2 Enemies of the Gospel

As good, true, and beautiful as the gospel is, there has always been resistance to it. In Acts 15, we see the natural human inclination to fight against the reality that God forgives us simply because of our faith in Jesus — some Jewish leaders began forcing extra rules on new Christians. Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles give a wise response to these new Christians: they tell them to guide their hope back toward Christ alone, but also to guard their lives by following a way of life. The church today faces a similar issue. We’re either tempted to try and earn something that’s already been freely given, or we’re tempted to accept what’s been freely given without reorienting our lives in response. To follow Jesus is both to receive a free gift and to reorient our lives in response. We choose to put our trust in the person of Jesus and allow his free gift of grace to transform us as we submit more of our lives and desires to him.

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 Open your Bibles to Acts chapter 15. Uh, the church in Europe, especially in the beginning of the 16th century was really desperate for change.

The parish clergy, for example, were known for keeping concubines, charging fees for their services, and they knew little to none of their Bible. There were bishops and cardinals, which are a level up. In the understanding of the catholic church, they were so busy enjoying the wealth and prestige of their high office They never actually performed any of their duties to make matters worse the pope Showed more interest in collecting art building lavish cathedrals and living Luxuriously than in providing spiritual leadership and direction for the church and worst of all instead of sharing a gospel of grace and truth They offered indulgences, which are a form of payment to get their ancestors and themselves away from purgatory, which is not a doctrine we believe is in the Bible, but this understanding between heaven and hell is purgatory, the waiting place.

And every time you gave, the understanding was, as you gave, you took one of your ancestors from purgatory. And brought them into heaven. And if you gave enough, maybe, just maybe, you would skip the process and go straight to heaven yourself. It’s really famous, there’s this spiritual salesman called Johan Tetzel, and he’s famously told the crowds, as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.

Now, you know I like rhyming, but that is a terrible line to teach people who are desperate for the grace of God. And so on October 31st, which is the holiday I celebrate, Reformation Day, October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church. He had many arguments, 95 of them to be exact, against indulgences and many other forms of earning salvation and the corruption of church leadership.

And his point was to point to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ alone. In fact, he would say, quote, The fact is, the more a person seeks credit for himself by his own efforts, the deeper he goes into debt. Nothing can take away sin except the grace of God. So Martin Luther and many others ushered a reformation based off of five solas.

Anybody ever heard these before? The five solas or the foundations are Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone, and God’s glory alone. Now, please hear me. The Reformation is not without its faults, but Martin Luther and his contemporaries did in their moment what we are called to do in ours, fight.

With love and grace, but to fight for the clarity. and centrality of Christ and Christ alone. And today in Acts, we’re going to see the original fight for gospel clarity in Acts chapter 15. Let me just set a bit of context for you before we read Paul and Barnabas. As we learned last week, they actually are just finishing their first missionary journey and they planted a bunch of churches in the region of Galatia.

This is why I believe Paul’s first letter he ever wrote was during this time. It was the letter to the Galatians. And so actually reading Galatians gives a lot of context, if you want to do that this week, in what’s happening in Acts chapter 15. And this whole idea is there’s this new kingdom that crosses so many barriers and ethnic lines.

And they’re so overwhelmed with this new way of life that Paul has to pastor them to understand what the gospel really is. There’s new values, there’s new beliefs in the kingdom, there’s new hopes, there’s new desires, there’s new brothers and new sisters. And anything, any time God does something great in a community, you can bet that the enemy wants to quickly divide and devour this kingdom.

And this is what we see happening in Acts chapter 15. Read with me, uh, silently as I read aloud, verses one. Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses, which is in the Torah, you cannot be saved. So, after Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue.

So, at this point, the church in Jerusalem is still the epicenter of the Christian faith. It’s where most of the apostles were there. So, this is where they dealt with doctrine. Verse 3. Been sent on their way by the church. They passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria Describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters in other words It’s like a when a missionary comes home and kind of shares all the highlights and shows the pictures of what God has been doing In these communities, that’s what Paul and Barnabas are doing now when they arrived at Jerusalem They were welcomed by the church the Apostles and the elders and they reported all that God had done with them but Some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, quote, it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law.

