SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.
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SPEAKER_00: It'll be our gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to also, by the way, thank the folks that joined us from overseas and abroad here in the States as well.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we had folks join us on TVC Online from Auckland, New Zealand, Dublin, Ireland, Brisbane, Australia, Port, Port Orange, Florida.
SPEAKER_00: Where's Port Orange, Florida?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody know?
SPEAKER_00: Florida.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's good.
SPEAKER_00: It's lovely.
SPEAKER_00: South.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Here are the notes and quotes available through the QR code.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to uh uh tap into those a little bit ahead of time, you're welcome to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be looking at Acts chapter 15 today.
SPEAKER_00: We'll start though by just making a couple of observations.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world um that runs on performance.
SPEAKER_00: Uh your value is your output.
SPEAKER_00: Uh your worth is all about what you can uh what kind of record you have, win-loss record, you know, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Your acceptance depends on what you've achieved, acquired, and even what you've avoided sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Um your way and my way based on whether our resume, moral, professional, spiritual, is good enough to get us through the door.
SPEAKER_00: So performance everywhere, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um we have this logic so deeply ingrained into us that we carry it over into our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And we tend to, while we might believe in the doctrine of grace, God's grace, which we've sung about today, we've read about it today, we've prayed about it today.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there are a lot of us have been around the church for a long, long time that keep sort of undulating between really believing it to be true for us and just dropping down in back into that sort of performance mindset and mentality.
SPEAKER_00: The Jerusalem Council, we're going to read about in Acts chapter 15, was called the settle a related question.
SPEAKER_00: And what the apostles discussed and declared in that room contains the godly wisdom of the church, and godly wisdom that the church has spent 2,000 years preaching and defending, and sadly sometimes forgetting and almost letting slip away.
SPEAKER_00: So, my question today and the title of the sermon is Is grace really enough?
SPEAKER_00: Um not enough to get you started with your effort taking over from there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, not enough for most people, with the exception of a few.
SPEAKER_00: But is grace enough completely enough, finally enough, full stop enough?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a great question for us to ask ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Before we read the text, would you join your heart with mine as I pray?
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we read and study your word today, help us not let these words pass quickly from our eyes as we move on to the next thing, because we're so familiar with this term grace.
SPEAKER_00: You've brought us to this place in this moment, to this passage, so that we might be stopped by it, quickened by the Holy Spirit, captivated by Jesus, and left standing in awe at your love for us.
SPEAKER_00: You've inspired this passage in order to teach and transform us, to rescue and redeem us, and to produce in us lives shaped by your grace, inflamed, passionate for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Grant to us a clearer vision of your truth, Lord, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love for us in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen and amen.
SPEAKER_00: So this is God's word, unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, and transforming in its power.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: It goes just like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
SPEAKER_00: So these are some folks who are coming down from Judea.
SPEAKER_00: And you've seen the map enough times now to know that Judea is the southern third of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, here Luke is writing about a city called Antioch, Syrian Antioch, which is north of Jerusalem by quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: But you always, as a first century Jew, your mindset is always that Jerusalem's the holy city.
SPEAKER_00: It's up on that mount.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the highest mountain in Israel, but it's up on a mount.
SPEAKER_00: And you're always going up to the holy city.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever you leave Jerusalem, you're always going down, whether you're going south or north.
SPEAKER_00: Either way, you're coming down from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had that mindset, and they mention things, or they mention uh departure from uh Jerusalem and Judea that way.
SPEAKER_00: And they become these guys that are they these are Christians, or they believe in Christ, but they're saying, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul and Barnabas had this great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Notice going up to Jerusalem, even though they're going south.
SPEAKER_00: To the apostles and to the elders concerning this issue.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, let's go there.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk this out.
SPEAKER_00: Let's figure this out.
SPEAKER_00: Church is new, church is growing, needs to settle some issues still.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, being sent on their way to the church, by the church, rather, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: Think Lebanon and then that middle portion of there's Galilee and then there's Samaria, that middle section of Israel there.
SPEAKER_00: Describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: They were talking about that as they went along, and they were bringing great joy to all the brethren.
SPEAKER_00: So the fruit of their preaching, as they're going along through Phoenicia, Gentile territory, even into Jewish territory, even into Samaritan territory.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit is joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Joy to all the brethren.
SPEAKER_00: When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.
SPEAKER_00: But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, notice that who had believed.
