To the Ends of the Earth | Acts 15:1-18

Well, good morning. Good morning. Hey. Every single one of you received one of these Serve Team Serve Sunday cards. On your way.

And go ahead and grab it and lift it up. Let me see that. You got it. All right. So you're all accountable now.

I don't care if you're from out of town visiting, you're joining the serve team today. When you think about what we do here at Church of the Valley is every single thing we do is for the aim and for the vision of seeing one more person meet Christ. And every single one of you has a role to play here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to kind of suck up to you with donuts. Because everybody loves a good donut.

If you don't like donuts, then there are some other churches for you. I don't know how. You cannot eat a donut and not be happy. So what we're going to do is, as I'm preaching today, you could go ahead and fill this out. We just want you to step in on the team.

I say this, if you've been here more than a week, then you're part of the family. You ain't got no other options. Anyways, you're here, so you might as well jump in on what God is doing. There are some roles here for you to play every single Sunday. From guest services to Valley Kids.

Where's my Valley Kids team?

Glad Leigh Ann's not in here. She'd be severely disappointed. Is she in here? Where's she at? She's in back with kids.

Yeah, see, that's. I'm not gonna let her know that you guys didn't give her the props she deserves. Valley Kids, Valley students Production Prayer Team Setup. Team creative Event Security Band. There is a role for you to play here at Church of the Valley to make a differ in the lives of people that God sends us.

And so what you could do is just merely fill this out. Drop it in. If you don't fill it out, you don't get a donut. That's what Liz said. So take it up with her.

I'm just kidding. You get a free donut regardless if you serve or not. But we just want to know who you are, what role you could play to help us accomplish what God has called us to do here. Man. It's an exciting time to be a part of Church of the Valley.

We're seeing God change and transform lives each week. This past Tuesday, I sat in our men's group and I was just blown away. By what God's doing among us. I was just blown away by the steps that these guys are taking towards Jesus that's served Sunday. Get a donut after church.

You could get Jesus and diabetes today. It's pretty cool. That's the only joke I got because today it's about to get pretty serious pretty quickly. Today's sermon, if you follow me on Instagram, I said, I need you to pray for me. This is probably the most important text of this entire series, right?

Like, I know all the Bible is important. All of the scripture bears weight to our soul. But if we get today wrong, we get everything wrong. Like, if we get today's message wrong, then all of our faith and belief goes sideways. So here's what I need you to do, right?

There's no football on, so there's nothing to like, consume you with. Like, some of you are like, in that, like, post football depression, right? You're just like, man, what do I do for the next 87 months? So turn your phones off. If you gotta go to the bathroom, just get up and go do it now.

Don't do it in five minutes or 12 minutes. Like, today's sermon is so critical for you and I to get. So I just need you all in today. You good? We could do that.

Awesome. I need you to know that what we talk about today, everything hinges upon, right? So for 2,000 years, there's been a debate and a question asked. If you're taking notes down, here's my first slide. As for 2000 years, people have debated and argued this question, what must I do to be saved?

Or another way to ask it is, how do I get to heaven? Even before the time of Jesus, people were asking the same question. But more importantly, over the last 2,000 years, since the time of Jesus, people have asked, what must I do to be saved? How do I get to heaven? What do I have to do?

Let me give you the answer on the front end. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. Like, we are saved merely because of the graciousness and the kindness and the love that God has for you and I. We are saved by grace, through faith in Christ alone. Chris read it earlier, but I want to look at Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, where Paul says, for by grace you have been saved through faith in this is not your own doing.

It is a gift of God, not as a result of work, so that no one may boast, I love, as Paul says, that it's by grace. Like, it's this Unmerited favor, like, there's nothing that you and I could do to earn it. Nothing we do that deserves it. There's none of us on our best day can be like, hey, look how awesome we are. God, you owe us something.

He's like, man, I just love you so much that I'm just going to lavish grace upon you. And you believe it by faith. Faith is just saying, I'm just gonna trust that who you are and what you said is true and that's enough. And it's a gift. It's something that God gives you.

I love when you think about it. I don't know about you. Five love languages. My gift or my love? Language is gifts.

I love a good gift, right? You wanna be like my favorite? Just give me a cool gift. This is what God says, hey, this is my gift to you. It's not a result of works so that no one may boast.

This is going to be the discussion among the church in Acts 15. Is there anything else that man must do? Particularly, they're talking about the Gentiles. Is there something else the Gentiles have to do to be saved? Let me give you some more context and background and give you kind of the context of the Bible for a moment.

In the book of Genesis, right? Like if you're new with the Bible, the Bible starts in a book called Genesis, and it's the very beginning of creation, it's the very beginning of humanity. And in Genesis we see that God created everything perfect. This is why the Bible says that Adam and Eve walked with God naked and unashamed, because there was no sin, there was no brokenness, yet there's no curses. Adam and Eve, though, decided to sin against God.

