Mrs. PIE
Welcome to ' Mrs. PIE' We are savoring life with inspiring conversations and teachings. I'm Shelley Jeffcoat, your guide in this journey of faith, innovation and inspiration.
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Shelley Jeffcoat, CEO & Founder of LCM Group and Grace and Grit Media, is a dynamic Business and International Christian Woman Speaker, Founder of Come Out of the Wilderness Prayer Ministry, Author of the 'What’s My P.I.E' book series, and the engaging host of the 'Mrs PIE' podcast series.
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Mrs. PIE
Faith Beyond Rituals: Breaking Down Acts 15
Grace over rituals. Relationship over rules. Love over legalism. The ancient debate from Acts 15 feels surprisingly modern as we explore how the early church navigated the tension between religious tradition and spiritual freedom.
Standing before the Jerusalem Council, Paul and Barnabas challenged the notion that Gentile converts needed circumcision for salvation. Today, we face similar questions: Does authentic faith require perfect Sunday attendance? Must we dress, speak, or worship in prescribed ways to be accepted? Are we saved through religious performance or divine grace?
When Peter addressed the council, his words cut through legalistic thinking: "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?" This powerful reminder echoes through centuries – salvation comes through faith, not through human effort.
Many of us have experienced churches that function more as fashion police than spiritual hospitals. We've seen how quickly ritual replaces relationship, how easily we judge others based on external markers rather than heart transformation. But true faith transcends these human-made barriers. Moses wasn't perfect. David wasn't perfect. None of us are perfect. Yet God's blessing flows not because we deserve it, but because He is love.
As we navigate our spiritual journeys, let's remember that faith isn't defined by ticking boxes on a religious checklist. It's about grace freely given, love freely shared, and hearts transformed by a God who knows us completely yet loves us anyway. Whether you're new to faith or have been walking with God for decades, this timeless message from Acts 15 invites us to embrace the beautiful simplicity of grace.
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no-transcript. Good morning y'all. It's Thursday. Come out of the wilderness. I'm Shelly and I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1:So we're continuing our theme in March. I feel like I should call this Nerding Out March, because we're spending more time just doing Bible study and, obviously, some prayer. But we're just changing things up a little bit for the month of March and I was jokingly saying when I introduced it that this is going to be the month where it's, you know, we're eating steak spiritually, not drinking milk. So we're just going a little bit deeper. And today we're going to be in Acts 15. And I just thought this would be so interesting for those of us a lot of folks have. You know, maybe you're a new believer in Christ or maybe you've, you know, been a believer your whole life. I'm trying not to even say the word Christian, because some of y'all acting crazy on these streets, right, but I, you know, for those of us, maybe you've read only a particular part of the Bible, or you know you're doing the Bible for the year, or whatever that is that you're doing. But this is a way for us to just go a little bit deeper in understanding.
Speaker 1:So before we go further, I have to say a quick good morning. Good morning Jessica. Thank you for those of y'all who wake up with me. Thank you for those of y'all who listen, whether you're on Facebook, linkedin, youtube, parade Deck, wherever you're watching or listening, or any of the audio platforms, I'm glad you're here. So, before I do that, I'd like to just say a quick. Lord, we thank you for this day, thursday. I thank you for those who are coming to just learn more about you, go deeper into your word and give us wisdom and understanding and show us how to apply it in our life.
Speaker 1:Today, I ask those who are seeking peace right now and asking for mercy and goodness and blessings that they will come to find it through you, lord, that you'll bless them in the way that you see, according to your grace and your will for their lives. And I, just today, just a word of encouragement for all of us, lord God, that you'll build us up in this time. There's so much happening around us, lord God, things that are outside of our control, but the one thing that we can control is our worship with you, learning and spending time with you. So I ask that you'll just encourage us to find peace and, as I call it, a happy distraction, amen. I feel like this is a happy distraction, just sometimes just coming into the word y'all. So in that, uh, in that sense, I'm going to share my screen and then we're going to dive into Acts 15. Obviously, I'm going to use the ESV version, cause that's how I roll, you can use whatever you want, and so I'm going to move us through it. I think this is one of those. Again, you know, if you are a scholar or a nerd, a Bible nerd like me, maybe you're a Bible nerd like me that you come into this.
Speaker 1:And part of the reason I wanted to come into Acts 15 is just growing up y'all. For the longest time I, you know, my family was a part and member of many different denominations. So, from Catholic, my part of my family was Seventh-day Adventists. I have part of my family that's Jewish. I've got the whole mix. My husband came from Baptist church, my mom was a Methodist minister and we go to a Presbyterian church. So I have seen it. Okay, I've seen it, done it, I've heard it all. And I grew up in a country where spiritual and to make a spiritual lives is real. It's not something we read, it's something we live. So when I was thinking about a scripture that I think is very interesting, but something that we could see play out in our lives today.
