If you would, turn to Acts 15
with me this morning. I want to look through the first
11 verses. Mainly Peter's statement, but
we have to look at the whole story. Men had come down to Antioch
where Paul and Barnabas were preaching. declaring a false
gospel, a gospel by works. So then Paul and Barnabas, they
went to Jerusalem to meet with the other apostles that probably
had been having bad things said about them, to declare, to see
about the matter. Anyway, in the story here, it
starts in verse 1. Certain men, which came down
from Judea, taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Well, that's
contrary to what our Lord said. Christ said, except you be born
again, you can't see the kingdom of heaven. And except you be
born by water and spirit, you can't see the kingdom of God. Nothing man can do. No man can
born himself. You know, you didn't decide when
your mom and dad were going to conceive you. You didn't decide
when you were going to be brought into this world, at what
time you were going to be delivered. God did all that. And the same
with believers. When it's his choosing, and when
he chooses to save somebody, They will be saved. It's not
a matter of if or how, but they will be saved. They're not looking
to themselves. It's not about the law. Verse
2, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
them. Paul argued with them about it. He told them straight up.
And we can see things that Paul has written to tell us how Paul
felt about this matter. I mean, we look at Ephesians
1. He tells us that, you know, according as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated
us, He determined beforehand that He was going to save us.
and save all His elect. And it is to the praise of the
glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. It's nothing to do with man. In Galatians chapter 1,
turn there with me, dwell a little bit in here. Paul actually recounts
his testimony, how he was taught of God. And then he also recounts
this story of going up there. In chapter 1, verse 11, he says,
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. For I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ. The Apostle Paul knew And that
was the way all the apostles were taught was by Christ. They had been taught, you know,
the 11 had spent the years with him here on earth and were taught
of him. And then the apostle Paul, he was taught of Christ.
Christ revealed himself to him and taught him. And he was the
12th apostle. There was not 13 or 14. Men tried to make their
own apostles. That didn't work. apostles that
God chose. And Paul, the Apostle Paul, God
did mighty things with him of having him write these epistles
and finishing out the New Testament. And the Apostle Paul also tells
us a little bit about the story in chapter two of Galatians.
He says, then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem
with Barnabas and took Titus with me also, And I went up by
revelation and communicated unto them that the gospel which I
preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were
of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain."
And he told this and these men, it tells in verse 5 he says,
but even after that a certain sect of the Pharisees, which
believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and
to command them to keep the law of Moses. You can't be saved by grace and
by your works. You're either saved by one or
you're saved by the other. Christ either did it all, paid
all the sin debt for us, or man does the choosing. And if man
does the choosing, we have no hope, and we have no salvation. And Paul said that, he said that
Abraham, if he had were of the glory in his works, it wouldn't
be before the Lord. So, that these men, they tried,
and it said there in Galatians 2 that Titus, You know, he was
a believer. God had saved him by grace. He
didn't feel the need to be circumcised in flesh. Circumcision's of the
heart. We need our hearts circumcised.
That takes God to do that. That takes God to awaken us.
Open our eyes, because we're dead. We're dead in sin. And it says, They determined that Paul and
Barnabas and certain others should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles
and elders about this question. Like I say, Paul didn't go up
there to find out if there was something he was missing. He
was taught of God. And he went up there to make
sure that what these men were saying, because they were probably
saying, well, you know, Peter and John that were there, and
James, the Lord's brother that was the pastor at Jerusalem,
They're probably saying, oh, those men, Peter's saying this,
and John's saying this. Paul went up to find out and
make sure that his brethren weren't saying that. And as they were being brought
on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenice and Samaria,
declaring the conversion of the Gentiles. And they caused great
joy unto all the brethren. They came through those areas.
declaring Christ, declaring God, and how he had sent the Holy
Spirit to save those Gentiles, same as he saves everybody, from
the beginning to the end. And the believers, they rejoiced
in that. It's great to hear when a believer
from another congregation that we know has the Lord has saved. It's such a joy to hear that
and to know that. And it's so much of a joy to
have them right here in our midst whenever that happens. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders.
And they declared all things that God had done with them.
God had done some great works through the apostle Paul. He
had sent him In one place I read it, it was sent to the heathens. That's the way the Jews felt
about anybody that wasn't a Jew, was that they were heathens.
