SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of those texts in Scripture that sometimes we look at in our Bible reading and think, okay, that happened.
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: And then we just go on to the next chapter.
SPEAKER_01: So it's good for us to pause and consider what's really going on in Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we call this the First Church Council or the Jerusalem Council.
SPEAKER_01: Jeff suggested that it has to do with salvation by grace through faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to disagree with him, but I'm going to kind of disagree with him.
SPEAKER_01: Is that fair enough?
SPEAKER_01: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's there.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation by faith through grace.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation by grace through faith alone is in Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: But I would suggest that that is not the primary theme in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, the primary theme is how we, as God's church, can find joy.
SPEAKER_01: Not just an inner kind of joy that is settled inside of us, but one that erupts in rejoicing because of what God has decided to do.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what God has decided to do impacts us.
SPEAKER_01: It may impact us in small ways or in large ways.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 15, we see how God's plan, God's program, what God decided to do, impacted every believer in Christ at that time.
SPEAKER_01: And the end result is that they rejoiced in what God had done.
SPEAKER_01: So look with me at it, Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Webb read it for us a short time ago, so hopefully it's a little bit fresh in your minds.
SPEAKER_01: And to help us understand what's going on here, I'd like you to think about a kind of wedding that happens occasionally.
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while, an engaged couple has a private marriage ceremony.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's just with some family members, maybe that's with the Justice of the Peace.
SPEAKER_01: They have a small marriage ceremony to fulfill the legal requirements of marriage.
SPEAKER_01: So the ceremony with an officiant, with witnesses, and the signing of the marriage license makes that union official.
SPEAKER_01: Then that couple will have a public celebration following that.
SPEAKER_01: Sort of confirming to everyone present at the celebration, yes, this happened.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you participated in one of those or been a guest at one of those ceremonies.
SPEAKER_01: That is what's happening in Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: God began gathering Gentiles, those are non-Jews, into his people by faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He'd already started that further back towards the beginning of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: And as those people came to Christ, more and more people were coming to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Two foundational churches rose up.
SPEAKER_01: One established in Jerusalem, where we find most of the apostles present, and another one north in Syria in Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: Those were the first two what we might call megachurches.
SPEAKER_01: They were the primary churches of the early church.
SPEAKER_01: You'll remember that Paul and Barnabas were sent out of the northern church in Antioch on their first missionary journey.
SPEAKER_01: And the result of all of this evangelism, all of this proclamation of Jesus as the Christ grew the early church.
SPEAKER_01: That means that there are two critical components necessary to understanding this section of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is that we have to understand that God decreed in times past to incorporate people from all the nations into his people.
SPEAKER_01: There was a verse on the screen during our last song from the book of Revelation that celebrates that decree.
SPEAKER_01: The second element that we have to remember is that God determined to accomplish that purpose through the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a Jewish man.
SPEAKER_01: He is a Jewish Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: God determined what he was going to do with the nations, and he also determined how he was going to accomplish that plan.
SPEAKER_01: What we call the Jerusalem Council rests on these two components.
SPEAKER_01: God determined to bring salvation to the nations through the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: So imagine yourself, as much as you're able, as a first-century Jew, immersed in a tradition that spans thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01: You have a cultural tradition, you have a religious tradition that are very tightly linked, so tightly linked that you really can't separate them.
SPEAKER_01: You think of yourself as one of God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_01: And you even, from your times in the synagogue, you expect God to fulfill his promise to bring a Messiah, to rescue his people, to restore Israel, to bring back the glory years of David and Solomon's kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Then your life changes.
SPEAKER_01: When you hear about Jesus and an empty tomb, and an ascension into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So you you believe in Jesus and you you become a follower of his.
SPEAKER_01: Now are you Christian or Jew?
SPEAKER_01: Which is it?
SPEAKER_01: How do you decide?
SPEAKER_01: But that's where things get weird.
SPEAKER_01: Because while some Jews believed in Jesus, many did not.
SPEAKER_01: And so you begin to have tension within your long-standing cultural traditions.
SPEAKER_01: Families are being divided.
SPEAKER_01: Nation is being divided, people group is being divided.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's this guy named Peter who has this strange experience about a sheet coming down from heaven filled with all kinds of animals.
SPEAKER_01: And then he ends up going to another city and he ends up sharing the gospel with this Gentile named Cornelius who comes to faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then God has the audacity to confirm that genuine faith by giving Cornelius and his family the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe it?
