The Stumbling Stone

We were looking together last Sunday morning at the very difficult teaching of divine election.
We saw that the doctrine of divine election teaches us that we are saved ultimately, not
by anything that is within us, but rather by the sovereign choice and grace of God. Long
before the world was ever made, long before we were ever born, God chose his own desolation.
He sovereignly arranged the circumstances of our coming into the world, the time, the place,
so I believe the parents of which we would be born, arranged our being called by his spirit
to himself, exposed us to the truth of the gospel, gave us grace to understand that gospel
, respond to it, and to begin a walk, a ledger of faith.
The doctrine of election is used in the scriptures, not as a cosmic dice, any meany mindy moe,
or saved, and you're not saved, you're elected, you're not elected.
But as a word of comfort in the scriptures for God's children, that when they struggle
with the issues of life and they wonder how in the world am I going to remain faithful
to God and arrive in glory, God says, "I called you, I chose you, I called you to myself,
I will also give you whatever it is that you need in order to keep on walking the walk
of faith."
It is a word of comfort.
It's never intended to be.
The kind of thing that enabled us to sit back ahead of time and say, "Well, I'm elected
there for anything that I do is okay, and you're not elected, it doesn't matter what
you don't do, it's not going to work anyway, that's nonsense."
That's not part of teaching of the scriptures.
We also said last week that the doctrine of election has been a very controversial doctrine
in the history of the Christian Church.
And one of the reasons for that is that if God chooses some to life than the very obvious
implication is that others are not chosen, they are passed by.
And that always raises the issue of fairness.
As God fair in picking some and not in picking others.
And Paul addresses that issue, as you'll recall here in Romans 9, when he says, "Who
are you, O man, to argue with God?"
He says, "God is the potter, we are the clay."
He's sovereign.
He could do whatever it is that he wants to do.
And because the whole world is destined for judgment and it deserves judgment because
of sin, if God wants to reach into that world and pick out some and leave others, that's
his business.
He can do what he wants to do besides that in the context of the scriptures when the Bible
talks about the hardening of heart.
People are never mere robots and have nothing to say about their salvation.
They will end up rejecting God's grace deliberately and willfully.
And it's important for us to understand that.
If we're elect, God will grant us faith.
And we will stand before God and we will know that it's nothing that we've done that
is brought us here.
It's been God's grace that have brought us to where we are.
And people that wake up in hell, nobody will be able to say, "I'm here because I had
no choice in the matter, I was non-elect and I wanted to be saved, but God wouldn't
let me be saved."
That's nonsense.
They're there because in Adam they sinned, they're there because they chose to sin.
They chose to rebel against God and they end up bringing condemnation on themselves.
So there is an inherent paradox where the Bible emphasizes both the divine sovereignty
of God and human responsibility.
And if we're saved, we're saved because God did the work.
If we're lost, we're lost because we chose to walk in rebellion against God.
And Paul says here in the context of this passage of Jews and Gentiles, there are those
whom God has called to life, and to those people he will give faith.
And if both Jews and Gentiles there are those who will not embrace faith and they will end
up being lost.
And it's in that context now that in the concluding verses of this chapter, he summarizes all
of his teaching in these words, "What shall we say to them?"
But Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is the righteousness
through faith.
But that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling
that law.
Why?
Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as it were based on works.
They have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written, "I am laying in Zion a stone
that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and he who believes in
me will not be put to shame."
Let's take some time now this morning and look at those verses in some detail.
And I want us to notice right away that we have here two different groups of people.
Two different groups of people that pursued two different agendas.
There are the Gentiles in the one hand, and there are the Jews on the other hand.
The Gentiles, of course, are people who are not Jewish, and Paul says their agenda is
not to pursue righteousness.
The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, that is to say, "Here is a category of people
they don't believe in God, they don't believe in obeying God, they don't know the commandments
of God, and even if they did they had no interest in obeying them, they just want to live
their own way."
They're like the neighbor down the street.
It doesn't believe in God, at least not in any practical sense of the word.
It doesn't go to church, there's no interest in bringing his life into conformity with
God's laws, he just lives for his own pleasure, and makes himself a God.
That's the Gentiles.
They're one category of people.
And since Paul, there's the other category of people, there's the Jews.
Now the Jews, he says, "They pursued righteousness."
That is to say, "Here is a people, they believe in God."
And they believe that God has told us how it is that we ought to live, and they want
to bless things in the favor of God in their lives.
They are zealous, Paul says, "They pursue righteousness," that word is significant.
