As we continue tonight our study of this book, which we have said could just as well be entitled, The Acts of the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. We come to a most pivotal chapter in this narrative. So I ask you to give your complete attention to the reading of God's holy word from Acts chapter 15. If you're reading along in your pew Bible tonight, you can find this passage on page 923. Context is a previous reference to the church in, in Syria and Antioch in Syria. And some men are going to come down from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is actually lower on the map, but higher in elevation from Antioch. So that's the context of the first verse. Give your attention now to God's holy and life giving word. Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses. The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will." And all the assembly fell silent. And they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, Brothers, listen to me. Simeon, parenthetic note, that is Simon, that's Peter. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from 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 I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it. And the remnant of mankind may see the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old. Therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood. For from ancient generations, Moses has in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter. The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no such instructions. It has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell." So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also." Here ends the reading. of God's Word for this Lord's Day. May he be pleased to bless its preaching. Let's pray together. Our Father, we, as we read this text, we are amazed at how many times, as far as human perception goes, it seemed as though the gospel itself was at stake and about to be lost. How we thank you for your providential preserving of your Word down to this very day. You have preserved for us and for the generations which will yet follow us. And so we pray that you would now anoint the preaching of this preserved word, this word brought to us from the bloody hands of martyrs who died for it. Thank you for your presence with us. Bless us now for Jesus' sake. Amen. I have considered it part of my obligation as a minister of God's word to sometimes briefly, but really look into the depths of human depravity. I watched the Jordanian pilot get burned alive this week. Wasn't sure I should do that. And I don't particularly recommend that video to you. In fact, I beg you not to see it. What's seen, it cannot be unseen. It takes a long time for a man to burn to death. Seeing that horror this week reminded me again of the unspeakable cruelty of man's heart apart from saving grace. in a world in which such evil not only exists but is celebrated by many. But what is worse, in a world where the seeds of such depravity are in all of our hearts, that's not moral equivalence, that's the doctrine of original sin. In a world like that, the Christian faith, which is ultimately the only answer to this, the Christian faith had better have a radical doctrine of grace and redemption indeed. Because evil itself is radical and sin courses through our souls like blood in our veins. Our passage tonight is about the radical nature of God's sovereign and saving grace. Chapter 15 in the book of the Acts has been called the watershed chapter in this whole book. The turning point in early church history. Issues that we've been reading about for months in these earlier chapters are now brought together and concluded in the first great council of the whole church. held in Jerusalem, probably in the year 48, perhaps 49 AD. And by concluding these pastoral and theological matters, it paves the way for the rest of what happens in the Book of Acts and really the rest of the New Testament. A true turning point. Now there are three major issues in this pivotal chapter. The sufficiency of faith, the consideration of weaker brothers, and the authority of church councils. Each in their own way speaks, I think, to the nature of God's radical grace in Christ. Let's take each one, one at a time. First, the radical nature of saving grace which produces a faith alone salvation. You know, there are few doctrines more well established in this congregation But we must remember how truly radical, how truly new this teaching seemed to many in the first century. In fact, as the trickle of Gentile converts becomes a flood of converts, this whole issue went from a debate among the followers of Jesus to something bordering on a full-fledged identity crisis in the young church. If you've been coming to evening worship recently, you've heard about the great inroads that the apostles, the evangelists of the church, were making in the Gentile populations. You've seen preachers like Peter and Paul and Barnabas who came to the conclusion that God was in fact doing a great work among the Gentiles and that no Jewish ceremonial obstacle should be put in the way of their coming to faith and living in the faith. As we say today, in their minds at that time, there would be no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God, be they Samaritan believers or God-fearing believers like Cornelius and his family, or even flat-out full-bore Gentiles like there were in Ephesus. The gospel was for everyone. And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as people repented of their sins was the doorway into salvation. The gospel was for everyone and people did not have to become Jewish first in order to become Christians. Yet, as we see in our reading