01-04-26 Study of Acts Chapter 15:1-12 Is Salvation by Law or Grace? Part 1

➡ This Bible study discusses the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament, focusing on the Book of Acts. It explains how the Holy Spirit’s role changed from temporary indwelling in individuals in the Old Testament to permanent indwelling after Jesus’ resurrection. The study also explores the shift from a nation-focused approach to a church-focused approach, and the challenges faced by the disciples in integrating Jews and Gentiles into one unified church. Lastly, it emphasizes the importance of spreading the Gospel, teaching sanctification, and discipling others to continue this process.
➡ The text discusses the growth of the early Christian Church, tracing its expansion from Jerusalem to Rome. It emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding this process and the importance of the apostles in establishing the Church. The text also explores the challenges faced in integrating non-Jewish believers into the Church, and the ongoing relevance of these issues today. It concludes by discussing the concept of apostleship, its requirements, and its role in the establishment and growth of the Church.
➡ Paul had to undergo a three and a half year mentorship and guidance from the Holy Spirit to reach the same level as the original 12 apostles. His focus was on establishing the church in the non-Jewish world. The text emphasizes that being an apostle or a disciple involves a process of growth in knowledge and sanctification in Christ. It warns against those who falsely claim to be apostles without showing the fruits of apostleship, such as performing signs, wonders, and miracles in righteousness.
➡ The text discusses the historical conflict between Jews and Gentiles in the early Christian church. Jews initially saw Christianity as an extension of Judaism, and believed that one must first follow Jewish law to become a Christian. However, this view was challenged by the teachings of Jesus and Paul, who emphasized faith over law. This shift in understanding led to tension and conflict, which continues to this day, as the church grapples with the inclusion of diverse groups and the balance between missionary work and discipleship.
➡ The text discusses the historical and current issues with missionary work and charity groups, suggesting they often impose their beliefs and control on third world countries instead of respecting their cultures. It criticizes these groups for not following the biblical example of simply preaching the gospel to those prepared to receive it. The text also discusses the historical tension between Jews and Gentiles, suggesting that similar resentments exist today between third world countries and the groups trying to change them. Lastly, it questions the authenticity of the current nation of Israel and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, suggesting that they are not true to their biblical origins.
➡ Paul and Barnabas, early Christian leaders, faced opposition from traditional Jewish leaders who wanted new Christian converts to first become Jewish and follow Jewish laws. This led to the first council of the early church, where the main issue was how to achieve salvation – through grace alone or through grace and law. This debate mirrors modern religious debates about faith and works. The text emphasizes that salvation, according to the Bible, is through faith alone, a gift from God, and warns against adding extra conditions or rituals to this process.
➡ The text emphasizes that salvation is achieved through faith, not necessarily through baptism or other religious rituals. It encourages individuals to focus on the condition of their hearts and their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, rather than getting caught up in debates or rigid religious practices. The text also stresses the importance of studying and understanding the teachings of the Church, and applying these principles to one’s life. Lastly, it highlights the significance of seeing and hearing spiritually, and maintaining an active walk with Christ.
➡ We appreciate the love and support we receive through you, and we ask for these in your son’s name.

Okay, welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re back from the holiday season. This is the first Sunday after the holiday season. We might not have, have everybody here. Some are still traveling home and we pray for their safety. But we’re going, we’re back into the Book of Acts. We’re looking at the church in relationship to also the individual application process of sanctification in your own life as it relates for you in preparing to become the church. Now that’s going to be, that might be interesting as a comment, but I think you’re going to see how this flows.

There was a, there was a conversation that I had over the, these last several weeks about the makeup of the church and how Ephesians and Acts tie together and, and whether or not the, what’s called the fivefold of ministry is actually existing today as it did in the ancient times or not. And you know why? Certain, certain the theologians or, or highly biblical pastors teach one way or not. So we’re going to begin to look at all of that in Acts chapter 15 because that’s where it actually begins to take shape in, in looking at the church.

So this is going to be about a five week session in this individual book because we have now gone through the, the process of Pentecost, the, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Let’s, we’re going to do some foundational reviews here. Briefly remember that the Old Testament saints didn’t have the, the Holy Spirit living inside of them. The Holy Spirit came and went as God needed it to do to, to be in order for provisioning, protection and, and dealing with what his, his program was for that time. And if you don’t understand that, you might want to go revisit David a little bit because he was asking God not to allow the Holy Spirit to leave him yet.

So in the Old Testament, God sent the Spirit indwelled with the person for a period of time and left that person after whatever the calling that God was doing at that time had been completed. And it was not until the Christ’s death on the cross and the, and the actual resurrection, the completion of this host body system that the process of regeneration became apparent to everybody that would be born and die after Christ’s resurrection. You recall the saints in the Old Testament went to a place called Abraham’s bosom in shit. She oh. And it was a place of a holding place.

It was separate, it was as a part of hell, but it was a separated place. And if you recall, Christ went to that place and ministered to the saints in a way that he ministers to us today in allowing them to be released and go home. Now what we find in, in the first 13 chapters of Acts is the transitioning of the Jewish nation from the focus of the law which was put in place to protect the bloodline for Jesus Christ to come and, and moving it through to the mystery of the creation of the combined church, which Lucifer did not know until it was actually revealed to the, to the disciples at the time before Jesus Christ had died.

Remember he said, I’m going to build my church on this rock. He was alive at that time. He was talking to the disciples and mainly talking to Peter at that time and then later Paul in regards to building this, this entity. And that entity has multiple names throughout scripture. It’s the bride, it’s the bride, you know, the bride of Christ. It’s the church, it’s the body of Christ. There’s many, many terms in, in the scripture that identifies this entity. So when he, when he made known to the disciples at that time that basically he was moving from a nation focus to a church focus.

And his ability to do that was he knew he was going to be resurrected. Everything goes back to this resurrection. Without the resurrection, there would be no church. Without the resurrection, there would not be our ability to upon death be immediately present in with God. Okay, we would have gone through the same process as the Old Testament saints. So we get all of that flow transition of the Jewish nation from Acts chapter 2 through Acts chapter 12, 13. And in Acts chapter 14, we be, we begin to see this mystery of the church taking shape based upon what Christ told the disciples to do.

