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about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, let's join Pastor Rick with part two of his study called Weeding Out the Legalists in Romans chapter 6. 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, everything had 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.
It 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 it was 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 sickbay 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. And so when the time came to reach the world, God activated the new covenant. Otherwise, if the old covenant was sufficient, it 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. But 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 worshipped 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 him over to Satan, let Satan have him 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. 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. That can be transferred onto their children.
When you look at my children, they're better than your children. And, you know, this kind of stuff, you got to watch it. It's very, it can be very subtle. And Satan knows how to play this fiddle very well. They fool a lot of people. And Israel was infested with them in Christ's day and in the early days of the apostles. And Paul is determined to keep it out of the church.
He said, I'd repeat some of this to you because that's what it calls for. They hide their dirt well when they're in churches, under the guise of obedience. They're more obedient than everybody else. Matthew 23, verse 25, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Jesus said, I can see beyond.
I see beyond your exterior. I know what's in your heart. And in the Christianity, I have learned over the years that they wreck homes, they wreck their own homes, not every single time, of course, but a lot of the times. And they wreck the witness of a church and their witness of Christ because they cannot figure out the mercy and loveliness of true Christianity.
And make no mistake. If Christianity were not lovely and beautiful and gracious, you never would have come to it. What attracted you to Christ was his ability to forgive you, dirt and all. And you love him for it. And you sing songs to him because he is worthy. And if when it's from the heart and it's not outside of Scripture, it's beautiful.
And if you've never passionately loved on the Lord, ask him to fill you to overflow, to fill you with despair. I mentioned David dancing before the ark. That's not a behavior for church. That's a Jewish culture. It was a civil function. It was for the nation. It weren't in the synagogue where it could distract from teaching and things like that. So if you get up and you start dancing in here, we're taking you down. I'm serious. Anyway, because the Word of God is in operation and it is rude to cancel one gift rudely with another gift.
All right, anyway, back to this. We look again at the Gospels. We look at the conniptions that were taking place in Israel when Jesus healed on the Sabbath day. They just could not stomach that because their religion was more important than what God wanted, the heart of God. And they harbor a love, a killing of love with a smugness that once you begin to identify them, you can see them from afar off. And unfortunately sometimes they're good people that if you could just get that legalism out of them, you could do so much more as a church, even in a family.
They thrive without getting love done. Colossians 2. This is for those who think that this exterior is somehow going to take down the boogeyman. And the boogeyman of the Christian is sin. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom and self-imposed religion, false humility and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. It's all on the outside. But it really doesn't get anything done.
And because it's all on the outside, the outside of the cup is dirty, the inside is clean, it's not being addressed, it's going to cause problems. It is a fake love. Luke chapter 7. Jesus illustrates for us just what this legalism in the church is about. This is a story of two debtors that were forgiven their debt. And when they had nothing with which to repay, they freely forgave them both.
Tell me, therefore. Now, Jesus is in the house of Simon, a Pharisee, who likely submitted to these teachings, and that's why he's named. And he was judging Jesus because Jesus had the audacity to let this sinful woman at his feet, weeping at his feet, wiping his feet from the tears that were falling on them with her hair.
He was so happy to find somebody who could forgive her for the dirty life she found herself in. And he didn't see her that way. Now, Simon was incensed that if he were a prophet, he would know who this woman was. Yes, Simon, he knows who you are.
And she may have an exterior that is unappealing, but you have an interior and an exterior that are wrong. So Jesus says to him, tell me, therefore, which of them will love more? The two people that were forgiven.
Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, you have rightly judged, therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. Which gets us to why the legalist is guilt. They can't understand grace. They carry their guilt. And they channel it into other areas, false obedience, self-righteous. They miss the point that Christ loves them in spite of their sin, in spite of their inability to conquer sin, which is the next part of chapter seven. In spite of the inability to beat sin out. See, a legalist will admit that they are sinners, they just won't admit that they sin. They keep it from being personal.
Again, there's exceptions here and there, little twists and turns, but I'm giving you an overall. It is easy to find religion without grace. And it's easy to find religion without obedience, too. We have a whole bunch of them out there saying, the Bible doesn't count, sin doesn't matter. It matters a lot from heaven's point of view, enough to send the Son of God to be abused and nailed to a cross because of one thing, sin.
The world is blind to these things. So again, when Paul mentions the word law, which is in each of the first nine verses of this chapter, he's talking about rabbinical influences on the Mosaic law, he's talking about the old covenant ceremonies and rituals. He's saying these things are done with and Christ is sufficient. And if you don't learn how to walk with Christ by grace, then you're going to walk with him by law. And if you walk with him by law, you won't be walking with him well.
