we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. I'm in Acts chapter 15, and I'm
gonna look at verse 12, a few verses in verse 12 and following,
and then I'm gonna remind us where we are in this particular
account. Acts chapter 15, verse 12, let's
see here, yes. Acts 15, 12, I'm gonna probably
read about seven or eight verses and then pick up the context,
deal with the urgency in this, account from where we left off
last week and we'll try to work our way through. Verse 12, then
all the multitude kept silence. This is after Peter had spoken
about how God had revealed to him through the dream that he
had at the Tanner's house that that which God hath called clean
let no man call unclean and it would affirm the fact that the
Gentiles are now being called into the commonwealth of Israel
through the gospel. So Peter has now affirmed Paul's
ministry and now the brethren are silent and they gave audience
to Barnabas and Paul declaring what miracles and wonders God
had wrought among the Gentiles by them and after they had held
their peace James answered saying men and brethren hearken unto
me Simeon that is Simon Peter had declared how God at first
did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his
name and to this agree the words of the prophets as it is written
after this will I return and will build again the tabernacle
of David which is fallen down and I will build again the ruins
of thereof and I will set it up that the residue of men might
seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is
called saith the Lord who do it all these things. We'll stop
right here for the moment and think through What? James has stated now last time
what you and I were dealing with which was critically important
was the fact that the Apostle Paul and Barnabas are now in
Jerusalem because There has been a contention among the Jewish
leaders with Paul and Barnabas about what the gospel is And
what we've been dealing with for about two weeks. Now, this
is the third week is the fact that if you If you mar or distort
the simple truth of the gospel, which is a message of grace and
redemption in Jesus Christ a grace and redemption that excludes
any kind of human works as the grounds of our acceptance before
God if you mar that or tamper with that or Challenge that or
distort that that is to say if you add to it Then you actually
have changed the gospel and what we dealt with for the last two
weeks was the real danger The real danger of what Paul and
them saw was taking place in the urgency on the part of the
Jews to want to press on the Gentiles that need to be circumcised.
And as we saw in verse 1, all they said, chapter 15, verse
1, all they said was, you need to be circumcised at the command
of Moses. And then we learned down in verse
7 that not only were they to be circumcised, they were then
being commanded to keep all the law of Moses. And then if you
were to look at the way the chapter closed, it was the same thing.
They wanted them to keep all the commandments of Moses. And what we learned out of that
is that when you start kind of adding to the gospel, this or
that, the next thing you know, you're going to actually be adding
so much to it that you don't have a gospel at all. So what
we learned in Galatians chapter five around verse seven or so
was that a little leaven does what? Right, so by application
to you and me, you have to constantly watch out for those that are
without your sphere and circle who are in the world of religion,
who will tell you that salvation, yes, it's by grace, but you also
have to do this. That's not an uncommon experience
for any of us. The vast majority of religious
institutions will almost always have some caveat that you have
to adhere to beyond the basic truth of the gospel by which
you are accepted with them. Almost every religious system.
You know you really are under a grace system when all the people
give you is what the word of God says. And that properly interpreted. You know you are in an environment
where grace is understood where all they tell you is what Christ
has taught concerning salvation, and they are not imposing upon
you traditions of men and the protocols of the church and the
culture of the church as a condition of acceptance into that fellowship.
But I wanna press that home a little bit more because most of us have
experienced religious environments where they may have even had
a decent creedal form about salvation. Most of it today, is what I call
over simplistic. You know, like they don't really
get into the doctrinal issues of what really constitutes the
gospel. So kind of, you just believe
on Jesus, you're okay. Well, actually you have to do
a lot of theological work around even that simple statement, because
the Bible is clear that there are many Jesus's. So just to
say, I believe on Jesus doesn't mean that you have cleared the
way to salvation. Which Jesus are you believing
on? So there is a need for as we learned two weeks ago Paul
said in Philippians 1 7 I stand in defense and confirmation of
the gospel There's a need to be able to clarify the gospel
and clarify that the grounds of salvation for sinners who
Jesus is What Jesus did why he did it what it accomplished and
for whom he did it These are critical terms around the gospel
Where these things are distorted it doesn't matter how simple
you offer the term just believe on Jesus in your heart And you
shall be saved if you believe the wrong thing about the wrong
Jesus. You cannot be saved If you believe the wrong thing about
the wrong Jesus, you cannot be saved You can't just have kind
of like a general belief in Jesus and what that means is that for
every believer in Christ he or she must also be a disciple and
What that means is that for every believer in Christ that they
have to now be willing to be a student and learn who Jesus
is and learn why he came and learn why he died and learn the
relationship between what he did and who we are in order to
know the necessity of what he did in relationship to us. For
instance if in fact you actually buy into a notion that somehow
you are basically good then you are prone to an idea of salvation
that would mix what God does plus what you do as the grounds
of your comfort for eternity. If you buy into the notion that
man has a spark of human goodness in him, and then that man also
has the ability or the power intrinsically within himself
to approach God, then you are actually susceptible to the notion
that God will, he will write the check, but you got to sign
it. God will meet you halfway or God will take the first step
but you need to take the second there are many metaphors like
that that underscore what people call the simple proposition of
the gospel and all of that is wrong all of that is wrong at
that point it's because you don't actually have a cogent understanding
of the relationship between the subject and the object the subject
being God the object being you if you don't really know your
spiritual condition and If someone tells you to do something that
in fact you cannot do, they set you up for greater condemnation.
