This is a teaching sermon
where we pull apart some of the ideas around a doctrine to see how it works but
never forget it needs to be put back together again & actually applied to
your life.
Last time we spoke we talked about what Jesus meant, & what His
disciples understood Him to mean, when He invited them to Follow Me.
I am going to recap quickly.
Firstly Follow Me, are the traditional Jewish words used by a rabbi to call
a disciple. The first disciples understood they were being asked to come
under the Yoke of Torah & learn what the Torah meant
& how to apply it in their daily lives according to Jesus.
We have Jesus words in Matthew 5:7 to consider: "Don't
misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or
the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.
If Jesus did not abolish the Torah what does
Paul mean when he teaches that we are not under the law? Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:14/15
What was the purpose that Jesus came to accomplish
& how did He do that?
To answer both questions you need to understand that besides the 10 commandments
most people know of there are 613 commandments in
the Torah; 248 Positive Commandments (do's) and
365 Negative Commandments (do not's). The Jews were [& are] required
to keep all of them. They covered 3 areas: civil law, ritual law, & moral
law.
When we look at what Jesus understood by the law He condensed the entire
torah & all the prophets into just 2 things: Jesus replied, "'You must love the
LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is
the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your
neighbour as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are
based on these two commandments." Matthew
22:37~39
We have 2 other questions that need to
be addressed:
·
By whose authority did Jesus teach?
·
What did Paul mean by Grace?
I will
try & keep it simple. The Jews were, & are, judged & condemned
under the law of Moses.
Here are 2
different translations of Romans 2:12 :
Romans 2:12 (CJB) All who have sinned outside
the framework of Torah will die outside the framework of Torah; and all who
have sinned within the framework of Torah will be judged by Torah.
Romans 2:12 (GNTA) The Gentiles do not have the
Law of Moses; they sin and are lost apart from the Law. The Jews have the Law;
they sin and are judged by the Law.
Romans 7:12~13 says But
still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not!
Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see
how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil
purposes.
It sounds complicated but all it is saying is you
won’t be judged by what you don’t know ~ but don’t let that make you complacent
in sin because Romans 2:4 says it is possible to instinctively know right from
wrong! Even
Gentiles, who do not have God's written law, show that they know his law when
they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it.
You
see the giving of the law was a gift meant to help people. Firstly the law reveals our sin. The simplest
definition of sin is that it is anything contrary to the revealed will of God.
The
root word of toreh is yareh. Yareh is an archery term meaning to hit the
mark, so torah is instruction on how to hit the mark in our relationship with
God & others. To miss the mark is
sin.
If you
just consider the 10 commandments you quickly realise why Jesus broke the
entire Torah down into just 2 commandments.
The first 4 commandments deal with our relationship with God, the next 6
with our relationships with each other.
As the
law reveals man’s sin so it reveals God’s glory ~ & how far short man falls
from the glory of God. We are a people
broken by sin: by envy, lust, quarrelling, bitterness, brawling….& we can’t
fix ourselves. All the AA programs, the drug rehabilitation clinics, the jails
full of recidivists, the shelters for the homeless & the victims of
domestic violence, the dead children, the violence & wars, the large
corporations destroying the very air & water we need to survive, testify to
our brokenness. They testify to sin but
we are mistaken if we think of the law only in terms of condemnation.
The
law reveals God’s grace to us: Romans 5:8 But God showed his
great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
The law is God’s standard ~ yet it is
impossible for anyone to keep the law because we are a broken & fallen
people. Try, just for ½ an hour, to keep yourself from complaining
or criticising anything or anyone. It is
like the elephant in the room. The more
you try not to think about it the more you do! That is how sin works in us ~
& because of it God sent one who could keep the law. That’s grace; the unmerited favoured of God
poured out for us simply because the nature of God is to love, even when His
love is unwanted, rejected, spat upon & nailed to a cross.
There is yet another blessing the law imparts
but I will come back to that because it is a resurrection blessing.
Now we have said that Jesus disciples
understood that He was calling them to the yoke of torah yet a cursory read
through the scriptures shows Jesus apparently breaking the torah left, right
& centre. The scribes &
Pharisees certainly thought so. However Jesus was imparting a new revelation of
torah.