His commandment. Okay, what we call the great tribulation, it’s split into two parts. For one part is to go teach the people about the Gospel. And it is to change the nations from a pagan rulership to a righteous rulership. And that was the two commissions that Jesus Christ gave to the disciples. Now it’s important to note in all of this as we move into chapter 15, we now begin to see exactly the issues of building this church without all of the foundational principles, doctrine, theologies in place. Because the disciples had to, had to actually identify what this doctrine and theology was.

Now yes, they were, they were supported through the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Holy Spirit and so forth. But remember, God deals in this natural world or this fallen state or reality, whatever you want to call it, through man. God doesn’t come down and say this is the way it’s going to be. And oh, by the way man just get out of the way and I’m going to do it. That is not the way that he created this world. Everything he does, he does it through man. So the, the. When you look at the movement from the Jewish community and remember we talked about this historically, that the Jews and Gentiles didn’t get along, they fought.

And it was Paul’s main objective to move these two groups of people into a unified approach of the church. And in doing so, all of the conditions associated with that process had to be developed. That’s key, had to be developed. While the Holy Spirit knew what was going to happen, it was man that had to develop that process in order for man to implement it. So what we find in chapter 15 is reason why we’re going to spend a lot of time here is the condition of the leadership of the church having to deal with a newness of a group of people called the Gentiles to come into their community unity.

And how was that going to happen? Now, you can, you can look at this in a lot of ways. You can look at it by saying, okay, knowing that the Gentiles remember God, God creates man to worship every one of us, regardless of where we’re at in a spiritual journey, we’re worshiping something. We’re either worshiping good or evil, okay? And we’re working something, we’re worshiping something inside of that classification, if you will. If you’re into good, then you’re worshiping the only one that represents good, which is Jesus Christ. If you’re worshiping in evil, then you’re, you’ve selected whatever pagan God you want to worship, all right? Or multiple ones.

So when you look at what the Jewish leadership had to deal with was, was this pagan world worshiping all kinds of things, religions, all kinds of religions. And they had to bring all of these folks into the, the, the doctrine and the theology that the Holy Spirit was riding through Jewish leaders. Okay, what, what let’s look at today, we’re dealing with religions all over the place where those religions, the doctrine of those religions, the theology of those religions are, are based upon man’s perspective of what do they feel like that they have been led to establish, to bring a group of people into a religious environment and create unity in the basis of whatever the foundational elements of that religion is all about.

We have no difference. I’m trying to lay this out. We have no difference today than what they had in Acts. We’re trying, we’re trying to be extension of the disciples in the Furtherance of the presentation of the Gospel, the, the movement through the salvation process into sanctification, building your relationship with Jesus Christ, and then into the ultimate form called discipleship. Now, we went through this, when we looked at this, you know, last several weeks in identifying that the term mission, missionary, mission field, do not exist in the Bible. We’re not called to a mission. We’re not hired to go to the mission work.

What Scripture tells us is we are called. We’re called by the Holy Spirit itself, not by a man. We’re called by the Holy Spirit in order to further the presentation of the Gospel salvation, the teaching of sanctification. And then this, the discipleship which we were all required to do is disciple others to do that process over and over and over again. So when you look at Acts chapter 15, the process that we’ve just laid out is the process that, that Paul is having to do in order to bring the Gentile world into the Church. He has to further the Gospel salvation.

He has to teach sanctification, and then he has to disciple individuals in the churches that he forms in order for them to take responsibility of those churches. You follow the process. That’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. So when we look at chapter 15 in its elements, what we’re going to look at today is the flow of the Holy Spirit in the expansion of the Church. Looking at it from the history of the Church, from Jerusalem to Rome. And we, we know because of the Gospels, the growth of the Gentile Church was explos. Okay? And, but, and, and we’ve been tracing that all the way through the Book of Acts.

We’ve been tracing that. And we come then to this chapter 15. And by this time in history, the, the Jews have already gone out, okay? The, they have, they’ve gone into Jerusalem, left, started Jerusalem, they’ve gone into Judea, they’ve gone into Samaria. We’ve seen all of that happen in Acts chapter 2 through 13, and the 14 coming in with the bringing, bringing in the initial Gentile fold. And chapter 14 lays out that calling process of salvation. And what we’ve learned is that calling process of salvation is the same calling process of anything else the Holy Spirit calls you to do.

You’re called, you respond, you get confirmation and you move. That’s is, it’s as simple as that. All right? Now. At this point in history, the Gentile world was expanding, but it wasn’t. It had not yet met totality, okay? It, it was in its infancy years, it was in its growth Years, but it was at its beginning. Well, throughout history, as we have learned, this biblical spiritual cycle repeats itself. The plan is a plan is a plan. The process is the process is the process. But the people coming and going must go through that plan and process.

So it’s a cyclical cycle. Further, the gospel teach sanctification, discipleship. So Paul and Barnabas have accomplished the first journey. Okay? Remember they were, they went to Antioch, they were called out of the ant, they were called out of Antioch to go to Cyprus glacier area in Asia Minor. And they had finished their journey and it at this point and now they’re returning back to Antioch. And the closing part of verse 28 indicates that they were abode a long time with the disciples ending off in chapter 14 where now they, they have to deal with this doctrinal issues, theological issues of how do you bring these people, these people, non Jewish people, into the unity of the church? Because without that it would be total chaos.

So Paul and Barnabas, having asked to deal with this thing called the Jewish Council, and we start this in chapter 15, that’s the same that’s going on today. When, when you find, when you find a, an established teaching center of truth about Scripture, what you find is once you get into the teaching aspect of the spiritual knowledge base of information, you now move into the same thing that Paul and Barnabas was dealing with when they were dealing with the Jewish Council. Because we know from scripture what the Jewish Council came out with. We know what the doctrine of the disciples came out to be.

We know the theology that was approved by the Holy Spirit, and we see it in writing by Paul’s epistles throughout the New Testament. So we have the baseline. The issue that we have to deal with is how do we bring people into that baseline knowing that we’re dealing with all the pagan religions no different than what they did. Now to bring this in perspective as we continue to lay this foundation, the fivefold ministry in Ephesians is the same fivefold ministry as is today. The, some pastors, some theologians do not believe that the, the fifth level or the top level of the fivefold process of makeup of the church, the apostleship, still exists.

