Witness Pt. 27

My name is Jesse.

I'm blessed to be the lead pastor here at Mud Creek Baptist Church, which means that I preach, and it is time for us to hear preaching now.

The Bible says in the book of Titus, chapter number one, that God manifests his word through preaching.

The Apostle Paul says that it is through the foolishness of preaching that God has determined to save those that believe.

Preaching is the central act of Christian worship.

And yet, there is something about preaching that while it is necessary for a human being to do, it's not possible for a human being to do.

We rely completely on the Holy Spirit because everything will be vain unless the Spirit of God helps us.

And I have preached a lot in my life, I guess.

I preach a lot here.

But I felt this weekend in an unusual, almost an unsettling way, that God has something life-changing to say to some of you that is simply beyond my ability to say.

He can speak to the part of your heart where I can't.

And so I come before you today recognizing my own weakness and feeling the overwhelming burden just to go to the Lord in prayer for just a moment.

Would you pray with me today?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege of meeting together.

God, I thank you for the privilege of being together with this congregation here at Mud Creek.

I thank you for each person that is here.

Lord, this is first Sunday for some.

Maybe last Sunday.

Lord, for many, this has been their church home for decades.

And we thank you for each person.

And then God for every person in between, knowing, Lord, that no person is here by accident.

Whether you order our steps, that we are here for a purpose.

Father, I have to believe that part of that purpose is that we would understand the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, I'm going to do my very, very best to articulate that message this morning, and yet, God, I know that the work of saving, the work of faith, the work of repentance, that's your work.

God, it's not up to me.

It's not even up to my hearers today.

It's up to you.

So, Father, I ask right now in this moment that you would speak to that part of the heart that I cannot address.

That something beyond mere preaching would occur now.

And that the gospel would be declared by the Spirit to sinners for the sake of Jesus who died and is alive and for your glory.

I believe that honors you, and I believe you're going to hear an answer in your time and in your way.

And so, Lord, the very, very best I can, Lord, I give you my words, I give you my heart, I give you my motives, which are always mixed, I give you my intellect, which is spotty at best, I give you my gifts, which are from you.

Say, Lord, it's yours.

Use it for the sake of Jesus, and we will thank you for doing that.

In his name we pray.

Amen.

If you have a Bible this morning, I want to invite you to turn with me to the book of Acts.

Acts chapter number 15.

And we're going to begin our reading in verse number one.

Acts chapter 15 and verse number one.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

If you do not have a Bible with you this morning, I would invite you to look in the back of the pew in front of you.

And there should be a white pew Bible.

You can take that.

In fact, you can take it home with you.

It would be our gift to you.

And you can find our text today on page 981.

I would love for you to read along and follow along as we work through this great story together.

So, Acts chapter 15, page 981 in the Pew Bible in front of you.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

While you're finding your place, I want to ask you a very personal and I hope not overly intrusive question.

Have you ever been wrong?

I was wrong once and I found out I didn't care for it, and I try not to be.

No, the truth is, I'm wrong all the time.

I thank you for not saying amen.

I'm wrong all the time.

Just like you are.

We have bad information, we make mistakes, we just get things wrong.

Most of the time, when we're wrong, it really doesn't matter, right?

Sometimes it may bother us in the moment, but there are really no long-lasting consequences.

Earlier this week, I was coming back home from a preaching engagement in Burke County, came into Rutherford County, and I took a wrong turn.

But Siri recorrected us.

We lost a minute.

I was wrong, but it didn't matter.

Sometimes we're wrong and it matters for a while.

Some of you are employers, managers, supervisors, and it's your responsibility to hire workers.

And you've hired the wrong people before.

They seem great on paper.

And then when you got them in the office, God was using them to build patience in you.

You got it wrong.

Or maybe you've made some bad investments.

You knew that this thing was a sure thing and you put some money towards it, and it was wrong.

Maybe you found out the hard way that there wasn't actually a Nigerian prince that needed your credit card numbers.

We get it wrong.

But even in those important ways, usually we know that things work out.

Life goes on.

And yet there are times in life where if we're wrong, it can be a matter of life and death.

If you wake up in the morning, this happened to somebody connected to our church just this past week.

