Sunday, June 16, 2024 AM

Together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day. We thank You that we may, on a day that we are encouraged to honor our fathers, to also remember that You are our Father, by the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ, in the assurance and the vibrant life and fellowship we have with You by Your Holy Spirit, we know You to be our Heavenly Father.

We rejoice in this truth, and we give You thanks for Your faithfulness, Your consistency, Your goodness, Your power, Your generosity, Your sovereignty, the hope that You give us, the encouragement You give us, the instruction You give us, the correction You give us, the love that You give us.

Help us today to rejoice in Your truth, that we would be sons and daughters who give a hearty amen to the Word of their Father, concerning our elder brother, Jesus Christ. We ask for these graces in His name and by Your Spirit.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts, the book of Acts, chapter 15. And we will read verses 1 through 12. Acts 15, verses 1 through 12. You remember the song, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide?

The Gospel Spreads Deep and Wide in Acts

The gospel of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit was flowing deep and wide through all manner of folks in the book of Acts, deep into Jewish life and wide among the nations. Deep into Jewish life.

At Pentecost, Jews from all over the Roman Empire came to faith in Jesus Christ. 3 ,000 souls were added to the Lord that day. In Acts chapter 4 and verse 4, through the preaching of the gospel at the temple, 5 ,000 Jews were added to the church that day.

We hear in Acts chapter 6, verse 7, that many priests became obedient to the faith. We find that the surrounding villages, the surrounding communities around Jerusalem, they were bringing their sick and blind and demon-possessed up to Jerusalem that they may be healed in the name of Jesus Christ by the apostles.

Read about that at the end of chapter 5 in Acts. And of course, how deep does the gospel go into the bastion of Jewish animosity? Even to Saul of Tarsus, the chief of sinners, who was a murderer, who breathed murder against the saints.

That's how far deep the fountain of the gospel of Jesus Christ went into Jewish life. But also wide to the nations. Also at Pentecost, we are reminded that these Jews are from all over the Roman Empire and had grown up speaking the heart languages of the local tribes, and they were bound to go back to those same areas with this good news of Jesus.

We also find in chapter 8 that the gospel was preached among the Samaritans. The gospel was preached to an Ethiopian who then took the gospel back to his country. And who can forget that encounter that Peter had with the angel of the Lord telling him to go with the servants of Cornelius and preach the gospel to the Gentiles there.

And the joy the church had to hear that the gospel was given to the Gentiles as well. The gospel was flowing deep and wide. And seeing that everything was going so well there at the end of Acts chapter 14, it's time for a problem.

Here comes Acts 15. As the people of God, as the Christians, both Jew and Gentile, begin to try to wrestle with the significance of Jesus Christ, what does it mean to be saved? And what does it mean to live as a follower of Jesus Christ?

What does that look like, especially in light of all the Old Testament scriptures? So Acts 15 is very important. I invite you to stand if you're able. We're going to read God's word beginning in verse 1.

This is the word of the Lord. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.

So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy to all the brethren. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them.

But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.

And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We hear that the gospel is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the good news of Jesus.

And this is because the good news of Jesus Christ is inaccessible apart from God's grace. It is indecipherable apart from God's grace. The religious scholars of Jesus's day didn't get them. They didn't understand how often Jesus was saying, have you never read?

Don't you understand? He told Nicodemus, you're the teacher of Israel and you don't know these things. John's zealous disciples, John the Baptist, his zealous disciples, they didn't get Jesus. I don't understand what you're doing.

Why aren't you acting like we are? Why are you and your disciples not conducting your business affairs, your religious affairs the way we do? Even Jesus's own disciples sometimes didn't get them and they were all confused.

And this is because Jesus came saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent of belief in the gospel. So long you've been waiting for the light to shine. So long you've been waiting for the Messiah to arrive.

So long you've been waiting for the new covenant to arrive. And when it arrives, everyone's still stuck in preparation mode. Preparation is related too, but different than the arrival. Those of you who enjoy hosting others, you know that to be true.

Preparation is different from the arrival of the guests, even though it's related. There's a different feel to it, a different sense to it, but it's all related. When we wake up early in the morning and we breathe the fresh air and take a look at the weather, we say to ourselves, I think I know what today's going to be like now.

