Laying Down My Rights Series

ENGAGE

I want to begin this morning by asking you to fill in the blanks in the two statements at the top of your sermon outline. Just write down the first thing that comes to mind and not what you think I want you to write down.

In order to be a “good Christian” you must:

In order to be a “good Christian” you must not:

TENSION

If all of you were totally honest with what you wrote down, there are probably a lot of different answers out there. And those answers are influenced to a large degree by your upbringing and your church background.

For instance, if you’ve been a part of a church that emphasized tithing, you might have written down that you must tithe in order to be a “good Christian”.

If you grew up in a home where you were abused by an alcoholic parent, you night have written down that in order to be a “good Christian” you must not drink.

There is nothing inherently wrong with those kinds of convictions. In fact, if God has developed those kinds of convictions in your life, you really should not violate them until God changes them. The Bible is clear that if we do something that violates our conscience then that becomes sin for us.

But when we take our personal preferences and convictions and try to impose them on others, both inside and outside the body of Christ, we often put up barriers that impede our ability to bring the kingdom of God near to others.

TRUTH

And that is exactly what happened in the early church. So this week as we wrap up our series of nine messages from the book of Acts, we’re going to see what we can learn from the way the leaders handled that issue.

We left off at the end of Acts 13 last week, with Paul and Barnabas in Iconium. They spoke boldly there for some time, even in the face of tremendous persecution, But when there was an attempt to stone them, they left and went to Lystra and Derbe and continued to preach the good news of Jesus. [Show map]

But eventually Jews from Pisdian Antioch and Iconium came there to Lystra and stirred up the people and this time they actually did stone Paul. But failing to be deterred, Paul just went on to Derbe and continued to strengthen the disciples there. After that Paul and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch to the church that had first sent them out on their missionary journey.

That brings us to the beginning of Acts 15

[Read Acts 15:1-2]

A group called the Judaizers had come from Jerusalem and were teaching that no one could become a Christian unless they first became a Jew and were circumcised according to the Jewish Law. You can imagine the problems that this was causing in the church there in Antioch, which consisted almost entirely of Gentiles. I have to believe that there weren’t too many men who were eager to sign up for the new members’ class if that was going to be a requirement for membership.

After debating the issue with those men, Paul and Barnabas return to Jerusalem to bring the issue before the apostles and the elders in what is usually referred to as the Jerusalem Council.

There are two important questions that this group of apostles and elders must address here:

1. Is there anything else required for salvation other than faith in Jesus alone?

2. How are we supposed to fellowship with each other if one group sees something as a right and the other group considers it to be defiling?

After what was undoubtedly some vigorous and contentious debate, several of the church leaders responded. The first to speak was Peter. He addresses the answer to the first question about what is required for salvation.

[Read Acts 15:7-11]

Peter is referring back to his encounter with Cornelius that we looked at a couple weeks ago in chapter 10. And the argument he makes goes something like this:

“When I went to the house of Cornelius and shared the gospel with the Gentiles who were gathered there, none of them were circumcised. And I didn’t make Cornelius take the ham out of the oven or quit eating bacon with his eggs. I just preached the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus and when they responded in faith and put their trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit came upon them with power in the same He has done for all of us Jews.”

The second argument that he makes is that these Jews were trying to place a burden on the Gentiles that they hadn’t been able to bear themselves. The Law had been given to the Jews not as a way for them to be saved, but rather to show them that they needed someone to save them. He reminds them that the point of the gospel is that God did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves through His Son, Jesus.