What must a person do to be saved?
Do I Need to Keep the Old Testament Law to Be Saved?
- NO! Because keeping the Law can't Change you! (Acts 15:7-9)
- NO! Because the Law Never Could save anyone! (Acts 15:10-11)
- NO! Because the New Covenant is here now! (Acts 15:12)
- NO! Because God's Word says so! (Acts 15:13-18)
Hebrews 2:4 - While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Hebrews 8:13 - In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Acts chapter 15. Do you know what I always hated in high school?
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What I always hated in high school was when you walked into the classroom and the teacher was like, "Pop quiz! How many people hated the pop quiz?" So not fair! If you're going to test me, you need to tell me ahead of time so I can be ready. With that in mind, we're having a pop quiz today.
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Alright? One question, short answer, It's on your outline. We're not going to be collecting these.
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But here it is. You're going to write this down.
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What must a person do to be saved? Write down your answer.
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What must a person do to be saved?
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Go ahead. Write it down.
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Are you done?
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Okay. At the end of the day, the answer The answer to this question is the only thing that's going to matter.
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You understand that.
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At the end of the day, it's not going to matter how much money you made, or where you worked, or what kind of a car you drove.
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At the end of the day, the answer to this question is all that matters.
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What must a person do to be saved?
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And it's been a crazy week, hasn't it?
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How many people would say it's been a crazy week?
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It's been a crazy couple of weeks.
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Did the Cubs win a World Series?
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Did I hear that right?
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watched that game and I still have a hard time believing the Cubs won the World Series. And also did I hear this right that our president-elect is Donald Trump? Did I hear that right? It has been a crazy... I'm gonna tell you what's really crazy. That stuff is tame. I'm gonna tell you what's really crazy. Here's what's really crazy. The most important question in the world has the clearest answer.
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And it's written out in black and white in the most popular and available book in the world.
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But it is the most often confused and wrongly answered question.
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The question is what does a person have to do to be saved?
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How in the world do people get this wrong?
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God says, "I wrote it down for you." So many people get this wrong.
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And the first big church meeting tackled this question.
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Look at Acts 15.
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It says, "But some men came down from Judea..." Came down to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas and company were.
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"Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
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Wait, what?
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Circumcised? What's that all about?
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Well, that was the sign of the covenant for Israel in the Old Testament.
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If you're not sure what that's about, your parents can explain it to you.
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But they were basically saying you have to keep the Old Testament law if you want to get saved.
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And circumcision, understand, He's sort of the poster child for the rest of the Old Testament law.
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What must I do to be saved?
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These men came along and said, "You're not saved unless you're circumcised.
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Unless you do everything according to the law of Moses, you can't be saved." So Christianity obviously had these Jewish roots, despite the crazy claims that Christianity is anti-Semitic.
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was Jewish. That's where the apostles. But in the early church they had this issue what should a Gentile do joining the Jewish church? So the Jews would say well here's the deal if you want to be a Christian you got to be a Jew and if you want to be a Jew you got to keep the law and if you want to keep the law you got to be circumcised. You got to keep the law in "What must I do to be saved?" Or in other words, "How do I become a child of God?" Or some people might say, "Well, what does it take for me to go to heaven when I die?" And just like in Acts chapter 15, also today there are too many people pushing lies.
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Now maybe nobody told you that you have to get circumcised.
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but people often push their rules to be saved.
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Things like, "Well, if you want to be saved, you have to be a good Catholic, and you have to attend Mass.
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You have to abide by the teachings of our church.
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That's how you get saved." Some people say, and this is more in kind of the background of the church the affiliations that I came from, people say you must be baptized to be saved.
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You want to pray to receive Christ? Fantastic.
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But unless you're dunked, you're going to hell.
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I know people that teach that.
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You could want to receive Christ and say, "Okay, let's drive to get baptized and on the way you die in a car accident." I have friends that say you would go to hell because you weren't dunked.
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That the baptism is the thing that saves you.
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People say, "Well, you've got to baptize the baby.
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You've got to get a haircut.
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You're not allowed to have a beard.
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Ladies, you're not allowed to wear lipstick.
