The Fine Print of Faith

Is following Jesus really free, or are there hidden expectations?

In Acts 15, the early church faced a critical question: Is faith in Jesus enough, or do we need to add more? In this message, Pastor Jason Barnett explores how easily we add "fine print" to faith, and how the gospel calls us back to something simpler and freer.

If you've ever felt like you had to measure up, fit in, or carry extra weight in your walk with God, this message is for you.

Grace is enough. Jesus is enough. Lay down what God does not require.

Linkoln shares his story on why he started coming to Ravenna Church of the Nazarene and shares why you should consider doing the same.

Ravenna Church of the Nazarene
530 Main Street, Ravenna, KY 40472

Transcript

Pastor Jason 0:00

Do you ever feel like following Jesus comes with fine print? Like it's free until you realize there's a list. But what if the weight you've been carrying isn't actually from God? I'm Pastor Jason Mornet, and this is the Dirt Pastor Mun Podcast. I think this is what a lot of people need to hear because many of us we felt like faith ha hasn't always been free. We get that feeling, right? Like it felt heavy instead of weightless. Maybe you were told come to Jesus, it's free. But once you got in, it felt like there were expectations nobody explained up front. There were rules, pressure, trying to measure up, like there was fine print. In Acts 15, the early church had to wrestle with that exact tension. Is this enough, or is there more? And what they discovered didn't just shape theology, it changes how we live and how we treat people who are still finding their way to God. So wherever you're listening from, whether you're you've been in church your whole life or you're still figuring things out, I'm really glad you're here for this one. There was a time when I was working at a car dealership, and one of the dangers in working at a car dealership, especially if you're someone that likes cars, is you always come across one, you're like, you know, I might like to have that one. Right? And so you're standing down the barrel temptation. But this particular one I got my eye on, you see, at the car dealership I worked at, we have what was called our as is lot. And what I liked about the as-is art lot was that those cars were cheap, right? You can get them for $5,000 or less. But there was a catch, right? That there's a catch in that because as is meant that if you buy this car, right, it's yours, you can take it home with you, free and clear. You get the title in your hand, walk out the door. But the second you drive it off the loft, that car breaks in half. You own both halves of that car. Congratulations. So nationally, you know, working there, I was I was on the Azit lot one day, walking around, and I came across this truck that I just had to have. I was single at the time. I had no one to tell me this was a stupid idea except the boss I was trying to buy it from. Um I mean, that's the kind of truck I was looking at. My sales manager was trying to tell me not to buy it. You know, the guy who's supposed to be trying to sell all the cars he could was saying, don't buy this thing. But it was a 78 Chevy pickup, two-wheel drive. And it was it was a little bit rusty, okay? It was a little bit beat up, and it kind of had a forboard like one of those boats in the Everglade, right? You could look down and see the road as you were going. But I thought, man, I'd like to have that. And it had it on the windshield, too, and it was priced right. It was priced at $1,500, which I knew wasn't the real price. So I walked up to my boss and said, Hey, what can I really buy this truck for? Seriously. And so he just said, Jason, I'll save the $500 out the door today. I was like, oh, all right, we're in business because I had $500 just burning a hole in my pocket. So I bought this truck and I drove it home. And I very quickly named the truck Red Storm because whenever I went down the road, it left behind this big cloud of smoke behind it. A big whiff of gas stumes. And it didn't take me long to figure out why it was on the Az is lot. It drank the gas. I'm telling you. Like I'd pass a gas station and it just seemed like my needle would go from full to empty as soon as I passed it. At least that's when it ran. When I say when it ran, I had to put two flywheels in that stupid thing after I bought it. And the short time I owned, I put two in because if it had trouble starting, right? When you would try and start it, it would break those teeth off the flywheel. And so I had I ended up putting two flywheels in it. Like I say, me, I I worked in the back, so you when you get to know a technician in the back, it was your best friends. And you can do just about anything for you. But I did it twice. You know, and I thought to myself, man, I should have probably paid attention to that as-is label, right? Paid attention to the fine print of what it means for something to be as-is. Now, long after Nicole and I got married, it needed another flywheel, and I decided I wasn't doing it again. And so I ended up selling off for scrap, got $750 out of it. You would say, I made I made a profit from the time I paid for all the flywheels, the backdoor deals to my tech friends. I I definitely lost money on that one. Um but I also learned