When Grace Exposes Legalism #2

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of The Truth Pulpit.

We're so glad that you joined us. And I know that many of you have recently signed up for the podcast looking for the series that I told you about called Building a Christian Mind, and that series is going to start on February the 5th. February the 5th for Building a Christian Mind. Until then, here's the next episode of our teaching as we look to God's Word and as we continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word on The Truth Pulpit. God can show mercy to whom He wishes, how He wishes.

If God shows grace and favor to someone who doesn't seem to deserve it, that's His prerogative. Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and we're wrapping up our series, Breaking the Bonds of Legalism, with part two of Don's message, When Grace Exposes Legalism. Last time, Don used the account of the prodigal son to illustrate that legalism can be exposed in your heart if you feel resentment at God showing grace to someone else you believe doesn't merit it, as though grace could be merited. On today's program, Don will show us a second way legalism can be drawn out, so have your Bible open and ready as we join Pastor Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit.

He's angry. His brother received favors that he believed he deserved. He thought his behavior entitled him to something that was now being denied to him and given to his sinful brother.

Beloved, there's something we need to understand right here, right now. This is where it all gets laid out on the table and exposes our legalistic, sinful hearts. Nothing that this father did for the prodigal son took anything away from the second son. Everything that he had, all of the privileges that were his as a son, were still his. What he objected to was the fact that his father was showing grace, undeserved favor, to the one that he thought didn't deserve anything. Nothing about the father's grace to the prodigal took anything away from the second son. His position was in no way diminished whatsoever by this act of extraordinary kindness from a rejoicing father to his son, and that's the point that the father gently tries to make to him. He says in verse 31, he said to him, son, you've always been with me and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live.

He was lost and has been found. You know what was it that brought to the surface the legalism, the resentment, the alienation, the hostility that was in this second son's heart all along? What brought it along was seeing grace being displayed to his brother, that there was kindness and benefit and favor being shown to his undeserving brother. Grace revealed the pre-existing legalism in his own heart. Here was his operating presumption, beloved. His operating presumption was that only the deserving should receive kindness.

Only those who earn it, only those who have played the rules should get something like that. He resented it even though he himself lost nothing in the process. Why are you resentful if you had everything that you had beforehand?

Why is that a manifestation of legalism? The older brother soured on his father because he wanted reward for his perceived merit. He was not content with what the father had given him, he was not content for the father to say all that I have is yours, my son. He wanted something more, he wanted more recognition, he wanted another token.

He wanted more than what had already been given to him, and by his actions he said, I not only want it, it should be mine, I deserve this. The older son was a hypocrite. He had been going through the motions without even a basic affection for his father.

How else can you explain, my friends? How else can you explain that he would so quickly and immediately turn against his father? He wasn't affectionate and compliant and eager to enjoy his father's fellowship, and then suddenly this happened completely contrary to his character.

He responded this way because that was what was in his heart all along. He was physically close to his father, but he had no affection for him. You can see his lack of love for his father because he did not share his father's joy and his brother's return.

What is love? What does love do except that it rejoices with those who rejoice? You know, if, Father, I didn't see this coming but you're happy, then I'm happy too. As long as you're happy, Father, I'm happy. Does it please you, my father, to show this unmeasured kindness to my brother?

Then I'm happy. As long as you're pleased, as long as you're joyful, it gives my heart joy to see you joyful, my father. That's what he should have said, but he was a legalist, and he resented the fact that grace was given to someone and thought that he deserved it on the basis of his behavior. You can see this in another place in Scripture. Turn over to Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew chapter 20. You may remember this parable of the vineyard workers. The parable of the vineyard workers. This landowner hired out some day laborers at the beginning of the day, and he promised them a day's wage for a day's work, and they agreed to that, and they go out and they start working. Well, the day goes on, hours go by, he finds others who need work, and he hires them too. They're not working as long as the others, but he hires them and they do their work, and as you know the story in Matthew chapter 20, let's look at verse 8, when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages beginning with the last group to the first. So he's going to start with those who did the least amount of work, pay them, and then work his way back to the ones that he hired at the beginning of the day. Verse 9, when those hired about the 11th hour came, each one received a denarius, a day's wage for a day's pay.

It was the same wage that had been promised to the workers who worked all day. At the 11th hour came, they got a denarius. Verse 10, when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. Verse 11, when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, these last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and scorching heat of the day.

What do you think you are doing? Now remember who they're talking to. They're talking to the landowner. It's his field, it's his money, it's his wages, and they're selling him, they're accusing him of being unfair and unrighteous by the fact that he gave a full day's wage to those who only worked an hour.

The landowner has to respond to them. Verse 13, he does just that. He answered and said to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?

Take what is yours and go. He reminds him of the fact, listen, you agreed to work for a day's wage. I've given you a day's wage. How have you been wronged by me? I have given you exactly and everything that I promised you at the start.

