Greetings and welcome to Witnesses of the King, an exposition of the book of Acts. We're going through Acts chapter by chapter taking a look at what's going on here and learning about the early church and learning a great deal about how the Holy Spirit is building his church and assembling believers to glorify God in the world all these thousands of years. So we have opportunity in Acts chapter 15 to understand something of a very pivotal chapter in the history of the church. This council that met in Jerusalem to address a couple of issues really gives us a turning point as the gospel is going more and more and more to the Gentiles. As we see it today, mostly a Gentile, that means non-Jewish congregation around the world of believers. And so chapter 15 is critical because in chapter 15 they work out a couple of issues. One of those issues being doctrinal, having to do with the doctrine of salvation. And that is shown in chapter 15 verse 1. When some men came down, that is to Antioch of Syria where Paul and Barnabas were ministering, They came down and they were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Well, Paul and Barnabas had a real problem with this. They understood salvation as being by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And so there was no small dissension, which is what we called the sermon last time. And we talked about how the council really clarified the fact that salvation is by the grace of God. And Peter said it well in chapter 15 verse 11, as he said, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. Now another question that really came up and was very closely related is illustrated in Acts chapter 15 verse 5, in which comes a real question of duty. What is the duty of the believer? The Pharisees rose up and said it is necessary not only to circumcise them, but to order them to keep the law of Moses. And so the Pharisees come along and say they've got to keep all the law of Moses. And so these two very important issues break down like this. A doctrine, first of all, is it necessary to keep all the law of Moses? And that is a question that we answered last time. And then secondly, is a matter of duty. Is it necessary then to, I'm sorry, first of all, is it necessary to keep all the law of Moses to be saved? And then the second question is, is it necessary to keep all of the Law of Moses in order to be faithful. And so those are the two questions and we're looking at the second question today. Is it necessary that believers would try to keep all the Law of Moses? And we're going to look at the verses 22 to 35 to see how the Council ruled on this and what kind of agreement they came to. So let's join them in this starting in verse 22. It says, Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers. with the following letter. The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no 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 us, 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. Well, let's begin, very fittingly, with a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you so much for these words. We thank you for the wisdom of your people. We thank you for the guidance of your Spirit. And it is for those things, Lord, that we pray for today, that we would be wise to hear the Word of God, that we would be wise to deliver it accurately, and that your Holy Spirit would empower us to understand these things. So send your Holy Spirit to give clarity. Lord, we pray that we have proper faith and practice in our churches that will bring you great glory. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Well, the council decided, the council assembled a letter together and communicated that along with the personal envoys of Judas and Silas from Jerusalem. See, Paul and Barnabas were kind of on one side of this thing going into it. And so it would seem fitting to send with them Judas and Silas from Jerusalem, sent from the leaders there, to give credibility to this and to support Paul and Barnabas in delivering this message to the churches. And so this is a very wise thing they've done here. They've acted very wisely in every way. And we find in this that they summarized these things in four things to avoid. And we find those things in verse 20, in verse 29, and also they're repeated again in chapter 21, verse 25, as this is continually communicated to churches throughout the known world at the time. time. So four things to avoid here, and I have boiled these down to these four, but I have placed them in such a way as really three things, because I see two of them together. The first would be food sacrifice to idols. The second and third would be blood and what has been strangled. And then the fourth thing mentioned here by the council is sexual immorality. And so these are the four things that they boiled it down to. So beginning with the question, You know, is it necessary to be circumcised in order to be saved? And then taking that question, blowing it up, well what about all of the Law of Moses? Should all of it be observed by believers? And then the Council boils it down to these four things. And the reason for these, as we go through them, will become apparent why these four things. And this will be something that will be very helpful in order to do so. we have to study some background. And if you study background of the ancient world, what the Roman religions were like, what the Roman world