Of moses, so let me give some context what’s happening here There’s false teachers that are going to antioch in the name of jerusalem Representing the pillars like peter james and john And they’re telling them a distorted version of the gospel that hey gentiles you must get circumcised In order to get to heaven Save now for the jewish people circumcision represented a few things in the old testament one It was like a physical mark of their covenant with god which you can read about with beginning with abraham in the in the book of genesis Two it set them apart from all the other surrounding countries They were the only nation who would do this and that’s what made them distinct and even today We’ve been talking about all year long to be a people of god really is to be distinct from the culture And number three it represented spiritual purity Cutting off what is unclean and also showing the significance of a soft heart.

Now, if you don’t know what circumcision is, ask your parents when you get home. That’s the joke I have every time because I teach junior high Bible, and they’re asking me, Well, we want to know what Song of Songs is all about, and we want to know what circumcision is. I said, Go to your parents. Let’s move on.

So, but, if you don’t know what it is, don’t Google it right now. Um, but baptism, Baptism serves for us as Christians what circumcision served for the Jews. One, it was a physical mark to show that you were unified with Christ and his church. Two it sets you apart as a member of the family of god We declare you are never the same again This is why a lot of traditions say remember your baptism and three it represents spiritual Purity read romans 6.

It’s symbolically washing away your sins and raising to walk now in the newness And this is what I’m grateful for, for the new covenant. One baptism isn’t nearly as painful as circumcision to the glory of God. So we are fans of the new covenant, but to hear me ladies, you are now included in this celebration before men were the ones representing the people.

But now ladies, you also get to represent the kingdom and show the world who you are through the act of baptism. Now, this may sound obvious to us that circumcision is no longer required, but we are at the very beginning in this biblical text of Gentiles being included in the kingdom. And I want you to know this, at this point, the Christian faith and the Jewish faith were like the same thing.

Now we know we have Jewish friends and they have Jewish, uh, festivals and, and they’re kind of different from that of Christianity, but back then they saw no difference. And so there was a lot of, uh, trying to figure out with Gentiles being included, how much do we sacrifice and how much do they sacrifice?

But it led to this distortion of the gospel that you must be circumcised in order to get saved. So all that context, let’s keep reading in chapter 15, verse six. The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter after had there had been much debate Peter stood up and said to them. So Peter the pillar of the church, right brothers You are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you That by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the voice The gospel message and believe he’s actually referencing what we went through earlier this year.

If you weren’t here, that’s okay. It’s an act chapter 10. Peter encounters Cornelius because he sees a vision to go to Cornelius. Cornelius is a Gentile. And now Peter recognizes, Oh my goodness, this gospel really is for the whole world, including those people. Gentiles and so this actually many believe acts 15 and acts 10 There is a 10 year gap and so for 10 years Peter has known The Gentiles should be included which by the way if you are not of Jewish blood you are a Gentile here in this room So this should be very good news for most of us verse 8 and God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us.

There is no, there’s no rank here. We all get the same gift. Verse nine, he made no distinction between us and them cleansing their hearts by faith. So it’s through faith alone, as we just mentioned earlier in the intro, verse 10. Now then, why are you testing God? By putting a yoke on the disciples necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear.

So in the Old Testament, in the Torah, to be specific, the first five books of the Bible, do you know how many laws? Does anyone know? Does anybody know how many laws are in the Torah? 613. Whoever said that gets a free shirt. And if it’s not your size, I’m sorry, but okay, 613 laws. Now, did the Hebrews do a great job at keeping those laws?

Not at all. It’s why the old Testament is so big because it’s constantly, you did it again, you did it again, you messed up again. And so this constant. They’re just failing at the law. Peter’s saying we’re never, we’ve never been good at keeping the law. And now you want them to. And by the way, when, when these Pharisees were saying, Hey, get circumcised, that’s how you get saved.

