For the Sake of the Gospel (Part 1 of 2)

When the Apostle Paul returned to Jerusalem following a missionary journey, he shared an encouraging report of all that God had done.

What he didn't realize was that in his absence, rumors about his teaching had emerged. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explores the report and the rumors and considers how a simple misunderstanding left unchecked can wreak havoc in a church. Father, we thank you so much for the privilege of being able to sing these songs of praise to you, the living God. And we recognize that what you have to say to us is far more significant than what we actually have to say to you. But we're glad that you bid us come and worship and praise you. And we're glad, too, that you have chosen to speak to us in the Bible. And our confidence now is in this, that you will conduct a divine dialogue between your spirit and our lives, so that beyond the voice of a mere man, we might encounter you, the living God, in the pages of the Bible. To this end, we turn our gaze to you and ask for your help.

In Jesus' name, amen. During the week, I had a couple of letters from friends in pastoral ministry in different parts of the country, and two letters in particular from different places, different people in very different circumstances, one from a fairly large and significant church on the East Coast and another from a relatively small gathering of people. But in both of the letters, both of my friends mentioned the daunting challenge of teaching the Bible. And in one of the letters from the larger of the two churches, the person said, you know, the prevailing tide in the country is so strong that I find myself almost tempted—and this is after some twenty years in pastoral ministry—almost tempted to throw in the towel in terms of biblical exposition and just go down the road that everybody seems to want. Well, I had a number of reactions to that. One was to say to myself, I understand exactly how you feel, because I'd been looking at this particular passage of the Bible, and while we know that all of the Bible is equally inspired, we also know that every part of the Bible is not equally inspiring. And so this fellow said, you know, I'm thinking of chucking this and just going for some humor, a few anecdotes, and some information out of Time magazine, and it seemed to be such a splendid idea in passing.

But I quickly took myself in hand and also wrote him a note saying, Oh no, whatever you do, don't do that. Let's make sure that we don't give up working through the Bible systematically and consecutively, believing that God will surprise us and instruct us and change us by his Word. Because if you think about it—and I know that you do think about it—what could be more surprising, what could be more daunting, what could be more unusual than for a group of interesting people in the twenty-first century in suburban Cleveland to come together on a beautiful morning like this and take their Bibles and open them and read the story of how Paul paid for the haircut of four men whose names we don't even know?

And any thoughtful person is going to say, What possible relevance does that have concerning the cost of gas or concerning raising your teenage children or concerning anything at all that has to do with anything in my life? Well, of course, I understand that, because that's the question that I'm asking when I study the passage. And only then, the loss of common sense or a deep conviction that God chooses to surprise, to instruct, to teach, and to change through the very words of Scripture would find us doing what we're now about to do.

Otherwise, there is no real explanation for it at all. Well, with that by way of background, let's turn to what is not necessarily one of the most obviously helpful passages of the Bible—asking God to do all those things, inspire and instruct and intrigue and surprise and so on. In order to try and help our way… help us through it, I've broken it down into three sections. I know there are children with us this morning. I've met many of you throughout the course of the morning, and I know that you're here for a variety of reasons, and I'm glad that you're here, and I hope that you will at least learn something from the time that we're now spending. I know that your moms and your dads are supposed to listen very carefully. Sometimes I think you listen a little bit better than them. And if you see me in the hallway or outside, you can always come and tell me I learned one thing. And it may only be that you learned that Paul paid for the haircuts of four men, but at least that would prove that you were listening for the first five minutes or so.

I'm glad that you're here. The first section we're going to look at, under the heading The Report and the Response. The Report and the Response. We're told here of this report in verses 18 and 19. Luke tells us that having been warmly received by the believing community in Jerusalem, Paul and the rest of the group, Luke included, went the following day to see James, and on that occasion all the elders were present. One of the things that's important in studying the Bible is not to overlook the obvious.

And we should pay attention to the fact that Luke makes it clear that this gathering was not initially a gathering of the complete church community. And presumably, there was some wisdom in the way in which they went about things. There is something of a pattern of this in the Acts of the Apostles itself—the apostles getting together with the leadership in communities, especially where the matters under discussion may prove to be the basis of misunderstanding, of confusion, and perhaps even conflict, in the same way that parents might, when the children had gone to bed, discuss an issue that relates to the family so that they might have clarity in their own minds before they share it with the rest of the family.

So church leadership may convene on occasions to address issues that need to be addressed, but not first to address them in a public forum so that they might have clarity with which to go forward. And the wisdom would seem to be borne out as a result of what ensues. The possibility for confusion and for misunderstanding here bears testimony to the wisdom of what they did. Now, in terms of this report, let's just notice two things.

First of all, that it was a detailed report. Luke tells us that in verse 19, Paul greeted them, and he reported in detail. So we know that he didn't just give them generalities. He didn't simply say, We went a number of places, and we preached a number of sermons, and we met a number of people. No, he was actually giving to them dates and times and places and people, so that they might understand in a very express way the work of God in the lives of different ones. And you can only but imagine that there would be certain highlights that he mentioned—perhaps the conversion of Crispus, the story of the transformation of the synagogue ruler and his family. Perhaps he even, in a self-deprecating way, told the story of Eutychus, the fellow who fell asleep while Paul was preaching and came crashing down to his death and had to be resurrected. And a number of his friends there in Jerusalem said, The thing that surprises us, Paul, is not that that happened once but that it doesn't happen more often, given the length of some of your sermons.

