Ryan Carrell 7/7/24 Ryan Carrell 7/7/24

I Like Jesus. I’m Not Sure About Church - Week 3

Ryan Scott Carrell - July 7, 2024

The following is not a transcript. Ryan preaches from a manuscript but adds a lot each week that is not necessarily from the manuscript. We’re providing this manuscript, and the ability to comment and participate in discussion about the sermon topic, as an additional way to interact with the sermon and with others. As you add your voice to the conversation, you help add additional depth.

Acts 2:42-47

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

For several weeks, we have looked at this passage, focusing particularly on the last word we read in the last verse. That word saved has a lot of baggage when it comes to how people have talked about it in the church. The primary way we may have heard that word used, from well-meaning people, is that being saved is only about what happens to your soul after you die. Being saved becomes about avoiding eternal judgment by believing or doing the right things. But these verses reveal a very different understanding.

Rather than being saved from a hell to be avoided, this passage shows us that being saved was intrinsically connected to being a part of the community of faith to which these followers of the way of Jesus belonged. Being saved was something that happened to them as they participated in this Jesus-centered community. And as they did that, and as they lived out this new reality, they captivated the people around them.

The harsh reality is that this is not how a lot of people would describe the church today. Due to the reputation of this thing we call church, many people would prefer to be saved from the church and not saved in it. And this is why we’re focusing on these verses. In the words of these verses, we see a picture of the church that redefines how the church seems to be defined in our world today.

What we see in the early church is such a different reality from the experience of so many when it comes to church. That picture we find, as we explore it, can help us and guide us as we seek to continue to be a place redefining the word church. Let’s look at those words again as we continue our series.

Acts 2:42-47

As we continue this week, I want us to shift from the last verse to the first. We began this last week by looking at the first clause—they devoted themselves. We discovered that the they in this passage were people from all over the known world who miraculously heard the message of Jesus on a day we call Pentecost. They were then invited by Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, to change the direction of their lives, and about three thousand of them were baptized and shifted their lives from an old way of living into this new Christ-centered way of life. From there, the passage tells us what happened next as they devoted, or leaned all the way into this new life with full intention, including a devotion to the apostles’ teaching. And this is what I want to talk about today. What does it mean to be devoted to the teaching of the apostles?

I think one way to think about this, formed by negative experiences, stories, and what we see in the news, is that there is often a vacuum formed in communities of faith. Into that vacuum have stepped countless numbers of narcissistic leaders. These authoritarians have all the answers and none of the questions. They seem focused on platform and power and less on grace and compassion. Sometimes these faces of authority aren’t faces with one name but institutions with rules, policies, and statements that become thresholds to belonging. But is that what the early church was experiencing? Is that what we’re meant to experience today?

I think the next verse helps us as we seek to answer these questions.

Acts 2:43

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.

We will discuss in future weeks what the performance of wonders and signs might mean in this verse, but there is something else I want us to see here today. The apostles' teaching wasn’t revered due to positional authority but came about as a result of pastoral presence.

We’re exploring the way of Jesus together. I have an office, a role, and a job in the position I hold in our church, but I’m Ryan. I can’t pastor you from afar. It is an honor to be invited into your life and to invite you into mine. The day that isn’t a reality, is the day I’d have to step back and assess what went wrong. I experienced this during the last few years when we went through some hard times together. I never felt alone. The pedestal is a lonely place. I’m glad I’ve never felt the need to be on one. Unfortunately, that’s not what we’ve seen in so much of what we call the church. Rather than presence, teaching becomes performance.

Now, there is an aspect of teaching that is about engagement. We sit on metal chairs at Southeast, and I fully understand that our butts will determine our focus if our brains are not fully engaged. But my job is not to give an entertaining TED talk, a motivational speech, or, as I’m seeing way too often in the church today, a political position statement. My job here is to make sure that we’re devoted, leaning all the way into the way of Jesus.

If we aren’t devoted to the way of Jesus, we will fill that space with something else. What ends up happening is that Jesus becomes a sticker or a slogan that gets slapped onto the side of opinions and conflated with all kinds of things that don’t look anything like Jesus. And this gets us back to our focus today on the apostles’ teaching.

Acts 2:42

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…

The word apostle is what we call transliteration. When a word in one language has a special meaning, translators create a new word that causes us to pause. But, those words can become insider language that loses the special meaning they were meant to convey. An apostle is a messenger sent out. We see how these apostles were sent out in this passage.

