Weeding Out Legalism (Part A)

Moses cried out, show me now your grace that I may know you, that I may find grace in your sight. Grace is a big deal. And it is every bit a part of obedience. It is every bit a part of that which flows from the throne of God. And when you're showing grace you won't gossip against people. You won't be smug and arrogant, look down on other people.

people, it knocks out a lot of things that need to be knocked out. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Romans. Please stay with us after today's message.

To hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans, chapter 7, as he begins his message, weeding out the legalists. We're in Paul's letter to the Romans.

We have our own brand of diversity here. We preach to the loonies, to the legalists, to the level-headed. We preach to sinners of all ages.

That's our form. And I say that because we're going verse by verse through Romans. I would prefer to skip Romans altogether, much of it. But we have to go through all of God's word.

And it is a great blessing in that. The title is Weeding Out the Legalists. And if you're offended by that, you've just admitted to being a legalist.

You say, well, what is a legalist? Well, hopefully we'll find out. You know, I have my own personality. I hope it doesn't come off as unloving. That's not a good beginning.

But you know, the information is what it is. So Romans, chapter 7, we're going to take verse 6, and then we'll get into it. Romans, chapter 7, verse 6, but now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Weeding out the legalist. Understanding Romans can be a little tricky. And just coming to the 7th chapter on the heels of what we call chapter 6, what is Paul doing? What is he saying? Why is he saying it this way?

Why is he hitting it over and over again? Well, a brief overview of this section, which really runs chapter 6, 7, and 8, is he's saying to them that they're released from the old covenant religion. Not the morals, but the ceremonies. In verses 7 through 25 in this chapter, he is saying that there are struggles in the new covenant faith. And then in the 8th chapter, he's going to tell them that there is obedience and there is grace in Christ.

So that's a brief overview. Verses 1 through 6, released from the old covenant, 7 through 25, struggles in the new covenant, and then chapter 8. These three chapters go together, obedience and grace in Christ. And I'll repeat points in different ways, hopefully, because it's necessary when you're dealing with the difficult behavior found in legalist. Paul constantly battled legalism, that child of guilt, not grace, and he's doing it here. Remember, he's writing to the Christians that are in Rome, and they are made up of, it seems from the writing in this letter, mostly Jews, but Gentiles also.

And some of those Gentiles might have been converted to Judaism. So he knows that there is going to be legalism there, and he faced it all of his ministry. Lawlessness is not the alternative to legalism. Lawlessness is a distortion of liberty. We have liberty in Christ, we're not to be lawless in Christ. Legalism is a distortion of obedience. And I think that's why it thrives, because people think that I'm being obedient by being judgmental, self-righteous, and all these other things that lack grace. Legalism's definition is easily, or I should say, more easily found in observing the behavior of the people guilty who struggle with this, and it is a struggle for some.

For some, they want out, but it's very hard for them. Legalism isolates the law of God from the God who gave them the law. He's kind of put on the side, and they're kind of just running with the information. Remember, it was legalists who crucified Christ. It was legalists who hunted the apostles. It was legalists who stoned Stephen to death, and then tried to enter the church, not the same identical people, but those who carry this behavior with them.

They tried to smother Christianity to death. We pick it up in Acts chapter 15. Certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. That's legalism. It's one part of legalism that you have to comply with the law, the legal end of it. Never mind Christ. You got to do these things, and it's a very sneaky thing when it comes into Christianity. It disconnects the meaning of the letter.

The letter is the meaning, but the spirit is the intention, and they disconnect the two. Let me give you an example. Maybe there's a law that says you cannot lie down on the sidewalk.

Yeah, all right, fine. You're walking down the street, and you faint, and now you're lying down on the sidewalk. Well, the legalistic minds that the law says you can't do that, never mind.

Why? You can't see the forest because of the trees. And this happens, it's ongoing, it's never stopped. It adds their own rules to the laws of grace, and thereby killing it is no longer grace. Law sees only the violation.

That's what it focuses on, the violation. Grace looks for the solution. Now, I'm going to spend most of the, well, maybe a quarter of our time just on introducing this topic of legalism. You know, once you've dealt with someone who's a legalist, you know it's not Christ-like, but it doesn't mean necessarily that you are able to understand just how far-reaching it is. As I mentioned, solutions are not high up on their approach to the faith. In John's gospel in chapter eight, they wanted to stone the woman, never mind the man. That was legalism in action, but it was also grace in action. When Christ said, go, don't sin anymore. Stop doing this.

Looking for the solution. Looking for the way to save the sinner, not stone the sinner. When you hear the saying, you know, Christians are notorious for shooting, they're wounded. Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in that. Not all Christians, but enough of them.

And that's either the immature ones who are just carnal and mean-spirited or confused, or it's the legalist. But those who have grace, we don't look to shoot our wounded. We look to restore them so they can get wounded again, because that's part of the process of life and serving Christ. Paul mentions here the law in its conflict with grace. He is talking about the blind side of applying the old covenant and not, again, the moral obedience to God. He is at no point, just look back at chapter six, verse one, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Verse two, certainly not. All you need to do is read chapters five and six of 1 Corinthians and you get hammered if you are someone who thinks that lawlessness should abound.