SPEAKER_00: They are Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They're from the sect of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: Back then you had Pharisees, Sadducees, two different sects of Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: There were also Essenes, and there were also a couple of other very small sort of groups.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees and Sadducees made up the bigger groups.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul himself, or who was known back before his conversion as Saul, was a Pharisee of the highest order.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that he's the one going through that area and that he's going to Jerusalem, and that the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up saying, it's necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, they're saying, if people want to become Christians, especially if they're Gentiles, they must become Jews first, essentially.
SPEAKER_00: They must be circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: They must follow the dietary laws of Moses, observe all the commandments of Moses, and believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.
SPEAKER_00: This is good.
SPEAKER_00: The leaders should do this.
SPEAKER_00: After there had been much debate, Peter stood up.
SPEAKER_00: That's nice.
SPEAKER_00: We're going back to a conversation, a little preachment by Peter here.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Brethren, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by my mouth, he's talking to the Jews here, the leadership of the church.
SPEAKER_00: By my mouth, the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.
SPEAKER_00: And this harkens back to what some of you will remember, I think it was Acts chapter 10, where we studied, you know, Peter going up and preaching in the house of Cornelius, the centurion.
SPEAKER_00: And all Gentiles and the Holy Spirit moved powerfully, right?
SPEAKER_00: So he's reminding them of that time.
SPEAKER_00: And God, who knows the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us.
SPEAKER_00: God, who knows the heart of the Gentiles that I preach to, gave them the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So as we're sitting here talking about whether or not they can be saved, please understand, they've already, these ones have already been saved.
SPEAKER_00: God's already moved before you're coming up with this addendum.
SPEAKER_00: So God knows their hearts, God testified to them, God gave them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us.
SPEAKER_00: He made no distinction between us, meaning Jewish Christians, and them, meaning Gentile Christians, cleansing their hearts by faith.
SPEAKER_00: See, man, Jews were raised thinking Gentiles were unclean.
SPEAKER_00: And if they went in, if they were as Jews, if they if they even went into the home of a Gentile, they would be unclean themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And wouldn't even be able to go to temple to worship, you know?
SPEAKER_00: So here he's saying, and the and the Lord cleansed their hearts by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, why do you put God to the test, Peter is saying?
SPEAKER_00: By placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke, a burden, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 11, put an asterisk beside it.
SPEAKER_00: Even in the pew Bible, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Underline it, highlight it if you want, embroider it on a piece of cloth and hang it on the wall in your house.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: But look how he sums this up.
SPEAKER_00: It looks a little familiar to me when I think about Paul's writings.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that we are saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are.
SPEAKER_00: Well, all the people kept silent.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in a situation like that where somebody lobs a grenade of something, they say something, and it's like either awkward or how could they possibly have said that?
SPEAKER_00: And there's just this pregnant pause of silence.
SPEAKER_00: You're just waiting what kind of baby is coming out of that?
SPEAKER_00: What's going to be the result of that, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And uh so after he says that, who's putting a yoke on the neck of these disciples?
SPEAKER_00: And then sums up the gospel right there in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: We're saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of turning it around, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying they need to become like us.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying they're already like us, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We need to become like them in understanding that it's by grace you're saved, not by observing the laws of Moses and circumcision, etc.
SPEAKER_00: All the people kept silent again.
SPEAKER_00: And they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: So we got basically missionary slideshow here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, anybody ever see the missionary slideshow?
SPEAKER_00: Um Kim's uncle Rob was a missionary to Brazil many, many years.
SPEAKER_00: And one time he was given a missionary slideshow, and we he showed a slide that Kim and I had to have a copy of.
SPEAKER_00: And it was because they lived on the Amazon right down there in Brazil, and it was a raft out on the water, and the water on the Amazon in that part of the uh Amazon is jet black, and the raft was jet black.
SPEAKER_00: And the Brazilians that were on the raft were jet black as well, and they were floating down this slipper river, and they were smiling, and you could see their white tooth, the whites of their eyes, but more fantastic than all of that, one of them was holding a bright orange bag of Cheetos.
SPEAKER_00: And Kim and I are like, we gotta have that slide.
SPEAKER_00: We can sell it to Frito Lay.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be like crunchy, even in the Amazon, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, a slideshow like this reportage.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what God did.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can refute it.
SPEAKER_00: We we've seen it with our own eyes, we've experienced it in our own lives, and that's what we have too in another way.
