Why It Matters

Rodney Gehman – September 22, 2024 – Acts 15:22-35

PRAYER

[ 001 ] Having the parents and their children up here this morning reminds me of a very silly thing that happened many years ago when my children were much younger. We had a problem of one of our family members being found very often drinking milk straight out of the milk carton. Now maybe in your family that’s not that big of a deal, and you can live your life however you want when it comes to consuming milk…there are no scriptures that forbid that practice. But at our house there was a dad who did. And I would often catch our son Jackson chugging milk out of the carton, so of course I would get on his case about it. 

But one night, I was down in the kitchen a little later than usual, and I’m by myself, the house is quiet, everyone was in bed, or so I thought, and you can see where this is going, so I open the refrigerator looking for something to drink – it’s too much hassle to grab a cup for just a swig, so I grabbed the milk carton and tip it back… right as my probably 8 year old son walks around the side of the fridge. 

He just looked at me, and didn’t even have to say anything. I had been caught red-handed as the lead hypocrite for this household. 

I realize that’s a very simple illustration, but it’s actually a very easy thing to do – especially as parents. Today we’re looking at a story that involves hypocrisy, which is what we call it when you say one thing and do something else, or you act one way with this group of people, and act this way over here. It’s kind of Part 2 from last week, so we’ll recap the story and then jump in. You’ll want to open your Bibles to Acts 15 to follow along. 

We saw last week a situation that happened in Antioch, about 250 miles or so north of Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas had returned from their mission trip, were showing the slideshow of how Gentiles had been coming to faith, and a few people were a little wound up by the fact that Paul and Baranabas (both Jewish men who grew up under the law of Moses) didn’t require these Gentile believers to be follow the customs of the Jews – 1) circumcise the males, the way every Jew had done since Abraham, and 2) require them to keep all 613 laws of Moses, something no one had ever been able to do. 

[ 002 ] As word got around, some men came to Antioch from Jerusalem to scold and inform Paul and Barnabas that they missed a huge step in the process for the Gentiles. In order to be saved, these Jews proclaimed, the Gentilies needed Jesus PLUS a few other things. They needed faith in Jesus PLUS Jewishness in order to be saved.

[ 003 ] Paul and Barnabas disagreed sharply, so they and some others head out to talk this over with the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem where they hash things out with open Bibles. The apostle James, who seems to be the primary leader there in Jerusalem finally comes to a conclusion on the matter, and decides, no, nothing else should be required for salvation except faith in Jesus, but when it comes to gentiles and jews learning to live and worship together, maybe just a few little things would be helpful. 

They decided the only thing they should encourage the Gentile believers to do is to stay away from bringing their old connections to idols or any previous pagan practices into their community life with the Jews. Other than that, they agreed that the scriptures are read every week in all the synagogues everywhere, so these Gentiles will learn more as they go along.  

So there in Jerusalem, James and the others wrote a letter to the churches in Antioch and the surrounding communities, and then chose the men who would deliver this letter, and in verse 22 [ 004 ], they chose: Judas, called Barsabbas, (If the disciple who betrayed Jesus had the same name as me, I’d want you to call me something else too) and Silas, both leading men among the brothers. 

If you’re new to the Bible you might think, leading men among the brothers, like he’s the oldest and they are all related? No, but since the church is often described as the family of God, believers are called brothers and sisters. That’s going to be very important here in a second. So, here is what they wrote.

[ 005 ] 23 They wrote:

“From the apostles and the elders, your brothers, To the brothers and sisters among the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings.

That’s a massive statement already that would be very encouraging. From your brothers, to the brothers and sisters among the Gentiles. That language immediately conveys that the apostles and elders in Jerusalem consider these Gentiles to belong to them as family members in the household of God. That in itself would be incredibly encouraging to the Gentile believers. The church in Jerusalem is welcoming them in as they are. The letter hasn’t spelled anything out. It begins – you are our brothers. 

[ 006 ] 24 … we have heard that some without our authorization went out from us and troubled you with their words and unsettled your hearts… and then they go on to describe who is being sent along with the letter, which we’ll get to in a second. But, these unauthorized men are the ones who came preaching circumcision and law. 

