Junia

[00:00:00] Come and then you'll get me. [00:00:03] I feel like such. You sing that song, it feels like such a letdown for anybody else to show up. [00:00:12] We really need Jesus in this place. [00:00:17] In this place and like in my heart and on and on. Because I don't know if you've noticed that the world is broken. [00:00:28] And I don't mean that the way sometimes preachers can talk about that. Sometimes preachers get real preachy to the world. And have you ever noticed none of the world's in here? [00:00:40] Like, they didn't show up at all. [00:00:43] The world's out there. [00:00:45] And the best thing, the best shot they have, anybody outside of here has of experiencing Jesus is you guys when you go out there. [00:00:59] So they may be praying for Jesus to show up, but there you are at their. [00:01:07] At their table. [00:01:09] There you are in their place of business, there you are at the moment they are hurting the most. [00:01:19] Rachel teaches fourth graders. [00:01:23] Just the worst people. I'm just kidding. [00:01:26] Her class this year is great. But her class this year is a. She's been sick almost non stop. [00:01:34] They've just. They're just a. I was told they're bacteria and she's the petri dish, but just a bunch of little patient zeros running around infecting everything in sight. [00:01:47] And to her, she can. And listen, I don't know if you've seen Rachel. She can be intimidated. She's scary sometimes. She can be intimidated. Like, she's a strong presence in a room. [00:02:03] She is. And those kids, she can get on them. [00:02:07] And those of you who don't make me use my teacher voice, I'm like, well, also, I'm not a fourth grader. Don't yell at me. [00:02:15] No, Rachel doesn't yell at me. I'm just talking mainly about Lisa. [00:02:21] But there are. [00:02:24] We have a. [00:02:27] She has to like, get onto these kids. They're coming in fourth grade. You know, they're coming up, will you tie my shoe? And she'll say, no, this is fourth grade. I don't do that. [00:02:38] See, sometimes it feels like she's being hard on them, but they are. [00:02:44] They love her. [00:02:46] She is consistently one of their favorite teachers. I go to her room open, like, where it's like meet the teacher night. And all the kids are coming back down to the fourth grade hallway to see her one more time. [00:02:59] They love her. [00:03:01] And Jesus calls us a lot of times. We'll say to Jesus, hey, Jesus, I need. And we'll have some sort of small thing. And he's like, grow up, mature, get better, repent. [00:03:16] And Jesus call to repentance of us is love. [00:03:22] When Jesus says, I want you to change, it is love. And so when we go to the world and we say we challenge people, not through tweets. [00:03:37] When we go to tables and we sit with people and we disagree and we dialogue and we experience each other, that's interacting with Jesus, but it starts in our own hearts. It starts when we sit with Jesus and Jesus shows up in our world. That's only when we can show up as Jesus in others. [00:04:00] I have Clara, who sings on Praise Team sometimes, when she was little, loved to sing. Loved to sing. [00:04:12] And she would sometimes get pretty upset that she couldn't in church. So we had these nights, these Wednesday nights, where the young men got up and led services. [00:04:26] We would say, here, y' all lead. Who wants you gonna lead a song, buddy? And he would say, okay. And then we'd say, 3. 382. 382. You gotta do it the scriptural way. You gotta announce the song the scriptural way. [00:04:41] And he would say that in what songs? 382. Do you know? [00:04:47] No, not in this book. [00:04:49] Pick another book. What is it? [00:04:52] Why did my Savior come to earth? I'm telling you guys, it's insane. [00:05:11] Just an absolute. These young men, now, some of them loved being up there. It was like their turn. But some of them, it was just like we were standing there with a cattle prod sing while my daughter was in the pew, just. [00:05:28] She said, dad, why can't I get up there? And I'd say, because you'd be sinning, bab. I'm just kidding. [00:05:39] No, what I told her, I'll tell you what I told her. Whenever she was. Whenever Clara was young, I said, I think you would make a great song, worship leader. I think you'd be great at it. You've got a beautiful voice. [00:05:56] You love to do it. [00:05:58] I think you'd be great at it. [00:06:01] The place where we are, the people we lead right now is not ready for that. [00:06:07] And I know that because I was their preacher. [00:06:12] And I was there when a lady tried to give an announcement about vbs, and a bunch of ladies got mad about the lady. So we weren't really sure which lady needed to be silent and which one needed to be heard. But it was still a complicated issue. [00:06:34] That's just where churches are sometimes. And that's not just churches of Christ, right? It's all sorts of places. Baptist churches. It's all. They're all. I can only think of Baptist churches