tonight, there were those back in corporate headquarters in Jerusalem who were becoming very agitated about all of this. Some may have insisted that new believers follow the whole Jewish law. But at a minimum, they would have certainly expected all new converts, male converts, should be circumcised in order to bear the identifying mark of the Mosaic covenant. And all of this comes to a head in the first great council or presbytery meeting or general assembly of the saints, you might want to call it, in Jerusalem. As John Stott says in his excellent commentary on this text, He says, the stakes could not be higher. Was their vision big enough to see the gospel of Christ, not as a reform movement within Judaism, but as good news for the whole world? And the church of Christ, not as a Jewish sect, but as the international family of God. These were the revolutionary questions some were daring to ask. The recent trouble had begun when the unity of the Christian fellowship in the congregation of Syrian Antioch was shattered by the arrival of a self-appointed group from the Jewish heartland in Judea, whom Paul later calls the troublemakers. namely the Judaizers or the circumcision party, as they were also called. These were followers of Jesus who said, as we read in verse 1 here, unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. Before we even broach the subject of salvation through faith alone, sola fide, let me take a moment to respond to a related modern error or sub-Christian teaching. Some otherwise capable scholars, such as N.T. Wright, have claimed that individuals being saved by grace alone through faith alone was not really the concern of the Apostle Paul and the other evangelists of the early church. No, these folks from the new perspective on Paul, as it's called today, say that the Apostle Paul was not concerned about how a person became justified before God, but was only concerned with the question of how someone was included in the visible New Testament church. That is to say that faith alone was just a way of saying that covenant markers, like circumcision, were not required any longer. But I would say that is a false choice. For Paul and for other New Testament evangelists, it was never just a question of how a Gentile is ritually included in the life of the visible church. It was also always a question of how you are included in the kingdom of heaven. In other words, it was about the proper ordering of the church and personal salvation. Here in verse 1, we see that even the Judaizers are well aware that the debate over these matters had to do with whether a person could be saved, not just put on the rolls. And then in Peter's speech, we see the same thing as in verse 9, where we see it involved the cleansing of their hearts by faith. And in verse 11, when Peter says that people are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. Salvation by faith alone has to do with how we come to stand in right relation to God himself. Justification. So as we see in this opening paragraph, apostles and elders were appointed to go to Jerusalem to the first great council of the Christian church. And by the way, that started something. And this summer, ministers and elders, including some from our own session, will go to the PCA General Assembly in Chattanooga to resolve various issues for the whole church. But this first gathering, this crucial first gathering of the larger church was a momentous one indeed. You have to understand in a certain sense these positions had an absolute quality to them as they came together. For Paul and the apostles had said No flesh shall be justified from the works of the law. Whereas the Judaizers said that apart from the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. You see that the entire future of the church and the gospel is at stake in this. For to add anything to the work of Christ and our faith in that completed work, to add anything at all as a condition of redemption is really a very big deal. In fact, Paul makes the case to the Galatians that it destroys the radical nature of grace itself, turns it into a wage instead of a gift, he says. And I mean, the problem with this goes well beyond the practical reality that it's a terrible hindrance to evangelizing the nations if you have to circumcise them first. For instance, Adding conditions to saving grace communicates a lie about the work that Jesus did for us. The lie that it just wasn't quite enough. What a heresy. It's as though as he died, he did not say it is finished, but well, y'all have done my part now and it's up to you to complete the deal and save yourselves. Secondly, it robs God of the full glory due to him. or his full and sufficient and free grace because it includes us sinners in the circle of praise for our own supposed contribution to the attainment of our salvation. And a related concern, number three, and this is often underestimated, I think, in this whole discussion. Thirdly, it destroys a spirit of worship in our hearts toward God. Whenever our justification becomes defined as faith in Christ plus something, you know what happens? The plus something is what we end up thinking about, trusting in, obsessing about, worrying about, and arguing about. I see a parallel in my own personal life in a way. When my daughter brings our dear grandson to our home, Ezra lights up with a smile when he first sees us. He even now leans his little head into us so we'll hug him, right? It's great stuff. But when we reach into that box of toys and pull out the little rubber ball that is his current obsession, it's as though we don't exist anymore. I don't blame him for that, but there it is. Similarly, When our own works or our own piety or our own spirituality