They disobeyed against his word. He said, hey, you could do all these things. You're in charge of the garden. You can have anything you want to eat, but don't touch that tree. Serpent comes along.

Hey, did God really say that? Understand that the play of the devil is always going to be the same. He's not going to just get you to try to contradict God, but he's going to get you to question God. This is what happens in the Bible. Hey, did God really say that?

Surely he doesn't really mean that. Doubt creeps into Eve's heart. She doubts God's word and rebels against him. And then this is where God comes in Genesis 3 and he says, adam, where are you? And Adam kind of acts cowardly in this moment, because what happens with Adam is he hears God's voice.

And he blames the woman. But God's like, who did I put in charge? I put you in charge. Why did you do this? He's like, well, it's her fault.

And God's like, no, no, no, no, it's your fault. They rebel against God. Sin enters the world. It breaks the relationship between God and man. But God is good and he's gracious and he loves his people so much that he made a sacrifice in the.

He sacrifices an animal to cover the sin and the shame of Adam and Eve. And he makes them a promise. In Genesis 3, he goes to the serpent. He says, I will send a redeemer and he will crush your head, right? So God makes this promise to Adam and Eve, and he makes a promise to the serpent.

He's like, guess what? I'm sending a redeemer. He's going to crush you. And for years upon years, God's people lived with that promise in mind. This is if you're new to the faith, there's the term the Messiah.

God says, I will send a mess Messiah or a redeemer one day. A redeemer is simply someone who pays the price to purchase back something. He is the redeemer. And so from the book of Genesis all the way to the New Testament, this is where the Bible kind of splits in half. But not really because there's more Old Testament books than New Testament books.

But from Malachi, from Genesis to Malachi into the Gospels, we have thousands of years of Israel's history with God. One notable mention, though, is a guy named Moses. He was a guy that God called to free Israel from slavery in Egypt. God calls him. He says, hey, here's what you're going to do.

You're going to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And Moses like, nah, I'm good. Can't talk well. I'm not very eloquent. He's like, don't you have a cousin?

And God says, you're going to go and you're going to lead our people out of slavery. God also leads the people out of slavery, but then he also gives them the law of Moses. This is important to the text here. The law of Moses were things like the Ten Commandments, and there's kind of three big buckets of laws. There was civil law that was given right.

This is how they were to govern the nation. Okay, here's just how we're going to do this. There was moral laws. This is how you're going to interact with one another, right? Think ten Commandments.

And then there were ceremonial or sacrificial laws. These are how you stay clean and pure before the Lord. This is how you relate to God. So this guy Moses plays a big role in what we're going to get into in Acts 15. Just keep that in your head.

So up until the time of Jesus, the way God and his people interacted was through this sacrificial system, right? There's a guy named the high priest. The high priest would come in once a year, he would slaughter an animal to pay for the sins of Israel. You have to know this, that all of the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, all it did was merely cover up sin. It never took it away.

It was when God would look on the sins of the people, he would see the blood of an animal and he'd say, okay, it's covered. But it would never remove it or take it away. Because the book of Galatians also says that the law was just there to serve as a guard.

My ADD is kicking in. I swear there's, like, music playing somewhere. According to Galatians, the law was never meant to save, but just a guardian. So that you get from Malachi to the gospel accounts, right? Why do we call them the gospel accounts?

Well, it's just the good news of Jesus according to so and so. That's why you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are. Guys, they saw Jesus and they're just, hey, this is my eyewitness account of who Jesus is and what he came to do. And all of these four men give the same story, that Jesus came on this rescue mission, right?

Jesus said in the gospels, I came to seek and to save that which is lost. What Jesus is talking about is you and I, as Chris mentioned earlier, right? We were dead in sin, made alive in Christ. How did Jesus accomplish our redemption? Well, three things is he lived the perfect life that we could not, right?

Like, perfect obedience to God is the only way to pay for. And guess what? None of us on our best days could ever do that. Right? You know when you think you're doing great, like, you wake up on time, alarm goes off, and you're like, I was already awake.

Did my quiet time, did all the right things, didn't speed on the way to work, was super nice to a co worker, did my job well, came home, sung and danced with my kids, did all these great things. You go to bed. Not even on your best day would we achieve the perfection of Jesus. Jesus lived that perfect life that we could not live. He died the death that we should have died.

Like, when you walk through the Bible, it says that the wages of our sin is death. Good news for you, friends, is Jesus just did not die for your sins, but he died instead of us. Like we should have all been nailed to the cross, taken on the penalty of our sin. But God is good and gracious, and Jesus says, no, I will be the substitute for them. But the beauty of the Gospel is the fact that Jesus rose again from the grave, right?

Three days later, the Bible says that his heart started beating again and he rose in victory, proving to the world that he is God, that he's more powerful than sin and death itself. This is why we say we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. 2nd Corinthians 5, 21. Probably one of my favorite Bible verses Paul is writing. He says, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness, righteousness of God.

