He Confirms

So some decisions are easy and inconsequential. And somebody asks, hey who are you cheering for on Sunday for the Bills Game? And that's easy, right? Cheering for the Bills and anyone who's playing, the Patriots I see you, the Jets or the Dolphins. Reasonably inconsequential. We're among friends, we all cheer for the Bills and those that don't are still in the process of repentance and are working their way back to the Lord. So some decisions are easy and inconsequential. Some decisions are hard and inconsequential. Like for instance, and this is such a first world problem but you and your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend, or your friend, you're out driving and it's like, hey, where do you wanna go eat? That shouldn't be a hard decision. And it is. I'm not saying it's ever happened in my house except a million times because the answer is usually when I say, hey, where would you like to eat? It's like, hey, whatever is fine with me. Okay, well, let's go here. Nah, I don't really wanna go there. So whatever doesn't mean whatever. Is anybody ever been in that particular situation? Yeah, I'm not alone. E. would say the same about me though by the way. She would say, you know, same, right? Those decisions there, they're hard but they're inconsequential. They don't really matter that much 'cause you eat right. And it's like, okay, we got to eat. And again, it's a first world problem. But some decisions are hard and significantly consequential. When you start asking the question should we close our business down? That's a hard decision and it has consequences. Should I take the job in another state away from family and away from the church family and not really knowing what the church situation there is in the place that I'm going to? It's a hard decision and it has consequences. Should we move mom into the assisted living facility? Hard decision that has consequences. So what do you do when you have to make those kinds of decisions? Decisions that are hard and that have consequences. What do you do when you have to make consequential decisions? Well, the church had to do that in the early stages. In fact, when we read through the Book of Acts, when we get to Acts chapter 15, which is where we'll be today, we'll find a church that is in a process of trying to figure out what it's going to be, where it's going to go. And it's got a hard decision that has significant consequences that are going to be faced. Now, it had been about nine or 10 years prior to this in Acts chapter 15, where Peter had had a vision on a rooftop in Joppa. We talked about that a few weeks ago, right? Peter had a vision and a sheet came down and there were hoofed animals on it. And the voice said, get up, kill and eat. And Peter's like, no way, I'm not doing that. And then they said it again. He said, no, I'm not doing that. Said it again. And he's like, okay there's a message trying to be communicated to me here. Which was ultimately about the Gentiles being included in the purposes of God, not just the Jews. And then Peter would make his way from Joppa to Caesarea where he would be at the home of Cornelius who had gathered all of his friends and family. He was in an Italian regiment in the Roman empire and he gathered them all. And then the spirit was poured out upon them as Peter preached the gospel to them and confirmed that just like the Jews where it was poured out on them, God by his spirit has confirmed that among now the non Jews or the Gentiles. And so Peter had experienced that about nine or 10 years prior to what we're reading in Acts chapter 15, but now in Acts chapter 15, there is still debate, not about whether the Gentiles should be included in the salvation promises of God but how they were included. In other words, the argument wasn't can they be saved but it was, how should they be saved? And it really became a problem. And that's what we see when we open up Acts chapter 15 in verse number one, here's what you notice. "Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and we're teaching the believers: 'Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.'" This is consequential. Because you remember Antioch, right? You remember Antioch from last week when Pastor Dion which was a tremendous message by the way. When he shared with us this message last week and we observed Antioch and we had the opportunity to see a diverse group of people who weren't even from Antioch that were making that place up, prophets and teachers that were there, and among them were Paul and Barnabas who were there as well. And what happened was Paul and Barnabas were called out by the Holy Spirit And they went and minister in Iconium and Derbe and Lystra and some other places. And then they made their way back eventually to Antioch. And when they were in Antioch, some people from Jerusalem who were Jewish in background, but were believers in Jesus came all the way to Antioch and started saying to the church at Antioch, "Hey, you have to become Jewish if you wanna be saved. You have to embrace the sign of circumcision which was the sign of the covenant for the Israelite people. You have to embrace that and follow fully the law of Moses if you want to be saved. And how do you think Paul and Barnabas responded to that? They didn't like it. They pushed back. Here's what it says in verse number two. "This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria they told how the Gentiles had been converted. And this news made all the believers very glad. And when they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders to whom they reported everything God had done through them." So they came into a great dispute with these, what we call