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You're not allowed to have tattoos.
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You're not allowed to dance.
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You don't play cards.
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You don't listen to secular music.
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You don't ever go to a movie rated R." Or just to sum it up, remember the old expression, "You don't drink, smoke, or chew, or run with the girls who do?" How many people heard that one?
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That is old school, right?
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What are these things?
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These are rules that people have made up.
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Like, you want to be a Christian?
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You want to get saved?
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These are the things that you have to do.
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And we find ourselves in the exact same position as the early church in Acts chapter 15.
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Verse 2.
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Listen, "After Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them," Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and to the elders about this question.
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This obviously could have caused some huge problems for the church, so Paul and Barnabas said, "We need to bring in the big guns here, okay?
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This is a serious issue." Verse 3, "So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers.
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When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.
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Well, brace yourself, because here comes the second wave of party poopers.
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Verse 5.
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It says, "But some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees..." Take a note of that.
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People were preaching legalism, but the Bible calls them believers.
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Don't you become legalistic in a backlash against legalism.
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That's what you call irony.
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It says, "But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, 'It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.'" So these believing Pharisees said, "Yeah, if you want to become a Christian, you do have to keep the Old Testament law, including the circumcision part." Verse 6, "The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter." Let's discuss this.
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I love the leadership on display here.
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They didn't react. They didn't get defensive.
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"You guys are stupid." or they didn't hide behind a Facebook meme.
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They said, "Hey, let's handle this.
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Let's meet together, let's talk about it, let's deal with it head on." You've got to appreciate that.
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Here comes the verdict.
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They get everyone together.
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And here comes a message from four preachers.
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Wouldn't you have liked to have been there for this?
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Peter speaks, Barnabas speaks, Paul speaks, and James - not James the Apostle, This is James, the half-brother of Jesus.
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The question is, do I have to keep the Old Testament law in order to be saved?
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And the answer?
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Do I have to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?
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Here's the answer.
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No.
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You are not.
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You say, "Well, hang on.
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You're going to have to explain that a little bit." We're going to see what the Bible says about that.
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Do I have to keep the Old Testament law to get saved? No.
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So, look at your outline.
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Here it is today.
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Do I need to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?
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We all want to bring in some element of, "What do I have to do?" It's just, it's human nature.
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It's human nature.
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We want to say, "I got to do something to get saved.
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I got to do some work.
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I have to contribute somehow in order to be saved.
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And well, the Old Testament law, I mean, this is like in the Bible, right?
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So I should at least have to obey the Ten Commandments in order to get saved, right?
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No. No.
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So do I need to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?
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Number one, drop this down. No.
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Because keeping the law can't change you.
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Because keeping the law can't change you.
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This is all going to come straight from the text.
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And I want you to have your Bibles and read this with me.
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This is stuff that some of you might not have heard this before, and some of you right now might be rebelling in your heart a little bit to say, "You're telling me I don't have to obey the Ten Commandments to get saved?" That's what I'm telling you.
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But I want you to see it from the text, okay?
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Don't take my word for it.
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Look at verse 7.
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It says, "And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, 'Brothers, Do you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by My mouth the Gentiles should hear the Word of the Gospel and believe in God who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us?
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Stop there for a second.
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Keeping the law can't change you.
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Notice first of all in verse 7, Peter says God made a choice.
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God made a choice.
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So when it comes to matters of salvation, you don't get a say in how that happens.
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Do you understand that?
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You don't get a say in it.
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How does somebody get saved?
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"Well, I think somebody gets saved this way, and I think somebody gets saved this way." Alright, well, I think we're alright.
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You don't get a say in it.
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Peter says this was something that God came up with.
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God made the choice.
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All you can do and all I can do is proclaim how God says salvation happens.
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And it's right here in verse 7.
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He says that by my mouth, look at this, "The Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe." Hear the word and believe. Have you done that?
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Let me just pause right here and ask you, have you done that?
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Do you know the gospel?
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The Gospel is that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, died for your sins.
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And He rose to give you eternal life.
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That whoever believes in Him, whoever receives Him, He gives the right to become children of God.