SPEAKER_01: Now what are we going to do with these Gentiles?
SPEAKER_01: They're not Jewish, but do they need to become Jewish?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a Jewish Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do about this?
SPEAKER_01: And then there's more and more Gentiles coming to faith.
SPEAKER_01: And God gave them the Spirit too.
SPEAKER_01: So is this new group Jewish or Christian?
SPEAKER_01: Can you be both?
SPEAKER_01: Can Jewish and Gentile believers eat together?
SPEAKER_01: Can they worship together?
SPEAKER_01: Since the Messiah came from the Jews and God determined to bring salvation to the world through the Jewish people, do the Gentiles need to become functional Jews?
SPEAKER_01: Do we all need to become Jewish in our identity?
SPEAKER_01: In very simple terms, this is the very first issue that caused a stink in God's church.
SPEAKER_01: God's unique relationship with Israel was so ingrained that Jesus-believing Jews couldn't agree on what to do with them.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do with all these Gentiles?
SPEAKER_01: We believe the same.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do with them?
SPEAKER_01: So the fundamental issue was this question.
SPEAKER_01: Can a non-Jew be a believer in Jesus without becoming Jewish in their identity and practice?
SPEAKER_01: Can that happen?
SPEAKER_01: So there are four units of Acts 15 that demonstrate this development.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, this makes sense as you just survey again what Webb read for us earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Four elements.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just review them for you.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, at the beginning of Acts chapter 15, there are some people, some men in verse 1, who begin teaching Gentile Christians in Antioch that they have to identify with God's chosen people by taking the distinguishing mark of Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: All the men have to be circumcised.
SPEAKER_01: They would never be saved from their sins if they did not take on Jewish identity.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it says in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they were teaching.
SPEAKER_01: As you would expect, that stirred up a controversy in Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: And that couldn't be settled there.
SPEAKER_01: Even with Paul and Barnabas there, they couldn't settle that controversy.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first element.
SPEAKER_01: The second element is that while everyone rejoiced that Gentiles believed in Jesus, we see that in verse 3, that further rejoicing generated tension within the leadership of the Jerusalem church.
SPEAKER_01: Because as there's more Gentiles becoming believers in a Jewish Messiah, there's more pressure to decide what do we do with them?
SPEAKER_01: Are they us or are they not us?
SPEAKER_01: How are we supposed to think about them?
SPEAKER_01: The third element is that after much discussion, James issues his judgment on whether Gentiles can remain Gentile and still be counted among God's people.
SPEAKER_01: The short answer to that question is yes, they can.
SPEAKER_01: Because, Jeff, salvation is by grace through faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: That's why.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a fourth element.
SPEAKER_01: A letter is drafted from the Jerusalem church to the Antioch Church and other churches in that region to communicate the decision.
SPEAKER_01: And it's delivered to those churches with Paul and Barnabas and other representatives of the apostles to confirm it.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone lives happily ever after.
SPEAKER_01: At least until the next section when Paul and Barnabas have an argument.
SPEAKER_01: See, even apostles have arguments.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: So to recap, God chose Abraham's family way back in Genesis as the channel through which to bless all people.
SPEAKER_01: But when it came time for that to occur through Jesus, Abraham's family struggled to adapt to that changing situation.
SPEAKER_01: Because now there are non-Jews who are coming together with Jewish people who have this long-standing cultural and religious pattern.
SPEAKER_01: It was indisputable that God worked through the one people, the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: It's also indisputable that God was making non-Jews his people.
SPEAKER_01: That generated the kerfuffle in Acts chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: This chapter wouldn't exist had God not decreed that Gentiles would come to faith in the Messiah and be counted among God's people.
SPEAKER_01: Without that determination, without that plan and purpose of God, this chapter wouldn't exist.
SPEAKER_01: But that decree did exist, and so it generated the problem, but God's decree also solved the problem.
SPEAKER_01: And it paved the way for the rest of church history because God's decrees lead to joy when they are affirmed and obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: But as we all know, God's decrees can be challenging to implement among sinful yet redeemed people who must work, live, and socialize and worship together.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look for a few moments at four components of these four units that instruct us about God's decrees.
