Good morning. Good to see you all this morning. If you want to follow along in the message, you can turn to Acts chapter 15. We may be just three messages on this. The next two sections pass verse 5. deal with two more parts of this Jerusalem Council, and then the last paragraph in the chapter is going to be very interesting for us. It's where Paul and Barnabas have a strong disagreement, and they part ways because of that strong disagreement. This morning, I want to begin by just indicating to you Last year, my statistics come from a US survey done of churches, but over 9,000 evangelical churches closed their doors last year, 9,000. There are indicators whenever a church is dying, that it is in such trouble that people stop attending, the congregation is in decline, there's an atmosphere of discouragement, and these things indicate that a church is closing, ceasing to exist. What kinds of things are referred to as indicating that a church is in decline? Well, there are no people being saved. There are no people being discipled. Oftentimes the congregation is made up largely of older folks who've been there for years and were there at a time of great forward advancement and growth. But that's no longer true. There are few or no baptisms. Giving is decreasing. It was the main thing that people pointed to. How do you know the church is in trouble? Well, the giving has stopped. But notice what's missing. There's no reference to the prayer of the church. There's no reference to the preaching. of the church as an indication that there is trouble in what should be at least a foretaste of paradise. One of the marks of a healthy church, a growing church, in fact, probably the most important indication of a healthy church is the preaching. growing in spiritual health by biblically oriented preaching. Several years ago, we studied through a book called The Deliberate Church. It was written by a pastor named Mark Dever and he talked about, he was really writing to people in his denomination, a Baptist denomination, and he was saying, a lot of our churches are dying. Actually, there were many of these 9,000 churches were in the same denomination as Dever's church. And he named as the very first important thing in a church is Expositional preaching. Now, what is that? Well, just think of the word for a minute. Expose additional. In other words, expositional preaching is exposing or explaining a passage of scripture, what it means. I was thinking of this this morning when Pastor was talking about circumcision, and I'm thinking, boy, a lot of these kids are probably saying, what is that? So you guys, whose children they are, need to explain this to them, because that's not something we're going to do from the podium. So expositional preaching is preaching that explains a portion of the Word of God. And it doesn't have to be preaching through a whole book to be expositional. In fact, you can spend a sermon just explaining the meaning of a word and all of its applications to us. Pastor Logan spoke about grace. What a subject you would have in explaining the ramifications of God's grace. So it doesn't have to be a particular portion of the scripture and this same pastor whose book we studied, he says the There were nine indications of a growing church, and he wrote it because many of those churches were dying. Here's how, as a young pastor coming right out of seminary, and you take one of these churches and it's a dying thing, how can you turn it around? He says to begin with, you need to explain God's Word carefully and plainly. You can't use all of those long seminary words like I do sometimes. You have to explain the scriptures clearly. And along with that, what happens in a church is they begin to develop a theology that's really biblical, a way of understanding God and His will for us that is genuinely biblical. It is remarkable. The funny ideas that people get because rather than reading their Bibles very frequently, they learn their theology from television and they think we need to be touched by an angel or they think that we need to speak about him in terms that are very humanly oriented like the old man upstairs or something actually blasphemous like that. And so we have people in churches like that have a very distorted view. A biblical-informed theology includes constant reference to the gospel. Oftentimes, a church in decline won't refer to the gospel very often because as the pastor looks out, he knows everyone who's there. They all make a profession of faith. Why should he preach the gospel? But we need to be schooled in the gospel. We need to know that we have an anchor for the soul and not just some kind of ethereal, I hope that I get into heaven when I die. So a theology that's oriented in the gospel message. The fourth indication of a healthy church, conversions. People are getting saved. They are being converted. The fifth, these people go on to be witnesses. Oftentimes they are the only ones in the family saved and they want to be a witness to their families. By the way, all of those older folks, all they need to do is start handing out gospel tracts and telling other people how to be saved. And that will go a long way toward reversing