Part 4: Crashing Systems (The Alternative Community) // Ty Gibson

I have to tell you that the message this morning I'm certain of it is either going to make you really happy or really mad I think that is going to be the case now it could be the case that you undergo a kind of transitional process like like I've been undergoing where first you're just mad about these ideas and then you think about them a little bit more clearly a little bit more dispassionately and you wrap your mind around them and you say ah yeah I think maybe there's something to that and then you see the upside to these biblical ideas and you begin to think you know what that has a lot of potential to produce a happiness that is reciprocal because oftentimes we think only in terms of what's best for me well we don't think what's best for me you think what's best for you I think what's best for me this is this is how we process reality we're all we're all kind of narcissistic to some degree self-centered egocentric and we're processing reality all the time on that kind of level whether we know it or not sometimes we catch ourselves don't we we catch ourselves being self-centered and we're like ah we feel shame about it for a moment we we we might experience a moment of regret or repentance and then and then we wake up the next day and we go about life and we forget again that we are constantly turned inward subconsciously focused on me myself and I and what's best for me myself and I well I want to talk to you today about crashing systems and that's that's comically kind of appropriate for what we've experienced this morning with all of the all of the electronic gizmos in this place but the systems aren't crashing here anymore but we're witnessing through history a cycle of crashing systems we're going to talk about some negative stuff some crashing systems but we're also going to talk about the upside of the beautiful system I'm gonna call it if you're gonna write in your notes if you got your storyline journal I want you to write the words one beautiful system one beautiful system and we're gonna land in that good place in that good news place all right are you ready now we began this series that we're titling alternative community the alternative community it's basically a series of messages in which we are exploring what it looks like to be the church to be the church something has gone dramatically wrong in Western culture and what that is is that we go to church rather than operate day by day moment by moment hour by hour as the church there's a difference between going to church and being the church now way back in the first century with the Apostles the movement that we call apostolic Christianity had an effect that we have noted previously in this series the people who saw and experienced the movement they had words for it they they rapped language around what was happening to them they said ah these people these Christians these followers of that that that Jesus character these who have turned the world upside down have come here to they're in our town now they're in our city we don't want them here because they're turning the entire world upside down they're turning the system on its head and that's exactly what was happening now I'm gonna suggest to you that the idea that the gospel and Christianity is this common thing that we in American and westernized Christianity basically experience as praying the sinner's prayer so that we can go to heaven and not go to hell when this life is over is not the gospel that Jesus or the Apostles knew anything about they weren't leading people to pray a prayer to get saved to go to heaven when they die they were actually articulating an entirely new and different and up ended way of being human in the here and now so Jesus and the Apostles they were thinking more in terms of taking on the principles of heaven while here on earth so that we actually end up going to heaven with heaven already intact inside of us so to speak because the ideas and the ideals and the concepts and the thinking process and the feeling process and and the relational dynamics of heaven have taken up residence inside of us individually and in our community as believers so you kind of go to heaven with heaven already established in your person they were turning the world upside down now we want to ask a very simple question this morning how are they doing it how and in what sense was the world turning upside down I want to introduce you to the work of dr. Rodney stark he's a sociologist of religion he's like 84 85 86 years old now he's still teaching he's so active and he's teaching at Baylor University he spent time doing a lot of research during his Princeton years and dr. stark when asked hey are you a believer because he deals with religion but he deals with the sociology aspect of religion hey are you a believer do you believe in God he said well I know I don't but I'm not totally sure so later in life he said maybe I'm an agnostic I guess but but then he pause and he said you know what I'm a cultural Christian because I was raised in the West I'm a westerner and because I'm a westerner Christian ideas have permeated my thinking so so I don't know if God exists stark would say but I do know that I've been permeated by some ideas that have come to me and to all of us in Western civilization down through the ages from Christ and the Apostles now he's written a book this is back in nineteen ninety six seven eight right in there the rise of Christianity a sociologist reconsiders history now if there's anybody in this room who loves history you're going to want to take a look at this book but I'm going to give you the essence of it this will be the Cliff Notes version so you won't have to actually read the book unless you really want to dig in to the details so so the rise of Christianity this book is basically an effort on Starks part to say hey the whole world