And they would have been able to laugh about that and marvel still that the grace of God that he uses all kinds of different people. The report, then, was a detailed report. Secondly, you will notice from the text that it was a God-centered report. He reported in detail what God had done. He didn't begin by telling them what he had done, which, of course, is far more customary, especially in our present generation—to exalt ourselves, to talk about ourselves, to explain where we've been, what we've been doing, and so on.

We can disguise that kind of pride in all kinds of ways, but God knows our hearts, and it is something to be resisted at every point. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that Paul operated in this way. Remember, he told the Corinthians, when he wrote to them, that neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow. So he doesn't come with a glowing report about himself. He comes solely deo gloria. He comes in order that they might recognize that while Paul was not irrelevant, he had an opportunity, he had a privilege, nevertheless, the story was of what God had done.

We need to learn that, don't we? That God won't share his glory with anybody, no individual, no little group, no organization, and no church family. He has exalted above all things his name and his Word, and any attempt on any of our parts, mine or anyone else's, to put ourselves or our own names or our own egos in a place that is God's alone will only lead us into by-path meadow at best and into dreadful chaos and declension at worst. Well, the report was detailed and God-centered, and the response was equally godly. You will notice there in verse 20, and when they heard this, they praised God. Oh, you say, you're doing a remarkable job here of stating the obvious, aren't you? Yes, but I say again to you that it is possible for us to miss the obvious.

We read phrases like this and miss it completely. You say, well, isn't that the right thing for them to do? Isn't it just understandable that having heard the story of what God had been doing, that they would praise God? Well, it's the right thing, but it is not often the customary thing, is it? You think about how easy it is for individuals in hearing of what God has done in another place or through another person to respond not with humility and with joy, but to respond with pride and with a grudging kind of reaction.

If you take it out of the realm of the preaching of the Bible or of the world of evangelism, take it simply into your own life. Take it into your career, whatever you do, in whatever sphere of service in which you find yourself involved. And ask yourself the question, do you always rejoice when those who are your colleagues and your peers do better than you? Do you rejoice when they hit the ball further than you? Do you rejoice when they are apparently more successful than you? And the answer is that it is not natural to respond with approbation and with the praising of God for the evidences of his grace in the life of another.

It is actually a supernatural characteristic. And here in this little scenario, we discover that God-centered preaching led to a God-centered report, which in turn was responded to by God-centered praise. Now James, having responded in this way, then introduces to Paul, reminds Paul that as grateful and as happy as he is for the work that has been going on amongst the Gentiles, there is also this work that is going on amongst Jewish believers.

And there in verse 20, in the second half, he said, You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. Now, that little phrase there gives us a hint of what is to follow. And so we move from the report and its response to what we're referring to as the tension and the solution to the tension. That is, tension, t-e-n-s-i-o-n. Now, I want you to notice this.

See if you can follow along as I point this out to you. There is a rumbling, there is an underlying tension, which is introduced here by the report that James gives. This is as a result of thousands of Jews who have believed, who are at the same time zealous for the law of Moses, and who are simultaneously misinformed about Paul's teaching.

These three factors combine to create this underlying tension. There are thousands who have believed, they are zealous for the law of God, and, as James goes on to explain, they are saying things, Paul, about your ministry that are causing them to regard you with great suspicion. Now, of course, Paul had made it very, very clear on a number of occasions that he had turned his back on the law as a means of obtaining a right relationship with God. His whole life before he met Jesus had been directly related to the keeping of the law of God. He was zealous in this respect. Therefore, he understood the zeal of others.

He regarded the fastidious nature of his religious observation as being crucial to acceptance with God. And then one day, in an encounter with Jesus, everything was turned upside down for him, and he was brought into a relationship with God which he had never known as a result of his religious adherence. If I give you one cross-reference, perhaps you'll turn to it in Philippians and in chapter 3, and this will state it for us as clearly as anything. In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 7, Paul, having explained that he had been a member of the people of Israel from the tribe of Benjamin, he goes through his background.

It's absolutely a sterling background. He is a blue blood in relationship to religion, as it were. And then he says in verse 7, "...but whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him"—now, notice—"not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." And this, you see, had so transformed Saul of Tarsus, he was now Paul the apostle. Some of you who are here this morning will probably still be in, as it were, chapter 1 of Paul's life.

You may even actually come routinely to Parkside Church as a mechanism to put yourself believing in a right relationship with God, because you have the notion that he is somehow or another pleased by your religious adherences, or that somehow or another he gives credits for doing these religious things, especially if they're hard to do, if they're arduous, if they're demanding, like sitting in here on a beautiful Sunday morning. And it is our hope and prayer that as the Bible is taught, that you will come to the kind of relationship with Jesus that Paul is describing in Philippians 3. But Paul's commitment to abandoning the law in terms of a right relationship with God was not actually matched by his desire to overturn the customs and traditions of the mosaic, Judaic background of those who were his listeners.