enter the picture of our justification before God, that's what we'll think about. And God's sweet, free, amazing, sufficient, and abundant grace to us in the Lord Jesus, indeed our very relationship to the Lord as beloved sons, begins to fade from view. Faith plus something is a rolling disaster. It's why, brothers and sisters, we had a Protestant Reformation, among other reasons. And there's another problem with making ceremonies or good works essential to this. It means that salvation doesn't really bring us to God's own perfect holiness. How could it? When our own imperfectly administered, imperfectly understood, and imperfectly motivated ceremonial observations or moral actions are part of the very basis of our standing before the most holy God. The God who, as we heard this morning, was willing to drown a world because of sin. To put it another way, such an approach, a faith plus something approach to salvation, woefully underestimates our own depravity. and God's transcendent holiness. In other words, it's not radical enough. We need a more radical grace than that. A grace that can truly, finally, and utterly deliver us from all the condemnation of our sins for all time. But also a grace that can begin to deliver us from the very practice of sin in our lives. We need a grace that saves us but also truly begins to change us. And that's exactly what we have in the justifying and sanctifying grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is indeed, praise God, a most radical grace. And you know the word radical is in fashion today. It does not mean a fashion statement made by privileged American teenagers. It does not mean extreme political positions taken by goofy college professors. The word radical comes from the Latin word radix, which means root. It's where the word radish comes from. You know, the fruit is in the root. Radical grace is a grace that reaches down deeply into the core of our lives and changes things. It even begins to uproot sin. That's radical. And Peter tells the Jerusalem council that's just what God's grace does. Look at how he describes what has happened to the Gentiles in verse 9. And God made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. God has made no distinction. This decision has been made by God already. Jew and Gentile, no distinction because God has cleansed their hearts, speaking of the Gentiles, their hearts by faith. So everyone who's being justified is also being sanctified. Their hearts are being cleansed. Our hearts are being cleansed. People, Jew and Gentile, who've been forgiven for Jesus' sake are becoming more like the Lord Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit. In all cases, no exceptions, no one is justified without being sanctified. If you're not being sanctified, then you are not justified. Yet they are distinct, different. Matthew Henry comments, we heard a great comment from Matthew Henry this morning and in our leadership tonight already. Henry comments, we see from the words purifying their hearts by faith that justification by faith and sanctification by the Holy Ghost cannot be separated. and that both are the gift of God. We have great calls to bless God that we have heard this gospel. And I want you to remember that these were Gentiles who were bearing this fruit of real faith, uncircumcised Gentiles, not been keeping any of the ceremonial law, none of the purity laws of Moses, none of the festivals, yet whose hearts had been cleansed by faith. When so-called messianic Christians today tell us that while we can be justified by faith alone, perhaps they'll concede that, but to grow in sanctifying grace as well, then we need to start keeping Jewish dietary laws or keeping Jewish feast days like the Passover or keep a Saturday Sabbath. When they say that, they're going directly against the written word of God. It is a grace error, therefore it is a grave error. These Gentiles had done none of those things, and yet God's free-ranging and deeply penetrating grace, His radical grace, was cleansing their sinful hearts. Peter even indicates in verse 10 that they themselves, that is the folks in the church with a Jewish background and their ancestors too, had not borne the ceremonial law well. For all along, what they had really needed was the thing that that law heralded or pointed to or prefigured, which was the grace of Messiah. And so now, now the sweet unity of the Gentile and the Jew in Christ comes into view in verse 11. But we, that's speaking of the Jews, believe that we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus just as they, that's the Gentiles, will. John Stott, again, says it so well. He says, grace and faith level us all. They may, grace and faith, the way we are saying it tonight and the way the apostles taught it, grace and faith make fraternal fellowship possible. It makes brotherhood in the church possible. Because every person, from the most tutored Jew to the most untutored pagan Gentile, from the PhD in biblical studies to the least taught child in the covenant, all come to salvation the same way, solely by faith in the promise of the undeserved kindness of a forgiving God in Jesus Christ. In both its width and in its penetrating depth, this is the radical grace of God in Christ. And good that it is such, good that it is such, for evil in our world is radical as well. When I told Ron Barnwell about my opening illustration in this sermon several days ago about the merciless burning of that poor Jordanian pilot, He reminded me that Paul himself, who so champions the grace of Christ in these pages of the New Testament, Paul himself once participated in a public murderous act, every bit as cruel in its own way as the burning alive of a man, the stoning, the