Okay? They, they feel like that the apostleship process died with Paul, died with apostles. Okay? Many, many schools of thought here. All right? There are conditions by Scripture that says to be apostle, you have to go through this pro, this particular process. You have to come face to face with Jesus, you have to go through the process of Jesus life and in that face to face setting and you have to visual see the crucifixion and, and the burial and the resurrection. That’s a requirement by scripture to be an apostle. All right, there’s. And the reason why I’m doing this is because we had a great conversation about this this weekend and, And I think it’s necessary for you to get your arms around this, to understand what they had to go through at the church, because we haven’t.

We’re having to do it today. And I want to try to break this down in this initial foundational session so that we can actually, as we move through, understand that all of the fivefold process of the church then are here today. But they’re. We’re. Today. We need to look at it in a much different type of perspective than what they had then. Okay. Because if we don’t, then we’re going to widely spread the condition of this apostleship to the point that every time Dick and Harry that wants to be apostle and says that they can do certain things.

I don’t want you to get off on a tangent because that’s going to be a false prophet. All right, so we’re going to go through this. The apostleship is the only. And also preachers today say that there’s really no prophets. Well, I can tell you that Klim Clement is probably in our time and age, the, The. The most profound prophet that existed in this time period. So the only thing that we need to. To I think grasp is this thing called apostleship. If you recall, Christ didn’t call the 12 to be apostles. He called them to be disciplined.

It was not until Christ was teaching them of the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that he had to give them an. An extra power in order for at that time, time in history, in order for the Jews to understand what was happening in the world was coming from heaven. Not for man. It wasn’t this, which it wasn’t, you know, witchcraft. It wasn’t witches brew it. What you know, was it monkey juice, whatever you want to call it. What was going on was actually ordained by heaven. So he gave the 12 the ability to do miracles using signs, wonders and miracles.

Okay? Just like Christ did at Pentecost with the 12 and bringing down this tongue of flame on, on top of everybody’s head to show that something was going on. All right? It wasn’t him just saying words. They could physically see something going on because remember the Old Testament, the law, they physically were dealing with God. Follow what I’m saying. So, so something had to happen. He tried it With Melchizedek, he tried to get the Jews to go and understand what Melchizedek was teaching them. They didn’t buy it, okay? So somewhere in this path he had Christ.

And we’ll get into that in Ephesians because we’re going to change that up a little bit. He had to come up with a way to show the Jews that what the disciples were doing, discipleship, okay, that’s what we’re supposed to do. What they were doing was directed from heaven. And he gave the disciples, those 12, the ability to do signs, wonders and miracles. And he told the world at that time that those 12 would be able to do that. And they shifted from disciples to apostles as identifying another level. Okay? Now there’s many things in that level that existed then that exist today.

We’re going to go through some of those because it was in the apostleship. Once they got salvation, okay, Once they got sanctification, the teaching, once they got into discipleship, they were to grow out of the community that they were ministering to a church. They were to bring out of that fold men to actually act in the role of discipleship in continuing the flow of the ministry work of Jesus Christ. Right? Jesus Christ didn’t finish his work. He created the foundation. He created the prototype. He gave us the doctrine, he gave us the theology. He gave us examples from the disciples, so forth and so on.

And he says, you are to finish my work. So, so when we look at this, we have to, we have to understand that the apostles were there for a particular reason. They went through all of this stuff. They were teachers, they were preachers, they were prophets, they were evangelists, and they were apostles. You don’t see disciples in the fivefold minership ministry of the church in Ephesians, okay? Because the only disciples that existed with that Authority were the 12. And they shifted from discipleship to apostleship in the process of establishing the church. That’s critical because the apostleship, regardless of then or today, is in the establishment of a church.

And, and when you look at it in regards to understanding how Christ put this together, they were all disciples first. Were all disciples. That’s all we are. Unless, just like Christ did with the 12 and then Paul, Christ revealed Himself to the 12 because they were with him at the cross. So they already met all the criteria associated with becoming an apostle. Paul did not. Paul had to go through a, a three and a half year dealing with mentorship and with, and also the Holy Spirit to get him to the same process level that the original 12 were in order for Paul to be classified as an apostle.

Now look at that. The 12 were there. Paul was not. The 12 were Jewish focused on the Jewish nation in migrating them from the law to the church. Paul was not there other than to establish the, the first point. When he went into a city, he had a captured audience because he knew the law and he was well known in the Jewish leadership. But his focus was on creating the church in the gentile world. So the, the scripture gives us the example of the complete difference. They’re all disciples. We are disciples. Once we get through the process.

You’re not immediately saved and you’re a disciple. You follow what I’m saying? You’re not immediately saved and, and sanctified because Scripture says that you need to be sanctified in Christ. Well, that sanctification process is your knowledge growth. So we have to go through the same process as the disciples did in order to become what disciples. And that’s our focus. But we need to understand that God’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Therefore, if he created Paul outside of the original 12, and he did it in such a way that he could reveal himself to Paul sufficient enough that he could meet all of the requirements of an apostle, so it could be today.

Okay, now it’s critical for us to understand this distinction of what makes an apostle, because we have many, many, many bishops running around calling themselves apostles. And it this law of duality, this confusion, this deception you need to get your arms around. If you can’t see the fruits of the apostles ship as identified in Scripture with all of these individuals that are running around calling themselves apostles, they’re not apostles. Right. The only way you know you’re a disciple is whether or not you see the fruits of discipleship. Right. The only way you know that you’re sanctified in Christ is if you see the fruits of your sanctification in your life.

And the only way you know you’re saved is you see the fruits of the Holy Spirit taking charge of your life in the regeneration process of the new body. The process is the process. It’s pretty simple. Once you get it, you. You get it. But we get so wrapped up in titles and because people want to exalt themselves that you need to make sure that in your discernment of individuals, when they say they’re an apostle, you know, now you should now know what, what apostle has to go through to become apostle. And the fruits of those apostles is they can do what signs, wonders and miracles.

In righteousness, not in evil. Okay, so the word apostle reason why this confusion exists is because the term apostle is translated to be sent, to be sent somewhere. Okay. So a bishop today can say, I’m an apostle because I’m being sent to do something, not the ability of what the apostle term biblically represents in totality. Okay. In my conversation this week, I mean, it was, it was. I love my conversations with my, some of my great friends here. But in this process, there are apostles that exist today, And they don’t come through current culture. We’re living another chapter of Acts.

