Sunday, June 23, 2024 AM

Let's go to the

Lord together in prayer, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day. Thank you so much for your kindness and your watchfulness over our lives.

Thank you for caring about the details, receiving us warmly every time we as little children come running to our

Father for help. Thank you for always warmly receiving us with the smile that you have for your own son,

Jesus Christ. We thank you for this place that we can gather and make use of as we seek to glorify you and to encourage, edify, exhort one another in love.

As we gather in unity to rejoice in your truth and be so equipped and encouraged that we would go forth from this place declaring the gospel of the kingdom to those of our families and our cities.

Our neighborhoods will be prayed this morning that as we consider what goes on here in Acts 15, that you would remind us of our need of you, that you would clarify the goodness of your son,

Jesus Christ, and that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit, that there would be a genuine and lasting amen in our lives concerning this truth here in your word.

We pray for these graces for the sake of Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts 15, and we'll be reading verses 13 through 21 this morning, though the passage really does go on to verse 29.

We'll look at that later as the Lord allows. The title of the sermon this morning is

A New Commandment, which, of course, comes from John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you, that as I have loved you, so you also ought to love one another.

And in a short, pithy statement like that from our Lord, we now see here it put to the test in historical detail, in a real life problem that came up in the early church.

This commandment of Christ is really put into play here, and we get to see how it actually looks, which is of great benefit to us.

The first part of Acts 15 shows us the problem, what happened to bring about this needful counsel that we're reading about in this chapter.

I remembered preference for old wine led to an insistence upon old wineskins.

That preference for the old covenant, the richness of it, the earthiness of it, the familiarity of it led to an insistence upon old wineskins, such as, you have to be circumcised if you're going to be saved.

You need to keep the law of Moses if you're going to be saved. Can't be a part of this church unless you're circumcised and follow the law of Moses.

That desire for old wine that Jesus talked about in the Gospel of Luke led to this insistence upon old wineskins, which he said had no business trying to house new wine.

It's incompatible. It doesn't work. And so Paul and Barnabas, with those who were in contention, went together to Jerusalem and met with the elders and the apostles there.

And they're working together to think about this problem, to consult the teaching of Christ, the clear examples of what

Jesus has already done in his church, and even considering the Old Testament prophets to get clarity on this situation.

So I invite you to stand with me as we read, beginning in verse 13. We've already heard from Peter, now from James.

This is the word of the Lord. And after they had become silent,

James answered saying, Men and brethren, listen to me. Simon has declared how

God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.

And with this, the words of the prophets agree as just as it is written. After this,

I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins and I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the

Lord. Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the

Lord who does all these things. Known to God from eternity are all his works.

Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.

For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every

Sabbath. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Prior to marriage, prior to getting married, you learn the rules of family life and the roles within family life as children.

You begin to make observations. You begin to have an inkling of what it might be like to be married, what it might be like to be a husband.

As a young man, as a son growing up in a family, you begin to get an idea of that. As a young woman growing up in a family, you get an idea of what it would be like to be a wife.

And when you are married, suddenly it's kind of like what you thought it would be, but it's way more.

There's a meme that trends pretty popular. Marriage is hard.

Marriage is difficult. And then some example of some annoying habit that the spouse has that really bothers the other spouse.

But when you move from being a child. To actually being a husband or a wife, some things are familiar, yet they are still very disorienting, this is a whole new world.

Things are different, even though some things seem familiar, and that is truly what it is like.

For those moving out of the old covenant into the new covenant. Paul likened it in Galatians to being a very young child who had no role and no rights in the family that was basically nothing more than a slave, just doing what they were told over and over again by rote.

But then when they came of age, suddenly. The responsibility was entrusted to them, freedom was given to them, and things were so different, though there was some kind of connection.

And for some, they wanted to go back into the familiarity of all the rigors and the rules says, just tell me what to do.

I'll do it. And Paul says that's like going back into slavery when when the saints are moving into Christ's new creation, his new covenant, his new commission, his and to live by his new commandment.

There's all these there's this newness, there's a familiarity, and yet everything is somehow new.

And under Christ's authority, under Christ's authority, our unity will advance to his glory.

To put it a different way, we must obey Christ's commandment, which is love one another as I have loved you.

We have to obey that commandment if we're going to be about his commission. When he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo,

I am with you even to the end of the age. We can't do that. We can't follow through with that if we are not at first obeying that new commandment he gave to us.

