Justification For Justification

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Amen.
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You may be seated, and while you're sitting down, take out your Bibles and turn with me to Acts, the 15th chapter, and hold your place at verse 7.
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When God created the world, it was a place of perfect beauty and peace.
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Man was able to coexist with his fellow creatures and with God.
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There was no conflict in his environment.
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There was no division between he and God, and the Bible describes that as Eden.
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We call that paradise.
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Yet, man did not maintain that lofty estate.
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God gave him a singular command so that he might understand the necessity of obedience.
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And so long as he maintained that obedience, the conditions of Eden would remain.
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But, if he disobeyed and learned by experience the meaning of right and wrong, he would suffer the consequence of death, and not only he, but all those whom he represented.
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That being all of his posterity.
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That's you and me.
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We're not given a time frame for how long Adam and Eve lived in the Edenic condition.
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What we do know, though, is that it did not last.
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The Edenic state was ruined by a singular act of disobedience.
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God commanded, and our first parents ignored that command, thus he plunged all mankind into the ruin of sin.
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Now, because of this, we are born into this world as enemies of God.
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We are born, by nature, children of wrath, the Bible says.
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Since the moment of the fall, there has been a universal need for redemption and reconciliation.
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All men know that God exists, at least on one level or another.
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The Bible tells us that God's work is seen in creation, and thus when every man faces God at judgment, he will face Him without excuse.
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Likewise, all men know that they are sinners, because God has written the basic moral principles of the law on their heart, and they know when they lie, that it's a lie, and they know that when they steal, that it's stealing and theft, and they know that when they hate another person, they are incurring judgment upon themselves.
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Man knows that he ultimately is under God's condemnation, and as a result, man is incurably religious.
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We are called homo sapien, that means the thinking being.
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We have also been called homo religiosus, the religious being.
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Man is the only being that gets down on his knees, looks up to the heavens, and cries out to God.
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You don't see cows in the field, moo up, no, they don't moo up.
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Mankind is the only creature on the planet that prays, that seeks God.
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He knows by nature there is something wrong in his universe, so he devises clever ways to solve the problem.
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He incorrectly believes that he can by some way do something to satisfy the guilt that is within him, so he produces works righteousness systems, and you see these all over the world.
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Works righteousness, system after system after system of something that I can do to save myself from this guilt that I know that I have.
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Yet his peace remains elusive.
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God was gracious in that he did not leave mankind in that lost condition.
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God chose to break into humanity and provide a genuine way of redemption, one that would not be based on the works of the person, but rather one that would be based in the work of God himself, and that the person would be saved not by what he does, but by what God has done for him.
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Salvation would be by grace through faith and not of works.
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From the very earliest pages of the Bible, we find this out.
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We go all the way back to the story of Abraham, and we find out that Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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That's Genesis 15, 6.
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And Paul would later point back to that, and he would say, see, that's the gospel.
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Abraham believed the promise of God, and that was counted to him as righteousness, and that's the gospel.
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It's not the gospel in its fullness, but it's the gospel in its seed, that man will be justified not by what he does, but by faith in what God has done.
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Habakkuk would later, the minor prophet, not minor in importance, but minor in amount of writing, Habakkuk would later say those faithful words, righteous, the righteous shall live by faith.
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The New Testament uses both of those passages, Genesis 15, 6 and Habakkuk 2, 4, as the foundation stones upon which to rest the doctrine of justification.
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The problem is that man has never been content to live by faith alone.
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It seems that along with the nature of sin, man has also been incurably given a nature of self-righteousness.
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Men believe almost universally that there's something that they can do to save themselves.
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There has to be some work, there has to be some mission, there has to be some act of penance, there has to be something I can do to establish myself as right, because I know that I'm wrong, I've got to do something to make myself right.
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As a result, we see man-created religions all over the world, universally demanding whether it's the five pillars of Islam, or whether it's the keeping of the Torah, or whatever law it is, we have to keep it, we have to do it, because that's the way that I find my redemption, is in what I have done.
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Thus, when confronted with the Gospel that says there's nothing you can do, it's all that Christ has done, men recoil from that.
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It's not that he doesn't recognize his problem necessarily, but that he doesn't realize that there's nothing he can do in and of himself to fix the problem.
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He trusts that either he's not as bad as he is, or that his goodness will redeem his badness in the end, thus he rejects the Gospel for the sake of self-righteousness and he becomes a truster of self, rather than a truster of God.
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And beloved, that problem has been seen throughout the church age.
