Working It Out

SERMON: 2014-07-13--ac14137--working-it-out SOURCE DURATION: 00:43:18.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 15 provides a strong, conclusive summary statement ('it is the internals.') that serves as the final piece of theological exposition or pastoral application within this segment. Since no subsequent non-sermon material (music, announcement) is provided, this must be selected as the last sermon token. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to pick up where we've left off in recent weeks. As I said a few moments ago, we've been looking for three weeks now at Acts chapter 15. And Acts chapter 15 introduces us to one of the most divisive issues in the early church. And the issue was this. Do Gentile believers need to keep the law of Moses? Particularly, do they need to undergo circumcision? Big question. An important question. Particularly because there was a contingent of people in the early church who were absolutely convinced that the Gentile believers needed to do that. Paul and Barnabas disagreed. They traveled to Jerusalem. And so they called a meeting of the church and the church leadership, the apostles and the elders. They had long discussions about all the implications of this. And at the end, they decided two things. Number one, the Gentiles did not have to observe the law of Moses. They did not have to be circumcised. All the Gentiles, all the male Gentiles went hurrah, as you can imagine. At the same time, they laid upon the Gentiles four restrictions that nevertheless sounded suspiciously like the law of Moses. Let me review these with you. These are the words from the letter the church in Jerusalem sent to the Gentile churches. Listen to these words. Acts chapter 15 verse 28 and 29. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements. You are to abstain from food sacrifice to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. I put it out last week through our different schools of thought about why these four particular issues. And we concluded that the best interpretation of that is that the concern of the Apostles and the elders was that the Gentile believers would accommodate the religious sensitivities of the Jewish believers. The Jewish believers, both those who were still Jews and those who had become Christians, were historically deeply steeped in the law of Moses. These four particular issues were part of the warp and woof of their whole religious life. And for them to see Gentiles not observe that or to make light of it would exaggerate the gap between Jew and Gentile. It would cause divisions. It would keep Jewish believers from ever wanting to become Christians. And it would cause a stumbling block even to Jewish believers who had become Christians. And so they said, "observe these things for the sake of peace." That's where we want to pick it up this morning because as I said earlier, I want to talk now about the implications of the decisions that have been reached by the Council in Jerusalem. And I've said repeatedly, the implications of that decision continue to be with us today, far beyond whether or not we circumcise male children or male adults in order to belong to the covenant or not. So in the time that we have this morning, let's see how far we can get three lessons that I think we can learn from this decision of the Jerusalem Council. First lesson is this, in Christ, the ceremonial law of Moses has been abolished and therefore is no longer in effect today. In Christ, the ceremonial law is abolished. Paul writing to the Ephesians 2 verse 15, he said, "Christ abolished in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations." The law there is the ceremonial law. Now remember the ceremonial law of Moses was all the ritual and all the instructions that God gave to Israel at Mount Sinai when he entered into covenant with them. The instructions and the rituals centered on the tabernacle worship but were not restricted to that and it included such things as animal sacrifices repeatedly. Animals had to be sacrificed, other sacrifices had to be made as well. It included things like observing special holy days, a Sabbath day every seven days, a Sabbath year every seven years and the year of Jubilee every 50 years. It included such things as foods they could eat and foods they could not eat, very particular dietary restrictions. Included what kind of clothes they could wear, what kind of fabric they could be made of and it included things like what kind of crops you grew and how you grew them. Now the purpose of the ceremonial law, it's very helpful to remember, was twofold. Number one, it was to teach Israel what it meant to be God's holy people. It taught Israel that God was holy, that they were sinful, and that the gap between a holy God and a sinful people had to be bridged in order for God to be able to dwell among them in his tabernacle and shower them with his gracious presence and with his power. So every time they sacrificed an animal, they confessed their sin. Every time they observed dietary laws, they were teaching themselves that they were God's holy people and they had to be separate from the nations of the world. The ceremonial law was intended to teach them that they were God's holy people. But more than that, it was also intended to teach them that one day the Christ would come as the fulfillment of the ceremonial law and that he alone could bridge the gap between an unholy people and a holy God. Because the problem with the ceremonial law, of course, is that it could point out their sin, it could point out the need for forgiveness, it could point out the wide gap between a holy God and a sinful people, but it couldn't really bridge it. That is to say, it couldn't really change people from the inside out, which is why, according to the book of Hebrews, the ceremonial