the direction of a church that is declining. Membership is essential. He mentions this. It is a biblical thing. It's not given the title membership. But it is absolutely an essential thing for a church that is going to thrive. Church discipline, he mentions as number seven. You say, wait a minute, church discipline is a sign of a healthy church? I mean, aren't you getting rid of people if you exercise church discipline? The very reason many pastors will not do it. Number one, it's hard to do. And number two, you don't want to decrease the attendance at your church, you want to increase that. But the church is designed to be a spiritual hospital, a place of spiritual growth, like a nursery is. You want to grow those children in the nursery, do what makes them healthy. And what happens when one of them gets ill? You know, you take specimens of that illness and start giving it to all the other kids in the nursery. Oh, that would be ridiculous, and yet somehow we think that's okay to do in a church. People sin against the Lord. We don't bring them into discipline as a first step. We go and we speak to them. This is not right for you to do. You need to repent, and sometimes they do right away. What a blessing. Sometimes they don't, and we have to go through these steps. from Matthew 18 in dealing with them. Number eight, discipleship. Are people in the church actively involved in the spiritual advancement of others? We think discipleships for the paid staff or the lay elders and the deacons maybe, the ones that have some job in the church. They're the ones that need to do the discipling in a church. Not true. Everybody does. Say, well, I don't feel very well equipped to do that. Well, number one, pick people that aren't as well equipped as you are. Number two, get well equipped. Study God's Word. Say, well, I don't really know how to do that. We have actually a discipleship booklet designed to help you learn how to do that. You don't have to be very good at it. You don't have to have a license to do this kind of thing. We just want to see people grow. We want to encourage them in the Word. And you know the best thing folks can do? They can read. Say, well, I do. I spend three and a half minutes every morning reading my Bible. Get them up to five. Get them up to ten. Saturate your soul in God's Word. It's just like a ship displacing water. When it is made and dumped into the water, it pushes all that water out of the way. Well, this is exactly how to overcome sin. Push it out with the Word of God. Push it out with real praying. Victory will come. And that's all discipleship is. We want to encourage people to follow the Lord and then The last step in a healthy church, the ninth mark, is leadership, leadership that wants to walk with God, leadership that provides an example for folks to follow. Now in Acts chapter 15, Luke, led by the Holy Spirit, is recalling for his readers, and remember his key reader is a guy named You may not remember this, Theophilus, yes, someone who loves God, to whom he's writing. And part of what we understand from reading the book of Acts is that the church is made up of fallen people. Look at the people in the church who have problems. And when you get through reading Acts 15, turn over to the book of Galatians, and you'll find, surprise of all surprises, the apostles are guilty of sin. Peter, the one who was accidentally made the head of the church in the third century, Paul had to rebuke him because he was wrong in his activity. according to the book of Galatians. But this is the nature of the church. You know, I used to think the church I attended when I was in school, wow, none of our elders ever sinned. And the only people that do are the people that leave the church. And that's their first sin. They sin by leaving. And I just had strange ideas. And I was glad to be a part because somehow that meant that I was okay just being there. Not the case. So when there are problems in the church, the first thing I thought of is how should they be handled? Because as you read through this chapter, especially reading it through several times, you notice how they did a really good job dealing with this difficult situation. And so that will be one of the things that we learn, but we're also going to learn about the importance of the gospel. And the first five verses, you know, coupled this with the next 6 through 21 thinking, I have to cover more than this in a message, but things really need to be understood at the beginning of this before we can go on. And so there are problems in the church, and that'll be our main subject. What we're learning in the first five verses is that There are problems in the Antioch church, there are problems in the Phoenician and Samaritan church, and there are problems in the church in Jerusalem. So what we're going to begin with is I want to describe a little bit of the background so that we understand the issues. Oftentimes we don't. What happens in a church when there are problems with some people is that they immediately take sides. I don't know, but I like Bob. I'm on Bob's side. Whatever Bob says, that's what I'm going to follow. And it becomes an issue of sides. And that's a little bit