was like, and what Gentiles were worshiping at the time, and we understand that background, and then we also understand the history of the nation Israel. through the Old Testament and their struggles with idolatry and their context being in the world they were in at the time. These things then become much more obvious. First thing is this, the fruit and sacrifice to idols, the worship of idols in the Roman world. took many forms and a very common way of worshiping in those days was to take some food your best animal that you had and sacrifice that animal at the place of worship and you would receive a blessing over that animal by the priest there then the animal would be presented and spiritually consumed by the idols. Now that's amusing because of course idols really can't do anything because they're not really anything. And the idols can't eat the food, they can't actually consume the food. But they would present the food and they'd say, oh, well, you know, the god is spiritual and it's obviously spiritually consuming the animal. Now take the rest of the flesh that's left over, which pretty much is all of it, and go sell it or go eat it or whatever you want to do with it. But it has been blessed now by this God and now it'll be a great and edifying thing for you. Well, this was a regular part of their lifestyle. This was something that was very, very commonly done. If you did business in this world and you were a seller of meat, then you would have all your meat blessed if you could. That way you could sell it as, oh this is not just meat, this is meat that has been sacrificed to so-and-so or to so-and-so. And it is blessed and it brings a blessing with it. So it's kind of a, I don't know, a better brand, if you would, of food. And so this was their idolatry. This was part of their regular worship and regular lifestyle. Now the problem with idolatry when it comes to the Jewish perspective is this. This was Israel's greatest challenge in the past. This was idolatry that really carried them all the way to exile. And exile seems to have cured them of idolatry. When they came back into the land, resettled, they no longer struggled. with the idolatry and the things that were observed prior to their exile. So God effectively cleansed them of that issue. But of course they developed other issues, legalism and other things. But nevertheless, idolatry was no longer a problem. Nevertheless, they were very sensitive to the issue. and avoided it at all cost. So now comes the church, now comes Jesus Christ. He comes, he ministers, he gives himself as an offering on the cross. The once for all offering, the Lamb of God being given for the sins of the world. And of course he is raised again and appears to the church and announces that it is by faith in him that all can be saved. And so this church then begins to spread and it's spreading among now many Gentiles. Many of these people worshiping in this way. having as tradition, having as habit in their lives, sacrificing their food to these idols and purchasing food that was sacrificed to idols. And so this is a regular part of their lifestyle. And now this is coming into contact intimately with many of these Jews as they come to faith in Jesus Christ together. And so what you have at this time is fairly evenly mixed congregations of both Jews and Gentiles together. Not only that, but their habit of meeting together was not simply, as it is today, to show up once a week and maybe spend an hour together here in the Word of God. But they had frequent, what they called, love feasts, which would be like fellowship meals, like a potluck. And they would spend this time together and they would celebrate the Lord's Supper and these things. And the problem would be if there's both Jews and Gentiles there, and the Gentiles show up with some of this food that's been sacrificed to idols. Now maybe they're fully aware that this doesn't mean anything, that the idol is nothing, and that the food being sacrificed to idol is really nothing. It's really Jesus who is the only and true God. And they come together, but the Jews see this food sacrifice to idols, and they're like, no, no, no. We're not going to have that. We're not going to be in your presence if you're going to eat that, because that has been a sacrifice to a false god, and we don't want any contact with idolatry. So maybe it was easy for the Gentile converts to put it behind them, to give it no more thought because it was such a way of their life, but to kind of reframe it in their minds that this isn't really any big deal. It's just a superstition. The food there is really nothing and the issue is consideration of the brothers. Look what Paul says in the book of Romans. Paul clarifies this quite a bit for us and very helpfully for us in the book of Romans here. Look what he says in Romans chapter 14 verses 14 and 15. He says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but is unclean for anyone who thinks it's unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love, But by what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So, Paul makes it clear that this is really a matter of conscience and consideration. Look what he says further down in verses 20 and 21. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes you, brother. to stumble. So in other words, you might be perfectly okay with this food-sacrificed idol. It might not bother you at all. You might understand the idol is nothing. This is just superstition. There's no big deal here. But if you should sit down to eat with somebody for whom it is a problem, you should not partake of it. You should not put that in front of them. You should not serve it to them. You should not eat it in their presence. Why? Because they have a problem with it. And yes, it's their problem, but in fellowship and in the church, one another's problems are our problems as well. And so we need to take into consideration these and be considerate of those who do not feel the same way about it as we do. It appears, therefore, because Paul writes this letter to the Romans sometime later, it appears at least for the short term what the council has done is they're wanting Gentiles to make a clean break from their idolatry for the sake of their Jewish brethren. And this is more than merely asking them to avoid this kind of food. It's a very clear command to forsake their idolatry. This is stated very plainly in 1 John 5.21 where he says, little children keep yourselves from idols. It's the very last statement of his letter. keep yourselves from idols. Idolatry was still a very serious thing and it was something that the church took very seriously. And so when we see this recommendation to avoid food sacrifice to idols, this is for consideration of those for whom this is a problem. This Jewish and Gentile mixture. Until all of us come to a realization of faith, until all of us grow together in our faith, let us set aside those things that might cause division. So the second issue was blood and what has been strangled. Genesis 9.4 is actually when the prohibition is first mentioned. So this precedes any issue of the law in which the Lord tells Noah after the flood, he says, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And so it was important from the very beginning that God laid this out. You don't eat things with the blood in it. And the issue why I've combined this with strangulation is when things are strangled, it prevents all the blood from coming out of them properly. And so animals that have been strangled, it is more difficult to let the blood out of those animals. So this is this prohibition, don't do this. And again, this is primarily for consideration of the Jewish brethren who have grown up, who have had a habit of this. This has been their lifestyle for many hundreds of years. And so this is something that the Gentiles ought to have consideration. And it's again, especially since they're going to be taking meals together. And so to avoid blood and what has been strangled, maybe you've heard of kosher foods. One of the issues with kosher foods is that it has had the blood properly drained out of it. It is food that has not been strangled so that it can be completely devoid of blood when it's processed. So this is well observed even to this day. Now unlike the issue of food, which Paul talks about extensively in Romans 14 and 15, this issue of things with the blood in it is never revisited. It seems simple enough to practice, and if Christians really think on the significance of blood in the gospel, This should really be a simple matter for us. This is something I believe that we should observe and know of course it's not a condition of salvation and it's not mandatory that someone would do this in and of itself. It's not that vital a thing as it is to avoid idolatry. But when we understand that there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood, and that it is the blood of Christ that forgives us of sins, then we understand the importance of blood in the gospel. And perhaps we would avoid handling it lightly. So that's something to think about. Now the fourth thing that they mentioned in final is sexual immorality. Fornication was often a part of the worship of pagan idols and adultery was as common in the world at that time as it is in our world today. but it is the very clearly expressed will of God throughout all of the Bible that all sexual activity would be limited to the context of marriage. In other words, exclusively in marriage is there to be any kind of sexual contact and that marriage would be between a man and a woman. God shows his displeasure with all abhorrent and aberrations and perversions of marriage very early on in the Bible, even before the flood. If we look in Genesis 419, this is an issue before the flood, Lamech took two wives. The name of one was Ada, the name of the other Zillah. And he is boastful about these, and he is boastful about his wives, and the whole commentary in the context in chapter 4 here is how depraved humanity was. How sinful they were. And so marched forth as an example of this is polygamy. Now you might say, wait a minute, polygamy happens all through the Old Testament. Yes, it does. And the Old Testament, and in fact all the Bible, is honest. It puts forth what people did. And it puts forth no perfect people until we get to Jesus Christ. God never endorses polygamy. Now, he never totally denounces it because it is a reality in the world, but nevertheless, Jesus comes along and confirms what was in the creation order of things in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. He says, from the beginning it was designed that it would be one man and one woman and that the two would become one flesh. And so however you do that, it has been very carefully worded to state the truth. The negative effects of sexual immorality are seen very early in Genesis 16, 21, 34, 38, with the early fathers we see. deviations from God's pattern becoming a problem. Polygamy being a problem, sexual immorality and prostitution, those things becoming a problem, creating confusion, creating strife, even bringing violence into the families of God. And so the very clear ethic from the very beginning is this exclusivity of sexual expression in the bonds of marriage. And this is an eternal issue. This is something that's often associated with final judgment. Look at these verses in Colossians chapter 3. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. Notice the connection of these particular sins with the wrath of God. We see Jude take up on this. He says, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued a natural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. And the commentary on this in Revelation chapter 21 verse 8 is this, as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. So God is terribly serious about this issue. I hope you see this. And if you are a Christian, and if you make a habit of partaking of sexual immorality, you must seriously examine yourself to see if you are genuinely in the faith. Because this, of all issues, is the most clear from the beginning to the end of the Bible. that God is very serious about the sexual purity of His people. Now that being said, the gospel is about forgiveness and the gospel is about second chances. So not only is this the most important issue that is presented in the Bible in terms of sins that we fall into, the reality is it is the sin. that we most often fall into. And for that reason, we have to embrace the gospel, the forgiveness, the newness that comes with it. For truly, in Christ, all things are made new. And there is that opportunity to begin again, and to begin anew. But God is terribly serious about this issue. And I want to remind you, Jesus, like many things, stepped this up a notch. Jesus took it from being just the physical act to being even a matter of the heart. He says, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So this shuts up most human beings under this sin. Most human beings are going to struggle in this area, especially when we consider this is a matter of the heart. And if it is a struggle, and we hate it, and we fight against it, That is truly a good sign that we are on the side of God, that we indeed are one of His and are concerned about this thing. It shows that we have the right conviction about it. But I want to say it is not overstating the matter to say that this is one of the greatest barriers to many people entering the kingdom. And sexual immorality is the bane of many a ministry. It is the one thing that has taken down more ministries than any other thing. Nothing destroys a witness more effectively than issues of sexual immorality. Now, of course, there's much more to Christian behavior than this. But more did not need to be mentioned. Now, notice they mentioned these four things. Fruit sacrifice to idols, blood, and what has been strangled, and sexual immorality. But we know there's a lot more to Christian behavior than these things. Why did they not mention more than this? Here's simply why. James is not saying, James and the rest of the council is not saying, throw out all the law except these things. No, what he's saying is emphasize these things because these are the issues that we're going to struggle with right now in our context. What about the rest of the law? What about lying? What about stealing? What about all these other issues and cursing and taking the Lord's name in vain and other aspects of idolatry and other aspects of social behavior that we need to be concerned about in the moral law? Well, here's how they dealt with that. See, James gives his judgment in verse 20 of these four things. We should write to them. And he puts it in a different order than it ultimately ended up in the letter. To abstain from things polluted by idols, sexual immorality, what's been strangled in blood. But look what he says 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 synagogue. See, the Word of God is there. The Old Testament is still relevant. And he's saying, look, these things are preached all the time in the local synagogue, in the congregations of those Jews and Gentiles. Now these are the four things that we want to recommend right now, but we know the rest is going to be handled in their services together as they review the Law of God and they learn about the Laws of Moses. So, the positive things we have to do. You know, there's much more required of being a believer in Jesus Christ. And the truth of the matter is, some people think, okay, if I want to live the Christian life, I just need to avoid a few things, and then that's really it. I'm considered a faithful, heaven-bound Christian. But there's much more than that. We know we must be active in a church body. We must be engaged in prayer with God. After all, the benefit of the gospel is to know God. That's the whole point is reconciliation with God. So we ought to be about prayer. We ought to be about studying his word, contributing time and talent and treasure to the local assemblies, to the local congregation that we're involved with, to do the work of the ministry. But these four particular things James and the others brought out because the context they found themselves