November 17, 2024 SERMON

 Faith Alone
Acts 15:13-

As we come to chapter 15 in our ongoing series through the book of Acts we arrive at a very critical event in the life and theological formation of the early church.

What happens in this chapter really serves as something like a pivot-point upon which the focus and outreach of the early church turns.

The church, in fact the world, was never the same after this council took place.

The reason this council is so significant is because this council answers two of the most important questions regarding the kingdom of God.

Number one, how do I gain access To Grace? How do you get into the most important, longest lasting organization that has ever existed? Or, How do you get into the kingdom of God?

The answer, in the simplest of terms, is by faith. By believing the gospel; by trusting in Jesus. That’s it.

Number two, How do I give evidence of grace? By living holy.

When you come to faith in Christ, when you surrender to Him as Lord, there are some things you leave behind. This is not about what you must DO to gain access to grace, but what you should do to give evidence of grace.

It's not legalism, its holiness. Our obedience to God should never be understood as the ROOT of our Salvation, but the FRUIT of our salvation.

In Acts 15 the Church has a problem. Good Christian people, with the best of intentions, have been having disagreements from the very beginning.

Sometimes, a dispute can lead to new insight and understanding.

John Wesley, one of my favorite preachers, had a good rule of thumb. He said, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity.” (Love)

The church fight that happened in Acts 15 was over something essential. It had to do with the nature of salvation.

There was a certain group of “believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees” who had heard that individuals were being baptized and welcomed into the Church without being circumcised.

This group believed that a person cannot be saved unless they were circumcised.

In other words, they believed that you cannot be a Christian unless you are a Jew. If you don’t accept the law, Christ will not accept you.

It’s easy to demonize these Pharisaic Christians, but truth be told, as we read in Genesis, God’s Covenant with God’s people was based on circumcision.

It had always been this way. And Christianity began as a Jewish sect. Even Jesus was a circumcised Jew.

The first male disciples were circumcised Jews and the first men who made up the church were Jewish converts—all circumcised.

For all their lives their very identity was framed by the rite of circumcision and the Mosaic Law, both of which were instituted by God.

Another thing is that the early Church didn’t have a New Testament to lean on as part of their Scriptures. The early Church was the New Testament.

To make a long story short, these early leaders inherited a long-standing and deeply held religious system, and they had to discern, how this Old system related to Christ’s death, Resurrection, and Ascension.

These were huge decisions.

Uncircumcised folks started to receive the message of Jesus Christ, and they were being saved and baptized in the spirit by the multitudes.

What were the disciples to do about this? What were the church leaders to do?

Did they need to force these uncircumcised male Christians to go under the knife to make their salvation legitimate, or was the grace of God in Christ enough for their salvation?

The Christian Pharisees believed in grace as did the other Jewish Christians. They had accepted God’s grace in Christ.

But they were so bound to the Law that they were, understandably, confusing the non-essentials with the essentials.

To figure out what to do, the church called a meeting--the Council at Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was the early Church headquarters where James, the brother of Jesus was the leader.

“The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses,” argued the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees.

The apostles and elders met to consider this huge question that had many implications for the future of the Church.

If what these Pharisaic Christians were saying is true, then the grace of God in Christ is not enough for salvation. You have to add the law of Moses.

Finally, the Holy Spirit, working through Peter nudged him to stand up and address the group.

And what he said, was essentially this: “We believe that we are saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, Period.

If we are going to rely on circumcision to save us, then we are in big trouble.”

It’s a difficult thing to trust grace, sometimes. I know, I used to try to add rules and regulations to my life to justify my salvation or make it more secure.

I sometimes had a hard time believing that God loved me and accepted me, the sinner that I am.

I think it’s an understandable thing to do. I think we all do it to some extent. But that’s not how it works.

There is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor; there is nothing we can do to lose it.

God is the One who saves us through the blood of Christ—we can’t save ourselves. It’s all a gift and it is available to all.

After Peter’s speech, Barnabas and Paul tell about the signs and wonders that have happened in their ministries.

These testimonies bear witness to God’s saving work which was happening among the uncircumcised.

And so, they relied on experience confirmed by the Scripture passages to make their decision.

Many decisions down through Christian history have been made based on Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.

All these things are weighed and given much careful thought when it comes to deep theological decisions about God’s will for the Church.

Christians from the very beginning have found that Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason interpret each other.

Now that Paul, Barnabas, and Peter have spoken their peace, we now hear from James.

Luke tells us in vv. 13-14, “When they had finished, James stood and said, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Peter has told you about the time God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for himself.”

James was the half-brother of Jesus and the writer of the Epistle of James. He was at this time the leader of the Jerusalem church. Everyone from Paul to Peter submitted to his authority.

The phrase “the time God first visited the Gentiles,” is important because it shows that God had already accepted the Gentiles and intended for them to also be His people.

It could not be disputed what God’s will was in this matter. In fact, James goes so far as refer to them as a people God had taken to himself.

The word being used here is the same word that is usually used for the Jewish people. This was truly an eye-opening statement by James.

Now, James uses Scripture to show that this was God’s plan all along. He says in vv. 15-18, “And this conversion of Gentiles is exactly what the prophets predicted. As it is written: 16 ‘Afterward I will return and restore the fallen house of David. I will rebuild its ruins and restore it, 17 so that the rest of humanity might seek the LORD, including the Gentiles—all those I have called to be mine. The LORD has spoken—18 he who made these things known so long ago.’”