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Mankind has a sin problem, God provided a solution for that problem, faith in Christ alone.
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But men demand the solution is not sufficient, it can't be Christ alone.
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I have to do something else, I have to add something to the work of Christ.
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I have to contribute something.
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We're not satisfied to say nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling.
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I've got to put something in that hand, I've got to put something on the table.
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And as a result, they choose to live not by faith alone in the finished work of Christ, but they choose to live by works.
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And faith becomes an adornment, but not the foundation.
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Now you may say, Pastor, why did you just recount redemptive history, and spend the first five minutes of your message talking about that? Well, I wanted to recount this whole redemptive history issue, because this is the subject that we find ourselves in in Acts 15, and we've been studying this over the past few weeks.
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We've been looking at the fact that in Acts 15, the Jerusalem council met to discuss the issue of how is a sinful man made right with a righteous God.
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People from Antioch had come, I'm sorry, people from Judea had come to Antioch, and they'd said the only way you can be right with God is if you are circumcised, and you keep the law of Moses.
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You can't be right with God unless you keep this law.
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You have to do that first.
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And they're talking to people who already think that they're saved, many of which are not circumcised, many of which have not been keeping the law, and they're telling them, you're not saved because you're not doing this thing.
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You're not saved because you're not keeping this law.
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And this led to a sharp division between them and Paul and Barnabas.
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So the issue was brought back to Jerusalem, back to where it had begun, back to the place of origin, and they brought this before the leaders there in Jerusalem, and they said it before them.
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So this morning we're going to examine the response of those leaders and how they support the teaching of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
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Because that's the point of today.
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Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
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And these men give justification for the doctrine of justification.
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If that's funny, if you're wondering what the title is all about, the men who stood at the Council of Jerusalem, the Apostle Peter representing the apostolic voice, Barnabas and Saul representing the voice of true witnesses who'd seen God's work among the Gentiles, and James, the pastoral voice, being the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem.
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These men stood and they gave justification for the doctrine of justification.
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And so we stand together and read what they had to say.
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We'll begin in verse 7 and we'll read down to verse 18.
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And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said, 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.
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And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us.
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And He made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
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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.
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And all the assembly fell silent.
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And they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
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After they finished speaking, James replied, Brothers, listen to me.
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Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for His name.
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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.
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I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it.
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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 of old.
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Therefore, my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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I thank You for the promise of the Gospel.
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I pray that I would be faithful to it today.
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I pray that I would be faithful to the truth of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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According to Scripture alone, to God alone be the glory.
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Father, forgive me of my sins.
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Make me right to preach Your Word today.
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And keep me from error.
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I pray on my sake and on behalf of the sake of those who will hear my voice.
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Glorify Yourself in all that will be said.
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And use this as a time to grow Your people.
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This is our prayer, O God.
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And Lord, if You see fit to save a soul through this, we would glorify You all the more.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Last week we talked about the role of the elders in the church and how this particular passage gives an illustration of how the elders function in the church.
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When there is doctrinal dispute that is within the church, it's brought before the elders.
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The elders discuss and pray, and they bring back a proclamation of what it is that the church will stand upon.
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And we see that here.
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And while at this particular point in history, and because this is written in Scripture, there is a particular type of authority that is given.
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That authority is not dissolved just because there are no longer apostles who walked with Christ.
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Today we remain having elders that are called by the church to serve in the church in this particular type of leadership.
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And all of these men would have been active elders, but not all of them would have been active elders in the church of Jerusalem.
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Barnabas and Paul would have been coming from the church of Antioch, and there they served as missionaries and as elders.
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But here in Jerusalem, the elders are different men in that church, and yet they're coming together in concert to discuss an issue that has arisen.
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Why are these churches coming together? Well, I've mentioned this over the past few weeks.
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The men who came to Antioch are probably coming out of Jerusalem.
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Later we're going to see in the text that James says, these men came without our authority.
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That's true.
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These men who came to trouble, you came without our telling them to do that.
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So James is separating himself from this group of heretics who've gone out to preach a false gospel.
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But they've come together to solve this issue, this doctrinal issue.
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Is a man saved by keeping the law, or is a man saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone? Now we want to say that we believe that man is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, because we know that's what the Bible teaches.
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But yet oftentimes we get sucked back into the law.
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We get sucked back into some type of legalism.
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Well, it has to be by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone, and this.
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They have to do this too.
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Whatever it is.
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We have to add something to it.
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So we're going to read the testimonies of the four men who spoke today.
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Peter and James have the lion's share of what is said.
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We'll begin with Peter.
