Grace & The Bondage Of Legalism

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The year was 1963. Some of you weren't even born then.
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And in Dallas Seminary's theological journal, Bibliotheca Sacra, S. Lewis Johnson wrote a piece entitled,
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The Paralysis of Legalism. The Paralysis of Legalism.
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And he writes in this piece, quote, One of the most serious problems facing the
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Orthodox Christian church today is the problem of legalism. One of the most serious problems facing the church in Paul's day was the problem of legalism.
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And every day, he writes, it is the same, close quote.
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And more than 50 years later, it's still the same today.
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He called it, The Paralysis of Legalism. I've entitled our study, as we began last week on this series on grace,
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The Bondage of Legalism, because that's what legalism does. It brings people into a paralyzed state or in a state of bondage.
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But before we get into that a little bit in looking at legalism and from the perspective of biblical grace,
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I want us to back up to last week and just to make sure we're all on the same page. What we're talking about in terms of grace, we talked about how we view the
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Christian life from beginning to end, primarily as by grace. So if I were to ask you, we are justified in the sight of God.
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How does that happen? It's not by human effort or works. We would all readily agree it is by grace alone.
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If I was to ask about our end of our Christian life, when we go to be with the Lord in glory, glorification, we would all agree that it is not by any effort or works of our own, but is solely by God's grace.
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But somewhere in the middle, in our sanctification, between justification and glorification, somehow we fall into the performance treadmill and we think that some way or other, that our sanctification is not by God's grace, but it's by the sweat of our performance.
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So to understand that we're on the same page, what I mean when I use the term sanctification in this series, I'm not talking about our past sanctification at salvation that God declared us holy.
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That was a one -time forensic event. And I'm not referring to our perfect sanctification, our ultimate sanctification, which is in essence in glory, when he will make us holy.
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I'm talking about the entirety of our Christian life from the time God saves us to the time we go to be with him in glory.
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So let's understand a little bit more before we get into legalism and talk about that, what we're referring to in terms of grace in our sanctification.
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Turn with me, if you will, to your Bible and your Bibles to 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3, and this again is to kind of do a brief review so we understand that we're all on the same page.
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What I'm trying to say here in terms of grace and the performance treadmill, and then we'll get into the aspect of legalism.
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2 Peter 3, the last verse, if somebody can read that, these are the last words that were penned by the apostle
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Peter. 2 Peter 3 .18. Thank you, Fred. So it's a command, is it not an imperative?
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And it says there to grow in what? In grace and knowledge. But since our focus is on grace,
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I want to highlight that. So the question is, to understand what it means to grow in grace, since he's talking about our growth, our spiritual growth, our maturity, our sanctification, as it were, becoming more set apart and holy and Christlike, we need to understand what it does not mean.
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So you don't misunderstand what I'm saying, that there's no performance on our part, that it's all by grace. What does it not mean to grow in grace?
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Well, first of all, and we'll see it from the context and the greater context of the book of 2 Peter, it does not mean, to grow in grace does not mean that any effort on my part in terms of my spiritual growth is of the flesh.
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To grow in grace does not mean that any effort on my part to grow in my
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Christian walk and maturity is automatically of the flesh. As I highlighted, I believe, last week, if I went to somebody and say, well, what have you been reading in the
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Bible lately? Oh, well, I'm growing in grace. I don't want to read the Bible by the sword of my performance.
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Yet we highlighted in Acts 20, when Paul addressed the Ephesian elders, he commended them to the word of grace, referring to the
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Bible as the word of grace. Well, how's your prayer life? Well, I don't pray. I just rely on the grace of God for my sanctification.
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Well, the writer of Hebrews refers to prayer as coming to where? The throne of grace.
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So to grow in grace doesn't mean that any effort on my part is automatically of the flesh. Look at the context with me of 2
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Peter 3, where Fred just read in the last verse. Look at verse 14, what Peter says there.
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Larry, you were going to read also. Could you mind reading that verse 14, please? Okay. Another command, be diligent to be found in him.
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Well, how can Peter exhort us to grow in grace and not run the performance treadmill, as it were, but yet at the same time, in the same context, a few verses earlier, he says to be diligent.
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The word literally means to exert oneself, to strive. Even from the very outset,
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Peter makes that point. Turn back to chapter 1. So we see the bookends of this little epistle.