Matthew 28:18-20

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus’s authority cut through an important dynamic that is so easy to miss. The disciples, in several places, had to be corrected by Jesus when the good news became an inward-focused reality that put them at the top. This was a huge statement attributed to Jesus that the essence of their call was to share the good news with all people. From there, they were to baptize them into this new way of living, and then teach what Jesus commanded.

But what did Jesus command? How can we possibly sum that up? One way to do that is to look at how Jesus responded to that question.

Luke 10:25-28

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

A few weeks ago, my friend Shannon focused on these two statements that are at the center of what Jesus taught: love God and love others. That’s why, here at Southeast, our mission statement is very simple: Exploring the way of Jesus as we learn to love God, love others, and bring life to our community. To be fair, you’ll find something similar on a lot of church mission statements. But, why then, is so much of the reputation of churches about their their exclusion, their politics, or several other stances that seem to have nothing to do with the way of Jesus? I can’t answer that and be fair. That’s for other leaders in other places to wrestle through. What I can do is talk about what we’re trying to do here at Southeast that came about as I wrestled with being a place where the way of Jesus stayed the focus. And a way that I have found to make sure of that is through the words of the Apostles’ Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,  and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the one holy church, the communion of saints,  the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

The word creed is from the Latin word credo. It simply means I believe. And, if we are talking about beliefs, we all have them. Likely written down around the fifth century, the roots of the Apostles’ Creed date back even further, into the first century, when similar words were most likely used as a preparation for baptism for new believers. The attempt was to sum up what was at the center of what these people believed about Jesus.

Now, it’s important for me to say that I don’t see these words as your threshold to belonging to this community. We are all a part of the beauty of the human family. Participation in the life of this church is how you belong to this family as we’re all invited to explore the way of Jesus, a way that makes us a part of a diverse, worldwide family. The words of the Apostles’ Creed are, instead, a reminder to keep the focus where it belongs: on Jesus. As we do that, our focus stays on his good news, his life of grace, love, and compassion, his death as a reminder of the world’s rejection of his message of love, and his resurrection as a reminder that love always wins, death does not have the final word, and that we all can experience the new life promised, and lived out, in a community of faith, hope, and love—both now and forever. Now, that sounds like good news for everyone. And whatever I focus on here as the pastor of Southeast, I promise to never stray from the centrality of that good news.

Rather than allowing all kinds of things to creep in and take away our focus, let’s relentlessly live out the good news—loving God and loving others as we devote our lives to exploring the way of Jesus. And a great gift God has given us is to not have to do that alone but to live out that faith, hope, and love together. And, doing that will redefine the word church.

Ryan Carrell 6/30/24 Ryan Carrell 6/30/24

I Like Jesus. I’m Not Sure About Church - Week 2

Ryan Scott Carrell - June 30, 2024

Acts 2:42-47

This passage describes the earliest moment of the church, the gathering of Jesus followers that came together following the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They came together to experience, and live out, the teaching and way of Jesus. And the only word that could describe what everyone experienced, and what people continued to experience as they were drawn into this new community, was the word saved.

Now, it should give us a long pause that some of the experiences that people have had with church have caused people to want to be saved from it instead of saved in it. However, this is the reality for a lot of people in our world today. This tension can be summed up in our series title: I Like Jesus. I’m Not Sure About Church. The reality is that due to scandals, politics, and blatant hypocrisy, the idea of church, for many people at this moment in time, is not something they’d even consider. Many people, maybe some of us, feel an agreement with these words attributed to Mahatma Ghandi: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

We want the tension in our lives resolved. As a result of this, many are seeking Jesus outside of the community of faith that is supposed be leading us toward Jesus.

The picture of the church that I read to open this sermon, the text that is at the heart of our series, seems to give us a picture at odds with so much of the modern church. But if we step back and allow that goodness, beauty, and simplicity to guide us, I think we find a guide to help us to continue to be a place redefining the word church. But to understand how, we have to back up and see how the story of the early church began.

Acts 2:38-40

Peter [said], “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

These words, from what we call the day of Pentecost, a story we looked at a few weeks ago, tells us how people from all over the known world miraculously heard the message of Jesus, were invited by Peter to change the direction of their lives, and how about three thousand of them were baptized as a sign that they were moving into a new reality of living.

Now, the result of this moment seem like a successful day. But the thing is if the story ended here, the way of Jesus would have ended with them. See, those three thousand people could have easily stamped their tickets to heaven, grabbed their t-shirts at the door, and become an exclusive, inward-focused, fan club for Jesus. But that’s not what the church is meant to be, and it also isn’t what happened next. Instead, these people, the THEY in our passage, merged their faith and lives in such a powerful way that it gave us the most beautiful picture of what it means to be people following the way of Jesus.

