Grafted in and Called - AM sermon 12/06/10

GRAFTED IN AND CALLED
Jeff Foxworthy has put together a collection of many sayings that I find very humorous. I find them even more interesting because my first cousin was his friend growing up and my uncle and his father were friends. It always made me wonder if he modeled some of his sayings on my family.
One of these sayings of Foxworthy that I found quiet funny was, You may be a redneck if you stare for hours at an Orange Juice container because you read on the package CONCENTRATE
This morning I want to propose to you that sometimes we concentrate on the wrong phrases or methodologies of Bible study that lead us to some bad conclusions.
1st of all I want to tell you that our NT is firmly rooted in the OT. To be ignorant of the OT is to be ignorant of Christ.
It is to ignorant of Salvation and the world Christ lived in. I would go so far to propose to you that it is hard to understand our own salvation without understanding the Call and Election of Israel.
Many times we neglect words and phrases in our own churches because of ignorance of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Many times we speak of our own Salvation but to Paul in the NT the word he uses more than any is CALLED which is firmly rooted in the OT.
This morning I want build a case for a good knowledge of the OT and then spend some time in telling you how that informs us about our salvation.
First of all, one could look at Paul in Romans 11 and see how this argument takes shape and how we are founded on the foundation of Israel and the Hebrew Bible.
Paul in Romans 11 uses the analogy of Israel as being the root of an Olive Tree. In sermons past we have talked about the olive tree and how it had big gnarly roots and could live for 2000 years. They could seem dead but after being cut to the root could sprout new life.
In Romans 11 Paul goes to this analogy of the Olive Tree and talks how Israel is the root and uses an example for horticulture in which a wild olive branch could be grafted into the roots.
In this chapter Paul is referring to the Gentile Christians as wild olive shoots being grafted into the roots of Israel.
This chapter is packed full of other teachings that we don’t have time to talk about this morning but is one of the most dense and toughest of Paul’s teachings but it is something that would be good to read and grapple with as a Christian.
Paul’s argument goes as follows:
Israel was God’s chosen nation, their chosen status had not been revoked.
God was using the Gentile Converts to make the Jewish people Jealous so that they might turn to the Messiah Jesus.
But the point I would like to zero in is that we are firmly planted on Israel and the Hebrew Scripture. That is our roots and that is where we come from
The earliest Christians did not have the NT.
As a matter of fact the first NT book that was written did not come until at least 12 – 15 years after the ministry of Jesus.
The NT as an entire book was not completed until around 96 AD and those 27 books did not start getting circulated together until the 2nd century.
That tells us that in the earliest years of the Church were using the OT to preach the Gospel. When we look at passages like the Bereans in Acts that were more noble because they examined the Scripture to test Paul’s teaching were studying the OT because the NT did not exist at that time.
I think we have done ourselves a dis-service by not being steeped and founded in the OT. Most of Jesus ministry will not make sense without a firm knowledge of the OT.
Jesus will say something like let the dead bury the dead, and we think how tough is that teaching , it makes no sense but the earliest Christians knew that Jesus is referring to a story in Elijah about the remnant and the 7000 faithful.
The point is that Jesus constantly is making references to the OT in His teaching.
I think part of many people’s fear of looking too much at the OT is that they really don’t know how the OT and NT fit together.
This morning I hope we can make some headway into this and help you understand the role of the OT in light of the New.
Once we have made that connection I want to talk about how that informs us about our Salvation
Matthew 5: 17-20
17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets ; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven ; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is a lot that we can glean from this passage and this is one of the most misunderstood passages in the NT.
Jesus explains that he has come to fulfill the Law of Moses and not Abolish the Law.
This tandem of terms of Fulfill and Abolish were very commonly used of Judaism in the time of Jesus. They referred to how one interpreted the OT.
The term Fulfill comes from a Hebrew word KIYEM from which the Greek word in this passage Pleroo comes from.
This term KIYEM means to interpret or apply the OT properly. In the context of this verse this is the best way to understand what Jesus is saying.
The word abolish comes from a Rabbinic term of BATEL which means to interpret the Law wrongly so that one does not obey the OT.
If a teacher were to say, it is okay for a man to commit adultery in his heart or mind, a Rabbi might say you have abolished the Law.
This means you interpreted the Law so badly that one could not fulfill the requirements of the Law.
Jesus came to KIYEM – Fulfill – Complete or show the way to how to completely obey the Law – The purpose of the Law.
In Jesus you have the very author if the Law of Moses – God in Flesh – sanding there before them telling them that he has come to show the way to properly understand the place of the Law.
In God’s Kingdom that Christ came to establish the Law will be kept and people will exhibit righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees.
Remember the Scribes and Pharisees were pretty righteous people. This would not be an easy task and pretty much would be humanly impossible for one to do on their own.
