From Law to Gospel [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

If you take a little bit of legalism and put it into your gospel, that's all the devil needs to get in there in order for your gospel to lose its power. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Life of Peter, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this special offer available today.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. His most recent thing is he is doing some conferences to help Christian leaders especially understand what has happened with the explosion of pornography that's everywhere. And as part of this, he had hired the Barna group, big research group, to do a study on views towards pornography. And it was quite shocking and revealing as you might imagine, not only the use of explicit materials in amongst our young people, but the attitude was the thing that got me. And this is the statistic that just...

I didn't know whether to just cry or just laugh out loud because I couldn't even believe it, but this is a true statistic. Among today's teenagers and young adults, so in this millennial generation, having been asked the question, is recycling a sin? And then asked the question, is viewing pornography a sin? You need to be aware that more of today's young people believe that it's a sin not to recycle than they do believe it's a sin to view pornography. That it's worse to not recycle than it is to view pornography.

Now, I need to just take a moment and say without going into a rant, who in their right mind can think this way? I've been in ministry for three decades and I have spent dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of meetings and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of hours praying with people and helping men who have been addicted to pornography and trying to help couples whose marriages have been besieged and have been hurt and all of the problems that it has caused over and over and over for three decades. But I want you to know I have never ever had an appointment with somebody who has come in and said, pastor will you help us? My husband's just not recycling. I've never seen a family broken up. I've never seen a society go down the drain because of a lack of recycle. It just doesn't happen like that. It doesn't happen. Women don't come home and and the husband in the house and and and and say and she say to him, well what have you been doing today? And he says well um first I gathered up all the recycling and I took it out to the curb and then I spent a couple hours surfing the internet for explicit material and the wife doesn't say well as long as you did the recycling that's fine with me honey. This is ridiculous.

How can we make something that is so big seem so small and in the same way we can make something that is so small seem so big? And this is what Paul he is just like in tune with the Holy Spirit and when he hears that Peter is no longer eating with the Gentiles and Peter has rationalized this thing like this is just a small matter. This doesn't matter. I mean I still will go to church with them.

I still associate with them. I still understand the freedom of the gospel. I just want to be able to convince more Jewish people of the gospel so I'm going to remind them that I too am Jewish and I don't associate with the unclean people and when Paul hears this he says this is not a small matter.

This is a huge matter. This is at the heart of the gospel and he is willing to go and confront the rock of the church. Peter the preacher of Pentecost the man who was as anointed as any man in the first century and Paul went and confronted him. What was at stake for Paul? What was it that was so so important to him about this? Well let me mention briefly three three different matters that were of great importance I think in Paul's mind and the first is the issue of holiness.

What Peter was doing was conveying a non-gospel view of holiness. To the Jewish people life revolved in an old covenant living. Life revolved around the idea of the clean and the unclean.

That which was ceremonially clean could go to the temple that which was not could not. And there were many ceremonial laws that actually when we look back on it now were quite helpful for the health of the Jewish people. So for example they had these weird laws about hand washing. The Jewish people were about the only people in the ancient world that washed their hands before eating. Had a lot to do with why this people survived beyond others.

Nobody understood that germs even existed. They also had laws that they were not to touch dead bodies and other ceremonial laws that if we look back had health purposes to them. But there are also other ceremonial laws that you couldn't understand exactly why that law is in place but here's what it was doing. It was showing them God is a holy God.

He is other. He is omnipotent and he is transcendent and he is not like the mundane world and he's not like the unholy people full of sin. God's pure and holy and free. And so in all of these laws about what is clean and what's unclean there was a picture being painted on the landscape of history that was pointing to the importance of holiness. But these ceremonial laws didn't make you holy. They were simply pointing to the need for holiness. And what holy means it means set apart.

That's what it means. So if a vessel were a holy vessel it meant that vessel would be used only at the temple only in the service of God. That's what it means to be a holy vessel set apart for God's use for the temple's use. That's what it means for us to be holy set apart unto God to be used exclusively by God belonging exclusively to God. That's what it means to be holy.

That's what it means to be holy. So all of this idea of clean and unclean lived in the heart of the Jewish people and Peter grew up with this. Peter grew up and he knew there were clean animals and unclean animals and you're not to eat the unclean animals. So it's okay to eat lamb, it's not okay to eat pig.

We won't look there now but in Acts chapter 10 an amazing thing happened with Peter. He had a vision and in this vision there was this big sheet and all these different animals clean and unclean and he heard the voice of the Lord saying to eat, to eat freely of it. And Peter says but Lord I've never eaten an unclean animal my whole life.