And then when you do discover that by the grace of God you
are inclined to want to get to know God, there's some thirst
in you, some hunger, some passion for God. When you discover that
and you start actually doing what the Bible says, seeking
the Lord, Seek the Lord with all your heart. The Bible says,
seek him diligently and you will what? Find him. And if you pursue
God earnestly, he will reveal himself to you through the word
of God and you will begin to discover that God will show you
your condition before him. And you will realize that your
condition is one of helplessness. This is what we call in theology,
the doctrine of anthropology. It is the doctrine of man. And
when you read your Bible concerning mankind, what it teaches us is
that you and I are helpless before God, that we can't take the first
step to God. He must take the first step towards
us. And then he must help us in order
for us to have a relationship with him. Because our fundamental
condition before God spiritually before salvation is that we're
dead. Now that throws a real monkey
wrench into the proposition that all you have to do Well, how
are you going to do anything if in fact your spiritual condition
is that you're what? Right see that becomes a problem
doesn't it? Because now you're being told that you have to do
something when actually you have no spiritual faculty to do it
if as Ephesians 1 verse Ephesians 2 1 and Ephesians 2 5 are clear
in Colossians chapter 3 we were dead in our trespasses and sins
and If those things are true, then we have to recognize that
if there's going to be any salvation experience on our part, God has
to do it, right? And now we are getting into the
fundamentals as to how the gospels communicate, communicate it,
and why men and women respond. Why is it that you found yourself
responding to the gospel and someone else didn't? It's because
God did something for you that that other person didn't experience.
We often around here use the two thieves on the cross as a
model of this. Both thieves were in a horrible
state, rejecting God, rejecting Christ, spitting in his face
with all kinds of revilings. And then one thief miraculously
turns around and admits his sin, recognizes his condemnation,
realizes he justly is to be punished, and then he sues for mercy to
Jesus, right? The other thief remains hostile
and empathetic towards Christ. What happened? Did the one thief
just come to his own good sense and finally get it right? Or
did God do a work of grace to open his heart and his mind so
that he responded to a revelation that the man between me and this
other man is the only savior of the world? And how kind is
God that he would come down here in our mess hang out with us
literally to save our souls so so when we talk about the doctrine
of salvation we're talking about the most critical elements of
this thing we call the gospel and if we get these these factors
wrong we might very well embrace a false doctrine like a lot of
people that come to grace after many many many years will admit
that they were under false teaching for a long time under the assumption
that that they had something to do with their salvation. Because
for many decades, this is the common parlance that was in our
churches. All you have to do, and from
that one little step of doing, there became many other steps
that you had to do in order to be saved. As I have stated in
chapter 15, verse 1, notice what it says, except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Then in verse
five, it says that the Pharisees came who called themselves believers
saying that it was needful to circumcise them and what? To keep the commandments of Moses. Now they just added to it from
circumcision to keeping the whole law. You guys got that? What
we talked about last week was if you don't understand inferences
or implications, that means you have to think you don't realize
how dangerous a proposition is if you don't understand implications.
So here's what we say. We say that if a man is saved
by his works, or keeping the law of God, the commandments
of Moses, then what Jesus did on the cross was nothing. It
only logically follows that If you are saved by circumcision
or baptism or some human ordinance, and then the keeping of the whole
of the commandments of Moses, if in fact that's how you're
saved, then what Christ did on the cross for you was nothing.
And you really have to investigate the question, well, why did he
die if I got to keep all these rules? You follow the logic. And if you don't follow the logic,
this is how you will be trapped by false churches. And this fundamental
argument has to be something that you are willing to deal
with everywhere you go. Because people will get you on
your way into the church. It's called the entry doctrine
argument. And then they'll get you when you're on the inside
of the church. Because while they will say, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, it's okay that you accept Jesus into your heart, you're
a believer now, but now you need to do this. If you really, really
wanna make sure you're a Christian, now you gotta do this. You gotta
follow these rules or manifest these things or do these things.
At this point, you're on a slippery slope of a wholesale works religion
on the inside of the church. And what that does psychologically
for you, is it not only minimizes the cross, but it obscures it
altogether. And here's what you begin to
experience when you're in a works religion, just to help you if
you don't really understand where I'm going as I lay a foundation.
When you are in a works religion, it's not long before the cross
as a constant staple of teaching disappears. When you're in a
false church that teaches salvation by some kind of work that you
do, albeit they don't openly say it, here's what you will
experience. Over time, the message of the
cross shrinks down to almost nothing. And what you are hearing
from the pulpit is fundamentally pragmatism. a bunch of ways to
do this and ways to do that and ways to get God to do this and
ways to get God to do that are ways to particularly in our 21st
century Western culture, tap into the blessings of God. Now
watch this now. When you are in a church where the main message
is not the objective work of Jesus Christ, then the only other
option we have is what God can do for you so that your life
can be wonderful. Now at that point what we are
dealing with is what we call, philosophically, humanism. Where
God lives for man and not man for God. And so what happens
is we come into a church waiting for a catered system that fits
my needs. It's called Felt Needs Theology.
And now God is shaped into this kind of entity and his job is
to bless you, bless you, bless you, bless you, bless you, bless
you. You are the object of affection, not God. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? the cross becomes a rare message
if preached at all because when you preach the cross in a healthy
and comprehensive way it actually Mitigates the human desire for
things to be focused on you Let me say that again so you can
get this you can ask yourself whether or not you know how to
listen to teaching if your soul is ready upon every message or
teaching or whatever to ask the question, who is this about? Is he talking about himself?
Is he talking about me? Or is he talking about whom?
Right? If that doesn't become an axiom,
a rule of faith for you, you can come into a church and hear
a really good message and it can be completely without Christ. And you may not even detect that
until long periods of time down the line you come to discover,
you know what, this guy ain't even talking about Jesus. We've
had 17 messages on how to do this. that point you are subtly
trapped into a pragmatic system of legalism and basically what
that's going to do is undo your confidence in the cross work
of Christ imperceptibly and get you now tracking on a system
or an agenda that that church is running and that's going to
destabilize your soul so what a man or woman has been really
taught the gospel what they always ask wherever they go is does
this church Preach and teach Jesus Christ because my soul
has been taught My soul has been taught to look for Christ in
the message because that's my hope Not who I am and how strong
I am and what I can do and what I can do for God Even though
God talks about how he works in us the willing to do of his
good pleasure That is not the main staple of the teaching.
