Standing, if you could please turn to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 21. The book of Acts chapter 21 follows the four gospels. I'm going to read from Acts 21 verses 17 through 26. I'd like to pray before reading that. Lord, I ask that we would be attentive to your word right now that you Holy Spirit would work inside of us and untangle perhaps some things that need disentangling. May we think your thoughts after you. In Jesus name, Amen. So Acts 21, beginning in verse 17, when we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. On the following day, Paul went in with us to James and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God, and they said to him, You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses. telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality. Then Paul took the men and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them. You may be seated. Okay, again, for those who have not been here for 13 years, I tend to work through scripture, a book at a time with occasional lapses where we do some topical sermons, but I believe the whole word of God needs to go out, and so the whole word of God should be preached in some kind of a methodical way. It's called exposition exegesis, and that's what you'll be hearing. If you recall, last time I stood here, the Holy Spirit had warned Paul that trouble and persecution was waiting for him in Jerusalem, right? And that's where he was headed. Yet Paul is willing, nonetheless, to suffer his fate, that the foe would bring upon him. For the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the church, Paul's willing to suffer. Paul said so in verse 13 of this same chapter. What did he say? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Not many would say that or do that today, so it seems. Just this week at Classis, however, Bob and I and Zachary were there, and there was a Hmong Christian pastor from our Classis, his name is Ku Vang, and he told us about his last journey to Laos and Vietnam, where he goes and he trains church people how to become church leaders. That's what he's been doing for the past couple of years. He's very effective at it. But they came to one city in Vietnam, I believe, where the government was in opposition to the church's attempt to do this. They were gonna gather leaders from around the area and bring them there so Cu could work with the Christians. But the government told them in advance, you better not do that in this city, right? We're not gonna have that take place here. You tell them not to come. Well, they went ahead anyhow, and Ku was in this kind of a mini hall. a smaller room, and he was teaching, but he said there's only one way into this room, a little bit like maybe we would have if there were only one doorway in the back of the church here. And Kuh said as he was teaching these things, he kept his eye on the door, waiting for government officials to come in, and he was a little nervous about it because his wife was sitting among the congregation or the congregants. At some point in the training, it lasts for days, they decided to take the women and move them to a different location, a private house, in order to participate in the training over there, which Ku said, okay, once they took my wife out of the situation, I said to God, whatever you wanna do now is fine with me. He was willing to suffer for the gospel and for what God had called him to do. And I thought it was admirable. It really kind of made me think of Paul going into the situation he finds himself in here in Jerusalem. He knows there's trouble awaiting and yet he's willing to walk into that potential hornet's nest for the sake of the gospel. Well, in verse 17, the apostle, he enters Jerusalem, and he is ready for God's enemies to be his enemy. Verse 17, when he had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly, right? On the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry, and when they heard it, they glorified God. So the first thing Paul encounters is not opposition, but support, right? As he returns to Jerusalem, the brothers warmly welcome him. No immediate trouble. It was more like a reunion. You've got that. You've got that even in churches. You know, those who don't seem to want to hear the Word of God become your greatest opponents, whereas those who long for the Word of God become your greatest friends, if, of course, you're preaching the Word of God, which is the big question. The second day, Paul and his entourage attended a gathering where James was, and the elders were there with James, the office bearers in Jerusalem. The church started, if you remember, in Jerusalem. Jesus said that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, that's where Paul's been. Paul's been to the uttermost parts of the earth, and he's back to Jerusalem right now. And he's sharing all that God did among the Gentiles out there. Well, as he shared it, there was rejoicing going on. James and the others saw what Paul was doing as a fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, that Jesus was to be a light to the Gentiles. David's tent had been restored, and the remnant of mankind was now seeking the Lord, all the Gentiles who are called by his name. So from the right hand of the Father, this is what the apostles recognized and the elders, from the right hand of the Father, Jesus Christ was taking the world by storm. People were repenting, they were bowing the knee to Jesus, all the way from Derbe and Lystra to Thessalonica and Philippi. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Yet each time Paul went into a new city out there, right, each time he'd first go to the Jews. He'd go to the synagogues. He would preach and teach the scripture in the synagogues. And he'd explain how Jesus Christ fulfilled the scripture. You have an example in Acts 17. I'm gonna read Acts 17, a few verses, if you want, you can look there. Beginning in verse one, it says, now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. That's like our church, right? We're one synagogue. Paul verse 2 sorry Tracy says don't interrupt when you're reading a passage just wait till you're done reading it then make your points I'm got to remember to do that Paul went in and As was his custom on three Sabbath days. He reasoned with them from the scriptures Explaining and proving that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ and some of them were persuaded and and joined Paul and Silas as did a great many of the devout Greeks. And not a few of the leading women. That means there were some leading women also that joined with Paul and Silas, did it again. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. Another king, Jesus. So Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles, but he began his ministry in every city to the Jew first. Consequently, Jesus Christ used Paul to glean a remnant from almost every synagogue. Paul would glean a few, glean a remnant. He converted both Jew and Gentile worshipers. And that infuriated the Jewish religious leaders. I suppose they might have accused Paul of stealing sheep, right? However, we should note, it is Jesus who was doing the sheep stealing for his purposes. Paul was the instrument. He was taking from the synagogue of, the synagogues of Satan, and bringing them into his own synagogues or churches. And that language is language that the Apostle John uses in Revelation chapter three, verse nine, so it's not as if I'm name calling. Yes, they were losing synagogue members, but on top of it, Paul's teachings were making the Jewish religion seem useless, ineffective, like a banana peel or an eggshell. That's what Paul was saying that a lot of the ceremonies and the customs have now become, like a peel in a shell. And that's offensive. That seems like it's upsetting the whole apple cart to the Jewish religious leaders. Paul is saying that Christ fulfilled the ceremonial aspects of the law. And therefore many of the customs, many of the rights of the old covenant, the sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, these had become old wineskins, unable to carry the new wine of the gospel. And so the apostle has arrived in Jerusalem from where his opposition would come. And they said to him, this is what they said, beginning in verse, well, in the middle of verse 20, you see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed? They are all zealous for the law and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So here's the question, all right? And you gotta ask this question because this is imperative for a right Christian understanding of what we do with the Old Covenant. Is Paul against the law? Is Paul against the law of Moses? I know some of you have verses that pop to mind that you've heard over and over again. I'd suggest you know he's not, but I'll explain in a little bit. So here's what's happening. Paul is out in other lands sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. He's sharing in the Jewish synagogues of what is called the dispersion, the diaspora. These synagogues, they came up in the course of centuries after the Assyrians took some Israelites out of the country and away, after the Babylonians took other Judeans and Jews out of Israel and into their lands, they had to worship God somehow. But for centuries now, these synagogues were formed and they'd worship God just like we do in a place not in Jerusalem. So Paul's going out to these other lands, he's attending synagogue just like Jesus did, right? But they're the scattered Jews, they're away. He's going to the places of worship where they pray and read scriptures. He's going to the places where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have now been worshiped in. And in those outlined synagogues, Paul preaches and teaches how the scriptures of God refer to Jesus Christ. He's accepted as a rabbi, he was well trained, but he's teaching how the scriptures of God refer to Jesus Christ. Here comes Paul preaching and teaching how the sacrifices and priesthood of the temple are no longer necessary. Mere shadows, mere shadows of our high priest who is now in heaven. Jesus, the one sacrifice that speaks fully for man's need. Here comes Paul preaching and teaching that the way is open for Gentiles, right? To worship God alongside the Jews with all legal distinctions now abrogated, now put away. Here comes Paul preaching and teaching that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead by God the Father and given all authority in heaven and on earth. Jesus is the King of kings. Here comes Paul, now to Jerusalem, where there are many Jews, many customs, a still standing temple, and all these new converts to Christ, confused about the role of the law. So now what are we supposed to do? They believe in Jesus Christ, but what do we do with the temple? What do we do with the sacrifices? What about circumcision? And James and the elders are laboring with them, trying to teach them what it all means. And the question is, is Paul against the law of Moses? In verse 20, James and the elders are concerned about the many thousands of Jewish Christians that they've been teaching. The believers of verse 20 are believers in Jesus. However, they are newly converted, still weak in their faith. They have not learned of their freedom in Christ. They do not fully understand how much of the old covenant customs and rules have been fulfilled by Jesus and therefore no longer necessary. They don't get all that yet. Add to that that their own kinsmen, their own family members, their mother or their uncle or cousins, who do not believe the gospel of God are still carrying on with those old covenant rules and rights. A lot of pressure. So circumcision for them was still a sign in their minds of the covenant to be applied to infants. The Levites and priests still maintain the temple and offer sacrifices. And further, there's still this line of demarcation, this dividing line between Jews and Gentiles when worshiping God. What kind of pressure cooker is Paul being put into? And is there any way to relieve some of the pressure for the sake of those thousands of converts that still haven't got it all figured out right? For their sake, for Paul's sake, for Christ's church's sake, James and the elders, they have an idea. And this is what's being talked about right here in this text. They suggest a plan. It's not a deceptive plan. But before we consider the plan, we gotta ask again, does Paul teach the Jews to forsake Moses? Is that what he's been doing? Would Moses think Paul, would Moses think Paul was teaching something contrary to the law that God declared on that mountain. Would Jesus think, people, Paul was teaching contrary to Moses? I think he's not teaching contrary to Moses at all. Hardly. Paul and Moses are in agreement. We need to understand that both men uphold the law completely. Both men believe the law is good and given to God's people as an act of grace, but the law is good only when used lawfully, when used properly. I believe the modern church, among whom we sit here, has become confused about the law of God. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, we are not under law, we are under grace, as if we have the right then to dismiss the whole entire Old Testament. That's simplistic, it's a false teaching. We've taken verses out of context somehow to pit the law of God against the grace of God when the two walk hand in hand regularly and always have. We've been given the law by God because of his grace. It's for our good, right? The two are not against each other any more than the shell of the egg is against the egg. This is how you got to honor. Any more than the peel was against the banana. They're not against each other. I tell you, Moses too would have seen Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of much of the Old Testament law. in regard to the sacrifices, in regard to the temple, in regard to priestly service, and the like. Jesus fulfilled those things. He fulfilled them this way. He took them up to heaven. He took them to heaven. Any attempt, I'll warn you, any attempt by earnest Christians to try to come up with money to build a temple in Jerusalem, you've been misguided. That's wrong-headedness. That's a bringing of Christ down from heaven. Moses would also have understood and accepted when Jesus the Messiah tore down the dividing wall that separated Jew and Gentile. Was all that Paul's been getting at with the putting aside of circumcision, the introduction of Jesus for baptism and the like? So the answer to the question is no, Paul is not against the law, but he is for the correct application of it. Jesus himself said that worship would shift and no longer be aimed at the temple in Jerusalem. Sacrifices would cease. Baptism and the bread and wine would be introduced and considered essential to the New Covenant order. And so circumcision has been replaced, what, by baptism. Paul knows this. Jesus told the church to baptize all new believers. Therefore, Paul went around teaching that circumcision had become obsolete. This is what Paul said in first to the Corinthians, this is my rule in all churches Was anyone at the time of his call, you know, and he became a Christian already circumcised. I Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision, for neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. That's what Paul said about circumcision. He understood. That was like a banana peel that's set aside now. Then in Colossians, Paul announces that Christians are now baptized into God's covenant community. He writes, in him also you are circumcised. Wait, what? With the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. It's not a literal circumcision, but figuratively. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. So he establishes baptism, circumcision is put aside. You must understand, some of the old covenant law has been lifted into the heavens. That's what it means by Jesus fulfilling. It didn't go away in a sense, but it's been lifted into the heavens. Other law has been torn apart as as when Christ was was crucified with the body of Christ. However, there's still Old Testament law in play as it pertains to universal human living and the worship of God Almighty. We still believe the Ten Commandments are to be obeyed as well as other ethical stipulations found in the case laws of the Old Testament, things that are not mentioned by Jesus Christ anywhere. Some people go that route. Well, we don't really have to have the whole Bible. We just can get rid of two-thirds, keep the last one-third. That's the New Testament. If Jesus said it, we should obey it. He does repeat a lot of that stuff back there, and so we'll believe it because Jesus said it, but if he didn't say it, it doesn't count. Well, no, there's many things in the Old Testament that are ethically imperative, like bestiality being a sin, all right, that Jesus never mentioned in the New Testament, and on and on. You'll find many. So that's a weak argument in my mind. I held it at one point in my thinking, but I've learned. You can understand why the Jews might have a hard time, right? With all that stuff, accepting this fresh application of Moses. And at times, Paul, he's tried to be careful, right? He can only be so careful, swimming around in the waters of Judaism. He wants them to learn, he wants them to understand how the law works now. But his greatest opposition is always coming from the Jews, the Jewish leaders. And that's because they're guarding the shadows, they're guarding the eggshells and the banana peels as if those are the most important things when really they should be put aside. An example, okay, of Paul's careful swimming can be found in Acts 16, all right? Where we read this, Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer. But his father, what was Timothy's dad? He was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him. And what did he do with Timothy? He says, you're gonna be circumcised. Because we're gonna be going to preach and teach among a lot of Jewish people. And they're gonna have a problem with you being a Greek if you're not circumcised. Did Paul believe Timothy should be circumcised for the good of his salvation and sanctification? Not at all. It was not for Timothy that Timothy was circumcised. It was to remove something that might prove a hindrance, that might become an obstacle to their effective preaching and teaching. Did Paul compromise? Some people look at that, Christians go, well, I don't know, I just never would have done that because that's an absolute compromise. He didn't believe in it, so he shouldn't have done it. Oh, baloney, that's silliness. We should take all kinds of opportunities to compromise our wills for the moment, our desires, our way of thinking, if it's gonna help someone else to receive Christ, to accept the gospel. Now Timothy was circumcised, not for