Proclaim 5: Witnesses of Grace

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Acts 15:1-21

N:

Opening

Welcome/Bible Study

Good morning! It has been an exciting morning on campus here today, as we were able to relaunch in-person Bible studies on campus today. If you’re joining us online this morning, welcome! And if you’re here in the room this morning, welcome! I want to take a moment to encourage everyone who is or who plan to be a part of on-campus activities to find a Sunday morning Bible study to get plugged in to, and there is even a hybrid class that meets in-person and online that you can be a part of if you’re still connecting digitally. It’s in the Bible study classes that you’re going to best be able to connect with others and build relationships, and we ALL need those right now. So find a Bible study that you can be involved in, and then get involved!

Bless Every Home

As a church family, we are subscribed to a service called “Bless Every Home.” Each one of us lives in a neighborhood, and we have the opportunity to be a lighthouse in that neighborhood as we intentionally live out the Gospel. We’re asking each member of our church family to consider becoming a “Light” to their neighbors and living intentional pray-care-share lifestyles, where you intentionally pray for your neighbors, then as you have opportunity, to care for your neighbors, and then ultimately share the Gospel with your neighbors as the Lord leads. Becoming a light is free and confidential. You’ll receive a map and list of your closest (usually) neighbors, and you’ll receive email reminders at the frequency you choose to pray for your next five neighbors that day. You can visit the website on the screen or use the QR code to register and connect with our church family on Bless Every Home. We invite you to do this if you’re online as well, even if you’re in another city or state!

Miller’s Retirement Celebration on June 6

Next, I want to take another moment and thank everyone for a great Sunday last week as you all recognized my 20 years on the pastoral staff of Eastern Hills. A big reason that I have been able to serve that long has been because of the mentoring and example that Larry Miller set for me in the 25 years he has been on staff here. And while he did that, his wife Camille served in various positions in our school, ultimately as the school administrator. Larry and Camille are both retiring from their positions (Larry did on the last day of December, Camille this month), and we are going to celebrate their faithfulness to God and to this church and school during Family Worship on June 6 (2 weeks from today). Please plan to come and recognize their ministry and to be blessed as Larry fills the pulpit of this church one more time that morning. I’m looking forward to it!

Thanks from EHCA

Last summer, the various groups that kind of make up the “leadership” of Eastern Hills made a unanimous decision that because of the importance of the ministry of our school, Eastern Hills Christian Academy, to so many families (well over 100), that we as a church were going to do whatever it took to make sure that this ministry of our church family could hold classes in person when school started, and then that we would continue to do whatever was necessary to make sure that the school could continue to meet in person throughout the school year. God blessed and protected our school staff and students in a mighty way, and I rejoice in letting you know that the school year basically finished on Friday, without a single outbreak of COVID traced to or from the school!

Thanks to the staff, the teachers, the school board, the parents, and the students for making this year an amazing school year!

You, church family, had a big part to play in that. We have essentially kept everyone not connected to the school out of the rest of the building since last August, and this has been a vital part of ensuring that the school’s very strict cleaning and sanitizing protocols were kept in place. As the pastor of this church family, as the husband of a school employee, and as the father of one of our middle school students, I want to say, “Thank you, Eastern Hills Baptist Church family, for loving our school families in a very real, very tangible, very practical way.” But I’m not the only one who wants to say thanks… we have a video from the school that unfortunately we cannot stream because of the kids, so we’re going to lose at least streaming video for a couple of minutes here. Here in the building: turn your attention to the screen.

Video (3 minutes)

We’re approaching the end of our series in the book of Acts, where we are looking at seven different sermons that were proclaimed in the early years of the church. Today, we will look at Peter’s last words recorded in Acts, and basically from this point forward, the book of Acts focuses exclusively on Paul’s ministry to primarily the Gentiles. Peter’s last recorded sermon was given in the midst of a controversy in the church found in Acts 15. Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word together as we read our focal passage this morning:

Acts 15:1–21 CSB

1 Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 After Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue. 3 When they had been sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters. 4 When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. 5 But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter. 7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.” 12 The whole assembly became silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul describe all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they stopped speaking, James responded, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for his name. 15 And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written: 16 After these things I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, 17 so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles who are called by my name— declares the Lord who makes these things 18 known from long ago. 19 Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God, 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. 21 For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day he is read aloud in the synagogues.”