what happens here. We'll see that. But I want to begin by going all the way back to Acts chapter 10. talking about the problems and how they first began to develop in the Jerusalem church. Remember that Paul and Barnabas have been absent from their ascending church in the church of the Syrian Antioch church. for two years, AD 47 and 48, and they've been absent from the epicenter of the church, which is the church in Jerusalem. Some good commentators on scripture say the church in Jerusalem had between 20,000 and 30,000 members. The only place that they could all meet together was the temple mound, the temple precincts. And so they created individual churches, house churches, and we see one of those in John Mark's mother. Her house was given over to a house church. So they've been gone for two years, and this leaves us asking what has been happening in Jerusalem and in Antioch. To answer this question, we first have to go back and think in Acts chapter 10. This wasn't the first introduction of Gentile Christians, but it's the salvation of Gentiles that started this issue in the first place because the issue is with Jewish Christians who embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah but they were raised in the old covenant tradition and we'll talk a little bit about that. After Cornelius and his family and friends were saved, Peter goes up to Jerusalem. And we're a little bit surprised to find out that when he got there, there was a group of Jews who were called the Jews from the circumcision party. And they basically criticized, actually that's what our text says, when Peter went up to Jerusalem the circumcision party criticized him saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. How dare you do that? And we would not understand this at all. I would go to people from a different religion and have a meal with them and try and use that opportunity to win them to Christ, speak about the gospel. But no, you say, well, does the law say this? No, God's law does not say that you can't eat with Gentiles. Do you know that they get that conviction from a book called the Book of Jubilees? one of the apocryphal books and it became their tradition. You remember that word in the Gospels? It is not regarded as a positive thing in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. I grew up in a church very full of tradition. Much of it absolutely unscriptural. But that was what we believed because that was tradition for us. And how often do you hear somebody say that? I'm here from Lighthouse Baptist Church. Oh, well, I'm in this religion or I'm in that kind of church. And, you know, therefore, I don't need to listen to you. I've been raised in my tradition. And people are reluctant to change that. So they criticized him for eating with The Gentiles. These folks who accused Peter of this were said to be of the circumcision party. And when we get down to Acts 15 verse 5, the group that says you have to be circumcised, they say it is necessary to be circumcised or you cannot be saved. They're very much the same, the circumcision party. The thing you need to remember is when you're in Acts 11, the first 18 verses, these guys who are in the uncircum, or the circumcision party, that's three to four years before Acts 15 takes place. This has been boiling and developing and becoming something it did not start out being. Alright, so remember, because of Acts 11 verse 18, these folks did not question that the Gentiles were converted. And the Jews who were there in Jerusalem said, then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life. They weren't questioning their salvation. Initially, they were questioning, what do we do with them? Well, they had a long history of doing certain things with Gentile converts. What's it called? Making them proselytes. And to be a proselyte, as a male, you had to be circumcised. You had to restrict your intake of food. And so both of these things became very important. There were two issues that are key in this discussion. We'll use a nice word for it. It's like, you know, husbands and wives. Oh, we don't argue. We discuss. Yeah, right. And they were just discussing. No problem here. What did they believe? Well, they believed, we know, because of what they said to Peter, that converts that are Gentile need to follow the eating laws of the Jews, like in Leviticus 11. You know that. You know, anything out of the sea has to have fins and scales, have to have cloven hoof and chew the cud, and so forth. You can go back and read all of that, and they say you need to follow that. But I want to point something out to you. You may want to jot this down because we tend to think of, you know, serving bacon at a love feast as something the Jews would be horrified at, and they would have been. Mark 7, verse 19, you don't have to turn there. I'm going to read this to you. Jesus declared all foods clean. Mark chapter 7. He just took Leviticus right out of the life or Leviticus chapter 11 right out of the life of followers of Christ. And the difference is not the Old Covenant versus the New Covenant only. It's traditions that were never biblical being thrown out by the New Covenant. We know another thing that the