.579 --> 00:27:24.759 once held Jewish and Gentile believers together, 00:27:25.019 --> 00:27:28.920 now it's started to lose one of its foundational 00:27:28.920 --> 00:27:33.880 stones, right? And so that brief period of unity 00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:38.779 was broken by history and by violence and by 00:27:38.779 --> 00:27:40.880 displacement. And the church now, it continued 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:45.349 to grow, but now it grew unevenly. And it became 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:48.269 increasingly this brick now, right? It was mostly 00:27:48.269 --> 00:27:52.950 Greeks and Romans and Gentiles, not Jewish culture. 00:27:53.029 --> 00:27:54.529 That Jewish culture was kind of pushed to the 00:27:54.529 --> 00:27:57.289 margin. It slowly kind of was largely forgotten. 00:27:57.650 --> 00:28:00.970 And as Andrew Walls noted, that it wasn't long 00:28:00.970 --> 00:28:04.970 before the church had become monocultural again. 00:28:05.210 --> 00:28:07.970 The bricks were the same again, but a different 00:28:07.970 --> 00:28:10.740 kind of sameness. Right? Isn't that interesting? 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:13.420 This is how history goes. Empires rise and fall 00:28:13.420 --> 00:28:19.640 and the church adapts. But what about that vision? 00:28:19.819 --> 00:28:23.700 What about God's vision? One building with many 00:28:23.700 --> 00:28:25.559 different stones. Is that vision over? Is it 00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:32.480 over? No, absolutely not. Because we find ourselves 00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:37.160 living in phase five of God's great building 00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:42.609 project. And diversity of the church is being 00:28:42.609 --> 00:28:46.049 restored in a way that you would not believe. 00:28:46.289 --> 00:28:49.589 The conditions that made that Ephesian moment 00:28:49.589 --> 00:28:52.289 possible have returned, but they have returned 00:28:52.289 --> 00:28:55.630 on a much bigger scale for us. And again, it's 00:28:55.630 --> 00:28:57.430 not because we planned it. It's just, again, 00:28:57.589 --> 00:29:03.190 history has shifted once more. Today, the center 00:29:03.190 --> 00:29:07.299 of gravity of Christianity is no longer in Europe 00:29:07.299 --> 00:29:10.039 or in North America. The majority of Christians 00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:12.259 now live in Africa, they live in Asia, or they 00:29:12.259 --> 00:29:16.220 live in Latin America. And for example, there 00:29:16.220 --> 00:29:19.119 are more Anglican churches in Nigeria than there 00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.680 are in Canada, plus the UK, plus the United States 00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:25.880 of America, right? Stephen Bevins wrote that 00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:29.359 by 2025, two -thirds of all Christians will live 00:29:29.359 --> 00:29:32.019 in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The average 00:29:32.019 --> 00:29:36.309 Christian today, is female, black, and lives 00:29:36.309 --> 00:29:40.789 in a Brazilian shantytown or an African village. 00:29:41.329 --> 00:29:44.730 At the same time as the center of Christianity 00:29:44.730 --> 00:29:47.430 has shifted globally, guess what else has happened? 00:29:47.730 --> 00:29:51.809 Global migration has brought people from all 00:29:51.809 --> 00:29:56.269 those regions into cities like ours. Mississauga, 00:29:56.329 --> 00:30:00.789 guess what? The world has moved to your doorstep. 00:30:00.829 --> 00:30:03.980 The nations have come to our city. which means 00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:07.299 that the Ephesian moment has returned on this 00:30:07.299 --> 00:30:12.460 global scale. And once again, churches can be 00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:16.839 shaped by vastly different histories and different 00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:20.779 languages and different customs, you know, different 00:30:20.779 --> 00:30:24.000 people being brought together. Guys, this is 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:28.099 not a theory. This is what is happening right 00:30:28.099 --> 00:30:34.259 here in congregations like ours. Only now, it's 00:30:34.259 --> 00:30:37.019 not just that there's two cultures. It's dozens 00:30:37.019 --> 00:30:41.339 of cultures. It's hundreds of cultures. A mosaic 00:30:41.339 --> 00:30:46.000 of stones have shown up from every imaginable 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:48.819 quarry you could think of. And just like before, 00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:51.880 we might be tempted to see this as a problem 00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:55.940 instead of a gift. Because, of course, all that 00:30:55.940 --> 00:30:57.759 change, that feels very, very threatening to 00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:01.039 us. And we may fear losing something we love. 00:31:02.029 --> 00:31:04.690 But as Paul reminded us, remember, in Christ, 00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:08.529 we never lose when this happens. We always gain. 00:31:08.670 --> 00:31:13.690 We gain strength. Because no single culture can 00:31:13.690 --> 00:31:16.029 carry the weight of the whole gospel. And we 00:31:16.029 --> 00:31:20.569 gain beauty. Because Christ looks more like Christ 00:31:20.569 --> 00:31:24.769 when he is reflected through many cultures, not 00:31:24.769 --> 00:31:29.210 just one. So the question before us and the question 00:31:29.210 --> 00:31:34.549 I want to leave with you today is not how do 00:31:34.549 --> 00:31:38.789 we protect what we have? It's what are we building 00:31:38.789 --> 00:31:45.349 here? The question is, will we allow Christ to 00:31:45.349 --> 00:31:49.390 build what he wants? Will we retreat into comfort 00:31:49.390 --> 00:31:52.529 and familiarity or will we step into this new 00:31:52.529 --> 00:31:57.309 Ephesian moment? Trusting that the same Christ 00:31:57.309 --> 00:32:01.529 who once held together Jews and Gentiles can 00:32:01.529 --> 00:32:04.849 now even hold together a far more diverse church 00:32:04.849 --> 00:32:07.849 today. I'm telling you people, the stones are 00:32:07.849 --> 00:32:13.549 all here. The question is, what are we going 00:32:13.549 --> 00:32:16.369 to do with them? But let me just end with this. 00:32:16.410 --> 00:32:20.009 Whatever we're building, it must be built on 00:32:20.009 --> 00:32:24.519 the one foundation. With Christ Jesus being the 00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:28.180 cornerstone. Because if Christ is our cornerstone, 00:32:28.380 --> 00:32:33.240 then our unity does not depend on us agreeing 00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:37.200 with each other or looking like each other. Our 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:40.940 unity depends on us aligning ourselves to him. 00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:44.660 And when we do, guess what? We become one building 00:32:44.660 --> 00:32:51.269 with many stones held together by Christ. So 00:32:51.269 --> 00:32:54.190 let's do that. Let's, as a church, continue to 00:32:54.190 --> 00:32:59.609 build something beautiful together. Thanks be 00:32:59.609 --> 00:33:01.410 to God. Amen.