Acts 11:1-18 - Legalism & T-Shirts

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. If you are watching this on the day that it comes out, then, or if you're listening to it on the day that it comes out, then Happy Lord's Day to you, and hope that today would be a wonderful day for you.

Meeting with God's people and encouraging one another in your faith, and hopefully you've got someone that you've invited that would be your guest today to come to church.

If you don't have a guest yet, invite someone, say, and hey, if today doesn't work out, you should come next week, and I'll take you to lunch afterwards. My treat.

That would be a great thing to do, to invite someone to be your guest, to see God's people praise Him, exalt Him, hear from the Word, hear the Gospel proclaimed, and I know that that would be a great thing.

We are in the Book of Acts, and at the very last episode yesterday, we saw the Gentiles accept Christ, and how God did iemiraculous work.

He gave iem the Holy Spirit, and Peter said there in verse number 47 of the end of chapter 10, Can anyone withhold water and prevent these people from being baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And they were baptized.

Now, there's going to be some pushback from that in Acts chapter 11, and we'll see what Peter does in response to some of that pushback. The apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had welcomed God's message also.

When Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who stressed circumcision argued with him, saying, You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.

Peter began to explain to them in an orderly sequence, saying, I was in the town of Joppa praying, and I saw in a visionary state an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners from heaven, and it came to me

when I looked closely and considered it. I saw the four-footed animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky. Then I also heard a voice telling me, Get up, Peter, kill and eat.

No, Lord, I said, for nothing common or ritually unclean has ever entered my mouth. But a voice answered from heaven a second time, What God has made clean, you must not call common.

Now, this happened three times, and then everything was drawn up again into heaven. At that very moment, three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were.

Then the Spirit told me to accompany them with no doubts at all. These six brothers accompanied me, and we went into the man's house.

He reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, Send to Joppa and call for Simon, who was also named Peter. He will speak a message to you that you and all your household will be saved by.

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, if God gave them the same gift that he also gave to us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God? When they heard this, they became silent.

Then they glorified God, saying, So God has granted repentance, resulting in life even to the Gentiles. What an incredible passage.

I want to note a couple of things in here just from my personal background and what I've seen in churches and in people's interactions with the Bible and things like that. I want to note a couple of things.

Number one, there is a difference between a relationship with Christ and mere religion. Now, sometimes people have said, religion is our way of getting to God, and the relationship, Christianity, is God's way of getting to us.

And I want to push back on that just slightly through James 1, where it says this, pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

So, religion in and of itself is not a bad thing, is not an anti-Christian thing.

Religion, in its purest sense, is God tells me that this is how I love other people and keep myself for the Lord, and I don't allow myself to become tainted by everything from this world. So, religion isn't a bad thing.

But, with how our world's religions work and what our natural bent is as fallen sinful creatures that all of us have sinned and all of us have a sin nature, that we are constantly bent towards doing what is wrong.

That is true for every single person. There is not a person for whom they just naturally do everything God's way, and they never have to struggle with sin. That's not a single person in the world.

So, all of us have a natural bent towards kind of two different things in our life. One of those is antinomianism. That is, all of us have a bent towards, you can't tell me what to do, I'm going to do what I want to do.

All of us have a bent towards that. But secondly, all of us have a bent towards legalism. That is, to say what God has not said and to try and enforce that on other people.

Some different ways that legalism, just speaking from my background, some different ways that legalism showed up was, you have to wear these specific clothes. Otherwise, you are sinning. You are not giving God what he's worth.

You're in sin if you're not wearing these particular clothing items on these particular days. There were some other ones, like if you listen to music that has any instruments outside of these particular ones, you are sinning.

Growing up, until I was about 22 years old, I was not allowed to or I was strongly dissuaded from reading any other translation of Scripture other than the King James Version. And I was told that all of the rest were sinful.

It was something that didn't come from the Bible. You couldn't come up with any of those particular rules from Scripture. Like there's no verse that says, thou shalt wear these clothes on this day.

Or there's nothing that says, thou shalt only listen to music with these instruments. Or thou shalt only read the King James translation. There's no verses that say that.

It was people that took some things that had God said and said, oh, those are pretty good rules that God has set down. But he didn't quite say enough.