It wasn’t just the act of circumcision. Circumcision was a symbol that you are willing to uphold the whole law. So it’s not just saying uphold circumcision. It’s upholding everything. All 613 now allow me to briefly summarize for you what Pastor Caleb always says let me nerd out for the next few minutes on what the law is and I believe it’s helpful for us to understand there’s three categories of these 613 laws number one is moral laws.

So the moral laws are like the 10 commandments. There are many different moral laws scattered throughout. Ten commandments are the main ones, and this is what many commentators, Christians, should say. These are eternal truths that must be followed at any place, any time, and any culture. So you can’t be like, well, I’m American, so, you know, a do not covet doesn’t really apply to me.

No, that doesn’t work out that way. These are eternal truths. At the same time, though, the next layer of laws are ceremonial laws. And so this is anytime you read in the biblical text rituals regarding the temple. What should the priests wear when they offer the sacrifices? What should those sacrifices be, and what’s the order of it, and when is the day of sacrifice?

And when do we bring our lamb? All of those are no longer binding because we believe those were shadows. Those were pictures of what Christ was going to ultimately do. So we don’t care about a lamb anymore because we now have the lamb of God who suffered and died and rose again. And so those ceremonial laws, we can read them for free.

It’s interesting, but we praise the Lord. I don’t have to dress like a priest when I come to preach the word. It’s too hot here in Arizona to try to do so. But then the third level are civil laws and these are laws that governed this theocratic nation. All right. So these are very specific to the people of Jerusalem.

A lot of times it was because the world did certain things and they say, Hey, do this law in order to really show we’re not like our neighboring societies. But these are also pretty simple things you see in the Torah, things like property rights and Hey, how do we take care of the poor? Well, Leviticus says to always leave margin on the outside of your harvest because they didn’t have a social care system like we do today, right?

So this is a understanding. These are great principles. I think our governments probably do better the more we adopt some of those principles we see with civic laws But they are not necessarily required. They’re certainly not required for salvation All that to say peter is trying to tell you and me and the people here in acts all of these laws Were a burden none of us could bear If you broke one law, the scripture says you have broken the whole law and now you stand condemned So Peter’s saying, why, why would we put this heavy yoke on the necks of the Gentiles when we couldn’t even bear it ourselves?

And if we have to keep doing this, why did Jesus even come to die in the first place? Jesus came to set us free. Instead, Jesus, he came to give us an easy yoke. Now, verse 11 and chapter 15, on the contrary, we believe that we are saved. By the way, that word saved here is not just like now you go to the happy place when you die, but it’s a healing.

It’s a, your whole soul is restored and made new. We are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are. So Jews don’t have to earn their salvation, neither do Gentiles. Now it was pretty fascinating here. Peter is incredible. He’s speaking the gospel truth, but we have context because in Galatians chapter 2, again, I would encourage you to read that book this week, he gives context that, uh, Peter was actually falling into the temptation of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, or some of them were called Judaizers, had this idea, they were kind of telling Peter, hey, if you’re holy, Quit hanging out with the Gentiles, especially quit eating like the Gentiles, which was the whole point in Acts 10. God told him, eat and dwell with Gentiles, but he got nervous. He wanted to please the Pharisees.

And so Paul, uh, Galatians 2 11 says, I oppose Peter to his face. He’s saying, you are actually threatening to, to pull away from the gospel and begin to add laws again. So I believe in the context of the storyline, this isn’t for sure, but my understanding of this and looking at the timelines. I believe Paul already had this conversation with Peter on the way to Jerusalem to have this debate.

And so Peter’s mind has been changed. He repented, because that’s what we believe. We all make mistakes. We can turn back to the Lord. And now he’s preaching as a pillar of the church, Hey, let’s quit adding rules to the Gentiles. And so the good understanding for us is if Peter can fall into falsehood, At least temporarily, it’s so important for you and I to stay on guard, specifically against two equal and opposite enemies.

There’s an early church father, Tertullian, he says the following, quote, just as Jesus was crucified between two thieves, so the gospel is ever crucified between these two errors. What are the two errors? I’m so glad you asked. All right, so enemy or error number one is this belief that you must believe and live right to be saved.

