Jack Andrews recalled a story that has circulated regarding J. Edgar Hoover, which appears to be rooted in history, yet may have some elements of legend associated with it, but it nonetheless illustrates the need for clarity. Hoover is said to have been known for writing messages in the margins of FBI memos. And so to do so, obviously, there had to be room at the sides of the pages for him to do so. That's where he would write whatever he wanted to write on the memos. Well, as the account goes, one day a memo showed up on his desk written with narrow margins. Now someone in the FBI apparently at that time either decided to change the margins on the paper that was already there or got different kind of paper, a different kind of paper to reduce the size of office memo paper and then it didn't have as much room on the sides. Whatever the case was exactly, when he got this memo, he wrote on it, but he didn't have his usual space, but he wrote on in the message saying, watch the borders. Now, what he meant was, watch the borders of the paper. Like, I need room in the margins to do the notes that I usually do. Well, as the account goes, as that circulated through the bureau, apparently there was some confusion that began. People were wondering, is there something going on at the borders of Mexico and Canada? Do there need to be steps that are taken, and so on? Now, what happened after that, I don't know. Was it some short-term confusion? Did he actually have, as a consequence of that, people going to the borders, and it became harder for people to enter the United States? I don't know, and we don't necessarily know exactly, but it illustrates this. The need for clarity. the need to be clear. Clarity and communication is important. That's true for FBI memos. That's true for interpersonal relationships. That's true for people in the workplace. That's true for pastors and pulpits. That's true for us as Christians as we share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Clarity and communication is important. This was such a priority for the Apostle Paul that when he was writing to the Colossian Christians, he requested prayer from them. not only that God would open up a door of opportunity for him to preach the word, Colossians 4, verse 3, but also to use his words, that I may make it clear as I ought to speak. That's what he wanted. He saw an oughtness, if you will, to speaking with clarity. Now, when you are sharing the gospel, there are certain oughts, certain things that must be done when you share the gospel. Paul, when he was writing to the Ephesians, he prayed, he requested prayer for boldness. That he would preach the word with boldness as he ought to. You might remember that New Testament Greek word for boldness, parousia, speaks of openness, frankness. Have you ever been reluctant to tell someone something, and so as a result of that, you beat around the bush, and that person didn't know what you were saying, and maybe they said something to you like, all right, just spit it out, just tell me, what are you trying to tell me? When Paul was requesting prayer for boldness, he was requesting prayer for a kind of openness in speech, a kind of frankness. This doesn't mean brashness, this just means a kind of open boldness. So that's one of the oughts, that ought to accompany our speaking about God's Word. but there's also the ought of graciousness. Paul would explain this to the Colossians in Colossians 4 verse 6, when he said, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. So there's the ought of boldness, there's the ought of graciousness, but there's also the ought of clearness, the ought of clarity. And that's what Paul was requesting the Colossians to pray for. There's an old saying that applies to preachers, a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pews. In other words, if a preacher preaches with a lack of clarity from the pulpit, it will lead to some measure of confusion within the congregation. That principle also applies to Christians. If there is a lack of clarity in the communicant, in the person who is communicating information, there will be likely confusion in the person who's being communicated to. So we want to pursue clarity, especially, above all, when it comes to the gospel. You have to be clear. We have to be clear. We have to be clear that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have to be clear that the wages of our sin is death. Not only physical death, but what the Bible calls the second death in the lake of fire. We have to be clear that there's only one way of salvation. There's no other name under heaven by which men could be saved. It's only through Jesus Christ. He is the way to the Father. We have to be clear that the only way that a person can be forgiven of their sins is by believing that Jesus took their punishment and that He is the Son of God. We have to be clear that God demands that a person place all of their hope in Jesus, believing that He took all of their punishment. We have to be clear it's not by works that we do or things that we've done or rituals that we've participated in or things like that, but it is only by grace alone through faith alone. We have to be clear. And the need for clarity was the impetus for the Jerusalem Council. There needed to be clarity as it related to the gospel and how a person was saved because there were false teachers. If you remember, there were false teachers who came down from Judea, so it looks like they're representing the apostles in Jerusalem. It looks like they're coming