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He finishes with growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, which doesn't mean it's of the flesh if you strive for it, because in verse 14, as we looked at, he says to be diligent.
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But notice how he begins his epistle. Can somebody read verse 1?
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Somebody different. Verse 1 of chapter 1, 2 Peter. Freddy, nice and loud.
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Thank you. And verse 2, he continues, may grace and peace be multiplied.
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But I notice in verse 1 again, a similar thing that he did at the end of the book. He says growing grace, but yet he says be diligent.
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Here he says we've obtained a faith. It's not something that we have mustered up in and of ourselves.
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It's something that we've obtained, a faith that is in equal standing with ours.
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And how have we obtained that? By the righteousness of our God and Savior. So it seems to be talking about grace and all grace.
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But then notice what he continues to do in verse 5. Let me read that and follow along with me.
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And I want you to look at a repeated phrase he uses and see if you can see what that repeated phrase is.
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Beginning in verse 5. For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self -control, and self -control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
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Anything repeated there? Let me reread it. He begins in verse 5 by saying make every effort to supplement faith with what?
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Virtue. And then he continues in the next verse, or in the same verse, the second half, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self -control.
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Notice the clear implication by the Apostle Peter as he begins his sentence.
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For this reason, make every effort, he says. So he's asking us to make effort in our progress in sanctification.
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So if I was to read it, it should read, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, make every effort to supplement your virtue with knowledge, make every effort to supplement your knowledge with self -control, and so on and so forth.
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For each of these qualities, he's saying, that make every effort, that phrase at the beginning, goes along for all those qualities that he lists in that sentence.
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So to grow in grace does not mean that we don't make every effort whatsoever.
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Here's another example from the writings of the Apostle Paul. Familiar verse, you don't have to turn to it,
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Philippians 2. So now, Philippians 2, verses 12 to 13, So now, as you have always obeyed, not only in my absence, but now much more in my presence, work out your salvation, right, with fear and trembling, next verse, for it is
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God who is at work in you to will and to do for his good pleasure. So he says, not work for your salvation, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who is at work. So when we're talking about in this series that the process of sanctification in our
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Christian life is by grace, it does not mean that we don't strive, that we don't put effort, that we're not diligent to read our
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Bibles and to have a prayer life. What it does mean then is this, and this is what I was trying to focus on last week, and it's important we understand this as we get into the issue of legalism.
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It means this, that when I do these things, when I strive and put effort and work out my salvation, as it were, discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness, Paul says to Timothy in 1
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Timothy 4, that when I do these, if I'm running the performance treadmill, I in one way, shape, or form think that by doing these,
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God's going to bless me. That's what we're talking about. Not the doing of these things, but why you do what you do.
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I remember when I was in college helping a new Christian who came to faith in Christ, and I was trying to help him to get a regular time of reading his
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Bible and praying, and at one point he felt like it was almost too legalistic.
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So we discussed it, and I said, you know what? When you eat, when you get up in the morning and you have breakfast, and then you have lunch, and then you have dinner, maybe we should bypass our meals because that's just legalistic.
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But the Word of God is our spiritual meal. Or how about breathing? Maybe we shouldn't breathe, but prayer is our spiritual breath.
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So we talked about how doing those things to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, it's not the act of doing them, but what's your motive in doing it?
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What's my motive in doing it? If I'm doing it and saying, you know, Lord, I've been so faithful at church attendance.
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I've been faithful in reading my Bible. I've been faithful in prayer. Therefore, you owe me. Not for salvation's sake for eternity, but for blessings, temporal blessings here in this life here and now.
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That's what we're talking about, the performance treadmill. So it's not striving. We do strive and we do seek to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness.
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But the question is, what's our motive? Do we think in some way, shape, or form that because we're performing these religious duties, that somehow
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God owes us to bless us temporally here in our sanctification? If we do think that way, we're not living by grace.
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Now, keeping that in mind, let's look at legalism. And I'm going to ask some, as we get into that, ask some questions for some discussion.
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But let me set it up first. Let me give you a working definition of legalism. It's kind of in four parts, so I'll repeat it.
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If you're taking notes, you don't have to, but just so we understand. Legalism is an obsessive conformity to man -made list of rules and regulations.
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That's the first part. It's an obsessive conformity not to God -made, but to man -made list of rules and regulations.
