Christians in the Law

A few chapters later, we get to Genesis chapter 6. We get the story of Noah. God is happy with creation or not? Right. So God decides to flood the earth. After the ark settles, Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives, they get off the ark. Do you know how many laws were given to Noah? Want to take a guess? They were supposed to replenish the earth. There's a repeat of

the one to Adam and Eve. They were supposed to subdue it as well. There's another repeat. They were only given seven. Only seven laws, including laws regarding murder. Guess what? We failed to do that one also. So first we're given three laws. Then we're given seven laws, both of which we can't follow. Fast forward to Moses. Moses is initially given 10 laws and then another 603.

So let me ask this completely rhetorical question. If we couldn't keep three laws as human beings, and we couldn't keep seven laws after seeing the might of God, what in the world makes us think that we can keep 613? So here's the real question. As followers of Jesus, does Jesus bring us to the law? Or can we learn from the law? So he brings us through the law. Does he bring us to the law or through the law?

If he brings us to the law, keep in mind, we're going backwards in history. All right, well, we're done then. Robbie's got it. If we go to the law, then that means we're going backwards in history. That means no eating pork, no bacon, no eating shellfish, no shrimp, no scallops, no mussels. That means all sorts of laws. By the way, you may know, 10, there's a lot more. Okay. We can't do a lot of things and we have to do things that you've

never thought of. For example, did you know three times a year we're commanded to go to Jerusalem to worship? Did you know that? That's three of the commandments. Three times a year, we're supposed to do that. So if Jesus saves us, forgives us of our sins, and now we're supposed to go back to the law that nobody could follow, frankly, that doesn't make any sense to me. But that's the argument that a lot of people

in some churches will make nowadays. This is the argument that the New Testament dealt with over and over again, over and over. There's a concept called Judaizers, Jewish believers. And, you know, some may have been well-meaning, some may have been manipulative, but they come into Gentile areas, non-Jewish areas, where they find that non-Jewish people have started putting their faith in the law. And they're not going to do that. And they're not going to do that.

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. And they figure, well, that's great. They believe like we do. Let's make sure they're really saved and let's get them circumcised. Because that was a symbol of the covenant to them. In other words, you can't really be saved. You can't really be a follower of Jesus unless you are circumcised.

Now, it's funny. In my ministry, I run into this in two different ways. Number one, I definitely run into this concept of what in the world do we do with the law? When I'm reaching or I'm trying to reach ultra-religious Jewish people. These are the type of people that wear black and white and they wear a yarmulke at all times. We have a building right in the middle of that community in Chicago. And if they're

willing to even talk with me, the question that always arises is this. If you believe in Jesus, then why don't you follow the Torah? Because in his mind, the Jewish follower of God, not a Jewish follower of Jesus, they're thinking, okay, fine. If you say that Jesus is compatible, I'll prove to you that he's not. Because in their mind, the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah that we've

been waiting for, who I say has already come and is named Yeshua, Jesus, that Messiah is supposed to help you follow the law. You're supposed to go backwards towards Moses, not forward towards God's kingdom. And so they always say, well, then why don't you follow the law? And that's a really in-depth conversation that we're going to sort of address tonight.

On the other hand, I get it from Christians also. Christians that villainize the law. Keep in mind, I'm not villainizing the law here. I'm not saying the law is bad. I actually think, like Paul, that the law is wonderful, good, and holy. But you have to ask, what's the point of it now, 2,000 years after Jesus died and resurrected from the dead? What does it have to do with us

now? I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. But so many Christians villainize it. I was at a missions conference at a college once, and I had a guy come up to me and start talking to me. He saw that I was doing Jewish outreach.

He was doing ministry in Papua New Guinea. He was dressed like a tribe person, okay? Really interesting guy. Dedicated his life to go to a place that I would probably never go to in Papua New Guinea. But he started giving me these really hard, ridiculous questions. And he asked me what I thought of the law. And I said, I love the law. Because that's what Jesus would have said. That's what Paul did say.