SPEAKER_00: Why so silent?
SPEAKER_00: Why so timid?
SPEAKER_00: We've got the greatest news you could ever offer or tell to anyone.
SPEAKER_00: James stands up now.
SPEAKER_00: After they had stopped speaking, James.
SPEAKER_00: This is not James, the brother of John, this is James, the brother of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: James, the brother of John, has already been run through with a sword by Herod.
SPEAKER_00: We learned about that earlier.
SPEAKER_00: This is James, the brother of Jesus, who become the half-brother of Jesus, same mother, a different father.
SPEAKER_00: Um and he stands up and he says this, brethren, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's not Peter leading this early church.
SPEAKER_00: It's James who stands up as spokesman.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Peter's involved in the leadership, don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But notice how it's James who's speaking now with the judgment or the decision that's been made on behalf of these leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Simeon has related, and that's another way of saying Peter, Cephas, he's also called that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Simon, Simeon, Cephas, Peter, all the same guy, has related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name.
SPEAKER_00: And notice that's God taking them out, not them breaking out.
SPEAKER_00: God takes out a people for his name.
SPEAKER_00: We are chosen and called.
SPEAKER_00: It's divine initiative, sovereign grace at work in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody go, yeah, but I still had to make a decision, didn't I?
SPEAKER_00: You still need to repent and believe.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only requirement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first thing on the lips of John the Baptist in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: It's a first preachment that Jesus gives to repent and believe.
SPEAKER_00: We're just responding to what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: With the words of the prophets, well, with this, the words of the prophets agree.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what Peter said is really true.
SPEAKER_00: And even your Old Testament prophets, he's talking to all of these Jewish leaders, especially the ones that think that if Gentiles want to become Christians, they got to become Jews first.
SPEAKER_00: With this, the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written.
SPEAKER_00: And now he'll quote from, I believe it's Amos and Jeremiah, kind of a masha.
SPEAKER_00: After these things, I will return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen.
SPEAKER_00: I will rebuild its ruins, I will restore it, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's not some new novel thing that got that God thought up.
SPEAKER_00: He's actually had this in the plan for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And you can go all the way back to the book of Genesis and find God laying out the plan that the gospel, the seed of Abraham, is literally going to go and bless all nations, not just one people group.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, James says, it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00: Underline that.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us.
SPEAKER_00: Not to trouble people who want to turn to you.
SPEAKER_00: Man, one of the biggest claims to resistance of any religion, really, is when people observe the inconsistency of the people's, of its inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be that guy.
SPEAKER_00: I want to make it easy for people to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want to make them hungry for more of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled, and from blood.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a state, they came to an agreement, a reasonable agreement.
SPEAKER_00: And it's listen, this isn't about salvation here.
SPEAKER_00: This is about the practice, or praxis.
SPEAKER_00: This is about the practice of and observances of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do participate.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not what you're doing isn't earning God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Dallas Willard was so brilliant when he said grace is opposed to earning, but it's not opposed to effort.
SPEAKER_00: Great distinction.
SPEAKER_00: I think you can see the difference, right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: For it seemed good, and by the way, underlying that, it seemed good.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be four of those in the upcoming verses.
SPEAKER_00: This is one slash four.
SPEAKER_00: One of four.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them, to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, Judas called Bar Sabbas, Silas, leading men among the brethren, and they sent this letter by them.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the encyclical letter that's going to be passed around, um, put together by James and Peter and the leaders of the Jerusalem church sending out their opinion on this matter.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles and the brethren who are elders to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Greetings.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Starts off warm like that.
SPEAKER_00: Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed good to us.
SPEAKER_00: There it is again.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed good.
SPEAKER_00: 2 slash 4.
SPEAKER_00: Having become of one mind to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the sort of casual, but yet still there, the impramater, the endorsement of Paul and Barnabas there in this letter, in writing.
SPEAKER_00: Endorsing them and what they preach and teach, right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It seemed good to us to select and descend to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we have sent Judas and Silas.
SPEAKER_00: This is not Judas Iscariot.
SPEAKER_00: Please understand.
SPEAKER_00: Judas Iscariot is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Judas is a very strange name for all of us to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody here, I don't think anybody here's named their kid Judas.
SPEAKER_00: And for good reason.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you name your Rottweiler or your Doberman pincher.
SPEAKER_00: It is not what you name your kid, and for good reason.
SPEAKER_00: But there were still some Judases around, and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're going to agree.
