Transcript
What I want to do in the time that we have together this morning is try to reflect with
you a little bit further as to why it was that these religious Jews were so adamantly
opposed to Paul and to the gospel of grace that he preached.
You would think, would you not, that if all your life you had been steeped in the Old
Testament and somebody like the Apostle Paul came along to say that Jesus is the fulfillment
of everything that you had hoped and longed for, you would think that people by the multitudes
would embrace that good news and joyfully become followers of Jesus.
And as we saw last week and as we see again this week in the passage before us, every
time Paul and Barnabas proclaim that good news, there are indeed many who come to faith,
both Jews and believing Gentiles, eventually raw Gentiles also.
At the same time, every time he proclaims this good news, there is a persistent core
of Jewish people, particularly Jewish leaders, who are adamantly opposed not only to Paul
but more especially to the message of grace that he preaches.
And we saw last week how the religious leaders in Antioch talked abusively against Paul and
the message that he proclaimed.
They not only disagreed with the content, but they attacked him personally.
And when that didn't seem to work very well, the next step was to incite, the scripture
says, the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city until there
was such a backlash against Paul and Barnabas' ministry that they were driven out of that
region, which brings us then to where we find them today, which is in Iconium, the next
city down the road.
But as I said earlier, it's a story of deja vu because the same thing happens again.
He proclaims the gospel.
Many come to faith, but there is a percentage of hardened Jews who again turn against Paul.
This time they go a step further.
Together with the Gentiles, they create a plot to get rid of Paul into Stonium.
Paul and Barnabas hear about it.
They're smart enough to escape.
They go down the road to Lystra.
And if you were to read the next story, which, Lord willing, we'll get to at some point
in the future, you discover that the Jews from Antioch and the Jews from Iconium follow
Paul and Barnabas to Lystra.
They now manage to incite the Gentiles in Lystra to actually physically stone Paul,
and they leave him for dead.
Thank God he wasn't, but you can imagine what a difficult journey that was for the man.
So here's that question, why this hatred of Paul and why this hatred or antipathy towards
the gospel of grace that he was preaching?
Well last week we saw jealousy had a lot to do with it.
They were jealous because of the crowds that were following Paul and Barnabas.
They were jealous undoubtedly because they saw their influence fade.
They were accustomed to being the respected leaders and their positions were being threatened.
They too saw themselves as guardians of the Old Testament and were concerned about holding
on to all of that.
But this morning I want to pursue that a little bit further because I think the cause for
their anger and the cause for their resistance to the gospel of grace ran deeper than just
the jealousy that we have been talking about.
In fact I'll go so far as to say their resistance to Paul and the gospel of grace can be summed
up this way.
They misunderstood, listen carefully, they misunderstood and misapplied the law of Moses.
They misunderstood, they misapplied the law of Moses.
Let me sum it up this way and then I'll expand on it a little bit further as the morning
goes on.
The Jews believed that if they obeyed the law rigorously this would make them righteous
before God and God would bless them.
And when Paul comes along and tells them that by the works of the law no man will be justified
before God he pulls the rug out from underneath the whole religious system which they have
spent a lifetime building up and he exposes their true condition.
And that brings forth in them the same spirit of rejection, brings in them the same anger
that caused Cain to kill Abel many years earlier.
They misunderstood and they misapplied the law of Moses.
Let me try to put it this way for you.
The dominant question in scripture that everybody asks is this question asked by the Philippian
jailer of Paul and Silas when they were in jail at Acts chapter 16, "Sirs, what must
we do to be saved?"
And it's very important to understand that historically there are three different paths
I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I want to expand on it a bit this morning,
that historically there are three different pathways that people try to follow in order
to get paradise regained or how to answer that question.
Most people will not put it in the context of what must we do to be saved, they'll put
it in the context of how can I return to paradise long?
How can I regain paradise?
How can I leave my broken life behind?
How can I get my life back together?
How can I escape the suffering and the pain that is in this world?
And how can I again be happy and be restored to happiness?
That's the way most people put it.
So there are three answers to that that are given by human beings.
The first is the way of the irreligious.
An irreligious person is a person who doesn't believe that God exists or if God exists,
he cannot be trusted to care for me and so I am responsible for caring for myself.
And so throughout the course of history, irreligious people draw on human strength, wisdom and
energy to try to solve the problems of life.
And it can take many different forms, it can come through hard work, it can come through
the advances of science or technology, music or arts, medicine or any number of solutions
that we human beings have to the problems that ail humanity.
I listened this past week to the better part of President Obama's State of the Nation address
and I'm always struck, particularly in American politics, though it's not limited to them,
how much emphasis we place on our ability to solve problems through our ingenuity and
through our cleverness.