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Now, for the sake of time, don't go there with me. But in Matthew 15, Jesus condemned them, condemned the
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Pharisees. He condemned them by quoting, I believe it was the prophet Isaiah. You worship me with your lips, but what is far from me?
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Your heart. You've replaced the commandment of God with what of men?
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The commandments of men. So legalism is conformity to man -made list of rules.
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The second part, for what purpose? For the purpose of exalting self. It's conformity to man -made list of rules for the purpose of self -exaltation.
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Here's the third part. How does that happen? By looking down at others who do not conform.
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You exalt self, not so much through the front door, but through the back door, by putting others down who don't conform to your man -made list of rules.
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And the fourth part, despite your attempts to force it upon them. Despite your attempts to force it upon them.
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So legalism refers to a man -made list of rules that we've set up, whether it's in our personal life, in our
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Christian culture, in our church culture, and it's supposed to exalt self and put others down who don't conform to those lists.
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Let me give you a little different take on it. Legalism is law -like in nature.
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It's law -like in nature. It's not grace -based in nature. It's also motivated by guilt and shame.
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It is accomplished by manipulation, and it is finally enforced by authoritarianism.
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Enforced by authoritarianism, accomplished by manipulation, and there's guilt and shame involved.
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Before we look into Scripture a little bit further and have some discussion on this, I remember when I was in seminary, a very good friend of mine grew up in Tennessee, so we were completely opposite.
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We had nothing in common except the Lord Jesus Christ. But we grew up in completely different cultures down in Tennessee, totally different than up here in the
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Northeast, and totally different church backgrounds even. He grew up in a fundamentalist background down in the heart of Tennessee.
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Now, I don't mean by the term fundamentalist, fundamentalist in doctrine that we believe in the basic fundamentals of faith, the virgin birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the deity of Christ, the inspiration and the nourishment of the
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Bible. I mean fundamentalist in the way they grew up with that. It was very legalistic. So Christianity to him was a bunch of do's and don'ts.
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So I felt it was my calling in life to help break that in him. So how did I do that?
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I took him along with one of our seminary professors to a
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Striper concert, a very loud concert. And I actually remember that year he hadn't been to the movies for 35 years.
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He was older than me. So I said to him, Do you want to go see a movie with me?
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And he kind of flinched initially. And I thought initially he thought maybe he would lose his salvation if he did.
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I mean if he was sitting here a couple weeks ago when Pastor Mike mentioned from the puppet that he had been to a movie, I think he would fall over.
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But he finally came to the movie with me, and he found that liberating. We saw a good, clean movie, but we went out together just to spend some time together.
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But to him, all those things, you just don't do those things. And I'm not trying to encourage worldliness here.
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I think there's a lot in, especially the young people today, the type of things that they spend their time doing could be much improved for the sake of their sanctification.
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But legalism is man -made set of rules. This is how I've grown up. This is what I expect others to do.
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It's the opposite of grace. Question. In the days of Jesus, if they were here today, and they are, but not classified as that, what group of people would you have classified as legalists in the days of Jesus?
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Pharisees. Pharisees. All right, let's look at them a little bit. They came from a spiritual group known as the
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Hesidians, which in the Hebrew, the literal meaning of Hesidian means piety.
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They were very pious, were they not? Actually, the word Pharisee itself also is based on the root that means separate.
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They would consider themselves separate from everybody else. Furthermore, how did
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Jesus address the Pharisees? These were the legalists of his day. And this is important to know. If Jesus himself addressed them in this way, this is significant.
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In Matthew 23, don't turn there. It's a long chapter. But apart from what Jesus says about them, if you were just to take note of how he addresses them, six times he refers to them as hypocrites, six times.
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Five times he says they are blind. Once he calls them fools, another time serpents, and another time a brood of vipers.
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Not very loving of Jesus. But why would he do that? Spurgeon says it well.
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Quote, I never could believe, Spurgeon says, in the Jesus Christ of some people, for the Christ in whom they believe is simply full of affectionateness and gentleness, whereas I believe there never was a more splendid specimen of manhood, even at sternness, than the
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Savior, and the very lips which declared that he would not break a bruised reed, uttered the most terrible anathemas upon the
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Pharisees. Strong warnings to the Pharisees Jesus gave.
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That's how he felt about their legalism. Let me give you seven characteristics about the
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Pharisees. Turn with me and look at some more scriptures. Luke 18, a familiar passage. The parable of the
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Pharisee and the tax collector. Luke 18, 9 through 14. If somebody can read that nice and loud, just to bring us up to par what's going on here.