basically was pagan and somehow this little movement this Jesus way as they called it the way of Jesus this Jesus way somehow upended all of Western civilization and ended up taking over the world and so the historian stark is asking what in the world what were the factors that led to that because you guys have to remember something about history history always moves in the direction of the powerful violence and political maneuvering are the tools of trade for dominance but we end up with a system that takes over the world without ever firing a shot or driving a sword now later on as we've discovered in previous times together and we will discover in future times together Constantinian christianity became an entity of war and violence and the direction of the church changed dramatically through the union of church and state we'll explore that more as we go on in our series together but in the early developments of the movement the thing rocked the world and turned it upside down and stark is saying why how did they do this they didn't even have a military their commander-in-chief was dead well they claimed he was resurrected this was a leaderless movement with no army and it up ended the whole world the question the historian has is how did they do this so Starks thesis is simply this early Christianity was not a movement of the lower economic classes he's making this point in his book because historians have generally thought you know what Christianity really was a movement of the people who were at the lower echelons of society now watch where he goes with this though his research he's saying that Christianity in the 1st 2nd century was not a movement of the lower economic classes but check this out but of the upper and middle classes channeling their resources to the aid of the lower classes now think this through this is a stroke of historic genius really this is the genius of the character of God this is what's going on in the heart and mind of Jesus basically harnessing resources for the benefit of others so Stark is thinking this through nice saying ha wait a minute there's something crazy going on here these people didn't fire a gun they didn't they didn't shoot a bow and arrow they didn't harness weapons they didn't have an army what they did is they channeled they stewarded their resources in the direction of the needy this is amazing Christianity he's suggesting in the book triumphed over paganism in Western civilization because it improved quality of life for everyone to whom it had access indiscriminately we'll see what that means here in just a moment so stark wants us to understand check this out that there were basically three kind of categories of life and reality and how we operate as human beings that Christianity brought about revolution within these these sectors of society and human processing how Christianity dealt with Outsiders I mean there's the insiders there's those who say hey we're followers of Jesus we're a part of the movement right there they're the ones who are part of the thing well how do the ones who are a part of the thing are you tracking with me how do they perceive those who are not a part of the thing how do they treat those who are on the outside of the thing have they become insular do they only look out for their own so how did Christianity deal with outsiders how did Christianity deal with the ever pervasive subject in all cultures of sex specifically how did Christianity teach men to perceive women hold on and finally how did this movement process money how did they deal with financial resources okay let's go how did they deal with outsiders well they had this brilliant amazing completely otherworldly idea that we're going to call the agape ethic now agape was a greek word that already existed before the movement but it was not in vogue nobody was using it it was one of those words that's you know you know it's there in the vocabulary but you don't use it because it's just not applicable and there was another word that was in use in common use for love and that word was eros the Greeks also talked about phileo friendship love eros is erotic love or sexual love or in a broader sense aesthetic love attraction to anything that you find beautiful or tasty or that smells good or looks good this is eros and then there's phileo that's friendship love you're my friend so you out because you're one of my group you're my friend you need some help sure I'll help you you're my friend you're a part of my group but then there was this this word that had fallen out of use in the Greek language and that word was agape an agape means unilateral love unilateral meaning unit one one way love I love you regardless of anything you could possibly do to earn or merit my love so I'm gonna do the right thing for you even if you're doing the wrong thing to me this was revolutionary this was a completely new idea this Christian movement came along and said hey hey let's treat everybody as if they're with us even if they're not let's treat everybody as insiders whoa wait a minute the pragmatists among us are gonna say they're not with us they're not a part of our group to which the early believers would say what does that have to do with anything is that person in need that's the only question that's a human being I'm a human being we're human beings everybody outside these walls you know what they are they're human beings every one of them the passionate object of God's love and the early movement said let's treat outsiders as if they were insiders you know what happened unintentional effect a bunch of the outsiders said we want to be insiders so there was a flood of conversions was amazing so one of the characteristics that shows up in the historical sources that stark brings to our attention as a historian he says it's a strange thing because during the first couple of centuries after the time of Christ this this Christian movement