SPEAKER_01: Luke recounts this in such a way that it helps us understand some elements, some details, some instructive things about what God has decreed will come to pass.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, God's decrees, when they're processed by human wisdom, may lead to wrong conclusions and rogue actions.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how Luke begins, chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: He's very careful to refer specifically to the people who stirred up the churches in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: So in chapter 15, verse 1, he refers to them as some men.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say they came from the head church in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he says they came from Judea, a general realm.
SPEAKER_01: Later in verse 24 of chapter 15, he calls them some persons who have gone out from the apostles and elders.
SPEAKER_01: But that's all he says.
SPEAKER_01: I want names.
SPEAKER_01: I want specifics, but Luke doesn't give us that.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't tell us that they're not Christians.
SPEAKER_01: He does tell us that they were at least convictional about the implications of believing in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They had strong convictions about what believing in Jesus meant for Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: And those strong convictions motivated them to go and proclaim those convictions.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, these folks were convinced that believing in a Jewish Messiah meant identifying with and conforming to Jewish identity and Jewish law.
SPEAKER_01: These Jews were so tightly linked to their heritage that they believed that believing in a Jewish Messiah meant you're effectively becoming Jewish.
SPEAKER_01: So they were a part of the growing Christian church, which firmly believed that the church was Jewish in its beginning, but that membership, they said, was not just an issue of faith in Jesus, but also obedience to the Mosaic law.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 1 takes it to the level of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's asserting, they say, that Jewish identity is required for salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot be saved.
SPEAKER_01: That's a problem for us, for Gentile.
SPEAKER_01: So what this group taught in Antioch resulted in a disagreement and dissension among believers.
SPEAKER_01: Mostly Gentile believers with some Jewish believers in this northern city of Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: And Luke doesn't pull punches here.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about this dissension in stronger language than he does the teachers who are teaching wrong things.
SPEAKER_01: The word that he uses for dissension and disagreement here in other places in Acts is described as a riot.
SPEAKER_01: So these Jewish believers travel north, teach the church in Antioch, and the believers there begin to riot about this.
SPEAKER_01: The letter says that they were troubled or stirred up.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Unsettling their minds.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a glass of water with a layer of dirt at the bottom.
SPEAKER_01: Enough time has elapsed where the dirt has all settled down to the to the bottom, and so you you have some transparent water that you can see all the way through the glass, but then you stick a spoon in and you stir it up.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Antioch Church.
SPEAKER_01: All stirred up because of what's happened.
SPEAKER_01: And all of this began with God sending Peter to Cornelius and sending Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey.
SPEAKER_01: God instituted the drawing in of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: It was his work.
SPEAKER_01: So what's the problem?
SPEAKER_01: There are two problems.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, there are wrong conclusions reached by human wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: These were Jewish Christians processing God's work through a human lens, particularly a Jewish and cultural, Jewish, religious, and cultural lens.
SPEAKER_01: They'd been so immersed in their Jewish identity for all of their lives that they could see nothing else.
SPEAKER_01: And since God's Messiah was Jewish and God's promises originated with Abraham and God's law came through Moses, it only made sense that Jewish believers or that Gentile believers in a Jewish Messiah would become Jewish.
SPEAKER_01: They couldn't imagine anything else.
SPEAKER_01: But they were processing it all through their own thinking.
SPEAKER_01: The second problem is that wrong conclusions reached by human wisdom led to rogue actions.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever this group was, they were not sent by the apostles or the elders of the Jerusalem church.
SPEAKER_01: They went on their own.
SPEAKER_01: These Jewish believers took it upon themselves to instruct Gentile believers in what belonging to God's people meant.
SPEAKER_01: Now Luke is very careful to not condemn these people.
SPEAKER_01: He implies that they were wrong and they wrongly stirred up the new believers, but he doesn't name them, nor does he express any kind of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: That leads me to think that they were probably well-meaning people.
SPEAKER_01: They likely had the right intentions.
SPEAKER_01: However, good intentions motivated by human reasoning and rogue behavior leads to division and dissension, not unity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, going rogue is different than standing alone.
SPEAKER_01: Most of the reformers in church history stood alone when attempting to reform the Roman Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_01: They stood on scripture, not on culture.
SPEAKER_01: In many ways, they contended against the established religion.
SPEAKER_01: Going rogue, on the other hand, is leaning on your own understanding instead of scripture and acting independently.
SPEAKER_01: That leads to unbiblical conclusions and disunity in the church.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't take very long in church history for that to take place.
SPEAKER_01: Sadly, it's it's still all too common in churches today.