now, but they're all struggling with the same well, can a woman do this? Can a woman do that? [00:06:51] And why? And why not? Are we ready for that? Are we ready? [00:06:55] Can we even have the discussion? [00:07:00] There are ministers I know who believe it deep down that their church would benefit from the voice of the women in their congregation. And they know they can't even bring it up because they might have to lose their job. And as we established last week, when you lose your job, you have to move. [00:07:24] It's scary out there. [00:07:28] Now, there are some who disagree with that, and there are biblical people who know their Bible really well, who disagree with me on what I'm talking about. [00:07:39] But what I want my daughters to know is that their voice matters, that God does not honor men more than he honors women. [00:07:55] And the person we're talking about this morning, and we're actually going to get to a couple of women before we get to Junia. [00:08:04] She exemplified Christ in the world. [00:08:08] Where she went, Jesus went where she went. The story of the resurrection, the story of the hope found in Jesus, that also went with her. [00:08:23] And something happened to Junia several hundred years after she lived. That's quite interesting. [00:08:34] But first, Romans 16. We'll start in verse one. [00:08:37] I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church a at Cenchrea, which she's a deacon, like some persons translate that deaconess as if like she's a stewardess. [00:08:56] There's no reason to do that, except they knew Phoebe was a woman. [00:09:02] The word here is just deacon. [00:09:05] She is a deacon of a church. [00:09:11] So he sends Phoebe to them. Now, what this verse means, and we've talked about Phoebe before, but what this verse means is that Phoebe was most likely responsible for the carrying of and the reading of the Book of Romans, the letter to the Romans to the Romans. The first time that she was the one. Phoebe was the one who stood in front of the Roman churches and read Paul's words the way Paul wanted her to read them. [00:09:44] So he commends to her then, Phebe, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints and to help her in whatever she may require from you. For she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. [00:10:02] And now he starts telling people who he starts saying, you greet this person I sent. Now I'm telling you to say hi to the people around that I know. Greet Prisca and Aquila, which most likely are Priscilla and Aquila. Just a shift here. [00:10:15] They who work with me in Christ Jesus and who risk their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Greet also the church in their house. [00:10:30] Greet my beloved Panettas, for he was the first convert in Asia for Christ. Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you. Now, before we get to Andronicus and Junia already, not only has he been alternating between male and female names, but he's also. [00:10:52] He's alternating between Greek and Jewish names. [00:10:58] The Roman church is incredibly diverse, and he's calling out names of people who are different from one another, both male, female, Greek, Jew. He is letting them know they are all helping in the Lord. And as we know, if you've read Romans, that's one of the problems is the different cultures interacting together, people with different belief systems coming to a table and finding a common meal there at the table. [00:11:33] And he's. He gets to this end a little bit. And he's not just. [00:11:37] He's not just naming some people he knows. He's naming Greeks and Jews, male and female, that everyone, no matter he's saying the race or their gender is having a profound role in this Gospel of Christ. [00:12:02] Then he says, greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives, my kin who were in prison with me. Now he. [00:12:11] Paul uses words sometimes to mean actual things or metaphors. This could mean they're his cousins, or it could most likely mean that they are. He sees them as brothers and sisters in Christ, a brother and sister in Christ. [00:12:27] Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me. [00:12:31] They are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was these two that, I mean, you know, the song of the disciples. [00:12:46] There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Roman. [00:12:51] Just joking everyone. [00:12:54] But we have songs and names. These are the apostles. [00:12:58] These are the people who have seen Jesus, who knew Jesus all the while. [00:13:04] And he's writing to Romans and he's saying, there are two people with you that are great among the apostles, that the apostles consider them one of them, and they are considered great in their midst. [00:13:19] Now, I know that none of us know Andronicus or Junia, but their lives had great impact. [00:13:32] If they were great among the Apostol. [00:13:35] Good grief, I'm so glad someone. I have a crick