Jewish Christians wanted the Gentile Christians to do. What was the name of their party? Circumcision party. What do you think they advocated then? Well, we're going to come to that, but yes, if you're a male Gentile convert, you need to submit to circumcision. But do you know that in Genesis chapter 17, where God gives circumcision to Abraham, he says very clearly, this is a sign of the old covenant, of the covenant that I have with you now. Circumcision's not a sign of the New Covenant. So, in spite of this, I said before this, basically, the Jews under the New Covenant were still wanting to observe both the Old Covenant and the traditions, and they wanted Gentiles to be proselytes. Second class citizens of the church. They were the first class citizens. The disciples were Jews. The Messiah himself is a Jew. So they need to become Jews. But that's that's casting out the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because this is not what he is a part of. As one man said, sometimes old ways die hard in a new era. Sometimes old ways die hard. Change. We don't like change. Don't change anything. It's taken me 20 years to get used to this stuff. Now you're going to want to change it all. Don't change. But what if God changes it? I mean, are we going to bow to Him in that? By the way, if you've been born again any time, you've experienced quite a bit of change. As you learned the Word of God and you said, oh, this idea I thought was right, I found out isn't all that right. And it needs to be tossed out. It needs to be replaced. By what? By the truth. Instead of what we learn. So these are the two critical issues on the part of some of the Jewish Christians. And do you remember what was happening at the end of Acts 11? It's kind of interesting when you think about it from the standpoint of Acts 15. At the end of Acts 11, verses 19 through 26, describes the founding of the church at Antioch. Say, why is that important? Antioch is not just a Cornelius and his family and friends conversion. Antioch, thousands of people and most of them are now Gentiles. So we're not just telling a handful of people what they need to do. We need to teach everybody. in all of these growing churches what they need to do. Cornelius was just the beginning of God opening the door of faith to the Gentiles. In Antioch, we have a large growing church with a majority of Gentile Christians, but there's more. There's more. The problems began to develop as soon as Paul and Barnabas got back from their mission trip. They get back in Acts chapter 14, it closes with the first journey, Paul and Barnabas arriving back in Syrian Antioch. When they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles and they remained no little time. It's wonderful how the Holy Spirit does this, and He does it numerous times throughout the New Testament. They were there no little time. When was the last time you were at someone's place? No little time. What's that mean? A long time they were there, and they made a report to their sending assembly. I want to stop here and make an application in a very different direction, and that is, what should we expect of our missionaries when they come here? We had last Sunday night, wasn't it, Herb? Oh, he's gone. Anyway, I was looking for Logan. We had Herb Hunter. And his wife were here visiting. They were in town for something of a family nature to take care of. And they visited the church. By the way, any of you have seen my prayer request on our prayer sheet for a guy named Ian that I've been witnessing to? Ian is from South America. And when I told him about the hunters being at the Beaumont Church, he went. He attended. He heard their whole presentation. Ian knows people in Nizna. I didn't know that. So that was a blessing. But I want to talk a little bit about the idea of having our own missionaries. They made a report to their sending assembly. Now, none of our missionaries are actually from our church. So they would do this at their home church or ascending assembly. They didn't show slides. They didn't play recordings. They probably didn't have a table in the back of the building to show the culture of the evangelized people that they went to. But what both of them did was to declare this, and this is what we're looking for, to declare all that God had done. with them, through them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles or, in our case, to the South Africans or to the Polish folks or, you know, wherever our missionaries are. how God had worked. The report doesn't have to be involved with technology, although that's not a problem, but it should focus on what God did in and through and with the missionaries. It's a report about God and about what God did. What highlights do you think Paul and Barnabas emphasized? I mean, I don't know. I thought to myself, I don't know that I would have mentioned John Mark leaving them. That might be kind of a delicate situation. You don't want to stain John Mark's reputation. After all, he did come out good for God later on. Even Paul commends John Mark in his second epistle to Timothy. So, I don't know if they would have mentioned that, but I would think it would be hard to ignore Yeah, this