SPEAKER_01: So as we begin looking at Acts chapter 15, we need to understand that God made a decree and he established how that decree would be carried out.
SPEAKER_01: But when it impacts people, In time and space, if they don't interact with it biblically, but instead through their own reasoning, it's going to erupt and cause problems.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, notice that God's decrees may generate tension when they conflict with culture.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how Luke doesn't let us forget the primary theme of non-Jews being saved by God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: So being sent on their way by the church, this is Paul and Barnabas, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.
SPEAKER_01: So here a group of believers, Paul and Barnabas and some others with them that are unnamed, travel north to south from Antioch to Jerusalem, and along the way they're speaking with other Christians about God's work among the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone receives that news with great joy.
SPEAKER_01: The Jewish Christians recognize that God was working a work, as we heard earlier in the book of Acts, a work of great significance, and they rejoiced to be a part of it.
SPEAKER_01: However, when they came to Jerusalem and shared what God was doing, Luke reports that some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, Hey, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: It is necessary, not optional, it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them, command them to keep the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: But notice a detail here.
SPEAKER_01: Luke calls them the party of the Pharisees, or the sect, your translation may say, of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: Luke didn't need to do that.
SPEAKER_01: He's already referred to the Pharisees way back in chapter 5, referencing Gamaliel.
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't call them a sect or a party then.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, nowhere else in the book of Acts are the Pharisees called a party or a sect.
SPEAKER_01: So Luke seems to be calling our attention to that little detail.
SPEAKER_01: They are believers in verse 5, who still consider themselves to be Jewish, and among their Jewishness, Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: So in their minds, they can be Jewish and Pharisee and Christian all together at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: As Pharisees, they're holding on to strict obedience to the law, as Pharisees do.
SPEAKER_01: So rather than leaving that cultural attachment behind, as the Apostle Paul did, they're holding on to it.
SPEAKER_01: And not only are they holding on to it, they are asserting that all new Christians must think and live as they do.
SPEAKER_01: They want to require adherence to their cultural and religious traditions.
SPEAKER_01: Not just from Jewish Christians, but from all Christians.
SPEAKER_01: So the Jewish culture is now conflicting with God's work.
SPEAKER_01: But culture does not trump God's work or word.
SPEAKER_01: God's work and God's word rules culture.
SPEAKER_01: Now the Gentile believers were not forced to become Jews.
SPEAKER_01: But understand that neither were the Jewish concerns just set aside.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't.
SPEAKER_01: But this is more than just two distinct cultures.
SPEAKER_01: This is the culture of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: This is thousands of years of culture and religion and faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's the religious patterns handed down by God through Moses that are at issue.
SPEAKER_01: But that points to the bigger picture of the text.
SPEAKER_01: That should be a safe statement to make.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever culture we're in, it does not always align with God's word and God's work.
SPEAKER_01: But do we recognize when our religious culture does not align with God's program?
SPEAKER_01: Most modern Christians will start to get a little defensive at that point.
SPEAKER_01: Because they'll start to say, well, my tradition is right.
SPEAKER_01: My tradition stands on God's word or whatever you want to say.
SPEAKER_01: We start to get defensive saying, no, no, mine's not wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Well, put yourself in the shoes of a first century Jew.
SPEAKER_01: They're exactly the same, maybe even more intense.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, you're telling me that there's a possibility that what God handed down to Moses is wrong?
SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not about whether it's right or wrong, it's about the right application of that law.
SPEAKER_01: Do we recognize when our religious culture does not align with God's program?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can be lulled to sleep in our churches.
SPEAKER_01: Literally and figuratively.
SPEAKER_01: We sort of sleepwalk as we drift from God's patterns and plans.
SPEAKER_01: And then when God works in a way that we don't expect, it wakes us up from our lull, and we think God's work can't be right.
SPEAKER_01: That can't be what God says, that can't be what God's doing because it conflicts with our established church culture.
SPEAKER_01: But God's word and God's decrees don't change, do they?
SPEAKER_01: Our perception is that our ways are always right.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what brings out tension, is when something else is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: So the key then is to run to Scripture and to carefully examine it to see what God says.
SPEAKER_01: But that only works if we are willing to submit our cultural ways to scripture.
SPEAKER_01: God's word is always right.
SPEAKER_01: But running to God's word is not going to be a help if we are not willing to submit to it if we are shown to be wrong.
