Acts 15:1-5

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this day. We thank You for Lord every day that we are able, privilege to come, to assemble in Your presence, to worship You. Thank You for this Lord's day. Thank You for the gospel. Lord, let Your word find entrance into our hearts and our minds and by Your Holy Spirit and dwelling Your people illuminate it. Let it be truth that would transform us indeed that it would conform us to the very image of Jesus. For Your glory, we ask this in the glory of Your church in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we've come to, oh, that's loud. We've come to Acts chapter 15. And Acts chapter 15 is the chapter where we see the very first church council convened. It was change that prompted the formation of the Jerusalem council. Change. Change is a catalyst for much, both good and bad, both bitter, and sweet. And as difficult as it can be, change is the way of God. Not that God changes, but that God changes us. Therefore, we must embrace God's change, His transformation of You, of Your life, and things around You. For surely we live in a changing world that is governed by our unchanging God. So we're going to be in Acts chapter 15 today, and we will be there again next Sunday. Today our text will be Acts chapter 15 verses 1 through 5. In the next Sunday, we will attempt to finish the chapter. A lot of verses and a lot to say about this chapter. Acts chapter 15 verses 1 through 5 hear the word of the Lord. And certain men came down from Judea and top, the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders. And they reported all things that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. This is the word of the Lord. The first church council. This is what we have in Acts chapter 15. Introducing us to this first church council, most often called the Jerusalem council. This official council was called as result of a sharp dispute that arose in the church over the false teaching that Gentiles must submit to the requirement of circumcision and adherence to the law of Moses in order to be saved. The Jerusalem council took place between 49 and 50 AD is what it is believed. And we have good reason to believe this. We've got historical records that collaborate with Paul's testimony in scripture. So we have a pretty good handle on when this council took place. We know that Paul completed his first missionary journey between 47 and 48 AD. So this Jerusalem council took place shortly after Paul and Barnabas came back from their first missionary journey. And it was in that first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul that God opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, not like Peter did with Cornelius and a small group of Godfairers, Gentiles who actually adopted Jewish worship, who Paul encountered in his over-year journey throughout Galatia, Pamphilia, and in those regions of what is now Southern Turkey, he encountered Gentiles who were not Godfairers. These were straight up pagans, Gentiles who had never adhered to the law of Moses. In other words, Paul's first missionary journey in those subsequent touched the nations and the peoples who had never been Godfairers, who were not proselytes to the Jewish faith, who had never been touched by the gospel before. And the gospel they were introduced to was the gospel of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. There was no teaching that they must be circumcised or they must keep the law in order to be saved. Their faith in Christ indicated their salvation, not their deeds of the flesh in keeping the law. So in the short history of the New Testament church in relation to this council in 50 AD, all that had transpired with Peter and Cornelius, remember in Acts, chapters nine and 10, and the ministry of the Apostle Paul, all of this made clear that Gentiles, non-Jews were partakers of the Holy Spirit and included in the salvation of God through faith in Jesus Christ. This had become undeniably true and it was an accepted fact by all. Therefore, the question that this council was dealing with was not about whether Gentiles could be saved, the question of this council was how were they saved? Not if the Gentiles could be saved, but how are the Gentiles saved? As William Ramsey put it, wonderful historian of the church who has chronicled so much that was thought to be myth or hearsay, he's actually many, many years ago, he's long departed to glory, but he spent his life digging all over the Middle East, all over Turkey and Palestine, digging up the evidence that proves that this scripture is reliable. And as William Ramsey put it, did the path of belief lie through the gate of the law alone or was there a path of belief that did not lead through that gate? Had God made another door to himself outside the law of Moses? Was God now admitting as freely them that disregarded the law as them that believed and followed it? And the answer is yes, he was and yes, he is. We know the answer is that God did make another door to himself outside the law of Moses and that door that way is Jesus Christ. This is the gospel, the good news that we are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It is the gift of God. It is not of works, less than any man should boast. No flesh is justified by the deeds of the law. These were the issues taken up by the Jerusalem Council. These are issues we still deal with today because it is man's fallen nature to try to cover his own sin. It's not accidental that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and they sinned and rejected God to become God's themselves, their own God's, that they sought to cover their sinfulness through their own works. They sowed fig leaves together to cover themselves. And God said, no fig leaves are not sufficient because there is no forgiveness of sins apart from the shedding of blood. So God