in my neck and someone offered me a muscle relaxer before and I didn't take it. But now I'm questioning whether I took it or not. [00:13:49] If they were great among the apostles, they've had interaction with them. [00:13:56] They've gone all over the world proclaiming their knowledge of Jesus. [00:14:04] They were in Christ before I was, Paul says of them. [00:14:13] Now, I don't know them, as neither do I know most Christians. [00:14:23] Our little lives really don't spread further than just our little spot. [00:14:32] Now, sometimes it may feel like that. It may feel like we can reach the world now through social media or whatever however it is. Maybe some of you are YouTubers. [00:14:44] No, probably not. [00:14:47] But you got your channels and you got your feeds and you've started your podcast and you've started. You start your tweets and you do your thing. [00:14:55] You don't reach the world through popularity and power. [00:15:02] You reach the world through the little bit of life that you live when lived well in Jesus. [00:15:12] Your kids, the way you take care of your parents when they age, the way you interact with the people at your workplace, the way you show kindness to those who are grieving and rejoice with those who rejoice and who. [00:15:28] The name of Jesus is always on your lips. [00:15:33] That's how we interact with the world and show them Jesus. And it's not some piddly attempt. [00:15:42] It is not some meager trial that maybe we can. Maybe we can do something. [00:15:53] If Paul hadn't thought that the Roman churches needed to hear a list of names at the end of his letter, we would have never heard of these people. [00:16:05] Andronicus and Junia. [00:16:10] And their story is powerful. [00:16:15] We know very little of it. And we can. I mean, we can have some creative imagination, but they are apparently, from Paul's perspective, incredibly important to the spreading of Jesus in the world that we know of Jesus because of people like Andronicus and Junia. [00:16:49] I don't know who taught my grandfather the gospel. I don't know their name. [00:16:54] Now, you might know the name of the person who taught your grandfather the gospel, your grandmother the gospel, that person in your life who is a lot like Jesus. [00:17:09] I had a teacher when I was a kid, Bible class teacher. [00:17:16] It was our preacher's wife. [00:17:20] And a lot of times that's just who you know. Your preacher talks about Jesus and your preacher's wife looks like Jesus. [00:17:30] But there Miss Betty is. [00:17:37] She's in hospice now, but she's still alive. And she is. [00:17:46] She deeply impacted me on how to look like. Treat Jesus, to treat people like Jesus. My mom's the same way. My mom looks a lot like Miss Betty in a lot of ways. [00:18:01] But Miss Betty really impacted me. [00:18:04] And not because Miss Betty knew scripture. Her brother Wayne knew scripture. Brother Wayne would stand at the pulpit and he would bang on it. Occasionally. He Would just wait for somebody to fall asleep. [00:18:16] Because then you got an emphasis of a point of someone of a preacher banging on a pulpit and someone half asleep going, you know, you had real good emphasis. [00:18:27] Brother Wayne was powerful, mighty in his speech, preached to the back wall and sinners back there. [00:18:40] One time he was telling the story of Samson. [00:18:45] I mean, the whole sermon was on Samson. He probably said Samson 80 times. [00:18:52] And every time he said Samson, he actually said Tarzan. [00:18:59] I don't know if, you know, this is not a biblical character. [00:19:05] Ms. Betty was folded over in her seat, just face down, just, oh, this is not happening. This is the worst day of my life. [00:19:16] But she tells that story. Just. Just loves her husband. [00:19:21] Ms. Betty was the best, is the best. [00:19:27] Really impacted me. [00:19:30] Junia, similarly for Paul, great among the apostles. Now some people are saying, well, they're not actually apostles. They're great among the apostles. Is different. Okay, well, we can split hairs all we want, but this is. Sure, take it that way. They impacted the apostles. [00:19:49] And in about the 16th century, some English translators could not tolerate a woman being great among the apostles, and they changed it to this. This is actually in. This is from a translation in 1995. [00:20:07] Greet Andronicus and Junius, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are outstanding among the apostles, who are also in Christ before me. [00:20:16] They just made it a male name, and it was a male name for centuries until late last century, late 20th century. [00:20:27] They went back in some manuscripts and they just said, you know what? This isn't right. Junius isn't correct. [00:20:34] One, there is not a single man in all of Greek literature named Junius. Not only is it not a male name, it's not a name, period. [00:20:47] But Junia is all throughout Scripture, and it's not all throughout Greek writing, and it's always