law was a shadow of the reality that Jesus would one day come to bring. So listen to these words from Hebrews chapter 10, the law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason, it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. What the author to Hebrews is saying there is you can sacrifice all the animals you want. You can confess your sins all you want, but you've got to do it again every day, every year, because it doesn't change who you are. The only one who can change who you are is Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the Old Testament ceremonial law, because he entered into the presence of God once and for all, and he made us righteous by faith in him. And that is why Hebrews chapter 10 goes on to say in verse 14, "By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." If you're in Christ, and I've said this many times, but I'll keep on repeating it as long as the Lord gives me breath, if you are in Christ, you are as perfect as you're ever going to be. And whatever it was that the ceremonial law represented has been fulfilled in Christ, which is why universally the church today does not observe the ceremonial law. We don't have an altar in this building to sacrifice animals. Can you imagine what a difference that would make? What smelly, dirty business that was back then, placed on the altar, burning flesh, a constant reminder of sinfulness, taken care of by the cross of Jesus on Calvary? We don't observe, at least we don't need to observe, we'll talk more about that later, holy days in the way Israel observed holy days. You don't have to worry about what kind of food you eat, whether or not it pleases God. And other than for decency purposes, you don't have to worry about the kind of clothes you wear because it really doesn't matter anymore. And it's very important to understand that because as I've pointed out earlier, there is always the human tendency to drift away from grace into law. And the temptation then is to lose the balance between what Christ has done and what we need to do. And there is a tendency towards saying, well, there must be more than believing in Jesus for me to be righteous before God. And that often comes to expression then in, well, you got to eat certain kinds of food, or you got to behave certain kinds of ways on certain kinds of days, all of which are okay in and of themselves, but they can easily move us from a position of grace to a position of putting us back under the law. And Paul talks about that, as you know, extensively in the book of Galatians, where he says in Galatians 1, 6 and 7. Now remember, these are the people that he brought the gospel to on his first missionary journey. These are the people in Iconium. These are the people in Pisidian, Antioch. These are the people in Derbe. Remember, they had been bombarded by the Judaizers who said, "It isn't good enough just to believe you got to keep the law of Moses." And Paul says to them, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which really is no gospel at all. You're turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all." There's nothing wrong in saying, "I don't like certain foods. I'm not going to eat certain foods." There's nothing wrong in saying, "Well, I choose to behave in this way or in that way." There's nothing wrong in choosing how you observe Holy Days. But when you move from resting in the grace of God in Christ and you now begin to lean on those and you teach other people to lean on those as a way of earning the righteousness of God, you have fallen away from grace and you have lost sight of who Jesus is. That's why in Galatians Paul goes on to say, "Listen, if you get circumcised, it's not a question of circumcision. If you get circumcised, you're putting yourself back under the law if you're doing it for religious reasons and you have cut yourself off from Christ." That's how big a thing this is from a biblical point of view. So the ceremonial law, and I know this leaves you with questions but we'll get to that in due time, the ceremonial law has been abolished and we are to resist every temptation in every form or fashion to drag us back under the ceremonial law of Moses. That's the first implication of the decision of the Jerusalem Council. But there's a second one and that is this, that in Christ the moral law has been fulfilled, remains in effect today, and continues to be God's requirement for his children. Let me say it again, the moral law has been fulfilled, it remains in effect today, and God expects you and me through faith in Christ to do everything we can to live according to the commandments of the moral law of God. Let me call you again, Matthew 517. This is Jesus being criticized by the Pharisees for his disregard for the letter of the law. They think he doesn't take the law of God seriously and he says this, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I've not come to make light of the law. I've come to see the law fulfilled in every possible way and then to make sure that people understood what it was that he was talking about." He goes on to say later on in that chapter in verse 20 of Matthew 5, "I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless it exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." I don't know about you, but those are very sobering words because the scribes and the Pharisees, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law in the days of Jesus were the epitome of spirituality. These were people who studied the law of God. Remember, they discovered 613 commandments in the Torah that God expected people to keep. They went out of their way to try to keep those commandments. They prided themselves in how well they did it. Their righteousness would put most of us sitting in this room to shame to this day. What was wrong with it? It was an external righteousness. It was living up to the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. In the words of Jesus, they strained out the gnat and they swallowed the camel. They knew exactly how to keep the letter of the law, but they totally lost the spirit of the law because the spirit of the law summarized by Jesus means what? Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself. Under the new covenant, I'll talk about that in just a moment, it's not just a matter of this rule and this rule and this rule and that rule and you keep them all and you're doing okay. No, it is living in such a way that God is always first and your neighbor is as important as you are because your life is motivated by love. Well, that kind of law keeping, none of us could ever do. And that is why God in Christ fulfilled the law. What Jesus did was keep that law perfectly and as he keeps the law perfectly, the difference between law and grace as we have seen before is that the law says do this and you will live. That is to say you live in a way that pleases God and doesn't offend him, then he will take you to be part of his community. The gospel of grace says there is nobody who can even come close to that and anybody who thinks he can come close to that is only thinking that he's coming close to it because he is so lowered the standards of God that it suits his own convenience. Grace says it has been done, it is accomplished in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the only one that ever lived out of the spirit of the law, loved God always first, loved his neighbor more than he ever loved himself, fully measured up to all of God's expectations, therefore and you've heard me say this so many times when he died on the cross, he didn't die for his own sins, he died for our sins and because there was no sin in him, death couldn't keep him, God raised him from the dead, seated him at his right hand in glory and when you and I understand in our deep heart places our inability to measure up to the law of God, when we understand our sin and misery, we put our faith and our trust in Jesus, then his righteousness is imputed to us and God when he looks at you and me by faith declares us justified just as if we had never sinned because now you see we're not coming to God on the basis of climbing the ladder, we're coming to God on the basis of we have already climbed the ladder because we are in Christ who is perfect and more than that then as you know he gives us his Holy Spirit and when he gives us the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit changes us from the inside out, not to make us worthy of being accepted by God but because we already have been accepted and we want to live his way, that's why in the book of Hebrews chapter 8 verse 10 there's a quotation from Jeremiah talking about the fact that God has abrogated, he's gotten rid of the old covenant, he has instituted a new covenant and this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time declares the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts, I will be their God and they will be my people. See that's why your Bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament, another word for testament is covenant, under the old covenant God said do this and you will live, under the new covenant God says look to Christ, he has already done it all and by faith in him you are declared righteous, it makes a level ground before God in terms of redemption, the good, the bad and the ugly, we all need Jesus equally. So the law, the moral law has been fulfilled in Christ, Christ in you the hope of glory praises scripture, so now if by faith I'm joined to Jesus I want to do what God wants me to do, not because he's going to like me better or accept me more because I'm doing it well, remember we said before under the old covenant I belong because I obey, under the new covenant it's the other way around, I obey because I belong and because I belong there is a new desire in me now to do what God wants me to do and that's why the New Testament is filled, you read all the letters of the New Testament, they're filled with practical exhortations on how to live the Christian life, put off the old ways of behavior, get rid of anger, get rid of jealousy, get rid of lust, get rid of all the things that defile you as God's holy people and learn to walk in love before God and in love before your fellow man, quit hiding behind the fact that you can no longer do it because in Christ you are a new creation and Christ in you is at work to will and to work according to his good pleasure and so again it's very important to understand that because as I've pointed out previously the temptation is not only to lose the balance towards legalism, there's also a temptation to lose the balance towards license and the world is filled with Christians who say well I'm just a poor sinner and don't expect me to control my temper, don't expect me to hold my tongue, don't expect me to be faithful to my spouse, don't expect me to be obedient to God in the practical areas of life because well you know who am I and we make light of the commandments of God when God says unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you're not going to get into the kingdom of God. What God is looking for is the balance between obedience and freedom and what he warns us against is what Paul says in Ephesians 5 verse 6, "Let no one deceive you with empty words because of such things all the things the Gentiles do, God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." There's something about obedience that grates the human heart that I think we really need to understand. God is looking to generate the obedience of the nations. The kingdom of God means God rules and people know his rule and they obey his rule and let me say it for the