That means that we are living the same way that they did in ancient times. The only difference is in the technology. That’s it. God’s saying yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That means his process is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His salvation process is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His sanctification process is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His discipleship process is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. His apostleship is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You can’t go develop any new things and say, oh, that’s part of apostleship. Oh. Or that’s part of discipleship. Oh, oh, you know, I can walk this, this thin line between two worlds and I’m sanctified.

It doesn’t work that way. So as we migrate into this chapter 15, the baseline of the church and all of the conditions that existed at that time in history are the same in this time, at this point in history, there’s nothing new under the sun. So when you have groups, New Age worshiping, Gaia, nature, as nature change, so does your worship. Okay, you need to really take a discernment stance and understand that your relationship with Jesus Christ is no different today than it was at the time of the disciples, at the time that Jesus was walking this earth.

You can’t make a change. You can make a change, but God’s the same. So if you’re trying to add something or take something away or change something in whatever worshiping that you’re doing and whoever your worship, you better look at your salvation. Because there’s only one way to get this done. So with that as a foundation, let’s begin to look at this journey. Because in this journey of Paul and Barnabas, dealing with the Jewish leadership is the same thing that we have to deal with. If we’re going to a corporate church or we’re doing teaching like here, we need to have a.

That baseline as to what is the doctrine that you’re going to teach. And the doctrine that you teach should only be the truth in Scripture. So Paul and Barnabas have a very difficult journey, Number one, dealing with the salvation, delivery, sanctification and discipleship. They’ve had a record setting journey so far. When the Holy Spirit takes charge and prepares the people to receive what is going to be taught, you’re going to get change. So in the sense of establishing a whole new avenue for the church, a whole new approach outside of the Jews, to the Gentiles, a whole new ministry to the Gentile, a whole new dimension bringing the Gentiles into being, unified with the Jews.

That was the invitation to pagans, to Gentiles, to heathens, to non Jews, to enter the fullness of the Church of Jesus Christ, the same as the Jewish nation. And in all of that, in accordance to Ephesians 1:3, all of the attendant blessings promised to Israel are now equally given to and owned by the Gentiles. We tend to think that what’s ours you can’t have, or we, our children come into this world that way. So we tend not to want to give away that which we know and in some cases in the world process. Another conversation we had was Nehemiah this weekend.

And in the book of Nehemiah, when I taught college in a, in business 101 where you talk about the cycle of business, I said make sure you bring your Bible because we’re going to, you’re going to understand the, the, the management theory that man has created is no different than what Nehemiah did. True. Okay, so what is going on at this is the fact that today we have to give equally knowledge to those that don’t, that are not of our same belief. And sometimes we don’t want to do that because we don’t want to get rejected.

And that’s not the purpose. The purpose is you are to become disciplers and you can’t hold anything back in that process. So Paul and Barnabas, just think about this. They’re, they’re in a land who has not been associated with the law, doesn’t even know the Jewish law. And, and all, all Paul’s saying, hey, you know, all you have to do is believe on Jesus Christ and you’re now in heaven. Jews go absolutely berserk. Gentiles are trying to say, what is it? Okay? And so they have this difficult thing. They’ve got to bridge, not only bridge that gap, think about what we got to do, they got to bridge that gap, but they’ve got to get them to the same consensus of doctrine and theology in order for them to understand what it is that they’re responsible for.

No different than today. So the fact that the gentiles and I want you to think about your neighbor. I want you to think about, you know, the homeless guy down away. I want you to think about, you know, you know, people that are living up the back hills of Ozarks. Okay? I want you to think about those people. I was in North Carolina doing some legal work where my attorney was. We happened to go eat at a restaurant that had a bar. And on Friday night all of the people from the hills came down to the bar.

Oh my gosh, you want to see some weird looking people? Okay, that’s what I’m talking about. All right. This is what Paul Bar was we’re dealing with. These were evil worshiping people. These were people that were possessed. These were people that was demonically controlled. These were people that were doing all kinds of lewd and, you know, acts. And even in the church they had a difficult time. So the fact that the gentiles, that Christ the head of the nation, the fact that Christ had given the gentiles the ability to be included in the church becomes the fuel for the fire that blazes all through chapter 15.

Now it was always a difficult time and a difficult thing for Jews to allow the inclusion of Gentiles into the church. It’s that way today. No different guys. For the most part, the Jews in the early years of the church saw this, what we understand being Christianity today. But followers of Jesus Christ then they saw this sect of people only as a sect of those that were tied to Judaism. The only way you could get into this relationship with Jesus Christ is to conform yourself to the process of the, of Judaism. Which means that you first have got to go through the law in order to get to the faith to get you into the church.

But see, that’s not what Christ told Paul. I came to fulfill the law. So that process from a Judy, a Jew’s mindset had to be reconditioned for them to understand that no, the law is, is not in play anymore. Now it’s pretty easy to see how, why they felt that way. Because in the process of Judaism, Christianity, faith was only fulfilled logically through the law of Moses. Because the law of Moses was the, the process by which the people had to keep the knowledge set. New Testament we’re saved. We get a renewed mind. We’re to be.

We’re to be continually spirit filled. Which means your mind, it completely is regenerated constantly. I die daily. Your heart takes over, manages your process. When you look at it from that perspective. The only way that the Jewish knew was this constant fulfillment of their knowledge, keeping them aligned through the law. Now everybody, Old Testament and New Testament were saved through faith. You weren’t saved by the law. You weren’t saved by the sacrifices, you weren’t saved by baptism. You were not saved by anything other than one thing. Your faith in God in the Old Testament, your faith in Jesus Christ died Jesus Christ 1 in the New Testament.

So we’re all saved the same way, just at different dispensation periods. So all of the promises to Israel are fulfilled in the coming of Messiah. And so they just came to the place where they were confident that Judaism simply resolved itself in Christianity. If this person called the Messiah, the head of our nation came to fulfill the law. Think, think logically here. Came to fulfill. I came to fulfill the law. The law is no existence. I’m. I’m it guys. Then it’s realistic for the Judish community to understand that its next step is Christianity. And in their mind that was the logic process in the evolution of their spiritual life.