SPEAKER_00: There are emissaries come to you, and they're going to agree with Paul and Barnabas about this gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Three of four times.
SPEAKER_00: For it seemed good, verse 28, to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols from blood and from things strangled and from fornication.
SPEAKER_00: If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: No, again, that's not about salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You will do well.
SPEAKER_00: See the difference?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And then they just sign it.
SPEAKER_00: Farewell.
SPEAKER_00: That's just great.
SPEAKER_00: That was nice little.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: Again, you go down from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter.
SPEAKER_00: When they had read it, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: They rejoiced because of its encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: So if the news that you have to share with people causes them to rejoice and to be encouraged, you're probably preaching good news.
SPEAKER_00: Gospel means good news.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some, granted, there's some people that don't want to hear any good news.
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's a lot of people that want some good news.
SPEAKER_00: So again, why are we so quiet?
SPEAKER_00: Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means?
SPEAKER_00: They were long-winded too.
SPEAKER_00: Tommy, Matt, Tom.
SPEAKER_00: I should at least get an amen from you guys, wherever you may be.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: After they had spent time there, they were sent away from the brethren in peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: To those who had sent them out.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the fourth of four times.
SPEAKER_00: But it seemed good to Silas to remain there.
SPEAKER_00: And that's good, you know why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we know what's coming up, don't we, in the second missionary journey.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching with many others also.
SPEAKER_00: And what were they teaching and preaching?
SPEAKER_00: Seven dynamic steps to a better you, how to live your best life now.
SPEAKER_00: No, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You see, because I don't know about you, but man, good advice is all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it really worked, you know, like think about the self-help section of the bookstore, how massive it is.
SPEAKER_00: And how in all seven decades of my life, it has never actually settled the issue and worked.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this self-perpetuating industry, right?
SPEAKER_00: You would think if somebody read one of those books and it actually worked, that their self would have been helped.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm look, if you read some of that stuff, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that you shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm just pointing out what I think is kind of obvious.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord is what we ought to be preaching.
SPEAKER_00: That's really awesome.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So to our text.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you've ever been a part of a church that had a split.
SPEAKER_00: Church split, come on, just just anybody?
SPEAKER_00: How about a church?
SPEAKER_00: How about been a part of a church where the board members don't get along so well at board meetings?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, a couple of eager hands went up there.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and how many of you just been a part of a church where it's been shredded by some outside pressure of some kind?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody at all?
SPEAKER_00: Where, yeah, same here.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I have to know exactly what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Well, those kinds of things happen because we live in a broken world.
SPEAKER_00: Those kinds of things we ought to anticipate that those things will happen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but this little pericope here that we've read, this 35-verse pericope, is not just about how to get along in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not about how to work together on a committee.
SPEAKER_00: At one point this week, I was thinking about this is this is a story about how to serve on a church committee and not kill each other.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not that.
SPEAKER_00: This is about something bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00: We will get to talking about how to how the tension sort of increases uh among some of the apostles and that sort of thing very soon.
SPEAKER_00: But this first pericape in Acts 15 tells a story of a disagreement within the church about one of the most important matters that could ever come before us.
SPEAKER_00: What is the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: What is salvation?
SPEAKER_00: It's so important.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of um when we see people like this with churches like this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Reminds me of that, and I'm I know I've told this story before, but I'm gonna tell it again because I still laugh at it.
SPEAKER_00: The guy on the desert island, he's like there for 10 years.
SPEAKER_00: He he's lost all hope.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only one there.
SPEAKER_00: He's built like three different huts, and he's out one day on the sand, he looks in the distance, he sees this ship, big ship, and it's got a plume of smoke.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, he builds a fire real quick.
SPEAKER_00: He the fire, the smoke goes up, and sure enough, somebody on the ship sees him and they send a little lifeboat and they land on the shore and they come up to where the guy is and they go, How long have you been here?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Ten years.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, are you okay?
SPEAKER_00: How do you survive?
SPEAKER_00: I just found a way to scratch and survive.
SPEAKER_00: I just did everything I could.
SPEAKER_00: What are those buildings?
SPEAKER_00: That's my house.
SPEAKER_00: What's the second one?
SPEAKER_00: That's my church.
SPEAKER_00: What's that third building?
SPEAKER_00: That's the church I used to go to.
SPEAKER_00: And we're all kind of like that, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: We kind of, I mean, I I've been like that too.