But it sure is different than high noon. Jesus came and he was operating as welcome to high noon. Welcome to the bright light. The guest of honor has arrived. You've been waiting for so long, preparing for so long.

And now it's time to rejoice in the arrival of the Messiah. And many people found that they were far more desirous to remain in preparation mode. They preferred the dim dawn to the light of high noon.

And we go to chapter 15 of Acts, and we're scratching our heads saying, why are members of the church from Jerusalem insisting on the Gentiles being circumcised in order to be saved? Why are these Pharisees who believed, these who were Pharisees and they became Christians like Saul of Tarsus did, and yet they're insisting that the Gentiles be circumcised.

And in addition to that, they have to keep the law of Moses. And there's a dissension here. There's a dispute here. They have to come together in Jerusalem and figure out how to proceed, what the answer is going to be.

Jesus did not think that it was going to go perfectly smoothly. He anticipated that these types of things would come up. And so he instructs and gives us a story, gives us an image to think about in Luke chapter 5, verses 33 through 39.

So Luke, writing both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts for his patron Theophilus, the answer to why these things are going on in Acts 15 is found back in Luke chapter 5. Why is there this argument?

Why is there this dissension in Acts 15? Because of Luke chapter 5. And in verse 33, we read this. Then they said to him, they're saying to Jesus, why did the disciples of John, the disciples of John the Baptist, fast often and make prayers?

And likewise, those of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. They don't have the same kind of customs as these other pious people do. And he said to them, can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast where the bridegroom was with them?

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. And then he spoke a parable to them. No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one.

Otherwise, the new makes a tear. And also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. It makes no sense to patch an old garment with new cloth. The new cloth hasn't shrunk yet, doesn't match the color of the old garment.

And then when the new patch shrinks, it just makes the tear worse. Nobody does that. And then he puts a parallel to that parable, verse 37. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the wine skins and be spilled, and the wine skins will be ruined.

But new wine must be put into new wine skins, and both are preserved. It makes no sense to put new wine into old wine skins. The old wine skins have hardened. They're brittle. They're rigid. And the new wine has to ferment.

The gases have to expand. Everybody knows this. And so if you put new wine into old wine skins, the old wine skins are going to burst and crack, and then everything is ruined. New wine goes into new wine skins.

But notice Jesus' insight in verse 39. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new. For he says, the old is better. Boy, did Jesus know us. He knew what was in the hearts of men. He said, nobody likes the new.

They taste the new, they're like, oh, no, the old is way better. Old is way better. And in this case, when we're looking in Acts 15, what do we have going on here except a remembered preference for the old wine, the old covenant, the days of preparation, the days of shadow?

A remembered preference for old wine inspires a group within the church to insist on old wine skins. We need circumcision. We must keep the law of Moses. We need the old wine skins. Why? They remembered the taste of that old wine.

That's what goes on here in Acts 15. But the sun has come. It's high noon. There's no going back to the night or the dim light of early dawn. The light of the sun bursts old covenant shadows off of the new covenant saints, saints prone to wonder, restless without Christ.

Sinners often default to superstitions desiring more accessible assurance. Many prefer ritual. Many prefer someone to be the spirituality for them. They prefer the ritual to partake in. They can walk away and feel that they have been connected to God by these rituals, by these regimens.

Prone to wander, restless in Christ. Saints may even default to shadows desiring more accessible assurance. The form of it, the ritual of it, the repetition of it. But the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ saves sinners all the same self-denying way.

And He manifests His salvation in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our passage this morning is organized in a set of parallels. And you can think of it as the problem, the people, and the prescription. The problem, the old wineskins on display, you can find verses 1, 5, and 10.

You can see this on your handout. Verses 1, 5, and 10. The focus is on circumcision. The focus is on circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. The focus is on a yoke too heavy to bear. That's a problem.

The saints must reject old wineskins. That's what Jesus said. We have to believe Him on that and follow through on that. And then on the other extreme, verses 3, 7, and 12, we find that the gospel is going out to the Gentiles and they are 100 completely saved without all those old wineskins.

They're filled with the Holy Spirit. They have the grace of God at work in them. Look at how wide the New Covenant spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations. And the saints are to rejoice in the new wine, not cause a ruckus and say, well, what about the old?

In the middle, all along the way, verses 2, 4, and 6, we have the saints gathering in Jerusalem. They have a council. We've got to get together and talk about this. We've got to figure this out. We have to come to agreement about this.

Let us not remain in dissension. So they gather in Jerusalem for a council. When they get there, they reflect upon the teaching of Jesus Christ they reflect upon the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they realize that they have communion in Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, where everybody gets in by the grace of God, not by the measures of the old covenant.

So I hope you can see that pattern flowing through, kind of like a wave pattern, and we're going to think about this together. First of all, the saints must reject old wineskins. We see this in verses 1 and 5 and 10.

First of all, we see an obsolete sign. An obsolete sign in verse 1 of chapter 15. Certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Circumcised according to the custom of Moses. Moses wrote Genesis, and there we find the sign of circumcision given to Abraham as a part of that Abrahamic covenant. And these Jewish believers have an insistence on this obsolete sign.

They come down from Jerusalem and they teach a strange doctrine, a doctrine that is strange to the text, a doctrine to which if the Bible were to walk up to it, it would say, I don't really know you, that new covenant believers ought to be circumcised, even necessary for salvation.

We know this to be a strange doctrine. We know this even to be heresy, as we read Ephesians 2 and Philippians 3 and Colossians 2 and the book of Galatians. Again and again, it is stated that in the new covenant, the sign of circumcision has been satisfyingly fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

He is the seed. Every descendant coming down out of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, every descendant of Israel through the lineage down, every male was circumcised the eighth day in hopes that the seed promised in Genesis 3 .15 would arrive.

Well, he arrived. He is the seed according to the promise. Jesus Christ has arrived, which is why the Bible tells us that he is all the circumcision we need. He has cut off the sinful flesh. We have died with Christ.

We are raised together with him. The old man is put away. We have a new man in Christ. So we don't have this sign anymore. Circumcision was a sign like you see all the time when you travel. There's one particular sign on Interstate 40.

And we're coming home from Arkansas or coming back from Tennessee. And it says Oklahoma City, 83 miles. I'm kind of happy and kind of not happy when I see that sign. But one thing I don't do is I don't stop at that sign and say, I'm home.

I also don't stop and pull up the sign and carry it with me. The sign has served its purpose. The sign has functioned well. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Thank you very much. But I don't live at that sign.

And I have not grabbed that sign and brought it with me. So also circumcision. So this is a strange doctrine that retains a sign after the destination has been reached. A preference for the old wine insists on retaining old wine skins.

This is the way it is with all the signs in the Old Covenant. We still have rainbows today, don't we? But our assurance that there's going to be salvation and preservation and that God will save who he's going to save, a number too many for men to count, and that there's life going to be preserved until the very end of the great resurrection.

That's settled in Christ, by the way, and the rainbow is around His throne. Thank you, Chris, for sharing that the other day. Also, the sign of circumcision has been fulfilled in Christ. The sign of the Sabbath, which was the sign of the Old Covenant at Sinai, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Saturday still exists. It still exists. It's still around. But you know what? We don't pick Saturday up and carry it around and say, you have to have Saturday rest of no labor whatsoever, otherwise we're not holy, do we?

We have Christ as our rest. He has completed all the work and sat down at the right hand of the Father. His work is complete. We rest in Him. And so we set aside time in our busy schedules to abide in Christ, to abide together.

We rest in Christ. We don't retain the sign. So there's an obsolete sign that's being insisted upon. And what does this do? But dim the light of Christ. Dim the glory of Christ, insisting on putting an old satellite in between the light of Christ and where we live so that it dims the glory.

So the saints must reject old wineskins and any insistence upon an obsolete sign. Also, any insistence on an obsolete standard. Verse five, when the apostles go up to Jerusalem and share all the things that God had done, verse five, but some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

Keep the law of Moses. And this is what caused such a big fight. The circumcision and the law of Moses, verse two. That's why there was no small dissension and dispute among them. Observe that when they speak of the law of Moses, they speak about it in its entirety.

All of it together at the same time. No separations are made, distinctions are not made within the law of Moses, but all of it is considered as a whole. And they're saying, you have to keep the law of Moses.

They don't put it into parts. And this is what the Pharisees are saying. And this is what Paul, Barnabas, and eventually Peter and James disagree with. And the church takes a different direction according to the authority and word of Jesus Christ.

The connection is made very clearly between, notice, circumcision and the law of Moses. This is not the only place it happens. The covenant that God made with Abraham flows very naturally into and is captured within the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai.

One of those, that point is made very clearly by the fact that God meets Moses and picks him out to be this servant who is to go down and get Israel up out of Egypt and then bring them into the wilderness where God's going to make this covenant.

But Moses hasn't had his kids circumcised. So in Exodus 4, God meets Moses in the wilderness to kill him because he hasn't had his kids circumcised. And so he has his kids circumcised and God spares his life.

Because God is looking for servants not who will continually disobey and offer up sacrifice. I have not desired sacrifice, but covenant faithfulness. And so there's a flow from Abraham into Moses, a flow from that covenant into the next that is naturally connected here.

And the Pharisees are saying, look, Abraham and Moses, these covenants in the Old Testament, they have to come together and they have to still be maintained and enforced upon all these new Gentile believers.

They didn't grow up with the Scriptures. They don't know our customs. They don't know our rich history. And they don't know about all this background. The significance is lost on them. And it's impossible for us to think of them being saved or holy or a part of our unity unless they're circumcised and they're following all the same laws that we do.

But it's an obsolete standard. It's not a bad standard. It's an obsolete standard. Thou shalt not murder is a great standard. That's a great standard. It's a great law. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

100%. What a great standard. But it's obsolete because there is a righteousness that is clearer, higher, brighter. Jesus came saying, someone greater than Solomon is here. Someone greater than Temple is here.

Someone greater than the Sabbath is here. Someone greater than Moses is here. Jesus said, you have heard it said unto you, you shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you, the man loves after a woman in his heart, he's guilty of that adultery.

You have heard it said to you, do not commit murder. But I say to you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you're guilty of murder. Your righteousness, he says, must surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, which means there must be a righteousness that is higher, deeper, more thorough, more effective than that which was evident in the law of Moses.

You have heard it said, but I say unto you, which means Jesus took the law and he accelerated the righteousness that was revealed there. In Romans chapter 3 verse 21, it says, but now the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed to by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, for there is no difference.

It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ that was testified to by the law of Moses, but Christ has come and his righteousness is clearer, purer, brighter. And so we look to him to understand what righteousness is.

Obviously, the law exposes sin, but the standard is higher in Christ. This is what Matthew chapters 5 through 7 are about. Matthew 7 is about Galatians 4, Colossians 3 all speak to this. But Hebrews 8 .13 says that the old is obsolete and ready to pass away, encouraging Jews not to go back to the old standards.

In the New Testament, and I encourage you to look at this for yourself, we are not called to keep the law. Those who try to keep the law are all warned away from it, but we are told time and again to fulfill the law.

And how do we fulfill the law? Jesus came and said, a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. That was something that could never have been said before Christ coming.

And now we are told in the New Testament that when we love in the way that Christ loves, this doesn't just keep the law, though far better, it fulfills the law. As we recall that the end of the law, the fulfillment of the law is in Christ Jesus for all who believe unto righteousness.

So we just follow him. When we say that the law of Moses is an obsolete standard, we are not being anti-law or anti-gnomian. We are saying Christ is greater and higher. He is our authority. He is our king.

And he takes up the law of Moses and applies it by his glory in a more perfect way. It's his authority. It's his command. He's king. We follow him. We're not lawless. Thirdly, we have an obsolete, oppressive system that is insisted upon in verse 10.

Notice the way in which Peter describes the circumcision and the keeping of the law. Verse 10. Now, therefore, why do you test God? By putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.

There was only one covenant servant who ever bore that yoke and pulled it straight. Only one covenant servant who bore that yoke and fulfilled it to the uttermost. And his name is Jesus Christ. None of the other covenant servants could bear it.

And even in the frustration of it was the shadow and the promise that one servant would come who would fulfill it. By the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is not a means of salvation. And so Jesus says, come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. We have a remembered preference for old wine that inspires an insistence upon old wineskins, but it's just not compatible. And that's why Paul and Barnabas, having gone on this missionary journey through the island of Cyprus and through the whole region of Galatia, has come back to Antioch, full of Christians, both Jew and Gentile.

And when these Judaizers come down from Jerusalem and say, you have to be circumcised in order to be saved, there is no small dissension. There is a great debate, well worth the fight and the need to clarify.

And this is where we see that the saints gather in Jerusalem. It becomes clear that these circumcised coming down from Jerusalem, teaching this, they have somehow gotten the idea that this is what was being taught in Jerusalem by the apostles, by the elders there.

They think that they're on point and they think it's important for Paul and Barnabas and the church in Antioch, which is growing very large by this point, that they need to get on track as well. Hey, look, everybody needs to be circumcised in order to be saved.

Makes sense. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. So you have to take on the trappings of Judaism if you're going to be saved and take benefit of his work. They find great resistance in Paul and Barnabas. They say, look, you've got to go up to Jerusalem.

We have got to go up and get this solved. We've got to get this figured out. So they go up there and in verse four, we read that they were received by the church. Paul and Barnabas were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all things that God had done with them.

Like, hey, this is what's happening. We're preaching the gospel and the nations are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. And remember when they say they reported all things that God had done with them, this would include being chased by murderous Jewish zealots who actually stoned Paul and left him for dead and all the controversies that they had lived through.

And then we see that the sect of the Pharisees, those who had been converted as the Pharisees, they said, no, it's necessary to circumcise these Gentiles and command them to keep the law of Moses. And so, verse six, the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.

So they've got to gather again. All right, so we've heard the opening statements. Now it's time for more deliberation. We've got to figure out what the truth of the situation is. Jerusalem was really important to the early church.

It wasn't because of simply the temple and the old covenant history, which would make great object lessons to teach about Christ. That was important. But remember how many thousands were saved in Jerusalem.

What a vital beginning point for the church. Didn't Jesus say, you will be my witnesses. You're going to preach the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth.

So this is ground zero. This is the beginning place of preaching the gospel. So it makes sense to gather there and talk about this problem. But the location, I think, soon takes on a new significance.

For they are gathered together in the old covenant Jerusalem to clarify the new covenant Jerusalem. What does it mean to be a part of the heavenly Jerusalem, Galatians 4, the Jerusalem above on that untouchable, unshakable mountain, Hebrews 12?

What does it mean to flee to Jerusalem to be saved when you're already in Jerusalem, according to Peter's preaching of Joel chapter 2 in Acts chapter 2? What does all that mean? That you're supposed to go to Jerusalem for salvation.

It means that you come to Christ. And how do you get there? Do you have to be circumcised? Do you have to keep the law? And they began to clarify this in verses 8 and 9 and 11. So look at the way that Peter preaches in verse 8.

He says, So God, who knows the heart, acknowledge them, acknowledge the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. Notice, God did not give into the Gentiles circumcision to clarify that they're saved.

Right? He didn't even give to them baptism to clarify that they are saved. He gave to them the Holy Spirit. You see that? He gave them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. Verse 9, And made no distinction between us and them purifying their hearts by faith.

See, we all came in the same way. Clarified in verse 11,. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. Someone once put down that the acronym of grace is God's riches at Christ's expense.

Nice little reminder that all the blessings of salvation that we enjoy come by the merits of Jesus Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. And it's the grace of Jesus Christ by his grace that we are saved, not of ourselves.

There's no boasting in the self. In other words, the Jews who are circumcised and have grown up keeping the law of Moses and are very observant about the religious calendar and very careful with all of those things.

They didn't come into the kingdom. They weren't saved because of any of that, but simply the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So also the Gentiles who grew up without that context, who didn't grow up in the milieu of being a Jew, who didn't understand the significance of the temple, who didn't even get half the things that were being talked about when it came to the prophecies being fulfilled.

They came in by grace as well. The new Jerusalem communion was clarified by this old Jerusalem council. As you read verses 8 and 9, 10 and 11, you see this fourfold sameness. Hey, we're the same. We're the same.

We're the same. We're the same. There's no difference between us in the manner of our salvation. They were the same, not because they were all in the same location. The rejoicing in the fact that God saves all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds is not clarified by a physical location where they all gather, but by being together in Christ.

We see this passage in combination with verse 16, which is a future sermon. But combined with verse 16, we see that the new covenant temple is quarried from the nations. Living stones from all the nations.

Peter had gone to Cornelius and he preached the Gospel there and they believed. They repented of their sins and believed. And the Holy Spirit came upon them and it was evident to all that they were born again believers.

And then Peter said, who am I to stand in interference between God and the work that He's doing? Let's baptize them. It was simply the amen of what God had already done. Peter got in some trouble for that.