But you could not honestly have Christianity in its purest form, Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Now okay, see, you can’t have it in its pure form, Ephesians 4, 5, 6, unless you were plugged into Judaism in accordance to how the Jewish thought. But that is not what Christ laid out to Paul. If you did it that way, that would be like going from A to Z without going through all the other steps. Steps. Think about this. Salvation, sanctification, discipleship. They just wanted to go from what? Judaism. Oh, I’m over here. I’m done. Logically, my, my master has just fulfilled all of those requirements.

So therefore I must be over here. Okay, that can’t happen. That’s the reason why it can’t happen in any other religion. The process is the process is the process. And so the Jews saw Christianity only as a logical end to Judaism as it relates to the law. And so the very concept that a pagan, you me think about it. Could simply jump right into the middle of this or that. Going through those initial stages of process was completely foreign to them. And they couldn’t handle it. They didn’t want to share. So as a result of that, of the inability that Christianity was independent of Judaism created the conflict that was ensued then and is the same conflict today.

And that’s the theme of chapter 15. And Christ knew it was gonna, it was inevitable. The mystery of the Church. Why didn’t, why didn’t he tell the Jews in the Old Testament that he was going to create a church. Why? Because he needed to separate that bloodline. He had to have a separation between the nation under the law and the pagan nation under evil in order to give a pure bloodline for, for his son to be born. So he couldn’t tell them of the mystery. Had he done that, the Jews would have commingled with the pagans and the bloodline would been destroyed.

So as a result, a conflict ensued still exists today. In the minds of the Jews. Today it is still the concept that Christianity is the last process of Judaism. That, and, and, and they felt that the presence of the Gentiles in the church was going to start a major fire inside the Jewish community. The head was going to explode. And it was left up to the Jewish leaders, the 12, and now Paul the 13th, to figure this out. Christ laid everything out to him. Mystery of the church, Jews going into the church, dispensation, dispensation of how they get into the church.

Paul, Gentile world, Great Commission, everything. Christ had laid him up, laid it all out. Give them all the parameters and says, guys, now let the Holy Spirit work through you and figure it out. Acts chapter 15. That’s what we’re seeing here. Now it’s true that the Jews had been somewhat tolerant in the fact that they had allowed certain of the Samaritans to enter the church, half priests. Well, what they felt was that they were more Jews than Gentile because they had come from the law. They, their family was part of the law. So they had reluctantly let a few Samaritans squeeze into the church.

And in addition to that, they had a couple of Gentiles because Gentiles could actually convert to Judaism as a religion and be accepted as part of the Jewish church because that was how you got to faith in God during the Old Testament. So there was some, there was some of this inner intermingling going on throughout history. Remember the Ethiopian eunuch, okay? And remember Corneas? There were a few that Christ had the Jews Peter bring into the church to begin to establish in the church the ability of accepting the Gentiles. And oh, by the way, have the 12 apostles begin to think about the doctrine and theology about how that could happen.

If, think about this. If Christ had said at Pentecost, hey, half of you go to Jerusalem, half of you go over into the Gentile worlds and, and, you know, preach this thing called the Gospel. And if, if the Gentiles overtook the amount of Jews coming into the church, there would be total Chaos in the church. There was no doctrine, there was no theology, there was no how do we get this unity established. There was none of, well, what’s going on in the world today? Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witness and Baptists and Methodists and Episcopalians and blah blah, blah, blah.

Same thing today. So now it becomes a new ball game. It becomes a new ball game for the ancient church. And that ball game of the ancient church is still the same ball game today. Now it’s one thing I want you to think about yourself, your self assessment. It’s one thing to let the concept of Gentiles in, the concept that a Gentile could knock and say I want in and the Jewish community says okay, let me evaluate you. You go through this, you know, process of evaluation. Church today, meet with a pastor. This is our doctrine.

If you can’t live with our doctrine, don’t come. Where do you think that scriptural base? All right, so it’s one thing to allow Gentiles to get into the church, but it’s something else to go scrambling all over the pagan world. And anybody standing on the side of the street or yelling to all pagans to come to Christianity, that’s a whole different story. And it becomes immediately the condition in the ancient church and even today think about it, of people being afraid to deal with it. The difference between missionary and discipleship is at the crust right here.

It’s one thing to run around the world being paid by somebody to hunt out gentiles and inviting them wholesalely into a church as equal mind blowing concept to the legalistic of the Jews. And it’s difficult for them to handle. Now I want, I want to put this in a much different perspective for you. When we, the corporate church, the organizations. Seek out, recruit higher or make it a process inside the organization of the church to send people into mission fields. It is as we are in those mission fields, as the apostles were to the Gentiles. But there’s a big difference in the pagan world today.

The missionaries have to overcome. They’re not invited, The people are not prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive the missionary. When they’re sent, chaos exists, Hostilities exists, missionaries are killed, Deception. So the organizations today go under the auspices, in some cases of humanitarian causes. We’re going to take medicine into these third world countries. We’re going to provide clean water into those third world countries. Who provides water? Who provides water? Why would a man want to take clean water into anything when they don’t even provide it? I want you to think I want you, I want you to really get down in your belief systems and understand what this world has done.

We are not disciplers. We’re not called to go anywhere. Majority of cases where the Holy Spirit has prepared that area to receive us. So when you walk in, just like what Peter did with Cornelius, Peter opened his mouth. The Holy Spirit says, shut up. I got it. We’re doing this. In an order to control. We’re not going in, in the majority of cases. I want you to think charities, I want you to think nos. I want you to think all of these funding groups, the Roman Catholic Church, the Baptist Southern association, we’re going in as groups focused on the mission or the objective of the group.

Control. We’re going in to control. Now. That is not what Paul did. If you look at acts, understand your history and understand the premise by which the apostleship was provided was what the Holy Spirit had already made those areas possible. All they, all they walked in and they just opened their mouth and people were saved. That is not what’s going on in this world today. Matter of fact, it’s not even going on in your backyard. And when you put yourself in the mindset of the Jew historically and understanding that this Gentile is coming into my world, missionary, That seems a very difficult, unfair action.