something. It's something can look good on the outside, it can look like a good deal on the service, but once you get into it, you realize there's maybe more to this than you thought. Now, now here's the problem. A lot of us can feel that way when it comes to faith and how faith works. Right? Like people tell us sometimes, come to Jesus, right? Come to Jesus, it's free. But man, once you're in sometimes, that's when you start discovering that, you know, there's a little bit of fine print here that I wasn't told about. There's some extra stuff. Expectations, rules nobody told us about. Then there's a pressure to live, to measure up, right? To the saints around you. It's like there's fine print to following Jesus. Now, if you've ever felt that way, just know you're you're not alone, it's not a proof, new problem. And we're gonna see that that this is exactly what happens in the very beginning of the early church. And the early church had to wrestle with the same question Is Jesus enough or is there more? So we're gonna be in Acts chapter 15. I'm gonna apologize ahead of time. This is a rather lengthy portion. I'm gonna read verses 1 through 20. Uh, but I promise we will get to lunch at some point today. Okay. So Acts chapter 15, starting at verse 1, read through verse 20. It says, Some people came down from Judea teaching the family of believers, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom we received from Moses, you can't be saved. Paul and Barnabas took sides against these Judeans and argued strongly against their position. The Church of Antioch appointed Paul, Barnabas, and several others from Antioch to go up to Jerusalem to set this question before the apostles and the elders. And the church sent this delegation on their way. They traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, telling stories about the conversion of the Gentiles to everyone. The reports thrilled the brothers and sisters. When they arrived in Jerusalem, the church, the apostles, and the elders all welcomed them. They gave a full report of what God had accomplished through their activity. But some believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed the Gentiles must be circumcised. They must be required to keep the law from Moses. The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter. And after much debate, Peter stood and addressed them. God, who knows people's deepest thoughts and desires, confirmed this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, but purified their deepest thoughts and desires through faith. So why then are you now challenging God by placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear? On the contrary, we believe that we and they are saved in the same way by the grace of the Lord Jesus. The entire assembly felt quiet as they listened to Barnabas and Paul. They listened to them describe all the signs and wonders God did among the Gentiles through their activity. And when Barnabas and Paul also fell silent, James responded, Fellow believers, listen to me. Simon reported how in his kindness God came to the Gentiles in the first place to raise up from them a people of God. The prophet's words agree with us, as it is written, After this I will return, and I will rebuild David's fallen tent. I will rebuild what has been torn down, I will restore it, so that the rest of humanity will seek the Lord, and even all the Gentiles who belong to me. The Lord says this, the one who does these things, known from earliest times. Therefore, I conclude that we shouldn't create problems for Gentiles who turn to God. Instead, we should write a letter telling them to avoid the pollution associated with idols, sexual immorality, eating meat from strangled animals, and consuming blood. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Alright, is everybody still awake? Do we need to stretch a minute? I promise you, I'm not going through every single one of these verses like I typically do. Okay. I'm not going to go verse by verse through all 20. I could do that, but that might take longer than just today. So um click this right here so it'll fall. But see, when the church first began, it was relatively in the Jewish community. It was a sect of Judaism, right? I mean, Jesus himself was a Jewish man. And so as the church started to grow, right, they were growing, and but then it began to expand beyond just the Jews. Began to expand to the Gentiles. And now the Gentiles, they were everybody who was not Jewish. That was that's what that label was for. If you were not Jewish, you were considered a Gentile. It doesn't matter what other ethnicity you might be, to the Jew, you were a Gentile. Now keep in mind in Jewish culture, in much of the Old Testament, you see this in the Pharisees and the Gospels, in that mind of the Jews, right, and their leaders, they were the Gentiles were a little better than dogs in their mind. And so God starts speaking and they start getting the Gentiles start getting saved. And God's doing it in ways that's not quiet, right? It's not little subtle ways, God. God's doing it loud ways and big ways that you cannot miss. If you want to read about these, I don't have time to preach these chapters, but go read about it in Acts 10 through 14. It's it's some really amazing thing that God is doing in those chapters. Even in