Message Notes

ForTheOne
Church is NOT for Insiders
04.13.2025

Most churches are [pretty much] designed for ‘church people.

“For God so loved the world that he gave….” John 3:16

…some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised as required by the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.’
Acts 15:1 (ESV)

And 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 the elders about this question.
Acts 15:2 (ESV)

Who is the church for?

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.
Acts 15:4 (ESV)

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.”
Acts 15:5

“Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles (that’s the non-Jewish people) should hear the word of the gospel and believe. Acts 15:7

And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

Now then, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

It is my judgment.

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Acts 15:19.

Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. Acts 15:20

“We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” Acts 15:19

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