What is happening at the cross when you and I become Christians? What the Bible says is there's a thing called the imputed righteousness of God that God literally imputes onto us as if it was our own. We get the perfection and the righteousness of Jesus and is gifted over to us. What happened at the cross when Jesus stretched out his arms and he cries out, it is finished. What happened in that moment is you have to understand that the wrath against sin and sinners was on us and it's literally taken off of us and placed on Jesus in that moment.

This is the whole theological concept of imputed righteousness. So what this means for those of you who are followers of Jesus right now, when God looks upon you, what he sees is not your worst days. He doesn't see you. And he's like, yeah, there's Boyd. He's messed up over and over and over again.

God doesn't see those things. What he sees, though, is the perfection of his son, Jesus. Why the imputed righteousness of. Of God?

I told you, I'm giving you a lot here. If you want to understand how this looks theologically, right, like, here's a big slide for you. I tried to fit it all in one, but this is what happens in the process of your salvation. I'm going to give you a lot in like, 47 seconds. When you think about, how does God save us, right, when it's for by grace you've been saved through faith, what does that begin to look like?

Well, this starts with this idea of election Right. It simply just says that God chose you. A lot of people debate upon this, right? Because what do we tend to think of? Like, I have horror stories thinking about this.

Because what comes to mind is a bad image of this. What comes to mind for me is, like, right when you played kickball in middle school, what'd they do? All right, everybody line up against the fence. And the two best players would get up, and they'd be like, they're our captains. And you're just hoping for the life of you, like, please don't pick me last.

Please don't pick me last. Everybody's like, I'll take that rock over there. And then, Boyd, you just man, your gift in is counting, keeping score for us today. It's not election. All right, Like I told you, those of you that don't know me, I'm from the South.

Like, everybody's like, where's that accent from? I'm like, it's called the south, baby. Like, I'm just got a little redneck in me. And this has been debated among the church for years upon years. Does God choose?

Does he know all these things? Like, for. For me and my redneck self? I'm like, I just don't know all of the heart and the mind of God. I just know if God is infinite in his wisdom and understanding.

He knows all things. And whether God chooses and picks teams like that, I don't think it's like that. I just think that God knew before the creation of the world who would choose to receive his salvation and who he picked. And it's not one of these things where he's like, God's just like. Like, you don't like you.

You're in, you're out. Because the Bible says that if anybody calls on the name of the Lord, they shall be saved. So it starts with this thing before the foundations of the earth calling, right? This is just the Bible saying the gospel being preached to you, that somebody is saying, hey, here's how you know God. Here's how you know him rightfully.

Then there's another theological term called regeneration. This basically means that God takes your dead heart and makes it alive. This is when God just opens your eyes to see. The Bible talks about have eyes to see and ears to hear. And this is what God does.

He takes your dead heart according to Ephesians and makes it alive to have faith. The beauty of this concept is that you and I had no clue that we even needed to be saved. But God, in his graciousness, opens you up your heart to believe. And then the next term, conversion. This is where we say, hey, by faith, I'm turning from my sin and I'm turning to Jesus.

When you want to know what the word repentance means, it basically just means a big 180, hey, I was going this way and I just turned around to go this way. And repentance. And when we're talking about it, it means that, hey, I was walking towards this life of sin and I turned away from it towards something far greater. Like when you think about the idea of repentance, it's not just stop bad things, but stop sinning and turn to something far greater. And the greater thing is Christ.

So when we say repent of sin, we're not saying so in a standpoint of like, hey, just stop being a bad person, but turn to something that is going to be way more satisfying than anything else. And then justification. This is if you were to step. This is a legal term in the Bible that if you were to walk into a courtroom and the judge is like, hey, you are declared guilty. And somebody else walks in and says, hey, I'll take their guilty verdict.

And the judge tells you, you could go, you're freed, you're innocent, right? You want to get real cheesy with it. Justification. Just as if I never sinned. This is where God declares you justified before him, that right now you are completely forgiven and righteous.

And then the Bible talks about the idea of adoption. God brings you into his family now. Now here's a news flash. Like, we all aren't like cute little kids sitting at like the farm table of Jesus. And he's like, that was all my kids.

The Bible says that before our conversion I was an enemy of God and now I'm a friend of God. The Bible says I was once his enemy, but now I'm his friend. Now I'm his son. Book of Romans says that you are now an heir to the kingdom of God. That's adoption.

And then what happens through the gospel is the idea of sanctification. This is just the onworking work, ongoing work of God in your life. This is why we tell you, hey, man, pursue sanctification and holiness and godliness to stir up your affections for something far greater. This is Philippians 1. It says, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.

What this means is that God is not done with you until the end. This is the concept of glorification, that you will dwell with God forever, fully healed Fully, Right. When we talk about the Gospel, we say that the Gospel saves you one from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, that sanctification, and one day, ultimately the presence of sin. You want to know the beauty of heaven? You want to know the win for heaven according to the Bible, as you get to be face to face with the King.

