Scott Aniol
Acts 15.1-35
Morning Service

Transcript
Transcript of Evening Discussion

 

Thesis: Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

 

Introduction:

 

The most important question any person could ask is this: How can I be right with God?

 

People have been asking that question since the beginning of mankind. Romans 1 clearly tells us that every person is born with an innate knowledge of the God who created them, and so they cannot escape the question, AHow can I be right with that God?@ They may avoid the question, they may deny that there is a God, but every person wonders in his heart of hearts, AHow can I be right with God?@

 

That question, of course, has been answered in all sorts of different ways. But if you collect all of the answers to that question together, you immediately notice a common theme among them. The most common answer to the question of how we can be right with God is this: We can be right with God by doing what He wants us to do. That seems to be a natural answer, doesn=t it? If our concern is that we be right with God, then it would be only natural to assume that the way to be right with God would be to obey what He commands, and that is exactly how most of the religions of the world answer the question.

 

 

Probably the most influential religion to answer the question this way has been Roman Catholicism. In fact, in 1545 a church council met to answer this very important question: How are we made right with God? And they answered the question this way: We are made right with God through believing in Jesus Christ by God=s grace, but then we must maintain that right standing by doing good works. They answered the question just like most every other religion in the world answers the question.

 

But is that the right answer? Is that God=s answer? If our concern is that we are right with God, then it only makes sense that we ask Him for the answer. And where can we find His answer? In His Word.

 

We have been progressing through a study of the book of Acts C the history of the beginning of the Church C and we have come to chapter 15. This chapter is the pivotal chapter in the book of Acts because it answers the very question we have been considering: How can we be right with God? If they had gotten the answer to that question wrong, the true gospel may have been lost forever. But, of course, God was in control, and they did not get the answer wrong.

 

Before we get into the answer to our question, let=s consider the historical setting. Jesus Christ had died and risen again. He was now in Heaven and had formed His Church just as He promised. And now He was using His Church to spread Christianity. It had permeated Israel, and now it had begun to spread in what is today Turkey and Greece.

 

 

As more and more people converted to Christianity, it wasn=t long before debate began concerning the question we are considering today: How can a person be right with God? The Jewish Christians were the ones who were predominantly fueling the debate. You have to understand, they had lived under the strict restrictions of the Law of Moses for hundreds of years. It was only natural for them to assume that the way to be right with God was both belief in Jesus Christ and obedience to the Law.

 

And so we see the central issue of debate in verse 1:

 

Acts 15:1 Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”

 

So some were insisting that salvation comes through faith plus obedience to the Law, but others strongly disagreed. It is for that reason that a council of churches met together to debate the question, similar to the Council of Trent hundreds of years later. The only difference between the Council of Trent and the Council of Jerusalem, though, is that Trent got the answer wrong, and Jerusalem got it right.

 

So I would like for us to look this morning at how this first church council answered the very important question of how we can be right with God.

 

Every Person Needs Purification From Sin

 

 

The first person to stand up in this debate was the apostle Peter. The key issue in the question involved the difference between Jews who were being converted, and Gentiles C non-Jews C who were being converted. Peter was the apostle who had received direct instruction from the Lord to take the gospel to the Gentiles, so it was natural for him to speak on the matter.

 

Acts 15:7 9 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.@

 

Verse 9 is key. There is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Some Jews were demanding that in order for a Gentile to be saved, he had to convert to Judaism as if there is a difference between them. But Peter is saying that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Well in what way specifically is there no difference between them? Look at the verse. The little word Afor@ introduces the answer to that question: Afor he purified their hearts.@ In other words, what Peter is saying is that both Jews and Gentiles need purification from sin.

 

The apostle Paul makes this very point in Romans 3:

 

 

Romans 3:9 12 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

 

Every person is in need of purification from sin. Every person needs to be made right with God. No one is right in and of himself. Whether you are a man or a woman, rich or poor, black or white, religious or irreligious, you need to be purified from your sin.

 

What is sin? Sin is anything that goes against the character of God. The Bible teaches that everyone is born in sin. One of the best ways to prove this is to consider your life compared to the Ten Commandments. Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen? Have you ever disobeyed your parents? Have you every taken the Lord=s name in vain? How about this one: have you every murdered? Well, of course you haven=t, right? But Jesus said that if you hate someone, then you have murdered them. Have you every committed adultery? Maybe not physically, but Jesus said that if you lust after someone, you have committed adultery in your heart.