PRAYER

I really enjoyed my time in seminary. I learned so much, and was forced to think through things that I had never really thought about and to learn things that I had never really heard about. Two of my favorite classes were parts one and two of the same subject: church history, taught by Dr. Robert Caldwell. Dr. Caldwell took us through church history from the early church (which we are looking at right now in this series) through modern times. Many people find this kind of thing boring, and there may have been a time that I would have agreed.

One of the major things that I had to learn in Church History I was about the early church councils—times when the church had to come together to address heresy or false teaching that had arisen. These councils are named after the locations where they happened: places like Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. They came together to answer some of the big questions of the faith: things like whether Christ is truly God (He is); whether Christ is truly human (again, He is); and how those two truths go together (they do).

But one of the first questions that arose about the Gospel in the early church was: how is someone saved? This question was addressed early in church life, in what you could say was perhaps the first church council, but it is still an important question today, one that many still disagree on. What we can gather from the writings of Paul (the book of Galatians, for example) and here in Acts 15 is that there were certain Jewish believers in Jesus, Jewish Christians, who would go where Paul had evangelized Gentiles, and tell those Gentile converts that they weren’t fully and truly saved unless they were circumcised and started to follow the Jewish Law.

Today, we might hold on to some of the same ideas: that to be saved, we need to go to church or be kind or give money or get baptized or whatever. Now, there’s nothing wrong with those things, and they are all good things that people who follow Jesus should do, but not one of those things can save you or make you any more saved than you are the moment you trust Jesus.

The issue that we see in this morning’s passage is crucial to the question of salvation. And so we have only two points (with a few sub-points). First:

1) God’s grace is central to the Gospel.

Last week, in our study of Paul’s first sermon in Acts 13, we saw that the result of his message to the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles in Pisidian Antioch was that many of them believed, and followed Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas urged them to “continue in the grace of God.” And the grace of God is the central issue of our focal passage this morning.

What is the grace of God? It’s God’s unmerited favor toward us, a favor that we cannot earn or deserve, but that God chooses to bestow on us because of His love for us as shown in the completed work of Christ on the cross. The issue that comes up in the church at Syrian Antioch (where our focal passage today begins) is a question of grace versus works, and specifically: how are people saved? Are they saved by God’s grace through faith in the work of Jesus? Or are they saved by keeping the Law: checking all of the boxes, following all the rules?

Why was grace so important that Paul and Barnabas were willing to “engage them in serious argument and debate” over it? It’s because it was central. Throughout church history, this has been a necessity whenever a heresy came up that threatened the purity of the Gospel message. Some things: first order things, like the existence of God, the resurrection of Christ, and the sinfulness of mankind, for example, are things worth fighting over, because if you get those wrong, you get everything else wrong as well. Since this issue of grace and works was so important, Paul and Barnabas head to Jerusalem to take up this question with what was essentially the center of the church at that point. Most were excited about what God had been doing through their ministry, but some just couldn’t get off of the issue of forcing the Gentile converts to follow the Jewish law. After the council convened in verse 6, Peter addressed the crowd concerning the matter.

We’re going to look at three aspects of the central place of grace in the message of the Gospel as part of this first point.

A) Only by God’s grace can anyone be saved.

The work of salvation is not initiated in any way by us. This is because there was no possible way for us to be saved apart from the grace of God. It wasn’t just that we were unlikely to be saved, it’s that it was impossible for us to be saved. All of us. There isn’t a person out there, besides the Lord Jesus Christ, who deserves to be saved—who merits salvation. This is why grace is grace—it’s God giving something that we didn’t earn.

Remember what we looked at a few weeks ago when we studied Acts 10 and Peter’s encounter with the Roman centurion Cornelius. This is what Peter is referring to here in his little sermon. In verses 8 and 9 Acts 15, we see that it was God who did the work of salvation in the hearts of those Gentile believers:

Acts 15:8–9 CSB

8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

God bore witness. God gave the Holy Spirit to them, as God had to the Jewish believers. God made no distinction between the two. God cleansed their hearts. All the Gentiles brought was their surrender to the work of God in their lives by faith.