No remembrance of the former things. He says in Revelation, behold, I have made all things new, and you just get to dwell in the presence of your Creator forever and ever and ever.

So now back to Acts. That was probably the longest introduction of my life.

Book of Acts, all that matters for Acts 15, because the disciples are seen over and over again preaching and proclaiming that same message, right? We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. From Acts 1 through 14, this is just what the disciples went out and did in Acts 1:8. For you will be my witnesses. You will receive power.

So when they talk about receiving power from God, it's to preach and proclaim that message that Christ is enough. The challenge with that is that it interrupted and irritated every city in which Paul and Barnabas and Peter would go about preaching. This irritated the religious Jews because the religious Jews kept pointing back to the law as a means for salvation. They're like, no, we have the law of Moses. That's why we're saved.

That's why God accepts us. And then we remember Acts 14. For the last 18 to 24 months of Paul and Barnabas life, they're out preaching the Gospel to both the Jews and the Gentiles. And they were proclaiming the message that if anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, this means by faith that when a person says, I'm choosing to believe that whatever Christ said based on what he did is enough, that's the message they preached. So you have to imagine the constant tension that it created.

This is why the Jews kept trying to kill Paul over and over again. Because Paul's like, hey, man, you're saved by grace alone. And the Jews are like, uh, you got to do some things, bro, in order to be saved. Basically, the message of the Jews over and over again was, hey, yeah, that's cool. You could have Jesus, but you got to have this also.

So Acts 15, verses 1 through 7.

But some men came down from Didea and were teaching the brothers, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate within Paul and Barnabas and Some of the others were appointed to go to Jerusalem to the apostles and to the elders about this question. So being sent out on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles. And it brought great joy to all the brothers. And 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 of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise them in order to keep the law of Moses. But the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And there had been much. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, Acts 15, write this down. Is commonly known as the Jerusalem Council, where the church leaders gathered to pray, discern, and determine whether the Gentiles could truly be saved.

Apart from becoming Jews and observing all Jewish laws and traditions, the Jerusalem Council is one of the most significant moments in the life of the church so far. Paul and Barnabas, as you remember, are back in Antioch, right? Acts 14, verses 24 to 28. They traveled back to the church that sent them out to go share the Gospel, and they came back, and they're just sharing story after story of God's grace. They're sharing stories.

Hey, you remember in Cyprus, you remember how we, like, saw that false prophet? We rebuked him, and the Roman governor got saved? This is what's going on. And in the midst of all of this, some guys come in, as the Bible says, from Judea, and we're teaching, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Right?

You want to talk about, like, church gets weird at times. Let's just kind of make it awkward for a moment. Every single one of you, like, hey, I ain't a church guy. And all of a sudden, I'm really not in. Like, there's like, there's no procedure required here.

What's going on here is the Jews are still tying their salvation story to the laws of Moses. And so these men are coming in and they're saying, yeah, that's cool, Jesus. But they also got to become just like us. They're adding to the gospel. It's not a requirement for the Gentiles to fully insert them life, insert their lives into Jewish thought.

The Jews, though, struggled because their allegiance was to the law of Moses. This is why they killed Jesus. Jesus comes on the scene and he's like, hey, I am the fulfillment of the law. Yeah, no, no, no, that's cool. We have Moses.

So all of this is going on, and it says that there arose a dissension in debate. Now, I don't know about you. Paul's not a dude I want to debate with. Like, even the sanctified version of Paul, probably not a good one to argue with. Like, Paul is, like a stout, like, theologian.

Like, God has just radically changed him. So he's going to fight for the gospel. But he's also got some thug in him, too. So I'm not going to argue with Paul. Paul was out, like, trying to, like, lock up and kill people.

I'm like, hey, man, whatever you said, yes, sir, is what I'm going with. But Paul is like, no, these are, like, fighting words here. Like, the gospel is that important in which Paul is going to say, hey, I'm not just going to cower down to you adding to the gospel. This is why over and over again, throughout the Book of Acts, I'm like, man, we need some godly and courageous men and women that will say, thus saith the Lord, according to the scripture, it's Christ alone. It got so intense, and Antioch Church was like, hey, we need to go down to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was kind of like ground zero headquarters for the church. And they're like, hey, Peter and James and John are there. Let's send Paul, let's send Barnabas, let's send some other people. Let's let them go down to Jerusalem to ask them what do they think? And so we see them going.

It's some 250 miles away. Probably took some time to get there, but they stopped along the way. And it says that in great detail. They just began to share the conversion of the Gentiles. They began to just share, church by church, city by city.

Hey, here's what God did. Here's what God's doing. Like, these Gentiles that were always considered the outcast man, they're part of our family now. They're part of this thing called the church. And then as Paul and Barnabas are in Jerusalem, this is verse four.

