Lesson 61b

We are working ourselves down through, let me get the Bible verses up here. 1516, I think, was what we were looking at, beginning to look at, and the question on five is, on what basis were the Gentiles accepted by God? And it's evident that apart from this full grace gospel of Paul, the offering of Gentiles could not be gladly acceptable. So what is the basis that the Gentiles are acceptable to the Lord?

Or is that a question you never thought of? Is it partially because the Jewish nation rejected Jesus and that opened the door for all other nations to become believers in him? Yeah, it would seem on the surface that the only reason that the Lord went to the Gentiles was because the Jews rejected the Messiah. But I think that the Lord Jesus was always portrayed as the Savior of the world, and how was he going to do that? because everything up to this point was based on Israel.

But when in Acts 10, when Peter is at Cornelius' house and the Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles, it surprised him. He was really amazed because up until that time, it appeared like it was gonna be a Jewish thing. You know, and that the salvation offered by the work of Christ on the cross was gonna be just for the Jews. But then there's Acts 10 and back in Acts 8 there's the issue of in Samaria that the Lord Jesus is talking to the woman at the well and other Samaritans and there's gonna be an issue there and then And then Paul asked the question when he was in Ephesus, in Acts 19, he says to the believers in Ephesus, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And even in Galatia, even of the Galatians, mixed up in mind as they were, he that supplies to you is the spirit. So the issue is, the question is, on what basis were the Gentiles accepted by God?

It certainly wasn't the fact that they were terrific people. What's the basis? God's grace. Okay, who else? I think it's the blood of Christ, that he died for anybody that believed in him. And it was also called out from the foundation of the world that Christ would save the Gentile nations through his blood and resurrection. Okay. What made them acceptable though? the Gentile nations, to understand that up until this time, God dealt with mankind through the nation of Israel, so it was a national thing. With the resurrection of Christ, it became an individual thing, and God began to save individuals one at a time, or 3,000 at a time. Like on Pentecost, how many Gentiles do you think got saved on Pentecost? Yeah, I don't think so. I think they were all Jews.

So I'm going to ask this so it gives you understand. What makes you acceptable as a Gentile? What makes you accepted by God? I think it's the fact that God chose me personally. But that didn't make you acceptable. It's because we've been placed into Christ. Do you hear that? If we're placed into Christ, we're perfectly acceptable to God. Right. Yeah. And who was the intermediary that put you in Christ? Who did that? The Holy Spirit. Yeah, it was the Holy Spirit. So I think the Holy Spirit is the reason or the basis on which we are acceptable, because he's the one that put us in Christ. And because we are in Christ, we're acceptable.

Our acceptability is based solely on the Lord Jesus, not anything we have ever done. My faith and your faith in the person and work of Christ, our faith is a non-meritorious act. So I can't go to the Lord and say, look, I believe you owe me. No. It's absolutely by grace, which means that I'm the receiver. totally of the action. Well, how does that work out if I'm gonna be acceptable to God? Because up until this point, every Jew had to perform to be acceptable, but he had to live by faith, he had to walk, had the law, had all of that, but now Gentiles are acceptable to God. because of what the Holy Spirit has done by placing them in Christ.

That's amazing to me because it means that I can never, ever entertain the thought that I had anything to do with my own salvation. It's all a gift that God gave it all to me. He effectuated it, no deserving, no, No tradition, no activity on my part that would in any way make me acceptable. Amazing that that's the way it is. And that's cool when you start that way.

I think so much of contemporary Christianity sneaks a little legalism in there so that man can feel good about his salvation and that he can say, well, I did. No, you did nothing. When you go to the table before God to be judged, you know what you bring? Sin. That makes you unacceptable. So, yeah. If that were true, that someone would feel better because he could do something, That would give us an awful lot of insecurity. Sure.

Well, I'll give you a good example not to criticize Billy Graham because God mightily used him. But I've talked to people that have been saved at a Billy Graham concert. You know what their thought is? Well, I got up and went down. Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, that makes a big difference. No, it doesn't.

