Clarifying the Gospel (Part 1)

This time any children present who would like to g join our children's church downstairs can make your way out right now.

Okay.

If you're just joining us, we've been in a pretty long sermon series in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament on Sunday mornings.

And uh there is an outline if you'd like to follow along this morning.

Our ushers have one.

If you didn't get one, just let them know.

I'm in a good mood this morning.

I don't know if you watched the Bears game last night, but wow.

Amazing.

Took me a while to get to sleep.

So words are very important.

Sometimes, you know, newspapers and other print publications make a mistake in their print.

Um sometimes in the next issue they'll actually print a correction.

Uh I collected some of these corrections, uh, and here's here's some of them that I found.

They're kind of funny.

Uh I'm gonna go all the way back to 1915 for this one because it's so good.

Uh a newspaper editor back in 1915 wrote this apology.

I originally wrote that President Woodrow Wilson's wife grazed sheep on the front lawn of the White House.

I'm sorry that I, in the typesetting, I inadvertently left out the word sheep.

Gotta think about a minute.

President Woodrow Wilson's wife grazed on the front lawn.

Okay.

Do I have to interpret every one of these?

Another one, important notice.

If you are one of the hundreds of parachuting enthusiasts who bought our easy skydiving book, please make the following correction.

On page eight, this is true, on page eight, line seven, the word state zip code should have read pull ripcord.

Okay.

Okay.

And here's another one.

It was incorrectly reported last Friday that today is T-shirt appreciation day.

In fact, it should have been reported that today is teacher appreciation day.

And finally, in the edition of the magazine's food section, an inaccurate number was given for Jeanette Crowley's Southwestern chicken salad recipe.

The recipe should call for two, not 21 jalapeno peppers.

Words are important, especially to understand the truth.

This is especially the case when it comes to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Greek word gospel, many of you know in the New Testament, UM Belian means good news.

If I asked you to explain the gospel of Jesus in its simplest terms, what would you say?

What is the gospel's good news?

What is the gospel trying to announce?

The early church struggled to clarify the gospel, and that struggle actually continues to this day.

That's why the book of Acts is so helpful, because Luke records for us the church's first struggle to clarify the gospel, which we'll begin looking at today in Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

If you brought a Bible and you want to follow along, go ahead and turn there.

I'll read the first part of it.

Acts chapter 15, beginning of verse 1.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

And some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, you know what?

Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.

Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren.

Now, when they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses.

The apostles and elders came together to look into this matter.

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.

And God, who knows the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us.

And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

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?

But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are.

All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

I'm going to stop there.

Acts chapter 15 isn't preached that much.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

One reason is that it's a long, long theological debate.

For many modern people, theological debate is, well, boring.

Who cares?

But the debate we see in Acts chapter 15 is extremely important because it teaches us some of the very important things about the gospel, which is at the very heart of the essential message of Christianity.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

Because of the length of this chapter and the details, and I'm going to take a couple weeks to cover it.

Starting this week, we'll cover two important things today in this debate uh the importance of the gospel's accuracy, and second, the debate over the gospel's freedom.

First, uh, this conference was called to clarify the gospel's accuracy.

The first thing we see in this passage is that Paul and Barnabas are leaving a very successful ministry to the Gentiles as they're coming down from Syrian.

They were up here, I'll talk about in a minute.

They came down to the church that they planned in Syrian Antioch.

They're here and uh relating all the wonderful stories of conversions of the Gentiles.

So they're gonna go, they're gonna leave a successful ministry up here, and they're gonna go all the way down to Jerusalem to settle this.

300 miles, several week trip.

They left to go to in this theological debate.

Why?

Why didn't they just say, we're too busy, things are going great here.

Why would we want to go to Jerusalem?

Who wants to have a dispute about doctrine and dogma?

You know why they left?

Because the accuracy of the gospel is that important.

What is it?

And beginning here with the truth of the gospel in Acts 15, and throughout Christian history, especially early on, they're settling these kinds of theological debates right away.

Um, in fact, the most important theological debates were settled at the church councils like this, convened by the church leaders in Jerusalem in 48 A.D.