a woman. [00:20:56] And they came back to believing this. It's. It's not Andronicus and Junius. If once we know it's not Junius, we are. We are obligated to let Junia be seen and heard. [00:21:12] And so most good translations, all good translations changed it back late last century, actually, first of last. First of this century, I think, to Junia. [00:21:29] They let her be a woman again, and her impact on the world is seen. [00:21:45] They didn't touch Andronicus. They didn't change it to, like, Andronika or something. [00:21:52] They just wanted Junia not to be a girl. [00:21:55] It was just odd to them that Junia was somehow elevated in an interesting position, the same reason we call Phoebe a deaconess. [00:22:11] But it all goes back to. I want to live in a world where God. [00:22:17] The world God wanted from the beginning, where God has his way. [00:22:25] And I don't want to celebrate brokenness. [00:22:29] I definitely don't want to enforce brokenness or the fall. [00:22:34] You know, this, everything, all that came from the fall. [00:22:39] So we don't. We don't. It's not listed. But hiccups, these are all post fall things. [00:22:47] The ground not working well, labor, pain, like pain during childbirth. [00:22:54] That's not the way God wanted it. I don't think God wanted hiccups. I just really think, like, that's a post fall thing. Mosquitoes. [00:23:03] The parts of our body that don't have a function but explode occasionally. [00:23:10] What's that one? [00:23:12] What appendix? [00:23:16] It's just crazy. [00:23:19] And there's all sorts of things that the Bible. But like when we try, when we say, well, this isn't right that you shouldn't be in this much pain during labor. And so we give you medicine, no scriptural person runs in and goes, no, the Bible says we've got. It's got to be this way. [00:23:40] And one of the curses is that man will lord over women. [00:23:49] And I don't think the place of God is the place where we lift up and elevate the curse. [00:23:57] When in this place, women's voice, men's voice, children, Greek and Jew, all races, all genders, all people have the same ability to proclaim the gospel, to be apostles, to be disciples, to be deacons, to be. To proclaim the gospel of Christ. [00:24:28] Everyone has the same gift. [00:24:35] Not our talent. Everyone has different talents. [00:24:40] And that varies from woman to woman, man to man, man to woman. [00:24:50] Cindy's a better tenor than I am. [00:24:53] I might be a better alto than Cindy. [00:24:56] And that's weird. [00:25:00] That's me. That's my high voice. [00:25:03] I was telling my kids just the other day, I was in a band and we got reviewed one time by an online review. [00:25:12] They talked about our band and they said of me, the woman singing harmonies is great. [00:25:23] I've never gotten a compliment I hated more in my life. [00:25:32] But we've all got different abilities, different. [00:25:35] But the gift we've been given, the grace we've been given to speak openly about the ways in which Jesus has blessed us, to speak openly about what God has done in our lives. [00:25:54] We can make big changes in this world through our small little lives. [00:26:01] And it doesn't matter gender or race or where you grew up or your accent or whatever your language. We are all called to proclaim the gospel of Christ, to be in Christ and share it. [00:26:23] We're called to that. [00:26:26] It's a reward for us. [00:26:30] Now, I again know, and I want to say this very clearly, there are people who go to this church where women speak regularly, are involved in the outward, in the public worship service. There are people who disagree with that and they use scripture to disagree with that. And they are not evil or dumb or disingenuous. [00:26:58] That is also foolishness to take a stand and say, I'm for women doing things in the service. And the people who aren't hate women. [00:27:09] Well, I'll tell you, most of the churches I've been in where women weren't allowed to do things. The people who were most against it were the women. [00:27:19] Just is what it is. [00:27:22] One, because the church was 2/3 women, usually just widows and women who came to church by themselves. [00:27:33] But that's just how the church felt and we had to deal with that. [00:27:37] They saw Jesus and they showed me Jesus without a microphone. [00:27:43] You know, a lot of churches, this is the first church I've ever been in where we've had a praise team. [00:27:48] I've been in small churches before and we just had to buy muzzles for the bad singers instead of mics for the good ones. [00:28:01] Doing things differently doesn't mean like someone is wrong. It doesn't mean they have some evil process. But I'm telling you, where we are right here is we want. We don't want Junia to have to become Junius to tell us about her Savior. [00:28:20] We don't want Junia to have to become Junius to proclaim her apostleship, to proclaim her Jesus. [00:28:30] The people in our life, the