So they came to Jerusalem. They're welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders declared all that God had done. And then there's another group of Pharisees that rose up and began to argue with them. They're saying, no, it's necessary. It's necessary for these Gentiles to become just like us, too.

So the debate arose and they begin to talk through how is one saved then? This is an important theological issue that happened early in church history, right? You have to understand this is about 10 years after Acts 10. So for about a span of 10 years, right? Gentiles are just coming to faith in Jesus, left and right.

Every city Paul would go to, he would preach and proclaim. And it says both Jews, Gentiles and Greeks responded to the gospel. So the primary moment that we get to is this central thing in Acts 15. How are we saved and how are the Gentiles welcomed? This is where Peter steps up, right?

Peter has a track record of saying some really good things and some really bad things at times, right? So there's just grace upon grace for those of you that kind of like, you ever have those moments where you're just like. It's just falling out of your mouth and you're like, I can't backpedal now, Peter. This is Peter's one of his brighter moments here. Look at verse 7 through 11.

And after there had been much debate, right? They're going back and forth, what do we do with the Gentiles? Do they need to obey all the Jewish law too and get Jesus? What are we going to do? 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, but we believe we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus, just as they will. So Peter gets up and he gives four points, right? He's not Baptist.

Baptist. Like three points. Peter likes four. Peter says this four things in his speech, hey, this was prophesied by God. It's not a.

It's all about God and it's not about us. You can't even keep the law. Therefore, we're saved by grace, and so are they. So Paul, in this Jerusalem council, right, he's hearing Paul and Barnabas. Like, you can't argue and articulate with what stories they're sharing here.

They're just sharing story after story of people coming to faith in Jesus, right? The Holy Spirit, as we talked earlier, like the order of salvation, right? They're justified. They're regenerated. And they're just walking in obedience to God.

So they're around. And the Pharisees, right? Like, a lot of times we kind of, like, cast a lot of shade on the Pharisees, right? I want to be one of those people. I want to believe the best for a moment.

That in the Pharisees heart, I think the intention started out well. Like, hey, we wouldn't be obedient to God. Like, it's a good thing. But where the Pharisees went is they just kept adding to it over and over again. If here was the law, let's create a couple others just in case we.

So we don't break these ones. So I think the Pharisees started off with the right intentions, and it just went sideways quickly. But Peter's like, hey, this was prophesied by God. Like, Peter's like, hey, you remember Acts, chapter 10? I go to this house of this dude Cornelius, and the Holy Spirit just falls on that moment.

And people are getting saved left and right. Peter's like, I couldn't manufacture that, bro. Like, we had no band at the time to play some soft music and make it all, like, kind of like. Like moody. And people are like, yes, let's do this.

In the midst of that, Peter's just preaching. And people are like, I need Jesus. So Peter's like, hey, this was predicted and foretold already, too. He says, hey, it's all about God anyways. It's God who knows the heart of man and sees the faith.

And he's saying, hey, it's all about him, right? It's God, the One, through the Holy Spirit has cleansed their hearts. It is by the Holy Spirit's power. Then he says, 3. Here's the hypocrisy of y'.

All. Like, that's not me saying to you. This is Peter saying to this crowd. Peter's like, hey, like, why are you putting this yoke on them? Peter looks at the Pharisees and he's like, you couldn't even keep the law.

Like, you can't even do this. And you have the audacity to look at these Gentiles who are coming to faith in Jesus. And all of a sudden you have the audacity to tell them to keep all the laws that. In which you can't even do. So here's Peter and he's like, hey, you know all those 600 laws of the Old Testament?

You're not even doing that. Why on earth are you going to require them to do that? Why are you complicating it now. Don't hear me say, like, man, like anything in the scripture that God says is for your good and for the good of mankind. Right?

The Ten Commandments, really good idea. Something that we should look for. But we shouldn't look to the Ten Commandments to say, because we do these things, God owes us something. Ten Commandments, just a really good moral code in which we ought to live by. Have no other gods before me.

Don't murder. Pretty good idea. So don't like, hear me say, like, we just throw out the law. We're just not looking to the law as a means to be justified before God. We look to the law and say, hey, God's word actually is for my good.

But what was happening is Peter is rebuking these Pharisees because they're all. I mean, we observe all these laws, we do all these things. And Peter's like, you don't even do it. Hey, if you're a Christian, let me cautious you for a moment. Because what the Pharisees were really good at doing was a thing called extra biblical things.

If the Bible said, don't do this, they said, we're not going to do that. But we're going to ensure we're not going to do that by doing all these other things too, right? So the Bible says, don't get drunk. So a Pharisee would be like, okay, I'm not going to get drunk, but I'm also not going to like, go to a restaurant that serves beer because I don't want to accidentally get drunk, right? Not even going to, like, there's a liquor store on my corner.

I'm going to drive 18 miles this way. You know, the Bible says, don't do these things. And the Pharisees would just add to it. And then they would add to the weight of their hearers. All the extra requirements.