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You know the Gospel.
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The second question is, have you accepted the Gospel?
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Like, well, what's the difference?
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I'll tell you what the difference is.
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a lady who has been dating this guy for a while, and he gets down on one knee, he opens the box and says, "Will you marry me?" Now see, at that moment, she knows that he loves her, right? And she knows that he's wanting to enter into a relationship with her, right?
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But has that happened in that moment? No.
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In order for that to happen, she has to accept the proposal.
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She has to say yes.
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And it's the same in coming to Christ.
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You can know the truth of the gospel, but have you received it?
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Because the promise of God is that when you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, we just saw it here, the Spirit of God comes and resides.
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Did you see that in verse 8?
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By giving them the Holy Spirit.
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And that results in cleansing and in life change.
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Look at verse 9.
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It says, "And He made no distinction between us and them." We spend a lot of time talking about that.
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Jews hated Gentiles, Gentiles hated Jews, and God's like, "I love you all the same. Don't care." We could take a lesson there.
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Look at this last phrase, "Having cleansed their hearts by faith." You cannot deny life change.
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No matter what people think about the Bible, what people think about the church, what people think about Jesus, no matter what people heard on TV or read on Facebook about Christianity, when they see a life that is radically transformed, they cannot deny that.
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But the law can't change you.
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You see, the gospel is about transformation, not about keeping the rules.
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And you can't keep the rules enough that it will change you.
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Here's what happens if you're all about the rules.
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Two things happen.
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Either you're going to get prideful, to say, "Look at me, I keep the rules." That's pride.
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How does God feel about pride?
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Thumbs up, thumbs down.
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How does God feel about pride?
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Yeah, thumbs down, big thumbs down.
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You know, that's going to happen.
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Or, you're going to feel resentful because you can never measure up.
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I try to keep the rules, and I can't even keep the rules for myself that I want to impose on others.
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I can't keep the Ten Commandments, and we become resentful.
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We become despondent.
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I can't do it.
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It's not about the rules.
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It's about transformation.
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Rules can't transform you.
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The first thing that Peter points out, "Do I need to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?" Rather, "No, because the law can't change you." Secondly, "Do I need to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?" "No, because the law never could save anyone." Look at verse 10.
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"Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test?" placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.
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You're expecting the Gentiles to keep the law?
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You can't keep the law.
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Our fathers couldn't keep the law, but you expect the Gentiles to?
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And if the law didn't save the Jews, why in the world are we requiring it for the Gentiles?
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Right now you might be asking yourself, I can't wait a minute, Pastor Jeff.
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You're saying that nobody can keep the law.
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Is that correct?
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Well, why in the world would God give a law that he knows that we can't keep?
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That's a fair question.
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What was the purpose of the law?
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I want you to jot this down.
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This is the purpose of the law.
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That's a lot of things, but I just tried to narrow it down to just three things for our study today.
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The purpose of the law, first of all, was to keep the nation of Israel distinct from all the other nations.
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That was the first purpose. God says, "Israel, I want you to look different than the other nations.
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You're going to talk differently, you're going to act differently, you're going to grow your crops differently.
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You're going to be different. I want you to be different." He wanted Israel, Old Testament Israel, to be distinct.
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Something else about the law, secondly, the law revealed the heart of God.
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The law revealed the heart of God.
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Like, what do you mean by that?
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Let's just look at the Ten Commandments.
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We won't look at all of them.
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Let's just pick a couple.
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Why did God say, "Do not commit adultery"?
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Why did God say that?
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Because God is a God of keeping a faithful covenant to His people.
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And He wants His people to reflect that glory.
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To say, "I'm keeping my covenant with my wife.
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I made a covenant and I'm keeping it." And God says, "You keep that because that's how I am." God wants us to be content with the things that He's provided us.
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That's also why we don't covet. You see this?
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Why should we honor our parents? Because God is a God of authority.
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And He wants us to understand that there are authorities in place, ultimately Him, that we should love and we should respect.
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So, the Old Testament is a God of authority.
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The Old Testament law revealed the heart of God in so many ways.