After the Jerusalem Council, they continued to have disputes, debates over some theological issues, important theological issues, like the nature of Jesus Christ.

Nicaea, the council in Nicaea, uh hundreds of elders, church leaders met because there was teaching out there.

It was saying, you know what, Jesus is just a man, he's not God.

We need to get together and talk about this right now.

So some were teaching that Jesus is only human, and the council determined several hundred church leaders at in 325 A.D.

that Jesus, uh, it was heretical to say that Jesus Christ was both divine and human.

Um and they they basically put together the result in what we call the Nicene Creed.

The second church council was held in Constantinople in 381 A.D.

Uh here we have another teaching uh that was settled.

They affirmed Nicaea and they confirmed belief in the Trinity, which is also an extremely important doctrine.

And the third council met in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.

And this one was really important.

It settled, clarified for all time that Jesus had two natures in one person, affirming the Nicene Creed again.

Eventually, eventually it all boiled down to what is today called the Apostles' Creed.

Um, the councils debated, uh connected together, and agreed.

And the thing they agreed on, they crafted a creed that believers could affirm to evidence their faith in the truth of the gospel and of Jesus and so on.

Eventually it came down to uh second century, the the uh uh the apostles' creed printed on the back of your outline, and it's on the screen behind me.

Uh, I'd like us to stand together and affirm these points of truth before we go on.

This was hammered out, debated, and a lot, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over these things.

So join me.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

On the third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

From there he shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

That has lasted since 200 AD, or that era.

The Apostle Creed was adapted as a as a confession of new Christians who wanted to be baptized.

Do you believe this?

The Apostles, by the way, didn't write it.

This was a complicated compilation of the apostles' teaching over time and through the through other church meetings and councils.

It's a summary of the doctrine.

It is hard to understand creeds, doctrines, dogma, uh, things like this in our very individualistic Western culture, uh, where the the vast majority of people think truth is is how I feel about things.

You have your truth?

I've had people say this to me.

You have your truth, I have my truth.

Well, that's illogical and unbiblical.

When people in our culture hear that the Bible and Christianity talks about absolute truth, I don't like to hear that.

Uh but truth isn't relative.

Two plus two equals four on this planet.

It's an objective fact that can't be both true and false.

It's either true or it's not.

Either Jesus died on the cross and rose again, or he didn't.

Either eternal salvation is a gift of grace through faith, or it's earned by how good we live.

It can't be both.

Truth is something we have to submit to.

It isn't a it doesn't care about how you feel about it, just whether or not you believe it.

He's given his life and mission to tell the people the truth about the gospel, about Jesus.

Uh, I would argue that there's probably no doctrine more important to get right than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's where it all begins for every one of us.

Uh, that's why Paul and Barnabas left a thriving ministry to travel hundreds of miles to come to Jerusalem and debate and settle the doctrine of the gospel.

Its accuracy is extremely important.

In the early church, the apostle Paul clarified the historical content of the gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15, which you're probably familiar with.

I want to go there.

Uh, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 8.

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth and says, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received, and which you also stand, by which you are also saved, if you hold fast the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scripture, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, that he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as the one untimely born, he appeared to me also.

The content and message of the gospel is that Jesus is the Christ who died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and seen alive by eyewitnesses.

The theological debate in Jerusalem isn't arguing about that.

This debate was over what does a person need to do in order to be saved, based on that truth, to be a true Christian.

Well, that's what we want to go next.

Take a look at the debate over the gospel's freedom.

It all started when Paul and Barnabas returned from their ministry in Lystra, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, and they're they're coming back to the Syrian Antioch Church.

Okay, they're up here, they've preached the gospel.

This is a Gentile territory.

There are synagogues and Jews there, but predominantly it's a Gentile territory.

They're seeing uh numbers come to faith in Jesus.

They're seeing people receive the Holy Spirit.

And so they come down here, they're so excited.

They come back to the church that sent them in Syrian Antioch, right here.

And uh and some Jews come up from Judea, say, wait a second.

Wait a second.

Um the Jews came down and heard that the Gentiles responded to the gospel.

They came down from Judea now to teach those Gentile believers, hey, wait a second, that's not it.