I So a believer must know how to listen for objectively the
exaltation of Jesus Christ, the preeminence of Christ in the
teaching, the work of God in the redemption of God's people.
That's where your soul is going to be comfortable. Otherwise,
you're going to look up in several years and you're going to be
now addicted to a diet Man-centered theology and you're gonna be
saying that's not working for me. That's not working for me
You're gonna be jumping here and there and yonder looking
for something that works for you. Well, the gospel is not
about some Unending dredger is working for you Christ has already
worked for you He's already redeemed your soul. He's already secured
your eternity. I The goal of teaching is to
remind you that and then to strengthen you by the exposition of scripture
to be able to walk in the finished work of Jesus Christ, confident
of eternity. Am I making some sense? Also,
when you get a solid diet of Christo-centric, Bible-based,
God-exalting teaching, when you don't hear that, you quickly
pick up on it. You go, wait a minute, something's
wrong. And without that discernment, you can get swallowed up. Again,
this is why Paul and Barnabas find themselves at Jerusalem,
because they knew, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. These Judaizers are seeking
to draw our brethren not into a new Christian experience based
upon the centrality of Jesus, but they're trying to draw us
right back into old Judaism with a facade of Jesus on it. So that
essentially what is going on in the book of Acts, is the Jews
are telling the Gentiles, you gotta be Jews. Did you guys hear
what I just said? The book of Acts is about the
Jews trying to intercept the free offer and message of the
gospel and telling the Gentiles, you gotta actually become converted,
you gotta be circumcised, you gotta follow Torah, you gotta
do what we do. And again, this would completely
demolish all that Christ did. Because Christ came to finish
the law, finish the old covenant, ratify a new covenant where the
relationship between the people of God is through Jesus Christ,
not through law keeping. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's more to be said to the
impact of the gospel experientially when once one is truly saved,
but in terms of a right relationship with God, it is rooted in this
reality, the obedience of faith. When you hear the gospel preached,
Do you believe that what Christ did in order to redeem your soul,
he did for you? Are you able to rest in the finished
work of Christ as the grounds of your acceptance before God?
And are you ready to, as a consequence of being secure in his work,
live for his glory now? So that's the way the gospel
works. Otherwise you are simply a Neo
Jew, a new Jew. And this is why virtually every
one of your epistles from Corinth the way through to the book of
Hebrews and even further the the Apostles are constantly warning
against the legalist because legalism is as mr. Charles had
this virgin said it's a fundamental flaw in our human makeup legalism
is a fundamental flaw in our human makeup let me tap into
that a little bit more here's what I mean by that this is why
in our last week's outline one of the things I stated was time
can be your friend or your enemy Here's what I mean. You can actually
be taught the gospel, right and Then forget that gospel You can
be taught grace and then over time Actually drift back into
a legalistic system where you are Building brownie points before
God by what you do Here's another thing you can find yourself doing
and this is particularly indicated in relationships watch this You
can say that I'm a child of grace but in relationship to everyone
else, you're a legalist. Did you hear what I just stated?
You can say I'm a child of grace, but you're judging everyone else
based upon forms of performance that you have set up. This goes
on in families all the time. What we do with the knowledge
of grace is we actually turn it into a cudgel by which we
seek to control everybody else in the family. It's not impossible
to conceive of people who have learned of grace and yet teach
their children under a legalistic system of works that if you don't
do this, if you don't do that, if you don't do the other thing,
God's not happy with you. And so your kids grow up under
legalism and can't wait to get out of your house because they
didn't know nothing about grace growing up. You guys hear what
I'm saying? And they said, mom and dad talk
grace, but as far as we know, we're under a bunch of rules
and regulations that threaten our eternal welfare. And they
continue to question our walk with God simply because we're
not in conformity to their will. Am I making some sense? And this
is where husbands and wives are at odds with one another frequently.
Because they will own grace for themselves, but they will not
own grace for their spouses. Do you hear what I'm saying?
And so what I said, what I meant last week was by our statement
in our previous outline was that time is an enemy. I'm trying
to see where I put that in our, in our, yeah, that's point number
five, Peter, the pillar bearing record to Paul, time is an enemy
is because if you and I don't have an understanding that the
gospel has to be kept, the gospel has to be guarded. your own life
you can lose it did you guys hear what I just stated if you
don't understand that you have to fight constantly against the
tides of self-righteousness and legalism in your own life first
that you can lose the gospel and end up being a legalist so
that's point number five sub point a time can be a friend
or what And see, what we were doing with that is we were saying
that it was about 10 years since the time of Peter's experience
at the Tanner's house and Paul's conversion and where they are
now in Acts chapter 15. And the Judaizers rejoiced in
the Gentiles coming into the church through the simple preaching
of the gospel. But 10 years later now, they've got these rules
by which they want to now foist on the Gentiles. How did that
happen? And we closed out last Friday
this way. which is where I'm gonna pick
it up at. If you grew up in a church that was legalistic, Pentecostal
churches are very legalistic, Catholic churches are very legalistic,
Baptist churches are very legalistic, in general, always an exception
to the rule, but I've been in church for a long time, I know
what I'm talking about. If you've been in churches where it's almost
cultic-like, sectarian, you guys understand what I'm saying? Where
there's a level of almost oppression because you got to meet these
rules. And then all of a sudden you came out of it. You came
out of Catholicism and the fasting and the prayers and the confessions
and the warnings and the threats and the out of Baptist denomination,
except you do this. And Pentecostalism is filled
with mysticism and rules of how long your dress can be and what
color lipstick you can wear. All that. This is just, this
is what we do in religion when we are not confident in the sufficiency
of the grace of God in Christ. The church will just begin to
have all these rules because they don't know what to do with
raw sinners when they come in. Now you got to try to paint them
into looking like good Christians. This is called externalism because
the heart hasn't been taught by grace how to grow in the knowledge
of God and bear forth fruit inwardly to the glory of God. And so what
often happens is is that we find ourselves struggling. And what
will occur when you come out of that into a grace scenario?