they were helping the sick and the devastated as if they were a part of their movement but-but-but I'm not a believer I'm a pagan I don't even worship your Jesus that's okay are you sick yeah I'm sick well we've got some help for you are you devastated by a natural disaster disaster we're moving in we're gonna help you yeah are there any strings attached do we have to join no you don't have to join you're a human being you're hurting we're here to help you this is what a later author would call disinterested benevolence oh that's just so amazing what about sex how did the new movement teach men to perceive and deal with women now this was a time in which there was a common perception of males regarding females so this is the general male perception this goes back to Aristotle this goes back to Socrates and the general perception is I thank God I thank God that I am NOT a Gentile that is a non Jew I thank God that I'm not a slave and praise the Lord I'm not a woman this is this is the male mentality this is the way men are thinking now now into that kind of world which by the way is not too far removed from the way a lot of men still think about women especially outside of Western civilization I could take you through research I've done two places in the world right now where men still operate on this kind of premise in their perception of women now we're talking about first century now so here comes this new movement okay here comes this new movement here the Apostle Paul comes along himself a Jewish male and he says throwing down a whole new male/female ethic let the husband render to his wife notice the word the affection and not the next word do her do her is she do anything does she does she have rights at all what do you mean do her Paul is there something that that I as a male need to render out of some kind of moral obligation or something because Paul if you didn't notice I'm a man and I live in a world of male dominance and my wife Paul I own her she's a baby step above a slave now in the first century all the historic records tell us indicate that the basic perception in culture and women just had to get with the program and live with this is that the woman the wife was obligated to fulfill the sexual needs of the husband and he was free himself to be a sexual omnivore and just basically Philander and have sex with anybody he wants to have sex with and the wife just had to hunker down and emotionally deaden her desire for dignity and respect and just let her husband do whatever Society dictated he was at liberty to do are you tracking with me this is the world Paul comes along and he says I've got a word for husbands how about some affection that is due to your wife and likewise the wife this is the part that all the men in the first century would say amen to and likewise the wife to the husband but he goes a step further the wife Paul says in verse 4 does not have authority over her own body he means sexually the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does not right there if you're processing clearly you should be a little uncomfortable especially if you're a woman everybody every male in the world in Paul's world would say to that exactly Amen wife are you listening to Paul here's what not a solitary man on the planet expected Paul to say next and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does really Paul what planet are you from are you trying to turn the world upside down Paul what are you talking about and then this verse five do not deprive one another he means sexually except with consent for a time and he goes on to say you know you've got some trials in your life and you guys need to fast and pray together and you know fast on sex don't have sex for a while while you pray but then come back together he goes on to say but here's the revolutionary part the wife actually has a say in this mutual consent is necessary in the realm of sexuality for a woman this is completely different than anything the world to that point had ever considered so what about money this is even more challenging because I'll tell you what money is the subject above all subjects that creates more stress in relationships all relationships not just married relationships but all relationships more than any other subject so what about money I'm gonna suggest you that life basically consists of managing people and resources from a corporate standpoint from the standpoint of you know a group of people a body of people you get a lot of people together and you form a group like we have here this is this is a this is storyline Church where we have you know governing principles you get a bigger group together like a city you have governing principles what are those principles about basically we've got people and we've got resources and we need to manage these people and these resources in a way that is productive as a nation as well now check this out really there are only three and you're only familiar with two most likely there are three economic systems to consider capitalism and socialism now capitalism has its upside in its downside capitalism is a system that essentially is about the few controlling the many by financial leverage please track the language with me here socialism is the few controlling the many through legislative or governmental imposition every society has to decide do we want the people with the money to control and to have the ascendency or do you want the people with political power to tell everybody what to do with their money this is the tension that we're experiencing right now in American politics if you're paying attention at all we are experiencing the perennial tension between socialism the socialist ideology and the capitalistic ideology now Alexander Fraser titler himself a researcher a professor of universal history at Edinburgh University in Scotland way back when was thinking pretty clearly when he said check