in in those days. Idolatry and sexual immorality being the most serious issues and the most serious potential problems that they foresaw because of the nature of the religions of the day. So one more point to make here, and I want to, do you realize the significance of the question at hand and its answer? Well, let's talk more about that momentarily. First, let's summarize. Let's summarize these things for us. And there's some references I want to give you on sexual immorality right there. And you say, oh, there's a lot. And you say, yeah, I wanted to show you that Genesis through Revelation, it just saturates the scripture. And so search these things out for yourselves. They'll be in the notes that are available with the sermon. But that's very important for us to see. But let's summarize these things. The first question was, that they really addressed was, what must one do to be saved? And they made very clear the answer to that. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That there's not a work involved in our part. Yes, there are proper responses. Yes, we are commanded to repent. We are commanded to be baptized, but all those things come after this, that we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and so are saved by His grace. And this is really the crux of it. This is really the answer to the question. The second issue was this, you know, is it necessary to keep the whole law of Moses? Should we be keeping the whole law of Moses? And the answer is, according to the Council, we must avoid sexual idolatry, or avoid idolatry and sexual immorality, and consider the conscience of our fellow believers. In other words, we have to make a priority getting along in the congregation of the people of God. Now, of course, a council was not exhaustive because following the moral law is assumed. Not lying, not stealing, putting God first, you know, not worshiping other things, not taking his name in vain. All these things are assumed by the council. They are assumed as believers in Jesus Christ, as followers of God, that God's people would be observing these things. but understand for a moment the significance of Acts chapter 15. Because this was a major deal. This took several days. This involved the chief leaders in Jerusalem, the apostles, the missionaries, Paul and Barnabas and others who were missionaries at the time. All these people came together for some days and discussed these issues. And here was the opportunity for the Holy Spirit and the early church to outline precisely what is required in addition to faith, if there was any such requirement. If it was necessary to speak in tongues to be saved, they could have mentioned it here. If it was necessary to get baptized to be saved, It could be mentioned here. Baptism is necessary, but as obedience, not as a condition of salvation. If it was necessary to obey the other dietary laws that the Jews had, here was the opportunity to make it known. Here was the opportunity to regulate all the practices of the church. If we were supposed to observe the Sabbath, they could have included that here. If we were supposed to observe the Sabbath only now on Sunday, they could have done that here. If they were supposed to read only the King James Version of the Bible that would come along in another 1600 years or so, they could have mentioned it here. They could have put here any other issue. And by they, I mean the people of God and God Himself. The Holy Spirit being involved could have prescribed in Acts chapter 15 anything He wanted. us to practice for the last 2,000 years. But essentially, it has been left wide open. The lesson here is liberty. And for all the cults and all the heretics, Acts chapter 15 stands as the chapter of missed opportunities. Now while it's true that the Council was addressing particular issues in a particular time, it is also very true that what they came up with was general guidance that we can look to and say, okay, what are the basics of the Christian life? The basics of the Christian life is, you know, follow God, avoid idolatry, avoid sexual immorality, and consider your brothers and consider those around you. So together, this together with Romans chapter 14 and the book of Galatians, now we can assemble these things together. We can get a very full view of the Christian life and what it's like to live it in holiness and truth, to live in the power of the Spirit rather than obeying the letter of the law, to be free in Jesus Christ, but not free to sin or even to offend a brother. And so I want to present them three results of this issue. Three results of these issues as we've seen. First result is this, unity. And to consult this you can go to First Corinthians chapters 10 and 11 where Paul talks extensively about their feasts that they were having together. This is where the love feasts are mentioned. The Lord's Supper is mentioned there in chapter 11 and these things How do we get along in that context? How do we have orderly worship together in unity and in love? You'll recognize, if you remember, it's 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that we call the chapter of love. And that is his conclusion of this argument, or I want to say his climax of it. He's not done with it at that point. But his climax of it is that we would act in love and that we would consider one another's needs above our own. And so powerfully important things for us to