But God has a people out of every race, tribe, nation, tongue under
God. He has those people and he sends
his men and has that gospel declared to them. But then those Pharisees,
it says the Pharisees which believed. It's kind of past tense. So maybe
they started out believing the grace of God, but then decided
to interject the works into it. That'll never work. Man cannot. And I know there's men in this
area right here that have done the same thing. They have preached
grace at one time and preached the doctrines of election. and
preach the doctrines of salvation, that salvation was of the Lord. And then they decided to make
it about them having to do something. Man's not baptized to be saved. Man's baptized because the Lord
saved him. That baptism is just a profession
of faith. It has no merit in our salvation. The keeping the law. A man that is saved by God will
try to keep that law and want to keep that law, but it's not
unto salvation. It's to be Christ-like. Try to strive to be like Christ.
Christ was the only one that could keep that law. That was
God's law, and Christ had to keep that law. That made God
just and the justifier. He had to be just in punishing
sin. But to be the justifier, he also had to live and die for
those people in order for them to be saved. And in verse 6, it says, and
the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter.
And when there had been much disputing, I'm sure there was,
with men And it's kind of sad. They just get into arguments
about it. The one side was saying that
Christ is all, and the other side was saying, well, Christ
is all, but you've got to do. No, it's either Christ is all
or not. There's no point in arguing it.
You just declare Christ completely, that Christ is all and then all,
and let the Lord do the work. He's the one that changes men's
minds. He's the one that opens dead
hearts But I like this Peter Rose up
you can imagine Peter probably he he's saying he's had enough
of this He rose up And he said men and brethren, you know that
a good while ago I God made a choice among us that the Gentiles, by
my mouth, should hear the word of the gospel and believe. He's
speaking of chapters 10 and 11 in Acts that the Lord had sent
him to Cornelius. Cornelius had been praying. The
Lord had spoke to him, give him a desire, and he had been praying
to the Lord. And the Lord had him send men to find Peter to
come preach to him. Peter at this time still felt
that it was only for the Jews. The Lord had sent him down a
cloth that had all manner of beast on it. He told him to slay
it and eat it. He did it three times. And three
times Peter told him, he said, no, he said, nothing unclean
has touched my mouth. But that's not what the Lord
was talking about, the unclean animals. And the Lord said what
he had made clean, not to call unclean. And he was speaking
of these Gentiles that needed to be saved. And then he sent
those men, the Lord sent those men to Peter and had Peter come
with them to that. Cornelius the centurion for the
saving of his house, him and his house. What grace the Lord has that
he would consider any of us, any of us. But then Peter went on and he
said, and God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness,
giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did us. He said they were
saved. We were saved the same way they
were saved. There's no difference. Every man that has ever been
saved by God has been saved in the same manner, the Lord Jesus
Christ blood that covers our sins. That's the only way that
we can be saved. Is the Lord Jesus Christ doing
it all? And said he in verse nine and
put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts
by faith There again, he didn't put any
difference between whether they would choose whether they was
Gentiles Paul said that A man is not a Jew outwardly, but one
that's inwardly. That's the Lord doing the work. At that point, all that the Lord
saves are His people. They're all Jews inwardly. We
can all say that if the Lord has saved us, we can all say
we're Hebrews, we're all Jews. But only in the Lord, not in
ourselves. Nothing we've done And said, in verse 10, he said,
now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of
the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able
to bear? No man has ever been able to
keep the law except the Lord Jesus Christ. God came here as
a man, fulfilled the law, took his own life. He laid it
down. No man took his life. He laid
it down. He rose again. He sits at the
right hand of God. He done it all. And there's nothing
we can do except believe. We're told to believe. And we
won't believe if he shows us this grace by which he has saved
us. That's the only way. And then in verse 11, this is the, this is the apostles' creed,
this is the believers' creed. But we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they. Peter didn't stand up and say,
I believe. He said, we believe. That was
the apostles at that time. Those men that God had saved,
we believe through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved, even as they. There again, he says that all
men are saved the same way. There's no difference between
the way Ron is saved, Patrick is saved, I'm saved. We're all
saved by the same person in Christ. The same blood, we were led as
lambs to the slaughter, the same, each one of us, with Christ. If we were in Christ, we were
the same way. I titled this message, Saved
by Grace, and being saved by grace is one I kind of want to
look at. I want to look at some examples of some men that were
saved by grace, and they were saved before the law was written. Through Moses is when the law
came about. Think about all the men and women that were saved
before the law was written. It's written on every man's heart.