from like Peter and James and John. They come down from Judea, they go to Antioch, and they begin to teach the brethren that you cannot be saved unless you are circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Acts chapter 15 verse 1 and verse 5. So all of a sudden, a dispute arose. Paul and Barnabas did what good under-shepherds ought to do. They didn't just take that lying down. They confronted the lies with truth. And as a consequence, it appears, the church in Antioch said, this matter needs to go to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders there, so we get clarity as to the way of salvation. Because these false teachers are saying something as though they represent the Jerusalem church. So, that paved the way for what we know as the Jerusalem Council. where the way of salvation was clearly stated. Let me just remind you of this. It's so important. Remember, after there had been much dispute, Peter stood up. And what did Peter say? Peter said that God had appointed that through his mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. They would hear and believe. And then in verse 80 said that God made no distinction between himself and other Jewish believers and he gave the Holy Spirit to these Gentiles, these non-Jews, Cornelius and those who were with him in his household. And did he give the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and his household after they were baptized? Did He give the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and his household after they had done some works? He gave the Holy Spirit to them as they, by God's grace, believed the Gospel. This is so key. They were believers and they received the Holy Spirit. This correlates with the pattern for all Christians as we see in Ephesians 1.13. In him, speaking of Christ, you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Having believed, you receive the Holy Spirit, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he does not belong to God. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and not as a consequence of our works. Just as an aside, another great example of this would be the thief on the cross. To kind of borrow some language from D.L. Moody, the thief on the cross had nails in his hands with which he could not do any work. The thief on the cross had a nail driven through his feet with which he could not run and do any sort of tasks for God. The only thing that he could do on the cross was he saw his sin, he saw that he deserved justice and judgment, and he saw Jesus as innocent, and he saw him as the king who was coming into a kingdom, and he threw all of his hope upon Jesus. And Jesus said to him, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. You remember Peter continued, and Peter said that God purified the hearts of these Gentiles, how? By faith. Acts 15 verse nine. He didn't purify them and wash them from their sins in the waters of baptism, as important as baptism is, because it's an act of obedience, a kind of foundational act of Christian obedience, but he purified their hearts by faith. And then Peter went on to say his conclusion was, but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Let me just make an important point here. This was, and you've heard me say this before, this was, if you will, Peter's Apostles' Creed. Notice what he said. What's the pronoun there? Is it just I? It's we in verse 11. We believe We believe that we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Well, what manner is that? He just outlined it. Verse 7, hear the word of the gospel and believe. Have the heart purified by faith. Verse 9, this was Peter's apostles' creed. So when you have churches claiming to have some sort of apostolic succession, but they don't hold to this apostles' creed, right here in Acts chapter 15, they stand in opposition to the apostles, not in alignment with them. Because this Apostle's Creed, we believe, Peter, speaking on behalf of at least the other Apostles, is saying, we believe we shall be saved by the grace of God. And then he made it clear that it was through faith. To take a page from Spurgeon, Peter does not say, we believe in baptismal regeneration. Peter does not say, we believe in the sacramental efficacy of the Lord's Supper. He does not say, we believe in the holy days of obligation to keep one's salvation. After stating that God purified the hearts of Gentiles by faith, verse 9, he says, we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus we shall be saved in the same manner as they. As the Jerusalem Council continues, you remember, then Barnabas and Paul spoke, and they shared about the miracles and wonders that God had done through them. Just by way of brief review, that was a way of saying to those gathered, God had attested to the word that they were preaching through the miracles and wonders that were done through them. So you can revisit previous messages to get more details on that, but then we remember James, shortly after that, he stood up, And then, among other things, he said that what Peter had said in his testimony, his experience, and what God did with him in bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles, was in alignment with the Scriptures. So, long story short, as we saw, the matter of salvation was settled. It was very clear. Salvation was by grace alone through faith alone. But there was a practical matter that needed to be addressed. And we addressed this in our last message on Acts 15. Because there were so many Jewish people who were hearing the Law of Moses read in the