Spirit / Grace / Faith

This passage of Scripture is very important to Luke’s Acts narrative of the mission of God that the Gospel be preached to all the Nations. And now we see a unity and harmony in the church between Jews and Gentiles and how this will be worked out.

In this text there are 3 subjects I would like to briefly discuss. Specifically Acts 15:8-11

Acts 15:8–11 (NIV) God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

A few points to deduce from this before we move on is:

The Holy Spirit becoming one with us, was not because we lived a sinless life. The Spirit is a gift.

Salvation is not because of your works and obedience, it’s because of Jesus’ work and grace. Salvation cannot be earned nor merited. It can only be given as a gift.

And we see that our hearts are purified to this place of compatibility and union with the Holy Spirit through faith.

Union with the Holy Spirit

The Grace of Jesus

Walking by Faith

Each of these points are a sermon series in themselves so this won’t be a very extensive look into each subject but will serve us to answer some of the cultural attitudes that have influenced our understanding of the Holy Spirit, grace, and faith.

1. Union with the Holy Spirit

We will now and forever be one with Him.

He loves you

He is active in your life helping us persevere in faith and magnify Christ with all resources.

Here is a bird’s eye view of what Scripture reveals to us about our relationship with the Holy Spirit:

Believers are empowered to live in a way that pleases God if we walk by the Spirit

Believers are led by the Spirit

Believers are to march in step with the Spirit

The Spirit battles with the flesh (the flesh not being your body, but your old sinful identity).

And the emphasis is always on the power of the Spirit to overcome sin.

Believers experience a progressive change “from one degree of glory to another” from the Spirit

Believers indwelt by the Spirit produce “the fruit of the Spirit”

Joy comes from the Holy Spirit

Love is a work of the Holy Spirit

Believers are liberated from the power of sin and death through the Holy Spirit

Those who have the Spirit fulfill “the requirement of the Law”

We serve God in a new way by the power of the Holy Spirit

Believers do what pleases God as they are filled with the Spirit

Believers are enlightened to grasp spiritual realities by the Spirit

(And we saw in Acts 15 that Peter said) The Holy Spirit within us is proof of our acceptance by God

In addition to these statements found in Scripture it is also true that:

The guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives does not remove the necessity for imperatives (commands).

We need imperatives to live out the indicative reality of life in Christ

Imperatives define for us what is good and evil

Since we live between the times, Kingdom inauguration and Kingdom consummation, we who are empowered by the Holy Spirit, profit from moral instruction.

For example, NT authors do not merely tell us to act in a loving manner (peace and love) but they provide instructions relative to their life on how to live that out, what that actually looks like.

They provide lists of vices and virtues.

Now Paul recognizes that there is not an ethical rule for every situation, therefore, we must pray and seek the Lord to discern His will.

The NT authors do not give us vague generalities and merely tell us to “Just follow the Spirit” or “Just walk in love” but some specifics are given to reveal the path of love and Spirit.

Examples:

You are a child of God, He takes care of you (The indicative reality). (Here is the imperative, which actually gives witness of the reality of God) Don’t steal or lie anymore, rather work and give.

You have a holy calling, you have been given the Holy Spirit. Don’t live in sexual immorality anymore.

“The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.” -Chesterton

2. The Grace of Jesus

To discuss grace we are going to one of the most controversial and difficult passages in all of Scripture. There is very little unity of interpretation amongst theologians across all areas of Christianity.

And this is what we are going to talk about grace. Because we are going to look at this and see what the word grace meant and implied in Greco-Roman society.

Again, it is worth reminding ourselves of the truth that the bible was not written to you. It was written for you but not to you. Hence the necessity to understand the worldview, the culture, the definitions, the usage of words and ideas in their day not our day. What can happen is when we read Scripture, we can unknowingly project our modern ideas on ancient people and change the meaning of the text.

Which is why we saw last week that devotion to the Apostle’s doctrine was done in community.

Grace & Patronage

Greco-Roman society existed under the patronage and benefaction of the emperor and the gods. The whole empire was seen as being under the patronage of Rome and the emperor. It was their critical way of maintaining the allegiance of the people.

Festivals were held under the patronage of the gods and emperor. It was the people’s response of worship to their benefactors. They were returning honor for the grace of the gods and emperor.

Refusal to participate was viewed as rejection of Rome and therefore made you an enemy of the state, a threat to their empire.