put together. This results in unity, that the Jews and the Gentiles, because the Gentiles being considerate of the Jews' traditions and of what they're sensitive to and because the Jews are being considerate of the fact that God is now bringing in Gentiles and that Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law and that the spirit of the law is now fulfilled in the believers of Jesus Christ as they love God, as they love their neighbor, as they love one another. And so this understanding of one another, of Jew and Gentile, brings great unity in the church and would cause that church to be healthy and to grow. It also is good for their witness. If we think about this, at this point, not many Jewish people were converted. I mean, there was a great number, and to some point, it was a majority of the church, but there were still many more to come to faith. If the Gentiles were running around, running amok, eating all their food sacrificed to idols, not being considerate of the traditions of the Jews and the things, it would make it harder for those Jews to enter in to the congregation. It would be, as Paul says in Romans 14, a stumbling block to them. And so here the Gentiles are in essence embracing the truth of Jesus Christ and taking a step toward their Jewish brethren. by following these rules. And then finally, this is an encouragement, and I want to share some scripture here, because in verse 31, look at the response of this, as the men go out with this, Paul and Barnabas, Judas and Silas, they go back to Antioch with this news, and when they read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. So this brought with it great encouragement, great affirmation, because they understood, okay, we've been doing this basically right. And we've been doing this well. And what God has granted us is great liberty in Christ. But at the same time, he has encouraged us to love our brothers and not put a stumbling block before them. So great encouragement comes. And look, even as Paul and Barnabas, they end up going their separate ways. We'll talk about that next time. But as they go on and minister, we have this commentary as they revisit the churches that they went to previously, and as they bring this news with them. They delivered them for observance of decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So, now see, this is causative. So the churches were strengthened in the faith. and they increased in numbers daily. If you want to have a healthy and living and thriving and growing church, this is a key. This is important that we have our faith and practice right. That we understand how it is God saves people, but also how it is that he would expect us to live together in unity and in love. This strengthens and grows the churches. From this, we get for ourselves many encouragements. And one of them is this, God has saved us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We have seen it affirmed here in Acts chapter 15, that none of these recommendations given by the council are a condition of salvation rather these are recommendations for living this is how then we would live as saved people not how we become saved people it's settled here it levels the field it focuses our hope and affections on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Isn't that the point? It levels the field in that no sinner is too great a sinner for the gospel. That there is no competition in getting into the kingdom. That getting into the kingdom is by grace and you and I, sinner and worse sinner, or worse sinner and sinner alike, come together by the grace of God. So there can be no boasting. There is no second-class Christian because of their former lives. All things are new in Jesus Christ. There's no disadvantage to the weak, nor exceptional advantage to the strong. And the beauty about grace is that it makes life not Beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair, because if life were fair from a human perspective, then there would be different ways for different people to get into the kingdom, different hurdles to overcome, greater distances to traverse. But we can praise God because He has traversed that distance. He has reached to us in grace and saved us, rather than us reaching up to and qualifying for Him. This is grace and this is better than all works. Powerful encouragement that God has saved us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Secondly, God has given his people the Holy Spirit to work out these important issues together. What we have in Acts chapter 15 is a beautiful example of two sides finding compromise with one another without compromising the gospel. They found the truth together is what they did. It's not that they said, okay, I'm going to give a little, you give a little, and we'll meet in the middle somewhere. No, it's a matter of finding the truth together. And notice that doing this together is the emphasis of the passage. Let me show you a few verses here. In verse 22, it says here, Then it seemed good to the apostles, the elders, the whole church, to choose men from among them. So this was something that was done entirely together. The visitors and the home team together, coming together to do this. and in verse 23 it continues to say it here with the following letter and they open their letter the brothers both the apostles the elders to the brothers who are the Gentiles and Antioch, Syria and