SPEAKER_01: This is the internal struggle in this council.
SPEAKER_01: What does Scripture say, and what do we do about it?
SPEAKER_01: Peter first challenged the believers from the Pharisee party and their claim.
SPEAKER_01: He stands up in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: Their claim is that salvation comes through faith, Jewish identity, and obedience to the law.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter relates his experience in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: The experience of the Holy Spirit giving him that vision of killing and eating unclean animals and destroying that barrier that existed between Jew and Gentile, and Peter then going to Cornelius, and Cornelius coming to faith in Christ and having the Holy Spirit given to them.
SPEAKER_01: Peter recounts all of that, saying, God has affirmed what he is doing.
SPEAKER_01: If this wasn't a work of God, Cornelius and the Gentiles wouldn't have the Holy Spirit given to them.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 7, the Gentiles heard the word of the gospel and believed.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Peter concluded, God made no distinction between us and them, verse 9, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
SPEAKER_01: Cleansing, there is a critical Jewish term.
SPEAKER_01: It points back to the Old Testament pattern of purifying from sin and cleansing things for worship.
SPEAKER_01: So everything in the temple had to be purified in a certain particular pattern.
SPEAKER_01: Every person that served in the temple had to be purified.
SPEAKER_01: They had to be cleansed.
SPEAKER_01: There are purification processes for all kinds of different situations.
SPEAKER_01: It's a term that describes being washed clean so that you can be right before God.
SPEAKER_01: Peter says there's no need for further cleansing by making these Gentiles become Jews because God has already cleansed them by faith.
SPEAKER_01: We sometimes refer to that in our churches as justification.
SPEAKER_01: If you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, He's cleansed you.
SPEAKER_01: Period.
SPEAKER_01: End of story.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of what you've done, not because you've done anything to make yourself pure, but because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Peter goes on.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
SPEAKER_01: He says, listen, guys, you know that we can't uphold the law.
SPEAKER_01: We've never been able to.
SPEAKER_01: Why then are you telling them to do that?
SPEAKER_01: If God has destroyed the barriers between us and he's cleansed them and purified them so that we are on equal footing before the cross, why are you asking more of them?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he adds to the tension.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Why are you putting God to the test?
SPEAKER_01: That's an Old Testament accusation.
SPEAKER_01: It's an Old Testament accusation that Moses recorded of the people of Israel in the desert when they tested God.
SPEAKER_01: God was doing something, he was redeeming his people, bringing them out of Egypt and into the land of rest.
SPEAKER_01: He was in the process of gathering his people together, and they rebelled and put him to the test.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter says, You're acting just like them if you put this requirement on all the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: I love this in verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: All the assembly shut up.
SPEAKER_01: They fell silent.
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna say to that?
SPEAKER_01: How do you respond to that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the response is that Paul and Barney get up and speak.
SPEAKER_01: Paul and Barnabas tell what God had done through them.
SPEAKER_01: God continued to affirm that by including Gentiles and his people.
SPEAKER_01: They're telling their whole missionary story.
SPEAKER_01: They're not the first ones to speak.
SPEAKER_01: They're not even making primary arguments, Paul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_01: They're just affirming that what God did through Peter is exactly the same thing as what he did through them on their missionary journey.
SPEAKER_01: After Paul and Barnabas tell their story, James speaks.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is this is not James, the brother of John, one of the sons of thunder.
SPEAKER_01: He's already been martyred.
SPEAKER_01: This is James, the half-brother of Jesus, who wrote the book of James in your New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: By this time, he's already a leader, if not the leader, the primary leader of the church in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have time to really look at this in detail, but sometime you can read the book of James and notice how James focuses on working out your faith.
SPEAKER_01: So he's very Jewish in his mindset.
SPEAKER_01: In some sense, James is almost on the side of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: He understands that Jewish background.
SPEAKER_01: He understands the importance of what God requires for a person to walk in holiness.
SPEAKER_01: But James doesn't take their side.
SPEAKER_01: Obedience to Scripture is essential for James.
SPEAKER_01: And holding the law of Moses in high regard is essential for James.
SPEAKER_01: But here, at this Acts Council, he points back to the Old Testament to show how looking to Scripture enables us to process what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: So James says, number three, guys upstairs, I can't advance my slides anymore.
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: God's decrees, processed by God's work and word, lead to biblical conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: Not human reasoning, but biblical conclusions and unified actions.