Now some people title this religion. I don’t honestly feel that really helpful I think James 1 says good religion is taking care of the poor and living a righteous life And I think a lot of us when we think ah, it’s not about religion It excuses us from doing religious things like showing up to church every week and reading your Bible every day and praying And so I don’t like to use that term religion as a negative context, even though I totally get it I think a more helpful phrase is legalism.

This whole idea that you are saved by how you keep the law. And so the Judaizers, what’s interesting here in Acts 15, they were saying, yeah, Jesus is great. He’s incredible. Listen to him, believe in him, but you need to believe in Jesus and you need to get circumcised. And so the legalism math is Jesus plus something equals salvation.

Yes, we love Jesus, but you need to add something else in order to secure the future of your soul. And that is not the gospel. There’s been a lot of different variations of this throughout history. Some people believe it’s Jesus plus baptism. We believe you don’t have to be baptized, you should. But we see the thief on the cross, right?

He, uh, Jesus says to him, today you’ll be with me in paradise. I promise you, you did not have enough time. to get baptized. He was hanging on a cross and dying. And there’s many other examples that people point to to show it doesn’t, you don’t have to be baptized, although you certainly should. It’s not Jesus plus church attendance, although Bravo, when you show up, it doesn’t save your soul, but I think it does something for you.

It’s not Jesus plus quiet times. There’s all sorts of different things we try to add. And this is a false gospel that produces false fruit. And I believe when we believe legalistically, yes, believe in Jesus and do these certain things, what it produces within us is either pride or despair. And I bet you you’ve met those people.

Pride. They say, like the Pharisee in the Gospels, Thank God I am not like those people over there. That’s pride. Totally antithetical to the way of Jesus. Or despair. Saying to God, God, I know you hate me because I can never be like those people over there. Both of them leading. To nothing but more sin, and more despair, and more death, and not exalting Jesus for who he is.

See, the gospel of the kingdom is what? Jesus plus nothing equals salvation. And that’s the point Peter, Paul, and James are going to make here in Acts 15. A legalist could never say the following, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. I bring no other argument, I bring no other plea, but that Jesus died, and he died for me.

But. Here’s the warning, as we seek to make sure we don’t fall into this enemy. If I can be transparent, I think less and less this is our temptation in our cultural moment. I think a lot of us understand the dark belly of legalism, and most of us aren’t tempted by it. However, I think what it’s produced in our culture is the following.

In an effort to avoid this enemy of Christianity, we have produced an anemic Christianity. What do I mean? Dallas Willard. It’s not a sermon without Dallas Willard, right? Dallas Willard, he calls it barcode Christianity. It’s this idea, and I grew up in this culture, I totally get it. It’s this idea that a Christian can come forward to VBS, at 7 years old, pray the prayer, and now they’re saved, no matter what.

Now they’re 40, they look nothing like Christ, they are not loving and humble and joyful, and they’re not saved. Seeking the truth, they’re living like hell. And that’s not the derogatory term. They’re really living like that. But yet so many of us can be comforted. It’s okay. He prayed a prayer when he was seven and his whole idea of barcode Christianity.

You have no idea. It’s just a barcode and only heaven can scan you. And it’ll tell you if you’re saved or not. And this is kind of, we’re so scared of earning our salvation. We say, all you have to do is pray a prayer. You don’t have to look like Jesus. You don’t have to live like Jesus because that’s trying to earn your faith.

And it has produced a hollowed out Christianity that doesn’t lead to discipleship at all. It’s this idea of this life. So many of us believe since I’m saved by Jesus and not my works, I don’t have to do any good works. Martin Luther. I love that line. He tells people, yes, God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.

It’s this idea, this belief, I don’t want to earn my salvation, so if I keep going to church every week, it’s going to look like I’m earning, so I’m going to make sure I pepper in, not going every week, or, man, I don’t, man, I feel like I’m turning into a Pharisee, because I’m making myself read the Bible every day, and I don’t want to be legalistic, so I’m not going to read the Bible every day, because that’s so legalist.