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Luke 18, 9 through 14. Go ahead,
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Mark, nice and loud. Thanks, Mark. Okay, from that passage on, let me highlight three characteristics, the first three of the seven of the
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Pharisees, which would be true of legalists today. I mean, part of me thought of it, you know, we have an hour now for Sunday school, but I can cut to the chase and just ask everybody, how many of you are legalists and have a show of hands?
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But I won't do that. What are the characteristics? This is the way you can tell if you are. Do any of these are true of you?
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Well, we talked about the first one last week a bit. Self -righteous, okay? Notice how the text begins.
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Who is Jesus addressing here? Before he actually says the parable, he's talking to who?
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People who what? What's the text say? Trust in themselves, okay, that they were what?
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Righteous, that's self -righteousness. Not that they were righteous for the foreign righteousness, but they trusted in themselves.
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That's why they're trusting in their own righteousness. So first characteristic of a Pharisee, a legalist, is that they're self -righteous.
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Second one, as I kind of highlighted it in the definition, they looked down on other people. Notice what the text says.
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They trusted in themselves and do what? They treated others how? With contempt.
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They treated others with contempt. Third characteristic is actually at the tail end of the passage.
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Verse 14 where Jesus says, everyone who what? Who exalts himself shall be humbled.
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The third characteristic is pride. They were proud. And we know he's talking about Pharisees because the story itself, he compares or contrasts a tax collector who is penitent and humble and spiritually bankrupt.
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He acknowledges his spiritual bankruptcy versus the Pharisee who does not. So a legalist, a
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Pharisee is self -righteous. Number two, he looks down on others with contempt and they're proud. A fourth characteristic of a
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Pharisee, true of legalists, though outwardly they appear righteous, inwardly they are full of wickedness.
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Outwardly they appeared righteous to people, right? But Jesus condemned them so strongly because inwardly they were full of wickedness.
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Don't turn there, but let me just give you the verse, Luke 11, 39. Jesus says, now you
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Pharisees clean, cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you're full of greed and wickedness.
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In other words, they ran the performance treadmill very, very well.
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So much so that they looked kosher, if you will. But inside, Jesus says, their heart wasn't right.
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A fifth characteristic, and for this passage let's turn to it, let's turn to Luke 14.
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Luke 14, the first six verses. This characteristic I call legalistic priorities.
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Their priorities were warped because it went through their legalistic lens, as it were. They viewed all of life through their legalistic lens.
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So their priorities were warped. They had legalistic priorities. Luke 14, 1 through 6. Who would like to read that?
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Go ahead. Thanks, Joel. What? The Pharisees were silent?
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They had nothing to say. Notice the text. Jesus, who knows the hearts of men as God, he asked them in verse 3, is it lawful to heal on the
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Sabbath or not? Like I would ask my friend Jerry, can we go to the movies?
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Is that okay to do as a Christian, if it's a good, healthy movie? Well, for their issue, it was different.
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Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Verse 4, they remained silent. And then he asked them again, a penetrating question, as it were, into their heart, which of you, having a son or a knock, something that was their own, that has fallen into a well on a
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Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? What was their response? There was no response.
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They could not reply to these things, because from their paradigm, they didn't understand grace and mercy, as Jesus condemned them somewhere else.
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You guys focus on your tithe and your mint, but you neglect justice and mercy. They didn't understand that.
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They had a legalistic set of priorities. A sixth characteristic of a
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Pharisee, or a legalist, as it were, today, their driving motive is to draw attention to themselves, maybe not through the front door, as it were, but through the back door.
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Their driving motive is to draw attention to themselves. Let me just give you one reference here. Luke 11 .43,
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again from Luke 11. Jesus says to them, And woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
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Now, if we were to turn to – actually, let's turn there. We have time. Let's turn to Matthew 6, Sermon on the
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Mount, beginning in Matthew 6, the very first verse. And we'll see here
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Jesus in his masterful way of teaching and preaching here what he does to expose them for who they really are.
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If somebody can read just verse 1. Yes, brother. Go ahead, Will. Thank you,
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Will. So this is Jesus' general statement here, okay? Beware of practicing your righteousness before where?