Lawlessness comes out of hell, not out of Christ. So what Paul means is that in Christ, we are free from the Sabbath, from the diet keeping, from the circumcision, from the rituals, we're free to serve Christ out of love. Not this sense of, oh, I better do this or I better do that. The motivations have changed that which propels me, the fuel, the source of the fuel, the passion that is involved. I would rather speak on David dancing before the ark of the covenant with all of his might, the passion and service.

But there's more to life than just that moment of passion. There are wars, there are struggles and Paul is fighting for the church because he knows if these chaps get their way, he might not know who they are. He likely never met most of them. He knows they're there. He knows what they do and he knows what will happen and he really doesn't care if they're offended at being called out for their guilt.

He really would like to have them correct their ways. To the Corinthians, he says, it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you. And this was imperative to have a man be able to stand up to the carnality of those who were flooding into the New Testament church from the Gentile world and also from the Jewish world. And so he knew wherever there were Jews, there would be this intrusion of legalism. This is not to beat up on the Jews, we're going to beat up on the Gentiles in a minute also. The sinners is what we're dealing with, but the Jews of course were the ones that held the scriptures. They were the custodians and this man Paul, he understood his role. He knew what his role was and part of it was identifying and fortifying Christianity and to keep it distinct, not only from Judaism, but from every other religion on earth.

And that is our assignment to this day. Christianity is distinct from everybody. And if it offends them, well, that's on their side. Because we'd rather offend them than be an offense to God. And we try to do this lovingly, but the passion often comes out as anger.

And well, you know, you just have to put on your big boy pants and saw through those things. And so here Paul, looking to impart Christianity, and he wanted to bless these people in Rome, he tells us that straight out in the first chapter of the Roman letter in verse 13. He says, now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often plan to come to you, but was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. Now the Galatian letter was already written and long in circulation, so they already got a dose of him against legalism, against Judaism coming into the church. And if you come away and say, boy, he was pretty hot this morning, fierce against legalism, read Galatians.

Paul says, let them be mutilated, let them be accursed, let them go to hell, fierce against this stuff, because it undoes Christianity in the name of Christ. When you show me Christians or a church without grace, I don't want to be around them unless I can contribute to a solution, because that's not Christianity. If there was no such thing as grace, he never would have gone to the cross for us, but he did go. Moses cried out, show me now your grace that I may know you, that I may find grace in your sight. Grace is a big deal, and it is every bit a part of obedience, it is every bit a part of that which flows from the throne of God. And when you're showing grace, you won't gossip against people. You won't be smug and arrogant and look down on other people.

It knocks out a lot of things that need to be knocked out, put out of the life. And so he knew that this legalism had to be weeded out of that church in Rome or else. And as I mentioned, he faced constant opposition, at this point rabbinical Judaism. The rabbis had so hijacked the Old Testament that they couldn't even see the prophecies of Christ being fulfilled right in front of their eyes, or refused a combination of both.

But then, then, wanting to be diverse in our accusations against sin, came the Gentiles with their Gnosticism. Paul had to deal with some of that in the Colossian letter. Peter had to deal with that. Jude had to deal with that. John had to deal with that. First John was all about Gnostic teachings creeping into the church.

That wasn't legalism. That was just more heresy. It would have been heresy if it was embraced by any of the Christians. And so these were the days of the apostles, constant battle. You think after Christ died on the crossroads again, woo man, Christianity is sweet. Let's tell the gospel to those who are lost and they will run away from their mythology and love the faith.

That is inexperience speaking. Those apostles were hammered from day one to the end. The entire letter, or, well, the book of Revelation was written under the foot of persecution. Everyone on the Isle of Patmos, he was a prisoner. He's persecuted. He was an old man being persecuted and to him God gave the revelation.

This is sobriety. This keeps us sober minded as we're encouraged to be in the faith because it's so easy to become emotionally driven in your Christianity that you become a nuisance. Because you're not praying with understanding, nor are you singing with understanding.

It's just all feelings. But when you've got understanding, everything changes from hell's perspective. When hell sees the Christian who is trying to keep that balance, that poise, that allegiance to scripture, then there's a threat.

And especially when you stay committed to Christ, no matter how messed up you know you might be. Well, legalism overrules grace. It talks about grace. It just doesn't carry it out.

So in Romans 6, he praised the law of God for its intended purpose, which was what? To show us what sin is. Think about this. Maybe you don't identify with this.

I do. When I first became a Christian, well, before I was a Christian, I didn't do anything I wanted to. When I came to Christ, oh man, a filter was put on, and I was like, I can't do that anymore. What I just did was not right. This is the law. The law was saying, you can't do those things anymore.

They're harmful. And I had to relearn and rethink life. I had to be washed in the word of God as the scripture teaches us. I would never have learned what to do, what not to do, and what to do with knowing what to do and what not to do had it not been for the scripture.