And this is something that some of you will have to watch for
if you've been under a grace teaching for just a short period
of time. You will enjoy your liberty in grace. You will notice
immediately the impact of the message, freedom in Christ. There
is therefore now no what in Christ? No condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. To understand that it's not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy
hath he saved us. To understand that the man or the woman that
believes on Jesus is justified from all things from which they
could not be justified by the law of Moses. To know that you
and I are secure in Christ as his sheep, gives this kind of
freedom to breathe and exhale. Is that right? As it ought to. But if you're not careful over
time, you can get so comfortable with grace and so casual with
grace that you fail to understand that the freedom that he gave
you was in order for you to be more fruitful in your personal
walk with him and therefore more productive in your life towards
others. So what happens is, You take
on your salvation in a very personal sense, and you fail to understand
that he saved you for a relationship with him. Now all you're doing
is just walking around as a free child. But as one of the old
historians put it, and I've said this in this church many years,
liberty without virtue is a what? Curse. Liberty without virtue
is a curse. So God does not liberate us from
the bondage of sin and the curse of the law and the wrath of God
and just tell us, go do whatever you want to do. No, because like
the Israelites in Egypt, to just let us out of Egypt is to leave
us in the wilderness of futility and vanity, right? And then the
wilderness, what God did for 40 years was teach Israel how
to worship. He taught them their identity in the wilderness. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? The goal for which God lets you
out of the prison house of sin is to bring you into relationship
with Him. You guys remember what the decree was to Moses to tell
Pharaoh, let my people go, freedom, watch this, that they may worship
me, relationship. I'm going to say it again. Let
my people go, freedom, whomsoever the Son shall set free shall
be what? That they may come worship me, relationship. Relationship
so the believer is liberated to grow in this relationship
with Christ so that that relationship can impact other people Am I
making some sense, right? It's critical to know that because
in the culture in which we live we live in a culture that is
that is radically Self-centered and bent on just freedom to be
me Regardless of our social responsibilities or our spiritual responsibilities. So what you will have is a lot
of Christians who live an aimless life because they're not missional,
that is their love is not horizontal, and they're not devotional, that
their love is not healthy on a vertical level between them
and God. Because the whole of the commandments
lie under two rubrics, love God, love your neighbor. But that's
not words, that's an ethic, that's a lifestyle. When you are talking
about loving somebody, you are talking about being responsible
towards them in a way that you seek their highest welfare. Am
I making some sense? In the same way with God, if
you actually say you have a relationship with God, then what God expects
you to do is use the resources that he has given you in order
to commune with him. But if you spend no time in God's
word, no time in prayer, no time in communion with God, no time
under sound teaching and preaching, You're fooling yourself. You
do know that, right? You're just fooling yourself.
You don't have a vertical relationship. And it will also be evidenced
by your lack of care for people around you within the sphere
of your influence for which God left you in this world. to make
an impact on their life. Now watch this. I'm going to
make my way through this particular idea so that you don't inadvertently
embrace sort of a legalistic approach to it. So in my relationship
with God, I know it's based on grace. He came and got me. I didn't come get him. He got
me. He freed me out of prison. And he started talking to me.
He quickened me from the dead. He opened my eyes. He changed
my heart. He put new laws in my heart.
I'm a new creature in Christ. So the relationship really started
off monergistically by what God did. But now it's mutual because
I'm alive, right? Wrecking yourselves to be dead
indeed to sin, but alive under God through Christ, Romans 6,
11. So I'm alive under God through Jesus Christ. And that relationship
compels me now to live in a fashion to bring glory to him Everywhere
I go. Am I making some sense? So Christians are compelled from
an inward drive by the Spirit of God to actually act out the
gospel relationally. Now, we're on the vertical level
now, I mean the horizontal level. If on this horizontal level,
you don't maintain a healthy focus on gospel principles, that
constantly remind you of who God is and who you are and how
you are totally dependent upon God, how you cannot do it yourself,
how that you can only do it by the grace of God and how that
as you do it in part because of your weaknesses and simpleness,
your joy is found in what he did, not what you do. I mean,
you're glad to be able to serve God, but your confidence lies
in the fact that he served your sentence in hell for you to keep
you forever not going to prison again. Am I making some sense?
So the secret joy of the believer is his constant fixation on what
Christ did for him at Calvary so that he can daily grow in
grace and try to execute his calling as a believer. Am I making
some sense? Watch this. Now, if you do what God told
Israel never to do, do not forget me. You must remember the Lord
your God. Remember that I brought you out
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage with an outstretched
hand and a mighty arm. Do not forget what the Lord did
for you. Remember you were in bondage, you were crying out,
you were trapped, you were under afflictions and I came and got
you. So you don't get into the promised land and enjoy the blessings
of houses and lands and vineyards and grapes and olive trees, which
I provided for you. You didn't provide them for me.
And then forget the Lord, which is what people do today. So you
will forget the Lord if you are not constantly under a diet of
gospel preaching and teaching that reminds you that you are
only what you are presently by the grace of God. Now, from here,
you make sure that your ethic, that is what you do, is rooted
in your relationship, that is who you are in Christ. What you
do must always be rooted in who you are. Am I making some sense? Now, in religion, what will happen
is, because the preacher gets caught up in, or the teachers
get caught up in some unique piccadillo of an idea or concept,
the cross starts getting shrunk in their theology. And they start
long series of teachings that fundamentally leave absent the
centrality of Jesus Christ and the gospel. And now you're on
a diet now of horizontal things that have to do with pragmatic
results because we're in it for maybe let's say numbers of growth
in the church. We want people to fill the church
now. Or we're now getting into something more altruistic, like
getting out and doing food programs and ministries in the society.