Acts 2:42-47

We’re going to continue to walk through this over these weeks but listen to what happened here. It tells us that they devoted themselves to this new community. They leaned all the way in with intention to experience authentic life-giving and life-sharing community with one another. And again, how that experience was defined as they were drawn into this new community, was the word saved. The final word we read in this passage in Acts 2:47.

Acts 2:47

…and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now, this might sound familiar. Last week, as we started this series, I focused on this word: saved. I mentioned how for many of us, we might have grown up with, or heard from well-meaning people, that being saved is only about what happens to your soul after you die. The idea of Christianity in that mentality becomes about believing and doing the right things to simply avoid eternal judgment. But this verse flips the script on what those people told us and we might have thought being saved was about.

Rather than it being about a hell to be avoided, this passage shows us that it was about an experience of salvation that had everything to do with what they did in this life and the community of grace, peace, and love to which they belonged. Being saved isn’t an isolated experience you have outside of the community, but one you have as you participate in it.

Now, this is such a significant shift that I want us to continue to look at it deeper this week. It is so significant for our own understandings about faith, but also an understanding we should have about what is being taught to us through this passage. In addition, this idea of salvation in the here and now was what Jesus taught. This isn’t a separate idea that came as the result of the church, but was the intention from the very beginning. We see this in the words of Jesus, particularly as he taught his followers how to pray.

Matthew 6:9-13

9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

This doesn’t sound like a prayer you’d teach to people if you want them to only focus on what happens to them after they die. This sounds like a people praying for their lives to be changed right here and right now. Our world is defined by words like selfishness, greed, and unforgiveness. This sounds like a prayer to be defined by a new way of living—full of trust, peace, and love. And don’t miss how this is framed as God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. This is about praying for God’s kingdom to come and for the goodness of heaven to be experienced today. Jesus taught this in another place in Luke 17:20-21.

Luke 17:20-21

20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

N.T. Wright, a pastor and theologian, reflected on these words, and other places Jesus talked about this, and had this to say in his book Surprised By Hope: God’s kingdom in the preaching of Jesus refers not to postmortem destiny, not to our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming “on earth as it is in heaven.” The roots of the misunderstanding go very deep, not least into the residual Platonism that has infected whole swaths of Christian thinking and has misled people into supposing that Christians are meant to devalue this present world…”

When I read about the early church in Acts 2, I don’t read about a people who devalued their present world at all. It seems pretty obvious they took seriously the value of their lives and the lives of their neighbors and, as a result, they loved each other through radical, eternity-based, now-focused, living centered on the way of Jesus.

Let’s close this with a statement we used to open this conversation: It should give us a long pause that some of the experiences that people have had with church have caused them to want to be saved from it instead of saved in it.

And if that stings, we should take a long look at our disappointment about that and ask what we’re doing to tell a very different story and paint a very different picture. And, friends, we don’t have to look hard for our muse. The early church shows us the beauty and wonder of real authentic life-sharing community we all desire. And how they got there wasn’t mysterious. They prayed Jesus’s prayer for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

They didn’t pray to go to heaven, they prayed for heaven to come to them and through them. They didn’t look at the world with contempt or judgment, but lived in it with a fullness the world had never seen. And they didn’t look at suffering as God’s absence or judgment, but as an invitation to be the hands of a loving God to a hurting world. What would happen in the church if we dared pray the same dangerous prayer. Let’s find out.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from the evil one.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Ryan Carrell 6/24/24 Ryan Carrell 6/24/24

I Like Jesus. I’m Not Sure About Church - Week 1

Ryan Scott Carrell - June 23, 2024

Many people say church is boring, irrelevant, hypocritical, and judgmental. The Southeast Project is striving to create a different kind of church; one people will call exciting, authentic, life-changing, and impactful. Come join us on Sundays…as we [begin] redefining church.