Judaizers, in other words, they were Jewish believers but they were trying to make everybody Jewish to be saved which wasn't the gospel that was being preached by Peter or by Paul and Barnabas. And so Paul and Barnabas pushed back on them and were like, hey, hey, hey no, that is not the case. And so what the church at Antioch decided was that we're gonna send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem and they're gonna meet with the apostles and elders of the church. And then we're gonna let them make a judgment on all of this as to what we really should ultimately embrace. And you can imagine that Paul and Barnabas kind of, they did that, they went to Jerusalem and as they were going they told people along the way what God had done for the Gentiles. And then when they got there to Jerusalem they were received by the apostles and elders. And then it was like down to business time. All right. So what's happening here? Well, coming out hot were the Pharisees who were believers. Some of these Pharisees who had come to faith in Jesus, but they wanted to bring this up right away. And here's what happens in verse number five. "Then some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, 'The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.'" So they're coming out hot. They're coming together in Jerusalem to try and discuss what this is going to be, what the judgment is going to be. and they come right out and say, this is what's required. Any of the Gentiles need to be circumcised. They need to obey the law of Moses. They basically need to become Jewish. That's the only way that they can be saved. Well, then of course James is kind of, he's the kind of defacto pastor of Jerusalem. James is the half-brother of Jesus If you remember right. who came to faith in Christ after Jesus' resurrection. And James is there and he's like, well, let me hear from Peter. And let me hear from Paul and Barnabas. And so that's what happens next in verse number six. "The apostles and elders met to consider this question. And after much discussion, Peter got up and address them. 'Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God who knows the heart showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them for he purified their hearts by faith. Now, then why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are.' And the whole assembly became silent. As they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them." So now Peter gets to weigh in, and Paul and Barnabas get to weigh in and they share their own testimony of what the Holy Spirit had done in saving the Gentiles and bringing them in to the saving purposes of God. And then what James does is he kind of summarizes what all has been said. And by the way, this didn't happen in like five minutes, this was pretty extensive. They were debating and discussing and sharing. And then James summarizes all and then says, we're gonna write a letter, and this letter is gonna go to the Gentile believers because they're awaiting basically what we're going to say to them about all of this. And so we're going to send them a letter. Well, they write that letter and we're gonna get to that in just a moment. But there's a phrase in that letter that we read that I want us to focus in on today. And it's this phrase in verse number 28. This is in the context of the letter that they sent to the Gentiles. The apostles and elders wrote, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements..." And then they listed a few things and I'm gonna get to those in just a moment. But notice this phrase right here. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. What's curious about this phrase for us when we read it, is this word. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit. It almost appears as if when we're saying that, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit that it doesn't really match the way that we understand that should be. Like is the Holy Spirit going. Hmm, I'm not sure here. Is the Holy Spirit Just trying to say, I'm just gonna determine how I feel about this? Is the Holy Spirit somehow doubting what was said? Well, that's how we interpret that idea of seemed. I couldn't help, but think of there's a comedian. I saw a standup bit one time, from a guy named Brian Regan very funny comedian, reasonably clean comedian too which is hard to come by these days. And he was doing a bit about hospitals and about emergency rooms. And he actually talked in that bit about the greatest oversight in the history of the solar system is that there is no valet parking at the emergency room. I was like, true. Cause he's like, you just have to drive up and be like, Hey, I'm dropping somebody off at the emergency room or I need to go to the emergency room and then you have to go fight for parking which is ridiculous. Nonetheless. So he's talking about all that, but then he hones in on this idea of the word seemed. Listened to what he has to say, was funny.

So I finally parked. I go in to check in and they asked most insulting question when you check into a hospital. What seems to be the problem? What seems? Well, it seems.. It seems like everything on my inside wants to be on my outside. But I'm no doctor. What kind of condescending question?