sacrificed an animal and made tunics of skin to cover Adam and Eve. That was an act of God's grace. He could have deservedly struck them down right there. They died in a sense, they died spiritually, they were separated from God, but you see, the fall of man did not catch God by surprise. God did not have a plan B waiting in the wings when Adam fell or because Adam fell. There is no plan B. There is only plan G, God's plan. That's it. And God's plan in the beginning was to send his son to be the Savior, to bring us into full and complete relation to the Father. It was never meant to be the first Adam. It was always going to be the second man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ. God always planned to open another door besides the law of Moses through which man would experience salvation. And that is the gift of God. In verse one, we see Luke tells us that certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren teaching them, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Acts chapter 15 is not the only record of this incident or this event. Paul recounts this in his letter to the Galatians. Paul recounts a lot of his early activity to the church at Galatia. It is not certain that Paul and Galatians 2, verse four, is referring to these events recorded at Acts chapter 15. I actually believe he is not referring to Acts chapter 15 in Luke and Galatians chapter two, verse four. But he makes an interesting statement in Galatians chapter two, verse four. And even if he's not referring to this specific incident, he is pointing to a similar problem and it's worth pointing out how Paul describes those who came in to attempt to put the Gentile believers under bondage to the law. In Galatians chapter two, verse four, Paul refers to such men as false brethren who come in by stealth to spy out our liberty. He describes them as sneaking into the church for the express purpose of bringing non-Jews into the bondage of the law. And the false message of these false brethren was unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. These false brethren taught the believers to question their salvation, not because they could not be saved but because of how they were saved. Oh, you think you're saved simply by believing in Jesus and trusting in God's grace. No, that's not good enough. You have to be circumcised and you have to keep the law of Moses. That's what these brethren were coming in to these Gentile churches and teaching these Gentiles. It was not the gospel. It wasn't just another gospel. It wasn't gospel at all. It wasn't good news at all. Going under the bondage of the law is not good news. Jesus came to deliver us from the bondage of sin and what the law did was reveal our sinfulness. The law is called the ministry of condemnation and death, not because the law is bad. The law is good. The problem is not the law is bad. The problem is we're bad. The law is good. We're bad. The law is perfect. We're not perfect. The law reveals the character and nature of a holy and perfect God. And when we look into the mirror of the law, it reveals how unholy and how imperfect we are. Therefore, the law was given to us to condemn us so that we in our condemnation would realize that we cannot save ourselves. We can't work as hard as we might try. We cannot work our way to heaven. We cannot work our way to salvation. So what do we do? What hope do we have? Well, we trust in Jesus. We look to Jesus who kept the law perfectly, who fulfilled the law perfectly. And we trust in Him not only as our law giver, but our law keeper and our savior. That's why God gave the law. Not as a means for us to be saved, but our tutor, our schoolmaster, who would bring us to Christ and hand us off to the one who does save us. Well, these teachers were coming in, and that's not what they were teaching. They were teaching works, salvation by works. They were teaching salvation by the works of the flesh. Verse two, therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. So when Luke writes that Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, he is communicating that this was an extremely contentious situation. This was not a friendly or even an unfriendly debate. It was not a debate at all, but a very sharp and a very heated dispute that was not going to be resolved by debate or discussion amongst the brethren there at Antioch. These legalists of the party of the Pharisees had come down from Jerusalem to Antioch because they had heard what Paul and Barnabas accomplished among the Gentiles as a result of their missionary journey. We don't know how they came to know. Mark, John Mark left Paul and Barnabas at Perga. We're not told why they left, but it was obviously contentious because Paul refused to take John Mark with him on the second missionary journey. And it was so contentious that Paul and Barnabas split and Barnabas took John Mark, his relation, they were related by blood. He took him to Cyprus and Paul and Silas then went and revisited all the churches in what is now Southern Turkey. So did they hear from John Mark? What Paul was preaching and teaching? We don't know. Luke doesn't tell us, so it's not important for us. But somehow the Pharisees who believed heard what had happened among the Gentiles, they also knew that Paul and Barnabas were making Antioch their sinner. So this is where they were working out of, meaning they were working among the Gentiles there at Antioch as well. And so that Antioch had become the center for Gentile discipleship and missions. And Paul and Barnabas having spent more than a year on the mission field and now discipling daily the believers in Antioch, these legalists were coming in trying to teach salvation by works and Paul was not going to have it. He was not going to allow these legalists to come in and undo all the work that they had worked so hard to accomplish. Remember Paul was