And it’s producing an anemic Christianity. And here’s what happens, this is why our whole series is Seeking the Kingdom, because when you share Christianity without the kingdom, We make it about what Jesus has saved us from, but not what Jesus has saved us to. And that’s to our detriment. This is why I write this down.

The message of the kingdom is to repent and believe in the person of Jesus, not just the payment of Jesus. Now, do I believe in the payment of Jesus? Yes and amen. But when we say the person of Jesus, it includes his death and his life. When we say we repent and believe in the person of Jesus, it includes the sacrificial offering and all of his teachings.

It’s his payment for our sin, yes and amen, and his parables for our life. You guys with me? Man, we’re heavy today, and that’s all right. Just wait, it’s gonna get worse. Now, it’s clear here, Peter, Paul, and James, as we’re about to read, proclaimed a gospel, hear me, that did not just secure a transaction to go to heaven when we die, but began the transformation of living like Christ while we live.

And is that the gospel we preach? Dallas Willard for the win. He says the following, does the gospel I preach and teach. have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full time students of Jesus. Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural next step? What can we reasonably expect would result from people actually believing the substance of my message?

I will just say What a joy to Pastor Passion Creek. What a joy to see you become like Christ. And that gives me confidence that we are on the right path. But we must always stay attuned to how we’re presenting this gospel. Let’s keep reading verse 12. The whole assembly became silent and listen to Barnabas and Paul.

Describe all the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. So I I think this is Paul exercising self control, he’s like a lawyer, he loves to debate, but in this moment, I think Barnabas just said, Hey, let Peter and James do the legwork. Just say how great God is. So he says, Hey, here’s the PowerPoint.

Here’s the people we saved. Here’s the lame man that can walk again. All of that. Thank you. Thank you. Now, verse 13, after they stopped speaking, James responded, this is the half brother of Jesus who wrote the book of James. You guys are so smart. Brothers, listen to me. Simeon, which is interesting, this also means Simon, which we would also interpret as Peter.

So Peter has reported how God first intervened to take from, uh, the Gentiles a people for his name. And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written, and he quotes Amos. He says, after these things, I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will build its ruins and set it up again so that the rest of humanity.

May seek the lord even all the gentiles who were called by my name Declares the lord who makes these things known from long ago And so therefore in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the gentiles who turn to god But instead we should write to them to abstain from things and he gives four different Charges to abstain from things polluted by idols from sexual immorality From eating anything that has been strangled and from blood.

For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day, he is read aloud in the synagogues. Okay. So quickly, what we have here are two commands and two concessions. There’s a lot of debate here, uh, to understand what is James saying for these four things. I’m on the camp, there’s two commands here and two concessions.

Let me explain that real quick. Two commands are what? Avoid idolatry and sexual immorality. And I think James said this specifically because the Gentile way of living, it was so hard for them to stop worshipping idols, and it was so hard for them to abstain and to not engage in sexual immorality. So they need to completely break away from that Gentile value and adopt this New Kingdom way of living.

But now there’s two concessions. The two concessions are like, hey, this isn’t a command, but you should do this for the sake of your brothers and sisters, is to abstain from eating blood and anything strangled. Now, these were Levitical laws. But we wouldn’t consider them to be moral laws as we just talked about earlier.

In other words for the sake of unity because a lot of these churches had some jews and some gentiles They were saying hey, let’s promote unity here. So hey gentiles. You need to repent brother You gotta actually live this way, but also like, um, can you uh, Can you not do these two things? It makes your Jewish friends really uncomfortable.

I’m not saying it’s like evil, but can we just do what we can to make our brothers and sisters feel like home? And so that’s the way of Jesus, sacrificing for each other, letting go of certain things. So the Jews gave up wanting the Gentiles to live like the Jewish customs and the Gentiles gave up, uh, you know, eating certain in certain ways and in the temples.

So now I want us to see, though, we’re starting to rub up against the other enemy of the gospel. Okay? So his command to abstain from idols would actually be really offensive to us if we truly knew what he meant. You and I today have so many idols that we run to, and we talked a lot about those in the generosity practice just this last month, but, and hear me and give me grace for the next few minutes.