SPEAKER_00: You bounce around a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think what this reminds us of is that there are no perfectly squeaky, clean churches.
SPEAKER_00: And if you find one, please don't join it, as we say so often.
SPEAKER_00: You'll ruin it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you'll become the problem because you're looking for the perfect church.
SPEAKER_00: And there isn't a perfect church until the Lord Jesus comes back.
SPEAKER_00: However, every religion I think has the burden of having to answer these two questions by what authority do they believe and teach what they believe and teach?
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, how can sinful human beings be reconciled to a holy God?
SPEAKER_00: What is the source of our information at the village chapel about God?
SPEAKER_00: What is the source?
SPEAKER_00: On what authority do we teach and believe what we teach and believe?
SPEAKER_00: And friends, you know what it is.
SPEAKER_00: We make it really clear every single time we stand up here, any of us, to preach.
SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we worship the word of God, but we do worship the God of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: And because this word is His, we give it a high priority in our practice as believers.
SPEAKER_00: Is our concept of God based on human imagination, or is it based on divine revelation?
SPEAKER_00: See, this book, these 66 books that are in this library, we call the Bible, they are God's word to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's revealing himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not discovering him, shaping and forming God in the manner in which we would like him to be, so that the God that we believe in actually is created in our image instead of us being created in his image.
SPEAKER_00: Really important for us.
SPEAKER_00: And do we sinners have a moral obligation, question number two, to God?
SPEAKER_00: And if so, how is it possible for us to be reconciled to God?
SPEAKER_00: We are sinners, God is holy.
SPEAKER_00: So every religion must answer these questions, in my view.
SPEAKER_00: I would agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: I think I got this from uh Stott, but I mean, this these are the two essential questions to ask of any religion.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, or if you're watching today and you're not a Christian, run this test under whatever religion you want to run it under.
SPEAKER_00: Ask that same set of questions, that pair of questions, to any religion.
SPEAKER_00: Here at TVC, again, we answer those questions pretty straight ahead with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 15, 1 and 35 was not a simple lesson about learning how to get along with others better.
SPEAKER_00: What was at stake were the core questions about salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we've talked in in times past before, but I like to run this by you every now and then.
SPEAKER_00: Four questions asked of every Bible passage we study.
SPEAKER_00: How does God reveal Himself in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: What does this passage expose about the human condition?
SPEAKER_00: Our pride, our fears, our self-deceptions, our needs.
SPEAKER_00: And they're all, they all fit under that question.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, whether you're here and you're needy because you're confused, or whether you're needy because you have some physical need or some financial, whatever it is, what does this passage say about humanity's need?
SPEAKER_00: Three, how are Jesus and the gospel foreshadowed or reflected?
SPEAKER_00: And every passage in the Bible, we can see somehow a connection, a thread, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: God's redemption history story, a little thread running from beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, what does this passage call us, personally and corporately, together?
SPEAKER_00: What does it call us to believe, do, or become?
SPEAKER_00: And I think all of those are really important questions.
SPEAKER_00: As I thought about this passage in particular, I kind of framed my sermon points around those uh same questions.
SPEAKER_00: God is generous with grace and eager to save all who repent and believe.
SPEAKER_00: You see that in this story, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: There were those who wanted to keep those people out because they wouldn't be circumcised, they wouldn't obey the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: They're not really saved.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to, you can believe in Jesus, but you need this too.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not Jesus only Jesus, as we just sang.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's Jesus plus circumcision, works, all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Their hymnal would sound like this amazing circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It might sound like this.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, plus works.
SPEAKER_00: My hope is found.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Not at all like that.
SPEAKER_00: God is generous with grace and eager to save all who repent and believe.
SPEAKER_00: The question then for you, if you've not done this before, will you repent and believe and receive as a gift what you can't earn, buy, purchase, balance out the moral skills.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do any of that.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're Gentile or Jew, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: We all need God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is for the guilty and undeserving.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is for the helpless and needy.
SPEAKER_00: If you need to know the difference between the two, I might say I might say those are the kinds of uh characteristics of the two.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are all of that.
SPEAKER_00: That is, we are all guilty and undeserving, we are all helpless and needy before God.
SPEAKER_00: So all of us need grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Baptists and Presbyterians alike say amen.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See where we where we meet here?
SPEAKER_00: This is where the Christian faith is so unique among all religious views.
SPEAKER_00: Is that, as Lewis said, when he walked in a room full of intellectuals, he said, What's so unique about the Christian faith?