umpteenth time we're not saved by obeying the rules but having been saved there is a new desire in us to obey the rules. That's why if you study the Heidelberg Catechism for those of us that have grown up in the history of this denomination the treatment of the Ten Commandments doesn't happen in the first section that deals with sin and misery it happens in the third section. What does a life of gratitude look like? If I have been saved by Jesus there ought to be a discernible difference as time goes on in my life. I ought to be bearing the fruit of righteousness. If that's not happening then we need to go back to the foundation and we need to ask ourselves the question, "Am I truly in Christ and if I am how come my life is not bearing fruit?" It has nothing to do with being perfect, it has everything to do with becoming more Christ like. Are you still with me this morning? Third lesson, it's this. In disputable matters, questionable matters, we must extend freedom of conscience to other believers. Let me say it again, in questionable or disputable matters we need to set other people free to follow their conscience. Let me expand on that because the minute we divide the law of God between the ceremonial law and the moral law we are confronted by a two-fold problem. The first is the Bible is not always very clear about what constitutes a moral law and therefore remains in effect throughout the course of history and eternity and what is a ceremonial law that was only to be observed by the Israelites for a season. Let me give you two examples. We talked last week about blood pudding, remember? Blood sausage. The prohibition in Acts 15 to not eat blood, is that ceremonial law and therefore temporary? Or is it moral law and therefore eternal? Because you see, scripture is not very clear on it because on the one hand the prohibition to eating blood comes from the law of Moses. It happens at least half a dozen times in the book of Leviticus and in the surrounding holiness laws. But on the other hand it goes back all the way to Noah when God said you now are allowed to eat meat but these are the restrictions so I ask you the question, is it moral law? And therefore still in effect today? Or is it ceremonial law and not in effect today? Understandably, Christians historically are divided. I said the Irish and the British last week are accustomed to eating blood pudding. In my family of origin, eating blood in any form was considered a no-no. Division of opinion because it's not always clear. Give you another example. The commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, it's part of the Ten Commandments. It's part of the Mosaic ceremonial law because it gets instituted in connection with Israel being made a holy nation. But it also goes back all the way to the dawn of creation when God rested on the seventh day. And so the commandment to keep the Sabbath day as the day of her asked, is it part of the ceremonial law and therefore no longer valid today? Or is it part of the moral law that remains in effect to this day? You see when you understand those issues, and these are just two examples, you understand why there has been so much difference of opinion among so many Christians about how to do life because it's not very clear. So the Bible is not very clear. But even where the Bible seems to be clear, and this is the second problem in separating the moral law from the ceremonial law, even where the Bible is clear, there's a lot of difference of opinion in how to interpret what the New Testament says God's people ought to be doing. And there the question is, to what degree are the commandments of the New Testament moral law and therefore eternal? And to what degree are they adaptation to the culture of the day? And so in my own lifetime and the lifetime of many of you here, I can rattle off a whole bunch of things over which God's people over the years have been vigorously in disagreement with each other. Let me name you just a couple of them. First of all, there is the question, should, and think back to the 70s, should men wear long hair? I mean, it has sort of ceased being a problem because, you know, we just adapt ourselves to our culture. But the New Testament says that for a man to wear his hair long is actually shameful, and as for a woman to cut off her hair is said to be shameful. Now is that cultural, or is that a time-bound rule of go on? Likewise, should women wear hats to church? I don't, Blarna back there's got a hat. I don't know if any of the rest of you do. Used to be you wouldn't go to church without a hat on. When I first came to Canada and we attended a Roman Catholic elementary school and the girls would go across the road to church for a mass, they all had to have their head covering on. And if they didn't bring their hat, they had to pin a piece of toilet paper with bobby pins to their hat, to their heads. Seriously, this is, this is true. They had a cover there. So is this a time-bound cultural issue, or is this an issue of eternal importance? And you can go on like that, women wearing pants, women occupying positions of leadership in the church. Let me think of some other examples that I have here. Should you work on Sunday? Should stores be open on Sunday? Remember that controversy some years back when the blue laws were being diminished and stores began opening up and how many of us voiced our protest? Should stores, can you shop on Sunday and not sin, except of course when you're on vacation and nobody's watching you and you can do whatever you want to do. That's usually how that works. Can a Christian go to a movie theater? I saw a piece and I've never seen any of the shows, Games of Thrones or whatever it's called, asking the question, are those the kind of shows that Christians can legitimately watch? I remember controversies about the