no doubt slow stoning of Stephen. Yes, God has cleansed our hearts by faith. We are new creatures in Christ. God's saving and sanctifying grace in the gospel is stronger and deeper than all the evil that evil men can imagine. Amen. This is what Peter taught the gathered council of the church. And then after Paul and Barnabas give personal testimonies about this, no less than James rises to speak. And brothers and sisters, I want you to know that was the coup de grace for the Pharisaical party when he rose to speak. Because James, you know, James, the brother of Jesus, old camel knees, as the tradition called him, because he spent so much time on his knees praying. You know how a camel kneels down. That was old camel knees, the tradition says. James, who wrote the most moralistic letter of the New Testament. James, who was becoming the unquestioned leader of the church in Jerusalem. Even this most conservative Jewish man in the church sides with those advocating the radical grace of God in Christ for both Jew and Gentile. And he did so because he said it's biblical. Quoting the prophets Amos and Isaiah here. But then James proposes something perhaps nobody had been expecting. He said that when they communicated to the Gentile church in Antioch, the primarily Gentile church, its freedom from keeping the Mosaic code, they nevertheless should ask these Gentiles to avoid a few things for the sake of their brothers in Christ who had a Jewish background. Now these things were not, either the doing of them or not doing of them, had nothing to do with salvation proper. nor most of them even forbidden to the Gentiles as far as what God expected of them. But for the sake of the troubled consciences of the Jewish Christians who had been raised under the law of Moses, they were to, for charity's sake, avoid a handful of especially scandalizing things. First, was declining to eat meat that had been ceremonially offered to pagan idols before it was sold to the public market. This could actually offend both Jew and Gentile depending on circumstances. Such meat as Paul would later explain to the Corinthians was not actually contaminated spiritually because in fact idols weren't real gods. They are projections of man's own sinful idolatrous heart. So such meat was clean to eat if the person's conscience wasn't troubled by it. But if it was an association in their mind that they had a hard time overcoming yet, then they should not eat it, not incur a guilty conscience. Ever the conscience is protected. Purely in consideration for those in the church who might feel squeamish or guilty about eating such meat, James and then the whole church council says that these Gentile believers should decline to eat that as well. It was a stumbling block issue for a weaker brother who had a scruple about something that God actually permitted. You know, it's so interesting here. The Gentiles are the stronger brothers now. It's these Jewish pharisaical folk who are the weaker brothers. When we speak of weaker brothers, all of us are weak towards sin. The language of the New Testament, especially the writings of Paul, typically refers to a kind of reservation or scruple or wrestling with something God has already declared good and available to people or even commending in some cases. At least for a temporary period until people can mature by being taught the scriptures, one should be careful not to needlessly offend them by just eating the stuff in front of them. They are weak in their discernment. and their confidence in God's goodness and created things or the powerlessness of idols, and they need time to mature. One afternoon, many years ago, when I was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina, I was in the grocery store one afternoon. We had company coming that weekend, and I had purchased a bottle of Merlot wine to put in my cart. as I was going along in the grocery store, and I suddenly came around the corner and I saw at the other end of the store an elderly black gentleman who was the pastor of a local Baptist church. He and I knew each other a little bit, but not much. I was close friends with his son, but when I saw Pastor McMinn, I knew what he would think of this, and we had actually hoped to establish some good relations between our churches and do some mission work together and fellowship together with this congregation. So when I saw him there, I knew immediately what I should do, and I spun my cart around and went back and put that wine back on the shelf. I wasn't ashamed of it. God had not told me I couldn't do that as far as the consumption of it, but I knew, in a sense, Pastor McMinn was a weaker brother, and I should take If it had been a person in our own congregation, we had for years been talking about Christian liberty and the right use of creation gifts. I don't think I would have turned my card around, but Pastor McMinn was in a different category in that moment. Well, eating meat sacrificed to idols was a similar sort of thing in that day. And it's similar to two other restrictions on the freedom of the Gentiles, which we see here. Ultimately, temporary restrictions. The last half of verse 20 says that they were to refrain from eating meat with blood still in it, which was the case for all meat where the animal was strangled when it was slaughtered and not cut and cleaned. Again, this is not, strictly speaking, forbidden by God for believers in the new covenant. I mean, Peter has already seen the great sheep descending with the vision of all kinds of animals and heard the Lord's words, kill and eat. When my father who often brought home exotic things to eat, like pickled pig's feet and liver mush and raw oysters. I mean, everything forbidden by the