If you wake up in the morning and you have pressure and tightness in your chest, difficulty breathing, numbness in your left hand, that could be a pulled muscle.

It could be a weird piece of pizza.

But you'd better be right because you may be having a heart attack.

It's life and death.

You'd better get it right.

In this passage of scripture this morning, the church is talking about an issue that is even bigger than life and death, that is more serious than a heart attack.

You can see it right there in verse number one.

They are talking about how people are saved.

That is, how are people forgiven of their sins?

How are people made right with God?

How are people sure and certain that they will have a home in heaven when this life is over?

How are people saved?

And there are a lot of different answers working through that text.

And some of these people are right and some of them are wrong.

And I would dare say that there are a lot of different answers with us here this morning.

Some of you maybe don't have a really good, solid answer.

You got a good guess.

But are you right?

Or are you wrong?

Many of us have grown up hearing variations on the theme.

Well, this is what it means to actually know God.

This is what it actually means to be a Christian.

This is how you get saved.

And many of us are like the people in this passage, we're just confused.

And we need to labor diligently to get the gospel right.

That's what I want to try and do in our time together today through this text.

So join me in Acts chapter 15 as we talk about getting the gospel right.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

The Bible says in verse 1 that certain men came down from Judea and taught 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.

Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.

And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us, and made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.

Now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.

Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.

And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, Men, brethren, listen to me.

Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.

And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written.

After this, I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down.

I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.

Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all these things.

Known to God from eternity are all his works.

Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who were turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.

For Moses had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.

Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Bar Sabbath, and Silas, leading men among the brethren.

They wrote this letter by them, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren, to the brethren who were of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Zilicia, greetings.

Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, You must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment.

It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you, with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

Farewell.

So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch, and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter.

When they had read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement.

Now Judas and Silas, themselves being prophets also, exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words.

And after they had stayed there for a time, they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles.

However, it seemed good to Silas to remain there.

Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God abides forever.

Sometimes trying to get a handle on everything that's happening in a church can be like juggling a couple of garbage bags fulls of ferrets.

And that's because there are always people in a church that have differences of opinion, differences of background, different points of view, different ideas, even different convictions.

And that's very much happening in Acts chapter number 15.

If you've been with us over the last few months as we've studied the book of Acts, you have seen that the movement following Jesus has grown from just a handful of very, very Jewish people to include Gentiles from all parts of their world.

That is what started off as a Jewish mission, a Jewish ministry with Jewish questions and Jewish answers and a Jewish Messiah and Jewish scriptures is now including very, very different people.

And while for the most part this was celebrated, this was encouraged, this is certainly and clearly the work of the Lord, there are also people that are worried, well, if we just kick the door open to the church, then we're going to get all kinds of strays running in here.

And we need to work really, really hard to make sure that all of these Gentiles understand, even embrace our Jewish traditions, Jewish cultures, and Jewish convictions.

And so the church, trying to figure out what it means to really be a Christian, meets together.

Pastors or elders and apostles, leaders come together so that they can say, for good and for all, this is what it means to be saved.

Now, I doubt today that any of us have any real deep questions about Judaism.

I doubt that any of us have spent any sleepless nights this week worried about whether we need to become circumcised in order to be Christians.

But even without all the cultural baggage and context, I do think you can understand that if the church in Jerusalem meets together and says, you need to be circumcised and you need to become Jewish before you can be a Christian, Mud Creek Baptist Church would look and feel very differently this morning, wouldn't it?

Shalom, y'all.

Mud Creek Baptist Church would probably not exist this morning.

That's why one commentator called this meeting in Jerusalem over this issue an epic-making moment.

Because so much hung on what is said here about how people are saved.

Now, we don't have the same confusion that they were having in Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

But I believe we're still confused.

I believe that many of us are still not clear about what the gospel actually says and about how Jesus actually saves.

I say that because I deal week to week with so many people that are so uncertain about their standing before God, like some of you.

Have been in church almost your whole life.

You know when you were baptized, you know what your parents have told you.

You have been through so many of the elements of cultural Christianity here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, but you're still plagued by doubt on this constant treadmill of religious exhaustion that is wearing you down and wearing you out, and there's never any solid ground beneath your feet.

Why does that happen to people?

Because we're not clear about the gospel.