If God doesn’t extend His grace in Christ, then no one would be saved. No one has the right, based on his own merits, to stand before holy God and demand that they be saved. There is nothing that we can say or do that requires God to save us: nothing about who we are, what we have done, or what we might do that makes it so God MUST save us. This is why it’s grace! Look at what Paul said in Romans 5:

Romans 5:1 CSB

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have been declared righteous by faith. We do not earn it, or merit it, or deserve it. God declares it, and we have it through faith in Christ. And we can’t have it both ways. If we have to earn our salvation, then it isn’t by grace. The Judaizers said you needed Jesus PLUS circumcision and the Law, but in Romans, Paul argues that salvation is only found in Christ, and Peter says the same thing in our passage in Acts. If we cannot earn it, then salvation must be provided to us… and that’s why Jesus came.

We don’t deserve salvation. We deserve to be thrown into hell because of our sin. But because God loves us, the Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ came and lived perfectly as a man so that He could pass His righteousness on to us, and so that He could take our sin on Himself and take our place in bearing the punishment that we deserve because of our sin. He did this so that we could be brought back to a place of peace with God—a peace that we do not deserve, and could never earn. We have forgiveness if we belong to Christ. And because He triumphed over death by rising again, we have eternal life in Christ as well.

Believe the Gospel and surrender your life to the grace of God in Christ this morning. Stop trying to go your own direction and trust what God has done to save you. This is the good news of the Gospel—that we are saved by grace.

B) Without grace, the Gospel ceases to be “good news.”

“Gospel” literally means “good news.” Imagine winning the lottery to the tune of $468 million. We probably would all imagine this to be good news. Now imagine that instead of saying “Here’s $468 million,” they instead said, “You’ve won $468 million… as soon as you earn it all. Better get to work.” Is it good news any more? Of course not. If salvation is not by grace, the Gospel is not actually good news, because if it’s by works it means that we can be saved, so long as we earn it and keep deserving it. This is why Peter said that the keeping of the law had never been the means of salvation, because the Jews had never successfully kept it themselves:

Acts 15:10 CSB

10 Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

The Judaizers were trying to claim that the Gentile Christians weren’t actually saved completely, because they had not yet become Jewish. So they needed to be circumcised and then taught to follow the whole law. Yet even the Judaizers didn’t follow those laws perfectly, and they knew it. To say that the Gospel is Jesus+Works=Salvation is just wrong. That’s not good news, because it’s still up to us to earn it, and how would we ever know if we have earned enough? No! The Gospel is just Jesus=Salvation. If you have Jesus, you’re saved.

Max Anders, in the Holman New Testament Commentary on Galatians, said:

...a works-based, human-effort driven gospel is no gospel at all. How is a demand for impossible human achievement good news? Anyone who presents a way of salvation that depends in any way on works, rather than God, has contaminated the gospel message... They have no gospel, no good news.

This is because, as Timothy Keller put it: “As soon as you add anything to [the Gospel], you have lost it entirely. The moment you revise it, you reverse it.”

No, we cannot be justified by the law or by any other works. Instead, as soon we make salvation about following rules and regulations in order to earn it, we’ve made our salvation about something other than God’s grace. Paul was clear that this is a problem:

Romans 3:20–24 CSB

20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

If I can’t earn my salvation, then it is a gift of God’s incredible grace. And if I can do nothing to earn my salvation, then I can also do nothing to continue to deserve my salvation. The fact of my salvation is then also maintained because of the grace of God. And finally, if I cannot work hard enough to earn my salvation, and I cannot work hard enough to keep my salvation, then I also cannot work to lose my salvation: either I am saved and will continue to be saved because of God’s grace, or I am not saved at all. See? With God’s grace at the center, the Gospel certainly is “good news!” And, it’s good news for everyone who will believe.

C) The Gospel of grace is for everyone.

We just saw this in Romans 3:22. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. In this conflict in the early church, what we find is that it didn’t matter who the believers were: if they trusted in God’s grace through faith in Christ, then they were saved. This is what Peter was arguing for when he said this is verse 11:

Acts 15:11 CSB

11 On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”

Both the Jew and the Gentile were saved the same way: by grace. And since in the Jewish mind there were only two kinds of people: Jews and Gentiles, then the Gospel of God’s amazing grace in Christ is for everyone.