To love one another as he has loved us. Especially since this being such a vital command is what we're supposed to be teaching the nations.

And parents, you know, you can't teach your children successfully to do the things that you don't do. We must obey

Christ's commandment to achieve Christ's commission. When we look at John 13, 34,

Jesus puts himself out as the pattern, as the example, as I have loved you.

But it's the commandment comes by his authority. I have commanded you to do this.

It's by his authority. And this is to be what continues among his people.

And we see that in Acts 15. In Acts 15, we see that Christ is the authority.

And that Christ is the one who accepts us. So we begin with Christ is the one who rules us.

This is where we begin. We can't follow this commandment unless we first recognize Christ's authority.

And Christ's authority is what's being recognized in this text. They've got a conflict in the church. What are we going to do?

They have a doctrinal division and a practical division in the church.

How is it ever going to be resolved? They begin by recognizing the authority of Jesus Christ.

This is vitally important for we are tempted to appeal to self -serving authorities to resolve relational disputes.

We are tempted to appeal to self -serving authorities to resolve relational disputes either in our marriages, our families, our workplaces, or in the church.

We often appeal to our own set of personal experiences so as to provide ourselves with excuses to behave unlovingly, impatiently, and unkind.

If you only had my set of experiences, then you would know that I have legitimate cause to be rude to you.

Because we don't put it like that. We adopt definitions that deliver us from having any responsibility.

Well, I'm a such and such. Therefore, I can tell you that you're wrong for what you did, but when

I do the very same thing, I'm not responsible for it and I'm not guilty of it because I'm a such and such. We often appeal to self -serving authorities to excuse ourselves and give us permissions, give ourselves permissions that we accord to nobody else.

That's sin. And that sin will manifest not just in our marriages, not just in our families, but also in our church.

Unless, of course, we are submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ and so it's

His definitions and it's who He is that matters. And that's vitally important for us to recognize if we're going to follow this new commandment.

So I want us to look at verses 13 through 18. And notice the first two verses of our text.

As we're trying to solve this problem, James and Peter are not appealing to their personal experiences as the final authority, but they're appealing to what

Jesus Christ has done and what God has to say. So verse 13, after after they become silent,

James answered, saying, men and brethren, listen to me. Silent has declared how God at the first visit at first visited the

Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. So what is he pointing to?

He's pointing to the story that Jesus, that Peter just told Peter, just given his his testimony about how

Christ had sent him by a vision to Cornelius to preach the gospel, to the

Gentiles. And we see that in Acts chapter 10.

You go back to Acts chapter 10, verse 44, as Peter is wrapping up his preaching of the gospel to Cornelius and these

Gentiles, Peter, only reason why he's in a Gentile's home is because Jesus had to give him a vision three times in a row and just knock it into his head.

So he went and he preached. And Acts 10, 44, while Peter was still speaking these words, the

Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word and those of the circumcision who believed were astonished.

So there was there were circumcised Jews who had become Christians who loved Jesus. They're there with Peter.

They went with him as witnesses and they see this happen and they see Gentiles get saved.

They see Gentiles filled with the Holy Spirit. So they're astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the

Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify

God. Very useful thing, Cornelius has all these people in his home, Gentiles, they get to hear the preaching of the gospel in their mother tongues, in their own languages they know best.

And they all magnify God. So then Peter answered, verse 47, who can for can anyone forbid water?

That these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit, just as we have. Notice how many problems this solves.

When do people get baptized after they're saved? When do people get saved before they're baptized?

How many questions did they just answer? A whole bunch. And we're told this in Acts 10 and Acts 11 and Acts 15, we're told three times.

Kind of like Peter, it takes a while for it to get through our thick skulls. But what is

Peter saying? Can anyone forbid the membership in the church? Can anyone forbid extending to them a covenant fellowship of the church?

Can anyone deny them entrance into the church since Jesus has already welcomed them?

Right. If the spirit delights to indwell them, I'll not be slow to embrace them.

And if Jesus welcomes them to his table, then I am welcoming them into my life as well.

You see this? So verse 48, he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the

Lord. And then they asked him to stay a few days. And he did. And so he slept in a Gentile's home and he ate Gentile food.

He did all these things that a good noble Jew ought not to do. And that caused a ruckus.

Word got back to Jerusalem that Peter was getting filthy with the Gentiles. And they confronted him on that.

Acts 11, verses 1 through 3. Now, the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.