You were either saved before you got up because you believed in the message of the cross in Christ, or you just went down and it was an exercise. You didn't get saved because you left your seat. And I think if you start on a great basis, you're much more likely to live by grace. You're much more likely to accept God's grace in your life rather than dwell on, well, I had something to do with my acceptance. No, you didn't.

It's all the Spirit of God, okay? So... Mike, I had a question. Yeah. What I was wondering is, I know it's, we don't merit anything, it's all what God had done, but in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, I don't know if it's me or you, but start over with your question. Believing, even though God initiated the belief in us, it seems like belief matters. Belief does matter. Right? Yeah. Okay. Belief does matter, but I think this idea that, well, I believed, which was my contribution, no. Okay. Because the value in what you believe is in who you believed in and what you believed, not in the fact that you did it. And God has always operated that way, starting with Adam. It always mattered, you know, because he gets all the glory that way. See, this is not the Constitution of the United States. I've got free will and I can do what I want. That's not the way it is. Someone has done something totally for me.

And if I want in, I just have to believe that he did it. And I get along. We need to realize, though, We need to realize that without grace, we wouldn't even be able to believe. That's true. God extends the grace even for us to believe in that moment in time. Yeah. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen. Yeah, it wouldn't happen. That's right. Whosoever will may come. We can't do it on our own. We can't. Yeah, and it's interesting. We can't do it even with his help. He's got to do it all.

And like I say, if you start in that premise, you're much more likely to accept the grace that goes in your life from then on. If you feel like you had some contribution, to your own salvation, then as time goes on, the Spirit of God's going to have to work you through the fact that no, you had nothing to do with it. God did it all. You know, Mike, that makes me think about how important it is when we're dealing with new believers to get them on track with grace right away. I agree. So that they know it's not about them at all. all about Jesus, what He did. Now you, we need to cooperate, we need to choose to believe, we need to choose to believe and receive, but yet it's all about Jesus. Yeah, yeah.

And you, I would say that, again, I sort of half-heartedly recommend what I'm about to say. If you go on, turn the tube on tonight, go to the Christian stations and listen to the salvation message. You will not hear the grace message. You will hear things like, ask Jesus to forgive you.

I don't have to ask him, he already did. Anything but believe in your heart. Anything but belief. Or belief is there, faith is there, but there's five other things I need to do. And I need to confess my sins. No, I don't. No, I don't. Either they were taken care of on the cross or they weren't. It's pretty simple.

So I agree with you, David, that to extend the grace message through the work of salvation, if you're involved in that, evangelism, or to get involved or explain grace as soon as you can afterwards is really critical. because we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, not the knowledge and grace in my effort in the Lord Jesus. See, you grow the same way you were saved, by grace, okay? All right, question six.

What's the difference in attitude between Moses as the shepherd of the Israelites and Paul the apostle of the Gentiles? Both of these guys are called of God to shepherd and to, like Moses was called to be the deliverer for the Jews. And Paul was amazing, you know, when the golden calf was made and God said to him on Sinai, look, I'm gonna wipe these guys out and I'm going to start over with you. And Moses said, no, no, no, you can't do that because One, you made a promise, and two, actually, if you want to get rid of somebody, take me, but save them. So Moses was willing, Moses was willing to be, uh, sacrificed to God or be this a scapegoat sort of, uh, sort of speak for, for the people of Israel.

And he operated under, uh, under God and beneath the eye of all the nations, he was humbling. He was humble. He was leading Israel in the wilderness. And Oh, by the way, everybody in the neighborhood knew what was going on. and with all kinds of physical miracles and he did this over 40 years. And God defending him publicly even to opening of the earth to swallow up his opposers.

So I'm looking for the difference between Moses' attitude and the Apostle Paul. And it points up, the answer points up the difference between living under grace and living under anything other than total grace. Anybody wanna take a shot at that? Yeah, I wanna, maybe we'll segue off what you just said there, Mike. I think that there's two things that first come to mind, and there's actually a couple more, but I'll leave them for maybe some of the others here.

But one is that he was called to be a minister of Christ, which is a different type of ministry. It doesn't mean that salvation, the process of salvation that God had given to Moses by way of faith would differ in the sense that Paul did not preach that same belief or faith.

