I encourage you now to open your Bibles to Acts 15. Acts 15. We're going to be starting in a moment in verse 22 and looking through verse 35. Acts 15, 22 to 35. A reminder that this is a a pivotal text in the New Testament and New Testament history. It deals with what is known as the Jerusalem Council, a gathering of the apostles and the elders and the leaders of the church together to wrestle with the issue of how it is that Gentiles were to be brought into the church. And we saw last time, and we'll review that in a moment, but we saw last time how there was a word given, some decisions made about what didn't need to happen, what the Gentiles did not need to do. And today, this morning, we're gonna take a look at how the text goes on and does give some positive instruction. Here's what you ought to do. Here's how you ought to behave as you become part of the church. And so we're going to be taking a look at that this morning, encouraged by God's word through that. Before we read, I'd like to remind us that here at the Shore Harvest Presbyterian Church that we believe this book, the Bible, to be the only infallible rule for faith and practice, the only guide for our lives that is completely without error. And so I encourage you to study the Word of God, to be devoted to the Word of God, to hear it in sermons, to study it on your own time, to meditate on it, to pray over it, to wrestle with it, to consider its application for every aspect of our lives. Hear now God's inerrant Word. 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 the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Seleucia. 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 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 name 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. This is the word of God. Praise be to God. Let's pray and ask his guidance in understanding it. Father, send your spirit. Send your spirit here to be with me to guide my words that they would be yours and yours only. Send your spirit into the hearts and minds of each person who hears this word today so that it might be used by your Holy Spirit to convict us of sin where we are guilty, to assure us of grace where we need encouragement. and to teach us and instruct us on how to live this life by faith in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. We pray this in His name. Amen. So to understand what the letter to the Gentile Christians says, I think it's important to go back and review a little bit, quickly, briefly, what we saw in last week's sermon on Acts 15. For without a good foundation in that, we are at risk, we are in danger of misunderstanding and misapplying what is given in this letter that was sent out to the Gentile Christians, first to Antioch and Syria, beyond. So I want us to consider the Council's counsel to Jewish believers. You'll recall last time that a subset of the Jewish believers in Jerusalem, those who were of the party of the Pharisees, these are rather conservative Jews, those were the party of the Pharisees, came to the church meeting, came to the council in Jerusalem, and said that the Gentile believers had to be circumcised. They had to keep the custom of Moses. And I won't go into all the fullness of that. You can take a look at last week's sermon to review that. But I'll summarize the response of three key speakers at that meeting. Peter stood up and said that what you are proposing goes against what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us. for the Holy Spirit sent me to a Gentile to Cornelius's house. I preached the gospel to him, he believed, and immediately the Holy Spirit descended on him and on his house. He wasn't circumcised, he wasn't even baptized. He hadn't even fully admitted with the outward signs of the Christian church, let alone any outward signs of Judaism, and yet the Spirit welcomed him. And with that argument and others, Peter spoke against the position of these believing Pharisees. Paul then testified to, we saw in Galatians how he testifies to the fact that the gospel he was preaching to the Gentiles was exactly what Jesus himself had given him on the road to Damascus. And then in Acts 15, earlier up, we saw that Paul testified to all the miracles that the Lord had worked through him in Barnabas among the Gentiles. And the reason he pointed that out, the reason he brought that to the discussion was because miracles were God's validation on God's messengers. So if Paul's message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from any of the ceremonial works of the law, if that message was invalid, then it's hard to understand why God would have validated him through these miracles. And then James stood up, and James spoke to the church, to the gathering there, and he said, not only does it disagree with the Holy Spirit's revelation through Peter, and the Father's revelation through Paul and Barnabas, and the Son's revelation to Paul on the road to Damascus, but it also disagrees with the Bible. And he quotes from Amos chapter 9, and shows how the position of the Pharisee believers was out of accord with what had been foretold by Amos. And so the conclusion of the council we saw last time was that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone. And circumcision per se was not the problem. The problem was that these believers were wanting to add something. to the gospel. They were wanting to add something more than faith as a means of entering the church. And that's what we saw last time. That was the Council's response to those Jewish believers who brought up their objection. It was the Council's counsel to those Jewish believers. So now this week I want us to consider the Council's counsel to the Gentiles. Having spoken to the Jewish dissenters, they now write a letter and send out a news both by the letter and also through Paul and Barnabas, but also through this man named Judas, we know nothing else about him, and Silas, who we will hear more about later in the book of Acts. And so these men, the four of them, are gonna carry their verbal testimony and they're going to carry a written testimony to what the council advised the Gentiles to do. And I'm going to read that list again because it's going to be important for us to understand. And they say here, starting in verse 28, In other words, you sent down with a question, do we have to be circumcised? And we're saying, no, this is all you