You've suffered no wrong. I've not broken my word to you. And so he says in verse 14, take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Verse 15, is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own, or is your eye envious because I am generous?

So the last shall be first and the first last. He says, he says, there's no problem here with me. I have complete freedom to do what I want with mine, what belongs to me.

If I want to give a day's wage to a guy that's only worked an hour, that's none of your concern. That's up to me, that's my prerogative, it's my privilege as the sovereign owner of this piece of land and the sovereign owner of my wealth. And so I give to this man like I want. There's nothing wrong here with me. What's wrong is the fact that you have envy and jealousy in your heart. You want what you're not entitled to. You want what does not belong to you.

You are demanding that which is not yours to request. Beloved, Jesus here is not talking about labor relations, is he? He's talking about the way that we think about God, the way that we think about his grace, the way that we respond when we see him being gracious to others.

This had a great message for the Jews of the day and was preparatory to the extension of salvation to the Gentiles. We'll save that discussion for another time. Here's the point for us today in the context of our closing sermon on legalism. Beloved, hear it well.

Hear it well. God can show mercy to whom he wishes, how he wishes. If God shows grace and favor to someone who doesn't seem to deserve it, that's his prerogative.

He is not restricted by the selfishness and envy in our own hearts toward what he does. And beloved, when you really understand grace, when you really understand that you came as an unworthy sinner to Christ, when you remember that you came to Christ as one deserving eternal judgment, deserving nothing but God's condemnation, and in that condition God saved you, received you into his family, set you on a course that leads to heaven, forgave all of your sins, said I'll remember your sins no more as far as the east is from the west, so far as have I removed your transgressions from you. And you remember that God has dealt with you on that basis. Understand, go back to the very beginning and said, I never deserved anything from God, and look at all that he's given to me. And from that perspective you look over and say, oh someone else is being even more favored by God? Well praise the Lord if that makes the Father happy.

I still have everything that he's given to me, and everything that he gave to me I didn't deserve, and everything I deserved he spared me from. Grace is given at the pleasure of God and is not subject to our critique, and this affects the way that we view God's work in the lives of others. Sinclair Ferguson said this, quote, sometimes legalism manifests itself in our service to God. Others with lesser gifts, shorter experience, poorer preparation, are given positions in the church and we are passed over. We are irked.

We're not legalistic. Continuing the quote, but to the contrary what is irking us is the grace of God, because deep down we still think that grace should always operate on the principle of merit as a reward for prior faithful service, or at least a recognition of prior faithful service. Every form of jealousy, all coveting for oneself of what God has given to others, all seeing God's distribution of gifts as related to performance rather than his fatherly pleasure and enjoyment is infected with this kind of legalism, end quote.

Wow. The truth of the matter is is that the first people that need to hear this are men in ministry who view ministry as a competition. Well why does he have the bigger church?

He's a younger guy, he's got lesser skills, why is his church bigger? Men in ministry need to hear this as much as men in the pew, but what's at stake here is something enormous of great consequence. What's at stake here is the fundamental way that we think about the way God deals with men, and if God chooses to be gracious to a man who has lived a profligate, sinful life, and he saves him and brings him into Christ and elevates him to a position of stature in godliness, then it's ours to say amen. Praise God for his grace. Rather than to say, I've done more than that person did and I got less, that ain't fair, God ain't righteous, this isn't the way it should be done.

No. And so when you see people having blessing from God, the question is how do you respond? If you resent it and think it's not fair that some of that should have been spilled over to you, beloved, you've got legalistic weeds in the garden, you need to pull them up by the roots, you need to come back to grace, beloved, really what you need to do is to repent of that wrong way of thinking about God and thinking that God should do things the way that you think is right rather than rejoicing as he does things that he thinks is right with what is his own. Stings, doesn't it? This hits too close to home. Resentment when God shows grace to others.

You haven't lost anything. God's been gracious to you. Why are you worked up? Secondly, you can see this kind of legalism manifesting in another way. It's when you have contempt for others who are in need of grace.

These things are kind of related to one another. Let's look at a text from Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 18. Luke 18.

We'll go through this last one more quickly than the other. Luke 18, verse 9, Jesus also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. Verse 10, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. A dripping pride disguised in the form of a prayer. A man congratulating himself in the presence of God, I'm not like these other people. I thank you that I'm not an adulterer.

Thank you that I'm not one who commits fraud. I thank you that I'm not a sinner like all of these homosexuals around me. Praise God for that, I'm not like them. Yeah, okay, so you haven't committed their sins. You know what? They haven't committed your sins.

So what's the point of your pride? Jesus describes someone else on the scene, verse 13, but the tax collector standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner, and the punchline of the parable in verse 14. Everyone who was in the original audience of Jesus would have looked at the Pharisee as being the holy man justified by God.