And he just couldn't believe that I would love God's word, the first five books of the Bible. And I said, well, why wouldn't I love it? And he said, well, brother, you're setting up the wall of partition. The wall of partition comes up in Ephesians chapter two, when it talks about the fact that God has broken down the wall of partition, meaning that Jews and Gentiles can freely worship with each other, can freely interact with God. You don't have to do anything special.

You can go to God at the same time, the same way, together. And I said, so you think that by me loving the law and getting from the law and reading from the Torah, that I am building up the wall that God has broken down? I'm now separating myself from Gentile believers. And he goes, well, maybe. I said, okay. He said, well, what would you do if there was a temple in Jerusalem today? Would you

make sacrifices? And I thought for a moment, because I was getting annoyed after about 25 minutes. The room had started to clear out. It was just him and me. I said, of course not. I'm not going to offer a sin sacrifice. That sacrifice has already been made. But you're asking a hypothetical that's ridiculous because there is no temple. And then I thought for a moment,

and just because I wanted to annoy, I go, you know, there are other offerings we could make besides sin offerings, right? There's the praise offering. There's the wave offering. And he was just so annoyed. But eventually he said this, because I told him that I don't eat pork or shellfish. And I don't eat pork or shellfish, not because I believe that if I eat it, I won't be saved. I don't eat pork and shellfish because

it's part of my heritage, my history, my culture. And I want my children to carry something tangible about their heritage. And he said, well, why are you doing that? You can freely eat it. I said, but I choose not to. And essentially what he told me was, unless you eat pork and shellfish, I don't know if you're a believer. So let me get this straight. I said, in order to

prove to you that I'm a believer, I have to break the commandments of God. You want me to break them to prove to you that I'm a believer? I have to break the commandments of God. I have to break I'm a believer. I said, that's ridiculous. At this point, it was contentious. And then his wife comes in looking for him because we're supposed to go to dinner at this conference. And his wife

comes in with her father. And so I look over and I say, oh, hey, Pastor Jones. And he looks at me and he says, how do you know my father-in-law? I said, I spoke at his church three weeks ago. He was very angry about that. All right. So this is, that's the buildup to this. Does Jesus bring us to the law or does Jesus bring us through the law? So I want you to turn

in your Bible to Genesis 15. And what we're going to do is we're going to explore the concept of faith in the scripture, the concept of faith in the scripture. Because if you boiled everything down about the law to simple adherence to commandments, I think you'd be missing the point. In fact, most people miss the point. Most Jewish people miss it and most Christian people miss it.

The first five books of the Bible is not a rule book. It is the story of the failure of humans to live up to God's standards and what God actually wants. So in Genesis chapter 15, take a look at verses five and six. God is talking to Abram. Okay. He's not even Abraham yet. He's talking to Abram and he promises a 100 year old man that his offspring would be as numerous

stars in the sky. Genesis 15 verses five and six. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you're able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And look what, look what it says about Abram. And he believed in the Lord and God, he accounted it to him as righteousness. It's this simple little verse

that many people don't think about. It's this verse that I use all the time, when talking to religious Jewish people, all the time. What did Abram have to do in order for God to give him righteousness? What did he have to do? Believe. What about the law? Say it again. Hadn't been given yet. So even before the law was given, all Abram had to do was believe and God made him what? Did Abram make himself righteous? No, God made him,

right. Righteous. So as an arch, an archetype, as a model, the person with whom God has a special relationship, Abram is made righteous by God, not by Abram's own doing simply because Abram believed. And we know that Abram, Abraham was not the greatest guy. He gave his wife away twice. My wife wouldn't stay with me if I did it once. Okay. He gave his wife away twice. Then he slept with her handmaiden.