Timothy, but for the Jews. Paul was not compromising, he was doing something that would be expedient, that would be helpful. He was buying, he was buying some time. You know, sometimes you get a new Christian and you're working with them and they're just kind of still messed up, right? And they got a lot of things going on and they feel strongly about some things. Well, you kind of like, you tap dance around them a little bit. Let them hold their, they need time to grow. They need time to learn new things. They need some time. It doesn't mean you agree with something that's false and sinful. But at the same time, give them some elbow room. Help them to grow. Maybe you don't need to get into your latest view of the end times and this and that, right? Let them grow. Stick with things that are imperative and important. It's proved in another instance Paul spoke of how Titus, who was another Greek believer, was not circumcised when he took him along for the first time to Jerusalem. He said, I wasn't gonna circumcise Titus, why? Because he didn't want the church, which is where they were going, in Jerusalem to demand that of people. He didn't want them to think that they had any right to make that a requirement for you to believe in the God of heaven and earth. So Titus wasn't circumcised, why? Because of the gospel. Paul's motivation is easily explained, 1 Corinthians 9, verse 20, to the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law. I could do all kinds of things or refuse doing all kinds of things. It's gonna help somebody in the moment, right? A case in point, I regularly think of, you got somebody who's a new believer, and I was in this camp at one point, absolutely, you shouldn't be drinking alcohol whatsoever, that's a sin, and if you got someone like that, hey, you can refrain for a time with that person until he starts to understand more his liberty in Jesus. You don't have to go, oh, get out of my way, I'm gonna have one, move aside. You can do all kinds of things to bear with other people's weaknesses until you get to the point. It doesn't mean you give up your liberty. It doesn't mean you're under this law of this person's, right? We've gone through these waters. So this is the principle and the plan that's recommended, and this ends the chapter here. Verse 23, do therefore what we tell you. We've got four men who are under a vow. Take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. It's a Nazarite vow, I believe. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. But ask for the Gentiles who have believed we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed. I'll stop there a second. What he's saying, hey, we already sent the letter. That was back in Acts 15. We already sent a letter to Gentiles. Nothing's changed. We're not saying that all these banana peels and eggshells need to be re-implemented into our Christian faith. We just think this would be wise for the moment. Church leaders in Jerusalem are in full agreement with Paul and his understanding of the gospel. Nothing has changed since Acts 15. Yet they thought it would be helpful for Paul and for the whole church if Paul would demonstrate his respect for an appropriate part of the law of Moses that could still be applied today if necessary. Well, at least in that day while the temple still stood. Paul would not have done something to make it appear as if sacrifices still had merit. because Jesus Christ would then be insufficient in his sacrifice. Paul didn't want them to think falsely about sacrifices. However, taking a vow is legal, it's unadvisable. In any case, there were four men who had reached the end of what appeared to be a Nazarite vow, and the plan was for Paul to go with the four and pay the expense of their purification. That would convince some who were worried that Paul had not gone rogue. Right, he did not throw caution to the wind and write off the law of Moses completely, that he had something going on there that was respecting the law of Moses still. And this offering that was to be paid was not an offering for the forgiveness of sins, or he probably would not have done that, I suggest, but it was in the form of a thanksgiving to God. And it's evident from what the elders say in verse 25 that this is merely a concession for the sake of perception. Peace was the thing they hoped to secure for a while. Nothing had changed in their minds or in Paul's mind. Paul would go to the temple to buy some time to help develop a stronger conscience, help develop these young Christians' faith a little bit so that they didn't have to do this again and again. So two takeaways from what we just said. This is the application, right? The whole law, the whole law of Moses is good. Some of it has been taken up into the heavenly temple by Jesus Christ, our high priest, the one perfect sacrifice, the king of kings. So those things we no longer do here upon the earth. their peels and shells. They had their place for a time. However, in regard to the law of Moses, there are still ethical rules and stipulations that are to be applied in our earthly relationships and our worship of God. Chew on that. Second primary takeaway is that sometimes you and I, we can deny ourselves some liberty, some freedom, and do something we might not normally do in order to help someone grow in God's grace or to help someone receive the gospel from our lips more readily. This does not mean that we're allowed to sin. Well, I never really get them to respect the gospel and I never have a few more drinks with them. It doesn't mean we're allowed to sin. It doesn't mean we should approve of sin. Ah, that's okay, don't worry about that little activity because God will forgive you. It doesn't mean we should and could in any way detract or subtract by the all-sufficient work of Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice and the one and only High Priest, the King of Heaven. Those are the two takeaways. Room for discussion after the service. Let us pray. Lord, I ask that we would labor to understand you more correctly, to understand your entire counsel, the entire counsel of your word more thoroughly. Teach us your ways. Holy Spirit, convict us of sin in our life. Encourage us in the way of right thinking. We depend upon that as well, you as well. In Jesus' name, amen.