synagogues every Sabbath, and this had been going on for generations, long story short, these Gentile believers had to exercise Christian love and mindfulness towards these Jewish believers. Because if they started doing things that would obstruct their testimony, it could obstruct and disrupt the fellowship between them and Jewish Christians. It could also disrupt their testimony to other Jewish people. So they were to make a clear break with certain pagan practices that were so common for them, and they were to be mindful of those Jewish people who had come to faith in Christ, but yet were still holding on to the dietary laws of the Old Testament. And so that's kind of a quick synopsis of what happened there. They weren't supposed to put any stumbling blocks to Jewish Christians or unnecessary roadblocks in the way of their evangelism. And that leads us to what follows. Now we come to the conclusion of the Council and the letter that would be written. We begin in Acts 15, verse 22, where we read, 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 Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. So in the beginning of this verse, if you look at your text, it says, then it pleased the apostles and elders. The words that are here in the Greek could be more literally rendered, then it seemed good. Some commentators have noted that this kind of language was a kind of regular idiom at the beginning of decrees. It's sort of the kind of language you would find in public resolutions. So this is before the letter itself, but this is Luke writing. So this is kind of maybe introducing what's following in a kind of formal, decretive way. Second, note the unity that emerged. It says, "...then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church." This is beautiful. We don't want to overlook this. There was great unity. Everybody was on board. At least that's what it seems like from the text. That the apostles, the elders, the whole church are like, yeah, we get it. We get it. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. These Gentiles don't need to do anything else to get saved. They are saved having trusted in Christ. The whole church is on board. The whole church was on board with the wise practical next steps. of the Gentiles walking in Christian wisdom and love so as not to obstruct their witness or to be a stumbling block to Jewish believers. Everybody's on board. Let me just make this simple point. I look at this, and I look at this as something that is somewhat unique, that there was just such great unanimity, great unity. And I think about what we have here in this local church. It was illustrated afresh last week at the membership meeting. It was illustrated in all the different interactions that took place in different meetings during the week. Do you understand there's something precious here, that there's a unity among us in the Gospel, that is something to be treasured? You know, people make jokes about membership meetings and things that happen in different churches. You know, if you wanted to change the color of the carpet, it could lead to a church split or something like that. By God's grace, that doesn't happen here. There's great unity. But we have to be on guard, right? According to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 3, we have to endeavor to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We don't take that for granted. We keep praying for that and we keep desiring to prefer others above ourselves and love one another and to be united in Christ Jesus and in sound doctrine. It's precious what God is doing here. It's precious what was going on here. They were unified. Amazing. And then look at the wise next steps the council sought to take. They chose leading men among the brethren. The language there connotes that these men were leaders in the Jerusalem church, which speaks to the plurality of leadership that was even in the Jerusalem church. It wasn't just like you had one guy who was the head honcho, you had a plurality of leaders. We'll see that in the next verse, which uses the word elders. Paul even noted in Galatians 2 that there were those who seemed to be pillars, and it wasn't just one guy. It was Peter and James and John. But you had these leading men, Judas, not like Judas who betrayed Jesus. This Judas here, who's called Barsabbas, he was a prophet, as was Silas. You know probably a lot more about Silas because he is talked about more in the New Testament. We don't really know anything else about this Judas other than what's here. But they were leading men and this was so wise that they would send these men. Imagine if Paul and Barnabas just came back from the Jerusalem council by themselves. And they come back to the Church of Antioch and they're like, hey everybody, it went well. The same gospel that we were preaching to you the whole time is what the Jerusalem Council affirmed. Now doubtless there would be many who would say, yeah, I don't think Paul is going to lie. I don't think Barnabas is going to lie. But there could be a whole bunch of people who thought, wait a minute, how do we know you're telling the truth? How do we know that you're not lying to us for what you perceive to be the greater good? So the Jerusalem council is exercising foresight. They're doing two things. With Paul and Barnabas going back, they are going to send a letter. We're going to see that in the verses that follow. And they're sending these two leading men, some of the most godly, responsible, respectable leaders in the Jerusalem church, to