Those words are from a postcard we sent out almost twelve years ago when our family joined up with some friends to start a new church here. Our goal wasn't to start just another church. There were then, and are now, already a lot of churches. What we felt compelled to do was redefine the word church which had become defined by words like irrelevance, hypocrisy, and judgment. That goal, and church redefined by words like love, family, and community, remain what drives our mission as a family and as a church. Now, as we’ve grown and developed as a church for the past decade we’ve discovered new language that has helped us live this mission out. We say things around here like if it’s not good news for everyone, it’s not good news for anyone. We articulate our mission by focusing on loving God, loving others, and bringing life to our community. And we’ve made it a point that everyone is at a different place in their journey, everyone has something big going on, and it’s more than okay to ask hard questions and not seek easy answers. We’ve become a church known for leaning into the tension and taking scholarship seriously, as we seek to reconcile an ancient faith in a modern world. I don’t say all that to brag about what we’ve done but to say thank you for being a people and place where a vision of creating a different kind of church has been able to flourish. Thank you for being a place where people who didn’t know they could belong, do belong. Thank you for giving our kids, our students, and our young adults, a picture of what the church can be. I don’t ever consider pastoring another church community because I’m home right here and there isn’t another group of people anywhere in the world with whom I’d rather explore the way of Jesus. Yet my experience, and maybe your experience by being a part of this place, is not the experience of many of our neighbors when it comes to church.

In the past decade, due to scandals, appalling political allegiances, and egregious hypocrisy, the idea of church, for many people, is not something they’d even consider. So, on my summer sabbatical, I processed this reality, along with the over decade-plus of ministry I’ve had here. And the conclusion I kept coming back to is that our mission and our vision are more relevant today, right now than the day we started. We have to strive to be a different kind of church. But to keep our eyes focused forward on that we have to look back.

Acts 2:42-47

A temptation I have as a leader, and for us as a church, is to look back at the last decade and ask how we got here. But we’d miss the point. I’ve made more mistakes than I’d probably like to admit. It’s okay because you can’t succeed if you don’t try. But the times we have done the right things, the things that showed us how beautiful church can be, had nothing to do with great ideas we’ve had. It’s the times our actions lined up with the words we find in this passage. It’s the times the church acted like the church.

We’re going to walk slowly through them over the next few weeks because I want us to be very purposeful about the ancient context and modern implications. I think what we will discover along the way is a way of being that helps us to live out the mission and vision we have that is so relevant today. But I want us to focus today on the final verse of this passage.

Acts 2:47

47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people…the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now, if you’ve been around church for very long, or had any positive or negative experience with Christianity, you’ve heard the word saved. And, for some people maybe it’s obvious enough to just skip over and move on, but I can’t help but pause here because it’s how my brain works. I’m wired to be curious and ask questions. If we’re all honest, we’re all a little like that in our own way. Sometimes, we’re too embarrassed to ask because we think we’re supposed to know something that seems like everyone else is clear about. So, let me be the one to break the ice. Let me be the one to ask the question implied in this verse.

What does it mean to be saved?

The author of the book of Acts tells us that every day, people became a part of this new community of followers of the way of Jesus. But the author doesn’t say that they became members like some kind of Jesus fan club. Instead, they used a word here, the Greek word σῴζω, that means rescued, or saved. And it’s okay to ask the obvious questions. Who saved them and what/where are they saved from?

These questions are important because we can make all kinds of theological assumptions based on this idea of being saved. And how we understand being saved impacts the way we experience and share the good news. And why this matters is because if we’re not careful, what we can end up sharing with the world isn’t good news at all.

The anti-good news, a twisted theological story, is turn or burn. If you don’t have exactly the right beliefs the eternal torment of hell awaits. The problem with this theology is that the Bible doesn’t line up with this idea at all. When Jesus talked about hell he referred to an actual place, a valley that people thought of as cursed, where even the presence of God couldn’t be found. And, that’s possible.

We all have the ability for our lives to look like a place of suffering—void of the grace, mercy, and love of God. And we’ve all seen this when our lives go down the selfish path of greed, hate, and any -ism you can think of. But there was a better way to live.

Acts 2:42-46

Those beautiful words that describe the early church should inspire all of us to the reality of what’s possible—a way of living that captivated the onlookers in the first century.

Acts 2:47

47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people…the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The early church didn’t run around telling everyone they were going to hell because they were too busy showing the world a glimpse of heaven. They didn’t need to exclude anyone, because they were too busy including everyone. And, they didn’t need to condemn people to judgment, because they were too busy inviting them into grace. And this came from a belief they had about Jesus.

John 3:16-17

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

This passage also speaks about an actual place—your life in the here and now. The way of Jesus leads us away from the lonely valley of Gehenna and into the loving arms of God, lived out in community, where we discover a life of mercy, grace, and love. That’s the kind of church I want to belong to and the kind of church we continue to strive to be.