James’s insistence on abstaining from sexual immorality bothers many of us today. The word here is porneia. Porneia just means all forms of sexual immorality. And so there’s actually many forms of this immorality, and James is saying abstain from all of them. And if I can be honest with you, until very recent days, the church across the globe throughout history were in complete agreement on what sexual immorality was.

And now it’s up for debate. But let me just give you three that are very clear. And I will, especially if you’re a non believer in this room, and I hope there are some, it will initially be offensive. First, homosexuality is considered porneia. Now I know this bothers some, and I know others, doesn’t bother them at all.

I actually hate the way most of us preach against homosexuality because it makes it sound like we’ve never struggled with anything with sexuality. And it’s like, man, you guys are just the worst and those pagans. And it’s almost like, hear me, we don’t ever want homosexuality. It’s homosexuals to get saved.

Like, it just feels like the aura in the room, and I just want to say as a pastor of this church, we will not do that. That is not the way of Jesus. I think the best tone is actually Titus chapter 3. I was actually looking it up during worship, so sorry, Lexi. Uh, but Titus chapter 3, For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.

But when the kindness of our God and Savior appeared, And His love for us appeared. He saved us. Who are we? We are all sinners in desperate need of grace. But hear me, it gets more constraining. The sexual ethic is even quote unquote worse today. Living and sleeping with someone you haven’t married is porneia.

This is very prevalent even within the church. And again, I just want to say there is grace here. We love you, but also we have to speak the truth. James would say repent and abstain. But hear me, it gets even more restrictive. So it’s not just to not engage in homosexuality. Porneia is not just quit sleeping with someone you haven’t covenanted with, but also do not watch pornography and even don’t even lust after people.

And if you lust after people, that is porneia. And James would wholeheartedly say, repent, confess, and abstain. And so woe to any of us when we point to that verse with our chest held high, looking at a certain group of people. Friends, we all need the grace and mercy of Jesus. This is when at least one person says amen so I can keep going.

Thank you. Did my wife say amen? I’m not even sure. Alright, I’m just kidding. So hear me, the Bible has a very narrow ethic on sex. And that’s for our good. God says it’s a gift between one man and one woman who have made a covenant before God in marriage. And the data backs it up. Did you know we can look at data after data, and all of its forms is hurting you?

And covenant marriage, with all of its blessings, is flourishing you, if God has called you to marriage. This is why I love that line, sin isn’t bad because it’s forbidden, it’s forbidden because it’s bad. God says not to do it because he knows what’s going to lead to your overall flourishing for me. So I have OCD tendencies.

I’m not going to share everything with you because you’re not my therapist, but I have a lot of weird things about me. One of them is when I cook and let me be honest, it’s about once a year, but when I cook and go to the stove, I make a rule for my girls. You can’t be within 10 feet of the kitchen. I can just imagine the Mike.

Girls, I say it’s not a Van Camp thing, it must be a Smith thing. When they walk, they fall. I mean, there’s nothing, and all of a sudden, they’re just falling everywhere. And I looked, and the tile’s flat, and everything’s fine, but they will, I promise you, I don’t beat my children, but they got bruises every week.

I’m like, y’all are making me look like something I’m not! Quit bruising! Right? And so, whenever I’m cooking, again, once a year, I’m like, Girls, I act like it’s the worst. Get away! You know? Don’t get near me! And they’re like, what? And I’m like, get away! You’re next to the stove because I just know they’re gonna like, so hey dad, and then, and then, you know, go to the hospital or trip and hit the thing and it’s sort of all, you know, they’re boil.

They’re like, all of those things go through my mind. I think I’m going to do it to myself. You should see. I’ve never cooked bacon. I mean, ow, ow, anyways. But my Children think I’m a tyrant and I’m oppressive because I say, get away from the kitchen. But it’s for their good, because I know how bad Boyle’s feel, because I’ve made those mistakes and I don’t want them to learn the hard way.

And so when we come along these conversations, whenever the Lord from the Bible says not to do something, we must understand him in context. He’s a generous, good and loving God. And he did create the world a certain way. And when we actually follow him in that way, which requires community and so much grace, it leads to life everlasting in the here and now.