We’re going into areas and teaching them, teaching them to do things. And we’re taking that process to give them insight to scripture. That’s not what scripture says to do year to go preach the gospel to the people that the Holy Spirit has prepared to receive it, that you’ve been given the, the, the calling to go do that. And in that process, they’re healed. Do you see how backwards we are today? Now, if you looked at the Jewish family, and this is. I’m getting to a point. Keep, keep your eyes on yourself. If you, if you looked at the Jewish, The Jews had the time from understanding, meaning the time that they reached the age of accountability.

And that may be somewhere between 11 and 13 years old, bar mitzvah and all of that stuff. From that time on in Jewish history, they had prescribed all of the Jewish patterns of living. And they legalistically and ritualistically and sacrificially abided by all of those lies. They had conformed themselves in a rather strict kind of style to abide by those laws. And then here comes a whole lot of Gentiles who had been swinging through all of their lives doing just exactly what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, how they wanted to do it at the time they wanted to do it.

And they came in, one big swoop of people and they entered. See, it wasn’t just entering the church. They entered into the blessings that God gave the Jews. See, that’s where it is. They’ve lost something. Look at you. And they felt like they were being nailed to the wall. They felt like they were being forced to change. And they felt like it was a condition of morality, of their lives and they can’t really get their arms around it. How anybody could have equal rights. Guys think equal rights. Who didn’t live a sacrificial, legalistic, law abiding, subscribed moral life, The cabal today.

And that’s why you have these groups going into these third world countries doing the same thing. So tell me one missionary that you know or listen to or subscribe to finance for whatever that you know, they’ve absolutely been called. Think about it. It’s really hard to understand when you understand that this world has conditioned you in a certain knowledge base that is completely 180 degrees opposite of what scripture identifies. No wonder we don’t know the truth. This is ridiculous. Guys, These guys, at this point in time in history, these Gentiles have been doing everything that they wanted to do.

And then all of a sudden Paul comes along and announces to them, all you have to do is just believe in Jesus Christ. As soon as you do, bang, you’re, you’re in the church, you’re in heaven, you got all these blessings, everything. Can you imagine if you were to go into a third world country and say, hey guys, here’s your tools, here’s your blessings, here’s your financing, here’s this, here’s that. Do you not understand that those guys will, will come your way and do exactly what they’re going to do in a continuation of their own culture and life? Even though you’re buying them, that’s what we’re doing.

We’re buying control. And so the Jews begin to resent the Gentiles. Third world country resents NGOs. Third world country resents missionaries trying to change their culture. Christ didn’t change your culture. He didn’t change anything about you. Why do you want to do that to somebody else? If their culture is for the women to go topless, why do you want to put tops on them? Just matter of sight is the men just wear loincloth. Why do you want to put blue jeans on them. If they want to sleep out under the stars? Why is Habitat for Humanity going building houses for them? Why have you ever thought a basis of why this world is doing what it’s doing and compare it to Scripture.

So they began to resent the Gentiles and they began to resent the fact that they were entering into the church on an equal basis without having to subscribe to the Jewish law, without having to go through any of the moral conditioning, without having to go any of that. And the Jews were having to share their blessings. Say the Jews didn’t have an idea that the blessings are, are abundantly provided and nobody shares anything with anybody. The only person you’re sharing it with is Jesus Christ. See, we’re taught different. Say they thought that the, this worshiping of idols, this immorality stuff, this anti God stuff that they were doing, and then they were brought immediately into the church on an equal basis and then immediately had equal basis of all of God’s blessings without going through any conditioning.

Think guys, programming. Say in the Jewish world, you got to understand Jewish world. And I want you to understand something. The nation of Israel was scattered when Babylon took captivity and is never ever regathered according to scripture. So in Rome, who is the nation of Israel? Really? Have you ever thought about that? Yeah, there were remnants of the, the Hebrew Diaspora, but the nation of Israel at the time of Rome was the Ashkenazi Jews, the cabal. So who was controlling this process? Why did not, why didn’t they want the church? Oh, because they didn’t want people going against their control.

And in our history, There’s been really no significant teaching that the Israelites who were in Rome were not the Diaspora of the Hebrews. Why? Because they were scattered. Why do you not think that Christ said, oh, just stay in, just stay in Jerusalem. Wrong. Okay? Because all of my nations there, let’s just say no. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, go out. Guys, we’re scattered. We’re not all in one place. If it was then and there’s not been a regathering now, what’s going on today? Why is our government still the same government as Rome today? Why is the church still the same church today? Nothing’s changed.

So the Jewish leadership, these 12, think about this. These 12, let’s call it your town council, let’s call it your memorial. Leader in his cabinet, call it whatever you want. These 12 had to go establish rules, regulations, ordinances, laws, doctrine, theology. They had to go establish this over and above the conditions of the Roman Empire. Are you hearing me? 12 people had to set a world in motion. For the implementation of two great commissions and unify the Church around that over and above the paganisms of the government, the ones that were in control. And you think you’ve got it bad.

You didn’t think, you don’t think that the difficulty of establishing this church was not there. Why does the Scripture talk about boldness? Why does it talk about, you know, standing up? Why? Why? When the Romans told the apostles not to teach and preach in this, they just continued on. Why? Because they had a higher power, same power you have, by the way. So these Jews, these Ashkenazi Jews, this Sanhedrin, this, these people, the Roman Catholic Church. This is the start of the Roman Catholic Church, guys. That’s where it was. These people saw the drowning, the losing of control, the inability to influence beginning to go away.

Got to think about this. Paganism overtook paganism. The Jews and Rome were functioning in Roman tradition. And they saw Jews being converted in this Jewish community as the same problem. It was called Christianity. And you had 12 that were set apart, 12 that were set apart for God to work through in order to establish what you use as doctrine and theology of what we have turned today called Christianity. So what happened? Paul and Barnabas were immediately labeled as radicals, racists, anti Semites, whatever you want to call a labeling of people today. Paul and Barnabas were labeled as radicals and they were termed as being activists because they were undermining the great traditions and cultures of the fathers.

What fathers? What fathers? The Ashkenazi Jews that took over the, the nation of Israel as a label, who were establishing the rules, regulation and order of Jewish principles and establishment of leaders. Because why the Israelites were scattered, They were really destroying the sacred separateness of Judaism. Oh, what was Judaism at that time then? And so they decided to take things into their own hands, did these conservatives. And because they decided to do that, they precipitated the first great council of the early church. So Paul Barnabas said, if we’re going to do this and we’re going to do it in accordance to what Christ has told us to do, we’ve now got to buck the system.

