Eric Ludy – As the Sons of Issachar (Sermon)

so this message is something that is very fresh and significant in my life and even for the direction of this ministry and oftentimes i would say this sort of truth falls outside the camp of what i would preach on and yet i feel like there is a reason why god's pressing when i whenever i sort of come before god because i usually don't map out all my sermons for months ahead you know i'm a very strange pastor in that regard every week in a sense i go out to collect my manna and it does not mean that god isn't working weeks in advance if not seasons in advance four messages and i will notate those and i'll have them in folders like for next week i do have a message already sort of started but when i get to next week that doesn't mean that's what i'm giving so that's why i'm not going to tell you what it is because then you'd like try and hold me to it and so as a result my style is to be very athletically agile and to be ready to give what i sense god is saying and not just what eric has pre-planned and that's hard that's why when an event invites me in and they prescribe what i'm supposed to speak on like could you give this message well i know that message i gave that message ten years ago and i can give that message yes but it's actually hard sometimes for me to agree to give that message not because i don't think that message would be edifying and great but it's like it's an old message and it's like i i want to be able to be agile and so what i've done at times is actually show up and the day before i'll sort of gut the message and stick a very fresh message and give that the title uh and i've done that actually many times and no one's ever complained about it now all the people that have actually hosted events are like wait a minute uh but for me it's important to give something that is actually moving in my soul and isn't just stagnant and sort of covered with moss in the side of who i am because that's easy to have happen it is we have certain truths that we learned 20 years ago that we still believe but they have moss on them we haven't exercised them afresh this is a exercise of fresh sort of truth but it's not the one that would readily be in my mind to preach a message on but here i am and so i think it's going to i mean i could just see god's smile on this one as a result as the sons of issachar and my subtitle is understanding the times in which we live it's fascinating because this last week hudson's very passionate about studying the book of job and you know to be honest as a father you sort of want to steer your child away from job or revelation is one of their first starter packages for what they're going to dig deep into it's like hey there's a lot easier things to study than job and yet he's very interested in that and so it was fascinating because as i was preparing this message i was studying issachar and i was i was going through some various things and it was just sort of uh almost like startling to me that i'm having an in-depth conversation with him after i'd prepared this message to realize that there is a character named job who's one of the sons of issachar it's like did i know that it's like wait a minute here and it was just sort of a fascinating twist to my week to realize that the very message i'm giving is something that hudson is like i'd like to study that guy and he's one of the sons of issachar and so here i have a message called as the sons of issachar now this is that that phrase for those of you that are familiar with it is going to come many many many many generations after the character we know as issachar in the bible which we don't know a lot about this guy right he's one of the sons of jacob but we do know his name and we do know certain things about him and issachar is a actually a very fascinating name to break down if you take its two hebrew roots you're gonna have nasa and sakhar and nasa by itself is it's like to work at something but very specifically it's to to labor towards an end and so it could be like an armor bearer that's like ready to serve a higher purpose right so then you have sakhar which is higher wages price reward or pay you put these together and it's almost like hey this work you're doing is gonna pay off hey this fight is worth it isn't that a cool name and so i like it it's like that's a really neat name this fight is worth it this labor this hard work is going to pay off well there's a good summary of the the christian life right now in other words for us to realize that all of the investment that we give heavenward actually matters none of it is lost that's issachar that's in a sense what the name means first chronicles 12 23 and then i'm going to add the verse 32. and so verse 23 is going to give you a little context if i tried to go through all of this it would be labor the point in the wrong direction now these were the numbers of the divisions that were equipped for war and came to david at hebron to turn over the kingdom of saul to him according to the word of the lord so now you have these 12 tribes that are going to line up and and be numbered and so it's going to reference each of the tribes and every now and then it's going to actually say something about the tribe and so when it gets to issachar it has this one famous line of the sons of issachar who had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do their chiefs were 200 and all their brethren were at their command so if any of you have uh knew david noble and i think david noble's still around i haven't heard from david noble in a while but he started a ministry called summit ministries and summit ministries uh has a key uh curriculum it's like a huge thick book called understanding the times and so many of us well at least maybe i should say me i don't know if any of you the rest of you even have ever seen that book very fascinating book big thick dense thing and it's basically like here are the times in which you live here are the world views in the world in which you live here are the people groups in which you live here are the financial world views in which you live here's what god says in his word and so it's like training in what he would call a biblical world view now at ellerslie we're not against a biblical worldview of course it's a very very important thing but we are very much supportive of what we would call a gospel worldview in other words you could have a biblical worldview and still not necessarily be a changed person it's like a pharisee had an accurate worldview and what do you feel about the resurrection of pharisee well i believe there is a resurrection it's like they're right they're conservative they believe the words of scripture but so you can be accurate with your worldview but what we at elderly are very passionate about is not just the biblical framework but the pith the life of the gospel power that then needs to inhabit the frame of the biblical worldview and so these guys understood the times in which they lived to know what israel ought to do you know right now if if you could describe like what you deal with if you have a church an individual church or if you have a ministry or if you have a business some of you are in a situation even as individuals where the job situation which you're in is creating tensions for you that if you decide to live