That's often how we view the word seem. We kind of just, oh, seems like. That's not the way that this word is being viewed in the passage here in Acts. And I wanted to clarify that for us. Because it can also be translated by no less than a scholar is FF Bruce who was one of the great New Testament scholars. He's now with the Lord. He said, you could actually look at this as the word resolved. So the idea here was that the Holy Spirit was confirming by resolution what is good. It seems good to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is confirming by being resolved that these things are good. It was good to the Holy Spirit and to us. I find it interesting that when the apostles and elders wrote this letter, that they actually identified the Holy Spirit first and then they identified themselves second. They said, it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us. It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us. No doubt that the Holy Spirit was leading them in their decision making process and confirming what was good about this decision making process. But we have to ask this question. How do we identify what the Holy Spirit calls good? Because if we want to be able to say something along this line, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, we'd have to be able to identify what the Holy Spirit calls good. I've got a few of those motivations and behaviors that I wanna point out to us here in the next few minutes. And I wish that you would maybe make a note of these because I think that they'll help you, not only in decision-making on a personal level but they're also help you in how you pray for those in church leadership to make their decisions as well. Because that's what was going on here. The church was having to make hard and consequential decisions. So what does the Holy Spirit call good? Here's the first posture. And I would say unity. Unity is something that the whole spirit calls good. How do I know that? Well, I know how they began the letter. They wrote to the Gentiles and I want you to see it and not miss it. It says with them, they sent the following letter. This is verse 23. The apostles and elders, notice then what they say, your brothers. Did you catch that? They're writing to Gentiles non-Jews and the apostles and elders are all Jewish. These are Jewish believers, the apostles and elders and they're writing to non Jews and here's what they begin their letter with. The apostles and elders, your brothers. The idea that they started with was an idea of unity. The reason that I know that the Holy Spirit loves unity is because we can see it very clearly when the fact that the Holy Spirit testifies to who Jesus is. You do know that that's a ministry of the Holy Spirit bragging on or magnifying Jesus. And we know that because Jesus told us when I send the Holy Spirit, here's what he's going to do. He's going to lead you into the truth and bring to your remembrance all those things that I have told you. He's going to magnify the son. The Holy Spirit does not, listen to this, the Holy Spirit doesn't make much of himself. The Holy Spirit makes much of Jesus. And what do we know the Holy Spirit was magnifying in these moments with this unity was what Jesus actually prayed before he went to a cross in John chapter 17. Listen to his words, Jesus prayed. "My prayer is not for them alone." In other words, just my immediate disciples. "But I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message." People like us. "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I've given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one- I in them and you in me- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." You see, we know because the Holy Spirit brings to bear the teaching of Jesus. And that teaching shows us that Jesus embraces unity in the body of Christ for those who would believe in Jesus, whomever they are, Gentile or Jew. You can imagine Paul and Barnabas because they were in this particular meeting in Acts chapter 15, this council of Jerusalem, this unity actually marked Paul because when Paul would write later to the church at Ephesus, notice what he wrote. He said, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace." He was saying that to the church at Ephesus. This marked Paul that unity was a big deal and the Holy Spirit viewed it as good. Decisions are interesting because they can be challenging. Even in church life decisions can be hard. For instance, if you just didn't have a lot of information, available to you, and sometimes the information is conflicting, and you've got people on all sides of a particular decision, and they always are thinking, I want you to do this and I want you to do that. I don't know that I'm talking about anything in specifics, but you get the idea. Even if decisions are hard in the body of Christ what we still have to do is fight for the unity of the body. That's what we have to do. We have to preserve the unity of the spirit. Here's the good news. We don't have to create unity, it's already created body. We have to preserve it. We have to keep it. So we don't have to create it, that's been given to us. Those of us who've come to faith in Jesus Christ have been unified in him and now what we have to do is preserve it and not let a bunch of things get in the way of it. That's why we continue even through political polarization, even through sometimes social chaos, even through sometimes pandemic decisions and all that stuff. Hey, we're still going to fight for the unity of the body of Christ. You know why? 'Cause the Holy Spirit good. It's good. We need to embrace what the Holy Spirit embraces as good. But there's a second posture, and that's of order. The Holy Spirit will call this good. Order. What am I talking about here specifically? Well, you can see it when you begin to read the letter. I'ma show you. Verse number 24 says this. We have heard, remember they're writing to the Gentile believers. "We've heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds." Do you see that? Disturbed and troubling. These are things that are intended to cause chaos and confusion. He says they were doing this to disturb and trouble your minds by what they said. "So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul-men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore we're sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing." In other words, here's what the apostles and elders were doing. They realized that some of these people that had come from Jerusalem, these Judaizers were causing confusion and chaos among the believers, and do you know what they wanted to do? They wanted to bring order and clarity. And do you know why? 