Radical Cleansing Acts 15:8,9
Pastor Bob Hunter
(Others sermons on Acts available at www.sermoncentral.com) Today I want to bring to a conclusion our summer series on Acts. Last summer we journeyed through the book of Acts from Chs. 1-8. This summer we covered Chs. 8-16, I gave you chapter 16 a little early, so today we find ourselves again in Ch. 15 looking at a theme that is dominant in scripture. Today I want to talk to you about cleansing.
OPENING EXAMPLE: Now, before we dive into this subject matter tis morning. How many of you have watched a hospital show recently like Chicago Hope, a rerun of ER or there for a while there was one called Scrubs, that one was a little bit over the top…I think it got cancelled. Those kinds of things don’t really happen in the hospital. I know that. I’ve spent a lot time in Hospitals, Cambria used to work for one, and for a while I sold products to all the major hospitals in the state. I’ve seen a lot.
One of things that has always intrigued me about a hospital is the whole surgical scrubbing process. Have you ever seen that? I have, and not just on T.V. I was an observer in the operating room once and watch the surgeon come in and spend at least 15 minutes scrubbing in to make sure there was no contamination. All the water has roll down your arm not up & you can’t touch a door handle. It’s a tedious process. And then what I never understood about that, is after you spend 15 minutes washing your hands, the surgeon puts on a pair of sterile gloves to cover up everything you just washed, so it’s like what’s the point?
Nevertheless, the whole scrubbing process is absolutely key to prevent infections and the spread of diseases. The environment behind the red line as it’s called has to pure and uncontaminated. So to perform surgery a well scrubed surgeon is very important.
It’s a tedious task, but you have to do it. It’s like brushing your teeth to prevent cavities. The Dental association recommends tooth brushing for at least two minutes, how many of you brush your teeth for two whole minutes? I can’t stand to have tooth paste in my mouth for that long. I’m spit it out after 30 seconds or so. Two minutes of crest toothpaste in my mouth activates my gag reflex. It gets all warm and gooberish…I can’t stand it.
Did you know that washing your hands is recommended for a one full minute to prevent the spread of colds & contagious illnesses? When was the last time you did that? Been a while hon? When we get together here on Sunday we shake hands and pat each other on the back ya know, I figure by the end of the Day, I’ve passed something to somebody, I don’t know who? So if you find yourself sick on Monday, go ahead blame the Pastor.
A friend of mine used to say, after each Church service you go to the bathroom and wash off the fellowship…I hope it hasn’t come to that.
No surprise what I want to talk to you about today is soul scrubbing. Soul scrubbing, when was the last time you had your heart cleansed and scrubbed by God?
Just like tooth brushing, and hand washing, we probably don’t spend enough time getting our soul scrubbed.
You don’t have to read very far in the Bible to find out that God is very concerned about the purity and Holiness of his people. In fact, early in the book of Genesis, God begins to set forth ways in which his people can approach him and appropriately be cleansed. And then, in the book Exodus & Leviticus, God reveals his plan for the Holiness of His people, he says "…be holy and I am holy." (Lev. 11:44,45) Wow that’s a pretty tall order isn’t it. Because God is a pretty Holy God. How in the world can we be like Him. That’s huge.
So today we find ourselves in Acts Ch. 15 dealing with this issue. The issue of cleansing and heart purification. Let me tell you, how it all came about. Remember last week, I told you about the first Church convention held in Jerusalem with all the Big Cahoona’s, we’d better call them the elders or the Apostles. Anyway, they met there to discuss the inclusion of unholy people in the Church. Gentile people. Non-jewish people who were considered unclean by Jewish standards. Paul & Barnabas made a compelling argument to the Church elders for the right to preach the Gospel to gentile people from both near and afar. To better make their case, they testified to the events they saw and witnessed among the Gentile people when the Gospel was preached. They saw, people who were sinners cleansed by God and set free from dominion and power of sin. It was an amazing sight to them, a real eye opener, so they brought that testimony to the council and laid it out on the table. And they said,
TEXT:"God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith." Acts 15:8,9
And with those words, Paul and Barnabas persuasively convinced the Church elders to include the Gentiles into full fellowship in the Church of Jesus Christ. None could deny it, the evidence was right before their very eyes. God cleansed the gentile people and made their hearts pure. He washed em up, and made them holy. And therefore, there was no reason why they shouldn’t be included in the Church. So they all agreed on the council, and issued a statement to the world announcing an open door policy to all who would believe in Jesus Christ and accept him by faith. To everyone, they extended acceptance on the basis of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a simple statement: If your accepted and cleansed by God, then your accepted by us. So come on in. And that’s been our policy ever since in the Church of Jesus. We are a Church for all nations, for all peoples of all times.