And that becomes driven to such a degree, divorced from the cross
work of Jesus Christ. All the good works that we do
now will become systems of legalism. Divorced from the cross work
of Christ every good deed you do will become a system of legalism
Because now it's no longer rooted in a response to Jesus But out
of a need to now meet certain Criterium and standards and numbers
and goals that the church is set up Are you hearing what I'm
saying? This is why our churches are
filled with so many programs They're filled with so many programs
because they are not confident in that the gospel is able to
not only save a person, but sanctify them and then compel them to
serve. And the reason why they don't
have that confidence in part is because that's not their experience. Because if leadership were compelled
by the grace of God, they would be a model of what it means to
walk vertically with God. Constantly boasting in Jesus
and then serving out of that security that's in Christ others
They can model it for you without sacrificing the gospel Without
sacrificing the gospel. The other thing is Where this
kind of balance between the vertical and the horizontal is not taught
like I'm sharing with you tonight You will see all over the church
people who say they are believers in Christ and are standing on
the grace of God but they are absolutely indolent in their
life. You guys hear me? They say they're Christians,
but their life is indolent, dead, dead, aimless. There's no fruit. James says
faith without works is what? Right, so now follow the logic.
If your grace is deficient, then you only have a conceptual relationship
with God, not a dynamic one. because the dynamic one is going
to actually move out in what we call evangelical obedience
because that's the nature of real grace because christ makes
it very plain through his apostle john how do you say how you're
going to say you love god whom you don't see when you don't
love your neighbor whom you see so where there is not the dynamic
of grace working in our life compelling us to Share with others
the truth of the gospel or reach others in their need in order
for it to be a stepping stool for the gospel Then what we're
gonna be doing is sitting in a pile of dead water Just wasting
away in a hypothetical grace that has no power to not only
not transform us But others around us At that point where that begins
to occur some people will imperceptibly then start sliding into legalism. They will leave a gospel church
and go find these weird cults to get in, because they need
another experience. And then they'll go to that and
for a moment, because novelty will wake you up for a minute,
won't it? Won't novelty wake you up? It's like dying your
hair. It's cool for about a month.
Then you gotta diet again. You know what I'm saying, ladies,
right? Novelty, right? Something new. Kind of like a
child constantly finding some new thing to stir them up. And some people find themselves
drifting into the most bizarre practices, trying to get stirred
up. When what they were supposed
to do originally was put it in reverse. If you actually know
Jesus, and you have actually been doing the wrong things,
The goal is to not try to go do something else. The goal is
to repent. That's the goal. That's the goal. You repent. This is what Jesus
meant when he was dealing with the seven churches. Remember
the seven churches whom he loved enough to tell them what their
problem was and also give them their solution, but also warn
them that if you don't obey my solution, you're in trouble.
Remember that? He told the church at Ephesus,
hey, repent and do your first works over because I have found
you wanting. Your love has waned on me. That's
the church of Ephesus. And then with Smyrna, with Pergamos,
and Thyatira, and with Sardis, and with Laodicea, he did the
same thing with them. He let them know, you are in
trouble, here's the remedy. And if you don't, you can be
sure that you're gonna enter into what we call the takeaway
principle. You guys remember that? The takeaway principle
in other words God gives you the gift of eternal life But
he is there by his spirit to work that gift out on a practical
level. So you bring glory to him in
your life Where that fails to occur he promises he will take
the gift away So revelation chapter 3 verse 11 is going to be an
example i'm going to show you what i'm saying in revelation
3 11 As we're contemplating the dangers Losing the gospel which
was the problem of the Jews in the first century here Christ
had come Who is the epitome of the gospel is he not? He came
unto his own didn't he? But his own what received him
not How is it that you can have God come in the flesh do all
that he did promise eternal life and give his spirit, show them
signs and wonders and miracles. I mean, amazing manifestations
of his goodness and grace, and they embrace it and believe for
a while and then fall back to Judaism, right? You guys follow
that run? That's what they did. They fell
back to Judaism. Listen to what Jesus says. This is about 60
years, 65 years, let's say 60, after his ascension into heaven.
60 years. Now some of y'all know the duration
of 60 years, don't we? A lot of stuff happens over 60
years. Is that true? Say it with me for a moment,
I'll show you something. So think about a vital Christian church
60 years earlier, going everywhere preaching the gospel, Jews and
Gentiles coming into the faith, but by 60 years later, the Lord
Jesus has to send letters to the churches because they're
now starting to falter. You remember what I said? Time
is either your friend or your what? That's what I'm talking
about. Have any of you walked with the
Lord Jesus for over 10 years? Raise your hand. Have any of
you over that 10 year period lost your way? Raise your hand,
that's right. Have you waned so bad that you
know you were in trouble? Might as well be honest, because
God knows. God knows. Very few people stay on point
the long run. Very few people. Very few people. Because there's a lot of dynamics
that will knock you off your course. A lot of dynamics. But
I'm saying that so that you can know that the warning to make
sure that you preserve the gospel for yourself first is most critical. And Jesus never gives warnings
in vain, does he? Listen to what the verse says.
Now, watch this. This is what we call a takeaway
principle. He says in verse 11, behold, I come quickly. Hold
that fast, which you what? Do you see it? Stay right there
for a moment. So God gave you sub nidney. And he's telling
you to do what with it, right? He's saying guard it. So if you
don't understand this, this is a problem because your salvation
is a gift. And the gospel is a gift. And
all the resources that go along with it is a gift. By the way,
God gives all of us a bunch of gifts. He gives you the gift
of health. He gives you the gift of life.
He gives you the gift of wisdom. He gives you the gift of knowledge.
He gives you the gift of skill sets. He gives you the gift of
being able to interact with people. He gives you the gift of family,
the gift of children, the gift of friends. Are you guys hearing
me? And when we misuse those gifts, guess what happens to
them? Am I making some sense? Because I'll work hard with you.