huge scar here, this huge scar here, the scar of my hands, the reason I'm holding my arm crooked. I was stoned, but God made me live. God healed me. God raised me up, I'm sure. That was somewhere in there. Maybe he was still suffering. And what they did was, a second thing I want to mention They remained a long time with them, probably preaching and teaching. The Antioch Church was used to this. Probably they rested. Perhaps Paul had to recuperate a bit from his stoning. But what connects Acts 14 to Acts 15? Well, they're home and they're telling what happened. Surely somewhere down the line, one of the Jews in the Antioch church is bound to ask, did you make them be circumcised? No, we did not do that. Did you sit and eat with them? Yes, we did do that. And he may have even added, because our Lord declared all foods clean. And you know, they're trembling. They're scurrying off to Jerusalem. Do you know what I heard him say when he's giving his report? Yeah, they're not circumcising them. They are eating together with them. That's what connects the end of chapter 14 with the beginning of chapter 15. So now the problems are not just developing. Now, all of a sudden, Acts 15.1, the problems come right to the top. It is no longer a preference. It is an established doctrine. Some men came down from Judea. And in fact, you see the first word there is an English word, but, B-U-T? Yeah, it's the Greek word, and. So Luke is connecting these two chapters together. He's connecting this development to what happens in verse one. in Acts 15. Some men came down from Judea, from the church of Jerusalem, and were teaching the brothers, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Now, is this an important issue? Could teaching like this be a problem? And if you think it is, do you know why it might be a problem to say this kind of thing? What are they doing when they say you can't be saved unless you're circumcised? Okay. They are there. Let me just say this. Is this a problem? Yes, it is a problem. Is it a big problem? It is a huge problem. Why? whenever a person adds a condition for salvation onto what the Bible makes the conditions of salvation, they are proclaiming heresy. Heresy. Not just a different opinion, it is heresy. People will make professions and be lost forever following this kind of teaching. Do they have that today? Yes, they do. Back in the 60s, the Charismatics began freely teaching that unless you speak in tongues, you cannot know that you're saved. That's the same thing. So that means they just can't. No, they might still be saved. No, they're adding that as a condition to the certainty of the gospel. We don't add those conditions to the children who come up in the front. We tell them, the first thing you need to understand is that you are a wicked sinner. You're not just kind of bad, but a lot of times you're good, and after all, you're so cute, so how? Kids don't need to be saved until they're 12, and they get real ornery. Well, no. No. In fact, we saw an example of a very young one who decided he would be ornery. But I'm glad he doesn't understand what I'm saying. All right? Why? Why? You cannot add conditions. And it's not just that. I grew up in a church that said you had to observe the sacraments or you would be lost. And liberal churches, the city is full of them this morning. They're having services this morning. And the pastor is teaching them, you need to be a good person. You need to do nice things for people. Do you know depraved sinners can do nice things for people and be lost? Say, well, there can't be very many of them in that day. Many, many will say to me in the day of judgment, I never knew you. Depart from me. You workers of iniquity. And you know what they come saying? I've cast out demons in your name. I've preached in your name. I've done all these miraculous works in your name. And we know them, you know. We know them. They're on television. We've seen them, we've listened to their lies, and we say, well, that's just another form of evangelicalism. Do you know what the word evangelicalism means? It means we are proclaiming the gospel, and they're not. They're not. Also, just look at how Barnabas and Paul responded according to Acts 15 too. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate. No small dissension means a really big dissension. You say, what's a dissension? A dissension, the word actually is translated otherwise, a disturbance, an upheaval, a revolution. It's actually translated a riot elsewhere. Yes, it was a big, it was a big problem in the church and no one knew better than Paul and Barnabas because Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, yes. And that's why it was such a big problem to them. We know that these Jerusalem Christians were creating a doctrinal problem because Barnabas and Paul objected to it so strenuously. But notice what the Antioch Church did. Bless their hearts, they'd been well taught. It'd be kind of nice to have the Apostle Paul as your teacher for a year, you know. I would sit out there and listen to him every single Sunday. I don't want to preach if Paul's here. I just want to hear him week after week after week. I would learn good theology