left for dead at Listera. They literally drug his, what they thought, his dead body through the town and left him outside the gate, left him for dead, Luke writes and Paul rises up and he goes back into the very city where they had just tried to kill him. And now Paul is back, he's back in Antioch and he's teaching, he's discipling the Gentiles, they've established churches appointed elders and now these Pharisees come from Jerusalem trying to undo all that Paul has done. Paul was firm in his belief, his belief in the gospel of grace. He had consistently encouraged both Jew and Greek to continue in the grace of God. These legalists were seeking to undermine that gospel message by attempting to put men back under the bondage of the law and this opposed in every way the gospel of God's grace. As a result of this sharp and heated dispute, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. Thus the very first church council was convened in Jerusalem to deal with the question of how the Gentiles must be saved, whether through adherence to the law or by God's grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ. Verse three, so being sent on their way to the church, they pass through Phoenicia and Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles and they caused great joy to all brethren. Now, if you know your geography and I realize many people today don't know their geography, but if you can picture Israel in your mind, North of Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, up beyond what is present day Lebanon was the city of Antioch, very close to the coast. Not directly on the coast, but very close. So when Paul and Barnabas leave, they literally come down the coast. What is today called Lebanon, the country of Lebanon was then called Phoenicia. And then below Phoenicia or modern day Lebanon was the region called Samaria. Samaria, Phoenicia was largely inhabited by Gentiles. Samaria was largely inhabited by the Samaritans, which were not, which the Jews did not associate with. And so the gospel has come and now the gospel has gone just as Jesus instructed in his great commission from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Well, the gospels already been preached to the Samaritans out of Jerusalem into Samaria, all Judea and it has now gone to the ends of the earth. And it's still traveling and it's gonna travel even farther. But as Paul and Barnabas are coming, making their way to Jerusalem, they go through by necessity, Phoenicia and Samaria. There's an interesting omission in Luke's record here. He omits the region of Judea. They would have also passed through Judea to get to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was in the midst of Judea. But Luke does not mention Judea here. They're going through Phoenicia and Samaria testifying in detail concerning the conversion of the Gentiles. They testified to the gospel of grace that brought salvation to so many new Gentiles and that news, Luke writes, caused great joy to all the brethren. The submission of the region of Judea was, there was a reason. The populations, and I said, the populations of Phoenician Samaria would have been largely Gentile populations. Non-Jewish. Paul was testifying about the conversion of Gentiles to other Gentiles. He's on his way to a council that's gonna deal with the subject of how are the Gentiles saved? You notice Paul didn't say, you know what, I better wait before, I better wait before I tell them any more good news about the gospel of grace, because if I get to Jerusalem and they decide that it's not grace, it is keeping the law, then I've told them the wrong thing. You notice Paul didn't do that, because Paul was not in doubt about what the gospel is. The gospel is the gospel of God's grace. Paul was preaching that gospel of grace to Gentiles his whole way to the Jerusalem council, and he was doing it on purpose. The population of Judea would have been largely Jewish. They would in time testify to both Jew and Gentile about all that God did among the Gentiles in that missionary journey, but passing through these Gentile areas, they did not waste any opportunity that God presented to walk through the door of faith open by God to the Gentiles. There was no neglect here to minister to the Jews. Paul was simply seizing every opportunity presented to him to use the power of that testimony among the Gentiles. And this was his God ordained mission, and he would fulfill it to the uttermost. That mission was to take the gospel to the nations. That was wisdom and it resulted in great joy to all the brethren, Jew and Gentile alike. Verse four, when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them. So upon their arrival in Jerusalem, they were received by the church, but the church at large, the brethren received them, the greater community of believers that made up the church in Jerusalem received Paul, and Barnabas, and the men that came with them. And in that reception, they were also received by the apostles and the elders who ruled the church in Jerusalem. And they reported all things that God had done with them. They gave their report to the church in Jerusalem just as they had done in Antioch when they had first returned from their missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas would have conveyed all the same information conveyed when they returned to Antioch. Additionally, they had been working in the city of Antioch, and so they had much to report about all that had God, all that God had done with them. Verse five, some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying, it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. In verse five, we see the reaction of the Pharisees who had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and here Luke tells us that these Pharisees believed. So these Pharisees who had come to believe in Jesus as their Messiah