this out he explained that democracy which is the form of government roughly speaking that you and I are a part of democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government okay titler what are you getting at what's what's the point what do you mean it can't it's not gonna go on him no he says it can't go on and on here's why he explains it can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse that is money resources out of the public treasury from that moment on the majority always vote once they realize hey there's a public like bank account and we can vote benefits to ourselves from that moment on the majority always vote for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury like half of you who are paying attention to the world right now you're smiling with kind of a wry smile like oh my goodness well all my goodness is right watch where he goes with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy or not dealing properly with money and going into trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of debt if you want to say it that way always to be followed by a dictatorship and then monarchy he's suggesting that history is cyclical and it moves something like this that people are in want and they're in bondage they finally assert themselves with faith and courage to achieve Liberty Liberty produces a capitalistic impulse that produces abundance abundance then produces selfishness and complacency leading to apathy and dependence on the governing system which results again in bondage I don't know I'll leave you to try to figure out where we are in this cycle but I'm gonna summarize it for you in a simpler form he's essentially saying to is basically saying to us that freedom produces impulses to create people become creative when they're free to do so they produce we there's an entrepreneurial spirit in human beings let's create something let's make some money around here that's the impulse it's a good impulse creativity is a good impulse productivity is a good impulse but it produces abundance which then leads to a lot of free time and leisure and lots of cash to settle into decadence which inevitably makes a people weak enough to be dominated by a dictator and the cycle goes on and on and on so what I'm suggesting to you is that there is a worm in human nature that inevitably crashes any economic system that we try to run with and that worm in the system the Bible calls sin selfishness so as the rich get richer and they are getting richer and the poor get poorer and they are getting poorer an inevitable backlash is unleashed on any system on any government on any nation so all economic systems crash I'm going to suggest to you without covenant to love which is the third system that you're likely not familiar with the third system after capitalism and socialism I'm going to call covenant ilysm covenant ilysm is a system that we could define simply like this I hope you're tracking with me this is groundbreaking this will turn the world upside down if just a few people believe it covenant ilysm is a kind of what I'm gonna call capitalistic socialism what's capitalistic socialism time well capitalistic socialism is a free-market that's the capitalistic part that is self regulated by love so I've got some I've got some resources and either the government is going to impose upon me to disperse with my resources to meet your needs if you have needs or I'm going to voluntarily love like Jesus loves and not have to be governed and help you because you need to be helped and I can are you tracking with me so Dostoevsky greatest novelists in history according to many and here's why these are the kind of insights that emerged from his thinking every one of us he realized has sinned against all men this is the corporate nature of the human beast there's not an innocent person in this room including myself there's a sense in which there's a universal guilt for the condition of the world that is due to our collective selfishness and he goes on and says this everyone is really responsible to all men and for all men and for everything is there something wrong with the world have you noticed well we're all responsible to some degree for what's going on in the world God gave to Moses a constitutional blueprint for the most advanced social system the world has ever known Moses we're going back thousands of years and this is as fast as I can move through this here's what you'll read in the writings of Moses in summary there were laws of land ownership the privilege of all to own land a Liberty reset system called the Jubilee in which nobody could go into debt permanently to the point of ruining them there was a land the land was not to be sold in perpetuity in other words you could only lease your land but you always owned it and it would always through the Jubilee come back to the original owner self-governance was in the system that God gave Moses there was to be no king the people were to be governed by prophets which was to say they were to be governed by knowledge by education they were to be self governed there were to be no there was to be no arbitrary or inflatable taxation system there were agricultural laws the land was to be allowed to rest every seventh year there were pruning laws for trees so that they could produce in greater abundance and give greater harvests there was there were soil replenishment laws in order to produce maximum yields there were animal laws even if you had a neighbor you didn't like and you saw their animal suffering you were obligated under the system of Moses to never let an animal suffer no matter who the animal belonged to including your enemy work animals were not to be muzzled you must you must give rest even to your animals on the Sabbath the day and a mother bird you are not to take her eggs and traumatize her fragile little psyche or to shoo her away if you're hungry and you're in need and you