Faith Alone Series

We continue our series on Why the Reformation matters today by looking at the importance of faith. One of the critical pieces that came out of the Reformation was the belief that Faith Alone makes me acceptable to God. We will return back to Sean’s story a little later today.

500 years after Luther nailed his protest to the door of his local church in Wittenburg, the principles that shaped the Reformation still matter. This monk, with a mallet, changed the conversation and led a time when people everywhere rediscovered the gospel. In a summer of 2017, Pew Research Center survey, 46% of individuals believe faith alone is all that is needed to get to heaven. Leaving around half of American Christians believing it is both good deeds and faith that get you into heaven.1 When I see this, I say, “Uh Oh!”

Acts 15

God sent the Holy Spirit to 120 believers after His resurrection. Peter had preached the first sermon on the Day of Pentecost. 3,000 people were saved in 1 day, and the church was off to the races. Jesus had promised that when the Holy Spirit came on the believers, they would be His witnesses: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It was a breathtaking prediction and commandment. Jesus was asking His Jewish followers to take the gospel which is the message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to people of no religion and people of different religions. It was to be for all cultures, all races, and all generations. The gospel is to be taken everywhere and the gospel is to be shared with everybody. Repeat: The gospel is to be taken everywhere and the gospel is to be shared with everybody. People were hearing for the first time that salvation is not earned by being good, doing your best, keeping the rules, or practicing religion, but rather salvation is a gift of grace gained by faith.

Today’s Scripture

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

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 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” (Acts 15:1–11, 22-29).