We preach forgiveness, holiness and cleansing in Jesus Christ. It’s a transcultural message, in other words it can penetrate and permeate any given culture, anywhere in the world. It’s breaking news all the time: "God can cleanse," "God can cleanse." I wish there were a thousand people present to hear me say it: God can cleanse! The cleansing of God addresses a basic human need, one shared by everybody. Human existance has been marked by a need to be something more than we are, and to be rid of the things that spiritually pollute and contaminate us. You see, cleansing rituals have existed from the beginning of time. Every major religion has a purification process or a cleansing ritual. Or at least, there is recommended lifestyle that includes desirable behavior. Some say it is attainable here on earth, while other religions believe that you are filthy until the time of death when you are finally cleansed in afterlife existence. We could go through all that, but it would bore you to tears. To me, it merely reveals the need human beings have to rid of certain things and please God. The need to cleansed and forgiven is germane to human existence. In a sense it’s common to everyone, everywhere.
Now, As Christians we believe that cleansing is made available in Jesus Christ. We have a leg up on all other religions. We avoid setting forth legalistic rituals, rigorous dress codes, or disciplines designed to make us look and act Holy when in fact they do not. We believe in the holiness of the heart. We believe in what God did among the unclean gentile population. He cleansed their hearts. You don’t have to adorn yourself in priestly robes, burn incense at the altar, or perform ceremonial rituals to be cleansed. God has a much better plan than that. You don’t have bath your body in repeatedly in the natural hot springs, as some prefer.. to be pure. No, the cleansing we have in God comes through Jesus Christ. It’s a different kind of cleansing. It’s the kind of cleansing that takes place from the inside-out. It’s deep inward one if you will; a true soul scrub. Unlike the ritualistic cleansing of other religions that merely address outward and not the inward.
The God of Bible operates far differently. He knows the futility our attempts are to practice personal holiness in our own rite. To him our righteousness is but filthy rags. What we can do to make ourselves holy is laughable to God. Sanctimonious self cleansing is a joke. It pales in comparison to what God can do to make us holy. God’s standards for holiness are much higher than ours. So, therefore, He sent Jesus to make good on his promise to cleanse us and make us holy people.
Titus 3:5,6 summarize my point…
"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."
Because I’m just speaking words tis morning I fear you will forget everything I say. So I want to take a few moments to demonstrate this idea of cleansing and being made holy.
Object Lesson: (Use the whiteboard to demonstrate the removal and cleansing of a permanent marker)
1. Have a volunteer come forward and write SIN on the whiteboard with permanent marker. Have them verify that it is permanent marker.
2. Have another volunteer come forward and try to erase the word. Point out the permanent affects of sin. Noting that sin leaves a permanent stain in our heart.
3. Call forward another volunteer, have them take a dry erase marker in the color red and scribble over the word SIN. Rub the marker in generously. Explain the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from sin and purifies our heart.
4. Erase the board with an eraser. The permanent marker should wipe clean, leaving the word SIN unreadable. Explain, God’s cleansing power to do this in our own lives.
(Adapted from Bore No More Copyright @ Group Publishing)
You see, God’s got a full proof to make us pure. He doesn’t want to rub your sins in, He wants to rub them out! Jesus shed His blood to cleanse us from the deep dark stain of sin. If God can scrub the soul of a filthy gentile living in the first century, then He can do it for you. If they’re worthy of it, then so are we. Cleansing can be received by all. God doesn’t will that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The way to cleansing is through this thing we call repentance. Repentance means you take a U-turn on the road of life. You change directions. When I leave the Church in my car, sometimes I go down Hwy #26 toward Sandy, but then when I get to first turn off, I do a 180 degree turn and head back to Gresham. That’s what you have to do to eligible for God’s soul cleansing power. You have to change your mind and make a U-turn on the road of life. Repentance means you turn away from sin, and turn to God. It’s the open door to God’s cleansing power being released in your life.
There is so much talk of forgiveness in the Church. Forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel message. But there is more. God not only offers forgiveness, He offers cleansing. Not only can we be forgiven of our sins, but we can also be cleansed from the sinful nature that produces sin in our lives. Forgiveness + Cleansing = Sanctification.
The old nature of sin can be dealt with. The sinful condition that once characterized our life and produced sin can be addressed by the cleansing power of Jesus Blood and the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that God offers more than just forgiveness. He offers a deep inward cleansing from sin. We are eligible for it when we maintain a sorrowful and repentant attitude toward sin.
Maybe tis morning you’ve already been forgiven, you’ve accepted Jesus Christ and said "Yes" to Him, but you feel a bit polluted and uncertain about where you stand with God on this cleansing issue. I believe that God has given us some clues to follow or some indicators that help get our attention and prompt us to seek the cleansing power of Jesus Christ. What are they?