Not the greatest guy, but in this moment he believed and God said, okay, I will give it to you for righteousness. I don't want you to turn there, but in Romans 4, Paul makes the argument that this gentleman just made. Abram was given righteousness in the law by faith before the commandments were even given. In other words, he didn't have to follow them to be righteous.

So Paul makes the argument that it's by faith that you achieve righteousness, not that you achieve it on your own, but that God gives it to you. Look at Exodus chapter four, Exodus chapter four, Moses, uh, has met with God. He's supposed to go back to Egypt, get his brother, Aaron, then go to Pharaoh. And what is he supposed to tell Pharaoh? Let my people go.

So look at Exodus chapter four, verses 29 to 31.

Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all of the elders of the children of Israel. It's going to be a hard sell, by the way, to these, to these people that, Hey, listen, God, this God, you really don't know very well. He's going to bring us out of Egypt. Verse 29, then Moses and Aaron went and gathered all together, all the elders of the children of Israel. And Aaron spoke all the words, which the Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs

in the sight of the people. Right? Because God gave Moses signs to prove that God was who he says he was. Verse 31. So the people did what they believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked on their afflictions, then they bowed their heads and worshiped. Was this belief before or after the law was given before? So there's another example

of faith. Turn to Exodus chapter 14. So far we have Abraham. Then we have the people who were in bondage as slaves in Egypt. Exodus 14, verse 30. This is after they leave Egypt. It says, So the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Thus Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done in Egypt. So the

people feared the Lord and did what? Believed the Lord and his servant, Moses. Now, again, just like Abraham, this people that were brought out of Egypt did not end very well. Why? Because even though they responded with initial belief, they started walking away later. Even after they had seen the sea split, they started worshiping a golden calf. Even after

they saw the 10 plagues on Egypt, they grumbled and complained and asked to be brought back to Egypt to be made slaves. But at this moment, they believed and they all sang a song and danced like in a musical. That's literally what happens if you look at the very next chapter. Okay. What did God want in the early part of the first five books of the Bible? He wanted faith.

Look at Exodus chapter 19. Exodus chapter 19, verse 3. Israel has now, the Jewish people have come to Mount Sinai. They're probably about two or three months out of Egypt. In verse 3, it says, And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountains, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to

myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people for all the earth. Now, if you stop there, you would think, okay, maybe God wanted faith first, and now he's changing. He just wants obedience. But let's keep going. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall

speak to the children of Israel. So Moses came and called the elders of the people and laid before them all the words which the Lord had commanded. Then all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. So Moses brought back the words, words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I come to you in the thick

cloud that the people may hear when I speak and what? Believe you forever. So Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. So in this moment, what you start to see is that there's this interesting relationship between following God's covenant or following God's commands. And believing him, they do go hand in hand. They do make complete sense. I've, I've seen people

who say they follow God's commands. They follow God's laws. They follow in Hebrew, the mitzvot, the laws. And I've seen those same people also say to me, but I don't really believe in God. There are Orthodox people with kippahs on their head that dress in black and white that have tassels on their side and big beards. They go to synagogue on Saturday and do the ritual washings and eat only kosher food and

bar and bat mitzvah their children who don't believe in God. But I can tell you, I've never seen anybody who is honest say, I believe in God and then not do the things that God would want them to do, or at least strive and pray to do those things. What happens when you don't have faith? In the Torah. Turn to Numbers chapter 14. Numbers chapter 14, starting in verse 10. This is shortly

after Moses sends spies into the land that God is going to give them. But then we're going to see their lack of faith here. Numbers 14, 10. And all the congregation, that means all the people, said to stone them with stones because of the 12 spies sent in, 10 said, we're afraid we can't go in. We won't win. And two, Joshua and Caleb said, no, no, we can do this with the help of the Lord.