But that was what people were saying. And many of these individuals had the gospel firmly entrenched within the context of cultural, traditional Jewish expressions. Now, in one sense, that is perfectly understandable, because that was their background. So they placed the gospel within the framework of the mosaic law and the traditions that attached to it. And they were suspect of anyone who didn't. Paul was teaching Gentile Christians that they were not obligated to obey any of these mosaic ceremonial aspects of Judaism, which is perfectly understandable. But he was not teaching Jewish believers that it was necessary for them to turn their back on all these different things. Remember, the issue is not the gospel here. And as a result of that, those who chose to misunderstand him became the spreaders of rumors. And so people were going around saying to one another, you know, you want to be very careful about Paul, because he is teaching everybody that they don't need to circumcise their children, that they don't need to keep kosher, that they shouldn't do this, and that they shouldn't observe these holy days. Well, in actual fact, that wasn't what was happening. What he was saying in that respect, he was saying to Gentile believers, but he wasn't moving amongst his Jewish brethren and sowing those seeds.

However, whether it was what he was saying or what he wasn't saying, the public perception was that that was what he was saying. And so they had a problem. And James raises it, and he says in verse 22, we need to come up with a plan of action in order to address this.

What shall we do? Now, let me say to you again, the issue of James' concern is, number one, not about salvation, because both James and Paul were agreed that salvation was as a result of the work of Christ and not as a result of keeping of the law. It was not about salvation, but it was about what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus. And thirdly, it wasn't an issue about the moral law.

It was an issue about Jewish traditional customs. Again, you see, because both James and Paul understood that the people of God, when they have come to God through Jesus, must live a holy life. Remember, he writes to Titus, and he says, teaching them to say no to ungodliness and to say yes to righteousness.

And how does a person progress in the saying of no and in the saying of yes? Well, by means of the law which God has provided—a law which he now writes on our hearts so that we obey his law, not because we believe that we will be accepted by God on account of it, but in order that we might understand how we should live in relationship to him. But we don't use the Ten Commandments as a ladder that we're trying to climb up to finally reach God and receive his well done. All of our best righteousnesses, says the prophet, are like filthy rags. You take all of our best days and all of our best deeds and all of our greatest religious aspirations, they're just like junk. And if we come to God on the basis of how well we're doing or how well we've done, we will be sorely disappointed. But when we come to God and say, I have done poorly.

I've made a hash of things. I am a royal mess. There is no way I can come into your presence. Would you forgive me and would you be gracious to me? And he says, I will.

Not only will I clean you up, but I'll put you in a positive situation. Here is a wonderful royal robe that you don't deserve. And Paul had been clothed with that royal robe, and he was concerned that others would understand that. But the rumor mill was flowing.

James and the rest are able to distinguish themselves from these rumors. And in fact, they wanted to be clear—verse 25, and I might just jump forward there for a moment—they wanted to be clear that they want to abide by the decisions that had been made at a previous gathering, recorded for as in Acts 15, referred to as the Council of Jerusalem, when, in a quest for unity within the body, the Gentile believers were asked, so as not to put a stumbling block in front of their Jewish believing friends, to abstain from food that was sacrificed to idols, from blood and from the meat of strangled animals, and at the same time from sexual immorality. These Gentile believers came to their newfound faith, bringing all their previous junk with them.

And if they continued in that junk, not only were they in the wrong, but they were going to cause great discord amongst those who were fastidious about these issues. And you remember when Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says to them, I can't even believe that at your communion services you're up to the nonsense you're up to. This is not part of the Christian life, he says. You want to be a disciple of Jesus?

You have to kiss that goodbye. You can't have Jesus in this. And for the well-being of the unity of the body, they had committed to these things. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear more about the Apostle Paul's return to Jerusalem tomorrow. Like the Apostle Paul, one of the things we're committed to at Truth for Life is encouraging pastors and their congregations. It's our mission to teach the Bible in a clear and relevant way, and we trust that God's Spirit works through God-centered teaching to reach unbelievers and to produce God-centered praise. And our prayer is that as a result, local churches will be strengthened and there will be more committed gospel proclamation in both word and deed. That's why Alistair holds a conference every year at Parkside Church specifically for pastors and leaders in ministry. It's called the Basics Conference, and that conference is in full swing today at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio. More than a thousand men have come together to hear from God's Word and to enjoy a time of encouragement and fellowship. Those in attendance represent churches from all over the world. Since a life committed to ministry comes with many responsibilities and challenges, we ask that you join us in praying for these pastors. Pray that God would use this time to refresh them and send them back to their home churches with a greater joy and zeal for advancing the gospel. The conference is being streamed live, and you can feel free to watch or to pass along the link to your pastor if he is unable to attend.

You'll find the live stream at basicsconference.org. Thanks for studying God's Word with us today. Tomorrow we'll look at the conference that arose in Jerusalem when Paul returned from a missionary journey. We'll see the solution James suggested for resolving the conflict and the Apostle Paul's supernatural response. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.