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It says, 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.
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Now this is a reference to Acts chapter 10.
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We've already studied Acts chapter 10.
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We've already studied this situation.
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And those of you who haven't been with us long, we've been in the book of Acts for a while now, so we can kind of think back, those of us who were here, can think back to what happened in Acts chapter 10.
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God tells Peter to preach the gospel to Cornelius, who is a Gentile.
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Now, Cornelius believed in the God of Israel.
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But he was not a Jew.
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He was what was called a God-fearer.
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That means he believed in the God of Israel, he feared the God of Israel, but he did not enter into the covenant of the Jews by receiving the sign of circumcision or maintaining their dietary restrictions and the other laws of the Old Testament.
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So while he believed in the God of the Jews, he did not serve as a Jew, but he was a Gentile.
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And he maintained his position as a Gentile.
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And Peter brought the gospel to him.
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Why? Do you remember in the story? Peter was praying and he was meditating and God showed him a picture and a vision.
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And he said, eat all of these things.
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And some of the things that were there were things that he couldn't eat because they went against the dietary restrictions of Israel.
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And Peter says, I cannot eat these things.
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Nothing unclean has ever touched my mouth.
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And God says to Peter, He says, what I have made clean, do not call unclean.
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And you see there was more to that than food.
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I know we all get excited because we say, thank God for Acts 10 because we can eat bacon.
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Thank God for Acts 10 because we can go have, you know, that honey baked ham.
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We like Acts 10 because all foods...
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Do you know Jesus made all foods clean? Mark tells us that when Jesus said, it's not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of the mouth.
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He said, because what goes into your mouth goes in the stomach and it's expelled.
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Food does not necessarily make you right before God.
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And Mark says, and in saying that, Jesus declared all foods clean.
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Isn't that powerful? This isn't something that just happened in Acts 10.
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It's something that in Acts 10 is realized, but something that Jesus has already done.
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This is a promise that's already been fulfilled in Christ.
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So, we know that there's more to this scene in Acts 10 than food.
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The scene is this.
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Gentiles were unclean.
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Gentiles were dirty.
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Gentiles were the ones who were considered outside of the covenant, outside of the people of God, outside of God's grace and mercy and love.
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They were outside and now they have been brought in.
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They have been made clean.
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And that's why it goes on to say in verse 8, And God who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us.
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And He made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
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I love that phrase, cleansed their hearts.
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Because, again, I remind you, the Gentiles were unclean.
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They had a ceremonial taint, which made it impossible for Jews to associate with them.
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A Jew couldn't even enter into a Gentile home and eat in their home, because there was a ceremonial uncleanliness.
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But now that taint has been removed, it has been lifted, they have been cleansed, and that cleansing did not come through ceremony.
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They did not get cleansed by a ritual.
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Even baptism did not cleanse them.
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Peter says, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
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Not by baptism, not by circumcision, not by keeping of the law, but cleansed their hearts by faith.
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You see, when the Reformation swept through Europe in the 16th century, some considered that to be a new controversy.
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Because what was the controversy of the Reformation? Is mankind saved by all these Catholic rituals? Because that was what was being taught.
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There were rituals in the Catholic Church that had to be undergone.
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A person had to go to the Mass, which was a perpetuatory sacrifice.
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A person had to do these things to receive the grace of God, and they were called the means of grace, because these were the funnels through which God's grace could come.
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And if you weren't at the end of the funnel with your mouth open, you weren't receiving the grace of God.
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So the Reformation saints, those leaders of the Reformation came out and said, no, justification is by grace through faith alone.
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And when God saves a man, He saves a man not because of his works, but in spite of his works.
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God saves a man not because of what he's done, but in spite of what he's done, and He saves him by grace through faith.
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That's not a new doctrine.
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People say, well, that came about in the Reformation.
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No, it didn't.
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It's the same argument Peter's making here.
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They're cleansed by faith alone.
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Not by becoming Jews.
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Not by keeping the Law.
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Peter didn't say sola fide, but I'll say it.
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He's teaching justification by faith alone.
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No additions, and any additions would be heretical.
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Verse 10, Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test? I love that question, because he's really challenging them.
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He's really giving them, he's getting in their face.
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Why are you, I think that King James says, why are you tempting God? Why are you tempting God? Who do you think you are? 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.
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What is Peter saying? We haven't been able to keep the Law.
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Our fathers weren't able to keep the Law.
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None of us have been able to keep the Law.
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If you're telling them they've got to keep the Law to be saved, we can't be saved either.