And there is a place for all of that, but you see it doesn't solve the problem of our
relationship with God, which is why the road of the irreligious eventually always leads
to despair.
So there is not only the way of the irreligious, there is also what we call the way of grace.
And the way of grace says that God is holy, we are sinful, we are separated from God,
we cannot earn our way back to Him, but God has sent His Son into the world to die for
us, to be raised on our behalf, and when we put our faith in Him, God justifies us.
We become righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.
It's the gospel we preach, you've heard it many times, I don't need to elaborate upon
it now, other than to say that Paul's preaching demonstrates that Jesus therefore is the fulfillment
of all the laws and all the Old Testament that was pointing the way to this reality
of Jesus.
Now those are the two broad ways that we often talk about, but there is a third way which
is closely linked to the other two, but needs to be carefully distinguished, and that is
what I would call the way of the religious, but that term confuses us, I'll talk more
about that in just a moment, and therefore I've chosen to call it the way of the law.
And the way of the law says this, the way of the law says God is holy, we are sinful,
but because God has entered into covenant with God's people, He has told us how it
is that He wants us to live, and as we do our best to live that way, God will forgive
our sins, He will love us, and He will declare us righteous.
And so the religious Jews made it their business to religiously follow as many of the Old
Testament commandments as they could, hoping that in that way they would be good enough
to earn God's blessing.
This is what the religious leaders of Israel prided themselves in, they prided themselves
in keeping the laws of Moses, observing all the rituals, hoping that God would take note
of their good efforts and would award them with eternal life, and in many ways you can
blame them, because even a cursory reading of the Old Testament commandments links the
blessings of God with obedience to His law, listen for example to this verse in Leviticus
18 verse 5, keep my decrees and laws for the man who obeys them will live by them, I am
the Lord, 1 Kings 2 verse 3, observe what the Lord your God requires, walk in His ways,
keep His decrees and commands, His laws and requirements as written in the law of Moses
so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go.
And so you can see that the religious leaders took seriously the commandments of God and
took seriously the need to keep the commandments.
So what's the problem?
Well the problem says Paul is nobody can keep the law perfectly, even if we manage to keep
one law we break another, and even if we were able to keep the letter of the law we break
the spirit of the law, and furthermore he says if we count on the law to make us righteous
before God we not only do not succeed in being righteous, listen to this, we place ourselves
under the curse of the law, because scripture says if you don't keep all of the law, you're
cursed, listen to how Paul puts it in the book of Galatians, all who rely on observing
the law are under a curse, for it is written cursed is everyone who does not continue to
do everything written in the book of the law, clearly no one is justified before God by
the law because the righteous will live by faith, the law is not based on faith, on the
contrary the man who does these things will live by them.
So here's what Paul is saying, if you could keep the law of God perfectly all of the time
you wouldn't need a savior, you would be good enough to appear in the presence of God, but
mess up, even only once you're in trouble, it's like when the policeman pulls you over
for running a red light and you stand before the judge, it doesn't help that you kept all
the other laws, the question is did you run the red light or not and if you did you are
held guilty, I've told you the story before I was in a court setting not for my own purposes
just for the record and there was a man there who had run a red light at four o'clock in
the morning, poor soul, got caught, I thought it was very unfair, but he was given the judge
this whole spiel about what a good guy he was, what a good guy his father had been and
how law abiding a citizen he was and he got absolutely zilch with the judge because none
of those was the issue, the issue was did you run the red light at four o'clock in the
morning, yes or no, he did and he was found guilty, see under the law you can never make
it and if you lean on your own ability to please God you put yourself under a curse
because cursed are those who do not do all of the things written in the law, so Paul
explains in the book of Galatians God never intended for the law as a tool to make us
righteous before God, the law was given to keep sin in check and to show us the nature
of sin so that when Jesus would come along we would embrace him wholeheartedly as the
source of our righteousness because we are convinced of our own sinfulness, listen again
to how he puts it as he goes on in the book of Galatians, now before faith came we were
confined under the law kept under restraint until faith should be revealed so that the
law was our custodian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith, let me stop
there for just a moment because that word custodian is a very important word, it hails
from the fact that in the Greco-Roman world a son born to a wealthy man was scheduled
one day to inherit his father's property but until he was ready to inherit his father's
property he was placed under the custodianship or the tutelage of a slave and so while he
was the son and heir of the master during those years he was no more than the slave
because the slave had authority over him, that make sense, Paul says that's the function
of the law, God gave the law to Old Testament Israel to keep you together to keep evil from
getting out of hand to show you the way of God it was never intended as a way to make
you righteous because the righteousness of God has always been by faith not by works
and so that passage then goes on but now that faith has come we are no longer under a custodian
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God and
here's what Paul is saying, Paul is saying in the book of Galatians that his teaching
on salvation by grace through faith is not some newfangled teaching that he has come