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And you'll notice as we go through a little bit of Matthew 6, we don't have the time to cover the whole thing, but Christ is contrasting what they do before men versus what is done before our
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Father who is in heaven. That's his contrast in Matthew 6 here. And he says here,
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Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people, before men, for what purpose? In order to be what?
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To be seen by them. I said the characteristic is the driving motive is to draw attention to themselves.
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They want to be seen by others. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
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Now, that's his general statement. And then Jesus penetrates three specific areas of their lives.
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The first one is in the area of giving. And notice in verse 2.
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Thus, specifically, this general principle that I've just highlighted, Jesus says in verse 1, When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you.
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In other words, don't make a big, I'm giving. Where's Brian when
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I need him? Then he gets into praying.
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We know that as the Lord's Prayer, but we pull it out of context. But before he teaches us the
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Lord's Prayer in verse 9, Pray then like this. He says, again, in this area,
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That you're not to do things in order to show your righteousness before other people. When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
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Verse 5, For they love to stand and pray in the synagogue and at the street corners. For what purpose?
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That they may be seen by others. The driving motive is to draw attention to themselves. That's what
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Pharisees do. That's what legalists tend to do. And the fourth area that Christ highlights is the area of fasting.
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Verse 16, And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
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For they, what do they do? They disfigure their faces that their fasting may be,
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Here it is again, seen by others. So Christ is saying,
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Don't be hypocritical like the Pharisees who were legalistic in their mindset because everything they did was to practice their righteousness to be seen by others.
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Whether it was in the area of giving, in the area of prayer, or in the area of fasting.
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They did those things because that's how it drew attention to themselves.
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Actually, in another place, Jesus says in Matthew 23, verse 5, highlighting this even further, concerning the
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Pharisees, They do all their deeds to be seen by others. Same point as in Matthew 6.
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For they make their phylacteries broad. Now, the phylacteries were these boxes, leather boxes, were inside the compartment of the
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Hebrew Scriptures. They were good as it were, let's put it in the modern day vernacular, they were good at memorizing
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Scripture. They knew the Word of God, didn't understand the interpretation of it, and they bound these with leather straps on their foreheads and arms.
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So it was to be seen by God? No. So others can see.
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Jesus condemned that. And the last characteristic, and then we'll get into some discussion.
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Again, these are characteristics of the Pharisees, which is typical of what a legalistic person would have also.
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They lead others astray. So the first six are characteristics of their own.
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They're self -righteous, they treat others with contempt, they're proud, though outwardly they appear righteous, inwardly they're full of wickedness, they have legalistic priorities, and their driving motive is to what?
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Draw attention to themselves, so others can see them. But here's the other part of it.
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It almost reminds you of Romans 1, right? Where Paul just goes through that spiral down of total degradation and depravity.
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And they not only do these things, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them. Does he not say in Romans 1? Well, this is what the
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Pharisees do, and those who are legalists. They lead others astray. Let's go to a passage of Scripture on that.
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Matthew 23. I mentioned Matthew 23 earlier, where Jesus describes them six times as hypocrites, five times as blind, brood of vipers, and fools, and so on and so forth.
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But I want to show you this. In Matthew 23, let's read verses 13 to 15. Verses 13 to 15.
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Yes, Gary. Go ahead, Gary. Thanks, Gary. I thought Paul was kind of mean -spirited when he wrote to the
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Galatians and said, You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you. I feel like I've wasted my effort on you.
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I've been running in vain. That was kind of nice compared to what Jesus says here, no? You make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
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What an indictment from the lips of our Lord. They were leading others astray.
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You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
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They shut him out. All right, let's discuss this a little bit amongst ourselves.
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I'm going to go back to the piece that S. Lewis Johnson wrote in 1963, which is still relevant today, 50 -plus years later.
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And he highlights three things about legalism, and I want us to discuss these three. So let me use a quote, and we'll get into it.
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He continues to write in that piece, and listen as I read what are the negative results of legalism.
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He says, first, The Christian under law is a miserable parody of the real thing, end quote.
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So the first result he mentions, let's discuss this, is that it wrenches or robs the joy of the
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Lord. How does legalism wrench the joy of the Lord from a believer? It pokes at other people, okay?
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Very good. Okay, your focus, okay. Good, because your focus is on other people, you end up doing that, exactly.
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So the joy is robbed, yes. Good point. Yes, good. Let me repeat that for the sake of the recording.