from him. So, by way of transition, there is a conflict in the early church. How to handle this, how they handled it, helps us learn how to do the same thing at our church and to do the same thing in other churches. First of all, we need to distinguish between a serious doctrinal issue and lesser issues. Lesser issues do not require no little dissension, but a doctrinal issue needs to be clearly understood. Number two, there's a way to address problems like this in a church that is, first of all, through the leaders. That's what they did. I mean, you just read through the chapter carefully. We're talking about the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, and then all the apostles in Jerusalem. We're talking about the elders in those churches. We're talking about the people generally being there for, we know, at least the next part, beginning in verse 6 and running through the end of the discussion of this issue. What do people do when an issue like this comes up? I gotta talk. Boy, do you know what I heard? This is really bad. And so the way to handle a problem like this is to make sure you gossip with a bunch of people in the church. That makes a little problem turn into a huge, big problem. And that's oftentimes how a church deals with difficulties. But no, the leadership handled that. They did the talking. These were the problems in Antioch, but now they become the problems in Phoenicia and Samaria, verse 3. Let me back up and just clarify what they did. The Antioch church decided this thing needed to be dealt with, so they selected Paul and Barnabas and some of the others, probably leaders, maybe Niger and Lucius and Menaen, who were there when they were set apart for the first missionary journey. We don't know who the others were, but there were others, and they were appointed by the church to go up to Jerusalem to the other apostles and the elders about this question. So this is what happens. And as they're going 400 kilometer, probably more than 400 kilometers, the trip was, and as they're making that trip, they go through Phoenicia and Samaria. Phoenicia is not the name of a town. Phoenicia is the name of a region. The two largest cities there were Tyre and Sidon, okay? Now remember the ministry of the Lord Jesus in Sidon. I mean, we have this Syrophoenician woman who Jesus ministered to. So when they were there, the trip, as I mentioned, may have taken as much as one month. If you look at a map of the roads in the first century, they come down the coast road, the Via Maris, or Via Maris, they would pronounce it, and then turn inland, maybe going through Caesarea. That would be something they might have done on their way to the church in Samaria. And you remember back in Acts chapter 8, all we think of is Simon the sorcerer there, but the idea is Peter and John come from Jerusalem, they minister in Samaria, and then as they return to Jerusalem, they preach in the Samaritan towns along the way. And so these were not Jews being saved. Samaritans are not Jewish people. They follow the Samaritan Pentateuch, not the Mosaic Pentateuch. Their worship system is designed after their own making up rules and names and places and relationships. So this trip probably took them some time, and though these were all Gentile churches, we shouldn't think of Paul and Barnabas going through sort of stumping for the New Covenant folks. You know, you need to be New Covenant folks. What else did they know if they're all Gentiles? Gentiles didn't understand all the mechanics of Old Covenant Judaism. Paul was not really stumping. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. He went because they were Gentiles. And as I mentioned, it's unlikely that the Gentile Christians understood the issues. They were largely raised in paganism and most knew little about the Old Covenant, much less the regulations and traditions of the Jews. And besides, what were the church's leadership excited about when Paul and Barnabas came through? They were telling them what God had done through them in Antioch and in the Galatian churches. So, think about this, the work of God, we can see the work being of God because the whole city gathered to hear in Antioch. The word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region out of Antioch or around Antioch. And at the end of the chapter, the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul and Barnabas couldn't do that. They couldn't say, you know, tomorrow we need to make sure we give these folks the Holy Spirit. No, God does that. This is the work of God. Number four, a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed in Iconium. God was granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands in Iconium. The crippled man in Lystra was healed. Paul survived stoning in Lystra. By the way, the list of people who survived a Jewish stoning? No list. One, so this is an unusual thing and the apostles made many disciples in Derbe. Do you know that the work in Derbe started the day after Paul got stoned by the Jews? So these were all works done by God alone. What are you going to say? I know God did this work, but we're telling you, you have to be circumcised. He told us to do that. He didn't