I've never had pork, I've never. And this vision says it's okay to eat all of it. And then right after that a Gentile named Cornelius came to Peter and Peter prayed for him and when this Gentile was prayed for the Holy Spirit fell upon him and fell upon the Gentiles and Peter realized the gospel is not just for the Jewish people. Even though this had been prophesied all the way through the Old Testament that Israel was to be a light to the nations it hadn't really registered with him that this is what this means. Is that God doesn't show preference, that he loves the whole world, that God always has loved the whole world and that he sent his son to die for the whole world so that anyone who would accept him through simple childlike faith would be saved and would be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he sees all this and he knows all this and this is what Paul has said that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek there is no longer a distinction between Hebrew and Gentile because God has done something to make a new humanity and so now we understand in the gospel what holiness really is and we realize that we cannot make ourselves holy we cannot ever keep the law we can't ever be righteous enough there'll always be something that we mess up always something wrong with our thought life even the best the most seemingly righteous person in the world still falls short of the glory of God and so here's what God did to make us holy he came and came in the person of a sinless human being named Jesus a Nazarene who lived a sinless life and when Jesus died for us he became our sin and whoever believes in him becomes his righteousness and that righteousness imparted to you imputed to you is the thing that has made you holy so Ezekiel prophesied that the Lord would say I am the Lord who sanctifies you and the writer of Hebrews says to the Christians you have been made holy holiness is not a matter for us of being eating with the right people or or keeping ourselves from certain things or acting in a holy tone or doing so that's not what defines our holiness our holiness is found because we've been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ and Paul is saying to Peter Peter if you pull back from eating with the Gentiles you're going to be conveying to people that holiness is a matter of eating and drinking and who you associate with and the whole good news of the gospel is that that's not what establishes our holiness anymore we are holy in Christ and anyone Jew or Gentile who's in Christ has been made holy and set apart unto God there's so much at stake here that's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series ever feel like the pressure is always on do you find it hard to say no worried that you'll disappoint someone the bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise they were naked and felt no shame but as soon as sin entered the world they became anxious plagued with a gnawing question what must I do to be accepted there is only one solution the grace of God that lifts our shame in a new six-week video masterclass Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom whether as an individual or in a small group the video series is sure to bring healing and hope when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership in a world so quick to say shame on you it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries now we are in our final days of offering this special product call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastorallen.org today's teaching now continues here once again is Alan Wright and the second thing he is concerned with is that in the gospel there is a spirit given unity in the body of Christ that does not come by ordinary means and if peter withdraws from the gentiles he is introducing division where there should be unity because the unity that we have as christians does not come because of the customs that we keep or the color of our skin or the rituals that we perform or even simply simply because of the truths that we assent to as important as that is but in the gospel there has been a miracle that has taken place and the holy spirit the spirit of jesus has come into the life of every believer no such thing as a believer who doesn't have the spirit of jesus and jesus therefore is like the vine and we are the branches or in paul's image he's the head and we're the body we are a new eschatological breed of humanity that did not exist before the cross and the resurrection and has changed everything but if you act like this peter you are flying in the face of everything that is good about the unity that has come in the body of christ we get so confused about this thinking that it is because of our associations that we are one it is not because we are one it is not i am still along with my carolina brothers and sisters recovering i'm in recovery mode i'm in the i've moved beyond the denial stage of grief and now i'm i'm in the uh still in the anger phase but um in case you live on mars uh i need to let you know that my alma mater university of north carolina was in the national championship game and uh the other team that shall remain nameless uh made a last second buzzer beater to to steal the championship away from from us and so uh had some some carolina people over to the house and we were watching it you see when you're watching a game like this it's best not to do it alone or in the quiet blood vessels burst and things happen if you don't and um so it's important it's important to have people that agree with you that the refs stink you need you need people to come in and wear carolina blue and talk carolina blue which was uh very magnanimous of me therefore to allow my own father-in-law to join in on the viewing he went to duke and to let him come in and try to act like he's pulling for carolina and let him infiltrate like that um i thought was big on on my part um isn't it funny we think you're going to be united because you like carolina i like carolina okay we're together you know don't agree on anything else perhaps you know but we got we got that and that's kind of the way people try to find unity in the world and it's nothing wrong well there can be something wrong with it but it it's something far more extraordinary that is offered to us in jesus and it's not just to say oh well we we get to have unity with people of different nationalities and races and ethnic cultures no it's far beyond that we're one in the unity of the holy spirit and the psalmist