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Joni said that you're so focused on the list of rules and regulations that it robs the joy.
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You begin to worry about them so much that it robs the joy, and therefore the result is you're not able to display what
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God has done in your life as a result of that. Ferdy? Okay. You seem to be beating a dead horse, which is a good thing.
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You highlighted the attributes of God last week, if I recall, which is a good thing. So what it does is, to reiterate what
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Ferdy said, is it robs you from the joy because your focus is not, it's on man, on others, but the focus is not on God, focused on his attributes.
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And because you're not focused on his attributes and who he is, your focus becomes on pleasing other people, which you really can't because there's a lot of favoritism going on.
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So if you're focused on the Lord and his attributes, who he is, you seek to please.
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Didn't Paul say that? I mean, he said it in reference, the context was to the gospel, but Paul said if I wasn't a slave of Jesus, Galatians 1 .10,
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I would be pleasing man and not God. That was in reference to his proclaiming the gospel. Brian, go ahead.
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I'll piggyback on that with Lloyd -Jones, whom, as you know, I love. But he says, if you recall, in part of the video that we saw a month or so ago, that we always highlight in the
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Shorter Catechism the first part, right, which is what? The chief end of man is to?
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But what's the second part? Enjoy God forever?
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Wow, there's joy involved in that. It's to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
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Great point, Brian. Next one, the second result Louis Johnson mentions is it robs a believer from worship.
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How does legalism rob from the power of worship? How can that affect your worship?
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First, we talked about its negative effect on joy. How can it affect your worship, whether it's your private worship or public worship?
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Amelia? Okay. So if you're focused on law rather than grace, you're frustrated because you can't keep it.
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So even in your sincere attempt to please God, you can't focus on God, Amelia, because you're so focused on self and your frustration to keep the law.
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Remember, that was the dual aspect that we brought out last week. So those who run the performance treadmill, not because you don't strive, but when you strive you think, oh, because of my effort,
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God, you owe me. There's two negative results. It's either self -righteousness or the one that Amelia highlighted now is persistent guilt because I can never achieve what
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I'm intending to achieve. Good point. How else can it affect our worship?
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Legalism. Okay, I like that. We're creatures of worship, and what Marie did went back to part of the definition of legalism.
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It's a list of man -made rules. So if you're focused on that, you can't worship both God and that which is man -made.
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It takes away from your worship. How about in terms of this? So that's the joy of the worship. How about in terms of output, in terms of he says here, as Louis Jones says,
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I'll quote again, with the joy of the Lord goes his power for vibrant service. How does legalism rob you from serving the
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Lord? Yes. Okay. All right, thanks, Carmen. Let me try to encapsulate that.
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She's talking about Carmen is about our motive, so coming from a charismatic background that you're self -motivated and you've done it.
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You're kind of running the hamster wheel, kind of like what we highlighted at the beginning that, you know, this is all about me, so you're going to church, you're faithful and going to church, and that robs you of the joy of service because you're so focused on being motivated by self.
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Very, very important. Anybody else? Yes, Corey. Okay. Yes.
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Yes. Yes. Good, good.
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So Corey said, for those who are like this, I'm just going to joke around with you, but it reminds me of people that I try to help, and not only in their spiritual walk, but others who want to lose weight or whatever, they say,
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I have a friend who wants to lose weight. What's your friend's name? Does he have your name? But, no,
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Corey's point is that because we're not serving God, those of us who might think of things as legalistic, but serving man, the result can be one of those two things that we highlighted again last week.
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You're trying to give God penance because there's always this constant guilt, or you're trying to show off to others because you want to prove yourself self -righteous to others.
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Did I see a hand back there? Stephen, go ahead. Okay, very good. I like that term. Stephen said it's mechanical, so we're not doing it out of a heart of joy where we want to worship him and serve him all the war, but we're just going through the mechanics.
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It's like if I was to have my daughter's hula hoops here and say, let me line them up. Okay, let's just run through the hoops, running through religious hoops.
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I'm going through it like that. And a lot of times that can happen in ministry. If we're serving, you're doing something repetitively.
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And I was reading recently a book by Spurgeon where he talks about that, where he says as you're serving the
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Lord, you're doing things. There's a certain pattern in ministry, and you're doing things. But after a while, it just becomes mechanical, and then you have to step back and realize why you're doing what you're doing.