If you're a follower of Jesus, be very, very careful with your own personal convictions and conclusions that aren't necessarily in the scripture because you will put a yoke of slavery upon somebody else.

And then Peter goes in, probably his best line in his speech in verse 11, he says, but we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. That the Christian life is now one based on the reality that we obey because we're already accepted. Here's the nuance here. As we obey not to be accepted, we obey because we're already accepted. So my obedience to Christ.

Now, when God says to do this and don't do this is based off of the simple fact that God has already accepted me in Christ. This is why I said earlier, because of the importance computed righteousness of God. Like, I'm not doing all the things in order that I could go to God and be like, hey, look at me. I've kind of like, I need some grace here. Ten commandments.

I'm doing good about eight and a half of them. No, my desire is to obey those things now because I'm already in. Like, I've already been given grace. So Peter's like, hey, we're saved by grace. And then verse 12 through 18, James speaks, it says, and the assembly fell silent.

And they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God has done through them among the Gentiles.

And after they finished speaking, James replied, brothers, listen to me. Simeon, another name for Peter, has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his own.

And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written. After this, I will return and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen and I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name. Says the Lord who makes these things known from old verse 19. I'll start there next week, but I want to read it. James says, therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.

So James, one of the three like, leaders here, the room is silent because Peter just kind of like does a mic drop situation. Then Paul and Barnabas, they're talking and James gets up and he says, hey, Paul and Barnabas have been preaching this message. They were saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. Everywhere they went, Peter's going to confirm it too, because he was talking about his dinner party at Cornelius House and Gentiles were getting saved there. And James is going to echo all of this and he's even going to bring in the Old Testament prophet Amos.

He's going to say, hey, even God through Amos told us this would happen. So now the church is both Jew and Gentile as one people. And they're all accepted based on the metric of Christ alone, not the rules and rituals. And James conclusion is like, hey, if anyone, Jew, Gentile, anybody who turns to the Lord shall be saved by faith. So what does this mean for us?

The question is, have you surrendered your life fully to Jesus as both Lord and Savior? Savior is he the Means of your salvation. Lord, is he in charge, right? Like, he's either Lord of all, or he ain't Lord at all. Like, there's no kind of in between.

Like, when we come to him by faith, we're saying, God, you're the only way through Jesus, the only way I'm saved and you're in charge now. You know who makes a really bad boss of your life? Spoiler you. We're not that really good at being God. I've just kind of come over and over again to the conclusion that I'm just gonna trust whatever God says.

Cause it's gonna be far better than anything I think of. So what does this mean? It means in light of Acts 15:1, right? The false gospel at the time, unless you're circumcised, you can't be saved. A false gospel is anything where we say, it's Jesus plus something equals my salvation.

But the biblical gospel is this, Jesus plus nothing equals salvation. It's only him. It's only by him and through him. What are some Jesus plus somethings that we do in our life? You know, our heart loves the plus sign.

You know why I call it my back pocket thing? Because I always like to keep something in my back pocket. So that way, when I don't think the gospel is enough, I could pull this thing out of my back pocket and be like, look, God, look at this real quick. He said, I know your salvation is in me alone. But what I like is I like to add to it because I want to try to have control.

Because faith means that I'm not in control of this thing anymore. That the finished work of the cross has to come through. But what we do over and over again is we're like, no, it's Jesus plus something that I could point to in order to get God to accept me. Some of the false gospels we believe today, as for some of you, it's this belief. You're like, hey, hey, you do your thing, I'll do my thing.

We're all gonna end up there some way. I've talked to multiple people, and they're like, yeah, man, that's cool. You like Buddha, great. Islam, great. You're a spiritual person, great.

Like, we're all gonna end up there. The Bible says that there is one God, there's one king, his name is Jesus. We don't buy into a pluralistic deity. Like, Buddha and Jesus are not the same. You know where Buddha's at right now?

Brother's still dead. You know who's risen sitting at the right hand of God, Jesus. Not all paths lead to the same place. Another false gospel is, well, I'm just going to be a good person. The question is, how good is good enough?

Like, how good is it? Do you got to be? You know, where I want you to be freed on that is because when you're buying into the belief that I'm just going to be a good person, all the weight is on you. And that's a crushing weight.

Another false gospel. Well, my moralism and good works saves me. I'm going to try to do the right thing. I'm going to do good for others. Therefore God will reward my efforts.

Moralism is a path to hell, just like rebellion is. Hey, well, my salvation is based on my ability to keep the commandments. Well, guess what? You're going to break one of them at some point. And Jesus actually takes things a lot further, too.

Because what Jesus does is he shows us how dark and depraved our hearts really get. Because Jesus is like, hey, you heard it said, therefore don't commit murder. He's like, man, if you commit. If you're angry in your heart because God is exposing the sinfulness of our hearts.

Well, my religious works is what saves me. I'm going to show up to church, I'm going to tithe, I'm going to serve. He said, fill out that serve Sunday card. Even you don't go to church. I'm going to do that.