as you've always lived and say no i'm not going to do that no i'm not going to do that it actually could cost you your job we're having to navigate decisions last sunday we i had the message called the vaccine dilemma and there are some of you that are in in a quandary it's like what am i supposed to do with this you may not be the person that would typically get the vaccine but now your job may depend upon it so do you just get the vaccine or do you need to evaluate something first these are it's a very interesting fog bank that many of us have found ourselves in well as an individual ministry just imagine what it was like during covet 19. should we close our church what is that something you do biblically is close your church and say no please don't come to church it's like well that's that's awkward that's odd uh should we require masks should we set chairs six feet apart i mean this is all the stuff we were dealing with do you understand the times in which you live so that we would know what we ought to do talk about something i think we all could use a little dose of here hey sons of issachar you might want to come visit us in america because we're in a quandary right now we need to know what we are supposed to do right now not just what they did 100 years ago that was very effective but what we do right now you know we're facing obstacles that have never been faced before in history some of the things we're dealing with like social media you don't just read the bible and say oh yeah there's facebook right there this is what you're supposed to do with tik tok oh and this is what you're supposed to do with instagram it doesn't necessarily make it clear of how your hand is supposed to handle mobile devices and if they're supposed to rule your life or not i mean we all know the bible does speak to these things but not as directly as some of us need to hear it the sons of issachar seems to seem to know how to take the ancient truth and be able to help bring clarity to how that ancient truth applies to the times in which they live at present so i'm going to simplify this scripture so we can just sort of see the part i'm trying to bring out first chronicles 12 32 of the sons of issachar who had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do do we know what we ought to do as individual christians right now do we know as families what we ought to do right now do we know as a church body here in windsor colorado what we ought to do right now do we know as a global church what we ought to do right now i was studying uh the ancient great britain i don't know if ancient goes back to the 800s to me it sounds you know it's like medieval great britain and i don't think it was called great at the time so britain and it was just divided all over the place much like the churches today and as a result they when the viking raids came in the danes came in and were literally invading they took off one piece at a time and they didn't like one group would not send their military up to protect the other group because hey that's their issue we're self-protecting and as a result they were all picked off one by one and ultimately controlled by the vikings which is a weird thought to think that great britain was controlled by the vikings i mean what in the world where's that and so it's like this odd part of history that i'd actually never focused on and so as i was reading it i couldn't help but see the parallels it's like wait a minute we have an outside force this is christian great britain or it's really hard for me not to put the great on there christian britain right they were they the gospel had come to them through the roman empire which is another funny statement that the roman empire was used as a conduit to bring the gospel to britain and they had heard the gospel they had yielded the gospel but then they had forsaken it and suddenly darkness begins to overwhelm the nation understanding the times and knowing what the church ought to do so as a ministry we have spent this last year trying to determine what we ought to do and we have so many challenges that we're constantly facing should we keep this event going because everything is getting weird right now and should we just keep going and invite people in and violate what is being asked of us very hard questions to answer they're easier to answer in uh in looking back through the rearview mirror okay remember uh what was uh 1999 into 2000 called y2k okay we're all brilliant about y2k we're like oh yeah you don't want to save up all sorts of water and baked beans and all that in your basement those are weird people do that you don't need to get seven generators and i mean there are people that literally invested a good portion of their life into saving themselves through the y2k unknown and of course they looked rather awkward uh as it came out and nothing really happened i mean like nothing happened i mean come on at least have you know like the lights flicker a little but nothing happened i mean come on what was that and we all look brilliant looking back but we didn't know what was happening now uh so some of us could be really smug that didn't stress about it and we're not fearful about it but at the same time there is a very real unknown that is surrounding us do we understand how to prepare for it do we understand what we're supposed to be thinking and how does a christian reason through this what does a christian do in these small decisions do these small decisions matter or is god like hey we don't care about things like that it's just the big stuff like don't deny me before you die or does he care about the small things does that affect the course of our life our family our nation does it matter do we understand the times in which we live so the big mistake is what i'm going to say is not adapting to godly change what you're going to see throughout history if you study the when the vikings come into any culture okay sorry to throw the vikings under the bus but the vikings symbolic of evil people that are literally filled with demonic uh intent and that's not an exaggeration when they when that begins to usurp a culture the culture or the christians within that culture have to know what to do and when they try and hold on to their old systems for instance if they're like i have to meet in this building this building is where god is then suddenly you find that they are completely eradicated instead of they adapt and they are agile to meet the challenge in which they are facing and so as a result understanding the times in which you live could matter in that regard so for eric it's like does this building matter for the church and i think all of us would agree it's like well no not for the church to truly be the church we don't have to have a building but it sure does help to gather and it gives us a lot of strength to actually gather and to see one another and to be close to one another there is a strength that comes from it but the church isn't dependent upon it it's not dependent upon a certain kind of chair we've had worse chairs by the way for those of you that have spent time here these are really nice chairs but it doesn't depend upon that if we had no chairs in here we could still be the church right do we are we ready to adapt so if the government comes in and steals all our chairs and says there ha ha