tell Gentiles to do that, though. He never told the Gentiles to do it. And this was not the work of the old covenant still. All right, so after they arrive from being in Phoenicia and Samaria, the problems are spoken of in Jerusalem, verses 4 and 5. Paul and Barnabas and some of the others come from Antioch, the church in Jerusalem gathers. What one word in verse 4 describes how the Jerusalem church received them, they were what? They were welcomed. They were welcomed by the apostles and by the elders in the church. Does it sound like the majority of the church agrees with Paul and Barnabas? Or does it sound like they agree with the party of the Pharisees? No, the clear impression is they agree with Paul and Barnabas. And the problem with the party of the Pharisees is this has not just become an alternative. This has become a lie. going by the name of the gospel. So even the testimony of the Apostle Peter and James argue for the new covenant. And after that welcome, Paul and Barnabas declared all that God had done with them Interesting to think about. Did they talk to people on board the ship that they took from Antioch to Salamis on the eastern shore of Cyprus? Did they talk about their trip across Cyprus when they witnessed to people that Luke never tells us of? So what about what happened in Paphos with Bar-Jesus or Elemus and the salvation of Sergius Paulus, the governor of the island, their arrival in Perga? Did they mention John Mark at that point? After all, where are they now? They're in Jerusalem. Where's John Mark? He's in Jerusalem. So, I mean, you just think. It might be a little embarrassing to get together, but you got to get together with Barnabas. He's John Mark's what? He's cousin. I mean, they're related. Their ministry in Pisidian Antioch, the invitation to speak at the synagogue, the positive and negative responses. They were forced to flee to Iconium, and they saw conversions there. From Iconium, they were forced to flee to Lystra, where they were involved in witnessing to all these pagans, and then opposition by the Jews, and then stoning, and he gets up, has a bit of a rest, and the next day they go right on to the next town. And they see many disciples made in Derbe. The return trip to strengthen the churches, preaching finally in Perga. Did you know they preached in Perga? I mean, it doesn't say that they did that on the way into Galatia, but it does say they preached there as they were leaving and returning to Antioch. And about this time, verse 5 says what happened. But, now this is a strong contrast. However, some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees, but notice they're believers. I mean, Luke says they were born again Christians. We had a couple attend our church for about six or seven years until they moved in Calgary who were saved in a Seventh-day Adventist service. where the leader actually preached a clear gospel message. That's not common for Seventh-day Adventist but they got saved. And then as they are being told they have to eat certain foods that the law says are okay and other things, they said, this seems a little different than the gospel message. They're saying that I can't really be right with God if I eat bacon. So, lo and behold, they wander in. And I mean, it's like starting with someone who made a profession yesterday. had so many ideas, a lot like my dear mother. She had so much Catholicism in her blood. They were going through a museum one time and there was a bust of Martin Luther. And she said, what is that thing doing here? Why? She had been taught as a child that Martin Luther was the one that Satan indwelt. And that's why Martin Luther was kicked out of the church. So a lot of unlearning to do. And so this is what they said. They belong to the party of the Pharisees. They rose up and they said, it is necessary. It must be done. This is not an option. It must be done to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses. The thing to notice here in verse 5 is that the party of the Pharisees, these are professing believers. And according to the way Luke says it, they were believers. They weren't just professors. They were genuine believers. Now, it's interesting that the party of the Pharisees could have been joined by Paul if he'd had any inclination. Because he was a Pharisee, right? He had prepared and functioned as a Pharisee, but he disagreed completely with the theology of the party of the Pharisees. They welcomed Paul, but this problem was raised. And in Acts chapter 11 verse 2, the brethren in Jerusalem who criticized Peter for eating with the Gentiles, they were of the circumcision party. These two parties were probably just two different names for the same group. We don't know that they were different at all unless the second one was just restricted to Pharisees. So, what do we learn from this? How do we apply this to ourselves? Well, from a smaller gathering of the Jerusalem Church leaders, verse 6 expands it to a larger gathering. The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter." So they call a full-blown meeting. The church, I don't know where they met, maybe on the precincts of the temple mound they met there. And the problem has developed