Acts 15:13-21 (2)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
[READING: Acts 15:1-21]
1 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.” 2 And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. 3 Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. 4 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. 5 But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. 7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; 9 and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 10 “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.” 12 All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, “Brethren, listen to me. 14 “Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. 15 “With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, 16 ‘After these things I will return, And I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, And I will rebuild its ruins, And I will restore it, 17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ 18 Says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago. 19 “Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, 20 but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. 21 “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
[PRAYER]
[BIBLICAL CONTEXT] In Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, we see why we need salvation. Sin separates us from God.
In the disobedience of God’s people to God’s commands, we see that we can’t save ourselves. We fall short of God’s righteous standard.
In the perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, we see our Savior!
The Father demands perfection, and Jesus is our perfection!
The price for sin is death, and Jesus has paid our price!
We need to be justified before God, and Jesus’s resurrection is proof that we’ve been made right with God if we trust in Him.
In the OT, the Father promised this salvation.
In the gospels, the Son accomplished this salvation.
And in the rest of the NT, we see the Spirit apply this salvation to Jews first and then to Gentiles, and He only does it through faith alone.
J. Gresham Machen said, “…faith is merely the means which the Holy Spirit uses to apply to the individual soul the benefits of Christ’s death.”
[INTER] But is faith the only means which the Holy Spirit uses? Doesn’t the Holy Spirit also use obedience or good deeds to apply salvation to our souls? Doesn’t He use some some mixture of faith plus obedience or good deeds?
[CIT] In Acts 15:13-21 James, the half-brother of Jesus and the leader of the church in Jerusalem, says faith is the only means which the Holy Spirit uses to apply salvation to our souls.
[PROP] This morning we are going to continue to consider James’s judgment in Acts 15 so that our own commitment to faith alone in Christ alone will be strengthened.
[CHAPTER CONTEXT] When the Jews were saved at Pentecost, they were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.
When the Samaritans were saved under the preaching of Philip, they were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.
When the Roman Centurion, Cornelius, and the other Gentiles were saved in Acts 10, they were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
When more Gentiles were saved in Antioch, they were saved by faith alone.
When Paul and Barnabas took the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles on their first missionary, all who were saved were saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.
No one had any doubts about faith in Jesus as the only way of salvation until some troublesome teachers from Jerusalem showed up in Antioch saying that salvation also required circumcision according to the custom of Moses and obedience to the Law of Moses.
Paul and Barnabas knew it wasn’t right and intensely debated with these false teachers, but when no progress was made, they took the question to the elders and Apostles in Jerusalem.
The Pharisaical sect had its say.
Then Peter spoke up in favor of faith alone.
Then Paul and Barnabas told of all the folks saved by faith alone on their first missionary journey.
Then James gave his judgment.
[TS] Last week we began to take a look at four STATEMENTS in James’s judgment…
First, James said that the Gentiles had had an encounter with God.
James said God had come to meet these Gentiles as they placed their faith in Jesus.
Second, James said that the Gentiles had been chosen by God.
God has His chosen people, and James said God had taken for Himself a people for His name from among the Gentiles as they placed their faith in Jesus.
So, the Gentiles had had an encounter with God, and they had been chosen by God, and this morning we look at two more STATEMENTS from James.
Here is the third STATEMENT made by James in his judgment.
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
STATEMENT #3: James said Gentile salvation had been promised by God (vv. 15-18)
STATEMENT #3: James said Gentile salvation had been promised by God (vv. 15-18)
15 “With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, 16 ‘After these things I will return, And I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, And I will rebuild its ruins, And I will restore it, 17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ 18 Says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago.
[EXP] James said that Gentile salvation should not have surprised his Jewish brethren because God had foretold this very thing in the prophets.
First, James says the prophets in general foretold this.
There is a topical Bible called The New Nave’s Topical Bible (the man who first began to compile it was Orville Nave), and under the entry “Prophecies of the Conversion of the Gentiles” he lists more than 30 from the prophets alone.
The salvation of the Gentiles had been planned by God all along. It was no secret. God always planned to save Gentiles.
James was saying that the prophets in general bore witness to that fact.
Second, James says the prophet Amos spoke of this specifically.
The first six chapters of Amos announce the judgment of God on God’s sinful people.
The final three chapter of Amos pictures the judgment of God in a series of visions.
In Amos 7 judgment must come because God is just.
In Amos 8 judgment is imminent because God will spare His sinful people no longer.
And in Amos 9 judgment is inescapable because God will hunt them down.
But in the last five verses of Amos, judgment on the many who refuse to trust in YHWH gives way to salvation for the few who do trust in Him. And this few this includes Gentiles too.