Jesus has inaugurated a new phase of salvation history. The temporal law of Moses was to help establish Israel as a temporal nation state in the Land.
Deuteronomy for a big part was about this identity as a nation. Now Jesus is coming to expand this covenant with Israel to encompass all flesh.
In doing so he is taking this covenant expectation to a new level. The Heart will be taken captive and God will look for people to change from the inside to become covenantly faithful.
God had always wanted people that were circumcised in the heart and not just outwardly.
To understand how Jesus would go about fulfilling the Law we would have to go back and look at the types of laws in the OT.
There were basically three types.
1) Moral Law/ Ethical Law – adultery, theft, Murder
2) Levitical or Sacrificial Law
3) Works of the Law
I believe that none of us would disagree that Jesus came to uphold the moral requirements of the Law such as theft, murder, respect for parents, idolatry, adultery, etc.
As a matter of fact he kicks it up a notch and says that anyone that has lusted for a woman has commited adultery in his heart.
The Levitical Law and the sacrificial system found their fulfillment in Jesus. No longer was the Temple system with its sacrifices needed because Jesus was perfected in Jesus.
Works of the Law- in the time of Jesus this was a technical term used in Judaism, and was also used by Paul
Works of the Law were the things that made one distinctively Jewish. They were Kosher diet, Sabbath day festivals, Tassels on the garments, how your hair was cut, and circumcision. We see at the Jerusalem Council that these things were abolished for the Gentile Christians.
There are other places where Jesus alludes to this:
Matthew 11: 28-30
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Jesus is referring here to a yoke that would be placed across the shoulders and commonly has been understood to be one used on oxen but the better usage is the yoke used by Jewish women to carry water.
This yoke would go across the shoulders and one could hang buckets on each end to carry water from the well to their home.
A yoke in the time of Jesus also referred to how one interpreted the Bible. A rabbi’s teaching would be called his yoke.
Many people look at this passage and think that Jesus was saying that his way of life is easy.
The point of this passage is not ease but where it will lead you.
We know that Jesus is talking about his interpretation of Scripture because he says to come and Learn from Him.
Much more is at work in this passage – Jesus is claiming to be God.
God said in Exodus-

Exodus 33:14
14 And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest."
God’s presence will go out with the Israelites as He leads them and He will Give them REST
-God will Give Israel Rest
Now Jesus is claiming to be the one to bring them to Rest – Jesus is saying that He is Jehovah God.
This is also an allusion to Jeremiah-
Jeremiah 6: 16
16 Thus says the LORD, "Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'
Israel’s doom is imminent and the Babylonians will soon conquer them. Jeremiah the prophet is telling them the way to go.
There are themes that recur here in this passage that tie back into Jesus’ ministry.
The Way or the Path – the same word is used for both
The Idea of Rest
How one finds rest is by following the Path of God. To find Rest in God and live with Him in harmony for eternity is to follow the ancient way or the path to God. One must be on the WAY of God to find this REST.

John 14: 6
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no one comes to the Father but through Me
Jesus is the way to Rest in God’s presence. If we want to be righteous we have to walk as Jesus walked and lived as Jesus lived.
Jesus is the way to God
IN tying all of this together we need to see that the New Covenant ties together what the Old Covenant was trying to do but could never do.
Jesus did not come to give cheap grace where it is easy to be saved and people can just punch their ticket, claim to be saved, and live how they want to.
It is just the opposite.
God worked in Christ to open up Heaven’s flood gates to infuse the world of his radical transforming Grace that comes in the work of the Holy Spirit.
I mentioned earlier that knowledge of the Old informs us on how to look at our own salvation. There is a word used by Paul that is a very OT Hebrew type of word and that is CALLED.
I would propose that instead of using salvation as much as we do we might want to consider ourselves as God’s Called or God’s Elect.
As we put back together a proper view of our salvation based on the OT we must put God back in the center. So much of our view of salvation is focused on man and our response to God but we need to understand that everything is wrapped up in God’s Sovereignty.
We are called by God just as Israel was called. Calling is a very well attested term used in the OT and it always referred to God calling Israel out of slavery, setting them on a path of holiness, and then bringing them to the inheritance of the Land.
CALLING:
2 Timothy 1: 8-9
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
God CALLED US – not because of our works but because of His Purposes.
Many people see salvation as something like this – I will pick up my Bible read it and then get so good on my own that God will look at their life and say okay that person is so good I am going to save them.
It doesn’t work that way. Every step of the way it is all about God. We are called out of the world by God, by the Gospel Call, we are changed, we undergo a heart transplant.
From the beginning it is God working in us. We are God’s cooperative friends but it is God as the author and finisher of our faith.
This is not saying that we just sit back and do nothing and just wait on God. We are constantly in a struggle with the flesh to work through these issues of sanctification.