It's just that through time and given the fact that Paul was a minister of Christ, it was more specific to the person. And also, we see that he was given the grace. He says, by the grace given to me, I am a minister of Christ. And the Holy Spirit, in terms of the work that Paul was able to do by way of focusing on Israel, I'm sorry, on the Gentiles, what was indwelling.

It was not something that came upon and then left and came upon and then left. So those, some of those, I think those three factors made a pretty big difference in terms of the way that that ministry functioned. Although the content was just a continuation of that faith principle, but it became more specific as truth became more clear to Paul. Yeah.

I think there's one more factor here that's important for us to grasp. Paul, from the very beginning, Paul suffered rejection because of what his ministry was, and he suffered it from his kinsmen, the Jews, from Gentiles who didn't believe, but he had tremendous spiritual discernment, and even to the point where He said, God is my witness whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his son.

We persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God and I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience, 2 Corinthians 5.11.

But at the same time, he viewed himself as less than the least of all saints to whom God has given his greatest place of all. So I think the point I'm after here is to understand that the life, Moses obviously was a saved man, but at several points in his ministry, he went to God and complained about his ministry. He complained about the Jews to God, he wasn't happy. He would get frustrated with them and so he'd bang the rock a couple of times and that cost him big time.

You never see that attitude from Paul, never, why? The reason is, I think, is that Paul had the life of the resurrected Christ. Moses didn't. Moses was saved. He was blessed by God. He was indwelt by the Spirit to do what he was called to do. But it points up the difference between the life that we have and the life that other saints before Christ had, that the life of the Lord Jesus is a couple of things. One, it's already conquered sin.

And even though Paul viewed himself to be less than the least of all the saints, he only gloried in Christ. He only was interested in the things of God and his dependency for performance was on the spirit of God. Moses didn't have that dependence. So you see Paul dealing with issues, but never going to God and saying, you know, these Gentiles, I've had it with them. They're a bunch of, you know, you can wipe them out if that's okay with me, which you could see Moses do a couple of times, but you never see that with Paul.

And I think it's because of the difference in life. The life of the resurrected Christ is a life that operates post-victory, maybe is the way to say it. It's resurrected life. The resurrected life is the most... encompassing and powerful life there is. Greater power than it took to create the world in the first place was to resurrect Christ from the dead.

So I think that that is primarily the difference in the life or in the way in which both of these men have in terms of how they conduct their ministry and where their dependence is. And it's a life that we all share. You know, your life in Christ is a much more powerful and much greater than Moses ever had, being dwelt by the Spirit, much greater. So next Sunday, we're going out to the desert just to see how you do. If that was a joke, you're gonna laugh. Hey, Mike. Yeah.

I was gonna say that You know that thing called the hypostatic union where Jesus was fully God and fully man? I think Russ keeps locking up A person who's built the spirit and well, what I should say is we've been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and our new creature has a potential to walk similar to how Jesus did because he's the prototype of a region like we are regenerated and we have a potential to really live the life we should. Well, and it's more than potential. We, in fact, have the life. God bless you. We, in fact, have the life, and we have the spirit. Yeah, Mike, the other thing I was thinking about when you say the difference, having the life, that Paul had the life of Christ in him.

You know, when you said that, I went back to what Christ was here for, and he goes back to John 3, 17, for God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. So it was a completely different thing. let's have the earth swallow these guys up, judging him, deciding him. Paul had Christ in him, which it wasn't to judge, it was to save. So that was different, that he wasn't there to pound on them and tell them they're all wrong and everything. It was completely different.

His life was to bring them life through Christ. But I would say that Moses' job was the same, because when when the night that the destroyer visited Egypt was the night that they left, led by Moses. And from there all the way to Sinai, which took two, three months, they never wanted for anything. God took care of every one of their needs. All they had to do was walk. But I guess the difference being that Moses every once in a while said, you know, let's spank these boys.