My religious work doesn't save me. God is not more impressed with me because I preach the Bible. And he's like, you get extra credit, bro. He's not.

What about this one? Well, I got to clean up my act first, and then God will save me. Man, can I just set you free today that you don't have to clean yourself up? The Lord does that. Well, I better stop cussing.

I better stop drinking. Better stop doing all these things so that way God accepts me. You probably should do those things, but not so that God would love you more. There's not this better version of you out there that God's like, once he gets there, I'll start loving him. Man, they show up to church every week, not just once a month.

Then I'll start loving them. There's no better future version of yourself that God is just waiting to love, my friends. But in Christ, you are fully loved, fully accepted. There is no Jesus plus something equaling salvation. It's only Jesus and Jesus alone.

Because I don't bring anything to the table other than the sin that Nailed him to the cross. My friends, this is good news because it sets us free from thinking. We have to keep trying harder and harder and harder to get what's already been given to us. This is why Acts 15 is so critical for us that we get the gospel right. It's the reality that if anyone says to you that you could go to heaven if you have Jesus, and if you do X, Y and Z as well, the Bible speaks very clearly on that.

Because the gospel in which we preach from the Bible has been being heralded for 2000 years. That what God showed us through the New Testament, what God showed us through the life, death, burial and resurrection was enough and it didn't get messed up along the way. Here's what Galatians says. Paul says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him, who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ.

Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one to which we preach to you, let him be a Christian. And we have said before. So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

So here's what this means. It's what I'm saying today. It's the same message has been preached from Acts 1, Acts 12, Acts 14. This is what the Jerusalem Council got together to discuss and discern. How are we saved?

Here's the deal. If I or anybody who ever steps in this pulpit or anybody out there, whatever religion, whatever religious institution, if they say anything that is contradictory to what this has said, the scripture says, let them be accursed. So if I were to get up and preach anything contrary to what God has said, the Bible says, let that man go to. To hell.

So the question is, what must I do to be saved?

It's just simply surrender your life to him and believe that the gospel is enough.

If you're here and you don't know Christ in this way, why not receive your salvation today? Why not walk out of here completely set free? Why not leave here a changed person? This is a quick disclaimer, man. This isn't like just some like easy believism stuff here.

This isn't like, oh, cool, I'll add that to my list of things. No, this isn't cheap grace either, man. This thing was costly to somebody. The sin of the world past Present future sin, all placed on Jesus, buried in a tomb, cost him his life. This message isn't just for those of you that walk in here like, well, yeah, of course this is good news, because I'm the bad kind of sinners, you know, there's not bad and good sinners.

There's just sinners. There's not good people and bad people. There's saved people and unsaved people. There's not bad Christians and good Christians. The gospel is for every single one of us.

It's for those of you that are like, man, I can't stop this addiction. I can't stop getting wasted. I can't stop getting high. I can't stop messing it up. The gospel's for you.

And it's for those of you that walked in here in your religious piety thinking you're better than everybody else in the room. The gospel is for the prideful, for the bitter, for the angry. The gospel is for anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. It's for those of you in this room that you're like, man, God would never love me. He would never accept me.

You know all the stuff I've done and God's like, exactly. I do. I know everything you've done, and I still sent my son Jesus to die for you because I still love you. The gospel's for those of you that are in this room and you're like, well, I don't know if I'm going to get it right. Praise be to God, it's not on you.

And praise be to God that God still loves you. This is why grace lavishes on you. Because he knows you're gonna sin against him. He knows you're gonna rebel against him again and again. Been walking with Jesus for some 20 years now.

And I'm like, man, still can't get it right. And God is like, man, I still love you. That's why it's good news.

This isn't a call for you to just be like, man. I just want some quick insurance to make sure I get it right. Man. No, it's not just for your eternity, but it's for your today. That what we say around here is that the gospel changes everything.

That you come to him, place your faith in him, and he changes you forever. Biblical faith is not just wishful thinking. It's confident hope and assurance. Every time you start to doubt, follower of Jesus. Every time you start to doubt man.

Is God done with me? Did I use up all my grace today? Am I done? God's like you can't out sin the cross. It's not permission to keep doing stuff, but it's just a reminder, paid in full.

Paul Tripp said, faith is an investment of the heart that changes the way I live. Faith is more about who said it and what was done for you. It's not about how you feel. Faith is not based on your emotions or feelings. A lot of days I don't feel saved.

A lot of days I don't feel like I earned this, deserve this thing. But if it was based upon my feelings, then it would be very chaotic. It's not based on what you feel. It's but what you know.

That's where the great theologian just says, hey man. The man on the middle cross invites you in. So faith means that you say to the Lord today, okay, if this is how it is, then I'm in. Like, if it's all on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, I'm good and I'm not going to add to it it, but when I think about my salvation before the Lord, I'm just going to keep pointing to the cross, just going to keep pointing back to the empty tomb. Faith means God.