have to do. You don't have to be circumcised, but here's what we are sending to you. that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality." Four points that the Gentile believers were to adhere to. Now, before we get into what they're saying to the Gentile believers, I think it would behoove us, I think it would be valuable to us to consider what they are not saying. And to be more specific, I'm going to address three relatively common ways this is interpreted, and I'm going to try to point out simply why those interpretations, why those understandings don't hold up. So first of all, I think the first thing we have to do is we have to reject any notion that this is a summary of Jewish dietary laws. They are not writing to the Gentile believers and saying, you should obey the dietary laws so that you and Gentiles and Jews can all get along. Now we saw in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 10, Paul does address the Corinthian believers with that advice. When it's necessary for peace in the church, you need to be respectful of Jewish dietary laws and concerns and the conscience of those Jewish brothers. But that's not what this is. Now you say, Pastor, how do you know? It sure sounds like dietary laws. Let me point out the first problem. If this is a summary of dietary laws, then why is sexual immorality on the list? It doesn't fit. Also what's interesting, the three dietary things that are there, nowhere in the Old Testament do we find those three restrictions grouped together. You can read between the lines and see that those are there somewhere, but if James and the church is kind of summarizing the Old Testament dietary laws, they're picking rather obscure texts from rather divergent passages. So if it's a dietary restriction, why sexual immorality on the list? Number two, why doesn't it point more clearly and obviously to one particular spot in the Old Testament that would support that? And my number three objection is this. What did we hear in our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 10? What did Paul tell the Corinthian Gentiles to do? If you've got a Gentile friend, a pagan friend, who invites you over to their home, and they serve food sacrificed to idols, go ahead and eat. Don't raise any objection on conscience. Now, if this is about dietary laws, then what Paul writes to the Corinthian church is in direct defiance of this order. And it's written less than five years later. We don't know exactly when he wrote 1 Corinthians, but it's not that terribly long after this decision. So are we to believe that Paul put down in writing defiance of the order of the Jerusalem Council? He did not, because this isn't about dietary laws. Finally, if this were about dietary laws, then it would make no difference that they had argued against circumcision. If this is a summary of dietary laws, then the council has simply replaced circumcision with diet. They have said to the Gentiles, oh no, don't worry about being circumcised, but you do have to do this good work. You do have to obey the law at this point in order to come in to the church. It's inconsistent with their own decision about how church admission is granted. It cannot be that they are calling upon the Gentile believers to obey dietary restrictions. It doesn't line up with their previous decision, with the direction of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10. It doesn't line up with anywhere in the Old Testament, and the list doesn't make sense having sexual immorality on it. It's not about dietary laws. Some have argued throughout history that this is a summary of the ethics and morality that the Gentile believers were to, to which they were to adhere. Just as we recognize that the Ten Commandments is mere summary of God's character and what he expects to be the character of his people, we understand that you shall not murder, involves so much more than simply pointing a gun and pulling the trigger. And we understand that that's a summary statement. And someone said, well, this is a new summary statement of the moral and ethical requirements of God's people. But that can't be either. For to set this in contrast to the requirement of circumcision is to replace one ethical requirement with another for entry into the church. If this is a direction for ethical and moral behavior, the proponents of circumcision would have made the argument, they did make the argument, that that's a ethical moral requirement. If God requires it and you don't do it, then it's a moral problem. So all they've done is take away one moral issue and put another in its place? That doesn't make sense. And if morality is the goal, what a bizarre hodgepodge of things, no mention of lying, no mention of stealing, no mention of murder. It's a bizarre hodgepodge of four things. If James and the council were trying to summarize the moral ethical position that Gentile believers needed, to which they needed to adhere, this is a really weird way of doing it. And more to the point, if morality was in view, why wouldn't they just point them to the Ten Commandments? Why wouldn't they have said, in your new life as believers, you need to take on the character of your Heavenly Father and that's been revealed in the Ten Commandments. So study those and know those and come to understand them. That would have been a simpler, easier, more direct way to make morality or ethics the issue. And you say, well, if that was too long, maybe they only had paper, pen, that was expensive back then, maybe they only had a little tiny scrap, they couldn't even fit all the Ten Commandments on there. Well, then why not just simply say, obey the Sabbath, go to synagogue? Because what did we see in the verse right before in verse 21? For from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he has read every Sabbath in the synagogues. If they're looking for a shorthand way to get them to know the law, They could have just said, go to synagogue every Sabbath, because they would have heard Moses there, and they would have come to understand. That's James' whole point in saying that. We don't need to, in this letter, to tell them about the law and how to keep it. That's being taken care of. This can't be about dietary laws, but it cannot be about ethics and morality either. Because if it's about ethics and morality, it makes no sense to put these in place of circumcision. It makes no sense to