You have to be circumcised according to the law of Moses to be a true Christian.

This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp debate with them.

And uh they're gonna come down now.

That's the reason for the convening this council.

Um they realized, Paul and Barnabas realized they saw it with their own eyes.

Gentile believers believed and God gave them his Holy Spirit.

Nothing else.

Receiving the Holy Spirit, you see, was a sign that God accepted them on the basis of faith in Jesus, apart from the law.

They got it.

Paul and Barnabas.

Peter also came to the conclusion, same conclusion that we see in Acts 15, 7 to 11.

After there had been much debate in Jerusalem, Peter stood up and said to them, Brethren, you know, the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.

And God, who knows the heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

Now, therefore, why do you put God to touch by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

But we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are.

Here, the issue in the context of this is most all the early Christians beginning in Acts were Jews, Jewish.

It began in Jerusalem, Pentecost.

They're Jews who had been raised to follow the Mosaic Levitical law, which says all males must be circumcised.

They also had to follow all the ritual clean laws.

If you were a good Jew, you weren't allowed to eat certain things.

There are things you could do and couldn't do, things you could touch, things you couldn't touch.

If you were a good, faithful, devout Jew.

All the early Christians followed the Mosaic law.

They were all Jews.

But when the Gentiles started coming to faith, the Greeks and Romans, they didn't adopt the Levitical laws.

And so we got a tension, a cultural tension, which we'll we'll get into next, between Jews and Gentiles.

This is the reason for the whole debate.

The debate is important because what was at stake were two kinds of freedom.

They're not identical, but they overlap: spiritual freedom and cultural freedom.

The gospel gives us both.

First, the doctrine of the gospel gives us cultural freedom.

What do I mean?

Paul and Barnabas, Peter are saying, you don't have to become a Jew to be a Christian.

You were saved the same way, and you don't have to become change your culture and become a Jew like us.

God gave the Jews, of course, the Levitical law to keep them culturally separate, to preserve the truth and promises of God's Messiah.

It was very critical in Israel's history that Jews not intermarry with other peoples and cultures and take up the gods and practices of the nations.

If they did, the truth of God's revelation could have been distorted.

The promise of coming Messiah also distorted and lost even.

The apostles are arguing that the Levitical law should no longer be required of believers.

Why?

Why are the apostles saying this?

Because the thing to which the Levitical laws were pointing to has come, Jesus.

Okay.

Christ is the, Paul even says this in Romans, Paul, uh, Christ is the end of the law to those who believe in him.

Now, believers are not only Jews, but they're from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.

You become a Christian where you are in the culture where God meets you.

Africa, Rome, Greece, Elmhurst.

So cultural freedom.

You don't have to become a Jew to be a Christian.

Second, the doctrine of the gospel also gives us spiritual freedom.

What makes the Christianity unique and the gospel inviting is because all other religions are basically giving you advice.

Here's what you need to do to go to heaven and achieve paradise.

Here's what you need to do to connect with God and be saved.

But the gospel is not just advice, it's an announcement.

Everything's all been done.

All you have to do is believe in Jesus.

The gospel of the good news is proclaimed.

We're proclaiming what Jesus has done for us, not what we need to do to get to heaven or to have a relationship with God.

The good news of the gospel is not something you achieve, it's something you receive, is what the gospels are telling us.

Grace, it's a free gift when you believe in Jesus, the giver of eternal life.

You don't get it by complying with a bunch of rules, or by joining a certain community, or by working real hard to be good.

All other religions actually might be inspiring at the start.

But in the end, they're just going to put a bunch of burdens on you.

For Jews, following the Levitical law and Jewish customs, it was a burden.

Jesus even refers to it as such in Matthew 23 and Luke 11.

The issue in the debate in Acts 15 is do we put this burden of being a good Jew on the Gentiles?

In addition to their faith in Jesus.

Their answer was no, we do not.

That is not the gospel.

Paul preached this in his sermon in Acts chapter 13, his first sermon.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Here's what he said in Acts 13, 39.

And through him, Jesus, everyone who believes, is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses.

Peter said in Acts 15, the gospel saves you by grace through faith in Jesus.