You know me, I'll work hard with you right here until these things
become more than theory with you. Because the danger of teaching
is you can sit here for an hour and it's only theory. When in
fact, this is the most involved reality of your life. Every detail
of your life is sketched out in the Word of God. Every detail,
which means Jesus never says anything in vain. He never gives
you something and then says, be careful that you don't lose
it. And he does not mean that. Some of you have been divorced
because you lost by not taking care of that precious gift of
marriage. Some of you have lost family
members and lost friends by not taking care of the gift of those
relationships. Some of us know something about
children that we didn't deal with right, presuming our relationship
over them and lost that relationship. Can I get a witness? And some
of you are going to have to go through what I'm talking about
before you get what I'm saying. Some of you are going to have
to lose a bunch of stuff before you realize that pastor was telling
the God honest truth that if I don't strive to hold on to
it, I'll lose it. Absolutely, because you and I
are accountable for everything God gives us Accountable for
it and to him that have more shall be given But to him that
have not even that which he thinks he has that's when you presume
upon your relationship In all these categories and you don't
take care to preserve it and to walk appropriately with it
you'll lose it and Have you ever lost a good job presuming upon
that job? Got a few people in the house
being honest now. See, and if you're affirming what I'm saying,
here's what I'm getting at. God kept you and saved you and
gave you life and strength in order for you to be a responsible
person on this planet. He didn't let you, you don't
live here willy nilly. There are intrinsic laws that
operate of themselves independently. It's the law of reciprocity,
right? Whatsoever man sows, what? You sow a bad relationship with
a dog. I'm gonna use an analogy before
I close this out. You buy a dog. You find one. And you let the dog stay at your
house, but you start abusing that dog. Kicking the dog and
throwing stuff at the dog and beating the dog down. That dog
will cower for a while because he's smart enough to know where
his meal is. But eventually he gonna start
growling at you. And when he actually discovers
your weakness, he gonna bite you. And then he gonna leave. And this is the nature of irresponsibility
in all the categories of our lives when we presume upon things
that God gives us. God gives us good help by and
large. And then some of us squander
that by bad activities. And when he takes away that good
health, the law of reciprocity, he might let you live, but your
health is going to be marginal because you told your life up.
Can I get a witness? So I'm trying to show you how
you cannot think your Christianity is merely theoretical. You can't
do it. When he said, I came to give
life and that more abundantly, he means for us to take him seriously. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? This is very, very, very important. So watch this. Behold,
I come quickly, and he's talking to the seven churches. This is
why he opens up saying, you know, I am this, I am that, and he
closes, let him that hath ears hear what the Spirit says to
the churches. Behold, I come quickly, hold fast that which
you have, that no man take your what? That's crazy. That's crazy. But it came from Jesus. Did it? so now if you actually heed his
warning because you don't have to heed mine on the last day
we're going to both be standing before God and I'll be able to
say I told them Lord I told them but you you won't answer to me
I tell our church this all the time you won't answer to me you
will answer to God just like I will answer to God but I will
tell you you can lose if you don't treasure what you have
So even here, the crown is a symbol of having finished the race of
the gospel. This is what we call a Stephanus
crown. It was the wreath that was put on the head of the runners
in the Olympic races back because the Greek culture actually did
the Olympics, right? And they received the wreath
after they finished the race, right? They stood on the podium,
received the wreath, and the wreath was a symbol of them having
finished. They were awarded that wreath
as an emblem of having finished the race. Well, doesn't the Bible
says he that endured to the end, the same shall be what? Saved.
And the Bible tells us to run this race with patience, looking
unto Jesus, the author and what? Finisher of our what? Right.
And so what the Bible plainly explains is God expects us to
finish. He expects us to run this race
and finish because he's looking forward to crowning every one
of his people for finishing. the warning here is you and I
must never presume that we have crossed that finish line when
we're still running. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Because there is a twisted grace concept that would fundamentally
cause people to talk as if they've taken their armor off when they
ain't even put it on yet. This is one of the Old Testament
Proverbs. The king who had come up to another king, the king
of Judah had come up to the king of Syria and the king of Syria
was a great warrior and the king of Judah was a young man boasting
in his skillset. And he had come to the king of
Syria and saying, I'm ready to take you on because when I'm
done with you, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, all that talk, right?
You know what the king said? Let him that has not even put
his armor on boast as if he's taking it off. Like he didn't
already finish the battle. He said, young boy, you haven't
even put your armor on. That's a good warning, isn't
it? So we can't talk as if we have already fought the fight,
finish the faith, run our course, when we're still doing it. And
so in this matter of grace, it's very important for us to understand
that many of the epistles in the New Testament, Colossians,
Thessalonians, the book of Ephesians and others, Paul puts in great
effort to warn, don't let the gospel be taken from you. Don't
let them take the gospel. Show you in one place of Colossians
and then we'll move on. In the book of Colossians chapter
one, here's how he puts it. It's nice and warm in here. Are
you starting to fall asleep? Colossians chapter one, some
said, no, they always speak for everybody else in the room. Right. I'm in Colossians chapter
one. I'm going to start at verse 21
and watch what Paul says by the time we get to verse 23 in relationship
to what I'm saying. Verse 21, are you there? And
you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works. That was our state before conversion,
right? Yet now have he what? Reconciled. And here's the means
by which he reconciled us to him in the body of his flesh
through death. Christ's death reconciled us
to him, right? This is why we keep preaching Jesus because
our reconciliation was through him and we have to be reminded
of that. Now watch this. He says, to present you holy
and unblameable and unreprovable in his what? See verse 22. Now verse 22 is my complete argument
as to why we must continue to preach the gospel. Do you see
how he associates your arrival in glory as blameless and holy
as a consequence of his reconciling work on the cross? Do you guys
see that? Do you see how in the body of his flesh through death,
that's the cross, right? That's the incarnation and cross.