bear witness of the decree of the letter that was written. This is so wise. I think this could be instructive for us in our Christian lives. You know there's that old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Imagine the controversy that might have ensued if Judas and Silas were not sent with the letter. They exercised proactive foresight. They sought to put out fires, if you will, before the fires even started. They sought to do their due diligence. And that's biblical. We should be wise in the way that we interact with other people so that at times, as best as we can, we're anticipating problems and we're doing what we can to alleviate those problems from happening, to stop them from happening before they arise. In the book of Proverbs, for instance, Proverbs 17, 14 says, the beginning of strife is like the releasing of water. Therefore, stop contention before a quarrel starts. So in other words, exercise wisdom. If you see like a little bit of water beginning to leak before like the dam breaks, so to speak, you want to stop things early. You exercise proactive foresight. Proverbs 27 verse 12 says, a prudent man foresees evil and hides himself. The simple pass on and are punished. Simply put, I would encourage us all exercise the wisdom of so much as we are able to see problems before they arise and to do what we can to stop them from arising. Now as we go into verses that follow, think of how neat this is. What will you have in your Bibles in verses 23 all the way down through verse 29 is a first century letter that by God's grace has been preserved and is found right in the pages of sacred scripture. That's so neat. So this bit of history is right there in the Spirit-inspired Word of God. Let's begin to kind of walk through this together so we don't miss some of the precious takeaways that we can have from it. Verse 23, they wrote this letter by them, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren, we're going to come back to those words because I don't think that catches the literal nature of the text, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, greetings. Okay, so again, they're taking wise steps. They're not just sending Judas and Silas to be witnesses as to what happened. They're actually putting it down on paper, so to speak. They have a letter that's going, and witnesses that are going. This is very wise, exercising great foresight here. But I want you to catch the familial tone of the letter. Look again at verse 23. It says, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren. Now, very literally in the Greek, this is how it reads. The apostles, the elders, brethren. Just like that. As though to say, hey, this letter is coming on behalf of the leadership in the Jerusalem church, apostles and elders, and you know who we are to you? This is who we are to you, brethren. And then notice, notice what follows. So if you're looking at the next line, it says, to the brethren. So you have apostles and elders, brethren, and who are they writing to? Two brethren. Might not seem like such a big deal to us. Really big deal in that first century context. because you had the Jerusalem church with Jewish Christians writing to Gentile, non-Jewish Christians. And in that little bit of an introduction, we see that it's brothers writing to brothers, family writing to family. It's a great reminder of that biblical reality of Galatians 3.28, that in Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek. as though to say those kind of distinctions are so minuscule compared to what we share in Christ Jesus. They all had the same new birth. They all had the same Heavenly Father. They all had the same Lord. They all shared the same Holy Spirit. They were family. This is instructive, because the world sets up walls of partitions based upon cultures, based upon ethnicities, based upon socioeconomic status, You know what the gospel does? It tears down those walls. The world says, no, you're separate. You have a different background. You have a different culture. You have a different ethnicity. You have a different socioeconomic status. And the gospel says, no, no, no. All of those things are essentially nothing compared to what you share in Christ Jesus. One of my favorite places to see this is in Colossians chapter three, verse 11. There, the apostle Paul shows that the gospel breaks down ethnic barriers, religious barriers, cultural barriers, and social barriers, to use language from one commentary. Listen to what Paul wrote there. He said, In Christ, essentially, in the verses that precede, there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free. Some quick notes about this. These were tremendous divides in the first century. You had those who were Greek and those who were Jews. So there were ethnic barriers that separated people. Then you had those who were circumcised and those who were not circumcised. Remember for a Jewish person, from a Jewish vantage point, you had the Jewish people who had the covenant sign of circumcision, and then you had the uncircumcised masses of Gentiles. It was a big religious distinction. But now in the Gospel, circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. He goes on and he says, in what follows, barbarian? Barbarian, the Greek word there is barbaros. It appears to refer to those who didn't speak the Greek language. And you even get that in the word barbarian, barbaros. So they spoke some barbaric kind of language. They weren't as cultured as other people. And then he takes that to another level with the description