So in order to argue against those two, they say, let's stone them. Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel. Then the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people reject me? And how long will they not, what? Believe me with all the signs which I have performed among them. I will strike them with pestilence and

disinherit them. And I will make, of you a nation greater and mightier than they. Go down to verse 42. So they get scared by God's wrath and they say, oh, no, no, no, we're sorry. We will go up just like you've said. And God goes, no, no, no, it's too late. I will not be with you if you go up now with your lack of faith. Verse 42, God says, do not go up lest you be defeated by your enemies for the Lord is not

among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there, before you and you shall fall by the sword because you have turned away from the Lord and the Lord will not be with you. When you don't have faith in the first five books of the Bible, there's ramifications for it. When they didn't have faith and they established the golden calf and worshiped the golden calf while God was meeting with Moses on the mountain. Guess what?

When Moses came down, that calf was melted and 3000 people died that day. Turn to Deuteronomy 1.

Deuteronomy 1, verse 32. Because Israel, the Jewish people would not enter the land. This is a similar time. It says this in verse 32. Yet for all that you did not believe the Lord, your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go in the fire by night and the cloud by day. And the Lord heard the sound

of your words and was angry and took an oath saying, surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that the good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it and him and his children. I am giving the land on which he walked because he wholly followed the Lord. This is a really interesting passage because you get a comparison. The entire people, about 2 million people would not be allowed to enter the land. Why? Because according to,

verse 33, they did not believe. Think of that as heaven, okay? They did not get to go into the land of milk and honey because they had no faith. You don't get to go to spend eternity with God because you have no faith. However, the one that did have faith, Caleb, one of the spies who came back and said, yes, we can do this with the help of the Lord, he's the one who got to experience

and taste the Lord's gift of the promised land. So what about us? What does it have to do with us? We have to ask ourselves, are we much different than the wilderness generation that came out of Egypt who disobeyed God and wasn't allowed to go into the promised land? Do we see God's goodness? Yes or no? Do we pray and hear his voice or get responses? Yes or no?

Have we seen him do good things? Have we experienced him? Have we seen him act in the lives of other people? And if we have said yes to any of those things, what do we do in response? Did we respond like Abraham who believed? Did we respond like the people who initially believed and then turned their back on him? Only you and God know what the truth is. The question is, what is the point of this law? There's probably a lot of things you could say here.

One thing is this. Learn, learn, learn from those who came before us. Learn from Adam and Eve. Learn from Abram. Learn from Moses. Learn from Caleb. Learn the good things of faith and learn the bad things of faith. disobedience and lack of faith. Here's what Hebrews says. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.

Are we that different that we continue to sin and we don't believe? Do we say Jesus was just, I don't know, he served a purpose, but he's not really that significant in our life. He's more like the lambs and the goats that were slaughtered at the temple and the tabernacle. But we really, after he forgave us of his sins, now we need to go back and do these other things.

Look at Hebrews chapter 10 verse 26. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. So Jesus comes, dies on the cross, raises from the dead. He is the solution to all of the sins on planet earth. If we say we acknowledge that, but then we pretend like it doesn't matter, then nothing can save you. There is no sacrifice that can save you. He's not going to sacrifice

himself again. And there's nothing that you can do. And usually this is where people go. Well, let me do the mitzvot. Let me do the commandments. Let me follow the law. That's not, it didn't work the first time with Adam. It's not going to work with Abraham. It didn't work with Moses. It's not going to work now, especially after Jesus actually dealt with the sin problem. Verse 27.

Expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversary. Anyone who has rejected Moses's law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Okay. You want to go by the law? You break it once. You're done. You're done. There's no chance for you.

Of how, verse 29, of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the son of God underfoot, counting the blood of the covenant by which he has done the sacrifice, a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace. In other words, I know that sounds funny. It's kind of Bible talk. If you insult the son of God, if you say his sacrifice was worthless, you trample him underfoot because you don't think it's valuable whatsoever.