the process of ending Peter's own thinking on the subject. But it created a problem. Because the Gentiles they were receiving the Holy Spirit just like the Jews who believed in Jesus were. And nobody knew what to do with that. They had no clue. They knew on the one hand that God was accepting them, but these were Gentiles. These were people that were different than they thought should belong to their group. So God's work was pushing the church beyond what was comfortable and familiar. Now, if you're new with this today, you might feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar because you're new here, right? Now, and that's the other thing too that we don't talk about. As the church grows, it does create a little bit of discomfort because new faces are coming in. So it creates all kinds of questions. And that's what Acts 15 is doing. So let's look at verse 1. It says, in verse 1, that the Judeans tell Paul and Barnabas that all these Gentiles, unless they are circumcised, like the law says, then you can't be saved. Now they're not just saying that that no, you unless you're circumcised, you can't just you can't belong to us, right? They're not saying you're outside the group. You can't you can't get into this club without that. They're saying you're not even saved. Those are some strong words. And keep on, these people, these are not, these are not like faithless people. These are people that are very sincere in their faith, faith and believing in Jesus, even, that are saying this to Paul and Barnabas about these Gentiles joining the church. They were making this ritual of circumcision a necessary step to following Jesus. They're saying, yeah, you put your faith in Jesus, but Jesus isn't enough because you gotta do this too. Put your faith in Jesus, then you gotta complete this ritual. They challenge us. They say, hey, that's not true. And it kind of creates a big disagreement. And it kind of goes to my theory of where two or three are gathered in his name, there will be trouble also. And so they have to do what one of my favorite things about this God's moving, God's working, the Holy Spirit's being poured out people, and you know what the church has to do? They have to call a board meeting. God's doing things, God's doing exactly what we would hope God doing. They have to call a board meeting. We gotta figure this out because this is a mess. We have Paul and Barnabas saying Jesus and that, and then we have the Judean Christians over here saying, Well, no, you've got to have this Jesus plus this. And so that's what this passage is about. And I mean I say a church boarding, I mean everybody in the early church who was important was there. Right? The apostles were there, the elders were there. And so Paul, Barnabas, they go in and they share exactly what God's doing. They're saying, hey, we're preaching the gospel, people are preaching it to the Gentiles, they're putting their faith in Jesus, they're being changed, and all they're being changed, God is sealing it and giving the evidence with his Holy Spirit. So most of the church, as they're telling these stories, they start rejoicing. They're praising God, right? That's what we would do, right? When people get saved, we praise God, we're excited. There's a big group that's excited, praising God, but then there's another group. And for some reason, this shouldn't shock us. But verse 5 says, some believers from among the Pharisees. Again, these weren't Pharisees on the outside of the church. These are Pharisees that got saved and belong to the church now. And me and this microphone are gonna have problems. Yeah. This says some of the believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed the Gentiles must be circumcised, they must be required to keep the law for Moses. These were the religious elite of their church. Another understanding. They memorized the Torah inside and out. They dedicated their life to following the law. And even Jesus said, I have not come to abolish the law but fulfill it. So that's very important. That's very much a part of their culture. That's how they were raised. And so they're seeing these Gentiles that have no such background like they do, and saying, You gotta be circumcised like us. But again, this is the fine print that's appearing. Faith in Jesus. What they're saying is faith in Jesus alone is not enough to be saved. It takes Jesus plus something else. So this debate gets this debate happens. So Peter speaks up in verses 7 through 11. And again, if you go back and read Acts 10, Peter wouldn't it take witnesses a dramatic event where God saves Cornelius, a Gentile Roman centurion and his whole household. And before Peter can even baptize him, the Holy Spirit falls on him. God gave those Gentiles a down payment of his promise, the same down payment through the same grace by faith as that the apostles had. The same Holy Spirit that the elders had. And actually the same Holy Spirit that the other believers who were now debating by Happen had. So they're debating all this, and Peter stands up in verses 7 to 11. He talks about, I'm gonna focus in on verse 10. Verse 10 is what he says is why are you now challenging God by placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear? Those are some strong words. I preach out in church, you gotta get it sent me. Okay, maybe