And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, saying,

You went into uncircumcised men and ate with them. And Peter explains the entire thing all over again, like we didn't just read chapter 10.

But remember, the Bible was written to be read aloud. And when something's very important, it gets repeated.

And the ones reading the scripture read the entire thing over again so that the hearers will retain that story, retain that information.

So Peter says the whole thing over again. He's like, no, no, you don't understand. They're part of us now.

I didn't go to a foreigner's home and eat defiled food.

They're in. They're sanctified, they're holy, they're fine, they're part of Christ.

He gave them his spirit, so it's fine. I'm not defiled because I was with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so he wraps it all up in verses 17 and 18 in Acts 11. If therefore

God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Who was I that I could withstand God? Well, my idea, obviously.

It was God's idea. I'm just going to amen it. Verse 18, when they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified

God, saying, then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance in their life. Well, look,

God gave the gift of salvation to them, too. He gave them repentance so that they would believe upon Christ and they would be saved.

So praise be to God. Now, that was a vital moment in the life of the church. But somehow between that moment where they had a contentious issue with the circumcision, the

Jews who were circumcised, yet they were believers and they were concerned about these things. They had this all settled, apparently, in chapter 11.

But now here we are in chapter 15, and it seems like the whole issue has come up again.

This is very contentious. This craving, this remembered preference for old wine has inspired an insistence upon old wineskins.

And there's this sense in which Paul and Barnabas, you've been out there in Galatia, you've gone to the island of Cyprus and you're up there in Antioch and you're preaching the gospel.

And all these Gentiles from all these backgrounds are coming into the church and they're believing upon Jesus of Nazareth as the

Messiah. But this really can't continue unless we're unified. I mean, we're so different from one another.

This only works if they're circumcised and they're keeping the law of Moses. The concern really is how are we going to continue together?

There needs to be there needs to be a uniformity about us. How can there be a whole group of people in the church who don't appreciate the prophets, who are not really into Moses?

And they're not they don't know anything about circumcision or keeping the laws and so on and so forth.

How can we ever be in right fellowship with them? How can we even have a meal together? How can we spend time in each other's homes?

How does this even going to work? And like finding out how different a husband and wife are in the first year of marriage.

How is this going to work? The proposal in Acts 15 was to change the gospel.

Here's how we can unify. Let's change the gospel. If we simply add, you must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, then everybody can be on board and we'll have unity.

Change the gospel, we get the unity we so desire. You can do this in other ways.

You could say, well, we need unity around here, so what we can do is we'll change the gospel and we'll basically say there's no need for any repentance.

You can live however you want to live and we're going to affirm you and we're going to accept you regardless.

Love, love, love, acceptance, and we're just going to say we support you no matter who you are or what you do.

Welcome to Jesus and thereby change the gospel in order to achieve unity. See how that works?

So we can do it by being really, really strict and adding things to the gospel. We can also take things away from the gospel.

Well, everybody's going to go to heaven. If you just feel religious or spiritual, then everybody gets to heaven and we're going to have unity that way.

Or we're not going to be really concerned with who Jesus is or exactly what he did. But as long as we all have the same customs, then we're all unified.

We can disagree about all kinds of things, about the nature of God and the nature of scripture and the nature of salvation.

But as long as we all come to the same table and drink and have the same communion, then that's real unity.

So often that the impulse, as Jay was mentioning, the impulse in man is to is to change the gospel.

But there is no need for a change to the gospel for those who have been changed by the gospel.

And that's what goes on here in this text. James points back and says, look,

God has already sent Peter to the to the nations of the

Gentiles and they've already come to faith in Christ. They're already saved. And this gracious prerequisite among the nations is followed up by James's citation of a gospel prophecy about the nations.

So in order he's speaking to those who have a preference for old wine and they're trying to impose old wineskins, they're all about the old covenant and they want to bring back parts of the

Old Testament to make this a legitimate church. And then James does is he says, well, let me quote to you some of the

Old Testament to demonstrate to you that we're not going to live by those old wineskins anymore.

A very effective argumentation. So he quotes from Amos chapter nine.

Amos chapter nine. In Amos chapter nine, verse eight, we hear

God's promise to a sinful kingdom, to his people that he's bringing judgment.

But his judgment is going to make way for salvation. Amos chapter nine, verse eight.

Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord. Remember the promise of the remnant all throughout the prophets picked up by the

New Testament authors. Verse nine, for surely I will command and will sift the house of Israel among all nations.

Sifting is a metaphor for judgment. As grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.