We have caught wind that some guys from our congregation headed your way, and without any sort of permission or authority from us, have brought confusion and uncertainty to your hearts, to the point of causing distress. The word used here that is translated “troubled” in English is a word that refers to tearing down or dismantling. In a military context it refers to plundering a town. In other words, this message from the unauthorized guys has thrown the Gentile believers into a tailspin. 

And very likely, what may have helped the tailspin is that even the apostle Peter got caught up in the whole thing! [ 007-1 ] Here’s the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2 – 11 But when [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. 12 For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James (that’s referring to the unauthorized guys).[ 007-2 ] However, when they came, [Peter] withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party. 

So Paul gets into it with Peter, because Peter had kind of switched teams! He had shared the gospel with the Gentiles back in Acts 10, but now, because certain guys have shown up in Antioch, Peter has switched over to the circumcision team, and there it is in verse 12… because he feared those from the circumcision party. 

The fear. of. Others. 

The fear of others is when we care more about another person or group of people’s opinion of us than we do about what Jesus says about us, or what God wants us to do. What will that person or those people think? Or what will that person or those people say about me when they get back to Jerusalem? Will they ever invite me to speak at their retreat? 

He knew better. We watched him back in Acts 10 go to the house of Cornelius, he saw the Spirit fill them all, and he baptized them. He knew God was opening a door to the Gentiles, so he ate dinner with them often, enjoyed their company, was making friends – but as soon as the old religious crowd showed up, Peter “crossed the floor, and separated from the Gentiles. He had started eating only with Jews, and only kosher food. As he did this, he was basically saying, “If I eat like a Jew I am righteous; if I eat like (or even with) a Gentile I am condemned. Therefore, righteousness is a matter of keeping to the rules!”

Being worried about his reputation is what led Peter not only to separate from the Gentiles, but to shrink back from the true gospel. Peter wanted to appear right in the religious leaders’ eyes. 

[ 008 ] And look at Galatians 2 verse 13 … the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

Paul calls it hypocrisy twice. Peter’s hypocrisy is so powerful that even Barnabas and the rest of the Jews all got caught up in it. Paul was the only one with the courage to stand up and draw everyone’s attention back to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. And apparently Peter got the message, repented, and remembered the truth, because last week we saw him speaking in defense of the Gentiles.  

Hypocrisy for me and the milk carton was getting caught doing the very thing I told my kids not to do. That hypocrisy was driven by thirst. And I still had to repent of that. Here in Galatians 2, hypocrisy is driven by the fear of others. And “how often do we fall into that same trap? Like Peter, how often do we want to have a good reputation with certain people? How often do we look to our actions to prove our goodness? How often do we live for those nods of approval and acceptance? No one wants to be a failure or feel like one, but we often do. So, like Peter, we struggle for appearance. We let our guard down and give in to temptation where we think it will gain acceptance for ourselves. 

I could confess so much of this in my own life this morning. I could confess so much time spent caring about what other people think of me, looking for approval, avoiding failure. And what it boils down to is that we struggle to appear right in the eyes of others. The more theological word for that is righteous. A legal term that means there is no record of wrong attached to you. But we struggle to appear right in the eyes of others. 

In an article entitled, “The End of the Struggle,” the revivalist author Stanley Voke reminds us of the good news: [ 009-1 ] What a relief when we see Christ as the end of all this. He is the end of the struggle for righteousness since He not only fulfilled the law for us, but was cursed for us as well. [ 009-2 ] He has not only accomplished our perfection but atoned for our imperfection. There is nothing more to struggle about, for He has done everything for us and God asks nothing now but our repentance and faith. 

That’s the true gospel that this Jerusalem council (which now included a repentant Peter) was getting back to with their letter. [ 010 ]

24 Since we have heard that some without our authorization went out from us and troubled you with their words and unsettled your hearts 25 we have unanimously decided to select men and send them to you along with our dearly loved Barnabas and Paul, 26 who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who will personally report the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it was the Holy Spirit’s decision ​— ​and ours ​— ​not to place further burdens on you beyond these requirements: 

I love that there in verse 28. It was the Holy Spirit’s decision – and ours. Do you notice the order of that? Many times I think I make decisions and ask God to agree with me, more than I wait for him to make a decision and then I agree. 