Why is it that so many people in so many churches are so good at being hypocrites?

I can't be the only one that's noticed this.

I'm sure you picked up on it.

But why is it that we're so good at being one thing around one group of people and something else around a different group of people?

I have to think that somewhere along the way we've gotten the gospel of Jesus wrong.

Why is it that so many Baptists are just so mean?

Have you ever been on the buzz saw of an on the other end of a buzz saw of an angry Baptist?

Yeah, me too, and I've got the scars to prove it.

Why would it be that these people are so mean?

Somewhere along the way, they have confused the gospel.

We need to get the gospel right.

And that's what I want to do for you today.

I want to get the gospel right.

And that happens in this text as Gentiles are being confused by Jewish false teachers who are misrepresenting the claims of Jesus and misrepresenting the witness of the church, and they are waiting to hear, eagerly waiting, what does it actually mean to trust in Christ and to be saved?

And some of you have been waiting eagerly and anticipating for years what does it actually mean to be saved?

How can I actually know that my sins are forgiven?

How can I actually know that I know Jesus?

How can I be sure that I have a home in heaven?

I want to clarify that today the very, very best that I can, just by giving you three principles, and I don't even think we're going to have time for all of them, but three principles from this passage of Scripture.

The first one is this the gospel, which is really easy to explain, is also really even easier to confuse.

The gospel is easy to explain.

Now, I've used that word gospel about 43 times already in the sermon today, but it comes from verse number seven.

As the Jerusalem leaders meet together, Peter begins to recount his experience of preaching to Gentiles, and he says that he had proclaimed the word of the gospel.

The word of the gospel.

And the word that he uses, the word gospel itself, is a word that means good news.

It means a glad announcement.

It is a declaration of something that has happened that should make you happy.

And the message of the Christian gospel is easy to explain.

I can do it in 20 seconds.

Somebody time me.

You ready?

Robin ain't gonna miss, man.

Y'all thinking, I wish you could preach a whole sermon in 20 seconds.

Here you go.

Bad news, you are a sinner and you have failed God.

Worse news, because you are a sinner, you deserve eternal death and separation from God.

Good news, Jesus has taken that death for you, and even better news, he is alive to save all those who believe in him.

That's the Christian gospel.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that the gospel is that Christ died for sinners according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

The gospel is as simple as the one verse of scripture that everybody in North Carolina memorized, whether we had a choice or not, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

And yet that very simple gospel can very quickly be confused, and it was here.

How is it being confused here?

Verse 1 tells us that there were teachers from Judea that were coming to the ethnically diverse church of Antioch that were preaching that something like this.

It is great that y'all have believed in Jesus.

Best decision you'll ever make.

We're so happy for you.

But, in addition to believing in Jesus, if you're really going to be saved, you need to be circumcised and enter into the life of Judaism.

You have to become Jewish before you become Christians.

They would have thought they had scripture for that, they would have thought they had well-reasoned arguments for that, but that argument was you need Jesus plus.

Church, I want you to hear me today.

That when we add anything to the message of the gospel, we take everything away from it.

Because the message of the gospel is, by definition, an announcement of what God has done for us in Christ.

And if we add to that our own effort and our own work and our own goodness and our own morality, then the message of the gospel is no longer good news, it is good advice.

And if it's good advice, it's no longer good news.

I'll explain it to you this way.

And this may be a disaster.

I'm not sure.

And I do not want to be offensive to anybody here.

I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but this was very, very clear to me, and I pray it's as clear to you.

And if it's not, I just pray the Lord will help you to forget it.

Like, you know, I pray that before I preach, right?

Lord, please let them forget any nonsense that I say.

And you take all of that out of my sermons, there's not a whole lot to them.

But you've noticed that everybody's on those impicks now, right?

You've noticed that.

People are literally vanishing before our eyes.

I grew up as a kid just waiting for people to disappear because of the rapture.

Turns out the pharmaceutical companies are going to make people disappear.

And I don't know what the long standing consequences of that.

I hope people don't start glowing in the dark in a few years.

I hope it is everything they say.

That's wonderful.

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a doctor who attends our church, and he was talking to me about Ozimpic, and he Said that Ozimpic and these GLP1 weight loss, whatever, he said that they were, his words exactly, they were the closest thing he had seen to a miracle in his 30-year career.