 

Not one of us here today is without the guilt of sin. Every one of us needs purification from sin. But why is that a big deal? It is a big deal because God is completely without sin; He cannot tolerate sin in His presence. And He must punish sin. Romans 6.23 says that the payment for sin is death in Hell. If we want to please God and be with Him forever, we must be purified from our sin.

 

 

But how can we be purified? Peter answers that question.

 

Purification from Sin Comes Through Faith

 

Acts 15:9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

 

How can we be purified from our sin? Peter makes it clear C through faith. And since there is no distinction among the peoples of the world concerning their need for purification, there is no distinction concerning the way to be purified C faith in Jesus Christ.

 

What is faith? Basically, faith has two components to it: First, it means believing in something that you cannot see. Hebrews 11.1 says:

 

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

 

It is easy to believe in something you can see. If I were to tell you that the carpet is green, you would believe me because you can see that it is so. But if I were to tell you that Caleb has deep intellectual conversations with me, you probably wouldn=t believe it until you saw it with your own eyes.

 

No what is it that God is demanding that we believe? Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 15.1:

 

 

1 Corinthians 15:1 4 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

 

In order to be made right with God, you must believe that Jesus is God, that He came to earth and became a man, that He died so that you could be purified from your sin, and that He rose from the dead in victory over sin.

 

You might say, ABut I wasn=t there; I didn=t see these things happen. How can you expect me to believe in something that I cannot see?@ That=s faith. And that is what God demands if you want to be made right with him.

 

But why is it such a big deal to believe these things? What does Jesus= death have anything to do with our purification from sin?

 

God must punish sin, but since He is completely perfect and eternal, that punishment must be eternal. So the only way for us to make purification for our own sins is to suffer punishment for eternity. In other words, we are hopeless to obtain any kind of permanent purification by ourselves.

 

 

But God, because of His love, sent His eternal Son to become a man just like us. The only difference is that He never sinned. So He was the perfect person to take our place and pay the penalty of our sin so that we can be permanently purified. And the way to gain that purification is through faith.

 

So the first component of faith is believing in Jesus Christ and what He did even though we have never seen Him. But the second component is this: unreserved trust. It is forsaking yourself as the master of your own life, and trusting in Jesus Christ to rule your life. It is repenting of your sin and committing yourself to follow Jesus completely.

 

That is saving faith. And that is what is required to have your heart purified.

 

So what about good works? What about obedience to God=s commands? Doesn=t that have anything to do with our salvation? Peter continues his speech in verse 10:

 

Good Works Cannot Save

 

Acts 15:10 11 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11 No!

 

In other words, what Peter is saying is this: Good works cannot save anyone, and this is clearly evidenced by the fact the unsaved Jews had been trying to obey God for hundreds of years and had failed miserably. Trying to be right with God on our own by doing good works will always fail.

 

 

We know this to be true experientially, don=t we? You try and try to do good, but you keep on failing. You want to be right with God, but you keep messing up. Why? Because good works will never be able to save you. Good works are powerless.

 

And what happens, then, is that we can clean up our outsides so that we look really good, but our insides are corrupt. That was the Pharisees’ problem. Jesus compared them to a white-washed coffin that was filled with dead men’s bones, or a dish that had been cleaned on the outside but that was filthy on the inside.

 

I have a terrible memory; most of the few memories of my childhood involve getting in trouble. One of those has to do with lying about taking my vitamins, and the other has to do with washing dishes. I remember once C I have no idea how old I was C when I was supposed to dry the dishes, and of course I wanted to get it done quickly so I could move on to bigger and better things. So I just wiped the outsides of the dishes and shoved them up in the cupboards. Well, of course, that didn’t fly with my mother. For some odd reason she wanted both the outside and the inside done.

 

Acceptance with God involves a change of our insides, not just our outsides. Most people can fairly easily change their outsides to conform to some kind of standard. But we can’t change our insides without God’s supernatural help.

 

In Galatians 2, Paul is addressing this very debate that is going on in Acts 15. In this passage, he makes the point crystal clear:

 

 

Galatians 2:16 [We] know that a man is not justified [declared right with God] by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

 

Paul is earnest here, because he is fighting the same error that we saw in Acts 15. Some are demanding that in order to be made right with God C in order to be justified C people need to observe the Law. But Paul vehemently denies this. No one will ever be justified by good works. Good works will never gain you any merit with God. Not going to church, not reading your Bible, not trying to obey the Ten Commandments, not praying C nothing you do will ever make you right with God. It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that you can be justified.