James, in his wisdom, knew that a decision in this matter had to be based on something more than just experience.

So, he uses Scripture as a foundation. James says that this conversion of the Gentiles was something that had been predicted by the prophets.

While this event was predicted by more than one prophet, as indicated by the plural form “prophets,” he chose to quote the prophet Amos 9:11-12.

According to Amos the House of David had fallen and was in ruins. This is a problem since God had declared that one of David’s descendants would always sit on David’s throne.

Therefore, he had to restore the people of Israel,

and this would be accomplished not by a political leader, but rather by the Messiah who would restore a spiritual Kingdom which would include the Gentiles.

James’ point was that this had always been God’s plan, and it in no way contradicted the Old Testament Scriptures.

The Scriptures are clear that God wants all people to come to Him in faith and repentance.

Again, it was John Wesley who said: It is dangerous to depart from Scripture…most of the controversies which have disturbed the Church have arisen from people wanting to be wise above what is written, not contented with what God has plainly revealed there.”

Any solution to a problem within the church must be rooted in the foundation of Scripture.

2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”

When we seek a solution to a problem within the church, it must be based, and I mean really based, on Scripture.

It should be the basis for everything that we do.
It teaches us what is right and what is wrong.
It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
It is the scale upon which we weigh every issue. It is the guide and rule of everything we do as a church.

When we stray from Scripture, we stray from God.

If the Bible says, “do it,” do it!
If the Bible says, “don’t do it,” don’t do it!

That is how we should live our lives and how we should conduct ourselves as a church.

Another thing to consider when coming up with a solution to an issue is to… Embrace Holiness.

Abstain From Food Offered to Idols

After looking at what God was doing among the Gentiles, and what the Scriptures said on the subject, James makes his decision.

In vv. 19-21 it says, “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood. 21 For these laws of Moses have been preached in Jewish synagogues in every city on every 
Sabbath for many generations.”

His decision was that they should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who were turning to God.

The Judaizers who wanted to force the Gentiles coming to faith to follow Jewish laws, in particular circumcision, were in error and James wanted to correct this mistake.

However, there were some things James wanted them to stop doing.

He wanted them to abstain from eating food sacrificed to idols. This was a problem in New Testament churches where meat was sacrificed to an idol and then sold in butcher shops.

In essence, this was participation in demonic idol worship.

They were also to abstain from sexual immorality.

This also was a part of idol worship and went against the Levitical marriage laws

It also included any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

In addition, they were to abstain from the meat of strangled animals and consuming of blood. This goes back to the Biblical understanding that life was in the blood.

If the Gentile Christians would follow these rules, they would please God and get along better with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

Why does he decide on this? He says, “For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Every city and town in the world had Jewish inhabitants at that time, according to the Jewish historian Josephus.

So, wherever you went, people would be used to hearing what the law of Moses said.

And since the Christians were proclaiming that in Jesus the law and the prophets had been fulfilled, and because this proclamation was always going to be at best puzzling and at worst offensive to most people, James was encouraging the Gentile Christians to do their best not to offend their Jewish neighbors.

They didn’t want the Law to get in the way of Gentiles coming to Christ and they didn’t want their freedom in Christ to get in the way of the Jews coming to Christ. It’s a good compromise.

Later, in Colossians 2, Paul would make it clear that whether you eat or drink food offered to idols doesn’t matter for Christians as long as you are not offending or being a stumbling block to unbelievers by doing so.

That is the most important part of this. Not getting in the way of people’s ability to come to Christ!

James’s instruction to them was to stay holy.

Amazingly, right after this incident, in Chapter 16, Paul meets Timothy and Chapter 16:3 tells us that “Paul took Timothy and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his dad was a Greek.”

“Life has its challenges to our walking in God’s presence. But we are presented with an opportunity, in all things remember that the closer you are to God, the more defined and visible will be the image of Him that you reflect.” (Andrew W Moffatt).

In everything we do we must seek to be holy.

I Peter 1:14-16 reads: “So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

Peter tells us to be holy in everything we do. You’ll notice that he quotes Scripture on this subject. We “must be holy because God is holy.”

Our lives are to reflect the character of God, and above all, God is holy.

So, if you are doing something that you know is contrary to Scripture…stop it!

If you are going somewhere that is causing you to do things that don’t honor God, stay away from it.

If you are hanging out with people that are leading you to do things that you know are contrary to the Word of God, find someone else with whom to hang out.

We should always reflect the holiness of God in everything we do.

Today, in the USA people are turning away from Christianity in droves but in other parts of the world Christianity is growing.

Are we willing to do whatever is necessary to reach our community, our neighbors, our family members for Christ?

So many people are living with little to no hope. And Jesus is the hope of the world.

So many people feel they don’t measure up or aren’t good enough for God to love them and save them.

“It is by grace we [are] saved, through faith—and this is not from [ourselves], it is the gift of God—not by works so that no one can boast,” Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in dvance for us to do.”

This is freedom.
This is life.
This is the Good News of Jesus Christ.
This is what it’s all about!!!

Let’s get to work making disciples of Jesus Christ for God’s Kingdom and the transformation of the world!!!

Praise God.

Amen.