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Because we haven't kept the Law either.
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If you think that you can put that on them, you're weighing yourself double down.
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And he goes on in verse 11 to say, But we believe we will be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus just as they will.
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Now, here's something very important.
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Warning sign.
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Heavy theological material ahead.
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It's important.
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The Judaizers did believe they needed grace.
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I want you to understand something.
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People who are legalists don't always deny the necessity of grace.
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Catholics don't deny the necessity of grace.
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Jehovah's Witnesses don't deny necessarily the necessity of grace.
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It's only the pure Pelagian who denies the necessity of grace.
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And Catholics condemn Pelagius.
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So just understand, everybody believes in the necessity of grace.
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It's the sufficiency that's the problem.
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Yes, it's necessary.
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It's just not enough.
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They believe the man needed grace plus.
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You see, that's what Mormons teach actually.
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In their literature, it says, a man is saved by grace after he's done all that he can do.
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So what's the teaching there? Yes, you're saved by grace, but only after you've obeyed the law.
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You can't have no caffeine.
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You can't have no iced tea.
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You can't have nothing because we're Mormons and that's the way it is.
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You can't have, you know, whatever.
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Grace is only sufficient after you do what you got to do.
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So it's not really sufficient.
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To add to grace is actually to subtract from grace.
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You ever thought about that? To add anything to grace is to say, well, the grace wasn't enough.
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So you're subtracting from it.
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But there's something else even more theologically significant in this passage that we must understand.
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And I might get some hairs sticking up on the back of your neck on this one.
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That's fine.
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You'll be fine.
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This text tells us something that is really, and again, condemn me later.
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He says, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they are.
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Who's the we? Who's the they? Peter's a Jew.
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He's talking to the Gentiles.
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Talking about the Gentiles.
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And what he says is that there is no special place for Jews in the church.
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Jewish Christians are Christians.
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God does not have two people.
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All God's people, Jew and Gentile alike, are saved in the same way.
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By grace through faith in Christ.
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Go with me to Galatians.
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I have to point this out.
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This passage, Galatians 2.
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It's often used to argue inappropriately for things like female pastors and stuff like that.
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And I don't even want to get into that today.
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But this passage is misused sometimes.
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So often times we don't go and spend time with it because we're afraid about those who misused it.
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Don't be afraid of this passage.
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This passage is very important.
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It says in Galatians 2.27.
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I'm sorry, Galatians 3.27.
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There is no 2.27.
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Galatians 3.27.
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For as many of you, as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek.
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Right now in the church, there isn't any Jews or Greeks anymore.
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He goes on to say, neither is there slave nor free, neither is there male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus.
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Now, people say, well, right there, women pastors and stuff, that's a whole other issue.
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Because it doesn't mean that there's not authoritative positioning set up in the church.
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Because just because my son might be a believer and I'm a believer, doesn't mean there's no authoritative position there.
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Just so you understand, it doesn't separate the idea that there are commands in the New Testament that women aren't to be preachers.
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And if that offends you, see me afterwards and I'll take you to a bunch of Scripture and I'll show you why this is an important issue.
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We don't put women in the office of elder.
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The Bible teaches that.
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And that's not a deprecation of women.
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And if you think that it is, I'll help you understand better later.
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But the point is, when it talks about the equality here, what it's talking about is our equality in Christ as far as where we are when we come into Christ.
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Now, you may have come from a different background.
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You may have come as a Jew.
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You may have come as a Gentile.
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But you are coming to the same Jesus.
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And you are going to be the same type of Christian when you get here.
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Because He says in verse 29, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring.
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I don't know why there's this big push to separate the church by Jew and Gentile.
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Because it's not biblical.
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You may come from somewhere else, but you all come to the same place.
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We are all saved the same way.
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By grace, through faith in Christ.
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Now, that could be the end of the message, but it ain't.
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Go back to Acts 15.
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Because I want to say what the other guy said.
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But that's important though.
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That part to me is important.
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Because Peter is making a solid unity.
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No more division.
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You know, Paul still fights this battle all through Romans about the division between Jew and Gentile in the church.
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Why? Because it won't go away and it still maintains today.
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There's the Hebrew Roots Movement.
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I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
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All these heretical groups.
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I had a guy come up to me the other day when I was at the fishing hole wanting to argue with me about Jewish law and Jewish Old Testament questions and things like that and wanting to really find out where I was.
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I know where he was.
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In a weird place, man, because he didn't have any understanding of grace and faith and the Gospel.
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But he knew that Yahweh was the proper way to pronounce the four-lettered tetragrammaton.
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Like that matters.
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You can say Yahweh, but you don't understand by grace through faith alone.
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Anyway.
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At this point, we're going to shift to Paul and Barnabas.
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We're going to move away from what Peter said.
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Shift to Paul and Barnabas.
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Verse 12.
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And all the assembly fell silent.
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Now, it doesn't tell us whether they fell silent at the words of Peter or whether they fell silent to hear what Paul and Barnabas are going to say, but I tend to think it's at the end of what Peter just said.
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I tend to think this kind of comes on the heels.
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Peter just said a pretty powerful thing.
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There's no division in the church between Jew and Gentile.
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And he says, God has saved them the same way He saves us.
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It's all by grace.
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It's all through faith.
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It's all through Christ.
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And everybody goes, oh, that's a big deal.
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That's powerful.
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And as a result, everybody's quiet now.
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And they listen to Barnabas and Paul.
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I like the fact that Barnabas is named first.
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Why do you think Barnabas comes first? Well, there are times when Barnabas comes first.
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There's times when Paul comes first.
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I can't say for certain, but I think in this particular situation, Barnabas has a little bit more clout with the Jewish people.
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Who are they trying to convince in this? Who are they arguing against? They're arguing against the Hebrew people.
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They're arguing against, not the Hebrew people, the Judaizers.
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So they let somebody who is well-known and well-respected among the Jews speak, and he speaks first.
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Barnabas and Paul both speak.
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Not much is said about what they say.
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All it says, they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
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That doesn't say anything except what we already know.
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We've already seen the first missionary journey.
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What happened in the first missionary journey? Paul and Barnabas go into Gentile city after Gentile city after Gentile city, and what happens? God's Holy Spirit falls on Gentile after Gentile after Gentile after Gentile.
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None of them are getting circumcised.
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None of them are stopping eating their pork sandwiches.
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None of them are disengaging from certain aspects of their dietary laws, and yet they're still receiving the Holy Spirit.
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Finally, verse 13, we hear from James.
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We mentioned last week James is the pastor of the church of Jerusalem.
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At least from evidence points to that.
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When Peter got out of prison, he said, go tell James.
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He referenced James as an authoritative leader in the church.
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James is referenced in Galatians 1 as a leader and elder in the church.
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So we understand James has an important position here, likely that of pastor, and he says this, brothers, listen to me.
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James, by the way, speaks with authority here.
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Later he says, I give my judgment.
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Pretty powerful words.
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He says, Simeon, and by the way, Simeon is a Hebrew form of Simon, so he's talking about Peter here.
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Just so there's no confusion.
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There are other men called Simeon, but in this particular reference, again, speaking to Hebrews, speaking to Jewish people, he's using a Hebrew form of the word.
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He says, Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, that's talking about with Cornelius, to take from them a people for his name.
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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.
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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 of old.
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Now, as a pastoral voice in Jerusalem, James would proclaim that what they were seeing was in accord with Scripture.
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It makes sense that he would come out and do this.
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You've had the apostolic voice from Peter, you've had the voice of the witnesses from Barnabas and Paul, but now you've got the guy who comes out and says, well, let's see what the Bible has to say about this.
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Remember, they don't have a New Testament yet, that's still in the process.
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Actually, it's not even being written probably at this point in time.
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Maybe James and a few other books have been written, but very, very little has been in Scripture at this point.
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But he said, let's look at our Old Testament.
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What do we know that the Bible says? And he quotes from kind of an obscure passage.
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He quotes from the prophet Amos.
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And he doesn't even quote verbatim.
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That's an interesting thing.
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Oftentimes we see in the New Covenant and New Testament writings, we'll see guys just sort of loosely quote.
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But you ever do that? You'll say, you know, God so loved the world He gave His only Son.
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Boom! And that's it.
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You know what I'm talking about, right? I'm talking about John 3.16.
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I can loosely quote Scripture and you know what I'm saying.
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Well, he does the same thing here.
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He loosely quotes Amos 9.
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And what's his point? His point is this.
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The bringing in of the Gentiles is a fulfillment of the promise that God made regarding the kingdom of David.
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The kingdom of David was promised to last forever.
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It was promised to be restored in Amos 9 because it had received and had been put under by bad kings and false...
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not necessarily false kings, but kings who had done evil things.
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It had been disrupted.
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And God promises a restoration for this.
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How is the Davidic throne maintained? Through Christ.
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Who sits on the throne of David? Jesus Christ.
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He is the true son of David.