Patronage worked based on publicly acknowledged inequality between patron (the benefactor) and client (the beneficiary)

Grace within this social context has 3 distinct meanings.

The benefactor's favorable disposition toward the petitioner

Refers to the gift or benefit conferred

The reciprocal action. The response of the client, the necessary and appropriate return for favor shown: Gratitude.

In Greek Mythology:

Uses the image of the three Graces dancing hand-in-hand in a circle to depict this concept:There is one for bestowing a benefit, one for receiving it, and a third for returning it.… Why do the sisters hand in hand dance in a ring that returns upon itself? For the reason that a benefit passing in its course from hand to hand returns nevertheless to the giver; the beauty of the whole is destroyed if the course is anywhere broken, and it has most beauty if it is continuous and maintains an uninterrupted succession

Seneca says:

Accepting a gift means accepting an obligation to the giver at the same time:“the person who intends to be grateful, immediately while he is receiving, should turn his thought to repaying”. “A benefit is a common bond and binds two persons together” Violation of this bond was considered an act of sacrilege, and act contrary to the demands of justice.

Gratitude includes (not just a private thank you):

Offering honor, public testimony and service to the benefactor.

To publicly testify and honor the person that benefited you. to not would be to reject the gift.

It involves intense personally loyalty to the benefactor even if such loyalty should lead to lose one’s place in one’s homeland, one’s physical well-being, one’s wealth and one’s reputation.

Seneca says “It is the ungrateful person who thinks: ‘I should have liked to return gratitude, but I fear the expense, I fear the danger, I shrink from giving offense; I would rather consult my own interest.’

The New Testament authors take this concept of grace and use it to frame our relationship with God.

He is the superior one who blesses us freely! He is not coerced, He is not in debt, He acts completely out of His loving character to bless us with: Enlightenment, Heavenly Gifts, Union with the Holy Spirit, the Goodness of His Word and Powers of the Coming Age.

We are the dependent ones who receive the blessing.

Therefore, when receiving the grace of God, are responsible, and have the duty, to respond to His grace properly in gratitude.

God’s favor seeks the proper response because: The measure of the giver’s gift sets the measure of the beneficiary’s gratitude.

Hebrews 6:4–12 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age

(The boundless grace and gifts of God)

and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance

(The temptation to fall back - life is easier. It is a misjudgment of value. Loyalty & obedience to Jesus, loss of reputation, loss of status is not worth the cost. The temporary pain is not worth the eternal rewards).

To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

With the agricultural reference we are reminded that we are not merely receptacles of the grace of God, but we are the soil.

God’s grace achieves its goals in us and for us by provoking the response of gratitude that transforms the orientation and direction of our lives.

The question we shouldn’t be asking is, “am I doing enough to be saved” but rather “how am I valuing the grace of God” and “Am I properly showing gratitude towards Him”

Like the example of Moses: Hebrews 11:24–26 (NIV) By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Faith

The presupposition to have is that everything we see was created, formed, designed by God’s Word. Therefore, His Word is to be trusted above anything we might consider reality in the seen world.

Noah

Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.”

The word of the God who warned him was more real to Noah than his own meteorological savvy or his and his people’s collective memory, in which there was no precedent for such a cataclysm.

God’s announcement concerning the future changed Noah’s and his family’s entire agenda for every day between the announcement and running around on Mount Ararat.

The entirely new orientation of his life and the new direction in which he put all his energies and resources to work (and not just his free time or his Sunday mornings!) were a living testimony to God and God’s warning. A proper response to the grace of God.

We don’t know what Noah’s occupation was before, but whatever it was suddenly changed. The Word of God caused the entirety of his family to change course, to reorient their life, the reorient their behaviors. That is faith! It is not just a mental ascent of agreement, it is not a box you check on facebook, it is an entire re-ordering of your life.

Faith changes your thoughts

Faith changes your behaviors

Faith changes your actions

Faith changes your sight.

Faith is that you have been accepted by God and filled with His Spirit and given and received the grace and boundless blessing of Jesus Christ and responding with gratitude of service, honor, loyalty REGARDLESS OF THE COST.

Hebrews: Grace and Gratitude 5. Faithful Response in Action (Hebrews 10:19–11:40)

In the same way, Jesus promises that building our lives afresh from the ground up on the foundation of his teachings will result in our own deliverance in the face of the cataclysms yet to come