One sure sign of one’s salvation is the change that takes place, saving faith is the type the begins a work of santificaiton that is evident in the works of the Spirit.
We have to rest in that it is God’s Sovereign purpose to work in us, through us and For His Glory.
Philippians 2: 12-13
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling ; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
This ties right in with what Jesus said in Matthew 5 about our righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees – we must be transformed.
Work out doesn’t mean you are working for your salvation. This would be heresy – We are already saved in this passage and are working out this process of transformation that takes place by God’s Spirit. We cooperate with this sanctification through study, prayer, worship and God working in us.
Paul ends this passage with the real Key – IT IS FOR GOD”s Pleasure
When a person is saved, when they exhibit the fruits of the Spirit, when the evidence of saving faith is there one can look to them and say that is for God’s Glory – It is God’s work not our work.
This was the mindset that Jesus came to transform and Paul came to display as false. Works of the Law mentality was that one would say look at me I have been circumcised, I eat Kosher, I keep the holidays, etc, Look God should merit that work – Paul would say NO – it is God’s work that matters – God must be at work in your life for you to bring about the righteousness that is pleasing to God.
Romans 8: 1-4
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The requirement of the Law – that moral code of living Holy – can now be fulfilled in our sinful flesh because the Spirit of God has been sent to transform our lives – The Spirit has come to transform and make us the people that God has always wanted us to be.
CONCLUSION –
In the beginning of our sermon I laid out the importance of the OT but it was for a purpose, for one thing – So you will be motivated to go out and learn it backwards and forwards to be able to better understand the New Covenant.
But most importantly to see our salvation in light of God’s dealing with Israel in this idea of the purpose of the Law- Paul provides a great backdrop for this in Romans 8.
God has filled our life with His Spirit.
The flesh is weak and even Paul says in Romans 7 that his state before his life in Christ was such.
In Romans 7 Paul speaks of how the mind wants to obey God’s law but the flesh is weak.
Because we have been Chosen by God we are given His Spirit. The Spirit of God makes obedience to the Law possible.
The Moral Law that man had failed at has been made possible because this sinful flesh has been give power.
This Power in the NT comes from the Greek word DUNAMIS where we get the word Dynamite.
How do we appropriate this Power – How do we get this power to live in harmony with God and live transformed lives?
Ephesians 5:18 says, "Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess but be filled with the Spirit."
[Greek., asotia, "dissipation"],
When you are filled with the Spirit, you are controlled by Him
Ephesians 5:19-21 lists the results of being filled with the Spirit: "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things ... submitting yourselves one to another."
Colossians 3 is a parallel, condensed version of Ephesians 5:18--6:9. Verse 16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly."
Notice that the results are the same as those from being filled with the Spirit. You will speak in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (v. 16); give thanks (v. 17); and relationships among husbands and wives (vv. 18-19), children and parents (vv. 20-21), and servants and masters (3:22; 4:1) will be positively affected.
The only apparent difference between Colossians 3:16; 4:1 and Ephesians 5:18; 6:9 is what produces the results.
If you get the same results from letting "the word of Christ dwell in you" as you do when you are "filled with the Spirit," then they both must be the same thing.
We as Christians have been given Power to overcome and live a life that is different.
How many of you here today want to live a better life?
How many of us deal with guilt because we are not living as well as we should?
The Scripture makes it clear that you can live a life that is pleasing to God and that shows the fruits of the Spirit.
At the village church in Kalonovka, Russia, attendance at Sunday school picked up after the priest started handing out candy to the peasant children. One of the most faithful was a pug-nosed, pugnacious lad who recited his Scriptures with proper piety, pocketed his reward, then fled into the fields to munch on it. The priest took a liking to the boy, persuaded him to attend church school. This was preferable to doing household chores from which his devout parents excused him. By offering other inducements, the priest managed to teach the boy the four Gospels. In fact, he won a special prize for learning all four by heart and reciting them nonstop in church. Now, 60 years later, he still likes to recite Scriptures, but in a context that would horrify the old priest. For the prize pupil, who memorized so much of the Bible, is Nikita Khrushchev, the former Communist czar.
As this anecdote illustrates, the "why" behind memorization is fully as important as the "what." The same Nikita Khrushchev who nimbly mouthed God's Word when a child, later declared God to be nonexistent -- because his cosmonauts had not seen Him. Khrushchev memorized the Scriptures for the candy, the rewards, the bribes, rather than for the meaning it had for his life. Artificial motivation will produce artificial results.

Sometimes we so emphasize the study of the Bible and knowing the word of God but we need in closing to understand that our hearts must change.
The word of God from cover to cover should challenge every aspect of our lives.
The WHY of study and living a Spirit filled life is important.
In closing:
Why are you here today?
What is your reason for getting up everyday?
Are you totally consumed with living a life that is pleasing to God?