Because to pursue means that you've got a goal set, and that you're putting yourself
into reaching that goal.
You'll recall there was a day in the Old Testament when many of the Jews constantly
pursued sin, they wanted to be like the nations all around them.
But they came a day when God's judgment fell on them, they were shipped off into exile.
And then in that period of exile, they finally learned their lesson, when they came back
to the promised land, they had a goal many of them, that that was never going to happen
again.
They were going to live the way God would have them live.
And the way to do that, they figured, was by pursuing the law of roses.
And so you get the Pharisees and that whole religious movement in the days of Jesus.
God had made a very fine art of obeying the commandments.
And I know we often give them bad press, and we look at the Pharisees through the eyes
of the New Testament, but we forget that they wanted to be righteous before the face
of God.
They pursued righteousness, they thought, "This is the way that you get the favor of God."
So here you got these two groups, you got the Jews over here, they're pursuing righteousness.
You got the Gentiles over the other side, they're not interested in righteousness at all,
they don't even want a serve of God.
Now who's going to make that?
Well you would think the Jews would have the edge, would you not?
I mean these are the people that at least ought to get an effort.
But notice what Paul says.
What shall we say then?
That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.
That is the righteousness through faith.
But that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on the law did not succeed
in fulfilling that law.
Not an incredible contrast.
People that have no interest in being righteous, they become righteous and people who are making
a fine art of getting it together concentrate on it all their lives with everything that
is within them, they flunk.
You'll understand in a while where the gospel becomes so incredibly offensive to religious
people, Paul says why is this?
It goes on to explain in verse 32 because they did not pursue it through faith, but as
if it were based on works, listen to that carefully, why?
Because they pursued it not through faith, but as if it were based on works.
Let's look at that a little bit because that's the summary of the gospel message, the crunch
in terms of the gospel.
Faith verses works.
All through the scriptures there are two avenues that people try to appeal to you to gain the
favor and the blessing of God.
The most obvious one always is works.
Works doesn't simply mean that you can, well let me backtrack and put it this way.
This means that you see God's up here and I'm down here and I see what it is that God
wants me to be.
And now I look at myself and I say well I've got my work cut out for me but with enough
time, energy, ambition, work I can learn to understand who God is and I can live the way
that God would have me live.
Works means I can pull myself up by my bootstraps, I'm smart enough, I'm talented enough, I'm
equipped enough to be able to do the things of God and to gain his favor.
That was the Jewish sin they fell into thinking that if they did it all right, God would notice
them and God would bless them and God would give them at least credit or effort.
That's the works of the law.
Paul says but the works of the law, no man will be justified not before the face of God.
The way of faith is always the opposite of the works of the law.
The way of faith says God's up here, I'm down here and if I live to be a hundred thousand
years of age, I'll never have with what it takes for me to get here.
I am a sinner, I am conceived and born in sin, God is angry with me, has just calls for
being angry with me, I am under His condemnation and I deserve to go to hell and there is nothing
I can do to make myself the kind of person that God wants me to be, the sin that lives
in me is too strong for who I am.
And faith says unless God helps me and God forgives me and God restores me, I will never
make it into His glory.
And faith adheres the message of the gospel, sees the Lord Jesus in His glory, understands
that He alone is righteous and faith says I lay aside all my own effort, all my own self-righteousness.
I put my trust in Jesus regardless of who I am, where I've been or what I've accomplished.
I give it all up and I put my faith in Jesus and by faith in Jesus, I will be righteous
and God will receive me and God will take me to Himself.
That's why the message is good news to people who know their sin.
That's why when Paul and others went around the ancient world, preaching the gospel of
good news, there were people who were aware of their sins who embraced that message with
great hope and with great joy and gentiles from all the nations of the world were born
into the kingdom of God.
They who didn't pursue righteousness, found righteousness by faith in Jesus.
By the same token, anybody who wanted to base his righteousness on his or her own efforts
or his or her own work found that message of the gospel and incredibly offensive message.
And so the Jews, the bulk of them, when the gospel came to them, had a hard time understanding
it and they had a hard time believing it because embracing the gospel meant giving up all
of the advantages for which most of them had worked all of their lives.
We need to understand that, I think.
You know, it's easy for us to be skeptical and to look at those Jews and how they responded
to Jesus and to Paul's preaching and to say, "What a bunch of dummies.
Why didn't they just believe?"
But put yourself for just a moment if you can into their shoes.
Here is a people who all of their life have been taught they are a special people.
They are God's chosen people.