rose up in reaction to the gospel of grace that Paul preached. And even though they believed in Jesus, they still insisted upon adherence to the law and the circumcision in order for the Gentiles to be saved. Yes, you Gentiles can believe in Jesus. Yes, you can become part of the church, but not until you are circumcised or saved. You're not truly saved until you basically become a Jew. So Luke describes these Pharisees as believing as in believing in Jesus Christ, yet they still were adamant about keeping the law, especially now that so many Gentiles were being brought into the church. They obviously feared the laws and the customs of the Jews were in danger of being swallowed up by those who had no regard for their laws or for their customs as a people or a nation much less a religion. And that sense, I think it is understandable this would have been difficult, especially knowing that Jesus was a Jew who honored the law to the letter every job in title, he fulfilled it. Yet they did not yet have the full picture that God was painting for them. God was still painting it. They weren't looking at the picture God was painting. They were looking at the past. They were doing exactly what we very often do in our own lives. And the question was would they get the full picture before all was said and done and in large part, this is what this council was about. From Luke's record of their reaction, we can rightly determine the message that Paul was communicating. It was the gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ. It was the testimony of God's salvation given to Gentiles who had no regard for the law of Moses. And why would they? They were pagans. Well, these believing Pharisees were hearing was that Gentiles in mass had experienced the power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in the same ways that Jews had also experienced it. And the vast numbers of these Gentiles were not Godfhears. They were not proselytes converting to Judaism. They were ranked pagans who had been saved out of their idolatry by God's grace through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And these Gentiles had not been saved through the power of God's law, but by the power of God's grace through faith. This is the same way you and I are saved today. Truly, their faith and salvation was the gift of God freely given to them by his grace. It was not by their works. It was not by keeping the keeping of any law. It was not because they were compelled to be circumcised. It was not because they had heard any custom of the Jews. They heard the gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ and they were spawned in faith and they were saved. At no time did Paul or Barnabas ever indicate as these Pharisees were teaching, that it was necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. It was not necessary then, nor was it necessary at the time of the Jerusalem Council, and it is certainly not necessary now. For we are justified by faith alone, by God's grace. And as we continue in this chapter, we will see that the Jerusalem Council came to the right conclusion. They affirmed we are saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. And faith in Christ, though, listen, church, faith in Christ means love for Christ. And according to Jesus, love for Christ means keeping His commandments. If you love Him, you are charged by Him to keep His commandments, not in order to become saved, but because you have been saved by His grace. In other words, faith and obedience go hand in hand. Faith doesn't mean you can live your life like hell. No faith means you've been delivered from hell, and you have now been given the liberty to live your life in obedience to God, conformed to the life of Christ. That is the gospel message these Gentiles were to live and preach and teach and disciple the nations with. And that's what they did. This is what we see in Paul's first journey that we just finished in Acts 14. They went back and they appointed elders and all the churches so that these Gentiles in turn could continue being discipled and then in turn to go out and make disciples. And history proves to us that's exactly what happened for centuries this region was a stronghold of Christianity. Paul was unwilling to allow these legalists, whether false or true brethren, to come in and browbeat His disciples into submission to the law, establishing the Jerusalem Council was not only wise, it was a strategy that would result in the formalization of a key doctrine of the church concerning the law of Moses and salvation. We still benefit from the work of this Council today as it resolved and formalized that our salvation is by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Not of works. It is the gift of God. So the Jerusalem Council was the needed resolution to this brewing problem that finally came to a head in the church. Patrick Schreiner points out that the narrative of the Jerusalem Council is found in the center of the Book of Acts and it can also be considered a centerpiece in the narrative of the Book of Acts. It can rightly be called a watershed moment and a turning point in the narrative of Acts. No doubt the Jerusalem Council was extremely important, yet it was perhaps more of a resolution than a climax. It was not dealing with new issues, it was dealing with unresolved issues. Everything the Jerusalem Council dealt with, it wasn't new. These were issues that already existed once the Gospel left Jerusalem, went to the Samaritans and then went to the Gentiles, these issues were there. They had been there. Schreiner makes a good point concerning this in his commentary on Acts. The Council is not the central pivot point of Acts nor does it radically break new ground. Schreiner points out three things about the Council that was significant. First, the Jerusalem Council formalized what was previously informal. As