now. Why are you challenging God? God's already supplied the evidence. Why are you trying to fight against him? Again, this is circumcision was a sign given to the Jews that dated all the way back to Genesis 17. It was a sign that God gave to Abraham as a symbol of his promise to his people. It was part of the sign of being the part of the chosen people. So to them, that was everything. The Jew, that was everything. But Peter is pointing out here, it's like, hey, that sign, that covenant of being God's chosen people, that was given to us, yes, but guess what? We failed to live up to it. No matter how hard we tried, yes, God gave us the law, God sent us the promise, but no matter how hard we try, we could not live up to that label. And if we couldn't live up to that title, and we were the ones that had that covenant, had that sign, if we couldn't do it, what makes us think that they can? What makes us think that's the same law that that didn't help save us was gonna help save them? And obviously, God has a difference of opinion from us because God's already worked and moved in their life, and we're here debating it. Adding to the gospel was not going to help these new believers, it was gonna weigh them down. And then in verse 11, Peter shares a good reminder with those at this council meeting. And then it's actually a good reminder for us too. Verse 11, Paul says, or Peter says this, he says, We believe that we and they are saved in the same way by the grace of the Lord Jesus. Peter is saying right here, salvation is not based on effort, it's based on God's grace. And that grace is made available through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter is saying your grace is not a step in the process. He's saying grace is the whole point. It's all about the grace. All right, now I'm gonna skip down to verse 19 here, is it okay? I know I'm skipping a lot. If you have questions, feel free to send them to me. I'll do my best to answer them. If I can't answer them, I'll give them to my associate and give her something to you. But the last verse I want to look at is verse 19. And it's actually after James. James stands up, and what I love about James does is James is another apostle, he stands up and he affirms everything that Peter just said. But you know what he does? He ties it back to scripture. Because God is never going to contradict scripture when he moves. He's never going to, he's never going to, matter of fact, if God does something, we're not sure, but if you go look in the world, you'll find somewhere where God will affirm that. So after Peter gets done with this affirming it, James stands up, and in the verses leading up to verse 19, James is quoting Amos chapter 9, verses 11 and 12. He's quoting the prophet Amos. And then verse 19, James says this. He says, We shouldn't create problems for Gentiles who turn to God. That word, that phrase in the Greek where they translate in my translation of create problems. It's literally, don't pick up obstacles and put it in their way. Don't do that. Trying to live for Jesus in a broken, fallen world is hard enough for any of us. They don't need us putting more obstacles in their way. So that's what James's conclusion is of this whole discussion. Now James does go on verse 20 and say, hey, here are some things that you should think about. Here's the things you should avoid. But it wasn't, he wasn't making a law with those things. What James was doing is saying, hey, these things represent part of the culture that's secular and simple. We all know it. So don't participate in those things. He wasn't adding to the law. He wasn't making a new law. He was just saying, this is broken, messed up, goes against God. You know it, I know it. So why don't you just not do that? But other than that, we're not gonna add any more weight on you. We're not gonna put any more obstacles in your way. Because James understood that God was drawing both the Jews and the Gentile into one body so that they shouldn't be putting up any barriers to anybody coming into the church. But they should keep the doors open. Alright, is everybody still with me? Alright. Okay. So what does this teach us? It teaches us something very simple. We must not add to what God has already made sufficient. Alright, we cannot add anything else to what God has made sufficient. We can try to, but it doesn't do anything except for add more weight. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. See, God was already working in the early church. People were getting saved by believing in Jesus, right? That it was working. And some were trying to add this ritual as a requirement. Why? Because they want you and I we see the world in black and white. We need to see black and white concrete evidence, right? To believe and be certain. Okay, you're on my team. That's because we we're because we we we fail to see that not everything has to be that way. We need a checklist. God doesn't operate by checklists. We operate based on appearances. God doesn't operate based on appearances. See, they were wanting physical proof that the Gentiles were one of them, that they belonged to the group. But here's the thing: God had already given proof. It wasn't black and white, you could feel and touch it. The boy it was that he gave them the Holy Spirit. And when someone's