They are a people who are God's coveted people, all the males bore the mark of circumcision.
God said, "I love you and I'm going to bring you into your inherited."
All their life, they had been brought up knowing who God is or so they thought.
And they had developed a whole way of religious life that they felt was the way that God wanted
them to live.
They knew how to worship.
They knew how to conduct themselves in business.
And all their lives they had had a morality of which they were proud.
They knew how to live the kind of life that they thought God wanted them to live.
And they looked down at all these Gentile dogs as they called them all around them, people
that were committing adultery and running around doing this stuff and the other thing.
And they said, "Wow, you know, those are bad people. We're much better. We're godly people."
Now don't forget they were doing this prayerfully, many of them.
Paul later on goes to say they had a zeal for God, but it was not enlightened.
Look at Paul's own life, he says in Philippians chapter 4, there was a time before he met Jesus
that he was according to the law, sinless, righteous before the law.
That's how serious he was about living his life.
And so all these Jewish folks that bought into the law were of people who had an incredible
interest invested in living under the law. Their reputation and their communities was determined
by how much they knew and how godly a life they lived. Do you understand that, huh?
Am I making sense here? Very important for us till I hold of that.
These people had spent their whole life carving out their inheritance and they were doing
it on the basis of what they had accomplished.
You know, it's a little bit like, "Well, let me backtrack and put it this way."
The gospel of the message comes along and cuts through all of that sort of stuff.
In God says to them, "I don't care how you think you got it together, and I don't care
how much you think you have accomplished as far as I'm concerned, is you're no better
than the Gentile out there who's living a very immoral life.
And you too need a repent of your sin, recognize that all of these things that you've done
don't come as a hill of beans in my kingdom and you've got to become like a child and
enter into the kingdom." Can you see why that's offensive?
I mean, it's a little bit like, "Imagine you've gone to church all your life."
And you've learned all the right doctrines and you've lived a pretty clean life and you've
been active in Christian service. And the gospel comes along and the Lord says to you,
"You know, all of this stuff that you've learned for all this position that you've gained
all the recognition that you've received, you're no more important in my eyes than the
person out from the street who hasn't done any of these kinds of things because you both
need to come to Jesus and admit you need Jesus Christ for your salvation, washing away
all your sins, you both need the righteousness of Christ. How do you feel? If all the things
you had prided yourself in, you were told were no good and that you had to start over
and become like a child in entering the kingdom of God. Remember now that's how Paul talked
about himself in Philippians chapter 3. He says, "You want a boast about your credentials?"
He said, "I got reason to boast." He says, "If any other man thinks he has reason for
confidence in the flesh, I, he says, have more." Circumcised on the eighth day, I'm part
of God's covenant people, of the people of Israel, right family connections, got an in
with God, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. I mean, I've got a pedigree
that's just right on, you know? My genealogy is pure all the way back, none of this, whatever.
As to the law, a Pharisee, okay? A man committed to obeying the law would rather err on the
side of caution than to take for granted and to just please go on. As to righteousness
under the law, I wonder how many of us could even dare to begin to say as for righteousness
under the law? He says, "I was blabeless." I mean, here's a man who would have made it
into who's who? Judaism, a young man who's really serious about the things of God and
it's really going to go places in the kingdom. All of that says Paul was until he met Jesus.
Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything
as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake,
I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse or garbage or manure even
in order that I may gain Christ and be founded him, not having a righteousness of me own based
on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends
on faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Israel, he says, "Who
pursued the righteousness which is based on the law did not succeed in fulfilling that
law because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works."
And you see how incredibly offensive the gospel is if you have something in yourself that
you're boasting in, that you hope God will take notice of. And so the tendency is that
the further along you are in self-righteousness, the better a person you are apart from God's
grace depending on your own ability. The harder a time you have with the gospel, because
it means the gospel first is going to bring you down to zero before Christ can build you
up. And that's why Paul on this passage now goes on to say, "They stumbled over the
stumbling stone." As it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make
men stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and he who believes in him will not be put
to shame." But last verse is a quotation from Isaiah. As a matter of fact, Paul takes two
verses from Isaiah, puts them together, "I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men
stumble." There's something about the gospel that is incredibly offensive to the natural
man. You know, we often think of Jesus as meek and mild friend of sinners, right? We
could be stereotypical images of how comfortable we would be if Jesus showed up. And it's true
sinners were comfortable with Jesus. Anybody who knew their sin and their shortcoming
and wasn't trying to justify himself or herself, they found in Jesus a friend of sinners
because they discovered that he accepted them unconditionally, promised them new life
and new hope, and by faith in him they became children of God. But that same message is
a two-age sword and a stumbling stone that anybody that wants to be self-righteous. Because
you see the same Jesus who embraces sinners comes down so hard on the self-righteous.