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So, again, it is a motive. It's not, okay, I'm going to stop everything, but it's to also look at ourselves and see why we're doing what we're doing.
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Let me give this helpful thing that might help us discern two things.
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We become legalists whenever we do one of these two things, okay? The first thing is when we universalize a personal conviction.
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When you have a certain conviction about something for yourself, when you universalize it and say, and then it's not in the
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Bible. You know, this is Romans 14, is it not? When you universalize a personal conviction, there were mature and weaker brothers who some in that context couldn't meet that with sacrifice titles because of their background pre -Christ.
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But it's universalizing a personal conviction. Go ahead, Corey. Yes. Yes.
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Yes. Yes, exactly. No. Yes. Yes.
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Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Yes. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Corey's point to the point is exactly right.
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The characteristics of the Pharisees is not to say that those who are legalists in the church, they might be unsaved. I don't know.
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But a lot of them are saved because, as Corey pointed out in Romans 14, there's a mature brother and a weaker brother, but nonetheless, he is a brother.
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And so, yeah, and the stumbling block thing, like that same friend of mine, I knew he grew up in a – I come from a
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Greek culture, so drinking wine with my food is not a problem. I never had a problem with drink. But he grew up, my friend grew up in a house where his dad was an alcoholic.
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So when we went out to spend time together and eat, I never touched a drink because I knew it would be a stumbling block.
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I couldn't say, you know, this is my personal conviction, and I'm going to impose it on him. That's the reference of a stumbling block, exactly.
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Let me give you some examples for the sake of time. So personalize, universalize a personal conviction.
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Well, I can't do this, so neither should you. Or, on the positive side,
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I must do this, so you ought to be doing it too. Let me give you some examples. I might step on some toes here, but we'll continue moving along.
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I've chosen not to shop on Sunday, and neither should any other Christian. I see smiles. None of you can relate to this,
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I can tell. We homeschool, and so should all
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Christians. I have very dear friends who homeschool, and I'm great.
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Same for the other side. If those of us who might not homeschool or do private school or public school or whatever, that's great for that family, and we can learn from each other.
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But to make it a universal, universalize it, a personal conviction. Here's another one.
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There's a lot we can do here. I just picked a few. We don't allow our children to have body piercings, and neither should other
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Christian parents. Churches should not host gospel hip -hop concerts.
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Can't imagine any church to do that. Okay, now watch the other side of the coin.
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We become legalists not only whenever we universalize a personal conviction, but also when we make something that's a good idea or a form normative for everyone.
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For example, I'll give some examples, but when the Bible talks about prayer, if you were to do a study on prayer, I mean you can look at a great passage to study on prayer is, you know, the gospels highlight the
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Lord's prayer life. A lot of times they'll say, you know, he went away from the disciples from the crowd, Mark 1, and the disciples are like, what are you doing?
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Everyone's looking for you. And he went away early in the morning before the crowd could get to him.
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But the only place in Scripture where it records the content of the Lord's prayer is John 17. So it would behoove us to study
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John 17 to learn about prayer. Or if you study the Pauline Epistles, what Paul says about prayer, most of the prayers that you study or when they teach about prayer is talking about the content of prayer, what you pray about.
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There are things that are descriptive right in the Scripture, and there are things that are prescriptive.
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Sometimes you can pray on your knees. Sometimes you can pray driving in the car. Remember I introduced that concept to a friend of mine again at seminary.
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He was driving. I said, why don't we pray, but you can keep your eyes open, I said. But the form, this is what
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I'm talking about here. There's a certain form. I mean you can sit down in a chair like this. You can sit down in a church building that has pews.
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The function is sitting down. The form could be anywhere. If you're camping, you're going to sit on a lug.
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You're not going to be lugging around one of these chairs. But what we do is we make the functions are normative, reading the
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Scripture, worshiping, praying. But the form that that takes, God is concerned about the heart.
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So, for example, everyone must have a family worship time in the evening around the dinner table.
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Okay, should family worship be important? Yes. Does it happen best for everybody at that time?
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Maybe no. So if you do it at that time and you're talking with somebody and say, you do it in their bed?
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Oh my gosh. Different things. So, legalism is when we take something that we found helpful for us, we can suggest it to others.
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You know, I have found this helpful in my own family worship. Maybe you can try it. But then when we think, oh, either that God ought to bless me more because of it.