said oh how good and pleasant a thing it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity it is as if the dews of mount herman have come to the arid places of mount zion when there is unity it is as if there is oil that had been poured out upon the head and runs down upon the beard yea even erin's beard and touches every part of the fabric of the robe that where there is unity there is the power of the holy spirit holy spirit and paul is saying peter if you compromise our unity you're compromising the unction of god that moves through the body of christ there's so much at stake and he i'll say quickly he is in the end essentially saying peter what you're doing and what you're demonstrating to others it's not just about teaching something about clean and unclean that's not right it's not just about our unity it's about the freedom and the power of the gospel because as soon as you introduce a little bit of legalism into this magnificent beautiful glorious gospel you have not only weakened it you have turned it into poison this is essentially what paul is saying to the galatians and this is why he feels so strongly so adamantly about this is that if you take one drop of cyanide and put it into a small cup of otherwise clear water you still have poison and if you take a little bit of legalism and put it into your gospel that's all the devil needs to get in there in order for your gospel to lose its power because if you have an idea of god that he came in christ because he loved you and he died for you and you have been saved by grace through faith but you get one percent one little drop of an idea but there may be some part of it that's still up to you to make yourself acceptable to god i'll tell you what will happen it will introduce an unlimited capacity for fear because we're either saved by grace or we are not and if there is one percent that we're not saved by grace then we have much to dread every day because how would we ever know if you're under one percent of law you're still under the law i i said this years ago and i can't think of a better way to describe it if i were to tell my wife 99 days in a row i love you we're in a covenant and i accept you and i'm with you forever and then on the hundredth day i told her you might not be good enough after all and unless you become better i might just leave you and then i went back the next day to 99 days in a row of saying i love you i'll never leave you wouldn't that one day out of a hundred cancel out all the previous 99 and cancel out the 99 moving forward because once you introduce the doubt that you introduce the doubt of my covenantal love then as long as there's a seed of doubt then it can grow exponentially and if any day i am thinking i am loved and yet there's one percent i might not be loved i'll be forever paying attention to the one percent rather than the 99 percent and so what the devil wants to do is not simply to come in and cause you to disbelieve in christ altogether and infect the gospel of the grace of the lord jesus christ with just a little bit of the pollution of the legalism of the spirit of religion and so paul comes to peter he says peter you can't do this man the gospel is at stake here the power of the gospel is at stake and and and and he just openly confronts him and we're not told what peter does but you know we've been walking with peter for a long time now and i'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because there's one thing we learned about peter is peter is able to change and i think peter probably received this word and paul just is simply using this to set up his whole argument with the galatians to say the gospel is as good as what you originally heard how could you start how could you start out in the spirit and go back to the law it's not one of those fancy dinners where you think it's going to be a blessing and then when you get into it you find out there's a whole bunch of other strings attached it actually is a lavish feast of grace that in the end you wind up sitting with christ himself at the marriage supper of the lamb no strings attached that's the gospel alan wright and today's teaching as we kick off the conclusion of our program the life of peter from stranger to royal priest alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word ever feel like the pressure is always on do you find it hard to say no worried that you'll disappoint someone the bible tells us only one thing about adam and eve's relationship in paradise they were naked and felt no shame but as soon as sin entered the world they became anxious plagued with a gnawing question what must i do to be accepted there is only one solution the grace of god that lifts our shame in a new six-week video master class pastor alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom whether as an individual or in a small group the video series is sure to bring healing and hope when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month we'll send you the digital master class videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership in a world so quick to say shame on you it's time to let god's grace take the shame off you we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries now we are in our final days of offering this special product call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org well alan as we kick off the final message in this series the life of peter we have seen an amazing journey of one and and really if you think about it this is one that i find very practical one that i can identify with in so many areas of of my life but really it's all of our story right we started off as an enemy we started off as this stranger and invited in seated at the at the table with a beautiful feast here as a child of god there have been so many labels that have been put on our lives daniel and some of the listeners i know you've been the recipient of some really terrible labels from people that should have been blessing you and helping identify who you really are and instead has left you with a battle to strip those old labels off and take on the new identity in christ well today's message is for you and we who once were far away from god have been brought near and to hear these words of peter who is a man who's been through the transformation now telling us who we really are and what it means to be chosen and what it means to be a royal priest boy there is good news today today's good news message is a listener-supported production of allen wright ministries