that follows, Scythian. Scythians were those people that were said to have been from around the Black Sea. They were basically the uncivilized people of the day. They were a kind of nomadic people, often a very kind of brutal people, slave nor free. They were masters and they were servants. And the amazing thing about the gospel is that you could have a master and a servant worshiping together and the ground was level at the foot of the cross. Paul says these things are essentially nothing, but he goes on to say, but Christ is all and in all, Colossians 3.11. Now the language there implies this, Christ is all, which essentially implies Christ is everything. Christ is what is important. He is the one who is preeminent. He is what matters. He is what is central to his people. And then he goes, Christ is in all. In all of what? In all of his people. As a consequence of that, let me just remind us of what we know. We are all family in Christ. Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of our cultures, regardless of our ethnicities, we are just one big family in Christ Jesus. and we share that which is ultimate. Christ is all. He's everything. And Christ is in all, in all of his people. We are one together. And all the things that would divide us are so minuscule compared to that which unites us in Christ Jesus. Where is this letter going? Quick note. To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Quick note. False gospel that was brought to Antioch also had legs and got to other places as well. False teaching does that. It's like gangrene. It spreads. It multiplies. It gets out there. And so this letter had to get out there. And we're going to see that it does, and it even gets beyond those places as we'll see in Acts 16 verse 4. And then there's the word greetings, an inflected form of the Greek word kairo, which basically is often translated as rejoice. So it's greetings, but in light of the letter and what's coming, you do get a sense of a call to rejoice in light of the good news, and rejoicing is what would happen. Look at verse 24. Notice, what are the apostles and elders doing right here? they are disavowing those false teachers who went out from them. So they're basically saying, we've heard that there are people who went out from us, and we didn't give them any commandment to go to you with the message that they brought. So they're basically saying, we're separating ourselves from these people. Yes, they actually went out from us, but they don't actually reflect what we believe. And you're going to see that in the letter that follows. This is a good reminder that sometimes you can have people go out from a church and they could say things, and what they say doesn't necessarily reflect what that church believes. You had that with these people who came down from Judea, and the apostles and the elders have to say, we didn't send them with that message. It'd be like somebody going out from this church, and despite all the times that I have said from this pulpit, we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, somebody is talking with somebody else and saying, yeah, in order to be saved, you have to be baptized, because through baptism, you get your sins washed away. What church do you go to? Tottenville Evangelical Free Church. Oh, Tottenville. They have a false gospel that they preach there. And you could jump to that conclusion because somebody could be speaking something that doesn't actually reflect what the church teaches. That's what these guys were doing. So in the letter, what are the apostles and elders doing? They're saying, no, no, no, no, no. These guys came from us. Yes, they did. But we gave them no such commandment to go with the message and to go to you as they did. So it was a smart step of disavowing them. You also see the damage that false teaching does. We could spend some time here on the words, but I'll make some brief comments. They went out from us, and they did what? They have troubled you. The Greek word terrasso there, it's a word that can be translated harass. It could be translated as shake. They stirred you up in a bad way. They troubled you. Unsettling your souls. That's another interesting word. It's a Greek word that speaks of moving something out of place. It could speak of marauders or robbers taking something. So they unsettled the souls of Gentile Christians. How? What did they move out of place? Well, for those who were troubled, they moved out of place their peace and their joy. These Gentile Christians, at least many of them, were probably rejoicing, I have forgiveness through faith in Christ. And now these false teachers come and basically say, you're not saved. In order to be saved, you have to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. And so they were troubled, they were agitated emotionally, and they were unsettled in their souls. Something got moved out of place. What got moved? Their peace and their joy. That's what the language connotes here. Let me just remind you of the power of words. Not in some word-of-faith way, where you can create your own reality and speak things into existence, which language they seek to draw from Romans 4, which has nothing to do with people speaking, it has to do with what God does. You don't have that kind of New Age power to call things that are not into existence. That's what God does. But your words do have power. I've told you before, if somebody just got up in this moment in the local church and just started making a whole bunch of noise and yelling, they have the power to disrupt a time of corporate worship. Your words have power. You could say something very cruel to somebody before they leave, and despite everything that they've heard in a time of worship, you will affect them negatively, and they're going to go home wondering about what you said. Your words have power in that way. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. in that way. Think about what false witnesses do. Think about what the false witnesses did for Naboth and in light of Ahab wanting his vineyard, that life and death was in the power of the tongue. They bore witness falsely and it led to Naboth's death. Now look at what these false teachers were doing. Their words were unsettling people's souls. It's the opposite of what Barnabas and Paul were doing as they ministered to people. In Acts chapter 14, verse 22, they went to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, and what were they doing? They were strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. So your words can either strengthen and build up or your words can unsettle and tear down. Watch the words that you speak. As the letter continues, look at verses 25 and 26. It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, another mention of the unity that existed there in the Jerusalem Council, 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. You see the affirmation of Paul and Barnabas? So you have the disavowal of those false teachers who came down from Judea in verse 24, but now in verses 25 and 26, you see them affirming Paul and Barnabas. Which was an indirect way of affirming the gospel. Because Paul and Barnabas had preached the true gospel. You look at Acts 13, verses 38 and 39. So when the Jerusalem council calls them our beloved, Our beloved Barnabas and Paul, they're affirming them. And by extension, they're affirming their message. And then they say, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus. Let me tell you something that's amazing about the language here. I know it's translated risked, risked their lives. Very literally, the word that is used here is paradidomi in the Greek. It means to give over. This word, if you go through the Gospels, there is great significance to how this word is used. Judas delivered over or handed over Jesus to the chief priests and the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin, the word is used for them, delivering Jesus over to Pilate, handing him over to Pilate. The word is used for Pilate, handing over Jesus or delivering him to be crucified. The word is used of Jesus on the cross delivering his spirit to the Father. This is a word that is just traced through the end of the gospel accounts. It's even used to speak of Jesus giving himself over for us in Ephesians 5.2 and Ephesians 5.25. So think of the beautiful implications of this. Paul and Barnabas were men who gave over their lives for the name, the renown, the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And how fitting is that when Jesus is the one who was delivered over to the chief priest, he was delivered over to Pilate, he was delivered up to the cross, and he delivered himself up to the cross and his spirit up to the Father for our sins. How appropriate is it for you and I to deliver up the totality of ourselves for him? Amazing. They are men, literally in the Greek, who handed over their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see how they did that? You saw the risks associated in the first missionary journey. There was a great stirring against Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Pisidia, and he got driven out of that place. Acts 13, verse 50. Paul was stoned in Lystra. Acts 14, verse 19. They indeed risked their lives. They were willing to hand over their lives for the name, the reputation, the sum of who Jesus is. They were willing to give over their lives for that cause. Let me just take a moment and just help you imagine what it would be like to be with the Apostle Paul and how that would rub off on you. You'd hear Paul say some things like this. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. Romans 14.8 You'd hear him say something like this, Philippians 1.21, For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. You'd hear him say something like this, Philippians 1.23, For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart. and be with Christ which is far better. You'd hear him say something like this, Acts 20 verse 24, But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. If you're hanging out with Paul, you're just being reminded over and over and over again that this life is for the Lord Jesus Christ. That whether you die, you belong to the Lord. Whether you live, you belong to the Lord. If you live, it's going to mean more ministry for God's glory and for the good of others. And if you die, it's gain. It's to depart and be with Christ, which in the Greek is very much more better. People risk their lives for so many lesser things. I'd seen a video about people taking all kinds of risks, people risking their lives for the thrill of scaling buildings. Tightrope walkers without safety equipment. Boggles my mind how people could do that. You have to be really good at tightrope walking if you're going to do that. Skydiving without a parachute and landing in cardboard boxes. People have done that. Evel Knievel. Many of you have heard of him. He is said to have jumped over lions, pits of rattlesnakes, and up to 14 buses in a row. And according to one account, he attempted more than 70 jumps and suffered over 400 