and we're like ha ha and then we all sit on the floor and like what i wasn't thinking that one through are we ready to adapt to the times in which we live and the big mistake is when you hold on to things that aren't god's agenda and attempt to force them and say but this is how it's always been we all have a propensity towards that especially those of us that love this country to say oh for the good old days and as a result you have a tendency to cause yourself to be ineffective in addressing the world that is needing jesus because you're still dreaming about the good old days in your funk instead of actually adjusting to reach the world that is changing around us so the sliding cultural scale you know if you were to take all the different cultures even throughout history but if i were to just say right now on earth you're going to see it slides and there's a lot of differences between cultures now most of us that have just spent our time in one little community don't fully understand that i mean we've read books and we've heard stories and watched movies and so we know that that's a weird culture there but there really is a huge difference between cultures so all cultures are definitely not the same i know profound statement but actually that matters because when you go into a different culture one of the first rules of missions work is to not just drag in your culture in in how you address them to recognize that they are going to hear differently they're going to see things differently they're going to smell things differently and the way that they are appropriating the truth is actually different than the way your you may have appropriated the truth which means you need to become a student of the person that you're attempting to reach when you have six children like eric has you recognize that every single one of those children is very different and so when you train your first child it's like aha i've got it figured out this is how children learn and then you take the same system and bring it to your second child you realize it doesn't always work that way and your second child is confused and your second child isn't interested in the same subjects your second child falls asleep when you're talking to them about this amazing thought that your first child got when they were two you see you have to adapt to the change of audience or the change of culture and for many of us we're struggling right now you add masks to the thing and many of us oh i'm going to just speak for myself one of my techniques is my smile one of my techniques is my outgoing personality my interest in people now suddenly people are stepping back when i get close to them and i have this huge thick thing covering my smile i'm like hi and they can't see any of it all they see these eyes going and as a result my communication strength and my skill in that area seems dampened so i get mad at this mask was this crazy thing is standing between me and effectively reaching a culture now just as a hypothetical what if mass become even a greater issue than they are now okay and we are either going to have to choose to live in our own little world of non-masks when everyone else is masked and let them go to hell with a mask on or we have to say what am i going to do with this thing then that's my point is when you go to a tribe in some foreign country do you recognize that they're not like america when you get there and so you're going to be shocked by certain things i can't i was not figuring that in where are their clothes there are all sorts of issues you're going to face because they are a debased culture they have not had the light of truth and when you engage with them you need to recognize that that you are a missionary in the midst of darkness our problem here in america is we are still holding on to a christian culture a christian in christian system but it's being rejected wholesale so how do we as christians in the midst of this ever increasing tribal environment that we're in effectively be missionaries so i'm going to give you uh some of the this is a classic one that i've given throughout ellerslie uh but understand the country in which you live if you're in a different country you need to recognize that what love is and how honor is expressed is different and that's like weird to us like okay uh if some of you have not been trained in this in america if you're sitting at a dinner table say you go over you're invited over to someone's house i'm going to encourage you after the meal not to just sit back and burp okay i'm going to just tell you right now that's not going to probably translate very well that would be deemed rude it would be deemed inconsiderate and disrespectful in america now if you're in japan now you might not just lean back there might be a completely different way of doing it and maybe hans could teach us about it however after the meal to show respect and to show honor to the cook you burp okay you follow me in other words and but what's our goal in either culture is to show honor it's to show love and so when you're in america you show love by not burping and by getting up and saying thank you so much that what a great meal can i help with the dishes in japan you show it differently and so that's the point of saying do you recognize if your culture shifts what are you trying to share are you trying to share your old american ideals or are you trying to speak the language of love and if that means we all have to develop the ability to burp i know that's an extreme uh illustration but you know how hard that would be for eric who has spent his entire life and i mean this i was the one guy in high school that would not participate in the burping okay it's like no that's disgusting and so i have like rigorously defeated the burping in my life okay to the point where if now suddenly i go to japan i am very vulnerable here to show disrespect it's like god help me with with this so what is rude in one place is love in another that's a strange reality okay but i'm just trying to bring up some some raw data here understand the environment in which you are hanging out we'll call it the clothing phenomenon what is modest in one place is immodest in another okay now we could just use the simple illustration of a swimming pool to a baptist church okay now at a swimming pool uh you have some rather scantily dressed characters there and then you have the one christian girl that's very set apart and different that comes in her one piece you know with like a little frill thing on the bottom her shorts on the bottom and everyone's sort of like oh boy she's she definitely is modest right you take that same little itsy bitsy outfit of the modest girl at the swimming pool and bring it into a conservative church and suddenly it's like whoa oh everyone watch out we got someone going wild over here in other words what is modest in one place is immodest in another to recognize this sliding scale and to recognize where are we at if we're trying to reach a whole bunch of people hanging around a swimming pool that's going to be a unique challenge to us as christians like whoa are we even allowed to go there how do we appropriate the times in which we live here's another one understand the event in which you are attending the atmosphere phenomenon what is good behavior in one place is poor behavior