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But something else the Old Testament law revealed...
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The Old Testament law, thirdly, it revealed sin.
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Israel distinct, it revealed the heart of God, but the Old Testament law revealed sin.
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This is a big thing.
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I'm not going to turn there.
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You can turn there.
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Romans 7, the Apostle Paul talks all about this.
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But the Old Testament law reveals sin.
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Well, what does that mean?
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I'll just illustrate it for you quickly.
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How the law reveals sin.
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You want to know how that happens?
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You're walking through the park on a sidewalk, and all of a sudden you see a sign that says, "Keep off the grass." What do you want to do in that moment?
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Let's be honest, we're in church.
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What do you want to do?
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You want to walk on the grass, don't you?
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You want to take your shoes off?
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You want to roll in the grass?
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All you can think about is getting on that grass, right? Why?
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You didn't even think about the stupid grass like five seconds ago, but as soon as you saw the sign, you're like, "I want to - man, I really want to walk on that grass." What did the sign do? Think about the sign.
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What the sign did was revealed the rebellion in your heart.
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That's what the sign did.
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And that's sort of a picture for what the Old Testament law did.
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That's why Paul says in Romans 7, "I wouldn't have even known what coveting was, but the law revealed it." The law was to show us that we are sinners that can't save ourselves.
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The law exposes the truth that we're sinners in need of grace.
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The law was never meant to save.
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There's not one person who was ever saved by keeping the law because no one can keep it.
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And I promise you, for those of you who have received Christ and are going to be in heaven someday, you can ask every single person in heaven that you meet.
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You're not going to find one person in heaven that's like, "Yeah, you know why I'm here?
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Because I kept the law." Like, "Oh, high five, man. Way to go.
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I thought that was hard." "Well, it was hard, but I kept the law perfectly." You're not going to find anybody with the exception of Jesus Christ.
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You're not going to find anybody that made it to heaven because they kept the rules.
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So what does it take?
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Look at verse 11.
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"But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will." That should be either underlined or highlighted in every Bible.
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And we will have people at the door checking on your way out to make sure.
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You can pick underlined or highlighted, underlined or highlighted.
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We believe that we shall be saved through the - what?
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Grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.
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I think that's an interesting way to put it.
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He doesn't say, yeah, they're going to be saved the way we are.
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He says we believe that we're going to be saved just as they are.
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How is that?
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How are they saved?
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Say it.
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Grace!
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Grace!
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Salvation is by grace.
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What is grace?
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Well, some people define grace as unmerited favor.
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Some people define grace as getting something you don't deserve.
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Those things are true.
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Here's my favorite definition of grace.
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Grace is God giving to you what He requires from you.
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What does God require from you?
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He requires that you're holy.
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He requires that you're perfect.
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He requires that you're righteous.
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Here's the problem - none of us have that.
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None of us. We don't have it.
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God says you've got to be perfect, and I'm like, I'm so far from perfect.
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God gives us perfection in Jesus Christ.
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2 Corinthians 5:21, "God took He who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God." God gives us His righteousness.
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God looks at us in Christ, He sees us as perfect as He is.
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God requires perfection, so He gives it to us.
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And that's what grace is.
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God gives to us what He requires from us.
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You can't muster that up on your own.
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It has to be a gift from God.
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That's grace.
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So if you're sitting here today hoping to be saved by good works, Hoping to be saved by keeping the rules.
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Hoping to be saved by obeying the Old Testament law.
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You are never going to get there.
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Your only hope of salvation is grace.
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It's the one exclusive and universal method.
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Be saved.
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Do I need to keep the Old Testament law to be saved?
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No, because the law can't change you.
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And no, because the law never could save anyone.
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And thirdly, no, because the new covenant is here now.
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Look at verse 12.
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It says, "And all the assembly fell silent." They're just like, oh, we just can't wait to hear what else is going to be said.
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I'm sure they were thinking about what was just said.
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Kind of like absorbing the moment kind of thing, right?
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the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
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Paul and Barnabas give testimony to the miracles that they've seen that we have studied.
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I'd like to remind you of the purpose of the miracles.
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Why did they mention that?