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He is the one that fulfills the promises made to David.
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And He will sit on David's throne.
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Amos says that with the restoration of the kingdom, there is going to be an inclusion of the Gentile nations.
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Now you may think that that's kind of an obscure passage to go to.
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I think James was being pretty brilliant here because he pulls out a passage and he says, look.
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Look at what this prophet said.
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He said there is going to be a restoration of the kingdom.
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And in the kingdom, there is going to be an inclusion of people who aren't just Jews.
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What's the point? Guys, this should not be a surprise.
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This should not bother you as much as it does.
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You think that because God called you through Abraham and through the Mosaic Covenant, you think that because God called you and gave you His law and gave you His Scriptures, that His intention was for you to have this forever only as yourselves.
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But I am showing you that your own Scriptures tell you there is coming a day when God is going to burst the bubble of Israel and take people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation and make them a part of what you've had.
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Your bubbles burst.
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It's not just for you anymore.
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They have become heirs of the promise.
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Again, back to Galatians 3.
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We are heirs of the promises God made to Abraham.
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Have you ever seen Father Abraham had many sons? And many sons had Father Abraham.
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I am one of them.
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And so are you.
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Are you really? Well, I don't know if I have Jewish blood in me.
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I imagine as historically diverse as my...
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I'm British.
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Foskey comes from Foxcoat.
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And it's a British name.
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I always thought I was Czech.
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Foskey, not.
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I'm just an old plain English guy.
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Don't even get to be Italian.
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I'm just a plain old British guy.
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But I don't know if I have Jews in my family.
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I don't know if I have any Jewish heritage at all.
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But I know this.
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I'm a son of Abraham.
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By grace through faith I am a child of Abraham.
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Jesus said to those men who were calling him out, they said, we have Abraham as our father.
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He says, no you don't.
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If Abraham were your father, you would believe in me.
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You would believe in me.
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What James says here is simple.
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The inclusion of the Gentiles should be no surprise.
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God declared that this would happen in the prophetic writings salvation was never meant to be held within the nation of Israel alone.
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God deserves to be worshipped by all nations.
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And so the gospel is meant for people of all nations.
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The title of today's message, and I want to draw it to a close, the title of today's message is Justification for Justification.
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And as I said earlier, that may sound like an odd title, but that's what we're seeing in this passage.
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The most important question any man could ever ask, how is a sinful man made right with a holy God? And there is only one answer.
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By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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And that is taught right here.
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This issue didn't go away at the council.
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Don't think for a second that it did.
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This issue reigns today.
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There are churches, even in our community, that would teach a justification by works.
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Such robs the gospel of its majesty.
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I want to end by reading to you from Romans chapter 3 and into chapter 4.
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Because this, again, the issue didn't end in Acts 15.
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The issue kept going.
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And Paul even had to address this in Romans.
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And he addresses it so beautifully, I don't even have to add commentary.
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I just want to end by reading Scripture.
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And we're going to start in verse 21.
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We read this as our call to worship this morning, but now that you have more of a context, I want you to hear it again.
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Starting in verse 21.
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I'm going to read all the way to the end.
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When I get done with what I want to read, I'm going to pray.
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But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
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Although the law and prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction.
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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.
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This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
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It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.
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By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
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For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
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Hear that again.
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We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
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For is God the God of the Jews only? Oh, big question.
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Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
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Do we then overthrow the law by faith? By no means.
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On the contrary, we uphold the law.
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What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.
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For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sins.
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Is this blessing then for the circumcised only or for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
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How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he was circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
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He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
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The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that the righteous would be counted to them as well and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
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For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
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I know that was a lot of text.
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That was a lot to read.
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But Paul is arguing our point.
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We are not saved by the law.
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We are justified by grace through faith.
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Allah.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray that your word would be used to teach us today of our blessed position of being in Christ.
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And if we are in Christ, we are Abraham's offspring.
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We are the recipients of the blessing of eternal life which was given through the work of your son Jesus Christ.
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Our blessing is His.
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And our blessing is Him.
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Father, I pray that this lesson has been one that will turn our hearts closer to the Gospel and a better understanding of who we are in Christ.
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There is neither Jew nor Greek.
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There is neither slave nor free.
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There is neither male or female.
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None of us have a position because of where we've come out of of any prominence, but we are all equal at the foot of the cross.
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And we stand before you equally in need of your amazing grace.
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Father, if there is one among us who has not experienced that grace, who has not received salvation by grace through faith alone, I pray that you would today use this time to open their hearts to the truth.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.