We read it.

Peter says, but we believe we are saved through grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the same way as they are also.

The minute you believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah, who gives you eternal life, the burdens come off.

You don't have to prove yourself worthy.

Jesus, in Jesus, he is all the worthy you need to be saved.

The gospel takes away the burden, burdens of our past.

The guilt, the regret of our past sins and failures.

Takes it away.

Free.

Freedom.

It's done.

That's what the apostles are trying to say.

Don't add all this stuff.

The gospel says we are loved by God, saved by grace, because of what Jesus has done for us, not because of the things we perform.

The gospel takes all those burdens off.

Spiritual freedom.

The Jewish Christians who came down to Antioch were saying to the Gentiles, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gospel's great.

Jesus loves you.

He died and rose again.

See, they're confirming this.

Yeah, this is great.

But now you know what?

You need to also do this if you're really saved.

If you're really a Christian.

Some Christians are still putting burdens on believers today, especially those who teach what is called termed a lordship, lordship salvation, says you really are not a Christian unless if you're doing this, or unless you do this.

Whenever you add to the gospel, whenever you say to be a Christian, I must have Jesus plus this, that's not the gospel.

Whatever that plus is, your moral perfection, your success in life, your promise to never mess up, your efforts to prove yourself worthy, that is not the gospel.

You lose your freedom when you do that.

With that thinking, you slip back into self-righteousness and even legalism with that thinking.

And this has always been an issue in Christianity.

The church often loses its way when it teaches believers that we're not justified by grace alone, but we're saved by being continue to be sanctified, making being made holy.

No, sanctification begins in our life automatically when we become a Christian.

That's a process that will continue, becoming more holy, more like Christ until Christ comes back.

We're justified by faith, saved by faith.

What about you?

Are you certain and secure in your relationship with Christ that you will receive and inherit the promise of eternal life going forward?

Or are you still consumed with guilt and regret trying to make yourself worthy to be acceptable to God?

That's a good, noble thing, but it has nothing to do with your salvation.

Except that you should be becoming more like Jesus.

Jesus has paid it all.

It's not my righteousness that saves me, but his.

Very important to get the gospel right.

The accuracy is so important.

Your freedom is at stake.

Your security in your salvation is at stake.

Your assurance of your salvation is at stake.

All right, I'm out of time.

I'm going to continue this next time.

Okay.

It's imperative we get this, the doctrine of the gospel right.

The apostles knew this when they started, when they started uh hearing what the converted Jews were saying to Gentile believers.

They they we've got to get this right.

What does a person need to do to be saved?

Eternally, to receive salvation, to inherit eternal life, to be in heaven forever.

What?

They answer it.

We'll look at it.

It was so important to get it right that Paul and Barnabas left a very successful ministry hundreds of miles away to make sure their input was heard at this council.

And their input involves they saw what God was doing to non-Christian Gentiles, and they didn't have to get circumcised for God to love them and accept them.

Words are important.

And that led the apostles to conclude the Levitical laws pointed to and were fulfilled by Jesus.

And that the gospel was good news, that salvation is a gift of grace through faith in Him.

And it frees everyone who believes in Him from the requirement to become a Jew, from the uh awful past of guilt and sin, frees them from their future worry and from their own efforts to try to justify themselves.

You're free.

The Jerusalem Council made it clear that eternal salvation was by grace through faith in Christ alone, which Paul repeatedly spelled out in his writings.

And I'll give you one, Romans chapter 6, 22, 23.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

We'll end there.

But now Paul says, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you're not sure whether you have received salvation in Jesus right now, you can do that.

As I close in prayer, you close in prayer in your heart and just call on Jesus to be your Savior and receive him, just like the early Gentiles and Jews did.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for Jesus who paid the debt we owe for our sin, so that we may receive his righteousness to stand before you free, clean, and blameless, on our way to be with you forever.

As you continue the good work you started in us, help us to be faithful to your purpose for us in becoming just like him.

Help us not to retreat into a works based gospel, which is so easy to do, but to rejoice in your complete acceptance of us in Jesus Christ.

I pray this in his name.

Amen.