more and more Gentiles came into the church, it forced these existing questions to be dealt with in a formal way. The Council put the Antioch Church and the Jerusalem Church on the same page. Informalized the doctrine of the church to bring needed clarity and unity on issues that were otherwise very divisive. We are reaping the benefits of this still today. Second, the Jerusalem Council clarified that Gentiles entered the temple community, the body of Christ on the basis of faith alone. This formalized doctrine was not completely uncontested as Paul's letters reveal. Much of Paul's writings are about this continued controversy where Judaizers would go into the Gentile churches trying to get those Gentiles to submit to the law of Moses. Legalists still hounded the Gentile churches yet the gospel of grace prevailed. The clarifying of this formal position would allow the gospel to spread throughout the world with a unified message. This did not happen without challenge as legalists and heretics were ever present in the church and still are today. The cults still today adhere to a works salvation. It doesn't matter if it's the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witness, you pick any of them. Muslims, it doesn't matter. Any and all of the world's religions are a religion of salvation by works. Save Christianity. Our salvation is by God's grace through the gift of faith that He gives to us. So it was this council that allowed this unified message to spread throughout the world. And third, the Jerusalem Council and its formalized plan for the Gentile churches affirmed the continuity of this plan with the restoration of Israel. Remember, this is what the Jews were looking for when Jesus came and He was the promised Messiah and their only interest in the Messiah was the restoration of Israel, the restoration of the kingdom. And they had formulated this idolatrous idea that their Messiah would be this great military leader who would defeat the Romans and bring the kingdom of Israel to its proper place, ruling what God had properly given them. They missed it altogether. They missed how God actually planned to overthrow the nations and see his kingdom. His kingdom has no end established. And it would begin with the birth, life, and death of that Messiah, Jesus Christ, who God raised up and gave him the kingdom and the authority. There has no end. The people of God, the Gentile churches were now part of the people of God. So that the restoration of Israel and the redefinition of Israel was accomplished, not the end of Israel, but the redefinition. The people of God are now grounded in messianic faith. They are not grounded in genealogical origin or ritual observance. They're grounded in their faith in the Messiah. Gentile inclusion flows from the rebuilt tabernacle of David that now houses one new man created from the two. Both Jew and Gentile, the two have now become one in Christ. We'll talk more about that next week. The gospel of grace is the gospel of salvation. We cannot work our way into God saving grace. We can only receive it for what it is, the gift of God. May you not only be a recipient of that gift, but may you be a messenger proclaiming his gift of salvation to everyone who will believe in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I'm in. Here's your church church. I began this message by talking about change and change is where I want to challenge you to charge you. If we think about all the change, the Jews of Paul's day were going through, it's really not difficult to identify with them. Consider that for thousands of years, they were the guardians of the oracles of God. Now it seemed those oracles, those laws and customs of their nation, of their God, the very things they spilt blood protecting. Yes, they spilt the blood of the prophets and yes, they spilt the blood of the Messiah in the name of protecting it. They spilt that blood, protecting those oracles that were being disregarded or abandoned. That was their thought. They saw change. They saw things changing. They could see the handwriting on the wall and they understood that as the church, if God's word is true and it is, and if the church and the gospel fills the earth, and the law of Moses and the things that they held near and dear were not part of those things filling the earth, they didn't like that prospect of change. But it was because they did not understand God's plan not just in that moment, but from the very beginning. So we can see how they might have perceived things the way they did. Change is hard, but necessary. Change was absolutely necessary in this case, as it is often the case in our own lives. These Jews could only see what they perceived was being taken from them instead of what God was giving. Sometimes you only see the change and you can't see what God is bringing in its place or that the change was always God's plan. Just not yet time. Before it was not time, but now it is the time for change to come. The Gentiles were always going to be brought in. The middle wall of separation was always going to fall so that Christ could create in himself one new man from the two and we are the benefactors of that today. This is the work of salvation and reconciliation in the cross and it brings great change. Remember we serve an unchanging God who is always changing us. The gospel brings change and you must embrace that change no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Pray that God will change you. Pray that God will change you. Pray that God will change all of us for his glory and amen. Let us sing our thanks to God. Praise God from the new old blessings glow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly homes. Praise the brothers, son and holy homes. Amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. The Lord be with you.

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