In order to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable,
where? In his sight. In other words,
your state of holiness, unblameableness, and unapprovableness in the sight
of God is a consequence of the crosswork of Jesus. And so if
we don't continually preach that, you and I will not continually
appreciate that the grounds of my acceptance before God is the
crosswork of Jesus. Got it? Now watch verse 23. Here
it is. Here it is. If you continue the
faith see it so you see in verse 22 he gives us the secure grounds
of being accepted before God in verse 23 he gives us the indicative
you know what he says if you what if you what do all people
continue of course they don't the Bible's clear that that's
why the book of Hebrews was written because the Jews had abandoned
the gospel and went back to Judaism didn't they They did not continue
in the faith. So he says, if you continue in
the faith, doing what? Being grounded and what? I'm
gonna talk about that on Sunday. Mark that word settled for those
of you who are part of our Sunday worship. Because I'm gonna use
this as a practical example right now. You know when you were a
brand new believer and God was dealing with you and life was
exciting and cry. It was, because there's a lot
of new stuff going on, right? A lot of new stuff going on.
And maybe now you might be able to own the term, I'm settled. I can. I can own the fact that
I'm settled in Christ, okay? Because I know who I am. I know
my walk with God, I'm settled in Christ. But that settling
took many decades. And I went through so much stuff
between then and now. Do you hear me? So much stuff. To own the concept of being settled
and grounded, you have to go through so much stuff. God has to take you through so
much stuff. Before you can own the term,
I'm settled, I know him, he knows me. I'm his, he's mine. Hallelujah. You got to go through
so much stuff. Do you hear me? You can talk all you want to.
You just got to go through so much stuff. It's like in your
own human life. It's an analogy. I say it frequently
now. I wouldn't want to be 20 again
for nothing in the world. For nothing in the world. And I deal with my young men
and my young women, and I love to, because older people are
supposed to be models for them. But if you're not settled as
an old person, you can't actually be a good model for them. Because
if you are settled, you can help them understand that all of the
stuff they're going through, is essential to get settled. You're not going to be settled
at 21. You're not going to be settled
at 25, maybe not even 30. If any of you remember those
periods of instability, you wanted to be settled. You wanted to
be settled, but your nature wouldn't let you be settled. You wanted
to be settled, but there was something about you that just
kept you getting in trouble. You know what that's called?
Youthful lust. This is a good message. Our CDs
are free. You can get it and listen to it 10 times because
if you're missing it now, you're missing some vital things when
it comes to how God grows you up and matures you. In our youthfulness,
this is why Paul told Timothy to flee youthful lust. When we're
youthful, we make impetuous decisions. When we are youthful, we are
impulsive. Our choices are rooted in a very
narcissistic, self-centered, immediate gratification concept
where it's all about me. And the powers of the flesh are
so strong in our youth, are they not? Are they not? This is the truth. This is the
truth with even the most cerebral Christian. And I'm a fairly cerebral
guy. You know, I'm passionate. but
I'm not emotionally driven. There's a big difference. I'm
not an emotional guy. I'm not emotionally unstable.
God didn't wire me that way. I'm passionate. Do you understand
the difference between passionate and emotional? But in my youth,
I would have to admit as cerebral as I was because I was a young
man, highly driven by testosterone, like every other young man. Oh,
my emotions were all over the place and I hated it. Why? Because they have you thinking
crazy things. They have you inclined to push
boundaries and push the envelope and go places that you know you
shouldn't go. And you make these decisions
that are wrong. Go, why did I do that? So I ain't
got nobody in the house. That's okay. That's okay. And here it is, is that you're
young. You're young. And God does not
abort the process of your youth. He lets you fall. He lets you
make mistakes. He lets you go through the, the,
the thralls and the tremors and the, and the complex of your
youth so that you can learn how to walk with God. And then one day after many,
many years, you look up and you go, I'm stable now. This is true. It finally happened. What I wanted,
which was only a theory, am I you? You know how, you know, like
we all have personalities. This is what we're learning in
women's theology class. It's great. I love the study, the biographical
of these women. But all of us have personality
traits and the enemy knows how to trigger certain things about
your personality that you really, you really would rather that
not happen. especially when you were younger.
I always wanted to be in control, exercising a balanced
equilibrium, particularly when I got into conflicts with other
brothers. Like as a man of God from 18
years old, I never ever wanted to get into a fight because that's
all I did prior to my conversion. You understand what I'm saying?
Proud of my conversion, I strategize how to get on the right side
of that dude so I can knock his head off. That's just what was
going on in the culture I grew up in. When God converted me,
I knew that had to go. And yet I'm still in the world.
People still testing me. And I'm going, Lord, why is this
rising up in me? So you're not with me, that's
okay. And now after 37 years in Christ, I said, the Lord kept
me from that day to this one, because I think I only remember
once or twice having to get in somebody's head as a Christian.
That's pretty good for 37 years, don't you think? That's pretty
good for 37 years. Really, that's pretty good. He
settled me down and as much as it was rising up in me, he gave
me the ability to keep my mouth shut. And then over time, I was
able to negotiate confrontations, hostile confrontations without
thinking I gotta go there before he go there. And I'm like, I
am so thankful now that God kept me and has matured me so that
I'm able to actually deal with situations, no matter how dire
they are, from a point of subtleness. Children of God, do you understand
what I'm getting at? Right, and so this is critical when he says,
if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be
not moved away from the wet of the gospel. Now this is the subtle
thing that happens when people apostatize from the faith. The
goal of the enemy is to take the hope of the gospel out of
you. and cause you to start looking
somewhere else for your confidence. Did you get that? The goal of
the enemy is to take the hope out. Because see, once you have
no hope, you are very vulnerable. And the gospel fills us with
hope, doesn't it? The God of all hope was able to make us
abound in every grace through believing. which you have heard
and which was preached to every creature under heaven, whereby
Paul made a minister. He's saying to the church of
Colossae, you guys have to continue in the faith so that your hope
is not stolen because the enemy could come in. As he says in
chapter two, look over chapter two. This is my last verse for
the night. Verse eight, chapter two, verse
eight, beware, lest any man, what spoil you. Do you see that? Is that what you're going to
say? See the word spoil? So now I want you to get the
analogy. The idea of spoiling is for someone to come in as
an enemy, to take the property of someone else as in a battle
or a war. Every Christian ostensibly is
the property of Jesus. And the goal of the enemy, if
he can, he will come in to take you captive and bring you into
his own clutches. You guys got that? That's Matthew
chapter 12. Remember what Jesus says? A man's
goods cannot be stolen except first the strong man be bound,
and then his goods are taken. And so here's what I'm getting
at. The Christian who was supposed to be the goods of Christ, if
in fact they are not careful, can end up being the spoil of
other people, other systems, other religions, where they allow
the gospel to be taken from them. The man here is just a phrase
for a system of theology, a system of doctrine, a system of teaching.