SPEAKER_00: He said one word, grace.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is what's so different about the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: Too.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our problem isn't unbelief, but misbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we see here as well.
SPEAKER_00: Um, here in this particular chapter, the Judaizers were bold and confident, but they were also wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And so the leaders in Anak send everybody down to Jerusalem to where the original apostles are.
SPEAKER_00: James, the brother of Jesus, leading the church down there, and Peter's there as well.
SPEAKER_00: So you got a bunch of their original apostles there, and they want to vet this whole thing and settle this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, church history is filled with councils that are formed.
SPEAKER_00: People get together and analyze things.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, Trinitarian doctrine hasn't been defined just yet.
SPEAKER_00: Even though I can tell you from the Old Testament that God keeps revealing Himself as God the Father, as God the Spirit, God the Son is coming, Messiah is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Also, you have Old Testament, New Testament, all, the Trinity, all through it, implied and there.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter's argument in verse 11, which I think is so beautiful when he kind of wants to spell it all out, is that he needs to adjust their misbelief and correct it.
SPEAKER_00: And so what does he say in verse 11?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 with me one more time.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted you to highlight that we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are also.
SPEAKER_00: So those folks that were disturbing or making it difficult for Gentiles to become believers were telling Gentile converts, as Stott says, that faith in Jesus was not enough, not sufficient for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: They must add to faith circumcision, to circumcision, observance of the law.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they must let Moses complete what Jesus had begun and let the law supplement the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The issue was immense, said Stotton.
SPEAKER_00: I think he's right.
SPEAKER_00: It's really important that we get this right, even in our own day and time as we seek to share our faith with others.
SPEAKER_00: Third, God's solution isn't more religious activities, it's a reconciled relationship.
SPEAKER_00: See the difference?
SPEAKER_00: See those, they're called Judaizers, the ones and Paul uh will uh, as he writes the letter to the Galatians, he's he's writing to correct uh some teaching by some folks they call Judaizers, people that want you to become a Jew before you can become a Christian, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so as he's writing about this, he's correcting all of that, as Luke is writing this, and as Peter stands up to preach.
SPEAKER_00: But they're saying, not do more religious stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You know, as if wearing a tie to church is what gets you into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: As if, you know, memorizing the Westminster Catechism and having all of your doctrine right gets you into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And I know a bunch of guys with PhDs in theology that have crashed and burned.
SPEAKER_00: It has not served to make them holy.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it informs them.
SPEAKER_00: But if your heart isn't given over to him, you're just an educated fool.
SPEAKER_00: And don't be that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's don't be that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let him have our hearts and not just do religious activities.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with some religious observances and activities.
SPEAKER_00: Tradition is good, it's the living faith of dead people.
SPEAKER_00: But traditionalism, not so good.
SPEAKER_00: It's the dead faith of living people.
SPEAKER_00: So says Yaroslav Pelican.
SPEAKER_00: But God's solution isn't more religious activities, it's a reconciled relationship tozer.
SPEAKER_00: When religion has said its last word, there's little that we need other than God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: The evil habit of seeking God and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.
SPEAKER_00: In the and lies our great woe.
SPEAKER_00: If we omit the and, we shall soon find God.
SPEAKER_00: And in him, we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way in that book, uh Pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't read that, by the way, that's if I get trapped on a desert island and have some time to choose ten books, that's going to be one of the ones I take along with me, right next to mere Christianity and some others like that that I've talked about so many times.
SPEAKER_00: This is it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not God, it's not Jesus' hand.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Grace Plus.
SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, we do well to pursue what seems right to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You saw it in verse 22, 25, 28, and 34.
SPEAKER_00: I had you underline those.
SPEAKER_00: It's really important that we begin to see things the way God sees things.
SPEAKER_00: That what seems right to us aligns with what seems right to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: See, we're not adjusting God to our view.
SPEAKER_00: We're saying, Holy Spirit, align my heart with your view.
SPEAKER_00: And then we then we go about the business of finding out how will God speak to us?
SPEAKER_00: How does he do that?
SPEAKER_00: How can we learn what is right in God's eyes?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what does scripture say?
SPEAKER_00: What does the church teach?
SPEAKER_00: What is God impressing upon me through his word and spirit as I pray?
SPEAKER_00: What will deliver the greatest glory to God and the highest good to others?