Cilicia so in other words this is coming from the elders and the apostles together here in Jerusalem and then in verse 25 they emphasize it here it has seemed good to us having come to one accord to choose men and send them to you. In other words, the emphasis is we're together on this. We agree on this. And that's why we're sending this letter and these men to you. So the Judaizers, just to review, they were clearly wrong about there being any legal requirements for salvation. But they had a good point that our behavior matters. that the law was given for a reason and it shouldn't be just wholesale forsaken. The law of Moses shouldn't be ignored. In fact, it should be preached every day in the churches around the world. Now Paul was obviously right about grace, but Paul perhaps was in danger of overemphasizing liberty and grace without being sensitive to those who weren't quite ready for some of this. As important as it is to understand that salvation is by grace through faith, an overemphasis on that issue will cause people to think that they have liberty to sin. That is never a liberty granted by God. For we have liberty in Him to love however we may. But we do not have liberty simply to sin. So it's important for us to keep these things in balance and in perspective. So the recommendations that the Council comes out with, a reminder to avoid idolatry and sexual immorality and consider the conscience of their brothers, and to maintain the unity of the churches, is so incredibly wise. a brilliant ruling brought about by the hard work of God's people and the power of the Holy Spirit. They give credit to the Holy Spirit for doing this. So God gives his people the Holy Spirit to work these things out and God also gives his people the desire to fulfill the law. I know that right now some of you are hesitating to embrace the gospels because of the perceived cost. That there are things in your lives, there are sins so dear to you that you do not feel you want to let them go, nor do you think that you're able to let them go in order to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you know you have to leave them at the door? And it is preventing you from coming. But Jesus asked the question, he says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul? See, the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other religious system on the planet is the regeneration that God gives, the rebirth, being born again. God gives us a new heart with his law written on it and the desire to do it and the power of the Holy Spirit to enable and empower us to do it. He grants us new priorities. priorities of love, love of God, love of neighbor, love of the brethren in the context of the church, and in Christian unity. There is no risk to embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ. No risk to embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why? Because God will make your heart new. He will put new desires in your heart and then he will grant you to have those desires fulfilled. There is no better news on the planet. Now, will you still struggle? Yes. But is it worth it? Absolutely. A mere moment of the very least of the blessings of God outweigh even a lifetime of sinful indulgence. Come to Him. He will give you new desires. He'll give you an eternity of granting those desires to you. And He will grant you to dwell among His people in love and unity, just as He has promised. This is the goodness and the sweetness of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, is that He would have us dwell together in unity and in love, glorifying God and praising Him all the days of our life. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father God we thank you so much that this has been made available that the work of Christ has been Proclaimed and indeed is there for each and every one of us to embrace the Lord I pray that you'll give us the faith to embrace you this day whatever level we find ourselves in that Lord you would use your Holy Spirit to guide us, to teach us, to draw us up to the next level of our faith, to draw us into relationship with you, to make our hearts new, and to give us the desire to follow your truth and to glorify your name. We thank you and we praise you for this great truth in Jesus name. Amen. Well, my invitation to you is to contact us. If you have any questions at all, or would like to interact with us, or if you're looking for a church in your area, or you just need prayer, whatever your need is, please make it known to us. Email us at whitesrownbaptist at gmail.com. I will answer those emails myself. And we can begin a communication, we can begin a dialogue. I am all about answering questions and helping someone and guiding someone into the faith because I understand this is a major decision. This is a major life-changing event we're talking about. And we should not expect that this is something that will take place in just a moment, though sometimes it does. And we should be open to that. This can be something that needs some discussion. And so please feel free to contact us, WhitesFromBaptist at gmail.com and browse the site for all the other opportunities that are there as far as a mini sermon series and things that you can get into a devotional that's there available for you on a daily basis to take a look at. So God bless you and may you find the love of Jesus Christ in the context of his people.