'Cause the Holy Spirit sees that as good. Jerry, how do you know that? You can go to the first page of the book, if you want. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the service of the deep and the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters. There's the spirit, listen to this, hovering over the unformed chaotic world. And what then begins to unfold, God starts to bring order from chaos and every day that he brings order from chaos, he ends by calling it good every single time. Order from chaos, good. Order from chaos, good. Order from chaos, good. We know this is the heart of the Holy Spirit. And in fact, the apostle Paul later on when he was speaking to the church at Corinth a church, by the way that had been blessed with so many spiritual gifts, maybe the most blessed with spiritual gifts of any church that we read about in the New Testament. Paul tells them these gifts that you've been given, you know how they're supposed to operate? They're supposed to operate in love but they're also supposed to operate in order not chaos. Because you know what people were doing, is they were using the gifts to bring attention to themselves or trying to magnify themselves. Very opposite of what they were supposed to be given for which was for the good of the body. The manifestation of the spirit is for the good of the body. First Corinthians 12. And in first Corinthians 12, 13 and 14, Paul's addressing all of those spiritual gifts, and listen to what he says in chapter 14: "For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace- as in all the congregations of the Lord's people. But everything should be done in a fitting an orderly way." You see what we know is we know that it is good to the Holy Spirit for there to be unity and it is good to the Holy Spirit for there to be order. The difficulty is, sometimes you have to make decisions that are difficult to make. You don't have all the information to make them or you've got conflicting information to try and make them or whatever. And that can be challenging. But in the absence of certainty because you can't make decisions with certainty when you don't have information or if you've got conflicting information. It may happen in your workplace and can happen all over the place. But in the absence of certainty I can provide is clarity, order. This is what we're talking about. This is what we're doing. And that's exactly what the apostles and elders did. They said to the Gentiles we know you've been disturbed and been troubled. Here's what we're going to do. We're giving you this letter but we're also going to confirm it through the mouth of these people that we're sending to confirm this with you because we don't want you to be living in confusion and disruption. We want you to know what we're talking about. That's an important element and I believe one the Holy Spirit calls good. A third area that the Holy Spirit would call good is the ease of access to God. I'll explain what I mean here very simply because I've taken it straight from the text. After Peter and Paul and Barnabas all share with the assembled group in the Jerusalem council, James summarizes at that point, what he is thinking. And listen to what he says, verse number 19, "It is my judgment," James says, "Therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." Did you catch that? We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. In other words what he's saying is we shouldn't put an impediment in any these way to come to God. Why do I know that that's good? Why do I know the Holy Spirit would call that good? Because Jesus said so. And the Holy Spirit is testifying to who Jesus is. Jesus said this, didn't he? That God so loved the world that he gave his only son. That... What's the word? Whoever believes in him, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Who is whoever, whoever. It's different than when we're driving in a car wondering, hey, where do you wanna go eat? Wherever is fine. But wherever doesn't mean wherever. But when Jesus says whoever, he means whoever- Jew, Gentile, wherever you're from, whatever background when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, there it is. Just come to Jesus. You see what we don't wanna do with our decision-making is make it hard for people to come to Jesus. We don't wanna make it difficult or put unnecessary impediments to the gospel, we wanna just simply say, come as you are. But listen to me. God loves you so much that he says to you come as you are to Jesus, but know this. He loves you so much that when you do come as you are, he won't leave you like you are. He will change you more into the image of Jesus. That's what God's intent is in our lives. You come just as you are. You don't have to dress it up. You don't have to become somebody. We do this with kids all the time. They go out, they play they're all in the mud and stuff. You know what I mean? If you say clean yourself up before you take a bath. What? You take a bath to get cleaned up, right? And that's what we have to call people to. You come to Jesus to get cleaned up. You can't clean yourself up and then present yourself and go, well, here