SPEAKER_00: Just some guiding questions.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what seems good to God and to the Holy Spirit, don't think it equals, I just have to imagine it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not God as you imagine God to be.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's God as God is.
SPEAKER_00: The God who is there and real, pulling on the other end of the rope because he's real.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes making me uncomfortable because he's real.
SPEAKER_00: Keller.
SPEAKER_00: They made a decision and sent it out to the church with the fascinating words.
SPEAKER_00: It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they used their best thinking and reasoning, their knowledge and experience, and came up with a sound decision that they attributed to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So you can see there's a dynamic here, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00: And this church over here might decide, you know, we're just gonna sprinkle.
SPEAKER_00: That's all the water we need.
SPEAKER_00: And this church over here, like Village Chapel, when we do baptism next week, we don't.
SPEAKER_00: That's some of the view we hold down longer than others, as we've said before.
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully we won't be holding you under.
SPEAKER_00: But but there are different things that that people, good thinking people of faith, people who love the Lord, can come down on different sides of secondary issues.
SPEAKER_00: But in the essentials, unity and the non-essentials, liberty, yeah, liberty and in all things, charity or love is so very important to us.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to close up.
SPEAKER_00: Is Grace really enough?
SPEAKER_00: I hope the title at least made you think a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no, it's more than enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than enough.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm constantly having myself to get to to remind myself of that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm so soaked in performance thinking.
SPEAKER_00: You are too, especially those of you that are perfectionists, or if you're a people pleaser, it's like you just can't ever do enough.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really a people pleaser.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm often in need of being more aware and being changed by the gospel enough to be more aware of what other people may need in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: And and one of those things, I prayed about it on the way here.
SPEAKER_00: This room is filled with people with different kinds of personality types and the way that you perceive grace differently.
SPEAKER_00: We just want to make sure you understand his grace is more than enough for your personality type, for your weaknesses, for your rebellion, for the broken parts of you.
SPEAKER_00: His grace is more than enough, and you can't outrun it.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never exhaust it.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you right now, sitting right here.
SPEAKER_00: The way you are, he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean he's gonna leave you there, but he loves you, his love is on you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been seized by his great affection ever in your life, you know what great freedom there is in that.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that we will all turn to him and receive his grace over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons we come to the table of the Lord each and every month.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fresh measure of God's grace applied in our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: The writer of the Hebrews would write this later.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive, interestingly, mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in a time of need?
SPEAKER_00: I I venture to say we all are, whether we know it or not.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, can you, as we leave here, can you just remind yourself all week long, whenever that need pops up, whatever it is, that his grace is more than enough in your life?
SPEAKER_00: A couple quotes and I'll close.
SPEAKER_00: Trip, a whole trip.
SPEAKER_00: Only grace can work to remind us that faith in God is a resting place.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in self is a minefield.
SPEAKER_00: It is grace and grace alone that empowers us to follow and to rest.
SPEAKER_00: And we do both.
SPEAKER_00: We follow Jesus, and sometimes he takes us to difficult places.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he gets around the corner and I, oh no, I can't see him.
SPEAKER_00: And I get I gotta close up ranks so my proximity to him is better and I can see him better because I'm more in his word, I'm more on my knees in prayer, I'm exercising my spiritual disciplines, not to earn salvation, simply to be close to him so that I can hear him and see him better.
SPEAKER_00: Hope you do that too when you're in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: Approach him.
SPEAKER_00: He is so generous.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll this my one of my mentors growing up as a Bible teacher, and for so many years that Kim and I were on the road, we would listen to this guy's uh Bible study tapes all the time.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's still alive, he's an amazing man and really understands grace.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I used to think, I'll say it like he would, I used to think that understanding him was the main thing.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't.
SPEAKER_00: The main thing is being loved by him.
SPEAKER_00: And that I know.
SPEAKER_00: And Steve Brown would say, You think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: That your grace is more than enough.
SPEAKER_00: So grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know the hearts and minds of everyone here.
SPEAKER_00: You know who's struggling with sin.
SPEAKER_00: You know who's struggling with pain.
SPEAKER_00: You know who's struggling with fear.
SPEAKER_00: You know who's being smothered in some way by loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: Please, Holy Spirit, come and cause your word to take root and bear fruit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Help us see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Help us lift up our empty hands of faith and receive from you what we can't achieve on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Lavish us with your grace, Lord, and let us know it, experience it, and walk in it as we leave this place today.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen and amen.