over several years. Now it has surfaced, and what began as a concern has now grown into a dangerous addition to the gospel message. This is how Satan grows problems in churches. He depends on some to have a preference that becomes a bigger preference and then a concern and then a doctrine so that believers can be spoiled by this. a dangerous addition to the gospel message. Now, what can our assembly learn about how to take care of things? In every case, all along the way through this chapter, and even in the chapters we've considered before, they go to leadership. And I'm not advocating that because I'm part of the leadership here. Oftentimes, it takes time for us to understand issues like this. But it may surprise us that the Jerusalem Church did not address this problem as it was developing. There was, after all, a circumcision party functioning in the Jerusalem Church years before they left for their first missionary journey. Did they never attach salvation to it? Well, what they were doing was they need to be proselytes. We need to make them offer a sacrifice, be a proselyte. They have to attend synagogue services, not church services. We need to make them proselytes. People have to be Jews or they cannot be saved. And then finally, problems should be addressed just as soon as they surface. And that's what happens here. God makes the local church a nursery for spiritual growth. Satan seeks to cultivate in the local church Darnell's. What are Darnell's? Okay, talking just to the children. Children, Darnell's are fake wheat. They look like wheat, except there's no wheat on them. They're not real Christians. They're false. And that's what Satan seeks to cultivate. He goes beyond just cultivating false Christians. He wants to cultivate poison in the local church. God help us so to speak the truth at our church that we would always be a pillar and ground of the truth. and not a place where alternative opinions, you know, some of those opinions don't hurt. You can believe something else about all kinds of issues that are not really important. They're definitely not doctrinal issues. Do you know that a church of God denomination in Indiana years ago, they split. I mean, Hundreds, thousands of Church of God folks on one side and thousands on another side. Do you know what they divided over? Whether or not you had to wear a tie. A tie. I mean, most of us have heard they divide over the color of the carpet. Yes, I mean, that's bad enough. But come on, a tie? So, number one, we ought not part ways over issues like that. There's no need to. But when it comes to the gospel, yes, we need to clearly establish what the gospel says. You say, well, I got saved. I don't need to hear the gospel anymore. Folks, we live off the gospel. We live until we die 50, 60, 70, 80 years after we're saved. We live off that message. And we need to be a church where it is constantly proclaimed. We need to believe that we are sinners. And as sinners, if we die without salvation and know that we can't do it ourselves, but that we must do it through Christ, because He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Him. We need to believe that. And we need to believe because we are sinners, we deserve eternal damnation. It's not just that the real bad ones go to hell. I expect to see Adolf Hitler there when I go there. If I go there, I should say. You know, that's what they think. That's what many people think. That's what the devil has sown in evangelicalism. Silly ideas about eternity like this. But the Lord Jesus came. He lived a perfect life. And the reason for that is going to come in a minute. but he died a penalty, substitutionary death. It was a penalty because it was my penalty he was paying. And it's substitutionary because it was my penalty he was paying. And then he was buried, but on the third day he rose again from the dead. And when I believe that, All those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Shall be, not might be if they're good. No, we shall be saved. And as a result of that faith in Christ, He imputes to us His perfect righteousness. Because it's not my righteousness after I get saved that merits heaven. It's His perfect righteousness. Okay. Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, I do pray for this message to be the hallmark of Lighthouse Baptist Church that it has been all of these years. Thank you for the privilege of celebrating our anniversary. The founding of it was based on the truth of the gospel. And all of these years, we want to remain what we have been all these years, and that is a pillar and ground of the truth. Bless the word of God, and I pray for anyone who's heard the gospel, that they would understand what they have to do is bow their heart before you, admit that they are the sinner you have said every human being is, and that they deserve eternal wrath, but you promise them, you love them so much that you sent your only begotten son, who bore their penalty in their place on the cross, and all they have to do is trust in Jesus, and they will be saved. We ask, Lord, for your spirit to work this in hearts that are here, especially our young folks, Lord. We ask for your blessing in Jesus' name, amen.