bone fractures. People risk their lives for all kinds of lesser things. Let me just encourage you in light of this text, give your life. And even when necessary, you may be called to risk your life for the name of the Lord Jesus. It's like that old saying of the martyred missionary, Jim Elliot, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Now we know our salvation is secured by grace alone through faith alone, but we are called to run the race and not have our minds set on this earth and to think about storing up treasures in heaven. I want to go through the rest of the letter and make some brief comments. Look at verse 27. So again, corroborating. There's wisdom here. They're going to say the same things to you that are found in the letter. They're going to share that by word of mouth. Nice how they wanted the personal touch, right? In a day and age where the personal touch is often lacking, right, with text messages and so on, they wanted a personal touch. Not that they had the option of text messages, but they wanted them to be there in person. Look at verse 28. Notice how the Holy Spirit has a place of preeminence here. for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." Now this is an implicit witness to the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Many of you may or may not know that the Holy Spirit is regarded in, say, Jehovah's Witnesses theology, to not be a person. They believe the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. They mistranslate Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 and they call the Holy Spirit God's active force instead of the Spirit of God. So they look at the Holy Spirit, and again they have a Unitarian view of God, that God is just one in essence and one in person, instead of the Biblical view, that God is one in essence and three in persons. And they look at the Holy Spirit and they say, He's not a person. But in light of the text here, you would say, no, the personhood of the Holy Spirit is clearly implied. It seemed good to us It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. So just as it seemed good to us as persons, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. One of the most uncomfortable moments in a time of corporate assembly that I ever had was when I was visiting a church that was said to be Reformed in its name, but whatever the case was, the person who was teaching did not hold to sound doctrine. We were visiting this church, and then the pastor was teaching through Acts chapter 2. And then he started to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit, and he said that because the Greek word for spirit is pneuma, and it's neuter in the Greek, that we would do well to call the Holy Spirit an it as opposed to a he. This is a horrible butchering of an understanding of New Testament Greek. As I've told you before and I'll tell you now, New Testament Greek does not go according to natural gender. It goes according to grammatical gender. So, for example, the Greek word for sin is harmatia. It's feminine. What makes it feminine? The alpha at the end of the word. The Greek word for universe is kosmos. It's masculine. What makes it masculine? Is sin really feminine and the universe really masculine? No. What makes it masculine is the os ending at the end of the word. Greek goes largely according to grammatical gender. So he is just teaching heresy very casually from the pulpit that dismisses that reality. It also dismisses Greek pronouns that are connected with the person of the Holy Spirit that are masculine. You'd see those in places like John chapter 15 verse 26, John chapter 16 verse 13, and then you have all these witnesses to the personhood of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. He can be grieved. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30 says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Inadimate objects do not grieve. If you do not use your phone, your phone does not get upset. Inadomite objects do not grieve. Second, he speaks. Acts 13, verse 2. The Holy Spirit is the one who said, Set apart for me Saul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them. In Acts 8.29, the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip and said, Go and join the chariot. Third, he has intelligence. In 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11, the Apostle Paul writes, The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. And he says, No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. He teaches and reminds. We see that in John 14, verse 26. He can be lied to. Remember in Acts 5, verse 3, Peter asks Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Have you ever lied to your car? Have you ever lied to a TV? Well, no, because they're inanimate. They can't perceive what you are saying. You may say a lie at the direction of your TV or in your car, but at the end of the day, they cannot believe things because they are inanimate. The Holy Spirit is a person. You see here, it seemed good to Him. what was decided at the Jerusalem Council. At least that's the idea of what's communicated in the letter. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, but then we're going to see in Acts 16 as we go forward that there are times when he forbids. Luke recorded that Paul and those with him were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. In verse 7 of Acts 16, after they tried to go to Bithynia, Luke records the Spirit did not permit them. So let me just remind you, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is truly God and He is a person. Some brief comments. Look at verse 29. "...that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you do well." So those were the things we spoke about last time in Acts 15. Do these things. Avoid making Jewish Christians stumble. Avoid obstructing your witness. If you do these things, you will do well. We are not laying upon you any greater burden than that. So in other words, what the false teachers were telling you, we're not putting that on your shoulders. You're saved by grace alone through faith alone. That's an outworking of Christian charity. Make sure you do these things. Verses 30 and then 31. So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch, and when they gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter. That's verse 30. Now imagine all the people waiting to find out whether or not their salvation was actually real. Doubtless Paul and Barnabas were telling them, your salvation is real. This will be cleared up when we go to the Jerusalem Council. Don't believe the false teachers. But maybe for some they were wondering. I know in licensing councils, sometimes when people are waiting outside for a long while, while the council is deciding whether or not this person has passed the council, they've come back in and they've said that it gets intense when you're waiting for a while. And doubtless these people probably felt some measure of intensity having waited for a while. So now we find that Paul and Barnabas gather the multitude together and they deliver the letter. Look what happens, verse 31. When they had read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement. It was good news. The word encouragement could be translated as comfort or consolation. They rejoiced over its results. Look at verses 32 and 33. Now Judas and Silas themselves, being prophets also, exhorted and strengthened the brethren with many words. Verse 32. Let me just encourage you. If you look at the time and you say it's 1223, I'm encouraging you with many words. Even as they were exhorted with many words. So I'm just following the pattern that's right here. Verse 33, and after they had stayed there for a time, they were sent back with greetings from the brethren to the apostles. So you have Judas and Silas, they're using their gifts, they are prophets, again, second to the office of apostles and the foundation of the New Testament church, church built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, they're using that gift for the building up of people. They stay there for a while, then they're sent back with greetings, you get the familial tone again there, from the brethren to the apostles, Look at verse 34, You'll see a footnote in your text that says, NU text and M text omits this verse. So this doesn't appear to be something that was in Luke's original writing. Apparently, a scribe at some point in time in the future said, I have to explain how Silas gets taken with Paul on the second missionary journey. That's coming up, Lord willing, next week. So apparently somebody at some point entered this into some manuscript, but we know in light of all the manuscripts we have, and this is the beautiful thing about manuscript evidence, that you can get down to the brass tacks of what was the original text so many times. And so you could say, no, this wasn't original. You either have two things that happen. Either Silas starts to go back with Judas, and he leaves, then he comes back. Or Silas does go back with Judas to Jerusalem, and then Silas goes back some time after that. And as you'll see in verse 36, there's some time gap that exists between now and between Paul taking Silas with him on the second missionary journey. Verse 35, Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. Paul and Barnabas got back to work. They're back in Antioch, so what are they going to do? Teach and preach the word of the Lord with many others also. It's a great reminder of the emphasis the New Testament places on sound teaching and preaching, and the way God uses it to build up His people. There would be other winds of false doctrine that would come, and the teaching that they were doing, even as the teaching that is going on here, is meant to help God's people to be strong and stable, built up, so when the winds of false doctrine come, you could stand firm, knowing what you believe. With that said, let us go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for preserving this letter in the text of Scripture that we studied. Thank you for all the implications it has for our lives. Thank you for the affirmation of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Help us, Heavenly Father, to be clear in our communication of the greatest news ever. Help us to be clear and to speak with graciousness and openness as it relates to the things pertaining to you. Help our church to have the kind of unity that was exhibited there in Jerusalem. Help us to rejoice in the gospel and the good news of the gospel, even as those early Christians did in light of the Jerusalem Council. Help us, Father, to the end that you might be glorified, and to the end that we might, by your grace, hand over our lives again and again, offering up our lives as living sacrifices for the name of our Savior who loved us and gave himself for us. May you so work in us that we will hand over ourselves to you in our lives, saying, not our will be done, but yours, over and over again. Work in us so that we might be further conformed to Christ Jesus. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.