Yeah, that's right. He did. And that's Paul never had that. No, he didn't. And that's my point being is that Christ, the life of Christ was in him. Yes. So he never came to judge. Yeah. He came to save. Yeah. That's Paul's perspective was not to spank him and beat him up.

You know, he would. give them, you know, admonish them. But his ultimate purpose was to lead them to Christ. So that's, I guess, the difference between Moses. Totally different. Yeah. That's why Paul never had the, you know, let's swallow these guys, you know, up into the earth and let's, you know, wipe these 5,000 out or anything like that.

He had the purpose of bringing them to Christ. Yeah. And to present them holy and blameless. That was his job. Yeah. I was thinking about that, according to what you just mentioned, and, well, salvation was always by faith. Always. Always by faith, and that's where the two share.

Of course, that, you know, post-victory, to use your term, Mike, that became more clear for Paul and to the Gentiles, and so that's a differentiation, but the method is still the same by faith. But surrounding Israel with the covenant promises and the, if you do this, then I'll do that. The religious ordinances, the forms, you know, the law keeping was something that surrounded those believers during that ministry of Moses. And that environment is totally different for Paul. uh... based on you know the the completed work of christ and the grace environment and so again salvation being the same by faith uh... and it was by grace as well for israel i mean had god not been gracious to them in order to offer me he didn't have to offer a thing to them uh... but he did and so there was grace but it was in the midst of an environment of law and covenant promises right and those some of those will still continue to be kept uh... with israel but in terms of us being the bridegroom, and being adopted, and having the life of Christ, and Paul's focus on that environment, and that positional truth, that has changed tremendously for us.

Do you agree? I like that, JD. In the last few months, we've been studying Genesis and Exodus on Wednesdays. One of the cool things I learned that I didn't know before was that God chose Israel, made them a nation, and specifically and wonderfully blessed them separately from all other nations.

And when he started to give them the rules for living, as a way to put it, What he was really saying to them is, because you're my special people and you're chosen, and I have a specific reason for choosing you, is that I want you to be an example to the rest of the world about who I really am. And so, that's not so much a different thing. than what he does with us as believers. The Jews didn't wanna have a relationship with Yahweh.

They just wanted to be told what to do so they could do it, so that they could concentrate on their own righteousness, where Paul the apostle understands that to accomplish anything, that the Lord has called you to do was a totally dependent thing with his righteousness and his life and his understanding. Well, the purpose was the same though.

Why, what's the church, what's the church's job? You know, what are we supposed to do while we're here on the planet? I build up one another into a, you know, encourage and teach and build up each other so we become united and mature in Christ. And God's calling out a bride for his son. We're all part of that. We're to be distinguishable to the world based on how we live.

Hey Mike, another big difference to realize with Paul and Moses is that, you know, Moses was on the same level spiritually with all of the other Israelites. Although he walked with God, he had a special relation with God. But here's Paul, the first person on the planet to have grace revealed to him. And he's got this understanding, this wisdom, this knowledge to help that made it possible for him then to understand these new believers and how much they needed direction instruction, you know, how to live the Christ life. So, and he knew, you know, he understood that they couldn't do it. And here they don't know this yet. So, he's not going to get mad at them for not walking in righteousness. Dr. Reagan Sure.

Yeah, because he recognized that the power to live this new life was the Spirit of God only. and it had to be a resurrected life. That's how he met the Lord Jesus. He met him in resurrected glory. He's the first one to have done that, although Stephen seemed to be able to see Christ standing in glory before that, but Stephen was the first one. The point being is that the life that Paul teaches is an entirely new thing. in Christ resurrected. And that's why I think that the design or the layout of his epistles is pretty much all the same.

First part lays out the position, lays out who you are, what you have. And the second part always says, well, based on that, here's how the life looks. Where Moses would say, you know, you guys got to get busy and start acting like you should. Paul doesn't say that. He lays out a plan that shows that through dependence and faith, the walk is possible.

Oops, I just noticed the time. So, I've got somebody in the audience giving me this. All right, I'm gonna pray and we'll close and then I'll see you in 45 minutes. So dear Father, how we thank you for your word, how we thank you, how gracious you are to us based on the completed work of your son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his precious name, amen.