And in doing that, we’ve got to get our head around the fact that we’re going to be called all kinds of things and we’re going to be labeled and we’re going to be shunned and we’re going to be categorized, going to be separated, and we’re going to cause problems. But they didn’t do that. The holy spirit did. See. What they really wanted. And what it all boils down to is we’ll see it here as we continue to, to migrate through this chapter was the Jews wanted the Gentiles to become Jewish first because if they did, then they can control them under their law.

They could control them. Okay, you might want to think of it this way. There are two doors to salvation. There’s actually the door of grace that you can open and walk in, but you gotta first got to open the screen door. Legalism. You got to walk through this process of going through a, a shifting element of belief, morality, understanding, knowledge and wisdom before you can actually enter the door of grace. Two door system, two tier justices. Think guys. So what they, what actually that’s what happened was they were trying to impose upon the Gentiles. The only way you could get to the door of salvation was to go through the door of Jerusalem first.

And the only way that you could get into that door on the inside was to go through this. Think of it as a cubicle. You had to walk through a cubicle so you could go to the outside of the cubicle in order to reach the door of salvation. It was like sort of no man’s land. Okay, think about, think about where you’re at. Think about, you think about what’s going on in your spiritual life. So this establishment was imposing the way for the Gentile us, okay, this world, a way to get to the grace, But not divine grace.

They wanted to operate as the middleman. Oh, what’s Catholic church? Do you go to purgatory and we’ll try, we’ll, we’ll help pray you out of purgatory. Order the Pope. Oh, I’m, I’m the only one that can properly define the, the revelation of God and give it to the people. And what I tell you is the rule. What’s changed, guys? Nothing. But what as Paul and Barnes begin to. I’m taking my time here because I want you to actually feel this as Paul and Barnabas in their mind begin to walk through this process and see all of the little things they had to do in order to build this framework of do of theology and doctrine and rules and regul all this stuff to create the Church.

The, the condition of gentiles reaching salvation wasn’t an issue anymore. You hear what I’m saying? The condition was how is he going to get it Control. What was going to be the mode, the process of him receiving it. And what was going to be the accountability, control over making sure that they measured up to what they still perceive to be a law? That became the issue. What’s the issue today? Nothing different. So the first question that this Jewish council had to look at was how do you get saved? Can you imagine that, Paul? I can imagine Paul standing in front trying to deal in this court council saying, guys, Christ told us how to be saved.

Why are we even dealing with this? Okay, these were disciples, these were apostles, and the first thing they had to deal with is how do you get saved? That was the primary issue of the Jerusalem conference. How do you truly get saved? Is it by grace alone or is it by grace and law? That’s the church today, my friends. Is it by faith or is it by faith and works? That was the problem in the issue of the Jewish Council and that’s the problem problem and the issue of the church today. And with all the sex and everything else that we have within the framework of Christianity, with all of those things, The deviant ones, those that are on the extreme basically want to fulfill their own self needs.

They always add something to the basic, simple method of salvation. Catholic Church got to go through catechism, right? Got to go through all of this process before you ever get saved. Oh, it doesn’t matter if you were called by Jesus Christ to be saved before you. The journey can start when you reach an age that you can get into the classes and then what? As the outcome of the class, you get sprinkled in your sacrifice. See. Another rituals. Think about it. The rights to marriage in a church and what you have to do not of scripture but of church.

The usage of a building, the rights to get married in a building. You have to go do all of this. Mormonism, I go on and on, guys. It is prevalent today, is the point I’m trying to make. It’s prevalent today as it was in ancient times. You’re living an ax. That’s amazing. And maybe it’s because men never get anything for nothing, for the reason they don’t is because they’re too depraved to give anything for nothing. Foreign. Is you must first give in order to receive your fear of loss. Your concern for yourself prevents you from the blessings that Jesus Christ has laid out in front of you in accordance to presenting you his total wealth from his Father as identified in Ephesians 1 and 3.

That’s the longest running heresy in the church because it produces the wrong modes of salvation. But see, that’s the thing that the church has dealt with since the beginning of the church. Somebody taking the basic thing called God’s grace, attaching something else to it for whatever reason. Because men, men, guys, men find it difficult. To grasp the Concept of absolutely free grace. We think we can, we’re, we cannot receive free grace. We had an opportunity of going out dinner with friends this past week and one of the individuals we were, we were discussing and, and you know, Misty and I did the invite and so you know, I, my thing was I would take care of the dinner and one of the individuals says I want to take care of dinner.

Think about it, think about it. I want to take her dinner. And I said, well, do I begin to negotiate this or do I understand that that’s a gift from God himself through the grace of somebody that wants to do something for, for somebody else and if I provide prevented that from happening, then I have removed the blessing that Christ is going to give them for doing that. You ever thought about that? Every time somebody wants to do something. No, no, no, no, no, no. That you know, I couldn’t have you do that. It’s too much.

Whatever, you know, what if God’s laid something on somebody’s heart and do something, be grateful and accept it because you’ve just prevented them from receiving the blessing that comes with it. And oh, because you have denied it, you’ve denied your blessing too. See, this is the thing that the church has always dealt with. Somebody taking the basic grace, attaching something to it for whatever reason and making it impossible for people to understand that they are saved by faith plus nothing on the grounds of Christ’s perfect work. But see the Bible is so explicit in its teaching that you’re saved by one way and by one way only.

God’s grace. We make it difficult because we have attached. Man has attached things in order to exalt the men that created that process. Religion. So salvation is through faith plus nothing. It’s a gift for God. That’s exact, that’s, that’s exactly what the Bible teaches. And yet people, religions want to add things to it. Well, so do you. Belief systems. If I were to sit down and have a conversation one on one with you, what would you tell me your belief system is in on your salvation? And what would you think that the belief system of others who to to get salvation ought to be? Another conversation we have is about the church of Christ this weekend a bit.