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but it's the power of God
to salvation for those who are saved. And the reason for that, of course, is that everything
Jesus stands for, is a judgment and a condemnation on everything that mankind stands for. In the
world, what determines your status and your place? How do you come into your inheritance?
Well, being born into the right family helps. Having good natural talent and ability that
helps. Being smart, that helps. Being a hard worker, that helps. So we live in a world
where your inheritance is determined by who you are and by what you can do. And that's
why the world is always filled with pride, pride of intellect. I've got life figured out,
pride of morality. I live a pretty decent life, may not be perfect, but I live a pretty
decent life. Good works. You know, there are people who have reduced good works to an
art. And they know exactly what it is that they can pride themselves in because that's
what makes them feel good about themselves. And a lot of them will even think, well, this
is what God wants me to do. Good works, pride in good works, pride in achievement. Look
at what I have accomplished, the mighty Babylon that I have built. Now most people are too
humble to put it that way. But apart from God's grace, that's what lives in our heart. Look
what I have accomplished, pride of understanding. I know the mysteries of life. I've got the
formula to make you successful. Ever notice when you see down with people, how so many
people are just the overflowing fountain of all wisdom. I mean, the politicians in Ottawa
don't have to know what all the people in the country do about running the country, right?
Everybody's got an opinion as to how it ought to be done. It flows out of the pride that
says, I can do it. The reverse of that is low self-esteem, which is just the flip side
of that same coin because you're always trying to impress yourself or to impress other
people that somehow you can get it all together. It permeates our lives, it permeates the world
and said to say sometimes it even permeates the church. We are impressed by status and we
are impressed by position and we are impressed by what people are in the natural. Jesus
comes along. Oh, that we could understand the radicality of the gospel. Jesus comes along
and he says, you know, for God's concern, he's not very impressed by it. He's not impressed
by your wealth. He's not impressed by your good looks. He's not impressed by your reputation.
He's not at all impressed by the big empire that you've built. All God's looking for is
a person whose heart is right before him. A person who has a right relationship with
God because in the kingdom of God, how does the inheritance come to you? How do you get
success in life? How do you become the kind of person that God is calling you to be? How
do you get influenced and prestige? God gives it to his children. If our relationship
is right with God, then God will elevate us and bring us into the glorious reality of
his kingdom. That's what Jesus stands for. He today, at the right hand of God, the father
is King of kings and Lord of lords. Everything mankind ever since the fall has been trying
to achieve control, domination, power and glory. Jesus has got it all. How did he get it?
Never raised an army, never sat in the parliament, never passed a law, never wrote a book, never
did any of the things that people associate with human greatness, died a death on the cross,
healed humanly speaking in his earthly mission. And yet he today has got glory and honor
beyond anything that we can imagine. How did he get it? Because he humbled himself and
was obedient to the father even unto death. And the message of the cross is that elevation
does not come from east and west. It doesn't come from the wilderness and it doesn't come
from the world and it doesn't come from ourselves. It comes from God. So that if we're
right with God, God will lift us up. And the message of the cross is that as we lay aside
our claim to our own self-righteousness, our prestige, our own abilities. And know that
we are sinners saved by grace and we belong to Jesus, then God will take us by the hand
regardless of who we are, Jew or Gentile. And he will bring us into his inheritance.
He will give us our allotment in life and all the gates of hell cannot prevail against
the Lord and the Lord's people. The Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have
attained it. But the Jews who pursued it based on law, they have not attained it. They
have stumbled over the stumbling stone. They couldn't stomach the fact. But all they
had achieved and all they had learned and all they had done for so many years was absolutely
useless. They couldn't really get down on their knees and really say, "Lord, I don't
know anything. I don't have anything. Give me Jesus and His righteousness." And to this day,
that's the stumbling block of the cross. Wherever the gospel of the kingdom gets proclaimed,
we'll find two kinds of people. There is a kind of person who says, "I can do it myself.