And so, do you see what our generation is more prone to believe? I don’t think most of us believe. Yeah, believe in Jesus and do good things, and that’s how you get to heaven. Here is the enemy that you and I face more. Enemy number two, God loves and accepts everyone just as they are. Now, this requires some explanation, so again, stay with me.

This worldview, which is predominant today, acknowledges evil, but not in the soul of a person. It’s instead in the social structures of the world. This is why we are trying to look to government to save us, or also to look to government as the source of evil, because we’re pushing the evil out there, because certainly it can’t be within me.

This kind of way of thinking preaches total inclusivism of all beliefs and practices except what culture deems as oppressive ones, which are traditional Christianity is one of them with its restrictive ethics and exclusive claims of salvation. We are not ashamed to say Christ says he is the only way to salvation.

And sadly, some will say, and I get it with that worldview, that we are bigots for saying Christ is the only way. In this false gospel, Willard says the following, In secular culture, desire becomes sacred, and whatever thwarts desire is evil or sin. So, Pastor, why not just sign off of every desire? Just say it’s all good.

More people will be happy with us. We’ll grow more. Everything’s gonna be okay. When God forbids or restricts our desires, it’s because He has something better for us. So we cannot sign off on everything and be honest, we need to lead the way and showing by example how we too have desires that we abstain from and say no to and humbly lean on the grace of God in order to do it.

Now hear me, I do believe God loves you just as you are. And he loves you way too much to keep you that way. That’s the difference. Now, the response is, so you don’t love your neighbor? You know, shouldn’t this be a safe space? Yes and amen. This absolutely should be a safe space. And so I think this is, we kind of talked about this in our hospitality series, but I think this is a helpful framework.

I’m a firm believer in distinction without disconnection. So hear me loud and clear. We don’t require any worldview or religion to walk through these doors. I don’t require any worldview or religion to sit at my dinner table. I, we have firmly said, we don’t make demonstrations out of people. We make dinner for people.

And as a Baptist, actually, I actually fight for the right of every religion because that is their God given right. And mainly because I know the kingdom of God is never advanced by coercion. It always is by invitation and by us living out our distinctions. So, this is hard for an immature culture that doesn’t understand how to dwell with people who disagree.

But may we at Passion Greek be incredible people at holding to the truth and yet still staying connected to those who are completely opposite of it. This requires maturity. This requires humility. But I believe we can do this. Hear me. At the same time, so I believe you can be here. You can show up every week.

There’s certain things you can’t do. There’s a lot of things you can in coming here. But at the same time, I cannot baptize someone. If they refuse to believe in certain doctrines, we cannot make you a member. There are, so, this is hard for our culture. Distinction without disconnection. I want you to stay with us, but there are levels to this.

For example, Jesus is God. I will not baptize you if you don’t believe Jesus is God. Also, sin is deceptive and destructive. I told you it’s gonna get better. This is like such a fun day. Sin is deceptive, right? God is loving and he’s just. Jesus is the only way to God. We don’t achieve salvation, we receive it.

The Bible is God’s holy word and all of its authority. That stuff, we have to say, yeah, we hold onto this. You could be at my dinner table, but we still hold on to this. Because here’s the biggest thing. When we pick and choose what to follow, we have a faith that’s fake and hollow. And so we believe the whole thing.

And so I just want to ask you, what about you? Because I think when we understand, okay, we’ve got to fight for the gospel. There’s two enemies out there. Let’s roll. Let’s get rid of these enemies. And we keep thinking, these people over there and those over there are believing these false gospels, but brothers and sisters, even Peter.

Started to fall into error. So I just want us to reflect for a while, which lane do you fall into? Do you tend to put up too many hoops and obstacles to receive the love and grace of God for yourself and for others? Do you punish yourself after you sin? Thinking, yes, Jesus was punished on the cross on my behalf, but just to make sure I feel better, I’m gonna punish myself, and now God loves me.