You are definitely going to endure punishment. For the generation that came out of Egypt, they didn't get to go to the promised land. For you, probably going to be a little bit worse. The writer of Hebrews is trying to highlight the futility of using the law as a method to merit God's righteousness. It's a futile attempt. Before Sinai, before Moses met God on the mountain,

the law didn't exist yet, right? Israel complains about how far they had to go in the wilderness, but they still remain on the journey. Egypt's food and to be in Egypt, not believing God, but they still remain on the journey. They violate the Sabbath, but they're still on the journey. They argue with Moses and Aaron, but they're still on the journey. Even with all this, God continues to bring them to Sinai

before the law. After the law, this is what happens. Sabbath violators are put to death. After the law, some Israelites are killed when they complain about their food. After the law, the people in the wilderness, die when they don't have faith. After the law, grumbling against Moses results in the death of initially 3,000, but then later on 15,000. So what does the law do? It highlights your sin.

It shows the implausibility of being like God's holiness. Two more passages. Turn to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5 verse 20. Did it bring us to, did it bring us to the law or through the law? Romans chapter 5 verse 20 says this. Moreover, the law entered that offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign

through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The law is alive and well today, but it's not alive and well to save you. The law is alive and well to condemn you. I wouldn't say it's a practical joke that God played on us, but after 613 laws demonstrate that we can't possibly live up to God's standards, and there's only one person who ever did, it doesn't make any sense that we would think that after we believe in Jesus, we should go back to following the law. Now some of those things are

time-tested and approved and repeated in the New Testament, right? We're still not supposed to murder. We're still not supposed to lie, but it's only because of the law that we even know what that is. As hard as it is to say, and this is kind of a confusing thing, Paul says on one hand that he loves the law. He says he loves the law, but he doesn't love the law. He says he loves the law,

that the law is good and holy. Why is it good and holy? Because it reflects God's holiness. If you want to be holy like God, here's the beginning components. Follow these 613, right? It's good. It's holy. It also shows us just how much in deficit we are, just how sinful we are. On the other hand, Paul also says that the law leads to death. Why? Because it's alive to

condemn you. It's alive to show you your sin. And once you've sinned, it's not the law that condemns you to death. It's you who condemn you to death. It just highlights that for you. Look at Galatians chapter two, verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus, in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in

Christ, and not by the works of the law. And so we have to believe in Jesus Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. So know just how holy Jesus was. Because if Jesus had ever broken any of those commandments, he would not be fit to be our savior. Number three, should you follow the law? At least learn from it. Because you learn

God's holy standards. You learn his character. But don't forget, don't have a simple perspective that says that the laws only do this and don't do that. Yes, the law says to circumcise your male children on the eighth day. But you know what it also says in Deuteronomy 30? That the Lord doesn't want merely outward circumcision. He wants circumcision of the heart. That's something that only he can do. The law is good, and the law is holy,

and we can learn from it. Mostly we learn by people's failure to keep it. But don't villainize it. In my opinion, villainizing it, you don't really understand the first five books of the Bible. It's not a bad thing. The bad thing that happened in the New Testament was when people said, no, no, you have to do this in order to be saved. We know, according to what we just read, you do not have to do it to be saved. You will never be

justified by trying to follow the law. You will never be forgiven by doing it in order to be saved. You will never be forgiven by doing the works and the commandments. You are only forgiven because of what Jesus did. And if you think that Jesus's work is worthless, and you start trying to follow it again, then I would suggest you haven't exhibited any faith in Jesus whatsoever.