And so I'm going to add some other things on top of it so that not only can people be holy by keeping everything that God said, but they can be extra holy. They can be that much better of a Christian.

They'll be that much less worldly of a Christian if they follow what I have to say. And all of us have that bet. It's not just people that have those things.

I've seen it where people say, oh, if someone dresses up for church, oh, man, they are just looking to be seen by people, and they can't possibly be following God, which is just kind of reverse of what I grew up with.

And that is emphatically not the case. Or someone that would say, oh, okay, if you belong to this particular denomination, then you're not really that great of a Christian.

I know for me, I have many friends in some specific denominations, and I've seen them slandered simply for continuing in the specific faith community that they grew up in, and people being legalistic that said, okay, there's nowhere in scripture that

says you have to abandon that group of people. And so if someone says, okay, if you haven't left that particular faith community, then you're in sin is just legalism.

Here, what it was in this passage, those that stressed circumcision that were so focused on the law, and specifically some of the pharisaical interpretations of the law that you would see maybe in the Mishnah and in the Talmud as those would develop

over the coming centuries. So they had this particular outlook on Jews cannot interact with Gentiles, not in the way that Peter did, not in going into his house, not in eating food with him, not in fellowshiping with them and worshiping with them.

You could not do that. And here Peter says, how could I hinder God? God was the one that told me to do it.

And this wasn't a, hey, God told me to commit adultery, or hey, God told me to rob a bank, or hey, God told me that it's fine to disregard something from his word. It's not a flippant false, God told me to do this.

It was a legitimate, here is what the Lord said. And he said, even as it was happening, I remembered what Jesus said to me, that the Holy Spirit was bringing to mind scripture.

And so I want to highlight just a couple of things for us here, some thoughts that I have put together for different things in the past.

It's this, when combating legalism, which is what Peter is doing here, he's saying you're going above and beyond what God has said, and in effect you are saying what God has actually told me to do, that you are fighting against God, you are trying to

hinder God through what you are doing, you are, the Old Testament phrase for it would be, that you are taking the name of Yahweh in vain, that you are claiming that God is saying something, that he is commanding something, that he has not commanded.

So some things to keep in mind when encountering legalism. Here, Peter doesn't attack the people themselves. He is saying, God said this, therefore, I had to do it.

I'd encourage you, maybe sometimes you might view things as legalistic, because you are just being anti-nomine, you are just doing whatever you want to do, irrespective of what God has actually said.

So I'd encourage you, as you encounter something that you think is legalism, look to God's word and say, okay, what does God's word say about this?

Maybe someone comes to you and they go, hey, you are getting drunk once a week, or you are getting drunk once a month, and you need to stop that.

Well, you could in one sense go, oh man, they are being really legalistic, they are telling me what I can and can't do.

Okay, but as we look even at the book of Ephesians and chapter 5, we could read in verse number 18 where it says this, don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless actions, but be filled with the Spirit.

You could look at many places in the Old Testament and in the book of Proverbs where it gives specific warnings against drunkenness and against a habitual alcoholic lifestyle.

And while there might be some debate and some discussion about the moderation that a Christian is free in Christ to be able to have, it is emphatic from God's Word that we are not to be drunk with wine.

And just so you know, that's alcohol in general. It's not okay. I can't be drunk with wine, but I can be drunk with vodka.

That's not how that works. So as we're going through, analyze, okay, I feel like something's legalism. Is this what God's Word actually says?

If it's not what God's Word says, then have a reason from Scripture why you're doing what you're doing. Sometimes, sometimes truthfully, the answer is simply that God has given us all good things richly to enjoy. That I believe is 2 Timothy.

It's either 1st or 2 Timothy in some of the later chapters where he says that. Sometimes people just have a, you can't have any fun, you can't play board games with your family, you can't any number of things that can be combated.

For me, growing up, it was discovering Psalm 150 where it says, hey, God is to be praised with the cymbals and with the timpanies, with these drum instruments. He specifically said that that's what he is to be praised with, and so I have to obey.

James Chapter 2 where there is some favoritism that is shown to those with elaborate clothing, with fine clothing, that those people were being esteemed, and those that did not have expensive clothing, they were looked down on.