I am worthy of being saved. No, you just need to come. Warts and all, mud and all, tattered clothes and all, whatever it looks like, just come to Jesus and let Jesus clean you up. Let Jesus shape you. You see some people come from backgrounds that put too many manmade hurdles in people's way. Instead of coming to Jesus, they feel like they're having to jump through 5,000 hoops before they get the privilege of knowing Jesus. If you don't have your hair cut a certain way in a certain length, then. If you don't wear a certain type of clothing. You have to know a certain kind of language to be accepted. Here's a James says, let's not make it hard for the Gentiles to come to God. And don't you wanna do that as a church? let's not make it hard for people to hear the gospel. We don't want them having to jump through 5 million hoops to be able to come to Jesus. You're like, well, does that mean that anybody could come in our church and hear the gospel? Yes. Sherlock. That's what it means. We want to be a safe place for the dangerous gospel. The gospel dangerous in the sense that it won't leave you alone, it'll change you. It is the power of God for salvation for everyone who hears and believes, first for the Jew and then for the Gentile. That's what Romans one says. The gospel is inherently dangerous in all the right ways but we wanna be a safe place for the dangerous gospel where anyone can come and hear and listen and respond and come to Jesus. Whatever their background, wherever they've come from, because here's what we know, Jesus won't leave them like they came. That's the beauty. I'm not talking about the compromising of truth because the Holy Spirit would call that bad. He's the one who testifies to the truth. We don't compromise the truth, but we don't put all of these hurdles in the way. You know why? Because Jesus just wants us to come to him. Listen to what he said to all the tired and oppress people in Matthew, chapter 11. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Aren't you grateful the savior of the world says those words to us? Come to me. He didn't say, come to me, but you're going to have to jump through 50,000 hoops to do it. He just said come. So we wanna make sure that when we make decisions that we don't make it hard on people to come to God. But there's a fourth that I want you to see and it's this mutual sacrifice. This is what the Holy Spirit would call good, mutual sacrifice. In fact, let me point you to the apostles and elders and the decision that they made in verses 20 through 21 and then in the letter that they wrote. You'll see it in verse 29. It says, "Instead we should write to them, write to the Gentile believers, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality from the meat of strangled animals and from blood for the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath." And then verse 29 says, "You're to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things." Now, sometimes we read those things and we're like, wait a second, am I in trouble for eating a steak? It's not really the point here. The point wasn't the food. The point was, what was happening, listen to this, what was happening is that the apostle and elders were trying to figure out how the Jews and the Gentiles could live peaceably with one another. And do you know where they thought back to? Leviticus chapter 17 and chapter 18. Here's why, because in Leviticus 17 and 18, God had spoken to the Gentiles who would live among the Israelites and say to them, here's how you can live among them without offending them. We realized that you non Jews are gonna be around where they live, but here's how you can live with them without offending them. Why would the offense be blood of animals, almost strangled animals, sexual immorality? Why would those kind of four things that they listed? Why would those be an offense? Listen, it wasn't about the food. In fact, Paul confirmed that when you read his letter to Corinth, you read the 10th chapter or the first letter to Corinth, Paul basically is saying, this isn't about food. If your conscience doesn't defile you and you're not even asking and you end up eating meat that got sacrificed to the idols, like that's okay if your conscience wasn't bothering you. He's not saying, it's not about the food. It's about idolatry. It's about idolatry because the pagans or the Gentiles around the Jews at that time were using all of these things that the council prohibited. They were using them in idolatrous worship. So the strangling of the animals and the blood flow from the animals and sexual immorality and all those things, were all associated with their idolatrous practices and here's what the council ended up saying. You wanna get along with the Jewish people, don't engage in these things. And here's why that'll do, that'll enable you to be able to continue to have table fellowship with them and not offend them, and be able to win them to the beauty of the gospel. But it's gonna require you setting aside your rights a little bit and just saying, "Hey, we're going to respect this about our brothers that are from a Jewish background and we're not going to get involved there." And you're saying, well, huh? I thought you said it was mutual sacrifice, Jerry. It sounds like the Gentiles are the only ones having to make the sacrifice here. No, because what you also see is that when they send their response, their letter, they didn't say, oh yeah, and the Gentiles have to have be circumcised and obey the whole law of Moses. So now he was saying to the Jewish people, you can't start pressing that on them. So they were mutually sacrificial in this process. And that is a good lesson for us all because the Holy Spirit sees mutual sacrifice as good. How do I know? 