Church Christ believes that your salvation is based upon baptism. Well where in this scripture is baptism? It’s okay to get baptized. I think it’s a great thing. The requirement is not the requirement for salvation. Because if so then the, then the gospel given to Paul for the church would say that you had to be baptized. And if that Was also the case. How many people on the battlefield before they die ask Christ to forgive them for everything and goes to heaven? Or the guy on the cross or, or the person in the hospital bed or whatever.

You know what it is? Okay. Something that I finally came to this weekend. It’s okay for you to think that a process in your belief system is required for you to have the belief of the end result. You follow what I’m saying? But the end results not doesn’t change. I made the analogy this weekend. How many ways can you make Mac and cheese? You’re still going to end up with Mac and cheese. Salvation is one way faith. Now what do you want to put around it? I don’t care, as long as it’s not evil, as long as it’s not a sin.

You want to put something else around it for yourself. Put around it. As long as the end result of salvation is through faith, We get caught up. I do, matter of fact, I, I, you know, I love, I love to, I love debates. You guys already know that. I love debates. I’ll debate things to the hilt until the point where I’m saying, why does it matter? I just want to know the condition of your heart. I don’t care what, what your head thinks. I want to know what your heart thinks. Why do I have see this approach? Why do I have to sit and argue with you when the only thing I need to be concerned about is the truth in your heart? Just tell me what your heart has to say.

You can talk all around this, you know, this world, stuff your mind, whatever. I want to know the condition of your heart, The church. Think about all of the things we’ve just talked about in an hour and so of just foundational getting into what had to be considered to even get this church going. 12 people, 12 people had to develop what you study based upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In a lot of cases, the Holy Spirit wrote it. For you to understand how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Going against everything in this world.

And then you talk to me about your struggle. Your struggle. Struggle at ancient time when there was nothing written down as the blueprint, that struggle. You got the blueprint. You know what your struggle is? You don’t want to read it, you don’t want to study it. And then you get closed off. You have a fence that goes up around your heart. God says enough’s enough. And he allows you to migrate to your reprobate mind. Why? I just want to do it my way. I just want, I just Want to see things the way I see them.

Oh, I know the truth. You don’t need to tell me that. This is what somebody told me a long time ago that I believe. Right. I don’t need to study. I don’t need to change my mindset at all. Okay, well, just stay right there. Oh, you’re all. All the time. All you’re doing is bringing that heart into a hardness that at some point you’re not going to be able to get out of. This is the importance of understanding the Church. It’s not a corporate entity. It’s you. You take everything you study in an application of all of the principles of getting your life set up like Christ, put on Christ.

Put on the mind of. Put on the mind of Christ. Think like the mind of God. That’s Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. And now you have to take that and apply it as you being the Church. Why? Because you have a commandment. You have a commandment to be sanctified. That’s not a conditional part of life. That’s a commandment. And you have a commandment to be a discipler. And in all of that, that’s being active in your walk with Jesus Christ. You’re walking now worthy of your calling in Ephesians, and you are now ready to do God’s bidding.

You’re not sitting on the sideline anymore. You. We just got started on this. We’re going to get more and more into this over the next several weeks. Because in this process of those 12 men, defining the foundational elements of the church is the doctrine that Jesus Christ had Paul write in all the epistles for the church. And if you do not understand the process that went through to get to that, you know, it’s like. It’s like studying the New Testament without the Old Testament, you’ll never know what it means. We have to walk through this chapter 15 and a portion of 16 in order for you to truly understand the conditions of principles that went behind the writing of the doctrine and the theology that became Paul’s epistles to the Church in how it needed to operate.

And that’s you. I’m going to close her. Comments. Yeah, I got one, Jim. So when you brought up about the cubicles, that took me right back to the movie the Matrix where he gets a call. I mean, we all get a call. A calling, right? Eventually. And he’s asked to leave the building, the corporate church building. The only way out was the one door. No different than what you were saying. And we can’t Go back. He went back. And what happened? He got inoculated into the system even more, you know, and they showed that to us in a movie.

Yeah. One of the other things that we talked about, I love, I love, you know, being with, with friends, especially friends that are like minded that it, you know, you wake up, you get together, you have coffee, you sit there and the next thing you know it’s like one o’ clock in the afternoon and you’ve done nothing but just talk scripture the whole morning. You know, it’s just like it’s gone. One of the things that we talked about this, this weekend was, was just that. How, how do you see what you see? Why do you see what you, what’s the purpose behind what you see? What do you learn from what you see? The scripture says if you got eyes to see, see if you got ears to hear, hear.

We all, we all see in here, but we don’t see and hear. And knowing that we live in a spiritual world, as a spiritual being in a physical fallen state, natural world, We never separate them. We’re consumed by that which we see, we’re consumed by that which we hear. But you do not see what you should see and you do not hear what you should hear. That’s the doctrine of the church. The doctrine of the church, the theology of the Church. After you’ve applied all of your individual applications to you and your walk with Christ, your doctrine of your church, of the church is how do you stay, stay seeing and hearing.

Spiritually. That’s church. Anything else guys? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come back into your word. Understanding not only historic history, but historical truths, time allotted events that are in timeline, things that happened in history that continue to happen today, things that we learn from history to apply to today. Father, we just give you all the praise and glory of being able to open our eyes to you. The conditions of the world, how this, what the, what the context of the scripture, the times were that was written, who was in control of what the culture, the, the traditions and all the aspects of life and how they apply to the spiritual realm and to our physical reality.

Today. It’s couldn’t be any more exciting. Lord, thank you so much. Father, thank you for a great holiday. Thank you for time away. Thank you for tying the. That we get, that we, we. We get to got to spend with you individually and collectively the ability of sharing, the ability of learning, the ability of growing, the ability of seeing things that we didn’t quite see before and the revelation that was opened up during the course of all of these number of weeks. Father, we just thank you. Thank you for your son. Thank you for his death and his burial and his resurrection.

Thank you for the ability of being sealed with the Spirit so that so by that we have 100% knowledge and assurance that upon salvation and regeneration, we are going home. We just ask for continued blessings for the day. Ask for special blessings over loved ones lost in the ability of, of managing the process of, of dealing with those situations and, and all of the emotional factors of life that exist because of it. Ask for grace and mercy over those that are doing that stuff. Thank you for this family. Thank you for the love that they show us and the support that they give to us through you.

We ask all these things in your son’s name. It.
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