I am self-righteous. I've got something that I can offer that I can contribute." And
there is the kind of person who knows deep down in their hearts. They haven't got what
it takes and they need Jesus. The first kind of person, the gospel, comes along and the
gospel will cause them offence. It's bad news. You're making me feel bad. You're bringing
out the worst, didn't you? The others, they hear it. They receive it as good news. Their
lives change and they become conformed by the power of Jesus to the image of Jesus. Let
me ask you this morning what kind of person are you? How do you receive the gospel of
the kingdom? I fear sometimes those of us that have been raised in church tradition. We
very easily fall into the same seed as did the Jews so many years ago. I sometimes feel
that apart from God's grace, we all have that tendency to think of ourselves more as Jewish
people than as New Testament believers. It's so easy to say, "Well, I've been born in
a Christian home. I was baptized when I was just a little child. I want to send these
schools all of my life. I learned all the Bible stories. I know how God wants me to live.
I go to church faithfully and religiously. I am Abraham's offspring. I've been in church
all of my life. Certainly that ought to matter. Something in the kingdom."
God comes along to you and He says, "A part from Christ and all that He stands for."
It doesn't mean a hill of ease because Paul goes on to point out on this
particular passage or earlier in the passage points out that not all the descendants of Abraham
are Abraham's descendants. They're not air of the promises of the kingdom.
And I can live in a religious environment all of my life. I can be a very mortal person. I can
be one of the best people around. Like Paul was one of the best people around. But if I haven't been
to the cross of Jesus, acknowledge my sin and receive the power of his Holy Spirit to be transformed
within. It's all a noisy gong and a clinging symbol. The big question then
is never how long have I been in the church? Or how well do I know all the doctrines of the church?
The question is, have I been to the cross of Jesus? Have I repented of my sin?
Has there been a time in my life where I have kneeled before the cross of Jesus?
And I said, Lord Jesus, I see that I'm a sinner. I see that I you're not impressed by everything
that I know and everything that I've ever done. You're only impressed by the repentance and the
faith that you're working in my heart. I need Jesus. He alone is righteous. He alone is the
gift of my life. I embrace him. Because when we do that, God works out the reality of faith,
gives us His Spirit and God declares that we're righteous. And when God declares that we're righteous,
it doesn't matter what anybody else says, we are righteous before His face.
If we don't do that, it doesn't matter how hard we try to do it all right. It doesn't matter how many
people admire us or how many people look up to us because we are such good people. God will look
at us in that final day and He'll say, I don't know you. But it takes humility. It takes a
willingness to say, Lord, all of my concepts, all of my achievements, I yield them to you and to
the cross of Jesus. And I just want to be what you want me to be. And when God declares us
righteous, then we discover that God takes people from east and west, from north and south,
people born in Christian homes, people born outside of Christian homes. They're all equal before
the cross of Jesus. They all need to come to Jesus and they're all put together in one body.
And nobody's got anything to boast about because we're all only saved by God's sovereign choice
and by the grace that He works in your life and in my life. And so to sum up, the gospel is a
two-edged sword, tremendously good news to anybody who is willing to say, I lay aside all of my pride,
I put all of my hope in Jesus. But to anybody who says, I want to pride myself in my accomplishments,
in what I have and what I hold unto, that's what I want to base my life on. The gospel comes as
a two-edged sword, a stumbling block that will bring out the rebellion that lives within our hearts.
And God looking for people who will embrace Jesus for all that He is and all that He stands for.
And who could be made righteous by faith in Him? Let us pray.
Father, we confess this morning that in our lives, oftentimes there is an odd mixture of faith
and works righteousness. Lord, intellectually, we often embrace the fact that we need Jesus and
that He died for us and that we're righteous only in Him. But an actual fact, Lord, it's very
easy for us to boast in our morality, our achievements, our pride of place, Lord, that secret
gloating within our heart that says, I have arrived and somehow I've brought myself to this point.
Oh, Lord, most of the time we would be too humble to put it in those terms.
But not infrequently, that's what lives in our hearts.
We confess it, Lord, it's sin. We confess that you're not impressed.
By any of the things that we're impressed with, but the only one that you're impressed by is
Jesus because He's the only one that kept your law a full 100 percent. And we pray this morning
that you'll give us the grace to repent of any self-righteousness. Anything within us that says,
well, I deserve a little bit. I can do something, or help us to understand
that not what our hands have done can save our guilty souls. Not what our toiling flesh
has worn can make my spirit whole. Not what I do or feel can make me right with God
because it's only the power of Jesus. Thank you, Father, for Jesus, for the security that we
have in Him and the acknowledgment that in Him we will receive all the grace that we need to follow
you through to the very end and to receive the kingdom that you have laid out for your children.
Thank you, Lord, for hearing us in Jesus' name. Amen.