'Cause Jesus said and the Holy Spirit affirms what Jesus says. Listen to what Jesus said in John 15, "My command is this love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one's life for one's friends." Certainly that can involve the laying down of our actual lives like it did with Jesus. He went to a cross to die in our place, but it can also mean laying down our rights for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ. See decisions in the body of Christ friends, are not primarily about our rights. Decisions in the body of Christ are primarily about what the Holy Spirit calls good. This is something that we need to make sure that we remember, because if we set aside our rights for a season out of love for Jesus and obedience to him and out of love for our brothers and sisters, that's actually healthy for us. That's good for our souls because we live in an age that doesn't often do that. We live in an age of divisiveness and those types of things. So this is actually helpful for our souls. Let me give you a fifth or whatever number I'm on. Communal decision making, the Holy Spirit would call good. Let me explain to you what I mean. I'm gonna show you a couple of quick verses here and I want you to notice something. verse 23, "With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders.." Notice it didn't come from one single person. Peter, I am the Pope, here's what happens. That's not what happened. It came from the apostles and elders. Look in the next verse, verse number 25. We all agreed to choose some men. Look in verse number 28. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." What did you notice about all of these? It's we and us not I. Do you know why that's important? Is because what the Holy Spirit is doing is helping the process of the church transition from what used to be, which was Moses on the mountain, going up and saying thus says the Lord, this is what you're all supposed to do, to the age of the church, where now you have a multiplicity of leaders who together are seeking the influence of the spirit and the wisdom of the spirit together and making decisions to be able to do that. Communal decision-making is good because the Holy Spirit is setting up the church that way. It's interesting to note that in Acts chapter 15 when we read about the council of Jerusalem, it was not a vote. It wasn't a democracy. That's not what it was. What it was, was the the leaders that God had appointed got together and they prayed and they debated and they talked and they ultimately got to a place of being able to establish what the Holy Spirit called good and then they moved forward with that decision. And do you know what the people that were there and the people that receive this letter, the Gentiles, and do you know what the Jews in Jerusalem? Because by the way, it actually had a call on everybody's life. Hey, you're Jewish, you can't call these Gentiles to be circumcised. That's not what saves them. Hey, you're a Gentile. You need to do these things so that it doesn't offend your brothers and sisters that are Jews because you wanna be able to reach them and maintain a relationship with them. It called out to everybody. But do you know what everybody did? They went with it. You know what they didn't do. They didn't get there feathers, ruffled and go to the church down the street. Do you know why they didn't go to the church down the street? There wasn't one. They were the church. That's the disadvantage of a fractured church in our age and a consumeristic mindset. Do what I want done, or I'm going here until they don't do what you want done and then you just go elsewhere. And you know what you never learn? You never learn how to bear with one another in love. And I love you, but this is good preaching. This is good for all of our souls. Because you know what we're in? We're in a pandemic. Do you know what's not easy to do? Make decisions. Because you don't have the luxury, when you are with the multiplicity of leaders, you don't have the luxury of making decision that is only beneficial to yourself. You have to make a decision in light of everyone. Will they be perfect? No way. No way to do that. They're only perfect to the people that you do what they wanted you to do. They're only perfect to them. To the people that you do what they didn't want you to do, then it's not perfect. Right? You shouldn't have done this. Why? Because you said so? Just because you said so? Because well we've been doing is praying and fasting and seeking the Lord and just ask him for God's wisdom and how we navigate leading thousands and thousands of people who are gonna be gathering on campuses, and it's not an easy thing to do. I don't need pity, by the way. I'm just saying, it's not an easy thing to do. You may face it in your places where you serve and where you work. And you recognize these aren't easy things to do. You know what is easy? Only looking at your own circumstance and telling everybody that that's what they need to do. That's really easy. It's not easy to make decisions that are different than that. They're hard and they're consequential. But what should be at least the case is that it's not a dictatorship. I'm not just going, I hear by decree... We've got a bunch of people that are involved in decision-making. Other staff folks, people from our church, board members. We're all talking and praying and seeking the guidance of God. And we should be a people that fights for unity and is willing to say even if it doesn't immediately go, that's what I would do. Or I would do this different. Can we still say? Can we still say we can bear with one another in love and not just