filled with the Holy Spirit, you can tell. I'm gonna pick on Bobby here at time. I didn't ask her permission, so I'm gonna apologize ahead of time, okay? Forgive me. But Bobby, when I look at you, I can see the Holy Spirit working in your life, man. I can see it in Sean's life. It's there, it's real. I can't put it in words, I can't describe it. All I know is I can look at it and I can see the difference that God has made in his life and her life. I don't need any other evidence. Because God always says, here it is. You know it when you see it. Hey, I understand that we want people to be mature instantly when they get saved. I'm not talking about Bobby and Chan anymore, okay? I'm leaving them away here. Okay. I don't have cameras at their house, I'm not following them around. Right? This is not some reality TV show where I'm gonna show up. But see, so many times when people get saved, we want them to be instantly mature, but that's not how it works. Think about how long it took you to get to where you're at now. If you're sitting there judging somebody else because how long it's taken, then boy, you need to go back and start over. Right? We're not any place to judge anyone else because we're all growing in the same grace of Jesus through the same through the faith of the same Jesus. You see, we we're not we're not pushing circumcision here, right? Like I'm not I'm not here preaching that. If you walk in here and you said that's what Jason's talking about, I'm gonna laugh at you. I might be nice about it if I don't know you, but I will laugh at you. Okay. That's not what I'm talking about. We don't push that here. A lot of these old rituals from the old testament, we don't push. We're not talking about sacrificing sheep next door. Here in a couple weeks since I'm in pig about now, he's gonna sacrifice a pig for us, and we're gonna eat it across the street. Okay, the pig's already butchered. But but we do think we do do things like this. Right? We do add to it. You gotta believe in Jesus, but you also have to do this. You gotta believe in Jesus, but you have to add this to it too for it to count. We say, if you want to come to this church, you have to look this way. I got news for you. You can come to this church just however you want. If you're here seeking Jesus, I want you here. Jesus will figure that out later. We say things like, before you come to this church, you have to get your life cleaned up first. I'm here to tell you the truth, there's not a one of us here. No matter how long they've been walking with Jesus, say, I've got myself cleaned up first by myself. It wasn't until I found Jesus, started walking with Jesus that Jesus started to clean my life up. That's who it takes. You can't do it by yourself, and you can't even even walking with Jesus, it's hard to do it alone, right? But the part the beauty of the church is we come together, a group of broken people seeking Jesus' grace together, growing in grace together. We expect people to come in and fit into our church culture right off the bat. I'm gonna speak just to our church folks here this morning that are I consider regulars, but the rest of you matter, you're important. I'm saying this specific to the regulars. Our church is changing right now and it's growing. The church you are used to for the last 10 years is gone. Not saying that as a bad thing. We can mourn it, we can look it down, but guess what? I guarantee if we've been asked every name of the person that's in heaven right now whose name is on this screen, and they say, Glory be to God, people are getting saved and coming to know Jesus. That was their prayer when they built this church. That was their hope when they when they came out this way. And guess what? We are carrying on that mission, doing everything that we can to honor God and honor the legacy they set before us. So our church is not gonna look the same, it's not gonna sound the same, but guess what? It's gonna be the same Holy Spirit, and we're and we're seeing it work right now. So we let's open our eyes and recognize and praise God for what he's doing. I mean, as people come in, they're met with, they can be met with unspoken fine print about politics, parenting styles, and background. But their background, but all those things, all it does is it adds weight to people's lives. There is no fine print. It's believe in Jesus and you will be saved. Now again, there's a difference between like I talk about verse 20 there briefly, and I feel like I if I ignore that, I'm not giving you. It's not fine print, verse 20. Verse 20 is just simply saying, these are things we know is wrong and simple. Just don't do them. Right? If you know it's wrong and simple, don't do it. Other than that, it's between you and Jesus. Study his word, his word, and hit through his word, he'll tell you what you should be doing, you shouldn't be doing. But all these other things we try to add in, it just adds weight to people's lives. And here's the thing, Jesus never added weight to anybody. Right? Our verse in the front of the book says, It says, Come to me, all who are weary, I will give you rest. And he says, and this was a powerful one to me. He says, Take upon, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my burden is easy. If your Christian life feels like it's hard and impossible, you