And men who could teach me about the scripture, and fellow Christians who could also teach me in one way or another. You learn a lot about leadership if you're under poor leadership. You can learn a lot about leadership if you're under good leadership. What do you do with what you're exposed to?

It counts. Unfortunately, inexperience is sometimes blind and doesn't realize the benefits that it is receiving because it lacks perception. Doesn't have to, best way to learn. Well experience is good, but it's costly. Perception, I'd rather perceive a danger than go through the danger first.

I'd rather say, you know what, I think that's hot because it's smoldering, and not touch it rather than, well let me test it, and grab a handful of coal and find out. Well, Romans 7 where we are now, he is dismissing the old covenant under rabbinical influence. He's dismissing that as a solution to sin. Well Judaism could never reach the world. It is part of the dispensations, the periods, the rollouts of God.

When Paul said Christ was born of a woman in the fullness of the time, he said the right timing of God. Why couldn't Judaism reach the world? Well you're required, the men were required three times a year to go to the temple in Jerusalem. Well how could you do that if you lived in China?

Not easily, not all the men. The mountains, the oceans, the rivers, the poverty, the slavery, the sheer distance. Then there were the culture, the cultural things that were involved that never would have allowed freed slaves to participate in a Sabbath. Could you imagine you're a slave, you say well I'm now, you know I've converted to Judaism, I'm now working Saturday. The master would have dealt with that and would not have went well with you. You could not be circumcised if you were a slave because that would take you out of work.

Well I can't come to work, my religious obligations have put me in sick bay for a few days. The feast days, you couldn't make them. So you see, Judaism could never reach the world. The old covenant was limited. God knew what he was doing.

He hasn't revealed it all to us, but he hasn't revealed enough to us to understand. So when the time came to reach the world, God activated the new covenant. Otherwise, if the old covenant was sufficient, there wouldn't be a need for the new one.

But there was a need for it. Releasing us from old testament religious rituals and ceremonies and restrictions. Keep in mind, never the moral law. The moral law, thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill, those things, they are unchanging. So the Jewish Christians, they struggled with legalism, that merit based system, that merit based religion, as do many Christians who think that they, you know, they still got to do something to be acceptable to Christ. Well we do things because Christ has accepted us.

That's why love is a great motivator. The religion of the Jews was made overly restricted, as I mentioned, by the rabbis. Man-made traditions injected into it, burdensome laws, erroneous interpretations of what Moses was teaching. The letter of the law began to kill the spirit of the law. And Jesus said, and in vain they worshiped me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. We'll go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus, what do you think you're doing? You can't heal that guy. He's got to be sick and lame another day.

Do it tomorrow. See, that's legalism. That is an overt example. It's very subtle. It's religious snobbery, abuse, deadness of faith, Matthew 24, for they bind heavy burdens hard to bear, Jesus talking about the Pharisees, who were swimming in legalism. And lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. See, that's the double standard legalism has. And the reason why it gets away is because its external package is very appealing.

Look how obedient I am, strict to the law, want to do it this way. Meanwhile, they're hiding what's going on in their life. They'll change churches before you get to see something they've done wrong.

That's one of the tactics that I've noticed over the years. And Titus, Paul told him, because of this influence from the Jews at the early church, the early church was almost all Jewish, so again, it's not singling them out because of their being Jews, it's because of the behavior that happened to be because of the dominant people in the church, the Jewish people. Titus 1, 4, Paul wrote to the pastor Titus saying to him, don't give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.

And it's very subtle. You can know a Christian, a good Christian who has grace, again, looking for solutions, they're not flipping over rocks, seeing what they can find to charge you with. But at the same time, they're not going to give a pass to sin. The Christian wants to find solutions and not ever give a pass to sin. And if you come out and you say to them, listen, I am committing an act of sin, they're not going to say to you, don't worry about it, grace covers it all. They're going to say, we got to fix this or else you're going to be disfellowshipped and turned over to the Lord and let him deal with you. That's what Paul said about the man committing an egregious sin in the church car, turn them over to Satan, let Satan have them for a while.

Fortunately, that one had a happy ending. Well, the legalistic Christian in their heart places far more people in hell than the one who knows grace. The legalist seeks those to be lost as opposed to seek and to save those who are in sin. They talk about grace, but they live without it in their hearts. And the examples of this are everywhere in the Gospels. It's like, Jesus, you ever notice how hard he hit the Pharisees harder than anybody else?

Because they were the worst when it came to this particular sin. When Christ said, one of you will betray me, they all began to say, is it I? Is it me?

Because I don't want to be that guy. The legalist would have said, is it Peter? Is it Judas? But he would not have said, is it I? Because that would be dismantling his facade of obedience.

It couldn't be him. He's too busy judging everybody else. Now of course, with every crime, there's always a little difference here and there, and this is a crime. Legalism is a crime, and that's why Paul is hitting it and will continue to hit it. When he gets to Hebrews, he takes a different approach, but he's still hitting, bringing in this kind of behavior into the church.

And so, legalism has always been about outward appearances and judgments of anyone who fails to look outward superior as they do. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.