take the eggs when she's not looking that's a level of sensitivity that the world could use there were health laws body discharges were required to be washed you were to bury your ex treatment not like London for centuries where people were happy it burns down finally so they could start over you had to go outside of the city and bury your excrete meant do your business don't eat scavenger animals if there's recurring mold in a building Burnett this is this is thousands of years ago there were educational laws the daily temple rituals were an educational system that unfolded by means of enactment day by day the people watched and were educated and they were told the Israelite parents you shall teach your children there were literacy laws literacy was a must laws for the poor under the system of Moses justice for the poor in a dispute if you happen to be the person with the upper hand you more money more prestige in the community didn't matter the only question was what's true you happen to have a lot of money you're not getting out of this because you have money the question is are you guilty not to afflict an orphan or a widow under Moses there were to be very clear agricultural understandings that you were not to reap the entire field you were to literally to do your entrepreneurial business and leave stuff for others to take for free the generosity of this system is amazing and you must not harden your heart or shut your hand financially to the poor under the mosaic system there wasn't to be anybody ever hungry or in want if the law of Moses were followed to this day there wouldn't be a starving child on the planet labor and business laws workers are allowed to eat as they work there was the win-win rule for buying and selling you were never allowed to sell anything for more than it was worth you had to disclose everything that was wrong with your Toyota Camry before you sell it you're not to loan with interest to a brother there couldn't be any predatory lending labor and business laws went on you're not to require payment of a debt from a person you know can't pay it you don't increase the interest level on the person's credit card who missed the payment they have a problem you need to move in and help them in some way you're going to hang them financially if you keep increasing the pressure you're too exact no debt by force no fraud in measuring was allowed under the mosaic system and all debts were to be cleared every seven years boom were all free thank you Jesus free from all financial debt there were tax laws and under God through Moses it was a flat tax called the tithe 10% didn't matter if he made a million dollars at ten dollars give 10% God acknowledged God was acknowledged as the source of everything so that there was a stewardship mentality I've got some resources I'm a steward not an owner dependence was centered in God's just character rather than in unjust human systems there were open immigration policies I know you're gonna hate this but under the mosaic system it was a system of law that was really quite sensible that if we were to employ it today it would be sensible Israel was to be not a pure bloodline there was to be an open immigration policy but you couldn't just flood in you had to accept the law of Moses the constitution of the Mosaic law so that those within the borders knew that you were going to subscribe to the system the way everybody else was subscribing to the system and allowing Israel therefore through this naturalization citizenry process Israel was to absorb absorb and assimilate the whole world then there was the moral laws of the Ten Commandments which basically boiled down to loving God supremely loving your neighbor as yourself and to use the words of the Apostle Paul interpreting the Ten Commandments basically the Ten Commandments summarized our do no harm to anybody and this covenant to law has a name and his name is Jesus Jesus is the embodiment in the flesh of what it looks like to rebuild the system so that everybody is cared for it's not a forced system it's not socialism and it's not a haplessly self-centered system brutal capitalism it is a covenant 'el system of law in which those with resources because they see God's love for them live in love for others the early church was that system and it turned the world upside down when Jesus came to the world he came to the world for the specific purpose of giving to you and me a new system because the old system was crashing a whole new way to process reality and be human if you're going to be a follower of Jesus if I'm going to be a follower of Jesus here's what you're signing up for if we're gonna be followers of Jesus we need to be prepared to be completely reoriented on the landscape of reality in relationships to view ourselves as the object objects of God's love and then to allow that love to be self rillette regulated to move out of us to meet the needs of others guaranteed if you begin to think that way if you begin to process that way you will notice people in need and it will be extremely gratifying to live with an open hand to meet the needs of those around you they turned the world upside down you guys because in Jesus they saw an unprecedented love that had no equal no match in any system this world had to offer welcome to the alternative community where all systems crash unless they are governed by God's love hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect Our Lives listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like to partner with us in this global Ministry of taking the gospel of Christ to the whole world we want to invite you to become a partner in this ministry click give and join with us

Channel: Storyline Church

Views: 5,508

Rating: 4.9223299 out of 5

Keywords: storylinechurch, thealternativecommunity, tygibson

Id: 8HMb6VaOA5E

Length: 40min 25sec (2425 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019