Clues that we need cleansing:
1. Our Conscience. When our conscience is speaking to us, we need to listen. The apostle Paul spoke often, about having a clear conscience in his letters. God has wired us up with a built in system of check’s and balances to keep us on the right track spiritually. You know how the conscience works don’t ya? Let me explain…
ILLUST: I was in G.I. Joes shopping for car parts recently. I bought several quarts of Oil to do some maintenance on our vehicles. The cashier charged me for 8 quarts, when I took them out the cart and place them in Van. I noticed that she miscounted, I actually had 9 quarts. I’m thinking to myself, it was her mistake, you cruise you loose. But my conscience says, take it back, return it, or go pay for it. And that’s what I did. I went back in and paid for it. A lot of people wouldn’t. Because their conscience is broke, they let it get broke. God doesn’t want your conscience to break down because he can use it to keep you holy. Let me invite you into this: Let’s suppose I didn’t return it. Also imagine you are in the same line, checking out right behind me. You watch this whole episode unfold and witness me loading up a freebee in my Van. After knowingly doing it, I joke about making off with an extra quart. Aren’t you disappointed? Suddenly your conscience is trumping in on mine! How can the Pastor do that and have any integrity? Certainly his conscience is broke?
What is your conscience saying to you tis morning? Is there a filth and grim accumulation that your conscience is letting you know about? Is there something you need to repent of? The Holy Spirit uses our conscience to speak to us about sin. We need to let it happen, and allow our conscience to guide us.
2. Corporate Christianity. There is a collective conscience the Church has that we need to pay attention to. That’s why the Bible teaches that we need to respect our elders. There are some things that God wants the members of his body to avoid. You see it right here in Acts 15, the Church council said, in effect, in order stay pure, avoid the following things: they gave a laundry list. Vs. 29. "You are 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."
This may sound a little bit old fashioned to some. Oh, there you go preaching against sin. But I want to tell you folks, there is some wisdom in this. When it comes right down to it, there are some things that you & I need to avoid. That if we don’t avoid them, they will polute our soul and cause us to wonder off into the desert somewhere on some spiritually wayward path.
When the Church of Jesus Christ says, "Watch out for this, avoid certain social evils, or stay away from these cultural trends." It’s not altogether a bad idea, to look around and guard your heart. I’m not a legalist, I’m pragmatist. And sometimes the corporate conscience of the Church is right, bulls eye, and we need to pay attention to it. Because God uses the Church to speak to us concerning our holiness. Other people can help us watch out & better guard our heart from the pollution of sin.
Let me get real specific here. There used to be rules in the Church not so long ago. We’ve gotten completely away from that, because everybody cried fowl and insisted that it was legalistic. Now we have virtually nothing it seems, what few rules we have are a joke. I fear we have made a mockery out of the collective conscience of the Church. There are still some things we need to avoid. I’m not talking about legalism, I’m talking about pragmatism. Some people are ignorant. Clearly the gentiles were, they didn’t know that food sacrificed to idols could defile, pollute and offend the weaker conscience. They needed an overwhelming measure of discernment from the Church body at large to explain this to them. And so it is for us. We live in a culture of moral decay. Who will bring forth a clarion call to this generation and say, "Be Holy?" The conscience of the body of Christ at large can drop significant clues to us as to how we live in this culture of moral decay. Let it happen…
3. Communion. Communion is not only a time of remembrance and reflection, but it’s a time introspection and self-examination. It’s a time of looking deep within our hearts and saying, "Lord, search me, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts, See if there be any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Ps. 103.
Communion is a time a reckoning and reconciliation with God and with others. When you look at the symbols of Jesus broken body and shed blood, it’s a sobering reminder of how serious this matter is. Jesus said to the disciples, my death and suffering is so important that I want you to come to table very often and do this in remembrance of me. So we’re here today to not only look deep within ourselves, but to look beyond ourselves and see the loving arms of the savior dying to save us. So what I want to before we come to this table is give you an opportunity to reconcile your heart with God & seek the deep soul cleansing that you desire. Will you join me in doing that with your head bowed. (Have people bow heads)
INVITATION: The open door to God’s cleansing is through repentance and confession. We have to do our part. And without any doubt, God will do His. He does the washing, he performs the cleansing. The key pronoun in Acts 15:8,9 is God. It was God who purified the Gentiles, not them, they merely reached out in faith, and God did it. So Without any prompting or pressure at all tis morning, I want you to take a moment or two in silence to speak to the Lord concerning the matters of your heart. I’m not going to confess for ya, or tell you what to do. It’s between you and God. Remember, what we have with God is not about a bunch of rules, it’s about a relationship. And maybe tis morning you just need a few minutes to talk to God about what’s going on in your heart.
I want to invite to have your soul scrubed, your conscience cleansed, and your heart purified.
(Moment of silence)
Claim the promise from 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and Just to forgive us of all unrighteousness."
(Offer communion)