in another so the the difference like right now we're in a church type of service and there's a certain way in which our culture sort of has people sit and act and nod and say amen in a church type of culture right if this transforms into uh something else whether it's a concert there's a very different feel in here or how about we go the opposite way and it becomes a wedding and suddenly everyone's sitting still and everyone's looking around going how are we going to do this and then you look for the mother of the bride to stand up it's like whoever you're supposed to stand up and there's a certain expectation but you you act differently you dress differently it's a different atmosphere because something is sliding when you enter into an environment you need to be a student of that environment and understand that environment so that you can effectively love within that environment world war one the world war one technological whiplash changed so sudden and so fast that the world struggles to understand the times what i'm gonna say is where we're at is very similar to a world war one whiplash where suddenly change is happening so quick that the world is going off and we are left behind uh with a neck injury we have no idea how to keep up with this so in world war one when world war one started they started on horseback okay it's almost hard to comprehend the technological advancement in four years but at the end of those four years you have tanks you have automobiles that are now being introduced like whoa you could actually like go around on something other than a horse i mean it's fascinating to study to realize what that war did when you bring the whole world together into a war and then you have all the scientists working to try and solve the issues of how you get past barbed wire there's the invention of a tank right there how do you get through barbed wire that's why a tank is built i mean technically and it's like how do you get past these things how do you there's problem solving at a very heightened level and as a result you need to you use the technology of your day and pretty soon we end up with a technological advancement which is going to bring us into the modern age this one war is going to take us into the modern age it's also going to take us into world war ii but it's something that we're going through right now where and for those i've only been around 50 years some of you and i won't point you out have been a long around longer than me but in my 50 years i have never seen such quick change of culture this last year we saw a complete meltdown of what we would know as the american system i mean a system that would take decades to actually melt down which we'd seen it was melting down and it's like oh but you know maybe 20 more years and it's going to be now suddenly in one year it melted to the point where right now we're like america is this still america this doesn't feel like america and as a result many of us are having a tough time keeping up we were riding horseback and now people are riding around in automobiles and we're still trying to figure out the ethics of driving in automobiles is it okay to not drive on a horse i don't want to dishonor horses just think how the horses would feel in other words we don't know what to do with this it's change that is happening so fast that we have not we don't have a grid to know how to stay up with it the 2020 sociological whiplash which is what i was just talking about changed so sudden and so fast that the world struggles to understand the times first chronicles 12 23 and 32 i've read this before but i'm going to give you just the the backdrop again now these were the numbers of the divisions that were equipped for war and came to david at hebron to turn over the kingdom of saul to him according to the word of the lord so we have the kingdoms that are being turned over to david who is an incredible picture of jesus and in a sense the church is being gathered together and there were those in the church that were uniquely wired you know if we want to say it that way of the sons of issachar who had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do their chiefs were 200 and all their brethren were at their command lord jesus we could use those 200 sons of issachar right now have you noticed that when you look out at the landscape of christianity there's a lot of silence you don't have a lot of strong leaders that are giving clear vision of how we're supposed to walk through this in history past like all my growing up years there were voices that would sort of speak through the fog and just cut right through it and give a clear message to the church now we're all sort of waiting for it but we're not sure if it's ever going to come to us isaiah 22 12-14 and in that day the lord god of hosts called for weeping and for mourning that's a weird thing you want to capitalize hosts and uncapitalized called and somehow in my copy and paste called is capitalized i i want to blame someone else but i think it has to be me that has to be blamed to this in that day the lord of god of hosts called for weeping in for mourning so anyone who would understand the times would know that god is calling for weeping and mourning right now for baldness uh that's that's yeah great job gretchen uh for baldness and for girding with sackcloth instead joy and gladness slay an oxen and killing sheep eating meat and drinking wine let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die then it was revealed in my hearing by the lord of hosts surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you even to your death says the lord god of hosts so what we see i'm just giving this as an illustration okay i'm not trying to speak this over us however what you see is that israel often missed it they didn't understand the times in which they were god was saying i need weeping and mourning baldness uh the shaving of the head and girding with sackcloth it's a symbol of repentance it's a symbol of forsaking the way you've been living saying this is leading to destruction and it's on us so lord jesus show mercy or lord god or god of hosts show mercy instead they kept with their celebrating with their drinking and their eating and god wasn't pleased so what i want to say is do we know what god is asking of us now or is it possible that we're still eating and drinking when god is saying look i i'm looking for weeping and mourning right now do you see what's happening do you see that darkness is overcoming the church and you guys are going on with your you know your merry way acting like it doesn't matter luke 12 54-56 this is a fascinating statement it's very similar it's jesus talking and in a sense he could be talking to us but could you imagine jesus is actually present the messiah who they've waited for for all these generations is actually present and they the people of israel the pharisees in this case do not understand the times in which they live they do not recognize what god is doing in their hour and as a result they're going to participate in the crucifixion of jesus as opposed to the crowning of the king so jesus says well after this statement then he also said to the multitudes whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west immediately you say a shower is coming and so it is and when you see the south wind