throw this odd grouping together. It makes no sense not to point them to the Ten Commandments. It makes no sense not to point them to the church, the synagogue, the place of meeting where they would be instructed on how to live moral, ethical lives. Finally, what is it not saying? It is not about how the Gentile believers should get along with Jewish Christians. This was not, Paul addresses that in our New Testament reading, 1 Corinthians 10, Paul does say there is a time and a place to adhere to the ceremonial law, not for its own sake, but for the sake of peace with your brother. But that's not what this is about. You say, well, Pastor, how do you know that? It sure seems like it would make it easier to get along for the Gentiles and Jews to get along together. Well, the reason I know it's not that is because the objection of the Jewish believers wasn't any of this. It was circumcision. If the goal was to get along, then just give them what they want and circumcise the Gentiles. And by the way, if you're a Gentile believer, circumcision's the easier route to go. Oh, it's a few days of discomfort and pain. But then it's a lifetime of eating all the pork chops and shrimp scampi you want. So they're going to forego circumcision so that they can give up the foods they like to eat? And it's not even what the Jews were asking for. They were asking for circumcision. This is not about dietary laws. That would replace one work of the law for another. And they have clearly said, no work of the law can save you. It's not about ethics and morality, for it would have been easier just to point them to the Ten Commandments. And it's not about getting along with Jewish believers, for that would have been more easily accomplished by giving in and having all the Gentile believers circumcised. So what is this about? What is the point of the Council? What are they trying to get the Gentile believers to understand? First, I want us to look at the significance of the words that are used here, the significance of specific words. That word there that's I'm looking at verse... I lost my place, I'm so sorry. Verse 29. Abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols. That word in the Greek New Testament is this word, eidoluthutan. Eidoluthutan. And it's an interesting word. From all of archaeology, they have uncovered only 112 times this word is used. in ancient writings. 110 of them are in Christian writings. The other two are in Jewish writings that appear to be influenced by Christianity. This word does not exist outside of Judeo-Christian writings. Why? Because this word, eidol-uthaton, I told you before, I struggle with pronunciations. If you break it down, if you hear carefully, you hear our word idol. Eidol-uthaton, idol. It's the Greek root of our modern word idol. It is a word that says that this is stuff sacrificed to idols. And the pagans didn't call their gods idols. They called their gods gods. They used a word that spoke not of sacrifice to idols, but sacrifice in a temple. This word has with it the connotation of being connected to a false god. And it is a word that is very specifically used by Christians to speak of what goes on in pagan worship. And that's a clue for us to begin to understand what this is about. There's another word here, and it's the word that's behind the sexual immorality, this concept of sexual immorality. It's the Greek word pornea. It's a word that, in its widest sense, can be used for any sexual immorality, hence the translation. But it's kind of a, if you boil it down to its bare essence, it's this idea of promiscuity, and particularly promiscuity with regard to prostitution. Not so much with an eye toward the prostitutes themselves, but rather those who help themselves to the prostitutes. It's looking at those who would take advantage of the prostitutes. And so there is this sense not of a, of absolutely every possible sexual misconduct being necessarily in view here. But perhaps what it's looking at is this relationship to prostitution. And so we've got to ask ourselves, why do these things come together? Why these four? What ties them together? What would make sense for them to be on one single list together? There's one more clue that can help us out. When we think of this word for the sacrifice to idols, what we begin to realize in this context here is what's in view is not the menu, but the venue. Not the what, but the where. What's being considered here is this issue of temple worship. The only place, the only context in which these four things would come together and make sense is pagan worship. For when the sacrifices were brought, the animals were strangled, hence the prohibition. And the blood was tasted by the pagan priest, hence the prohibition. and the animal was sacrificed and some of the meat was burnt up on the altar, but the other meat was then eaten in wild festivities, hence the prohibition. And frequently, there was involvement with temple prostitutes. There was a carnality and a fleshly pleasure that was served here through the use of cultic prostitutes. What ties these four things together is not the menu, but the venue. It is the place where these would occur. In essence, the council's counsel to Gentile believers is this. Run away from pagan worship. Get far away from it. It's interesting, the word abstain that is used there literally means to keep a distance between yourself and that. How fitting for the times we're going through right now. To avoid a medical pathogen, to avoid a physical ailment, we keep distance so that it does not contaminate us. And the writers here are saying to the Gentile believers back then, to avoid spiritual sickness, to avoid that which will kill you in your religion, keep your distance, abstain from it. The message, when you boil it down, is simply this. Do not return to your former ways. Don't go back to what you're accustomed to. Don't fall back into your old patterns. Do not go back to the gods you knew before. What does God require of us to be saved? What did we hear in the recitation of our catechism? God requires that if we're gonna escape his wrath and curse that are due us for sin, we must have faith and repentance. We must believe in Jesus Christ and turn to him. And what did we hear was the definition of saving faith? Saving faith is receiving and resting upon Jesus alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. Resting on Jesus alone, no one else or anything else. It is not Jesus and Zeus. It's not Jesus and Apollo, Jesus and Aphrodite. Because it wasn't Jesus and circumcision or Jesus and dietary laws. It's Jesus alone. The prohibition here is about returning to the worship of some other God. Why? Because it is our temptation. It is always our human risk to fall back into the ways that are comfortable for us, to fall back on the patterns that are ingrained in us. And it's hard to pull away. All your friends are going to temple. All your friends are gonna go sacrifice to Apollo. All your friends are going to carouse in Artemis's temple. Why can't you? And the point here is that to do so is not to trust in Jesus alone. And therefore it is not walking by faith. And what did we hear was the definition of repentance unto life? Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ... Stop there. Gentile believers, you've come to understand the mercy of God. You've come to understand the forgiveness that is available to you. You've come to understand how you can be made right with God. And comprehending that, understanding that, what does it go on to say? It says, the sinner does, with grief and hatred of his own sin, turn from it onto God, with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. And the council's counsel to Gentile believers is to turn from your old life. It's not a call to dietary laws. It's not a call to ethics and morality. It's not a call to getting along with Jews. It's a call to Jesus. It's a call to run away from the gods you once knew, to flee the worship, that occurs in their temples. So what is the council's counsel to you and to me? What is the council's counsel to us today? Well, it is to rest in Jesus alone. It is to desire and live by true saving faith. You know, we're not tempted to pursue Zeus. We're not going to run back to him. But what is the chief god of this world? If Zeus was the chief god of the Olympians, what is the chief god of our world? What is the power that runs our world? What is the equivalent of Zeus? Money, perhaps? Ours is a culture driven by power through money. Our chief God in America is probably economics. It's probably finances. And our temptation is not to go back to Zeus, but to hedge financially. Times are difficult. Things are a little scary. I'm gonna trust in Jesus and a little extra in my bank account. That's not hoping in Jesus alone. And when the final day of accountability comes, that bank account cannot save. We're not tempted to pursue Apollo, the god of beauty and music and art, but we sure are tempted to follow the wisdom of this world. We're tempted to listen to science and hope in science, and as a guy who is himself a former scientist, I have a lot of respect for science, but it is not our hope. Oh, science may eventually give us a cure for COVID-19. Science may eventually provide a vaccine against this new coronavirus, but I'm still going to die. And there's not one thing science can do about that. And my hope in science is at best for this life alone. The wisdom of this world, the God Apollo to this world, cannot be trusted. And what is the wisdom of our pop culture in the art and music of this world? It's tolerance. It's a redefinition of love. And that has become the defining characteristic of true righteousness according to the Apollo of this life, But that's not God's character. It's not a reflection of His nature, but of ours. We must not worship the Apollo of today. We must not worship the gods of this culture. Nor are we called to serve Aphrodite. Pleasure of the flesh the pleasures of the body that might be enjoyed in one way or another. They are not what bring comfort and meaning to our life. The service of the modern Aphrodite will one day let us down. Repentance unto life is turning away from one's hope in money and away from one's hope in science and away from one's hope in pleasure all of which are good in their right way, in the way for which God created them, none of which should be what we pursue with the wholeness of our lives. And the council's counsel is not to worship at the temples of those gods. It's not to worship in those false ways. The council's counsel to us is this. trust in Jesus and Him alone. Rest on Jesus and Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the gospel, one who came and died and left. And by the world's account, didn't really accomplish anything. But we need to recognize what He did accomplish. He accomplished a way by which we can be made right with God, by which our sins can be forgiven, by which we can be made holy. So that when and if COVID-19 takes us, we enter a life where we will be fully restored. When and if our money lets us down, we have a future of untold wealth. When and if the pleasures of this world betray us, we look forward to an eternity of joy and pleasures beyond our wildest imaginations. The council's council was to not worship the gods of this world, not to be a part of their temple. The four things on the list, they come together in pagan temple worship, and that's why they're forbidden. Because that's not turning to Jesus. That's not resting in Him alone. That's not repentance, if you go back to those things. Let the counsel's counsel be counsel to us today. Let us forsake all the gods of this world and cling to Jesus and to rest upon Him alone. For that is our only hope. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for coming. Thank you for giving your life on our behalf. Thank you for making a way by which we might be forgiven. Now, Lord, through your spirit work in us that we would hope in this alone, that we would take comfort in this alone, that we would pursue this alone, that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be what we are all about. with every breath that we take, with every laugh that we enjoy, with every check that we write, with every decision that we make, we would consider the hope we have in Jesus and abandon any false hope of the gods of this world, clinging to him and him alone, turning away from the worship of these others. and living lives of true faith and true repentance. For these are what you require of us that we might escape your wrath and the curse do us for sin. We praise you for the gift of faith. We ask specifically this morning that you would grow it in each of us and teach us how to share it with others. We pray this in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen.