Study the Word

Guest (Male): Got a problem with someone? Pastor Thom Keller suggests going to them directly to talk it out, as opposed to holding it in.

Thom Keller: It is always better to talk about issues than to remain silent. I don't know about you, but in my life there have been so many times where there's been an issue with somebody or there was a problem and my flesh says, "Don't talk to them. It's not going to make any difference. It's not going to get any better. It isn't going to help. It'll make it worse." Can any of you relate to that? Can you hear that thing going on in your head?

And you know that's always a lie. It really is always a lie. It's always better to talk. Almost always, when you talk, things will get better.

Guest (Male): We're at the midway point of our journey through Acts here on Study the Word. We'll join Pastor Thom Keller in chapter 15 in a minute. And at this point in the early church, there's conflict and controversy. Paul and Barnabas have been doing the Lord's work, sharing the salvation message with Jews and Gentiles alike. But now they're facing opposition within their own ranks.

There's room for disagreement in the body of Christ when it comes to non-essentials, but there are some non-negotiables or what we might call essential doctrines of the faith. In that realm, we must be in total agreement, and certainly how a person is saved falls within that territory. Let's find our place in Acts 15 where there was a severe deviation from the gospel message.

Thom Keller: All right, where chapter 14 ended up was that Paul, on their first missionary journey, had visited some of these churches in this area here and now is back in Syrian Antioch. The reason it's called Syrian Antioch is because there's also Antioch of Pisidia, which is over here. This is where they are. And again, as we said last Sunday, this Antioch, Syrian Antioch, is really the center for the Christian movement.

If when we work our way through Acts, you tend to think that Jerusalem was the center of all of the activity of the first-century church, that's really not true. The real center for the Gentile church, the growth of the Gentile church, happened right here. All right, let's start. Chapter 15, verse one.

It says, "While Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch of Syria, some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the Christians, 'Unless you keep the ancient Jewish custom of circumcision taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.' Paul and Barnabas, disagreeing with them, argued forcefully and at length."

Now again, this is Antioch of Syria versus Antioch of Pisidia, which we had said before was because the Emperor's father's name was Antioch and so he named, I think there were 15 different cities were all named Antioch. So they have to be described by where they're found because there were a number of cities by that name.

And as they're in Antioch of Syria, men from Judea arrived. These are Orthodox Jews, Judaizers, and they began to teach. Now, this means more than they had just a different opinion. If it would have been just a different opinion, that would tell you one thing, but it says that they actually began to teach, that they came into the church and Paul and Barnabas are there and these Judaizers come in and they begin to teach something different from what Paul and Barnabas are teaching.

And it caused a schism because again, you have these Gentiles that are all new to this and you have Paul and Barnabas who are educated, well-learned. Now you have these Judaizers coming who are educated and well-learned and they're taking two different positions. And so the church is split. Who do we listen to? Who's right? Who should we believe?

And what they teach is that in order to become a Christian, the bottom line and the point that really goes beyond the circumcision is what these Judaizers are teaching: that in order to become a Christian, you had to first become a Jew. Whenever you read about the Judaizers and the legalism that they tried to get the Christians into, what they were really after was trying to convert them to Judaism first and then into Christianity.

So the idea was, in order to become a Christian, they felt you had to become a Jew, you had to keep all the Jewish tradition, all the Jewish law, and then from that, you could step into a relationship with Christ. But to skip that meant that you were not saved.

And this issue of circumcision was a huge issue because it was considered a point of salvation to a Jew. The Jews had this saying: they said, "No circumcised person shall go to hell, but all are saved." They also said that God rejects uncircumcised people. It was that serious. It was that extreme.

So their bottom line was that unless you're circumcised, you will go to hell regardless of your belief. Unless you're circumcised, you will go to hell. If you remember David when he came up against Goliath, the famous story of David and Goliath the giant, he said, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" It was used as a slur. In one sentence, it's the one descriptive word that's used to mark him as a heathen: "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?"

Williams, a commentator, says this: "It was very difficult for some Jewish Christians to accept that Gentiles could be brought into the church as equal partners without first coming through the law of Moses. It was one thing to accept the occasional God-fearer in the church, someone already in sympathy with Jewish ways, but it was quite another to welcome large numbers of Gentiles who had no regard for the law and had no intentions in keeping it."

So you have all of these Orthodox Jews who all their life have worked to keep the law, and they're accepted by God. They understand by grace, but now you have all these Christians, these new Gentile Christians coming, who had to do nothing and they're accepted in the same way. It doesn't quite seem fair. "I've had to keep all this law, all this tradition, and they can come in and just have the same gift, the same promise that I have?" That goes down hard.

If you keep tradition, if you keep points of law because you have to, that's where your heart's going to be. If you keep tradition, you keep points of law because your heart out of love you want to keep them, your heart won't be there. Your heart won't be insistent that others do the same.

By teaching this, these Judaizers were in effect really rebuking Paul and Barnabas. They were really saying, "These guys are wrong. Everything they've told you is wrong." That would really have undermined their ministry. It says that Paul and Barnabas disagree. They argue forcibly and at length.

If you think this was just a little discussion they had, it wasn't. This was a lengthy, forceful discussion, heated. A disagreement, a major disagreement. And they decided to send a group. Finally, in verse, the second part of two, it says, "Finally, Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem accompanied by some local believers to talk to the apostles and elders about this question."

The church sent the delegates to Jerusalem and they stopped along the way in Phoenicia and Samaria to visit the believers. They told them, much to everyone's joy, that the Gentiles too were being converted. So they come from Syrian Antioch down into Jerusalem to meet with the apostles.

It's interesting too; they understand the principle of authority. They understand that in order to settle this, they need to get under authority and let that authority decide for them, that God again uses God-ordained authority. You see it throughout the Bible; it has to be throughout the Bible. The principle is true.

So it says that they traveled through Syria, through Phoenicia, telling the people on their way to Jerusalem that the Gentiles were being converted and there was great joy. The Spirit of God confirming this as they traveled down through this area, that Gentiles were now being converted.

Verse four: "When they arrived in Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were welcomed by the whole church, including the apostles and elders. They reported in what God had been doing." Can you picture this? I just picture the apostles in an upper room and some of the elders, and we'll talk about who an elder would be.

Paul and Barnabas coming. It doesn't say that just Paul and Barnabas came. It could have been some of these Judaizers came along as well. There are some Judaizers that speak up later in this chapter. It could have been they wanted to check up on what really was going to be done here because they were sure they were right as Paul and Barnabas were sure that they were right.

So I picture them in this upper room and this discussion, these men of God, these giants in our eyes. It says they reported on what God had been doing through their ministry. They start telling the apostles all that had been accomplished, all these Gentiles that are being converted.

Verse five: "But then some of the men who had been Pharisees before their conversion stood up and declared that all Gentile converts must be circumcised and be required to follow the law of Moses." It's just interesting it says that they stood up. You picture this kind of a gentle, low-key meeting, Paul and Barnabas sharing what had happened, a lot of excitement, and then these men rise to their feet and they say, "Look, this isn't right. These Gentiles must be circumcised. You are cutting corners. You're falling short in what they need to achieve salvation."

They're welcomed by the whole church, the apostles and the elders. They report on all of this, and this is the outcome. It's estimated that at the time of Acts, there were about 6,000 Pharisees. Upon entering the office of Pharisee, they would bind themselves to three things: first, for keeping the regulations concerning the Sabbath, in other words, the things that you could not do on the Sabbath. You could say what they could and could not do in the Sabbath, but there weren't many "coulds," so it's more what they could not do in the Sabbath. They committed themselves to the principle of tithing and to ceremonial purity. They would be clean and keep themselves separate.

The scribe's main occupation, and again, when you read the Bible many times you hear "scribes and Pharisees" used right next to one another, scribes, their main occupation was applying the law to every area of life. Every possible aspect of life was regulated and had rules to govern that part of life.

So again, the Bible says that you should keep the Sabbath holy, not work on the Sabbath. Well, what does that mean? How far can you walk on a Sabbath before it's work? How do you prepare food, because you can't prepare food in the Sabbath? How do you prepare your candles to light them? What if somebody breaks a bone in the Sabbath? How do you care for that? When is it work? How far can you go in caring? What if someone delivers a baby in a Sabbath? All of those regulations the scribes would get into.

And the scribe's, really, interchangeably with the word "scribe" is the word "lawyer." Whenever you see the word "lawyer" in the New Testament, it's referring to, I shouldn't say always, but almost always it's referring to a scribe because that's what they did. They worked out the detail of the law.

The scribes' flesh was fed by creating more laws. The Pharisees' flesh was fed by keeping their laws, by keeping the laws of the scribes. It was kind of a symbiotic relationship; they fed off of one another. So when a Pharisee converted to Christianity, it was a major reprogramming was required in their brain, and that stuff is hard to let go of. The flesh dies hard.

To make that point, Acts 10, if you remember Acts 10, that's where Cornelius was converted. Remember? And that's where Paul said there's no distinction, God revealed to Peter the sheet with all the unclean animals and he said, "Eat any of them that you choose." This is nine years after that. So nine years later, they're still arguing this point.

Verse six. So these men had stood up and said they must be circumcised in order to follow the law of Moses. So that's where we ended in verse five. All the apostles sitting around, these former Pharisees on their feet making this demand.

Verse six: "So the apostles and church elders got together to decide this question." At the meeting after a long discussion, the New King James says after much dispute, which may be a little bit closer to the heart of the issue, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: "Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago, actually nine years ago, some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the good news and believe." He's talking about his message to Cornelius.

"God, who knows people's hearts, confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he gave him to us. He made no distinction between us and them, between Jews and Gentiles, for he also cleansed their hearts through faith. Why are you now questioning God's way by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved in the same way by the special favor of the Lord Jesus."

Now again, I really like the New Living Translation. One thing I don't like about it is wherever the word "grace" is used, they substitute, or most places, they substitute the word "special favor," and that's a very weak translation. Grace is a rich, rich word, but they are saved by grace, by the grace of the Lord Jesus.

I want to mention this now because I don't want to forget it when I get to the end, but it's interesting that Peter speaks first. And James, if you know this chapter, James is the one that kind of brings it all together and renders the decision for it. But it's interesting: Peter was a prophet; he was prophetically gifted. And you'll find that's many times why a prophet should not be a moderator of a meeting because prophets have to speak and they have to speak early and they have to say what God tells them to say. And they're not really the best at moderating because they don't think there is any moderation. The Bible's right. The Bible's true. This is how it ought to be.

It's reasonable; in fact, this is normally how it works. The prophets speak first. They can't hold it in. It's like this fire burning inside and their mouth is shut and they have to say it, and then they blurt it out and they say it. And most people know that it's right unless they disagree with it. And then the meeting kind of goes the way it goes, and then at the end a moderator comes and kind of brings everybody together. And the prophet all the time is saying, "Why should anyone have to bring it together? This is right." But it's how it works here. Peter brings up the point first. He's right, and we'll see that James then brings it all together.

Now, it says here that the apostles and the elders came together. There are two different Greek words for elders: the first is presbyteros, which is really used of an old man who is a leader within the church. It's where we would get "presbyter" from. The other word is episkopos, which is an overseer or a bishop. Almost every time this word is used in the New Testament, it's presbyteros, which is an older man within the church, a leader within the church. And that's the word that's used here. These weren't overseers or bishops; they were just older men who were leaders within the church. Not an official position, but because of age and because of respect, they were considered elders.

They come together to hear and to decide and to deal with this issue. To hear, to decide, and to deal. And there's a huge point here: it is always better to talk about issues than to remain silent. I don't know about you, but in my life there have been so many times where there's been an issue with somebody or there was a problem and my flesh says, "Don't talk to them. It's not going to make any difference. It's not going to get any better. It isn't going to help. It'll make it worse." Can any of you relate to that? Can you hear that thing going on in your head?

And you know that's always a lie. It really is always a lie. It's always better to talk. Almost always, when you talk, things will get better. Rarely will they get worse, especially if your spirit-controlled during that meeting, in other words, your flesh isn't. I remember a man that was taken advantage by another man in the church, and he said, "I want to go meet with that man just to tell him what Jesus would want him to do." Well, that wouldn't have been a very good meeting because he went in the flesh.

But again, they did not remain silent; they talked about it. Marriages, we need to talk. Disagreement between neighbors, we need to talk. God honors his word. Matthew 18: go, talk to them. If they won't hear you, you can't talk, but make the effort, make the overture, try to set that meeting. Try to go. God will honor it. Satan is the one who will always tell you it'll be worse. It'll be worse if you talk about it.

Peter, in his discussion here, gives a history lesson referring again back to Acts chapters 10 and 11, Cornelius. And he says he cleansed their heart through faith. Paul addresses this exact same question in Romans 4. If you want to turn to that, turn to Romans 4, verses 9 and 10. Again, this is Paul speaking, and he says, "Now then, Romans 4:9, now then is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it for the Gentiles too? Well, what about Abraham? We've been saying he was declared righteous by God because of his faith. But how did his faith help him? Was he declared righteous only after he had been circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? The answer is that God accepted him first and then he was circumcised later." If you remember, God called Abraham first and then, as they were traveling, he was circumcised. It was a later event.

So that's what Peter is saying. He says that it's a burden that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear. Right? That's what he says. He says, "Why are you now questioning God's way by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke?" And again, the yoke is what a horse, an animal of husbandry, would put around its neck in order to pull a plow or that type of instrument. "With a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear." What he's saying is that they couldn't keep the law. Their ancestors couldn't keep the law, and neither can you, neither can I. We cannot keep the whole of the law.

So people say then, well then, why was the law given? If we can't keep it, why was it given? And you know, that's a really important point. And if, again, Romans 5, verse 20 is the answer. There are a lot of reasons why God's law was given, but probably the primary reason is in 5:20. It says, "God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful kindness became more abundant."

God's laws were given so that people could see how sinful they were. God's law was given so that we would see that we're in trouble by God's high demands and requirements, that we can't please God. He doesn't grade on a curve. His law requires 100% obedience.

When I think of this, I think of that it shows how what sinners we all are. The law is designed to show us what sinners we all are, how incapable we are of keeping all of God's demands, so that we then fall before the throne of God and say, "God, please help me. I can't do this. I can't keep this. I mean, if this is what our relationship is built on, I'm done. I'm an undone man. I can't do this." And then God, in response to that, says, "Finally you get it. Finally. Just come to me. I don't want you to come striving. I want you to come to me. When you come to me, I'll accept you. I'll put my Holy Spirit in you. I'll give you a heart that wants to do right."

And again, we've said this many times, but every time in the New Testament somebody came to Jesus with a list of "what must I do's," he sent them back for more law. He sent them back saying, "Well, have you done this? Have you done this? No? Well, go do that." And so people get all mixed up. He says, "Well, Jesus sent them back for more law." No, he was trying to get them to the end of themselves where they were where they said, "I can't do this." Now you're ready. Now you're ready for grace. When you know you can't keep the law, the law is designed to do that, to understand how demanding his requirements are.

And I think of this example: you travel to an island and you rent a car. And it's a big, kind of deserted island. You drive around all day. You're driving 55, 60 miles an hour all day around this deserted island. And in the middle of the afternoon, you're driving down the road and you hit this groundhog. And it's a sad thing, but this little groundhog flies off the side of the road. You killed it. And this is a real spiritual story, isn't it?

So you go back, you go back to your hotel and you're at your hotel and the waiter comes up and says, "How was your day?" and you say, "Well, we drove around the island. We got around the whole island." "How'd you do that?" "Well, I was going 60, about 60 miles an hour." "60 miles an hour! Don't you know the speed limit on this island's 15?" "15?" "I was going 60 all day. And if you break it, it's six months in jail." "Oh my word, I had no idea."

"And we hit this groundhog." "You hit a groundhog? That's a protected species. That's five years in jail. Did anybody see you hit it? Five years in jail. How do you feel about your day now?" Not so good. See, because now you know the law. And the law is convicting you of what you did that day. That's what the law's to do.

You know what? There are a lot of people that have never read the Bible and are unsaved. If they read the Bible and saw everything, just start with the Ten Commandments would get their attention. They'd flip. They'd go, "Gulp, gulp, gulp, that's me! Man, I didn't know that's in there. I'm not supposed to... Wow, I got a problem." That's the point of the law. We all have a problem. It's a sin problem.

And what's the number one thing you run into, I can almost guarantee you if you've talked to enough people about Christ, the number one thing people say to you when you talk to them about the claims of Christ? What do they say? "Yes, I'm not that bad a person. I'm a pretty good person." Did you drive over 15? Did you ever hit a groundhog? Look at what the law says. We all have a problem. It's designed for that purpose.

Guest (Male): So the law points out our problem and drives us to the cross where we find the solution to the mess we find ourselves in, and that is faith in Christ. This is Study the Word. Pastor Thom Keller is leading us through Acts at the present time. You can hear this message again as well as what you may have missed in the series online at ccleb.com. You can also call and request a CD copy at 717-507-7862. That's 717-507-7862.

We've picked out a resource we believe can lead you to live the life of an overcomer. It's called "Your Victory in Jesus." This excellent book by D.L. Moody shows you how to walk by faith and have victorious results. Experience the joy of the Lord as you read "Your Victory in Jesus." We'll send this your way for a gift of any amount to Study the Word this month. Here's where to write: Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania 17046. Or call 717-507-7862.

And we'd love to have you visit us here at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. See when and where we meet as you visit us at ccleb.com and download our free Android app. Search Calvary Chapel Lebanon in the Google Play Store. Calvary Chapel Lebanon is pleased to present Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller on this station and many others like it. Come back next time when we'll resume our series in Acts.