Jesus said :"The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good
News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time
of the LORD's favour has come." Luke 4:18/19
You see Jesus understood & imparted
the heart of the torah, the heart of God. He said in John 14:9 Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!
He could say this because He had the
spirit of God without measure [John 3:34] & thus Jesus explained, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by
himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does,
the Son also does. For the Father
loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing…
Wow!
That is an enormous claim. No wonder the Pharisees were up in arms: They demanded, "By what authority are
you doing all these things? Who gave you the right?" Matthew 11:28 & Luke 20:2
Remember we said that the authority to
teach a new understanding of torah had to be given by 2 or 3 Rabbis because 'every matter may be established by the testimony
of two or three witnesses [Matthew 18:16] '& it was an honour given to
very, very few. The apostle Paul sat
under one of them, a man named Gamaliel, considered one of the
greatest teachers of all time. So who were Jesus 2 witnesses?
The synoptic gospels [Matthew, Luke, Mark] all
mention Jesus baptism & the 2 things that happened: a voice spoke from
heaven confirming who Jesus was & the Spirit of God was seen to descend
upon Him.…As soon as Jesus was baptized,
He went up out of the water. Suddenly the heavens were opened, and he saw the
Spirit of God descending like a dove and resting on Him. And a voice from
heaven said, "This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy."
This is reinforced at the Transfiguration on the
mount: Then a voice from the cloud said,
"This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him." Luke
9:35
God the Father & the Holy Spirit themselves are
Jesus witnesses & it is from them He derives His authority. What’s more, as
we have already seen, Jesus only ever did or said what He got directly from the
Father.
If Jesus got His teaching directly from the Father
& if He only did & said that which came directly from the Father then
it was impossible for Him to do anything other than keep the Law perfectly. He
fulfilled not only the outward commands but it’s intent & purpose &
because of that Paul can say unequivocally that we are under grace, not law.
What does that mean?
It means that the Jews relied on the law to make themselves right with
God & so there were continual sacrifices for sin. The Christian relies on Christ
to make them right with God because He is the only perfect offering for all
sin. The law has not been abolished but the resurrection blessing was the gift
of the Holy Spirit. It is He who gives us the new heart, who makes us the new
creation, who writes God’s law on our hearts ~ a law not of outward things but
of a relationship of the heart.
Remember Luke 6:40~ Students are not greater than their
teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.
The Holy Spirit has been given to be
our teacher & helper as well as our comforter but even the best of teachers
can do little if a student will not listen & obey.
It is distressing when Christians do
not know how to hear from God because as Jesus’ disciples we are meant to
become more & more like our teacher, Jesus, through the empowerment of His
Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says: So
all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the
Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we
are changed into his glorious image.
There
are 2 parts to becoming more like Jesus: learning how to hear from God as Jesus
did & doing what Jesus did, thus keeping the law of love & grace.
The
first is tied to the second. You will
experience little power in the doing until you learn how to hear.
Now I
will give you some pointers on how to hear & the first is glaringly
obvious & exceedingly simple but so
little practised most people overlook it: shut up. That’s all.
If you are so busy doing all the talking & doing the doing you are
not paying attention to anything God may want to say to you. You will not learn
to hear until you learn how to be quiet in God’s presence.
How do
I know it’s God & not just me?
Firstly God’s voice will never disagree with His revealed word in the
bible & it will never disagree with His character so the second way to hear
God is to know what He has already said & who He has said He is.
This
is also how you know you have been given the power & authority for the
doing things.
“And these signs will
accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will
speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they
drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on
the sick, and they will recover.”
Mark16:17~20
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also
do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going
to the Father” John 14:12
All of this is expressed most clearly
in2 Peter 1:3~4
By his divine power, God has given us
everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by
coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous
glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us
great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share
his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
We have
been given everything we need to keep all of the law & to do all of the law
through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. The law we obey is
not a law of dos & don’ts, which cannot save anyone, only bring
condemnation. Rather it is the law of love & grace which is Christ in us, For in him we live and move and exist. As
some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Acts17:28 If we
abide in Him & He in us, then all of this, & more, is not only
possible, it is everything.
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