In the book of Colossae, it was legalism, it was mysticism, it
was Gnosticism. where the church at Colossae,
they were fine with the gospel for a few years, but they got
kind of comfortable with it. And then someone came along and
started saying, there's more to Jesus than just the idea of
faith in Christ. We got some very esoteric teachings
we want to show you about Jesus and teach you how he's just part
of a demerge of gods that you ascend to. And I want you to
have a fuller insight into Jesus. And so now you're creeping down
this tunnel This labranth, this system of ideas and concepts
that's actually taking you away from Jesus because suddenly your
hope in Christ had gotten lost. Now you're curious. This is going
back to the beginning of our study where people drift into
other systems. He said here, beware lest any
men spoil you through what? See the word philosophy? That's
this whole present world system that you're under. just in case
you don't get it. This whole present world system
is set up in all of its particular concepts to challenge every biblical
worldview you hold. Is that true? A Bible-believing
Christian is fighting every day to defend God's view of everything. A Bible-believing Christian is
fighting every day to defend God's view of everything. God
said he made the heavens and the earth. Vain philosophy says
we are the product of an evolutionary development. God says he made
them male and female. The sociological distortions
say that we are whatever we want to be. Today we can be male,
tomorrow we can be female, we can be bi, we can be trans, we
can be this, we can be that. Is that right? We're fighting
against that, aren't we? God says he made the twain to
be one flesh. Today we're saying, no, we can
marry anything, even ourselves. Am I making some sense? So we
are constantly fighting over against multiple philosophies
and many in the Christian church are being spoiled by those philosophies. Because they've lost the hope
of the gospel. They've lost standing for Christ. Through philosophy
and vain deceit after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of
the what? So notice three things, philosophy,
traditions and rudiments of the world, philosophies and vain
deceits, traditions of men and rudiments of the world. All three
of those are basically the stoika, the elements that make up the
way our world operates philosophically. And notice how Paul says, and
they are not after who? And they are not after who? Right,
so right there you have what we call an antithesis, don't
we? You see the antithesis? So now follow this child of God,
you will meet Christians who will try to harmonize Christianity
with the world system and try to make everything that's going
on in the world okay. But what the text is saying is
that will spoil you. That will plunder you. It will
bring you into captivity. It will make you a slave to that
system and you will lose Christ. You do see that, right? And that's
the battle that we are fighting in our present generation and
that's what makes What we're reading in Acts 15, we'll close
here. What we're reading in Acts 15, what makes it so crucial
is this. Paul and Barnabas are fighting against his own apostolic
brethren. Can you imagine that? The ones
Jesus taught and the fellows that are around them have brought
in Salvation Plus. And Paul is saying, hey, fellas,
you can't do this. It'll ruin the gospel for all
of us. Paul saved the gospel. Do you hear me? The apostle Paul,
by the grace of God, saved the gospel from Peter, from James,
and from the others. Because that's how strong our
native religion can be. Remember what I told you last
week? There are people who start off in a legalistic system, like
Catholicism, or Pentecostalism, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or
whatever legalistic system. And over years, because they
don't understand what it means to hold fast to that which has
been given to you, go right back into those systems. They go right
back in and they die in those systems. Because it's rooted
in your DNA. When you're born, if you were
born and raised under a legalistic system, you will have to fight
every day of your life not to go back to your native womb.
you will have to fight every day of your life because that
which is most intimate with you and most familiar with you, when
you get older, and I'm not quite there yet, I know the older ones
can admit this, the inclination to kind of go back to that which
is familiar sets in. That's why you and I have to
continue in the gospel. We have to live the gospel, preserve
the gospel, die in the gospel. I'm gonna close here. I can say
this one thing that I have the joy of a lot. I have the joy
of God saving people in their older age. It doesn't happen
a whole lot. It really doesn't. If you're
in a system at length, you generally die in that. It's a tragic reality. But every now and then, I have
the joy of God saving older people out of it. because he smiled
upon them in his love and liberated them from the traditions of men
and false religion. And they were able to set their
eyes on Jesus and cross over into glory, simply trusting Jesus. Nothing is greater than meeting
people in their hospital bed are in the convalescent home,
are in their own home, knowing they are about to cross over,
and to be able to help them divest themselves of everything, everything,
but Jesus. Strip it all down. Strip your
experiences down. Strip your baptism down. Strip
your good works down. Strip your church affiliation
down. Strip your doctrines down. Strip your Catholicism down,
your works down, your prayers down. Strip it down. Can you,
before you die, simply say with the eye of faith, Jesus is all
my salvation? You hear what I'm saying, brother?
is a wonderful day. Because you see, not a denomination
out of the 330,000 of them in the Christian religion, 330,000
in the Christian religion, not a one of them is getting into
heaven. Not a Catholic, not a Baptist,
not a Pentecostal, Not this not that none of it It all has to
be it's too heavy You can't take your flight When you're holding
on to jesus plus Do you hear what I just said? It's too heavy
You can't take your flight when you're holding on to jesus plus
The gate is too straight The way is too narrow The entrance
is exclusive believe on the lord jesus and jesus alone Can your
soul hang on Christ? That's really what we're dealing
with when people are crossing over. And oh, how tragic it is
when they say, I need my priest. I need my prayer book. I need
the holy water. No, you don't. All you need is
the mediator who loved us and gave himself for us. That's all
you need. It's all you need. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for our brothers and
sisters who have come out. Give us traveling mercies as we go
our way. Prepare us to worship you on Sunday. We pray in Jesus
name. Amen. God bless you guys.