Now, this sermon is not brought to you by Pfizer, okay?

Don't get the wrong idea.

But just think about this.

A miracle that in an instant with a certain medication, you can be healthier, fitter, more attractive, whatever your goals are, you can lose weight.

That's good news.

But there's another approach.

You could restrict your calories to somewhere between 1,500 to 1,800 a day.

And you could commit to 30 minutes of exercise five days a week.

And you could eliminate processed sugars.

You could stop drinking any calories at all.

And guess what would happen?

You would get fitter, you would get healthier, you would be more attractive, you would lose weight.

One of those options is good news.

The other actually really is good advice.

Some of us have taken a gospel of good news and we've turned it into a diet.

And we have convinced ourselves that somehow our sacrifice, just like the sacrifice of circumcision, that our discipline, just like the discipline of keeping the law, that our effort, that our being good people, that that is actually what pleases God.

Yes, we need Jesus, but we need a little bit more.

And y'all, I know this because I grew up in it.

I've lived in it.

Y'all are my people, Appalachian Americans, y'all are my tribe.

I know how we preach, I know how we live, I know how we believe.

We need Jesus, but we also need to become a Proverbs 31 woman.

We also have to listen to 106.9 everywhere we go, not the preaching because nobody cares, but at least the music.

We've got to give 10% of our income, and then when we have the opportunity to buy goats for the orphans in Hungary, we've got to give them that too.

And we can't cuss people unless they really deserve it.

And we've got to be good Christians, right?

And if we are good Christians, if we do the right things, the way perhaps a very well-intentioned grandmother taught us, or maybe even a well-meaning pastor taught us, if we do the right things, then God will approve and God will bless us, God will save us, and when we die, we will have a home in heaven.

And what's happened to so many of us is we've tried our best and tried our hardest and we've done pretty good, but we have this nagging sense that we haven't done enough.

That we haven't done enough, that maybe our faith isn't strong enough, our repentance wasn't sincere enough, our emotions weren't deep enough, our prayer wasn't worded exactly the same way.

So maybe, just maybe, there's still this offhand chance that I'm not really converted.

The gospel that is easy to explain is easy to confuse.

But here's the second principle from this text.

And that is Jesus is not just another burden.

Jesus is not just another burden.

There's just confusion in the church about how Jesus saves.

And so everybody comes together in verse number six.

Paul and his contingent, Peter's there, James, we'll talk about him later if we have time.

They're all there, and Peter, God bless him.

Peter's gonna say something.

Peter's the kind of guy who he's gonna say something even if he don't have something to say.

And when God makes people like that, he makes them preachers.

Peter was a preacher.

And now he's got a captive audience, and so he says, All right, I'm gonna speak up.

And he begins to recount how some years earlier he had been chosen by God to be the messenger of the gospel to Gentiles.

That happened in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

We talked about it just a few weeks ago.

Peter says, I preached the gospel of Jesus to those Gentiles, and the same Holy Spirit of God that came into us on the day of Pentecost that inhabited us as Jewish believers, the same Spirit of God inhabited Gentiles.

Now understand how profound that is.

Peter is saying that just as in the old covenant, the presence of God lived in a temple, came into a temple.

He said, Now those Gentiles have become a holy place where heaven touches earth.

Everybody hearing that knows that's a game changer.

But then he says this.

Notice it very carefully.

This is what captivates me about this passage.

He says in verse number 10 to the Jewish people, why do you test God by putting a yoke on their neck, which neither our fathers, our Jewish ancestors, nor even we ourselves were able to bear.

In other words, Peter says, guys, we all know what it's like to live under the burden of the law.

We all know what it's like to be crushed under the burden of the law.

We know what it's like to fail to measure up.

We know what it's like to never be good enough.

We know what it's like to sift through the ashes of our life and see nothing but our sinful brokenness.

And Peter says, why in the name of Jesus would we put that burden onto other people?

Now I would say to you today that Peter is touching at the very heart of everything we must believe and at the heart of everything we must preach, and that is that Jesus is not another burden.

No, Jesus has come to remove our burden.

Jesus has come to take the burden from us.