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They weren't like, "Hey, we did some really cool tricks." God did some just really crazy things through us.
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The purpose of the miracles was to confirm the New Covenant message.
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Hebrews chapter 2 verse 4, do we have that verse?
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It says, "While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to His will." God was bearing witness to the New Covenant through the miracles.
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That's why you don't see as many miracles today.
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Does God still do miracles? Absolutely He does.
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But they seemed a lot more normative in the book of Acts because God was confirming this radical, new covenant message of salvation solely through faith in Jesus Christ and the work that He accomplished through His death and His resurrection.
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Miracles weren't just random displays of power.
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They had a definite purpose.
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The purpose was the new covenant is here.
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That's why Paul and Barnabas, that's why they talked about the signs and wonders.
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God has put His stamp on this.
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God says the new covenant is here.
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And you, church, you live under the new covenant.
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Understand, you were never under the old covenant.
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You weren't. You never were.
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Because the Old Covenant was just for a season for the history of the nation of Israel.
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And the Bible says that the death of Jesus Christ ushered in the new covenants.
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So unless there's somebody here that's a lot younger than they look, and you're more than a couple thousand years old, you never lived under the Old Covenant.
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You never did.
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Hebrews 8.13 says, "In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete." What is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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So even if you could keep the law, and I think we already are pretty convinced that we can't, even if you could keep the law, it doesn't matter because keeping the law is not even a thing anymore.
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According to Hebrews 8.13, it's obsolete.
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obsolete mean? Obsolete means it's useless and out of date because something better has come along. It would be like going down to the Verizon store, saying I need a phone, but I want one like I had when I was a kid. You know, the tin cans and the wax string.
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Do you have any of those? But my grandma lives in another state, so I'm going to need some extra string. How many people would do that? They'd be like, "Why do you want tin cans and a wax string? We have these new things, they're like the size of a credit card, you can access like all of the information on the planet." Like, "No, I really like the tin cans and the wax string, I just really like, you know, a very ergonomic feel." Like, What, are you crazy?
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Tin cans and wax tray, that's obsolete, right?
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Or it would be like going to a jewelry store saying, yeah, I need a new timepiece.
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Like, what can you show me in a sundial?
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You know, can I get like a little sundial?
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And it's going to be really handy, because as long as the sun's out and I can stand just so, I can approximate that.
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Are you crazy?
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We have all these new watches that-- what are you talking about?
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A sundial.
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Is there somebody really that went down to the voting booth last Tuesday and was like, I'm voting for Abraham Lincoln?
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Like, that's not a thing anymore.
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Like, what are you doing?
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That's the point.
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The old covenant is obsolete.
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The old covenant is the sundial.
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The old covenant is the tin cans and the wax string.
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It's obsolete.
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We don't use it anymore because we live under the new covenant.
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And the new covenant is a whole new way of living.
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It is a completely whole new way of living.
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When Erin and I got back from our honeymoon, I remember we drove back from the airport.
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It was getting late.
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I threw the suitcase in the house and started to unpack my stuff.
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I said, "Let me throw some of this stuff in the drawer, and throw some of this stuff in the laundry." And I said, "It's getting late, I'm gonna take you home." She's like, "What do you mean?" I said, "It's getting late, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna take you home, just give me a second to get my stuff together here, I'll take you home, just give me a minute." And Erin goes, "What are you talking about?" And now I'm getting frustrated.
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I said, "Just let me get some of my stuff put away, I'm going to take you home.
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And Aaron said, I am home!
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I'm like, oh, because we got married, now you don't have to go.
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Got it.
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But see, the marriage ushered in a whole new mindset of living.
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We don't live like that anymore.
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Now we live under this whole new set of rules, so to speak.
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A whole new way of living.
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It's the same with the New Covenant.
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The time of the Old Testament, the time of the Old Covenant, the time of law-keeping - it's over.
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So do I have to keep the Old Testament to be saved?
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No.
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Because the law can't change you.
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Because the law never could save anyone.
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Because the New Covenant is here now.
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And finally, no, because God's Word says so.
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Like, dude, you should have led with that.