16 ‘After these things I will return, And I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, And I will rebuild its ruins, And I will restore it, 17 So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’
James was saying, “We rebelled and suffered exile, but we were brought back and the temple was rebuilt, the Davidic King has come in Jesus who now sits at the Father’s right hand; all that was prophesied by Amos is fulfilled, and now is the time Amos said that the Gentiles would be called by YHWH’s name. Now is the time God is saving the Gentiles!”
Finally, James rounds out his quotation from Amos with a quotation from Isaiah.
In Isaiah 45, YHWH promised to use the Persian King Cyrus to gather His people back to the Promised Land, and He promised to use His people to gather the nations to Himself.
God said in Isaiah 45:21, “Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord?”
James was saying that Gentile salvation shouldn’t have surprised His Jewish brethren because God had announced it from of old.
Gentile salvation had long been promised by God.
[ILLUS] Charles Spurgeon told the story of an old Christian woman who made notes in the margin of her Bible. Next to one verse of Scripture she had a “T” and a “P.”
Her pastor asked what those letters stood for, and she said it meant Tried and Proved “for I tried that promise on such-and-such an occasion, and found it true.”
But the pastor notice a great big “P” next to some verses and asked what those indicated. The old Christian woman responded, “That means precious, sir, for I have found it precious…”
[APP] God’s promise to save Gentiles is a promise tried and proved through faith alone in Jesus Christ, and it is surely a promise designated as “precious” by we Gentiles who are called by His name.
Perhaps in the margin next to Acts 15:15-18 we should write a great big “P” for precious.
[TS]…
STATEMENT #4: James said no one should trouble those who were turning to God (vv. 19-21)
STATEMENT #4: James said no one should trouble those who were turning to God (vv. 19-21)
19 “Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, 20 but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. 21 “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
[EXP] James has said that the Gentiles have encountered God, that they have been chosen by God, that Gentile salvation had long ago been promised by God, and now James says, “Let’s not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God.”
James doesn’t want any obstacle in the way of Gentiles turning to God through faith alone in Christ alone.
James also doesn’t want any obstacle in the way of Jews turning to God through faith alone in Christ alone, so he says in v. 20…
20 but instead we should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from blood.
All of these things were related to pagan festivals of idol worship, and all of these things would have been highly offensive to Jewish believers in the church and all around the world where “Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues every sabbath day,” (Acts 15:21, NIV).
While Gentile believers didn’t have to be circumcised and didn’t have to obey the ceremonial law of Moses in order to be saved, they did have to abstain from things polluted by idolatry so that Jews who were turning to God through faith in Jesus would not be troubled.
Jewish believers were not to make it difficult for to come to Christ by insisting on circumcision and obedience to the Law as requirements for salvation.
Gentiles believers were not to make it difficult for Jews to come to Christ by associating with idolatrous practices that belonged to their old way of life before Christ.
It should always be our goal to not do anything that would trouble anyone who is turning to God through faith alone in Jesus Christ.
[ILLUS] The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 14:13…
13 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.
[Note: There are two versions of the story I’m about to tell you: the way Cheryl remembers it and the way her Mom remembers it. Because the way her Mom remembers it serves as better sermon illustration, that’s version you’re going to hear!]
When Cheryl was little, her uncles would have her and her brother, Aaron, race. They would line them up and say, “On your mark, get set, go!” Cheryl would take off like the blazing cheetah she is, but her brother Aaron (who is two years older than Cheryl) would be held back by one of her uncles.
They’d yell, “Run, Cheryl!” and laugh as Aaron screamed and squirmed, trying to get free to catch his sister and win the race.
But it didn’t happen for Aaron; he didn't win because his uncles were holding him back.
[APP] When someone is running for Jesus, we do not want to hold them back, but we will if we insist on anything other than faith alone in Christ alone for salvation.
If we insisted on circumcision plus faith, circumcision would be the obstacle that held people back as they tried to run to Jesus.
If we insisted on baptism plus faith, baptism would be the obstacle that held people back as they tried to run to Jesus.
We want the way to Jesus to be obstacle free so no one will be held back; they can run directly to Jesus for salvation.
That’s why salvation through faith alone in Jesus alone is so important: it clears everything else out of the way and tells the sinner, “Ignore everything else! Forget everything else! Just run to Jesus and be saved!”
[TS]…
Conclusion
Conclusion
Have you run to Jesus for salvation? Don’t let anything hold you back. There’s no hurdle you have to clear. Just run to Him; Look to Him; Call on Him in faith, and He will save you through faith alone.
[PRAYER]