But a question arises that I think all of us can identify with. How are James and the other apostles able to say so confidently that it was the Holy Spirit’s decision? Anyone can say “the Holy Spirit told me this or that” and how is anyone supposed to argue with them? Anyone can say those words, so how are they so confident this is the Holy Spirit? Well, what we had in the text last week is the word debate, which meant these men have investigated. Searched. Talked it over. Searched some more. I think it goes without saying that they prayed. Possibly even goes without saying that they fasted, like they did for a lot of other major decisions.

And after prayer & fasting (which is preparing us to hear from the Holy Spirit), followed by conversation with the gospel-community the Holy Spirit has put them in, searching the scriptures which the Holy Spirit inspired, AND the fact that they were unified in their decision, they agreed, okay, this is has to be the work of the Holy Spirit. 

So the elders and apostles agree that the Holy Spirit decided they shouldn’t add any burdens or rules or regulations to these gentile believers except, [ 011 ] 29 that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. You will do well (you will be able to enjoy fellowship with Jews, and Jews will enjoy fellowship with you) if you keep yourselves from these things.

Farewell.”

So, verse 30, the team set off for Antioch and when they got there, they read the letter.

[ 012 ] 31 When they read it, they (the gentile believers) rejoiced because of its encouragement. 

What is so encouraging about this letter for them? I think there are a couple things: 

1. I always smile a little when I read this in my Bible, because I think some of this rejoicing is that I would guess the fellas were probably pretty relieved that circumcision was out of the picture now. It wasn’t mentioned in the letter, which is the point. 
2. But the primary encouragement is confirmation that they do in fact belong to the family of God through faith. Originally they were told they were going to have to keep the whole law of Moses, which is impossible! So this was good news for them.
   1. I mean, if I would turn around to all of these parents who were up here this morning and say, look, in order for God to accept you as HIS child, you must raise your children so they get straight A’s, they must play 13 sports a year and be on only the best teams – starters, not bench players; they must not be too tall or too short; they need to travel to every continent and speak fluently in the languages of the countries you visit – if you want to welcomed by God, that’s how your children must look at 18. 
   2. That’s not encouraging at all! That’s a recipe for suicide. But to tell them, look, your job as a parent is to love the Lord with all of your heart, and treasure him with all of your soul, raise your children to know that God’s ways are the best ways, and trust God with the outcome – that’s actually encouraging, right? That feels like something that’s within reach. 

That’s the good news the Gentile believers are hearing in this letter. Instead of being referred to as “you Gentiles”, they are called “brothers and sisters,” and instead of being given an impossible weight to carry, they are to simply be intentional about forming new worship practices as they learn to walk with others in the Spirit. And remember, Judas and Silas had come along to give them encouragement by word of mouth, so [ 013 ] 32 Both Judas and Silas, who were also prophets themselves, encouraged the brothers and sisters and strengthened them with a long message. 

I want to talk more about New Testament prophets and prophecy sometime in the near future, but as you can see from the verse here, whatever prophecy is in the New Testament, it wraps itself around encouraging and strengthening fellow believers. And it’s a green light to preach long sermons. :) 

[ 014 ] 33 After spending some time there, they were sent back in peace by the brothers and sisters to those who had sent them. 35 But Paul and Barnabas, along with many others, remained in Antioch, teaching and proclaiming the word of the Lord.

If you go back to verse 24, and look at the culture and emotion at the time, it was the law being promoted. It was Jewishness being promoted. It was salvation by works that was on the table. And the outcome was distress and trouble. 

Again, back to the parents that were up here this morning – children need boundaries for sure, but they never just really come to life when parents just keep adding more rules to their life. The same is true of the church. The church is never revived and encouraged and strengthened by adding more law. Additionally, It’s never revived and strengthened when we are looking for the approval of others. The church is never strengthened or brought to life when we separate ourselves into groups of who is “in” and who is “out.” It’s not strengthened, as Josh preached a few weeks ago, when we have the magnifying glass on everyone else’s walk with God.  

Then look at verses 33 and 35, what’s the culture and emotion there especially in verse 34. Now, if you have the King James Version, you won’t get the joke, but most of the other translations don’t have verse 34. I figured there will be a few of you who notice and are distracted by that, so let’s just mention it. Just so you know, that’s not a mistake, it doesn’t make all the other translations bad because they are pulling out verses. It’s just that when Bible translators refer to the ancient manuscripts, most of the best manuscripts don’t include the sentence that is verse 34. The sentence that is missing simply says that Silas decided to stick around. 