If you say that there's no longer, therefore no condemnation for those in Christ, then when self condemnation or the lies of the enemies rise up, I'm just going to reject it. God, if you say I am 100% forgiven at the cross, then when I sin and mess up after my conversion, then I'm just going to keep reminding myself of the cross. Not to repent, to try to regain my salvation, but to repent so I'm no longer enslaved by that which Christ has set me free from. God's saying to you, hey, I'm all you need.

So you got to get the gospel right today, my friends. We got to see our sin for what it really is. We got to see how great the gospel is. And we got to believe that it was enough and counted for you. So what do you want to do with it today?

Like, this is where we come to the moment where we say we respond to the gospel, we respond to the message. The most important thing you'll ever do is get the gospel right. Because everything in your relationship with God and others is contingent on this one. We get this one wrong, we get everything wrong. You got to get the gospel right that you could leave here with the greatest assurance and peace you'll ever know because you're getting set free and you're forsaking, just trusting in yourself, trusting in your own Ability.

And you're just saying, man, it's all on him. Your understanding of the gospel becomes clear today. There's nothing you and I could do to earn our way to God. There's nothing we could do to earn our righteousness. There's nothing we could do to get God to love us more.

There's nothing we could do to ensure and keep our salvation. Because it's all about him anyways. It's all about what he has done and what he is doing. So as if the Lord were speaking to you today, God says to you, I already know what you've done. I know how bad you've done some things, but those things don't define you anymore.

But my son, Jesus does. The Lord's like, man, I've watched you night after night after night chasing after sin. I've seen you over and over go from one thing to the next to the next, trying to find your satisfaction. And he's like, hey, man, all joy is found in me. He's telling you, stop chasing after empty and false places that just leave you with a greater shame.

He's saying, just trust me. God says, stop condemning yourself. Stop running from me. He already knows where you're at. This is the beauty of the gospel, my friends.

You and I think we could outrun God and we could kind of keep running from Him. Some of y' all are in Utah right now because you're just trying to run from your problems. And guess who's here. God. And wherever you try to run away from him, guess who's already there.

He's waiting for you there. God just says, hey, stop with your many words trying to appease me. Stop with your many excuses trying to justify, and just trust me. He's saying, look at the cross and behold what I've already done for you, paid in full. So, friends, if you're here, man, I have begged and beg the Lord to open your eyes to the gospel.

There are literally men and women all across the US that have prayed for you this morning, for this one moment right here, that you would place your faith in Jesus, that you would come to him today. So what do you want to do is how we're going to respond today. For some of you, you're just going to place your faith in Jesus today for the very first time. And what the rest of us are going to do as a church is as you do that. We are just going to celebrate you like crazy.

Because in Luke 15, Seven says, just so. I love how Jesus says, just so. I tell you There will be more joy in heaven for one sinner who repents and over 99 righteous people who need no repentance. So that today when you place your faith in him and you're like, hey, I'm fully surrendered, all of heaven rejoices. We as a church want to rejoice with you.

So if you're here and for the very first time, you're ready to believe the gospel, I'm not going to ask you to bow your head, close your eyes. I'm not going to ask you to, like, walk forward. I'm just going to ask you right where you're at. Are you ready to say yes to Jesus today? And after you say yes to him, what we're going to do is we're going to clap and celebrate you.

And what I'm going to do is just lead you in a prayer. Like, this prayer isn't like magic, like you might have heard before, like, you got to pray this prayer to get saved. No, this is just an acknowledgement of what God has already done in your life. This just gives you language to what Christ has already done for you. So are you ready?

Are you ready to surrender your life to Jesus today? Are you ready to go all in? Are you ready to say yes to Him? So would you stand to your feet?

It's going to take some courage because you're like, man, I don't even know what to do next. I don't even know how to do this. Hey, here's what I want you to do. If you're ready to just say yes to Jesus, just put your hand in the air right now. Just say, I'm ready to say yes to him.

I'm ready to give my life fully to Jesus today. Fully surrendered. That Christ is enough for me.

You look up at me with your hands and you just pray with me. All you're doing is acknowledging what Christ has already done. And when I say amen, the rest of us, as our church family, we're just gonna put our hands together and we're just gonna celebrate and cheer them on. And I'm gonna give you one more point of information because I need to make sure we follow up with you. Everybody hates a QR Code, but you're gonna love this QR Code.

After we're done praying and after we're done celebrating, you scan that QR Code so we know who you are and how we could help you walk with Jesus. So if you raised your hand, just say this, Jesus, you opened my eyes to see today. Your holiness in my sin. And I'm responding to your grace today by receiving this gracious invitation of complete forgiveness of sin. I believe that it's by your death, burial and resurrection I'm saved.

I embrace today my new identity as a child of God. That nothing except Christ alone saves me, changes me. God, transform me today as I lay my life down to you as Lord Savior. Amen. Amen.

Let's put our hands again and celebrate these people here.