people in my life who have affected me the most are women. [00:28:39] The people that I trust with my. [00:28:44] With opinions and with all their. [00:28:48] They look like Jesus. I had a professor in College named Dr. Fortner, and Dr. Fortner was weird. [00:28:57] I love Dr. Fortner because he was weird. He taught Hebrew and Old Testament at harding. [00:29:08] I've witnessed two things about Dr. Fortner. I just need you to get a picture. [00:29:15] He wore very thick glasses and they were trifocals, which made it hard for him to walk down steps, you know, because the steps move on you when you got the trifocals on. [00:29:29] So he didn't like navigating the steps in the McIntyre Building, the Bible building. It was the. [00:29:36] To get from chapel to your Bible class, you had to go up three stories of steps. [00:29:42] And I once watched this man who was trying to go down these steps while this herd of college students entitled and they smelt bad, probably, and they're coming up the stairs, and he needs to go down the stairs. And like Moses stood at the top and said, student body did this motion. I swear to you. [00:30:05] Student body, right? [00:30:09] And the sea of students parted off to the right, and he walked down those. I watched this happen, guys. I am not lying to you. He walked down the stairs unencumbered by the opposite. Just yelled, student body. Right. [00:30:23] He was riding on a board one time, just doing dates. And there was a guy three rows behind me, asleep. [00:30:31] I didn't know he was asleep because he was behind me and Dr. Fortner was writing. And then he stopped and he walked over here, and he put a hard dot in the middle of the dry erase board and started drawing concentric circles, just like a hypnotization. He started chanting, nobody sleeps in my class. [00:30:55] And everyone was just like, dude, wake up. Wake up. It's getting real weird. [00:31:02] He was an interesting guy, One of the few people in the world who could read cuneiform. Brilliant man. [00:31:10] Spent his life studying the Bible, Old Testament professor at Harding. And the most impactful thing he ever said to me was, if the men in the church would stop arguing over who's in charge and start following their women to the foot of the cross, the church will be better off. [00:31:37] Men, we need to stop demanding power. [00:31:48] Women, that's not a good look either. [00:31:56] But a lot of times men can get real, so caught up in who's in charge that we forget to follow the people who are leading us to Jesus. And a lot of times those people are women. [00:32:08] To find our hope in the way of the cross. And whoever leads us to the cross, may their name be a blessing. [00:32:28] What we did to Junia, we made her a male, made her a man for several centuries. [00:32:39] Kind of gives off our priorities throughout those centuries. [00:32:44] And if you're a woman and you've always felt like maybe. [00:32:48] Maybe church isn't for me, because when the young men get up to lead, I don't. [00:32:53] I have no voice. [00:32:56] Well, maybe. Maybe we can be a place for you because your voice is celebrated here and that Jesus calls all sorts of people to voice his truth. [00:33:13] And your life will not be a big life, most likely, but it can be little in a very big way. [00:33:32] We are no longer putting anyone else in charge. [00:33:37] We're not saying. And even our elders would say, like, I'm not. [00:33:41] We're not opinion makers. We just want to pray for people and be with people like this. [00:33:46] We're not calling this power. [00:33:54] We're hoping that everyone who wants to find Jesus can find Jesus through anyone they find here. [00:34:06] Everyone who wants to find Jesus can find Jesus through anyone that they find here. [00:34:15] So maybe you aren't used to your voice being used for the cause of Christ. [00:34:22] Speak up. [00:34:24] Your story is one worth being told. [00:34:27] Your life is one worth pointing to. Oftentimes to say, this is a life where someone followed Jesus, that your voice matters. [00:34:41] Men, we've got to get better at speaking up about Jesus. [00:34:48] It's an awkward conversation. We'd much rather talk about football. We'd much rather talk about the weather. We want a small talk. Men, we aren't great at being emotionally vulnerable. [00:35:02] We need to follow the women on that one. [00:35:06] And women, you need to look at men and learn that I'm not that dumb. [00:35:10] I'm just joking. That's a joke. [00:35:16] But we are called as a goofy group of difference to look like Jesus in this place. [00:35:28] And when we put Jesus right in the middle, then we'll stop wondering about who's in charge, who can and can't talk, whose opinion can and can't be heard, and we start glorifying the One who made us all his disciples. [00:35:51] If you need anything this morning, please come forward or find someone in the back to pray for you. [00:35:57] But whatever you do, do it right now, while we stand and while we sing.