SPEAKER_01: So James begins speaking in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know exactly what is meant by after they finished speaking.
SPEAKER_01: Was that after Paul and Barnabas finished speaking, or was that after everybody had a chance to say something?
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But it's at the end of whatever's happening.
SPEAKER_01: James says, guys, listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: Simeon's told us that's that's an Aramaic writing, an Aramaic way of saying Simon, Simon Peter.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter, Simeon, has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what James is doing.
SPEAKER_01: He is confirming whatever has been said that God is gathering from the Gentiles a people that belong to him, that carry his name, something that had only been possessed by the Jews up until that point.
SPEAKER_01: This is transformative.
SPEAKER_01: This is changing the Jewish mindset.
SPEAKER_01: And then, verse 15, with this the words of the prophets agree.
SPEAKER_01: Now beginning in verse 16, James makes some complicated arguments that we can't untangle this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But let me summarize it.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 16, 17, and 18, James brings in parts of multiple passages from the book of Amos, from the book of Isaiah, from Jeremiah, and maybe even Daniel, to show that God decreed, God decided, determined, issued the command at some point in the past to bring in Gentiles into his people, to include non-Jews in the people who call on his name.
SPEAKER_01: So they are experiencing that, James says.
SPEAKER_01: We should not be surprised.
SPEAKER_01: He said, God decreed this.
SPEAKER_01: We're experiencing the fulfillment of God's decree.
SPEAKER_01: God's working out all of his plans toward their goal, including his plans for ethnic Israel, the Gentiles, and even the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the last phrase, the end of verse 17 and 18.
SPEAKER_01: Who makes these things known from of old?
SPEAKER_01: James says, listen, scriptures told us this.
SPEAKER_01: God said it would happen.
SPEAKER_01: They were seeing the fulfillment of God's decree.
SPEAKER_01: That was undeniable, James said.
SPEAKER_01: So he issued a judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19, my judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Don't trouble the Gentiles who trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't trouble them.
SPEAKER_01: Now he summarizes the elements of most importance.
SPEAKER_01: What is most important is not opposing God's work of incorporating non-Jews into his people.
SPEAKER_01: For us today, we might say it the reverse.
SPEAKER_01: Don't oppose God's work of incorporating Jews into the Church of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Don't oppose God's work of incorporating whatever ethnicity, whatever language group you might think of into his people.
SPEAKER_01: Don't get in God's way when his work is verified through his word.
SPEAKER_01: Don't get in the way of God's work with the Gentiles, James says.
SPEAKER_01: However, believing Jews are still convinced of the importance of their Jewish traditions, their Jewish religious patterns, and those people are now going to be eating and fellowshipping together with believing Gentiles who come from an idolatrous background where eating meat offered to idols was an everyday occurrence and sexual immorality was almost accepted.
SPEAKER_01: How can that be okay?
SPEAKER_01: The Jews came from a culture where blood had to be drained from an animal before slaughtering it in order to remain separate and to honor God's statement that the life is in the blood.
SPEAKER_01: They were to be holy as God is holy.
SPEAKER_01: And so they had to be separated from idolatrous people.
SPEAKER_01: So how can these people groups from different backgrounds whose patterns and culture and religion clash, how can they come together and sit down at the same table and eat together in kindness and love and consideration for one another?
SPEAKER_01: That's the underlying issue.
SPEAKER_01: James says it's not about salvation primarily.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, adding any requirements to faith in Christ, we don't go there.
SPEAKER_01: Then he dismisses that, sets that aside, and says, the real issue is how do we keep living together?
SPEAKER_01: How do we eat together?
SPEAKER_01: How do we have communion together?
SPEAKER_01: How do we serve one another when we have these differences?
SPEAKER_01: Jews and Gentiles, he says, can agree that certain matters should remain priority to promote fellowship as the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, listen, it's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01: We should write to them in verse 20 to abstain from things polluted by idols, because that's going to offend Jewish people.
SPEAKER_01: You should avoid sexual immorality because in Jewish and pagan cultures that was related to idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: Neither group would want to promote that sense.
SPEAKER_01: And you need to avoid what has been strangled because the blood remains in it when you kill it, and from blood.
SPEAKER_01: Because listen, these are about basic elements that pertain to fellowshipping together, eating together, and enjoying one another's company without offense.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have read in your Bible reading so far this year through Leviticus?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you survived.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: Keep pressing on.
