Saved by Grace: Unity and Barriers in Acts 15

We need to be careful that we are not creating burdens for others to bear. We may find a certain set of practices helpful for our spiritual growth, and we may think that others might find them helpful as well. But to place those things as requirements on others is to add something to the gospel. You need Jesus and this. And anytime that we say you need Jesus and this, what we are saying is that Jesus is not enough. [00:41:14] (32 seconds)  #JesusIsEnough

See, we are saved completely and fully and finally by God's grace through faith in Jesus. And the confirmation that God gives us of that is not a physical modification to our bodies. It is not the rules that we follow, but the confirmation that God gives us is the gift of the spirit. His life giving spirit dwelling within us, creating in us the fruit of the spirit. [00:29:43] (30 seconds)  #GiftOfTheSpirit

That is the confirmation that we have been saved by God's grace. That spirit dwelling within us as we learn to walk in step with it will create in us the righteousness that the law was powerless to do. The law could not create that righteousness. It takes the spirit of God dwelling within us. You can have all the laws in the world, but they are powerless to create God's righteousness in us. [00:30:22] (33 seconds)  #RighteousnessBySpirit

but we cannot worship what it is that the world worships. We cannot love what it is that the world loves, and we're not so concerned now with food or with drink. We're not offering food and drink up to idols, but we're offering our attention, our schedules, our money. These are the things that we're offering up to these idols that the world tells us to worship, and we cannot worship what it is that the world worships and worship Jesus at the same time. [00:31:54] (43 seconds)  #DontWorshipTheWorld

But I would tell you to turn away from all the sin, all the false gods that the world has told you to worship, and come to Jesus and be washed clean. Come to him and be set free. Come and be healed and made whole because he alone has the power to do that for you. He alone can make you new. [00:46:06] (26 seconds)  #JesusMakesYouNew

But the general theme is this, there isn't anything that you can eat or drink or do that is going to make you, as a believer in Jesus, unclean before God. You have been cleansed fully and finally by the blood of Christ. However, your actions can make it easier or more difficult for the people that you are trying to help follow Jesus. Your actions have an impact on the people around you, and so don't do anything that is going to create a stumbling block for those whose faith is not as clear or not as strong as yours is. [00:25:19] (47 seconds)  #AvoidStumblingBlocks

Through our faith in Jesus, by placing our full faith and hope in him in every aspect of our lives, we receive the gift of eternal life. We do not receive salvation. We do not receive this grace because of anything that we have done or anything that we could do, but entirely and completely as an unearned, unmerited gift from God. [00:45:02] (31 seconds)  #SavedByGraceOnly

And this distortion is what permits casual sex, what endorses pornography, what focuses on our eyes on what it is that we can get out of a relationship rather than what it is that we can show through it. And for us to view sexuality in this way is to distort and to debase the image of God in yourself and others. It profanes the body, which is the temple of the holy spirit, and it uses what God intended to speak a beautiful truth to instead speak a distorted twisted lie. [00:35:21] (36 seconds)  #HonorBodiesAsTemples