Sermon Tone Analysis

What is a heresy?

In Christian usage, “heresy” has come to mean a false doctrine, which is so serious in its falsehood that the church must consider the heretics who believe it to have abandoned the true Christian faith

What are false teachers?

What is the Truth?

What are essential doctrines?

Doctrines that are non negotiable

The Trinity

One in being three in persons

God is the father, God is the Son, God is the Spirit

The Father is not the Son or Spirit

The Son is not the Father or Spirit

The Spirit is not the Father or Son

There is only one God

The persons of God are present at all times, the Father doesn’t become the Son then become the Spirit.

The three persons are unified in being.

The Deity of Christ

Jesus was fully God and fully man

He lived a sinless life

He is resurrected from the dead

Salvation

We are saved by Christ’s work on the cross.

It is by faith in Jesus that we are saved, not by works.

The question of what doctrines are essential is answered today in our story.

We seek to know the truth with discernment

The Jerusalem Council

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.”

Judaizers create a schism by teaching that unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, you cannot be saved.

The question: Are the gentiles required to follow all the Old Testament law?

Specifically the law of circumcision.

Circumcision: The Old Testament version of baptism.

Paul says that it was given to Abraham as a sign of the covenant God had made with Him.

The relationship came before the ritual.

The Judaizers claimed that only those that were of the circumcision party could be called Christians.

Put it in context: imagine someone was teaching that you had to be baptized in order to be saved.

What would you say to that claim?

This question led the early church leaders to come together and decide together what the truth really was.

We seek to know the truth with discernment

We defend the truth in love

What does this mean?

For both the Jews and the Gentiles, salvation was a matter of faith and not of works of the law.

God did not withhold His Holy Spirit from the Gentiles but poured out the Holy Spirit on them in the same way He had done for those that were Jews.

If God did not make distinction between the two, why should the Apostles.

Peter says that not only were their fathers unfaithful to the law, but all are unfaithful to it.

Rather than restrict the gentile believers with the Mosaic law, Peter reasons to allow them to live in the law of liberty, which is the New Covenant of grace that Christ has paid for by His death and resurrection.

The Old Testament law was never meant to be the means for our salvation.

It serves as a mirror, revealing our sin, and pointing us to Christ who is our salvation.

The events of Acts were promised long ago in the prophets.

God was using the Apostles and the early church to bring all nations into the kingdom of God.

We seek to know the truth with discernment

We defend the truth in love

We share the truth boldly

The early church leaders didn’t wish to burden the Gentile believers, but they still gave them a list of things to avoid.

This can be helpful to us today as Christians.

To help the new gentile believers the Apostles gave them ways that they should separate themselves from the culture.

As new believers they may have asked themselves, “where do I start?”

This calling to abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from sexual immorality would have given them action steps to take as they sought to follow Jesus.

God was teaching them through these things that He was worthy of their worship, that He was the giver of life, that He fulfilled every need, and that as Christians they were called to live holy lives, to walk as Jesus walked.

We seek to know the truth with discernment

We defend the truth in love

We share the truth boldly

We live according to the truth in humility

We seek to know the truth with discernment

We defend the truth in love

We share the truth boldly

We live according to the truth in humility

We pass the truth on to future generation of Christians

Nicaea (325 AD)

The Christian church was beginning to split.

Emperor Constantine gathered up the leaders of the church from every district and held a council to determine the truth.

It took place in the town of Nicea.

The issue on the table was a man named Arius that taught that Jesus was not fully God.

This heresy was known as Arianism.

Argument

Arianism: Jesus was created by God the father.

Neither the son nor the spirit existed but the father only until He created them.

Jesus is like the father but not equal to Him.

“Jesus is the begotten son of God”

“Jesus is the firstborn of all creation”

Defense

Jesus existed in the beginning.

Through Him all things that were created were created through Jesus (John 1) In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.

Jesus is equal to the Father because He is God.

He was with him (distinction) He was Him (unity) The triune God is one in being three in persons.

Genesis uses plural pronouns in the creation account.

“let us make man in our image” “In the image of God He created him” (Gen 1:26-27)

Emperor Constantine was present

This council ironed out some of the practices of the church but most importantly dealt with the issue of Arianism.

•Arius set his beliefs to hymns

The uncreated God has made the Son

A beginning of things created,

And by adoption has God made the Son

Into an advancement of himself.

Yet the Son’s substance is

Removed from the substance of the Father:

The Son is not equal to the Father,

Nor does he share the same substance.

God is the all-wise Father,