Speaker 1:I came to the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. So I'm going to read through this and I'm also obviously going to put my own I don't want to say spin, but maybe interpretation a little bit so that we can apply it to kind of where we are today. And then, obviously, I always encourage y'all to go back. Remember, last year I was telling you that I want you to you know when you're, when you're reading the word, I want you to also look at the context of the word, cause a lot of times you have pastors or Bible teachers that will take one scripture and they'll create a whole ministry out of it, but they take it out of context of the time and and they don't relay it back to where we are, and so the Bible becomes this living thing that they kind of built something else off. You know what I'm saying, so I'm just encouraging you. You got to understand the word and the context around it so that you know how to wield this tool in your life. Amen, thank you, lord.
Speaker 1:So Acts 15, it starts about. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. So this is a time where this is the early church where there were some rules, if you will, that were being established about those who were obviously previously Jewish and they're coming into the Christian faith, and they were arguing, if you will, or debating some of those previous rituals. Those things you have to think about, the time and the context of the time. This is again a time of Rome, where Rome itself was worshiping many, many gods, right. And so here was this rule that was saying you know, you had to be circumcised, circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
Speaker 1:Another thing I want you to think about is when you go through I call it the, the, the I'm not the book of faith, but in Hebrews where it lists kind of the men and women who are shown to be faithful. That that I want you to see. That your faith isn't measured by the ritual that your pastor put in place. It's not even measured by how well you you know how much, how much you tithe. It's not measured by where. You know where you sit in the church, your pulpit. It's not measured. You know, according to the rules we put in the skirt you wear, how much you fast, it's not measured at all by any of those things. So I even want to encourage you, because we've gone into such a mindset, that is separate and outside of what God is actually saying.
Speaker 1:Okay, so verse two it talks about and after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, paul and Barnabas and some of the others were, they were appointed right, they were selected to go to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So the question they were responding to is unless you're is it true? Or unless you're circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. So, being sent on their way by the church, again, they were sent. And so again, I'm just calling out different things because some of us are sending ourselves okay, this is so. They were sent by the church, early church. They passed through Phoenicia and Samaria you guys can go back and read about Samaria at the time, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought joy to all the brothers. And when they came to Jerusalem, right, the Jerusalem council was in Jerusalem they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. Right, paul and Barnabas.
Speaker 1:But some believers, who belong to the party of the Pharisees, rose up and said it's not necessary to circumcise them in order to keep the law of Moses. And so it goes into verse six, where it talks about the apostles and the elders. These are again debates and conversation. They were gathered to consider this matter and after there'd been much debate, peter stood up and said to them brothers, you know that in the early days, god made a choice among you, that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So again, this is just reminding us, y'all, that I'm so grateful that you know thank you.
Speaker 1:Then we align different rituals according to what we think. What I really appreciate is that, when part of what Jesus did was he by his death, he gave access to Gentiles me, y'all right To hear his word and to be pulled into the family, right. So we have access to his throne because of what he did. And so God, it says, knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. So their hearts, just as our hearts cleansed their hearts by faith, so their hearts, just as our hearts are cleansed today by faith. And now, therefore, 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. So we're all saved by his grace, through Jesus.
Speaker 1:And it goes out into verse 12, where it talks about the assembly falling silent. They're listening now to Barnabas and Paul, who are basically giving their testimonies of the signs and wonders that God had done, again through them, among the Gentiles. And they finished speaking and James replied brothers, listen to me. And then they continue to relate the great work that has been done. And I wonder for us today, if we are called to a council y'all, if we can relate the signs and wonders that God is doing among us, through us, for his people, right, how many of us will be able to bear witness to what the Holy Spirit is doing for us? I love, I also love that verse 10, where it talks about putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples.
Speaker 1:I'm going to stop sharing, because there are some of us that we ourselves, we put these yoke on. We make it so difficult to worship our father, we make it very difficult to hear from God, or we set the bar so high that only a few you know the ones that have been, and I hear this all the time. I don't know what it is, but when you know one of the things that, when the Lord called me, I am, I would say I'm younger in Christ, meaning I'm 53. And I would say I've been in this body for I don't know honestly, maybe 40 something years. Okay, but one of the things that he showed me for me and one of the talents that I have is being able to be confident about who he is, what he does, and he puts me in the most incredible spaces and places so that I can talk to anybody. Whether you've been an apostle or a prophet or whatever your fivefold ministry is, I can still talk to you just as plainly as I can, because I have a testimony about God and who he is, and I can define my faith through testimony. And so I want to challenge us a little bit when we again think about how we define our faith.
Speaker 1:Some folks are doing it based on the rules and the rituals that are put in place. Again, a lot of them we have put in place okay, a lot of them we have put in place, or we pulled a scripture or a verse and we've stepped away from the grace that God has on us, the grace that Jesus has for us. I mean, we're making it very hard, but those of y'all who are spending more of your time looking at the kids, that are how they come to church. Some of the folks coming to your church are broke and hungry and tired and you're spending your time as the motherboard if they still exist or the elders or the apostles, worried about what they're wearing or how much money they're tithing because they don't have it. They don't have the coin. Or you know, if you're spending your time telling people that they got to wear a skirt below their knee, if that's where you are, if you're, if you're focused on the ritual and the physical and you're not concerned about the spiritual, what you're actually feeding and teaching and showing folks that we're all, all of us are falling short, all of us are broken. People go to church because they're broken, right, that's where it's like a hospital. Church is supposed to be a spiritual hospital, okay, so we, we have to. You know, we have to do.