blow you say there will be hot weather and there is hypocrites you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth but how is it you did not discern this time do you not realize what's happening around you o israel and of course all of us will look back and we're like come on guys jesus is in your midst yeah again hindsight is 20 20. looking back at y2k we're all very smart but i don't want to miss the messiah in our midst i don't want to just keep doing what we've always been doing when god is saying look i'm doing a new thing guys i don't want to be caught being the traditionalist the pharisee in my generation where i could be right doctrinally i could have all my eyes dotted my teeth crossed but then i feel threatened by the movement of the holy spirit in my hour it's like whoa what's this who is this imposter i'm waiting for the messiah who are you and actually harm the very one who is coming to rescue me god has a plan and a purpose for us as the church right now but i want to be in stride with it and not fighting against it so at the top of the uh the keynote slide i have reach in an american culture rooted in a judeo-christian worldview and then at the bottom i have reaching a cannibal tribe in irian jaya so i grew up when i was young we still had a semblance of a judeo-christian culture this is weird but we used to most businesses were closed on sunday when i was young i'm only 50. but that was normal in our culture now there is one business that isn't that is closed on sunday and we all know what it is because we all want to go to it on sunday and it's closed however what you see is the reason for that was a judeo-christian worldview and so the culture was honoring to that even if they weren't someone wasn't a believer they were still in a culture that was so impacted by faith in christ that even the unbelievers were participating in a more godly culture now we have godly people i'd like to think that's what we are participating in a very ungodly culture and we're trying to figure out what to do and so reaching an american culture rooted in a judeo-christian worldview oftentimes you could speak something to someone and they had they grew up in sunday school they know exactly what you're talking about and so as a result the way in which you communicate to that sort of culture even if it's a god even if it's a person who's ungodly and who's living in defiance of god is you can appeal to something something that is already there because you know the culture they came from and so you're going to draw that out say i know you know this but when you go to a tribe a cannibal tribe mind you in irian jaya who has never heard the gospel who doesn't know a thing about it and when don richardson went to a cannibal tribe in irian jai i don't know if you guys ever read peace child i mean it's rather startling story but he he's going to study the language he's going to learn the language and he's he's spending his life to reach this people so he finally gets their language and he has the presentation of the gospel i mean huge moment for this missionary i mean do you imagine how many years are going into the investment of getting that language and then knowing the people well enough to be able to communicate to them and they heard it different than he intended to give it because they got really excited about one character who they thought was the hero of the story and that was judas because in their culture betrayal was the highest virtue so he's like no no no no no no their culture was inverted to the point where they rejected the christ and embraced the betrayer of the christ that's weird and that's what he was dealing with and here's what i want to say that's what we're dealing with we're dealing with an inverted culture it's almost like we're moving more towards a cannibal tribe in irian jaya and we need to know that we need to understand the times in which we live instead of saying well why don't they have a good sunday school education i mean i did yeah but they don't and it's shocking to think of school kids that are growing up that don't have a clue who jesus christ is other than a curse word that doesn't make any sense to those of us that are 50. we don't have a grid for that which is why someone who's 50 actually needs to have a message like this to have the spirit of god freshly say do you want to understand the times in which you live eric are you still holding on to an ideal so there's i'm going to call this the gap in between and because we don't just immediately slide to the other side even though it does feel like it's happening fast but to reach a culture you sort of need to know where that culture is at so 1998 american culture to 2021 american culture so elderly the ministry actually started in 1998 i'm not sure if that's why i picked the date i'm looking at this going why did i pick 1998 but this ministry started in 1998 and the 2021 american culture is very different than when we started this ministry and this ministry was actually about reaching a generation it was originally called our generation and so the whole point was to reach a generation and what's interesting is we would travel the world less than i would and we would have these concert events and they were like i want to say three hours long and they were it was it was quite the production right but if you asked me eric how do you think that production from 1998 would work now i get embarrassed at thinking about any of you even seen the production i could just see some of you like googling it's like i don't want you to see it why because the method that worked then for that audience is so different than what would work now to the point where i feel chagrined and awkward over any of you seen it it's like seeing pictures from the 1970s of our parents you know with their bell bottoms and everything and it's like oh you dressed like that and and they're like it looked good then and the same thing can be true of how we communicate the truth doesn't change but how we are dishing it out and delivering it may it may need to so do i am speaking to myself do i understand this change between 1998 and 2021 am i responsible to adapt to this change this is one of the key questions for me am i responsible because there's part of me that feels like a grandpa you know one of those ones like in my day we listened to music you know that was a lot better than that and you know rap music was always you know of the devil and now you guys are listening to it like it's you know candy or just you know what in the world are you doing and so i feel like the grandpa who doesn't want to change and who sees the next generation which is a refrain throughout history by the way as godless as far as in their desire desires their styles and all these things and i'm trying to figure out what is my role am i supposed to change or am i supposed to hold the line am i supposed to hold on to these things that are they were important to me and am i supposed to just let them go because they don't need to be important to our children or do they and this is part of understanding the ties first of all understanding the kingdom of heaven which doesn't change and a culture down here which does i don't want to change anything of this kingdom here this kingdom is forever but there's ways in which we deliver this kingdom to this earth