be consumers? I'm going here. I'm going there. You're just going there until they don't do what you don't want them to do. This is about spiritual maturity. This is a great opportunity for us to be able to grow. It's a horrible season 'cause we hate all the stuff. Granted. I just did a funeral yesterday in this room for a brother in our church that died of COVID. I don't like it. I'm ready to be done with it. And I imagine you are too. But while we're here, we can be shaped into the way that Jesus wants us to be shaped. We can be better in soul for what God wants. Let me give you a last one. It's very quick. Holy Spirit would also call good experience that agrees with scripture. Experience that agrees with scripture. Here's what I mean, Peter got up and he shared his testimony about what the Holy Spirit had done among the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas got up and they shared their experience of what God had done through the Gentiles. And listen then to what James says, because he comes back to what Peter was talking about. Listen to it. It's in verses 12 through 18 "The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished James spoke up 'Brothers,' he said, 'Listen to me, Simon...'" talking, Peter. I don't remember what the last was. "Simon has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written: 'After this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. It's ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things- things known from long ago'" Do you know what James did? He listened to what they said. And he basically pushed it into the context of scripture, the prophet Amos. And he said, God has already spoken to these things. These experiences that they're relating to us, God has testified that they're going to happen. You know what that reminds me of? That the Holy Spirit is really grieved when we attribute things to him that don't have anything to do with him. Oh yeah, man, I went to this church service and I started barking like a dog. I really had the Holy Spirit. And he's like, I don't know what you had, but it wasn't the Holy Spirit. He doesn't make people bark like a dog. I'm just gonna clarify that. Was that clear? You don't bark like a dog because the Holy Spirit encourages you to do that. That's ridiculous. But the Holy Spirit is delighted when we test our experiences against his own word. The Holy Spirit is overjoyed when that is the case. So write this down if you would. I'm asking. I'd encourage you to. In decision-making find out what the Holy Spirit calls good and agree with him. How's that for a summary of the council of Jerusalem you know what I just did? All I did was summarize verse 28 verse 28 says plain and simple, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." And here's what I'm saying, in decision-making, find out what the Holy Spirit calls good and agree with him. Say, okay, Jerry, so how does this actually play out in my own life? Well, this passage is not just for the church at large to embrace even though it certainly is. But what about in your individual decision making? Let me offer you just a couple things as we finish. If you wanna make godly decisions, if you wanna make decisions that the Holy Spirit calls good, the first thing you need to do is you need to press high leverage decisions or consequential decisions, you need to press them up against scripture. You say, well, Jerry, that's easy enough to say, but the scripture doesn't tell me if I'm supposed to take this job. And it doesn't tell me if I'm supposed to move to this state. So what are you talking about? You know what the scripture will do? You know what the Holy Spirit will do with his word in your life? He will unveil your motives for the decision you're making. He will unveil your priorities in the decision that you're making. He will ask you if you're thinking about the impact on others, with the decision that you're making. This is what the Holy Spirit will do. Listen, I've talked to people before, people who've moved from our church who have since emailed me and they went to another state and they basically chased money. They took their family with them and they chased money or they chased weather. Either one. And you know what they didn't do? They didn't chase Jesus in the decision-making process. And so now they've been gone for three years and they're making a boatload more money, maybe even living in a climate that they like, and their kids have gone off the rails because they never engaged in a church when they got there. And what they didn't do and now are regretting is that they chose the priority of money over the spiritual formation of their kids. And they know that now and they regret it 'cause they didn't press their decision up against the scripture so that the Holy Spirit could expose motives and expose our priorities and expose the impact on others. So that's the first area. If you're making a consequential decision, you've gotta press that in to the word of God because the Holy Spirit will utilize that to speak and to show and to aluminate. But secondly, don't miss this. Secondly, don't make that decision in isolation. That's another principle you pick up from this. Don't make it in isolation. You need to have godly people speaking into your life when you are trying to engage in a consequential decision. Because you know what they can do, they can walk alongside of you and pray with you. They can walk alongside of you and search scripture with you. They can walk alongside you and maybe provide you godly wisdom. Now, listen, you gotta be careful from where you get that. I'm not talking about just those friends of yours that you know, that really don't care anything about