That is not the gospel. Do you push off this idea that God loves you, and certainly you feel like it’s heresy to declare that God likes you? You have fallen away from the gospel. God loves you in Christ Jesus. You are fully adopted. You’re not just a child of God, you’re an heir. So we must repent of that.

And so I would ask you, if that’s you today, open your hands to God and receive all of the love he has for you. Christ was already punished on the cross on your behalf. You are a child of God. Hebrews 4 16 says, therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Or you’re on the other side. You tend to minimize sin and label repentance as oppressive. Are you somebody who celebrates immorality? Do you dismiss conviction as judgment? Do you see these things that we label sin, that’s actually freedom. And when we say don’t do those desires, you say we’re the oppressors.

I would ask you to open up your hands to God and receive the truth. His ways are true, and they’re good, and they’re beautiful. That’s why John’s, John, John 8 says, you shall know the truth. And what? The truth will set you free. John 17, one of Jesus’s last prayers, what does he say? He says, and he’s praying for the church, Lord, sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth. And I am sorry for ever leading the way and not repenting and not expressing to you. I have many desires that I want and have to say no and kill it and crucify my flesh at the cross. And we’re constantly trying to do better as a leadership to do that. But friends, I just feel like enemy number two is pervasive today.

And we must fight with truth and love. And this is why I’ve been trying to think through how do we respond as a faith community to this gospel clarity message, and I think the best way to respond is through communion. We believe the Lord’s Supper is incredible. It invites everyone from every different background, every different past, to lay down their ego, to lay down their sins, and put it at the feet of Jesus, and partake in Christ and His saving work.

So at the table, we are declaring, as we’re about to do, we are dead to sin and alive to Christ. We have desires that we think we want, but we lay them down before Christ and trust his truth that the deepest desires is truly what my soul longs for. And so we partake in communion. We’re declaring that. At the table, we are forgiven.

I love it. I, I’ve actually had several people this week tell me, I know theologically I’m forgiven, but I don’t feel forgiven. And friends, maybe you just need to sit with that communion cup in the bread and just ask the Lord that gift. God, I know I’m forgiven. Will you give me the gift of feeling forgiven?

That’s a good gift, and we have a good father who loves to give good gifts to his children. At the table, we’re family. What I love about this is like, we are together. We are unified through the blood of Christ. This is why I say, if you don’t believe in the way of Jesus, if you’re trying to pick and choose what to follow in the scriptures, you like this, but don’t like that, we just ask you to abstain.

Please honor the communion by not coming forward to partake in the elements, but we want to celebrate. We’re family together because of the blood of Christ, Gentile and Jew alike. And lastly, at the table, we wait for the fully realized kingdom. This bread and cup. I think it’s a little bit better than some.

We used to have that communion where it’s like styrofoam. Anybody ever have those styrofoam thing? You think about hell more than heaven. It’s just not a great thing. Right. And so we actually have like real, like from fries, you know, like mitzvah bread. I’m just saying, but it’s not a meal and we wish we can actually organically do bigger meals and we’re still working on that.

But anyways, this is a small meal and as we partake in it, we look forward to the ultimate feast. Revelation, it says it’s the marriage supper of the lamb. The church is the bride and Jesus is the groom. And as we partake in this feast, I want you to long for the coming kingdom, to long for that coming dinner table.

That’s as far as the eye can see as we celebrate together, just really good food and celebrate that we are all forgiven. And so that’s what we do. So we’re actually going to sing a song in response. During that response, you’re going to come forward, take the elements, come back to your seat. Don’t partake yet.

We want to partake together. Pastor Caleb’s going to come between the third and fourth song. Or now it’s the first and second. We just did two songs. Do you get the math I’m doing? Okay, whatever. After this next song, Pastor Caleb’s going to come up and take us through it. But let’s just pray to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us right where we’re at.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, pray for us.

We are prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And yet, God, that’s one reason why we have church. It’s one reason why we gather around the scriptures every week and dive into it every day, God, so that we keep attuning our heart to grace because it’s so natural. To want to think that your truth are lies and to think that your grace is actually earned.

And so Jesus today I pray that you would break us free from these falsehoods and strongholds