that might need to change it's funny because if you're a fish i'm not i don't fish okay i know i shouldn't say i don't fish i have fish i fished last week i'm not good at fishing okay and so i'm sort of repelling of all knowledge that i hit like kip he learns something about fishing he remembers it forever i learned something i forget at the next minute because i'm just not interested in fish fishing doesn't attract me however one thing i've noticed is in talking to all these fisher people is they're always like oh yeah you want to use this bait for this if you're trying to catch bass it's totally different than bluegill and so you're going to do this and i'm trying to listen in and i'm like it doesn't make any difference to me i don't care but the same is true of your culture which is like fish change and as a result your goal is to catch them that you're trying to draw them in and as a result your fishing methods need to adapt depending on which pond you're in if you're a river a pond a lake an ocean what fish you're after and so when you're after someone who has a sunday school background it's a little different that's in the church but maybe they're just sort of living sort of a nominal christian life and you want to exhort them that's very different than the uh cannibal elite witch doctor in the tribe and aryan jaya very different approach and it doesn't mean that one is of more value or one is less important or one is more important where are we called and do we understand what our task is and do we know how to be equipped for this a biblical case study in adaptation acts 15 1-2 and certain men came down from judea and taught the brethren unless you were circumcised according to the custom of moses you cannot be saved therefore when paul and barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them they determined that paul and barnabas and certain others among of them should go up to jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question if all you've ever known is judaism and everyone that is converted to christ has been a jew everyone has the culture of the law and so as a result there's an understanding of what is appropriate what is clean what is righteous this is how it works and even though you have jesus at least it's clear everyone has a clear sense of righteousness that is unrighteous this is righteous we're still god fearing the law didn't the righteousness of god didn't dissipate because of jesus you still have righteousness it's still the reflection of the kingdom of heaven holiness is still holiness and so now you have these jews most of them were pharisees before but they came to christ they believed in christ and now they're just being good pharisees that are christians and they're saying to the gentiles that are coming to christ and you need to be circumcised oh and by the way when you after you're circumcised then you need to do this you need to do this you need to do this you need to do this and the list just keeps going on and these gentiles who have no concept of this judaism and all these laws are weighted down i mean the entry you know they walk in through the door of christ they have this joy of salvation then boom the law comes down on their shoulders and so paul and barnabas actually are arguing disputing but the question is well what is the answer what are the times in which they lived it was actually a shift there was a shift taking place and if you're a good jew this would be a very hard shift i want to liken it to being a good american conservative christian to suddenly a shift that is taking place like god what but that matters that's important and it does i mean god wasn't necessarily rebuking the jews for continuing to show honor in and through their lifestyle and to still do cleansing and things like that it wasn't like it was evil it was just that god is actually acquainting them with what actually saves what is the kernel of truth what is the gospel truly about that's what you're going to see come out in this story it was actually helpful to the church to walk through this and when they had come to jerusalem speaking of paul and barnabas they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders and they reported all the things god had done with them but some of the sect of the pharisees who believed isn't that an interesting thought most of us don't believe the pharisees could ever believe the some of the sect of the pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of moses doesn't this sound like the way we could be right now they need to have what i had growing up this is what actually helped you know tutor and catechize me we have to expect that they have the same now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter obviously it wasn't obvious what they should do like for us all these years later of course all of us grew up on acts 15 so we're like come on guys wake up and smell the coffee jesus has come that isn't the focus and yet they didn't no this is well into the development of the church they're like moving forward but they have these issues that are coming up god is moving them forward it wasn't just that the culture was moving down it was that god was moving forward that's what i would like to emphasize today too that god is wanting to do something in us even though the enemy has an agenda god has an agenda too and when there had been much dispute peter rose up and said to them men and brethren you know that a good while ago god chose among us that by my mouth the gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe so god who knows the heart acknowledged them by giving them the holy spirit just as he did to us and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith now therefore why do you test god by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear but we believe that through the grace of the lord jesus christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they incredible statement and after they after they had become silent james answered saying men and brethren listen to me i judge that we should not trouble those from among the gentiles who are turning to god but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols from sexual immorality and from things strangled and from blood they're going to have four very specific things instead of an entire law they're going to give four things and ironically that list is still a pretty doozy of a list if you're a gentile this is still a big thing it's like hey you're coming to god you still need to turn from your sin it wasn't the absence of a call to repentance it wasn't in the absence of a call to change your life but it wasn't the law it wasn't what even the deliverers think about paul he was a pharisee of pharisees and could you imagine what it must have been like to say well but that's what trained me in righteousness or was it paul didn't you learn a lot more about righteousness by recognizing the blood of jesus christ in other words there is a higher tutor that has come to the stage and there is something greater than the american culture we have grown up in there's something greater i know this can be hard for some of you to digest better than the constitution of the united states it's called the word of god and even if we lost the constitution of the united states which i'm a big fan of by the way he gets