God's in control of the whole thing. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword who say the calamity shall not overtake nor confront us.

Same kind of stubbornness that Jeremiah found in his day. When he was declaring to them, the

Lord, the Lord is going to bring judgment upon you for your idolatry. And their response was the temple of the Lord, the temple of the

Lord, the temple of the Lord. Their idolaters, we have the temple, we won't be destroyed.

We're in the holy city, we won't go down. We have a Davidic king, how can we die?

But God had promised judgment. And the prophets were affirming that.

Now, notice that the judgment, the humiliation, the bringing down.

Of Israel by Babylon lost the temple, lost the Ark of the Covenant, the priesthood got tainted, that there's no more

Davidic king, so on and so forth. This this this great disaster that happened in 586

B .C. makes makes the way brings out an opening for the hope of the new covenant.

Verse 11, on that day, I will raise up the tabernacle of David. You think of tabernacle, you think of the one in the wilderness.

This is the tent of David. It refers to the household of David. This is the promise that God made to David concerning his house.

David says to to the prophet, I want to build the Lord a house. And God says, no,

I'm going to build you a house. I'm going to build you a household, a lineage. And in fact, when he says all of this and describes the nature of the king,

David says something to the effect of. This is the way you're going to deal with all mankind. Indeed.

On that day, I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down because there's going to be a destruction, there's going to be interruption of the

Davidic kingdom, there's not going to be a Davidic king on the throne. They're in exile when they come back under Nehemiah and Ezra.

There's there's no king sitting on the throne. What are we going to do about that? The post -exilic

Psalms are like, but you promised God, you promised that David's descendants would be on the throne.

Where is he? God says, I'm going to raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down and repair its damages and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old.

That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the

Lord who does this thing. Now notice. James quotes those two verses.

You see that Acts 15 verses 16 and 17, he quotes Amos 9, 11 and 12.

So in the light of Jesus Christ. He thinks of Amos 9, 11 through 12, and he looks around at the

Gentiles coming into the church. And he says, you know what, all this is going on around us that bothers you all so much, this is the fulfillment of Amos 9, 11 and 12.

Amos 9, 11 and 12 says there's the restoration of the royal house of David.

And by the restoration of the royal house of David, the nations come to salvation.

James says, look, it's coming true. This is the exact same thing

Peter preached on Pentecost. When the people began to speak in languages they had never heard and preached the gospel to Jews from every quarter of the empire in the heart languages they knew best.

And the people, some of them began to scoff and say, oh, these men are drunk. Peter says, no, they're filled with a different kind of spirit, the

Holy Spirit. And this is the new covenant that Joel prophesied of.

In fact, David the king prophesied of this. David knew that his descendant would be raised up to reign upon his throne forever.

And this day is fulfilled in your hearing in that Jesus has been raised up from the dead and he's ascended to the right hand of the father.

So both Peter and James in Acts 2 and Acts 15 say you want an explanation for why the gospel is going to the nations?

It's because God has restored the Davidic throne. Praise be to God.

David knew it from back in 2 Samuel chapter 7, where he said, this is the way you're going to deal with all mankind?

Yes, indeed. And what does this have to do with the situation in Acts?

Simply this, since God has kept his promises and he has given them the

Davidic king long promised, since there's a new ruler, new rules.

No, they don't have to be circumcised, they're already holy in Christ, they're already born again.

The old man has been done away with, the new things have come. The circumcision in its shadow has been resolved in its substance.

We were crucified with Christ, raised to new life. Therefore, there's no need for circumcision because it's already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Further, they're not supposed to keep the law of Moses. No, because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law of Moses and he's greater than Moses and so we follow him and do what he tells us to do.

Moses told you, don't murder. Jesus says, yes, but more, don't hate your brother in your heart.

Moses says, don't commit adultery, but Jesus says, yes, but more, don't lust after a woman in your heart.

Moses allowed you all to get divorced, but Jesus says, nope. How many different ways do we find that Jesus says,

OK, so we have the shadows in the Old Testament, but now it's been fulfilled. Time and time again.

So when it comes to trying to decide how to resolve this doctrinal division, this division of practice in the church, both

Peter and James point to the authority of Jesus Christ and says he's going to have to decide. Here's what he says.

And we have to be in agreement with him. And that's the way to approach. Now, this is exactly how

Jesus instructs us in his new commandment. A new commandment I give to you. He has ordered us around.