Speaker 1:I think, as those of us who calls ourselves Christian, I'm watching us now work out our faith, walk out our faith. I'm not fearful about the day, I'm not worried about the day. I absolutely believe that the Lord is going to bless me, not because of anything that I've done, but because of what he's done for me, because of the grace that he has, because of his mercy towards me. Right, and if I don't reconcile that belief back, if I don't put that before any of the ritual where you got to again, like I said, you got to be a five-fold person, you got to give a certain amount, you got to go to the right church, you got to sing on the choir. If you don't meet all the check, you know, tick all the boxes. Those things don't actually define your faith. You could be a pastor of a multi-million dollar church business, okay, and have no faith. So those things don't actually define our faith.
Speaker 1:So I hope this, you know, this little bit of nerding out maybe, is encouraging you to go back to one. Read the words. That was Acts 15. Again, you're just talking a little bit about the Jerusalem council. Two, I hope that it encourages you to work out your faith. Amen, jessica, god is going to bless me. I love this. God is going to bless me simply because he is God and he loves me Absolutely. There isn't a special, and this is why I think believers get upset when you see someone else get blessed and you're like, well, they don't deserve it. Well, none of us deserve it, to be quite honest. But her point is absolute god is gonna bless me simply because he is god and he loves me. That's it. That's it. And because we are faithful to him right, because we are, um, because we serve him, because we're, because, as he uses us to serve others, then we get more blood. I get more blessings because I'm serving the people within that timeline that he sends to me and everybody. Okay, but that's it and it's all from love. So, again, I hope this little mini distraction, maybe this bless you this morning to just go back and read Acts 15. And here are some of the witnesses.
Speaker 1:If you're interested in learning more about people of faith, going to Hebrews I believe it's Hebrews 12. And again, the one thing you should know is that people of strong faith aren't perfect. None of them are perfect. Moses wasn't perfect, david wasn't perfect. None of them are perfect. Moses wasn't perfect, david wasn't perfect. None of us are perfect. It's not going to happen, it doesn't exist, but we do.
Speaker 1:We are held to a different standard. If you're a teacher of his word, you're held to a different standard, right. If you're a pastor, you're a whatever, a deacon, whatever you're serving at the church, but as a believer, you are held to a different standard, and so there are things that we can't say or do because we're trying to live a holy life. If you're calling yourself a believer and then you have nothing but hate and contempt in your heart, then you ain't. I don't know who you're following, but you're not following Jesus. I'm just telling you, right, when I remind people that we're supposed to turn the other cheek now, it feels like it's a joke. They don't know what that means, because people feel so defensive like they've been hurt and so therefore they've got to cause hurt. So turning the other cheek now is kind of out the door, which is crazy, right?
Speaker 1:So all of these things, though y'all I think in this season is where we just go back and just study the word for yourself. Spend time in that kind of worship If you're looking for something to just again. I call it very healthy distraction. I really hope that this blessed you. All right, we're going to nerd out for the rest of the month of March. Like I said, I'll go back to encouraging light teaching in April, but it's important sometimes for us to go back to building up our Bible muscles. Right, you got to actually know exactly, jessica a lot of self-righteousness going right now. So, because we want to, we don't want to fall into that line.
Speaker 1:So, lord, I thank you for your word this morning, thank you for your teaching. I thank you that you're showing us how to understand, showing us, giving us wisdom to understand your word, so we can apply it even today in our lives, so that we're not self-righteous, so that we understand that it's only because of your grace. There is no ritual that we can perform, no spiritual ritual. There's nothing that we can perform, no spiritual ritual. There's nothing that we can perform that will give us access. We have to come to your throne through your son, jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no shortcut.
Speaker 1:And if there's any shortcut that people are putting in place that's going to cause them harm in the future, any contracts they're coming into, any conversations, anything that's going to bind them and destroy them later, lord God, I'm asking that that is removed and that you have mercy on us, for all the people under the sound of my voice who are standing in need of a word from you today, whether it's a job or a project or health report, finances, anything. Lord God, I pray that today that they'll hear from you, that they'll get the answer that they're looking for and that they will be blessed and that they will really come to understand that all things are actually working out for our good. Even in the moment when it doesn't seem like it, when it doesn't feel like it, it is still working out for our good and for that I am grateful. For that I am. I just love you, lord, that you continue to bless us in spite of ourselves. You continue to bless us. Thank you, lord, for everything.
Speaker 1:Amen, all right, y'all. I hope that this helped you. I will see you next week, please don't forget. I try to remind people be kind to yourself y'all. Please do be kind to yourself. Be kind to your children, your partners, your neighbors. You don't know what people are going through, so go pray. Join us today at one o'clock, seven o'clock, on our prayer phone line. If you need someone to pray alongside you, you know we're happy to do that and you'll have a good rest of your week. Take care.