So whether Silas was sent off or he decided to stay, look at the culture and emotion there in 33 and 35. “Encouraged.” “Strengthened.” “Peace.” “Teaching and proclaiming the word of the Lord.” “Fellowship.” “Brothers and sisters.” 

You can see that the gospel is not just something we believe in our heads – it’s something that transforms and informs every area of our lives. The law brings fear, grace brings encouragement. Daniel Bush and Noel Due write in their book, Live in Liberty, “In many instances, the church itself needs to be “regospelized,” because it is so dead to the reality of the grace and love of God. It’s the liberty of the Spirit through the gospel that is the beating heart of a congregation.

“And so”, they go on, “the struggle of the Christian life is the struggle to believe the gospel. It is the struggle to really live out of the belief that the cross provides all the stability and security we need. When we’re centered in the divine love and faithfulness of Jesus, hypocrisy is not given a foothold. But you can’t overcome hypocrisy by just trying harder not to give in — will power isn’t the answer. The gospel is.”

And Paul goes on to write in Ephesians 2 what the good news of Jesus is: [ 015 ]  it’s that at one time you and I, who are Gentiles, were without Christ, excluded from the family of God. We were all foreigners to the covenant promises of God, and without any sort of hope in the world. 

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups – Jews and Gentiles – one, and tore down the hostility that existed between them. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations…

In other words, because Jesus died on the cross, the law and regulations aren’t what influences your relationship to God anymore. You may be listening to this today wondering what this whole thing of Jews and Gentiles has to do with your life today. And why it matters is that the decision made by the Jerusalem council still stands to this day! You won’t get right with God by diligently keeping the laws of the OT.  

It doesn’t mean they don’t matter. It’s still a good thing to not murder people or steal their stuff. It’s still good to watch what you eat, and whether or not you’re taking care of your body. But you’re not right with God based on how well you follow the rules and regulations. 

You’re made right with God based on how well Jesus followed the requirements of the law… which was, of course, perfectly. That’s why Jesus’ life matters just as much as his death and resurrection. In his life, he never once sinned. Never once did he have a moment of hypocrisy. Never once did he try to gain the approval of people over the approval of his Father. Never once did he play the God-card, even though he knew he could have. Never once did he step outside of God’s plan – even when it meant death on a cross. 

And in his death, he took our death on himself. He took our sins on himself. He took our sickness and hypocrisy on himself so that those sins are no longer held against us. Then God raised him from the dead, seated him back in the heavens, where he is head over the church he created, as our older brother!  

Which means that in Christ, when we are joined to Jesus by faith, trusting that everything he did was something he was doing for US, we are now members of the household of God! We are adopted into his family as his own sons and daughters. We have been given bold and confident access to our Father through faith in Christ. And we are all being built together into a home for the Spirit of God. 

And then Paul goes on in the next chapter of Ephesians to say that the purpose God had from all of eternity past to gather people from every language, nation and tribe to be the body of Christ, is so that God’s incredible wisdom would be made known to the spiritual rulers and authorities in the heavens! That there is a proclamation being made to those rebellious lesser gods and powers in the unseen realm who want to steal glory from Yahweh, starting with the serpent in the garden. And so every time a sinner repents, every time brothers and sisters in Christ, are reconciled with each other, any time forgiveness is offered, any time someone calls on the name of Jesus, any time unity is fought for in the Church, any time someone is baptized into identification with the living hope that is Jesus Christ, a little more of the kingdom of heaven shows up on earth and the powers of darkness are frustrated and defeated yet again. 

If we’re honest, we all struggle with wanting to be accepted and approved of. But the only way to enjoy the truth that you are already accepted in Christ, the only way to experience the full weight and significance of it, [ 016 ] is to “live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20), staying in step with the good news of Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection. 

We can continually face up to our own sinfulness — whether that’s giving in to fear, reputation-seeking, hypocrisy, or practical legalism — and run to Jesus, once again resting by faith in his righteousness.

So as we go to prayer this morning, here are a few things to consider:

1. How often are you concerned about how you appear before others? 
2. What does God want to speak to you this morning about who you are in Christ?

SOURCES:

1. Bush, Daniel, and Noel Due, Live in Liberty: The Spiritual Message of Galatians (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015)