can never measure up, you can never do it. It's not because it's because you are not carrying Jesus' burden, you're carrying your own burden or somebody else's that they placed on you. Jesus doesn't add weight, he removes it. Jesus, if you look you study the gospels, Jesus welcomed people before they were ready. I mean, he walked up to the apostles, right? Who were just fishermen and textures and said, Hey, come follow me. They weren't ready, they went to work that day, just working like any other day. Jesus showed up and said, Follow me. And as I'm reading Acts 15, I'm like, these are still the same crazy fishermen that have no clue what they're doing. They're just trusting God and the Holy Spirit the best that they can. And oftentimes Jesus went to people before they ever thought of coming to him. He rescued people before they were cleaned up. Jesus didn't come with fine prayer, he came with grace. Jesus carried what we can never carry. See, Jesus is enough. Grace is enough. You don't have to earn it. That could be a song, David. You don't have to find all the puzzle pieces and put them together. There's no fine print. There's nothing else to add. Believe in the name of Jesus and you will be saved. Believe in the name of Jesus, and God will send you the Holy Spirit to mark you with his promise. Now, if you're here today and you're you're trying to carry something extra, lay it down. You don't need it. If you're carrying shame, that shame is not from God. It's you're carrying something in your life that you don't need to be carrying. The pressure you feel trying to live for Jesus like it's impossible. That's not of God. God has never asked you to be good enough. He's asked you to walk with him. He says, believe in and believe in Jesus, and you will have everlasting life. And that's when transformation happens. When you believe in Jesus, when you believe that grace is enough, transformation happens through grace, and grace is received by faith. And again, as our church is growing, this is this is important for all of us. We have to stop putting weight on others. I can be just as guilty of it as anybody in this room. Our expectations cannot be beyond what God's expectations are. Any judgments that maybe we've normalized in our lives, we have to let those go. Because just when you think God has to work in A plus B equals C, God's gonna add the letter D and E in there. Whenever you add letters to math, it never works out for anyone. The barriers that we have normalized that say, hey, you can only be here if you look this way or you do this. Those barriers have to come down. God is working, God's grace is enough, and it's God's grace is enough for them, and it's enough for each every one of us. Turn in your church beliefs badge. Your department has been disbanded. Because if God didn't require it for salvation, we should not require it for belonging. Grace is enough. Jesus is enough. Lay down what God doesn't require. Take a moment and ask yourself, did God actually require this? Or did someone add it? Because Acts 15 reminds us, God is not in the business of placing extra burdens on people who are turning to him. Maybe your next step today is simple. Lay it down. Let go of the pressure to be enough. Let go of the expectations that didn't come from God. And come back to Jesus just as you are. Let me pray for you. Lord, thank you that your grace is enough. Thank you that we don't have to earn our way to you or prove ourselves before we belong. For the person listening right now who feels overwhelmed, tired, or like they'll never measure up, remind them that you are not asking them to carry what you carry what you already carried through Jesus. And for those of us who have added expectations to others, help us to lay that down too. Help us to be the kind of people and the kind of church that makes it easier, not harder, for others to come to you. We trust you with that. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if this message encouraged you, I'd love for you to check out my daily devotional content online. Uh you can find it, it's called the Dirt Path Pastor. Uh I do what's called the Dirt Path Devotionals. And you can you can find them on a WordPress site, or you can also, probably the easiest way is on TikTok. I I try and post videos daily on there, so check them out. Follow me on there. And they're just designed to help you walk with Jesus in everyday life. And if you're looking for a way to put your faith into action, I encourage you to support Nasgreen Compassionate Ministries. They do incredible work meeting real needs around the world in the name of Jesus. And one of the ways I try and help people be able to do that is if you go to my show, there's a link where you can sign up to support this show, but I don't I'm not interested in making money off the show or monetizing it. Uh I won't my my goal with this show is just to reach one more person for Jesus each week. And so if you feel led and God's put on your heart to support the show somehow, do that by supporting the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and specifically the Emergency Relief Fund as they try to bring Jesus and hope to those around the world. Well, say wherever you are, keep walking their path. Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Uh of course five.