That the fundamental shift that has to happen inside of our hearts that only God can do for us is that we have to recognize Jesus is not asking us to do better for him, but that Jesus has done it all for us.

The law of Moses was continually saying, do and do and do.

And Baptists in North Carolina have for generations been saying do and do and do and perform and work and try.

And yet the gospel breaks through all of that and says, it is done.

Jesus says, I have accomplished it, I have purchased it, I have paid for it, it is done, it is over.

And y'all, that resonates with me, that resonates with me because even though I was not born Jewish, I was born Baptist.

Now I know technically speaking, you can't be born a Baptist.

Ask me why after church, but still, my dad is a Baptist pastor.

So yes, that explains all of my psychological hangups.

I'm a preacher's kid.

And it's all true.

What people think about preacher's kids, it's absolutely true.

But you should feel bad for me, you know why?

Because not only was I a pastor's kid, my kids are preacher's kids and grandkids.

They're awful.

Just prayer and fasting is the only tool in our parental toolbox.

Just God help, please.

So I know church culture in North Carolina.

I've experienced it up close, inside and out, seen it good, bad, and ugly.

And here's what I want you to understand.

I know what it's like to lay in bed at night and fear that I've missed the rapture because maybe when I was four years old and I prayed what we call a sinner's prayer, maybe I didn't get the words just right.

I know what that's like.

I know what it's like to respond to invitations and come to an altar like this one and then to pray and say, Jesus, please come into my heart, and then to leave and feel good for about 10 minutes by the time lunch was over that Sunday.

Still worried and anxious.

I know what it's like to carry shame and guilt that if the people at church found out what I was really engaging in and what I was really looking at and what I was really saying and who I really was, then they would exclude me and despise me and hate me.

I know what it's like to feel like I've tried as hard as I can, but I've got to try just a little bit harder, and then maybe I can find peace.

I know that burden.

I've carried that burden, and I know that so many of you carry that burden nearly every week of my life.

As the pastor of Mud Creek Baptist Church, somebody will engage me in some way, often people in their 50s and 60s and even older that have been in church literally their whole life, and they will say to me, You know, I know I was baptized, I know that I've trusted Jesus, but I still feel like maybe I'm not truly saved.

I still have these doubts, I still have these hangups and these issues.

And if that's true, then that means that there are potentially hundreds of you that are here this morning.

Hundreds of you that are not clear about what the gospel actually says to you, about Jesus' promise to you to remove the burden of your sin, that Christ has died in your place, and Jesus is not expecting you to impress him.

He God is not expecting you to earn anything, but that you can come to him empty-handed, as sinful and as broken as you are, and say, God, I need mercy, and he will provide it.

Years ago, a couple years before we moved back to North Carolina, we found on TV an animated version of John Bunyan's classic allegory of the Christian life, Pilgrim's Progress.

And it was like if it was a Disney movie, but Disney was ran out of a dollar general.

You know what I'm saying?

But the story was incredible.

You may not know the story of Pilgrim's Progress, you may never see the movie, but basically, the pilgrim, before he comes to faith in Christ, he is carrying a literal burden on his back.

The burden of his sin and of his condemnation.

And he's in the in the show or the movie, he's he's literally stooked over, walking under this burden, begging for relief.

He nearly dies several times, and he wants to get out from underneath this burden.

And then I'm laid stretched out on the couch with the kids watching this, and finally he comes to the place where he sees the cross.

And he understands that Jesus has died and rose again, and that the good news is that Jesus is the one who saves.

And he's climbing sort of this hill, and as he looks up to the cross, he stands up and the burden falls off of back and rolls off.

And I'm gonna tell y'all, that night laying on the couch, I've got in the Holy Ghost.

Some of that, you some of you don't know what that means, but that means I was feeling good about Jesus.

And tears started to well up in my eyes, and I told my kids, even though they're probably too young to quite understand it, I said, I want you to know your daddy used to carry a burden just like that.

But when your daddy was 17 years old, your daddy understood what Jesus did for him at the cross, and that burden rolled away.

In church, I want to tell you this evening that when I was 17 years old, I told my testimony to somebody this week, I said, the only way I can explain it is that I moved from darkness to light because God flipped a light switch inside of my soul, and I realized that it is God who loves me even though I have not loved him.