Definitely a different type of message. Very in-depth. I could go a lot further on it. I'm not going to. I definitely skipped some stuff in here. But the reason this is important to me in my ministry is because I'm ministering to the Lord. I'm ministering to the Lord. I'm ministering to a people who share a common history, who share a book with everybody in this room, right? You read

the Old Testament. They read the Old Testament. They just don't read the New Testament. So they're thinking, if they think we're living through this Old Testament set of laws. And coming up in about a week and a half, I have two services, outreach services, because we have Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, two of the Jewish holidays. Jewish people around the world actually go to the synagogue. Most don't go to the synagogue during

the year. But they'll go to the synagogue here, these two holidays, and try to deal with their sin. Because they know there's a problem. And so what they do is they literally try to work their way to God. They try to work their way to God by fasting, by afflicting themselves. They try to work their way to God by confessing. Empty confession without faith. Faith doesn't mean anything, by the way. They try to work their way to God by giving to the poor,

giving to the synagogue, giving to charities. And hopefully, the rabbis tell them that their name will be written in the book of life. But they have no guarantee. Why? Because we still need that sacrifice. And they have yet to put their faith in the only one who can forgive them, which is Jesus. So these services that I do, we do it in a relatively traditional way that any Jewish person would recognize.

But we also tell them that, by the way, you don't need to fast for your salvation. You don't need to give to charities to have your sins forgiven. You don't need to confess. What you need to do is put your faith in Jesus. And the other things will come. All right. Before I close, you all didn't receive the Holy Spirit. You didn't receive the Holy Spirit. You didn't receive the

one of these. But if you'd like, there's a perforated slip on the outside. You can tear off and give it to me. If you would like, I will send you our prayer letter, which tells you what we're doing every single month, how we're ministering to people. It tells you about people we're ministering to. So you can pray, pray for these two old guys that I met the other day,

Tom and Paul. Paul's Jewish. Tom's not. They're 75 and 80. And they hang out all the time together. They're old buddies. And I am trying to share the gospel with them, as well as a gentleman my age named Lenny, who has two kids. And he wants his kids to learn about God. Okay. I'll teach your Jewish kids about God. I'll teach you about God. Just keep in mind,

I'm going to teach them about everything, which means Jesus. So pray for those things. If you give me that perforated slip filled out, I'll give you this book for free, Isaiah 53 Explained. Excellent resource for you to understand Isaiah 53, the gospel 700 years before Jesus even walked on this earth. And lastly, I have a brochure out there in the lobby. It says,

Host Israelis. We are starting a new ministry, which is already up and running. And we are essentially developing a hosting network for traveling Israelis, because Israelis travel all over the world. And we're going to be doing a lot of things. And we're going to be doing a lot of It's part of Israeli culture. Between the ages of 23 and 26, 27, they travel all over the world from

New Zealand to India to South America and obviously the United States. So we have people in all of those areas who are beginning to register for this housing network. If it's on your heart to house young Jewish people as they travel through Wichita, that's not Wichita, as they travel through Ark City. Sorry, I flew into Wichita this morning. As they travel through Ark City,

maybe they will. Who knows? That's something that you can get involved in here in Ark City. That's over there. You can talk to me more about that. If you have more intricate questions for me, you can ask Pastor Ryan. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that you gave us the commandments. I thank you that you were patient and you were kind and you were gracious. Because Lord, when you gave the

commandments to Moses, at the time of the war, you gave us the commandments to Moses. At the same time, the people you just saved were worshiping a golden calf. I can't even imagine what your patience is like. Lord, I thank you, though, that in those stories written in those first five books and in those commandments, we get a glimpse of your character. We understand a little bit more about who you are. We understand more about our human tendencies.

And even when we see your goodness, we might have the tendency to go left and to go right instead of walk straight with you. Lord, but thank you so much for that. I thank you for that. I thank you so much for Jesus. Because he's the only one that could keep those commandments. He's the only one that never broke a single commandment. And because of that, we can put

our faith in him. And only when we put our faith in him can we be declared righteous.

If there's anybody in this room that hasn't confessed their sins and put their faith in him, let this be the night, Lord. Let them understand their own sins just from the Ten Commandments. If they've ever stolen or cheated, if they've ever committed a sin, if they've ever committed a sin, if they've ever cheated or disrespected their parents, then they are lawbreakers and they need salvation. I thank you that the Lord, that you gave us the law so that we know what sin is and we know what your holiness is. In your son's name we pray. Amen.