Romans 10:9–13 CSB

9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, 12 since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Yes, the Gospel is good news even for you. Even for me. When God saves us, He sets us on a completely different path: a path of blessing instead of cursing, a path of hope instead of despair, a path of righteousness instead of sin. He makes us new by His grace. This is the hope of the Gospel.

Transition

Peter’s message landed well, and the entire assembly became silent. Then, they listened as Paul and Barnabas shared with them the incredible things that God had done in the Gentile communities that they had evangelized. Finally, James brought Scripture to bear on the issue, quoting from the prophet Amos, chapter 9, verses 11 and 12:

Acts 15:16–18 CSB

16 After these things I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, 17 so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles who are called by my name— declares the Lord who makes these things 18 known from long ago.

He sees the evangelism of the Gentiles as the fulfillment of this passage, and as a result, God has already established what His work is. The church doesn’t need to change what God has already been doing. However, James goes ahead and does something that following all of this we might be confused by. He suggests instructions for the Gentile believers to follow:

Acts 15:19–21 CSB

19 Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God, 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. 21 For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day he is read aloud in the synagogues.”

Why would he do this, if the decision is to “not cause difficulties?” The question is one of unity.

2) We are to be united witnesses of God’s grace in the Gospel.

Unity doesn’t mean we necessarily agree on every single thing. In this case, it meant that they agreed on how people were saved, and that both Jews and Gentiles were saved through the grace of God in the Gospel. However, just because they had agreed on that point, that doesn’t mean that believers should disregard one another by acting in ways that are unloving to other believers.

This is why James gives the decision that he gives in verses 19-21.

The concern here was that this issue of the Gospel and the Law was big enough to destroy the unity of the church. It would have been terrible if the church at this early stage had completely separated into the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. The beauty of the Gospel is that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile at the foot of the cross.

So while the decision is that the Judaizers were not correct: that the Gospel was not Jesus plus Moses, it also would not have been right for the Gentile believers to live in such a way around their Jewish brothers and sisters that caused them to stumble or refuse to fellowship with them. The Jewish believers had always taken their purity seriously. For many of them, not to continue to do so would be a violation of their consciences. The Gentile believers could serve their Jewish brothers and sisters by listening and applying the instructions that James gave in these four kind of “big ticket” items of purity, so that both groups could have fellowship with each other. This was not about salvation by works. The very unity and purpose of the church was at stake in this. It had to be addressed. Paul would later deal with this in Romans 14:

Romans 14:13–19 CSB

13 Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister. 14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. 15 For if your brother or sister is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy, by what you eat, someone for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore, do not let your good be slandered, 17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 Whoever serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and receives human approval. 19 So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another.

In the church, we actually belong to one another, and we should seek to build each other up and build unity. If we are going to be effective witnesses of grace, then the place that we need to best display that grace is with one another, in this family, in everything that we can display that unity in.

Closing

The Gospel shows us what grace looks like, and then we who believe are brought together in faith through the Holy Spirit to be a living display of grace as the church. We are not just witnesses who have seen grace. We are witnesses who testify to grace in what we say and how we live.

Have you experienced God’s grace? If you haven’t, today you’ve heard about what God has done for you by His grace in Christ. Believe the Gospel of grace. You can’t earn it. Surrender to Jesus. Come and share that.

Join the church. Come and share that.

Use invitation time to give online as well, if you’d like.

PRAYER

Commissioning

SIGNAL THE GUYS NOT TO STREAM THIS.

In the 13th chapter of the book of Acts, we find the church at Antioch in Syria setting aside Paul and Barnabas for their first missionary journey. The Scripture says this:

Acts 13:1–3 CSB

1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off.

This morning, we are setting aside one of our own, sending her off to minister in London this summer as a missionary with the International Mission Board. We obviously cannot all lay our hands on her and bless her, but we can all pray together.

PRAY

STREAM CAN GO LIVE AGAIN

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: Psalm 14 today.

Benediction:

2 Thessalonians 2:16–17 CSB

16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.