Why? He gets to. He's king of kings. He's lord of lords. He's our shepherd.

He's our master. He's the husband. So he has the authority in every metaphor.

We are in submission to him. He tells us what to do. And he said, a new commandment I give to you.

Love one another. Love one another. This is the issue.

The Jews of the circumcision of this party that are saying, hey, these

Gentiles, they have to be circumcised. And they have to follow the law of Moses. They were not loving their

Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ as Christ had loved them. That was the problem.

They would probably say, no, no, we're loving them. We're loving them because circumcision would be good for them.

And keeping the law of Moses would be a blessing to them. We're loving them by bringing this up.

But they're not loving them as Christ had loved these very members of the circumcision.

Because Jesus didn't save them by their keeping of the law of Moses. And Jesus didn't save them by their circumcision.

He saved them by his own righteousness giving himself for them. So Christ rules us.

And Christ receives us. Verses 19 -21. So James says, this was known to God from eternity.

He'd been planning this a long time. This is how it was always going to shake out. Verse 19, therefore

I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God.

But that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.

For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city being read in the synagogues every

Sabbath. First of all, note what

James says in verse 19. There's a clarification here.

Verse 19, we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God.

Don't trouble them. This word trouble is in the original translated also in two other passages.

It's translated in Luke chapter 6 verse 18 and translated in Hebrews 12 verse 15.

Luke 6 .18 talks about the vexation of somebody who is demon possessed. That kind of trouble.

In Hebrews 12 .15, the same term is used to describe somebody who is taken over by bitterness.

That kind of vexation. That kind of trouble. Meaning they are taken hold of by something.

Something has taken hold of them which defiles them. Image 4, defilement.

Take a scoop of ashes out of your wood -burning stove. Toss it into your pool.

Defilement. The one who was demon possessed was troubled, vexed by something that had taken hold of him.

The person who was captured by bitterness is taken hold by that and troubled and vexed.

And James is saying to the church, we are not going to vex and trouble and stumble these

Gentiles who are turning to God. If we were to insist that they be circumcised, if we were to insist that they keep the law of Moses, that would be what we were doing.

And we're not going to do that. They don't need to be possessed by any of that because they are indwelt by the

Holy Spirit. James' conclusion agrees with Peter's conclusion.

Peter said the same thing in verse 10. Why are we going to put a yoke on them? Why would you tempt God? Why would you tempt

God and test God by putting upon them a yoke which neither us, our fathers, or they are able to bear?

They agree with Paul's conclusion, Galatians 1, verses 6 -7, that if anyone should bring another gospel, that they should be anathema, troubling you with this gospel message of saying, yes, of course,

Jesus saves only if you're circumcised. So Peter and Paul and James all agree in this priority of the gospel.

Now, getting this right distinguishes us in two ways. First of all, there is a division from false teaching.

There is a division away from false teaching. And there is a gracious and warm, humble fellowship that marks those who hold to this gospel.

Because we all got in the same way. The righteousness of Jesus Christ, the grace of God.

It's not because I did things that made me better. It's not because I just had a stronger will.

It's not because I had a better character. It's not because I had a better upbringing. It's not because of any of these things. It's because of the grace of God.

And so there's going to be a division away from false teaching even as there is a unification, a gracious and warm, humble fellowship amongst all those who hold to this gospel.

Who insist that we not trouble those turning to God with vexing rules and regulations so that they'll be more appealing to us when we hang out with them.

Christ receives us. If the king is pleased to receive them to his throne,

I am pleased to receive them in my home. If the king is pleased to sit them at his table, they're welcome to mine.

If they are embraced by the heavenly Father, I will embrace them too. Such is the unity and the love and the fellowship because of who

Christ is as he has loved us. So we are to love one another.

And because that mindset was absent from this Jewish party, not all the

Jews were saying this. They were being opposed by other Jews. But these folks were saying, no, you've got to be circumcised, you've got to do things like we do, otherwise we're not going to accept you.

Yet Christ receives us and so we should receive one another. And this begins with the priority of the gospel.

But notice the principles of grace in verses 20 through 21. The principles of grace. By this point, as you're reading through the text, it has been clarified, very clarified, that circumcision is not required for salvation.

Keeping the law of Moses is not required for salvation. That being infatuated with the shadows of Old Covenant Israel, that is not required.

No one has to bow down to circumcision. Nobody has to bow down to keeping the law of Moses. Nobody has to bow down to Jewish culture.

Christ is king. So the instructions that are given here that we read about, this abstaining from things polluted by idols, meaning from sexual immorality, from things strangled in from blood, with considerations that Moses had been preached through all these cities in the empire, these instructions are derived from the principles of grace, not a contradiction to grace.

So the prohibitions here that the apostles are saying, they're not saying this is law -keeping. No, far from it.

They're not saying it's law -keeping. They just said that that would be totally wrong. They're not saying this is salvific.

This is how you get saved or part of your salvation. They just said that they didn't agree with that at all. These prohibitions are given so that, as an example of how to love one another, how to bear with one another, how to receive one another.

What was the real heart concern of the group that said, oh, they've got to follow the law of Moses and they've got to be circumcised?

What was their real issue? The real issue is how are we going to be one church?

How is this going to work? All the promises and prophecies of Jesus came from the

Old Testament, came to Israel. The Jews received the gospel, received the promises, received the oracles, received the covenants, and Jesus is the fulfillment of them all.

So how are these Gentiles going to come in and just be Gentiles around us? They've got to be like us.

We hold the high ground. They've got to come to us. We've had the truth longer. They've got to come to us.

That's their concern. And although there was selfishness and pride and out -and -out error, indeed, heresy among them.

Notice the patience, the long -suffering, and the way forward in verses 20 and 21.

What is the concern? Idolatry and the culture of idolatry that permeated the

Gentile world. So what do they say? Okay, look.

They do need to abstain from things polluted by idols. The idol industry in the ancient

Roman Empire. And do you know what was involved with that? Number one, sexual immorality.

People went to the temples to access the prostitutes. That's what made idolatry so popular.

They also there would kill the animals by strangling them and sell the animals in a way, after being offered to idols, it was very offensive.

Very offensive and troublesome and stumbling to Jewish Christians. And the meat was often prepared in such a way of, you know, medium -rare or even rare.

Another thing that would be very troublesome and stumbling to Jewish Christians.

Why would it be so troubling to them? Because Moses had been throughout many generations preached in every city, being read in the synagogue every

Sabbath. This is the way that so many were brought up. This was their culture.

This was their whole mindset. And even when they became Christians, they still didn't eat their steaks rare. And they still didn't touch anything that ever went through the hands of a temple.

Because the temple would kill animals as a sacrifice to their gods and their goddesses. And those gods and goddesses didn't eat their own food.

That meat would just lay there. And it would go bad. But those priests and priestesses of those idolatrous temples were savvy.

And they would take those sacrifices out to the market and sell them cheap. Undercut the competition.

So will the Jewish Christians eat of that? No. They're not going to touch it.

This is about how to love one another, accept one another. Romans 15 .7 says,

Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Romans 14 .1

says, Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.

So I'm going to receive you. I'm going to welcome you. And we're not going to argue about that conviction that you have that I don't, that is doubtful.

Romans 14 .7 -9, Here's the reason why. None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.

For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the

Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and rose and lived again. As I have loved you, as I have given my life for you,

Jesus says to his disciples, So you are to love one another. It's not about me.

It's not about what I want. It's not about my preferences. It's not about my expectations. It's not about my personal list of rules.

Back to Romans 15. Verse 1, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like -minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

So you see, it's not that we have to change the gospel, make a change to the gospel in order for us to get along and be unified.

We have to be changed by the gospel. As Christ has loved us, so we are to love one another.

Considering who he is and what he has done, how he went about it, that informs everything about who we are and how we love one another, how we accept and welcome one another.

The problem in the church,

Acts 15, can basically be boiled down to this.

Well, you've got to be just like me. Am I well -established religious practices, customs, and convictions?

And if you're not, I don't think you're saved, right?

So in those situations, what did the apostles do? What did the church do? Did they take a step back and say, hang on a second, how are we saved?

How are we saved? And if Christ is pleased to welcome us by his grace in this way, then that tells us how we ought to be pleased to welcome one another.

We do not have to improve Jesus or impose upon each other.

Christ is the one who reconciles us. The Lord be pleased, verses 22 through 29, we're going to take a look at next week when we have communion.

Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for this reminder from Acts 15 that we are to be loving one another and welcoming each other according to the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that Christ is King. That his reign means hope and salvation to the nations.

And that because of his authority, we may unite together and rejoice together in this truth.

Lord, I pray that you would be at work in us to stir up the

Holy Spirit warmth and fire of our affections for each other. That we would think of Christ as we seek to love each other and to serve each other.