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The sermon would have been over like 20 minutes ago.
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I'm just going through the text, okay?
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So, verse 13, "And after they finished speaking, James replied, 'Brothers, listen to me.
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Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles.'" Who in the world is Simeon? That's Peter.
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Simon Peter.
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Like, why in the world did he call him Simeon?
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I don't know.
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We'll come up in heaven and ask him, I don't know.
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Simeon is related to how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name.
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And with this, the words of the prophet agree, just as it is written.
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And then he quotes, this is from the book of Amos in the Old Testament, chapter nine, verses 11 through 12.
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After this, I will return and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen.
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I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord.
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Here it is.
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"And all the Gentiles who are called by my name," says the Lord, "who makes these things known from of old." James gives the final word, quoting Amos.
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Now this passage is about the future kingdom, saying that Gentiles are going to be called and enter the kingdom.
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And James' whole point is this, in the past, in the present, and in the future, Gentiles are saved as Gentiles.
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Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say you gotta make a Gentile become a Jew, and then they get saved.
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Gentiles are just saved as Gentiles.
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So now let's go back to your answer for the pop quiz.
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What's your answer?
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What must a person do to be saved?
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Keep the 10 commandments?
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Go to church?
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Be a good person?
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At a funeral a couple of weeks ago, the one man got up to speak of the deceased, And he said, "As everyone knows, being a good person is how you get to heaven, so we know that this man is in heaven." A lot of people believe that.
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But these are all wrong answers according to God.
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The right answer is stated twice in this little passage that we read today, verse seven, the very end.
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You hear the word of the gospel and believe.
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Verse 11, "But we believe that we will be saved "through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." I got some good news for you that I never got in high school.
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You can go back and change your answer now if you didn't answer correctly the first time.
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The truth is, there's really only one answer according to God that goes in the blank.
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What must a person do to be saved?
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Receiving Jesus Christ.
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Believing in Jesus.
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Trusting in His grace.
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Trusting in His work.
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Not your own.
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Their worship team comes up, we're going to pray.
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You can pray for anyone for any reason, but specifically what I want us to focus on today is this salvation issue.
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Especially if there's somebody here today that says, "You know, for so long I thought that salvation was about what I did, or me trying to be a good person." It's a frustrating way to live, because you'll never be good enough, and you always make mistakes and you always fall short.
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The great news is, Jesus Christ, He lived the perfect life.
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And He gives us His very righteousness when we receive Him by faith.
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So would you bow your heads with me, please?
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Father in heaven, as we bow our heads, I pray that this is a moment of self-examination.
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We are people who by nature love rules, as if we can evaluate how good we are, as if we have some standard by which we can measure ourselves.
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The reality is we've all made horrible mistakes, we've all sinned, and even if we would vow to do our very best from here on out.
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We have a criminal record against you.
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A thousand miles long.
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But Father, we need grace.
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We can't adhere to some law - even a law as good and moral and righteous as You've given us in Your Word.
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The wanting could be there, but the doing could not.
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Father, we thank You for Your grace.
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In the lives that we live now, our lives of gratitude for You doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
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Father, we acknowledge these truths from Your Word, that we need life change, not rules.
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We acknowledge the truth that the law never saved anyone.
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We acknowledge the truth, Father, that we are people that live under the new covenant.
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We don't live under the old covenant.
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It's gone forever.
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It's been eternally replaced.
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Father, we are a people who believe Your Word.
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Increase our faith by increasing knowledge of you through your word.
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Father, if there's any person here right now who has misunderstood something that your word teaches, let today be the day of new things.
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Let today be the day of understanding.
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Let today be the day of repentance.
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Let today be the day of salvation.
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We praise you, Father.
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In the glorious name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 15:1-18
Why did the men from Judea tell the church "you must be circumcised to be saved"? What rules do people try to push today?
What is the purpose of the Old Testament Law?
Are we required to keep the Old Testament Law (like the 10 Commandments) in order to be saved? Why or why not?
What do you have to do in order to be saved, according to verses Acts 15:7, 11?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for someone you know who needs the Lord. What are you doing to be a witness?