They hated tax collectors, they were cheats, they were frauds, they had suffered at the hands of unscrupulous men like that. They would have looked at that and said, sinner, to be condemned by God, Pharisee, good behavior, good guy, obviously on good terms with the Father. Jesus turns it upside down. He turns over their expectations like He overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple. Verse 14, He says, I tell you, this man, meaning the tax collector, this man went to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. You exalt yourself in the presence of God, you take a posture of pride, of achievement, of deserving it in His presence. God won't hear that. People who try to approach Him on the basis that their works are turned away.

Sometimes it's really religious people who look really good on the outside. What we see once again is a man who deserved nothing, confessing that and coming to God with a plea for mercy, pleading for God to receive Him and accept Him on the grounds of mercy alone without any trace of earning it, and Jesus says that's the man that God justifies. He justifies the ungodly.

He justifies, he receives, he counts as righteous the one who comes admitting that he's not righteous and trusting in Christ alone. God justified the tax collector and not the Pharisee, and it turned all the expectations upside down. Well, beloved, what if you and I were more like the Pharisee than the tax collector? What if our church was like that? People walk in, what's he doing here? Look at the way he's dressed or I know what that person's done in the past, what's he doing here in church?

That has the ugly roots of legalism wrapped all around a heart that thinks that way, that says such things. Why do any of us deserve to be in the presence of God gathered with His people? Not a one of us does. And so if someone comes with perhaps a more outward manifestation of their lack of merit, that doesn't somehow put us above them as if we can look with contempt and say he shouldn't be here.

No, uh-uh. Not in God's kingdom, not in God's realm of salvation. We're all undeserving. We all lack merit. Sinclair Ferguson again says this, he says, the instinct to look down on another person is one of the most obvious telltale signs of a heart from which legalism has not yet been fully or finally banished.

It implies that we have merited grace more than another. How can we summarize all of this? Maybe in the future we'll have the opportunity to come back to this again. I kind of like this topic, haven't said all that needs to be said, but there comes a point where you need to move on.

How can we summarize all of this? The true Christian, beloved, and I speak to most of you as brothers and sisters in Christ, but if you are in Christ you need to understand something very fundamental. No one deserves anything from God. When we claim grace for ourselves but would deny it to others, our lurking legalism is exposed. If you resent it when someone is given blessing that you haven't received, you think that's not fair, I should have gotten a piece of that, and beloved, legalism has just surfaced in your heart. You need to go back to the beginning that you were saved only by love, grace, patience, mercy, and the goodness of God, and remember that. Remember that if somebody at the end of the day receives the same wage as you, God's done you no wrong.

God's been good and gracious to you in measures that you can't begin to fathom. If you resent it when God shows grace to others, you need to be swift to repent, and if you think that there are some who do not deserve grace, you need to repent as well. Those that are behind bars in prison are just as likely candidates for grace as you are, and their crimes against society do not cut them off from the grace of God offered freely to all men everywhere throughout the world in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if there would be a sweeping revival behind the bars of prison walls, we on the outside should just rejoice greatly regardless of their crimes, that it pleased God to show mercy to others who were undeserving just like I am.

I just happen to still have my freedom. God does not measure out grace according to our selfish standards. Let me say that again.

Get this, please. For those of you who are visiting, I don't pound the pulpit that often, but this is really important. God does not measure out grace according to the way that we think He should do it. He does not save sinners, He does not help and show favor to people in His kingdom according to what we think is the way it ought to be done. He does it according to His wisdom, according to His sovereign prerogative, according to His boundless grace and mercy, and you and I as those who belong to Christ should rejoice in that, not criticize it, not resent it, not let it turn us into somebody who is jealous and sinful of wanting something that is not ours. Charles Spurgeon said this, he said, if mercy be the Lord's own, he may give it as he pleases. If the reward of service be holy of grace, the Lord may render it according to His own pleasure. Friends, does the sight, does the thought of God's grace bring you joy or expose your legalism? And with that, we've come to the end of our series, Breaking the Bonds of Legalism. Pastor Don Green will have more edifying lessons from Scripture next time here on The Truth Pulpit, so don't miss a moment. Well, Don, understanding legalism and being aware of it is something you feel very strongly about.

Well, I do feel strongly about it, and you know, my friend, thank you for listening, first of all. I just want to encourage you, as you think about the nature of the Christian life, hopefully over this series you've seen that the love and grace and mercy and kindness of God, his patience, is a grounds to serve him because you love him, not because you have a craven fear of him. The Lord is good, and he has been good to us, and Scripture says his commandments are not burdensome. When you are obeying Christ in a response of love to the love with which he first loved us, that all falls into place. God bless you, and remember the love of Christ shown on the cross, and you will walk in a sense of liberty as you go through your earthly days. Thanks, Don. And friend, remember to visit TheTruthPulpit.com soon to learn more about this ministry. That's TheTruthPulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.