use of guitars in church. I remember one man in the second congregation that I pastored who stormed out of church in a given situation because somebody was playing the guitar and I think on another occasion because somebody had a beard. Can't imagine, you get much more biblical than wearing a beard, but that's a whole other issue. How do we draw the line about what we do and how do we handle it when somebody sees it differently than we do? Well, fortunately, that's the issue that Paul addresses in the scripture reading that's before us this morning, Romans chapter 14. I want us to listen carefully to what he says and then in the time that remains, as quickly as I can, I want to point out five principles that govern our behavior with respect to dubious issues over which honest, God-fearing people have honest differences of opinion. Romans chapter 14, follow along, preferably on your sheet, because I want you to make some notes, at least underline some verses. This is Paul writing, "Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand." Very quickly, five things I want us to note in that passage and in succeeding verses. Please note these down, because they are crucial to growing up in Christ in healthy community. The first is this, it is okay, where are we here, it is okay to have differences of opinion regarding disputable matters. The disputable matters here, as in much of the New Testament, focused on two things. Eating meat, sacrifice to idols, and keeping the Sabbath. There were those following the instruction of the Council of Jerusalem who said do not eat meat, sacrifice to idols, remember? Paul makes it a disputable issue for reasons that we'll talk about in just a moment. There are some who eat meat even when it has been sacrificed to idols, there are others who say I can't do this, this will scandalize my conscience, I will lose my faith, therefore I will not. Major issue of contention as you can appreciate in the early church. The second issue is Sabbath. There are those who say the Sabbath day is sacred. God told us to keep the Sabbath, remember the Sabbath is the seventh day, don't labor. And the other said the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ, it is the same as every other day and you can imagine the kind of tension that created back then if you consider the tension that has created even among Christians about what doing on Sunday should look like. It's okay to have differences of opinion about disputable issues, even when those disputable issues are rooted in what you think are matters of scripture. It's not okay to have differences of opinion about the moral law of God, but it's okay to have differences of opinion about disputable issues. Secondly, the thing to note is that this difference of which Paul speaks is rooted in various levels of spiritual maturity, because notice how he puts it in verse 2, one man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man whose faith is weak, listen to that, whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. Now isn't that a mind blower? Because you and I are accustomed to thinking that a person who has a broad view of what is or is not acceptable in the Christian life is less mature than a person who keeps the rules and lives properly, isn't that true? I mean don't you admire the people who live by the rules as opposed to the person who just says, "Well, you know, we live by grace and I can do whatever I want to do, thank you very much." Paul turns that on its head and he says the people who have trouble eating meat sacrifice to idols, and remember they were trying to do what the Council of Jerusalem said they were supposed to be doing, he says they are weak in faith. The people who only eat vegetables are weak in faith and the people who eat meat are stronger in faith, why? Because the people who eat meat understand an idol is nothing and therefore has no power over you and that by faith in Christ they can live above that, not to be self-indulgent, but to experience the freedom that Christ has come to bring. And so he goes on to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 4, which is a parallel passage that deals with his whole subject, "So then, about eating food sacrifice to idols, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and there is no God but one," now notice how he is at odds with the Jerusalem Council decision and this illustrates the point that we made earlier that the issue here is not an abiding law but an accommodation to Jewish sensitivities. As the church moves away from its Jewish background, the reality is that idols have no substance, they have no power because Christ is bigger and so he goes on to say then in verse 7 and 8, "But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol and since their conscience is weak it is defiled." And then he comes with a clincher, "Food does not bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat and no better if we do." So what he is saying is, "Yes, I don't want you linked to idols, I don't want you to commit spiritual idolatry, but if your heart is right before God, whether or not the meat has been used in temple worship or not has no power over you because they have no power because Christ has all the power." Lots of implications of that that we'll talk about in more detail as time goes on, but the point is these things, these disputable areas are the result of different levels of faith. The more mature we are, the more we understand what God is looking for and as we'll see as time goes on, if our hearts are right, that's what counts before God because it's not the [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:43:14.440; remove through 00:43:18.000] externals that matter, it is the internals. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:43:18.000; resume after this marked segment]