Can two walk together if they are not in agreement? Verse one now, we have Romans today. And we should be able to go through this because I think what I've been trying to say, hopefully, has summarized what he's going to say in these six verses.
And if I had tried to bake it into verse by verse, it just got to be too long. So he says here in verse one, Or do you not know, brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. That's the rabbinical law, the Old Testament law. He's targeting the views that had just been accepted and pushed into the church that were outside of Christianity. Again, the legalists will not tolerate the sins of others.
They'll sidestep their own pretty good. So Titus again, chapter three, because you cannot sustain salvation by your works. You're not acceptable to Christ when you come to him. But you accept him. You can't work to remain acceptable to him. If I could earn my salvation, then I could lose myself.
I could do something to blow it. Do you understand what grace is? From top to bottom, it's you don't deserve this.
That's it. Then why am I getting it? Because I love you. Now I've got to relearn love. I've got to learn that there are other kinds of love. It's okay to love things in life. You know, maybe I love calligraphy. That's fine. Maybe I love milkshakes.
That's advisable. But those cannot compare to my love for God. Maybe I love my family. Jesus said, you better watch that.
Because if I find that you love your family more than me, we're going to have problems. Luke chapter 14, verse 26. And so get it, this is our assignment to sort these things out with love and grace without ever trivializing sin. Well, Titus, Paul said, not by works of righteousness would we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
There is that renewal. I look back at my life and there are things that, well, I still haven't mastered yet, but there are a lot of things that are very different about me now since I've come to Christ. And I'm not going to throw Satan a bone and say, well, it's not working because I'm not perfect yet. Well, I'm not going to be perfect this side of heaven. I accept that in myself and I've got to learn to accept it in others. And there have been many that have come through here, they've sinned and they've come to us and we've worked on a solution. But if they come and they say, well, I don't think it's that bad, well, there's not going to be a solution.
You know, it has to be. If your sin is brought out, it has to be confessed. Anyway, no system of human effort can sustain a victorious Christian life. But legalistic disagrees with that in their thinking and it's a mindset.
It is more of a mindset than I think anything else. So as long as you remain under the Mosaic law, he's telling him here in verse 1, outside of the new covenant, you're not coming into the faith that God has for us. Romans 6 verse 19, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
So I'm going to use these examples. Previously, he used the example of the slave and the master. Now he's going to use the example of marriage. You know, give you another example of blind eye of legalism of the letter of the law without the spirit of the law is King Saul, you know, he was just a total train wreck. He is one of those, it's easier to preach about a character like Saul than it is to come, for me at least, take it doctrinally as it is in Romans. King Saul, on a day that his son Jonathan started the fight with the Philistines, the enemy that he was supposed to start, King Saul makes this edict, this decree, no one gets to eat anything till we have vanquished the enemy, which was just typical Saul and it was wrong. Well, Jonathan, his eldest son, did not hear that. He, being the prince, he's out and he's tired from the battle because if your, you know, infantry is running, he's running a lot, you're hauling, you're fighting, it's a lot of work.
You're going to get tired, you're going to get thirsty, you're going to, you know, his energy was low. So he sees, you know, a honey pot, bees, and he sticks his spear into it, he takes the honey and he is refreshed. And the witnesses said, you're going to get it now because your dad, the king, said anybody that does that is going to die and we're going to rat you out.
And they did. And what did Saul do? Kill him. His own son. His own son. Saul had other issues, but it's just so, the letter, my edict was no one eats, but you ate. Never mind that it brought the victory. Never mind that he didn't hear the edict.
Never mind that it was dumb from the beginning. And this is a behavior that can be found and when does it really flash forward when you stand up to them? When their legalism flashes forward and you say, wait a minute, that's not scripture.
And that's when it comes out. When they double down, they're not going to give you an inch on a verse that requires grace. Anyway, there is no way out of God's Old Testament, Old Covenant, except through the new. That's what he's saying. You're stuck in the Old Covenant.
Oh yeah, stuck might be a little bit too hard. We're in the Old Covenant and you cannot get out of that until the new one comes. Deuteronomy 18, Moses said that there was going to be one that comes and you better listen to him and if you don't, you're going to be cut off.
Christ said that was, in John chapter 5, said, that's me. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reverence 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 for the book of Romans here on Cross Reference Radio.