We know right from wrong. We know that from The moment
we're born, we know right from wrong. And because of sin, we
choose wrong. We have to be corrected. But
the first time that grace appears is Genesis 6. And oh, how we love the story
of the ark. It says in Verse 5 of 6 said, God saw the
wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There was nothing good about
man. In himself, in his sin, man was
evil continually. It didn't say except for Noah.
It said that all said that the wickedness of man
was greater than every imagination. But then in verse 8 it says,
but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now Noah didn't
make a choice to choose God at that point. Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord decided to save Noah
out from amongst these people. put him and his family in the
ark, the ark which represents Christ. All that are in him are
in that ark. We're all in Christ that believe
that he's chosen. But that's the first mention
of grace, but that's not the first time grace was applied.
If we go back to chapter 3, God said that, and this is where
man gets in trouble to start with, is God says one thing,
man says another. Man likes to believe what man
says. We need to find out what God says. God told them that
if they eat the fruit of that one tree, they would die. They
didn't die physically, they died spiritually, which was according
to his plan. of salvation of his people. He chose a people before the
foundation of the world to save. So this all had to come to fruition. But the devil had said that,
oh, you won't die. That's what men are saying now.
God says that he's angry with the wicked every day. Men are
out here saying, well, God loves you. No, you can't have both
ways. God Let's go with what God says. God's the one we need to be looking
to. God needs to be the last word,
the first word, the last word. He's the Alpha and the Omega. But it says that after they had
eaten that apple, or whatever fruit it was, fig, after they
had eaten that, that in verse 15, Chapter 3 in Genesis it says,
and I will put in the enmity between thee and the woman and
between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel. We have the woman's seed which
is Christ. Christ was sent here of a virgin.
He had no sin because he wasn't born from man. He was born from
God. I mean, Adam and Eve at this
point had sinned. He could have just destroyed
everything and started over. But he didn't. He chose that
he was going to save some people. And immediately, he shows them
grace by teaching them the gospel. And then he went on. He killed a lamb. and cover them with it. They're
in it. He taught them the gospel. And then we find that Abraham, Abraham was out. He was just part of the world
and living. He was 75 years old. He was an idolater. He had all
kinds of idols. God called him. He said, get
out of that land. We'll put you in another land. The Jews, they didn't start out from anything
different than just having Abraham as their father. Abraham, at
that point, wasn't a Jew, per se, of the Hebrews. He had fathers
and brothers, and he had grandfathers. But he was the means that God
used to start the Hebrew nation. And Isaac through him, which
was God the Father, God the Son. All that are in Christ are Jews
in really, and we're of Christ. If Christ saves us, we will be
saved. There is no way around that. We have Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel were representative
of two religions. Man's religion and God's religion. And God's is the only one we
need. We need a lamb. We have to have
a lamb shed. Christ was that lamb. He was brought down here and
his blood was shed one time. Not multiple lambs. We don't
have to keep having a lamb now. Christ is that lamb. Christ was
brought here. He died on that cross. He is our salvation. Ephesians 2 tells us that we're
saved by grace through faith, and that faith is not even ours.
And it's not by works, lest any man should boast. But one of the greatest, the
greatest examples of grace being applied without works is the
thief on the cross. The thief hung there, had done
no good. None whatsoever had not given
God a thought for ever how many years he had lived. Now he's
hanging on a cross. God, hanging beside him, turned
to him and told him he would remember him that day in heaven. Saved him there on the cross.
The thief wasn't baptized. Don't know whether the thief
was circumcised. Certainly hadn't kept God's laws.
So what justifies him? Christ justified him. Christ's
blood justified him. There's no other way around that. If Christ justifies us, there's
nothing we can do except we will believe with all our hearts.
We will seek him with all our hearts. His thoughts are not
our thoughts. We will look to our Lord Jesus
Christ and we will glorify him in every manner and every step
of our lives that we can to the point that he allows us to do
it. We're going to stumble, we're going to fall. Paul said that
that that I would do, I do not, and that that I would not, that's
what I do. If Christ saves us, he has put
our sins as far away from the East as from the West. We need
to just look to Christ. Christ is our salvation. We're
saved by grace. If we're saved by grace, there's
nothing else to add to it. Saved by grace. Christ is all
and in all. May the Lord have mercy on him.
Thank you.