And so with some of those things, that's why even though I dress up for church, I don't dress up as much as I possibly could. I'm not wearing a three-piece suit. I'm not wearing a tuxedo.

I am not, as the phrase is sometimes given, I'm not giving God my best by wearing what the world views as the best clothing.

I wear something that to me communicates respect for the Lord, that I believe as I interact with my church family, that communicates irreverence for the Word of God as I'm standing before them as their pastor to say, hey, here's what God says.

I want to be wearing something that communicates somewhat of the gravity that I feel in that position, that if this is what God says, then I want to communicate some form of respect or gravity in my clothing.

But in my church, I don't know how many people outside of Tabernacle listen to this other than my great friend Pastor Jordan from Liberty Baptist and Spokane. I don't know who else from my church.

I know from God's Word, there's nothing that says you got to wear a suit, you got to wear a collared shirt, you got to wear dress pants, you got to wear khakis. That's nowhere in Scripture.

And so for myself, I know from the Book of James, what was communicated to me was, do not look down on anyone based on their clothing that they wear to church.

If someone comes into Tabernacle wearing a suit and tie, wonderful, happy to have them, because I know what's in their heart is I want to worship God with my clothing. I know some people that walk in, and they are intentionally dressed casual.

And I'm so glad that they're there, because their heart is what is happening today is going to be real in me.

And because this is what I would wear on a normal day, this is a normal day in the sense of every day is with Jesus, and I'm not going to pretend like I'm, you know, maybe better than I am.

I am happy to have people all across the spectrum that are in our church that whether you're dressed up or not dressed up at all, I am happy that you are worshiping the Lord through your clothing. So we can test and see, okay, is this legalism thing?

Is whatever this person is saying, is it actually in the Bible? Number two, if what they're saying is not in the Bible, have some Bible for why you do what you do. Let all of our ways acknowledge the Lord.

My grandmother often would quote Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

What a comfort that that is, that we can look to the Lord in everything that we're doing. And then the third thing that I would say is have a care for the other person.

Try to see where they are coming from, and don't view them as just, ah, these terrible religious people. No, no, no.

Have a heart to win them, to love them, to show them that there is freedom in Christ, that we don't have to be bound by things other than what God has said. I promise you, the restrictions that God has placed on our lives are good enough.

We don't need to add any other things other than what God has said. I think of this that Paul said in the Book of Colossians.

He says, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. I'm going to skip down a couple of verses.

He erased the certificate of debt with its obligations that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly.

He triumphed over them by him. Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. We might say the day Christmas or Easter.

Don't let anyone judge you for those. Or Halloween. These are a shadow of what was to come.

The substance is the Messiah. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.

He doesn't hold on to the head from whom the whole body nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons develops with growth from God.

If you died with Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as though as if you still belong to the world? Why do you submit to regulations? Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch.

All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up. They are commands and doctrines of men.

So, I would encourage you, have a heart of love for other people when there is some legalism, that there are extra biblical things that people want to place on us as believers. First, consider, we're not perfect. Is what they're saying biblical?

Is it true? Is it in the Bible? Secondly, if what they're saying is not straight from the Bible, it's a couple steps down from the Bible, it's okay, the Bible says this, so then I think an application is this, so then here's what you should do.

Okay, if all their steps are being taken, have a biblical reason for why you do what you do. God says to love my family, and so I do this. God says to enjoy this, so I do this.

God says to praise him with the symbols and timpani, so I do this. Have the biblical reason why you do what you do. And then don't view people as the enemy.

People are not the enemy. The devil, his demons, the spiritual forces of evil, those are our enemy. Our flesh is our enemy, our constant desire to want what we want in rebellion against God.

That is the enemy. People aren't the enemy. People are the prize to be won through the love of Christ.

And I pray that we would love people. This has been a longer episode. I apologize.

It's been the end of a long good day. Serving the Lord and spending some time with my family. I hope you would be in church today and look forward to seeing you if you're part of our Tabernacle family.

If not, we will see you tomorrow as we continue in Acts chapter 10. To be honest with you, I've forgotten what the next portion is, so I'm just as excited as you to figure out what is going to happen next. Hope you have a wonderful day.