SPEAKER_01: Nick survived numbers.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God.
SPEAKER_01: Six hundred and thirteen commandments down to three.
SPEAKER_01: Three of them that say, if we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we can consider others more significant than ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're now one people of God by faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Who can consider others more significant than ourselves for the purpose of honoring Christ and fellowshipping together.
SPEAKER_01: These were biblical conclusions arrived at after a lot of discussion.
SPEAKER_01: They processed their situation through the lens of scripture, and that guided the church to unity and fellowship within God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: It seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
SPEAKER_01: They also sent Judas called Baras and Silas, a leading leading men among the brothers, with the following letter.
SPEAKER_01: The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.
SPEAKER_01: Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you.
SPEAKER_01: God's decrees lead to joy when they are affirmed and obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's unclear how this council played out in real time.
SPEAKER_01: Did it go on for days?
SPEAKER_01: I can imagine that it did.
SPEAKER_01: Was it just a few hours?
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Was it public for the whole church for the whole time?
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: It was public for the church, at least at some point.
SPEAKER_01: At the very least, the leaders, the elders, and the apostles informed the whole church of their decision of what happened.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the entire thing was public, we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever the case, everyone is involved in the affirmation of the decision.
SPEAKER_01: It seemed good to the apostles, the elders, and the whole church.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the contrast with the beginning of the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: A handful of people process God's work through human reasoning, and they go rogue and they stir up a church.
SPEAKER_01: But you have a whole council of leaders coming together under the authority of God's word, and it brings unity and rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: The decision was made, recorded, and sent off.
SPEAKER_01: Not only was it sent off, it was sent off with official, genuine representatives to ensure the accuracy of the transmission from Jerusalem to Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: But what was affirmed, look closely at verses 24 and 25.
SPEAKER_01: It was affirmed that the first group was not genuinely sent.
SPEAKER_01: That's important because it becomes a pattern later on in Paul's letter.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you heard from some teaching as if from us, but no, that wasn't from us.
SPEAKER_01: This becomes a pattern for establishing what is true and what is not true.
SPEAKER_01: That was affirmed.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 25, it was affirmed that the Jerusalem leaders wanted to do what was good and right.
SPEAKER_01: And number three, the Jerusalem leaders had the same heart and mind in their conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: What was the result then of all of this?
SPEAKER_01: The letter gets to them, verse 30 and verse 31, it says, When they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: See, the early church faced issues related to God's plan, to his decrees of what he's going to do.
SPEAKER_01: But they faced problems when their cultures and their religious patterns came together face to face with God's work in real time.
SPEAKER_01: As we all do, they struggled to adapt their long-held perspectives and traditions to God's work.
SPEAKER_01: But joy resulted when they submitted to God's word by affirming what he's doing and leading everyone else to obey God's program.
SPEAKER_01: Brothers and sisters, we have to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: We have to do the same by not laying burdens on others that God does not put on them.
SPEAKER_01: We have to do that by looking at our own lives, our own hearts, our own minds.
SPEAKER_01: Do we have cultures and patterns and traditions that are normal for us?
SPEAKER_01: That we should not think negatively about other Christians for not following.
SPEAKER_01: We are called to stand firm, Paul tells the Philippians, in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that means we have to compare our cultural expectations and religious traditions to scripture and see if they hold up.
SPEAKER_01: But that comes with needing to submit ourselves to God's purpose and his plan as revealed in his word.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's only then that we will be led to joy in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Pray together.
SPEAKER_01: We are proud people.
SPEAKER_01: We so often at least act as though we've got things right.
SPEAKER_01: Would you please cause the fruit of humility to grow in us so that it is displayed in how we interact with one another, what we expect of one another?
SPEAKER_01: Would you would you cause us through the the power of the Spirit of Jesus to grow in our consideration of others as more significant than ourselves?
SPEAKER_01: Most of all, Lord Jesus, we ask that as you do that, you would bring us into line with your word to understand what you're doing with great clarity and to understand your word even more.
SPEAKER_01: You yourself said in the Psalms that you have magnified your word above your name.
SPEAKER_01: And we who are called to your name, then come and submit to your word.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to do that.
SPEAKER_01: As we call on you for wisdom, to guide us each day in and out of all of the details that we encounter, that we might approach them as the Lord Jesus Himself would.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this, Lord Jesus, because it's your church, and we want to bring all honor and glory to you, not to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.