Grace That Is Greater
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Sermon Scripture
Sermon Scripture
Acts 15:1
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.”
vs11 - saved - is Peter thinking of redemption? In references to saved or salvation most are in future tense. In redemption we see it most often in past tense. Redemption is completed transaction, Salvation is a future completion.
/ If you are to believe and be saved then you must be Christ sheep, if you are to be His sheep then you must be redeemed.
Context - should we be circumsised - deliverance from the law
Preaching ought to be The Lord Jesus Christ the Gospel…not preaching you to do something.
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.”
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Gospel
believe
cleansing their hearts by faith
believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus
There is a steady pattern within man
A pattern which always defaults to “man-can”, “man-must”,
Leading us to law again
Church after church we see with Grace as their name,
Yet works is the gospel that they continue to proclaim.
“Come to the Lord, Pray this prayer, repent of this, be baptized in this,
choose new birth and be redeemed by the power of the blood.”
Every action of man subtracts from the power of the blood proclaimed
Yet we hold to a works redemption just the same.
If your redemption is yet future, then the cross is not complete,
If redemption is in the hands of your flesh then it has not been given to you.
How sly and slippery is the slope
Which subtracts from the finished work and lays it again in the hands of man.
A self righteous choice to be made again and again.
At every invitation, the work of the cross to be yet again accomplished.
Salvation and redemption morphed together,
Context ignored and doctrine greatly suffers.
New congregations arise, seeking the purity of scripture to lay before their eyes,
Yet old habits die hard
New merit established, purity of the Word suffers
The gospel again moved from God to man
Of this battle the Apostles faced the same.
Circumsision and custom enter in as a requirement to be saved. (vs 1)
Note: This is not redeemed
Salvation: “to heal” “to make whole” the idea of saving from disease. It is context dependant.
If we are to understand what is to be seen.
Now we study to grow, we study to know,
How blessed is the private study of God’s word,
But do not forsake the study together, even when thoughts and opinions differ.
When we study together we are sharpened
So now in our text, there is much debate among the apostles and elders,
Studying together to find truth in God.
Do you observe that they are debating amoungst themselves?
Let us not fear such sharpening or times when thoughts differ.
The goal of every bible study is to see how all of scripture fits together,
how all of the Word and works of God work together,
Not to prove our stance, but to be sharpened to see with more clarity the greatness of God.
Sanctification is simply growth in understanding more fully God’s great justification
Thus is the case with the apostles debate.
From this now stands Peter (v7)
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.
The early days is about 10 years earlier in Acts chapter 10,
When God sends Peter to Cornelious and confrims His desire for the gentiles.
Who made this choice brethren?
The choice was God’s
God chose the gentile and God chose the mouth that would speak His word.
Cornelious believed.
Why did he believe? How did Cornelious believe?
Note in our text, there is not one work of man,
No invitation, no sinners prayer displaying where belief began
Cornelious did not become a believer because he believed,
But rather he believed because he was a believer.
We are not born again because we believe, we believe because we are born again!
We are not born again because we believe, we believe because we are born again! We are not redeemed because we believe, we believe because we are redeemed! We are not reconciled because we believe, we believe because we are reconciled! God is not propitiated because we believe, we believe because He is propitiated! We are not justified because we believe, we believe because we are justified!
We are not redeemed because we believe, we believe because we are redeemed!
We are not reconciled because we believe, we believe because we are reconciled!
God is not propitiated because we believe, we believe because He is propitiated! (propitiated = appeased)
We are not justified because we believe, we believe because we are justified!
This was evidenced to Peter and now to the Jews by the outward expression of belief.
A belief which the text evidences as God given.
What was evidenced?
That God had chosen Cornelioius, a gentile, by the grace of Jesus just as He had chosen them.
The emphasis is not that Cornelious chose God but that God chose Him.
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.
It is God who knows the heart.
It is not Peter, nor Cornelious or the gentiles or the Jews, but God.
God testified to them
God gave them the Holy Spirit
And in the context of the cleansing of the heart by faith, God made no distinction.
All of His children are children of grace, children of faith.
Cleansing the heart by faith,
This is a work, beyond that of deliverance from hell.
This is a work of concience clean.
No longer are needed sacrifices of purification,
Such could never redeem, but He who redeems also saves,
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.”
Why then do we go back to what we must do?
Why do we go back to signs that we must show?
Why do we “prodistents” go back to the bondage of works, the heretical teaching of works which we so aggresivley fought to be freed from?
Every sentence has a central point, a main message.
The Bible as a whole has the same.
That message is the wonderful plan of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The glorious redemptive work of God and that of God alone.
Somehow the modern church has turned the wonderful gospel message of what Christ has done,
into the works based message of what man must do.
If man must do anything then it is no longer a gospel of grace.
Remember church as I tried to convey a few weeks ago:
Wheat is wheat, and a tare is a tare,
A sheep is a sheep and a goat is a goat.
Tare does not become wheat,
Nor does a goat become a sheep.
God knows his sheep and his sheep hear his voice,
Those who of God have been born of God, not by the will of themselves, but by the grace of God.
Did you tell your earthly Father, that you were willing to be born of Him?
Did you tell your earthly Father that your sibblings would be born of Him?
We are in no more control of our spiritual birth, our wonderful redemption than we are of our earthly birth.
The child does not choose the father.
That is why God has used such a wonderful expression:
You are a child of God’s because He has fathered you.
You believe, because He has birthed you a believer,
A sheep who hears His voice.
This is grace.
And oh now with the Holy Spirits presence,
To live in such knowledge, to know of the cleansing by faith.
Your Heavenly Father loves you,
He birthed you from before the foundations of the world,
And before your eyes were opened to see Him as your Father,
He held you in His everlasting arms and gave all of Himself that you would not be lost to Him,
Because you forever have been and forever will be a child of God.
Yes dearly beloved, we rebell,
Yes we may forget the watchful eye of our father,
We may live outside of saving ways,
But the Father does not forsake the child...
He seeks His own, He disciplines those whom He loves and He proves us as legitimate,
As blessed children of the Almighty.
May all praise and glory be to Him alone.