 

How can this be? How can we who are so sinful be purified apart from doing good things? Everything within us cries out to try to earn our way to righteousness. Everything within us wants to do something to make us right with God. We think we need to reform our lives before God will accept us. But God is clear: you can=t do anything. You must only have faith in Jesus Christ and what He did, and trust Him to be your Master. God will accept you only if you have the goodness of Jesus upon you, and that will happen only of you surrender to Him.

 

If you try to do good things to earn merit with God, then you are actually confirming yourself further in your hopeless sinful condition:

 

 

Galatians 2:20 21 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

 

Paul says that if you attempt to gain righteousness through good works, then you are setting aside the grace of God C and there is the key. How is it that God offers us salvation only through faith? It is because of His grace.

 

Salvation Comes By Grace Alone

 

Peter makes this clear in his speech:

 

Acts 15:11 We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

 

Salvation comes by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone by grace alone!

 

 

What is grace? Grace is favor that God shows to us even though we do not deserve it. We can do nothing to deserve God=s favor, but he shows it to us anyway. But it is even worse than that. It is not just that we are undeserving of favor from God; we are illdeserving of His favor. To be undeserving of something means that we are just in a neutral state C we haven=t done anything to earn favor. But for us, we have actually done things to earn the opposite of favor C our sin deserves punishment! We hate God. We have rebelled against God. But even so, simply because He is a merciful, gracious, loving God, He has chosen to offer to us the gift of salvation apart from anything we could do C simply by faith in Jesus Christ through His grace.

 

So why are you trying to earn favor with God? It’s free! Grace is free! Salvation is free! All you have to do is give yourself to Him.

 

God is like a magnificent King who tells you, “If you become my slave, I will make you a prince.” Sure that sounds a bit scary C you have to become His slave. Sure, you have to count the cost. Sure, you’re life will change if you become His slave. But you would be foolish not to; He promises to make you a prince! And don’t forget, you are already a slave. You are a slave to sin. You will always be a slave to someone. The question is, will you remain a slave to sin and end up in Hell without God, or will you throw yourself at the feet of Jesus and become His slave, and be made a prince?

 

Conclusion

 

Ephesians 2 summarizes this wonderful plan of salvation perfectly:

 

 

Ephesians 2:1 9 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

 

It is so easy for us to be tempted to try to earn our own merit with God C but that is Legalism, and Legalism is heresy. Because of our sinfulness, because of our pride, we naturally assume that we can do something to earn our own righteousness. In fact, for some people, the idea that you can be made right with God simply through grace by faith apart from works is repulsive, because they want to do something to earn God=s favor. But don=t let that be you. The Bible is clear, there is nothing that you can do to be saved. You don’t need to reform your life. You don’t need to pay for your own sins through penance, or give up smoking or drinking or gambling. You must simply fall on your knees before Jesus Christ and surrender yourself to His service. And then He will help you to do right. He will reform your life.

 

This is the gospel. This is the heart of God=s plan for saving mankind. And this is what Christ created His Church to proclaim C salvation is by faith in alone in Christ alone through grace alone.

 

 

So what does this mean for you today? First, perhaps you know that you need to find God, but you just don’t know how. Maybe you’ve just assumed that you had to reform you life before God would accept you. But I am here to tell you today that you cannot reform your life on your own, and you don’t have to in order to be accepted by God. All you need to do is put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Master, and then He will purify your heart.

 

You might be saying, “That’s too easy! That’s too good to be true.” You’re right; it is. But it’s the truth. Accept it today. You give God your life, and he’ll do wondrous things with it.

 

Second, maybe you’ve assumed all your life that you are accepted by God. You’re alright; you’re on your way to heaven. But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve been trusting in your good works as the basis of your merit with God. You go to church, you read the Bible, you pray, you try to do good; and so you figure that God must accept you because of all these things you’re doing.

 

That characterized me for many years. I grew up thinking I was a Christian because I was a good kid, because I went to church regularly and didn’t get into much trouble; I was a leader in my youth group. But I was trusting in those good deeds as the basis of my acceptance with God. On the outside I had cleaned myself up pretty well; but on the inside I was selfish, prideful, and a rebel against God.

 

 

When you trust in works to gain you merit with God, that’s Legalism, and that kills grace. You cannot earn merit with God by your works, and if you try, you will fail. Trust in Christ alone. He has provided a way of forgiveness purely of grace.

 

Finally, do you realize how important this truth of salvation through grace alone is, or do you just take it for granted? People throughout Church history have risked their lives to defend this doctrine, and some have even given their lives for it. Are you willing to give your life for this truth?

 

This gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone is what we as a Church must rally around. This is what we’re all about. This is why we are here. This is what we must proclaim. This is what we must defend. So commit yourself to uphold this precious truth.