up with no God's plan of salvation has always been to save people by grace through faith
and if you read clearly through the book of Galatians you will discover here's his argument
he takes his argument all the way back to Abraham and he says how was Abraham saved
was he saved after circumcision which is a sign of the law or was he saved before circumcision
and he says no Abraham by faith was declared righteous he says the law didn't come until
430 years later so he says the religious leaders you've got it all wrong the law was never
intended to transform you the law could never give you salvation, salvation from the very
beginning has been by grace through faith and so if you've ever asked yourself the
question how did saints in the Old Testament get saved they didn't get saved by keeping
the law they got saved because they intuitively understood that they were sinners that God
would have to justify them and that they would be saved by grace through faith does that
make sense it's a very important distinction because the religious leaders didn't get it
they thought they were saved because they were good people keeping the law they're able
to look down their noses at every poor sucker that couldn't be quite as good as they were
and because they had so much invested in this old system of law keeping they could not afford
to let it go and put their faith and their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ that's why historically
it is sinners who like the gospel because for sinners the gospel is good news if you're
self-righteous the gospel is bad news because what you have worked so hard to establish
is no good from God's point of view and that is incredibly offensive if you've worked at
it so hard isn't that true and Paul could understand how these Jewish folks were thinking
because what remember he was one of them before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus listen
again to how he puts it he says if anyone thinks he is reason to put confidence in the
flash I have more he says circumcised on the eighth day I'm part of God's covenant people
of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of the Hebrews in regard to the law
of Pharisee now remember we always think that Pharisees are bad but Pharisees were the epitome
of religiosity in their day they were good people who went out of their way to want to
obey God at least externally as for zeal persecuted to church as for legalistic righteousness
faultless how many of us here can say that we are faultless in terms of living up to
the standards that we know we ought to be living by shows you what kind of a good dude
he was faultless but then whatever was to my prophet I now consider loss for the sake
of Christ what is more I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness
of knowing Christ Jesus my lord for whose sake I have lost all things I consider them
rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own
that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith what is he saying there was a day he said what I was
extremely proud of my pedigree I was extremely proud of my accomplishments I was extremely
proud of my religiosity I exceeded most of my peers in the intensity of my religious
devotion and in my zeal for keeping the law on a scale of one to one hundred compared
to the rest of the population I was right up there but then he says I met up with Jesus
and I discovered that Jesus was so much more than I could ever be and I gave up my own
pride to put my faith and my hope in him and the illustration that I often use and you've
heard me use it before is that of a man who is on a boat in the middle of the ocean and
the boat is sinking and it's two thousand miles to the nearest shore it doesn't matter
when he's flopping around in the water if he cannot swim at all or if he can swim ten
feet or a hundred feet or even ten miles or twenty miles the strongest of the strongest
swimmer is going to drown if he depends on his swimming ability the only way to make
it to shore is to be saved by the rowboat and to climb into it that's how you're saved
you're saved when you acknowledge I cannot do it Jesus has done it and so I put my hope
and my faith and my trust in him so quick review and we'll see how far we get this morning
but here's what I want us to understand the dominant question in life for anybody is how
can I be saved how can I go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God put it in
your own terms how can I be happy how come my marriage be saved how can I whatever three
possible answers that people give the way of their religion depends on me dig deep down
pull yourself up by your straps and and make it happen that's how the world operates on
the other extreme there is the way of grace the way that says God has done in Christ with
the law weakened by the flesh could not do and when I put my faith in him God imparts
to me his righteousness his life comes to live in me and now will change me from the
inside out but in between those two extremes is the way of law or the way of religion I
want you to know something biblically when God's people slide back they don't necessarily
slide back into a life of sin they slide back into a life of law keeping they slide back
into depending on their own righteousness and their own feelings or experiences and
what is tricky about this is that salvation based on law superficially is very close to
both of the other ones it is very close the way of the religious is very close to the
way of the irreligious because truth of the matter is they're both leaning on their own
human abilities isn't that true they're both leaning on what is present in me so the stronger
I am the smarter I am the bigger I am the more successful I can be and along with that
almost inevitably comes a looking down on those poor suckers who haven't got what it
takes to do life but here's the further problem not only are the religious and the irreligious
two sides of the same coin there were the the gift of grace salvation by grace through
faith and law keeping are virtually indistinguishable in real life why because in Christ God requires
that our lives be obedient to him so now the question is why am I obedient am I obedient
because it's the way to make myself acceptable before gone or am I obedient because Christ
lives in me I have already been accepted and therefore my life is transformed and the difference
between those two ways of life is as far as east is from west.