an incredible experiment of government that has proven that though it's vulnerable also is quite extraordinary if it's kept so yeah with all that said even if we lost it god's not on his hunches he's not like befuddled and confused going oh no well now i can't reach the nations god is in control the question is are we ready to athletically and with agility move in the direction that he's ready to move us so when they paul barnabas versa and silas were sent off they came to antioch and when they had gathered the multitude together they delivered the letters so james had had this letter written you know the apostles all have agreed that this is what they're going to give to the gentiles now listen to the response when they had read it they rejoiced over its encouragement i think there was one other line i wanted to read just to say it no i must have cut it out it says if you do these things you will do well that was a statement actually intended to keep in but it wasn't that was something james wanted to say so if they do these things these four things they will do well and then the letter is going to come and when they had read it they rejoiced over its encouragement have you ever thought that it would you would rejoice over hearing that you need to stay away from food sacrifice to idols and from sexual immorality and from things strangled and from blood however the reason they're rejoicing is because the weights on them were so great to conform to judaism instead of just be believers in christ that are walking in purity and in holiness by the grace of the holy spirit and so at every juncture throughout history we need to recognize this same lesson that sometimes we want to put more on our audience then actually they're supposed to bear because and then they miss the real heart and the pith of the gospel transformation so the converted jew is at the top and then the converted gentiles at the bottom and i have that same statement in the middle of understanding your audience the converted jew is acquainted with the law circumcised understands righteous behavior in hygienic cleansing and washing that's a whole different audience when you're dealing with the jewish culture and you're bringing christ as the messiah to bear the converted gentile is unacquainted with the law uncircumcised unfamiliar with righteous behavior and hygienic cleansing and washing and as a result do you understand your audience that you're reaching otto conan in the naked tribesmen sorry to put the word naked on the screen during a church service and then mention it over and over again uh so leslie and i were talking about this this past week that otto koning i mean his stories by the way if you've never uh listened to otto konin's stories about working with cannibal tribes in irian jaya i mean they are just tremendous first of all he's like a comedian that's the best way to describe him you just roll with laughter our family loves autoconing messages but uh so he is going to see a supernatural work of grace down in irian jaya i mean it's it's amazing indonesia modern indonesia and uh he is going to see tribes people that have a lot of issues okay they're coming with a lot of baggage first of all not a lot of baggage of clothing they don't have any of it okay they have they're married to multiple women if you know they're a man multiple wives they have a lot a lot of stuff that most of us are like oh my i don't i think this is unredeemable i mean there's another there's such a mess sort of like our culture you think about all the confusion from the gender confusion movement all this thing that's happening with surgeries to change gender it's like whoa we have issues even if that person comes to christ i mean what do you do with them they're a complete mess now you see auto conan is not going to just say you need to have you know this surgery here you need to put on this many much clothing he is actually going to basically say you need to forsake all your false gods and turn to the great white spirit is sort of in translation you need to give yourself to the true god so all your idols all your false gods you need to throw them out huge thing for them he didn't say you need to put on clothing and most of us that would be right where we would start which i think is fascinating again the issue of the soul is not just an external god is after the inner part of a man and when that is corrected suddenly the outside begins to follow suit but have we learned from the council of jerusalem have we learned to recognize that when we have a system that is so moral so right and then suddenly the culture begins to slide and god says reach them i love them that transgender person right there i love them yeah the one that had the surgery i love them the one that is married to someone of the same gender or maybe of a confused gender that one i love them but god i mean if they're going to actually be righteous before you there's a lot of work that would have to be done they need to believe in me is what they need to do you see instead of putting the entrapments and the tripping places around where we can't reach anyone anymore because they're unredeeming they've gone too far which is exactly how the jews looked at the gentiles we were a wreck and we were god forsaken and god says uh-uh i've chosen them whoa and then he calls the jews to go reach them uh-huh that's sort of like what we're going through right now we're the older brother and we've been hanging out in the house and there's this renegade prodigal out there in the pig slop and god's saying i love that person i want them in my house but god are we ready for the generation that we have been handed are we ready to be like christ from the old to the news some people don't know what has changed and so they keep pressing the agenda of the old covenant they don't know what to hang on to and what to let go of they don't know the times in which they live if you don't know the times in which you live and you study the old testament you could very easily come under law because you don't know the times in which you live you're actually not in the old covenant that's a very important thing to know you're actually under the new covenant and that's good by the way it's a better covenant and there is liberty in it but there is not an escape clause from holiness and from purity and from righteousness it's just that those are derived differently than from keeping law and so as a result we need to know what saves us and it's not the constitution of the united states it's not our morality it's jesus jesus then cultivates morality he cultivates an ethic system that is upright but that's not what saves us is because i'm moral i am saved by the shed blood of jesus and by believing and as a result we need to get down to brass tacks to understand the times in which we live understand the cultural movements around us and not put weights on our uh recipients that is not what god is putting on and this is a challenge uh for us some key questions do we really understand the times in which we are living are we attempting to reach our audience as if they are like us or as if they are not like us i gave the illustration i think it was last sunday i also gave it in daily thunder of being in dallas and at a starbucks and there was a barista on the other side of the plexiglass that uh i