It is Jesus who lived and died for me, even though I have not lived for him, and that if I would call upon him and believe in him, he would take my sin, he would give me his righteousness, he would forgive me and welcome me.

And I want more than anything for some of you to have that same deep realization today that Jesus has done it.

He has done it, he offers salvation, he offers forgiveness, and I would say to you that he invites you to lay down your sin, to lay down your good works, which aren't all that good anyway, to give up on everything but Christ alone and say, Jesus, I'm yours.

And Jesus, you are mine.

I trust in you with the faith that I have, and as I have more, I will continue to trust in you.

I will walk with you and follow you.

Jesus, you are the only hope that I have.

This is how Peter understands the gospel.

And he does that very, very astutely by talking about two very important concepts of the Christian gospel.

In verse number nine and then in verse number 11.

Faith and grace.

Faith and grace.

We are saved through faith alone.

We are saved by grace alone.

We are not saved and cannot be saved by our faith and our works.

We are saved through faith in Jesus alone.

Because we are saved by the grace of God alone.

So what is grace?

Grace, the easiest definition, is God's undeserved favor.

Good things that you don't deserve.

God moving to you in a positive direction that you have not earned.

Grace, by very definition, cannot be deserved.

Or it is no longer grace, but it is our just due.

How can I explain this?

You go to work 40 hours next week, you get a paycheck on Friday, they're not paying you in grace.

They're paying you because you earned it.

And you deserve it.

Even if they're not paying you what you deserve, you at least earn what you got, right?

God does not save us because we are good people.

In fact, scripture goes so far as to say none of us are good people.

Scripture does not save us because we do good things.

The way Scripture teaches the good things that we do are actually tainted with the worst motives, we don't do good things in that sense.

All of our righteousness is as filthy rags.

And even if somehow we could compensate for our bad by doing good, the problem is you're so far behind now you'll never get caught up.

You just can't fix it because everything good that you would do for God you owed him to begin with, you're so far in debt you'll never pay it.

And so God in grace pays the debt in Christ.

And he saves us through faith.

Because faith is not a work, faith is not effort, faith is not the one good thing that you can do that really impresses God.

No, faith is trusting God to do it for you in his grace.

Faith is receiving a gift, faith is trusting the merit of another.

Paul would write about this in Romans chapter 4 in some of the most important words in all the Bible, as he's still dealing with some of the same issues in Acts 15 when he says this to him who does not work but believe on him who justifies the ungodly, to him his faith is counted as righteousness.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

But then he says this Romans chapter 4 and verse 16.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

He says that salvation is of faith that it might be by grace.

Salvation is of faith that it might be by grace.

God does not save the deserving because there are no deserving.

God saves the undeserving.

And he does it when they trust in him to do what they cannot do for themselves.

In order that it would be by grace.

In order that it would be for his glory.

Now there is more to say from Acts chapter 15, but the great thing about church life and pastoral ministry is that we get to do this again next week.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

But I wonder today.

I wonder today.

How many of you need clarity about the gospel?

To be reminded that Jesus does not save because of what you do.

He saves because of what he's done.

He's not another burden.

He's not a diet.

Rather, he takes our burden.

He says, Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

That's his invitation to you.

His invitation is that you would look to him.

Stop trusting in yourself.

And receive everything from him.

I have no hope of heaven.

No.

At all.

Apart from Jesus.

We have nothing to talk about here in Mud Creek apart from Jesus.

I can't even be a good husband apart from Jesus.

After all, he says that I should love my wife after Christ love the church.

I need gospel clarity in my marriage.

Gospel clarity is central to everything we are and everything we want to do.

But I'm so concerned, friend.

So concerned about our epidemic of doubt.

That we are people that are continually looking at ourselves, like the Gentiles probably were here, saying we don't measure up, we don't belong, we're not good enough.

Or looking at ourselves like the Jews were here, saying, we're better, we're chosen, we're more virtuous, and we can look down on these other people.

The problem with both of those things, friends, is that we all look to ourselves.

The gospel calls us to look to Jesus.

And when I look to Jesus, I will not be consumed with self despair.

Nor will I be consumed by self righteousness.

But I look to Christ alone and I find everything in him.