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That's living not by grace or that I should impose it on others. That's legalism.
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Oh, by the way, does legalism indulge the flesh? I don't want you to just answer yes or no, but why?
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Why or why not? Does legalism indulge your flesh? If you're like the
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Pharisees, they had nothing to say. Yes. Yes. Pride is very big.
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We would say that the other extreme is being licentious, right? We have liberty in Christ, so you have the two extremes.
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You have liberty. We're saved by grace. We're to live by grace. That's our whole point here. Being licentious, we would say, of course it indulges the flesh because you're giving in to your fleshly desires.
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But we may not think as legalism, it is also giving in to your fleshly desires because of pride. Swindoll puts it this way in his book,
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Grace Awakening, as he relates pride to legalism. He says pride, which is at the heart of legalism, works in sync with other motivating factors like guilt and fear and shame.
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It leads to an emphasis on what should not be and what one should not do. It is flourished in a drab context of negativism.
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So it does foster the flesh from a different vantage point. Licentiousness, it fosters it because you're giving in to your fleshly desires of wanting to sin.
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Legalism is because of the sin of pride and self -righteousness. Let me give you one final quote to get your response and reaction to this.
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This is, again, from Bridges' book. I covered a lot on that last week, Transforming Grace is the book. This is what he says.
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Let me hear your reaction to what he says here. Often we do not enjoy our freedom in Christ because we are afraid of what others think.
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We do or don't do certain things because of a fear that we will be judged or gossiped about by others.
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But standing firm in our freedom in Christ means we resist the urge to live by the fear of what others think.
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Other people want to tell you how you should live the Christian life, what you shouldn't do and what you should do.
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Close quote. So Corey is saying that God saved him out of that kind of legalistic environment.
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But even early on as a young Christian, he still wrestled with that because those man -made rules were there. And he said, oh,
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I didn't know I shouldn't be doing this. So that's, you know, when
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I read this, I think of this. You're familiar with the track, God Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.
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Legalists have their own, which is not a good track, by the way. For a number of reasons, but we don't have time to get into that. Legalists have their own track that they've developed.
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Do you know what it is? We love you and have a wonderful plan for your life. Bridges continues on this freedom in Christ that we have.
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He says, if you're going to experience the joy of your freedom in Christ, this is the implication. You have to decide whether you will please
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God or whether you will please people. As our time comes to a conclusion, let me close with this illustration to show you that, as S.
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Lewis Johnson, the quote I gave you at the beginning, wrote a piece over 50 years ago called The Paralysis of Legalism, I call it
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The Bondage of Legalism. You might be surprised when you hear this, but this is a true story.
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This is in Chuck Swindoll and his book, Grace Awakening, talks about a missionary couple that went overseas to do mission work.
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And this was their experience. Quote, the particular place they were sent to serve the
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Lord did not have access to peanut butter. This particular family happened to enjoy peanut butter a great deal.
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Rather creatively, they made arrangements with some of their friends in the States to send them peanut butter every now and then so they could enjoy it with their meals.
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The problem is they didn't know until they started receiving the supply of peanut butter that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spirituality that you not have peanut butter with your meals on the mission field.
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I suppose the line went something like this. We believe, since we can't get peanut butter here, we should give it up for the cause of Christ or some such nonsense.
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A basis of spirituality was bearing the cross of living without peanut butter. The young family didn't buy into that line of thinking.
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Their family kept getting regular shipments of peanut butter. They didn't flaunt it.
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They just enjoyed it in the privacy of their own home. Pressure began to intensify.
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The legalism was so petty, the pressure got so intense, and the exclusive treatment became so unfair, it finished them off spiritually.
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They finally had enough. Unable to continue against the mounting pressure, they packed it in and were soon homeward bound, disillusioned, and a bit cynical.
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So because of legalism, this young missionary couple left the mission field.
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It can paralyze you, and it will put you into bondage. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time that we can open the scriptures briefly together.
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We thank you that your word is clear that we're not only saved by grace, that we are ultimately, in the past, you will ultimately save us by your grace in future glory.
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But even now, in our sanctification, you are saving us by your grace. Help us to live by grace, to strive and put effort in our
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Christian growth and maturity, but to know that we don't get any kudos for it from you, so to speak, that we were to live relying upon you, and not to do it for the sake of showing off ourselves, but because of what you have already done out of gratitude for your saving work in our lives.