couldn't quite define no name tag mask glasses deep voice turn around long feminine hair dress and feminine form and as a result i was stymied not knowing how to talk because i know how to talk to a man i know how to talk to a woman i don't know how to talk to someone that is undefined and what that taught me because i was standing on the other side of the plexiglass going god give me wisdom i need to understand not necessarily what leads them to that position i know what can but i need to know how to bring jesus to that person and i felt like i was unskilled it's like as if they would spoke a different language and they're like and i'm like i don't understand i speak english that's the way i felt and so what do you need if you want to reach someone of a different language what do you do you have to learn that language and in a sense that's what i'm encouraging all of us to recognize is there's a language right now that is a language barrier between us and our audience our audience isn't just each other it is loving one another is a chief evidence of what christ's discipleship is going to do in us however loving the unlovely and the lost is actually the next step how do we do that how can we understand the times in which we live and not become like the times in which we live and again that's a key point if we have to compromise to understand the times and something's wrong with us understanding the times like dan rather uh his justification i think he was smoking marijuana so he could relate to the culture in which he was uh he used to be a news anchor man and i think everyone in the culture was like i don't think that's necessary uh dan and the same thing could be true for us like oh i need to participate in this so i can better reach them no you see as christians we're still untouched by the dark and the filth in this world around us but that doesn't mean we are ignorant of the times in which we live or ignorant of what that soul needs and this is where we need to begin to pray and ask god to acquaint us with that wisdom as the sons of issachar so must we be in this generation some key questions what hills should we die on and what hills should we not die on we are susceptible to dying on the wrong hills like i'll just use mask wearing instead of the vaccine since i used the vaccine last week but i'll hint towards it okay the question is like dying on an issue of conscience is one thing and so if the vaccine is a conscionable issue that's one thing if it's a preference issue or it's a fear-based issue we can't die there we need to make sure we're dying where god wants us to die but that's a challenging issue these are tense things which is why we need wisdom we need to know what to do right now i'm not a fan of having a mandatory vaccine at all and yet i don't want to fear or to panic the movements of the culture around us i want wisdom to know what to do if we lived in china and we had the one child policy and they were going to abort any other children wow you talk about tensions okay that's even a greater tension in me than a vaccine for instance it's like they're going i know my wife is pregnant with a real child that i love god loves has value in his sight and if they find out about it they will abort the child what do you do well this is what the church around the globe needs right now they need to know how to respond to these things so let's grow up and let's say lord jesus you have always led your church you know the in the uh in a lot of the darkest corners of the world where they can't advertise where the meeting place is for the the weekly gathering or the multi uh times a week gathering of the saints people pray and they all gather in the same spot they're led of the holy spirit to the same location are we ready to actually be led of the holy spirit to live our lives on this earth the way god has always equipped his church to do it are we willing to give up the easier way that we've had over all these years to have get this a better way it could be harder sure but it'll be better are we currently picking the right hills some key truths know what must never change and know what must change this is attention for every one of us if you're in a church you don't want to change in the wrong spots you don't want to end up curtailing the power of the gospel because you're trying to be sensitive to a culture you don't want to just say look we're no longer going to stand on this platform because it's actually offending the lgbtq plus community you know that sinners have always been offended by the truth and so we need to recognize it's not that the gospel won't be offensive it's just that we don't want our attitude to be the offense that we are spiteful we are unforgiving we are bitter we are angry we need to be full of love with the truth though truth is not or love is not the absence of truth it's wielding the truth as god would wield it my sister used to always say you could have the truth but if you don't speak it the way jesus himself would speak it then you're actually going to do more harm than good which is an incredible thought that you could speak truth but if you're not speaking it with the spirit of christ you actually could harm people instead of help them that's what we need we need to know that the world around us is morphing and rejoice over it say god you're going to lead us through this praise god because as the sons of issachar so will we be you have given us everything we need for life and godliness right now we'll finish with this luke 19 41-44 now as he drew near he saw the city and wept over it saying so this is outside of jerusalem this is jesus if you had known even you especially in this your day the things that make for your peace but now they are hidden from your eyes for days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you surround you and close you in on every side and level you and your children within you to the ground and they will not leave leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation they didn't know the times in which they lived and as a result jerusalem was conquered if we know the times in which we live if we know the time of our visitation the holy spirit is ready to visit us lead the church in a profound and powerful way right now but do we know that are we living in sort of the the bunker the bomb shelter mentality like god i just want to survive are we ready to give up our life for jesus christ father we need your wisdom and we ask that you would help us understand the times in which we live that we would know how to address the ever-changing world around us as individuals as marriages as families as ministries as this church lord that we would have your mind lord we crave it and we ask for it in the name of jesus christ amen my goal in

Channel: Ellerslie Discipleship Training

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Keywords: Eric Ludy, The Gospel, Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Cross, Cross of Christ, Ellerslie Discipleship, Ellerslie Discipleship Training, Ellerslie, sermon, Bible, Bible study, sermon message, times in which we live, society, culture, modern times, what do we do today?, how do Christians respond to what is going on? What are Christians to do?

Id: 2_VUamOLw64

Length: 61min 16sec (3676 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021