Jesus and they can name the Kardashians and have no idea the names of the disciples. I'm not talking about them. They're not gonna offer you anything of spiritual substance. I'm talking about people that walk with God and allow them to speak into your world and check you. Check your motives. Check from accountability standpoint, why are you making this decision? What's the why behind the decision? Help me understand that. Let's search the scripture together. Let's pray together. And then by by God's grace sometimes the Holy Spirit will confirm through their lives and through their words, what you're doing, it really seems to us that the Holy Spirit calls good. Or, oh man, you better pay attention here. You could really be walking down a dangerous path. That's what we need. But too often, too often in the body of Christ people make consequential decisions in isolation and then wonder, oh man, things are so messed up. Yeah, they are because you didn't press this into the scripture, into the word of God and let the spirit of God speak to you about all of this. You didn't engage other people to gain their wisdom and help you, pray with you and walk through the word with you. But the last thing is, if you individually don't walk filled with the spirit, and demonstrate the fruit of the spirit in your life, you're not gonna be in a position to make any good decisions. If love joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness faithfulness, self-control, if those things aren't evident in your own life by walking filled with the spirit, it's gonna be very difficult for you to make any kind of decision that the Holy Spirit calls good. Because instead of walking in the spirit, you'd be walking in the flesh and from the flesh comes no good thing. Those are imperative for us. And do you know why? Because what we can look at when we look at Acts chapter 15, we can look at the early church. They got it right. The Holy Spirit led them and they got it right. It was a hard decision and a consequential decision. And thank God, thank God for our sakes, the Gentile people. Thank God that they got it right and listened to the Holy Spirit. We need to do the same thing in our decision-making because it matters to mission. Think about it. What you decide, and how you decide it and why you decide it, it matters to the people that are around you that need to know Jesus and can understand, oh there's a God who is guiding you in what you're doing. You're pressing this up to a God who cares and who guides. The world needs to see that because you wanna talk about being used by God, if you wanna be used by God, you and I need to be the kind of people that we embrace decision-making this way, because all of a sudden when we do, it's extraordinary how God puts us into the places that he wants us to be, to minister to the people that he's ordained for us to minister to. So it's important, but let me say this finally. And Paul's used to say finally like five times. But whatever, it's biblical, finally. This decision-making process that I'm talking about here, there's a prerequisite to it that you've made the most important decision ever. And that is to receive Jesus so that you can be filled with the spirit and be able to even have the capacity to make these kinds of decisions. Because the most important decision you'll ever make in your life, is surrendering yourself to Jesus knowing that as someone who has sinned and come short of the glory of God, like everyone else, you could never save yourself. But thank God Jesus came. He lived a sinless life. He died on a cross to satisfy the justice of God. He rose from the dead demonstrating that he was a satisfactory substitute. And that now by faith in him, we can be reconciled to God. This is the hope of the gospel held out to you, held out to you. And if you've never made that decision, I encourage you to do that this day. Let's bow our heads together. We're dismissed in just a moment. You've been so patient and kind, thank you for listening. In just a moment when we dismiss, if you need to embrace Jesus as Lord and savior, I would encourage you if you're in this room in here or in the East Worship Center, just come straight across the atrium into the fireside room. There's people waiting on you there who would love to take a few moments and talk to you about what it means to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ. Most important decision you will make in your life. It's consequential. It has eternal consequences. So I encourage you to do that. And if you're watching us online just go to thechapel.com/knowingJesus. We'd love to connect with you there about what it means to receive Christ. And father for all of us we know that to follow you means to actually listen to you, to pay attention to what you've shown us in your word and to respond in obedience. And you've helped us to see that even in the early church when they wrestled through hard and consequential decisions how they did that guided by your spirit. We wanna be in a place Lord where we discern what the Holy Spirit calls good and we just agree with you 'cause we don't wanna be a people who walks independently of that, who walks rebellious to that. We wanna be a people who model the life of Jesus, who always did what the father desired. So help us in all of our decisions to do that. help us as a church, to be a church that humbly and faithfully seeks your direction, Lord for what you want for your people. And that all of the parties associated that would walk with you, be filled with your spirit, listen to your voice. We trust you to do this among us now for your glory and for the good of people that we are endeavoring to reach in Jesus name. Amen.