Mosaic Code. And not only chicken livers, but chicken gizzards. But when one fateful day came and my dad brought home blood pudding, yes, that's pudding made from boiled pig's blood and oats and other stuff. When my dad brought that stuff home for us to eat, he may have offended my mother's sense, well, he offended all of our sensibilities with that. But he didn't offend God. Blood is not bad. We all, I assume, like our ribeye steaks medium rare, don't you? But it was an inflammatory issue. to some Jewish Christians in the early church whose mothers and fathers and rabbis had warned them all their lives about eating meat with blood in it. And their spiritual condition had to be considered. They were, after all, brothers and sisters in Christ. And there was one final thing on this list. They were also to restrain themselves from sexual immorality. Scholars are debated about this. It could refer to sexual relations with people who are cousins or in-laws, things prohibited by the Mosaic Code and Leviticus. I'm not sure. It may simply refer to the rather notorious tendency of Gentiles towards fornication. And if so, then it is of a different order than these other Old Testament purity laws about eating meat. Obviously, sexual purity in and outside of marriage was a basic expectation for all believers from whatever background. So they should avoid this sin out of, first of all, faithfulness to Christ, but also to not further scandalize their Jewish brothers and sisters. But the main focus in all of this was that it was not required that these Gentiles keep the mosaic ceremonies or purity laws, but yet they must treat one another compassionately with consideration to build up the body of Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female, but all are one in our common Lord. That is the sum of what the church council says when it sends its written message and its living messengers sending Judas called Barsabbas and Silas to go with Paul and Barnabas up to Antioch or down to Antioch geographically, height-wise. So again, it is the same radical grace which has freed everyone to a faith alone salvation. and yet which has also called people to lay aside their rights in the gospel at times for the sake of others. It is this same radical grace that the first church council so strongly affirmed. You know, I almost, speaking of church council, I almost entitled my sermon, why we are not an independent congregation. Because strictly speaking, there is no such thing. The scripture guides us, you know, not only by explicit command, but also by good and necessary example. And Acts 15 shows us how we need each other in the church in covenanted, mutually accountable, authoritative relationships. Church councils, session, presbytery, general assemblies. As we close tonight, I want you to know three quick things about the council of the early church. Number one, they made their decision according to the guidance of holy scripture. See what James said. Number two, when a church council, be it a session or a presbytery or general assembly makes a decision according to scripture, according to scripture, It is right and good to say that it is the will of God for the people. See verse 28 where their pastoral letter says, for it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. Number three. Note that the decision made by the council was unanimous for it says in verse 25 that they were all all of one accord. Even even those former Pharisees in the church now saw the wisdom of this bold and yet compassionate decision. The church was now united. The breach had been healed and the kingdom would now expand exponentially. And the immediate result, as we read about in the final paragraph of our passage, was a new rejoicing in the church. And as the ministry continued there, a new encouragement, a new strengthening in the church. Radical grace in their doctrine, radical grace in their care for one another and radical grace in their leadership meetings had produced what it always produces, intense happiness. and profound spiritual strength, the true fruit of saving grace. My final pastoral application, therefore, in all of this for all of you is simple enough, but it's quite important. In fact, it is urgently important. Rejoice. Be encouraged. and rejoice, members of Sovereign Grace Presbyterian Church. And in that rejoicing and encouragement, be you thereby strengthened. For God's sovereign grace permeates our doctrine, is reflected in our mutual care for each other, and is the great passion of our elders. So rejoice. Again, I say, rejoice. For these are all the acts of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Our risen Lord, you are indeed active, active on our behalf. We thank you for the salvation you have won for us. Salvation that is by your grace alone and appropriated not through works or merit or meritorious observances or behaviors or any such thing. but through faith alone, the sweet gift of faith. Lord, we thank you that you call us to compromise our practices but not our principles for weaker brothers and sisters when the time is right for that. We pray we would continue to do that, O God, in wise ways, We also pray for any who are weaker brothers or sisters, that they might not be weaker any longer, but strengthened by the promises and assurances of your word. We thank you for our elders at this church, oh Lord. Like these apostles and elders of the early church, they reasoned together in the light of your word. And they have come to truly love the free offer of the gospel, and the grace of our Lord Jesus. Thank you for this radical grace, which cleanses our hearts and is far more radical than all the evil man can devise. In Christ's name we pray together. Amen.