#32 - Piper - Who is a true jew - part II

Piper continues a look at the true jew and answers the question, “Why do we want to be a true jew?”

 

Paul says in verse 26 that the uncircumcised man (the Gentile) will be regarded by God as a circumcised man (a true Jew) if he “keeps the requirements of Law.” “So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?” So it isn’t circumcision that makes you a true Jew, it is keeping the requirements of the Law—that is, it is understanding what the Law was really all about and being changed by it in the heart and living out God’s purpose for man taught in it (see 1 Corinthians 7:19).

 

This is amazing. The reason it’s amazing is that what Paul is trying to show is why Law-keeping—Law-fulfilling—makes one a true Jew, and his answer is all about internal change, not external activity. He says, in essence, that Law-keeping or Law-fulfilling makes you a true Jew because it is not mainly an external thing, but an internal thing. It has to do mainly with the sense of the heart and not the seeing of the letter. It has to do mainly with praise that comes from God in secret, not the praise of man in public (see Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). That is what the Law is really all about. Otherwise the argument doesn’t work.

 

So the point is that a person is a true Jew—a true part of God’s redeemed people—if he fulfills the Law, that is, if his heart is circumcised by the Spirit to love God. Deuteronomy 30:6 promised, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” That’s what Paul is talking about here, and you don’t have to be a natural-born Jew, he says, for it to happen to you.

 

Without the Spirit we either reject the Law of God out of hand, or we change it into something we can manage. And in either case we lose, and the Law condemns us: you can become a transgressor of the law by rejecting it or by trying to keep it in your own strength. Paul calls the law minus the Spirit: “letter.” And he says in another place, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

So let’s put two summary equations in the corner of our picture.

 

Law minus Spirit = 1) external religious ritual (like circumcision) 2) the need for the praise of man to keep you going 3) death, because the Law becomes mere “letter,” and that kills

 

Law plus Spirit = 1) internal circumcision of the heart 2) satisfaction in the praise of God, even if no man approves you 3) life, because the Spirit unites us to God in love

 

Now what’s the point of all this? The main point I want you get this morning is this: Seek and cherish the work of the Spirit of God in your life to make you a true Jew. Our salvation hangs on this—the work of the Spirit circumcising our heart to love the Lord (Deuteronomy 30:6) 2) writing the Law of God on our heart (Jeremiah 31:33) 3) freeing us from our need for the praise of man (Romans 2:29)

All of this is what Christ obtained for us when he shed his blood to seal the new covenant

 

 

 

 

Steve Allen

ACTION Zambia

www.aliveinafrica.com

 

 

# 29 - Piper - The effect of Hypocrisy - Romans 2:17-24

This is another great message.  There is much to quote and think about, but I felt like this the entire message was summed up in one paragraph that I didn’t want to see overlooked and thus will include only this paragraph (broken into shorter paragraphs):

 

The Gospel is the good news that God has sent his Son, Jesus, into the world to set this condition right—in three ways.

 

1) Jesus came to vindicate the worth of God’s glory by living for it with all his might (John 17:4) and by dying to show that it is worth the greatest possible sacrifice (John 12:27–28; Romans 3:25–26).

 

2) Jesus came to rescue us from the wrath of God against all that dishonors his glory. He did this by dying in our place and by becoming for us a righteousness that we could never achieve on our own (Romans 3:24; Philippians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 5:21)—the righteousness that we have in union with Christ by trusting him (Romans 3:21).

 

3) Jesus came to change us into the kind of people who value the glory of God above all things and who live to show his worth (Matthew 5:16; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 4:11).

 

So, the reason I included this paragraph from Piper  is because it is the key to understanding where we have come so far. The issue from Romans 1:19-3:20 is God’s glory.  It has been ruined by both the gentiles and the Jews.  And it all leads to Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

 

And, so I will end with this Piper thought to summarize this message:

 

That is where we are this morning. No one in this room loves the glory of God the way he should. We have all fallen short. We have dishonored God. We have exchanged his glory for images. He is not cherished and treasured and admired and loved with a fraction of the fervor that he deserves. So we have fallen short. We are under the power of sin. And we are guilty before God.  Our only hope is that Christ came to change that. To vindicate the God we have belittled. To clothe us with a righteousness that we cannot provide on our own. And to change us into the kind of people who delight in the glory of God and the honor of God above all things.

 

 

 

 

Steve Allen

ACTION Zambia

www.aliveinafrica.com

 

 

#30 - Piper - The effects of Hyprocrisy - Romans 2:17-24

What is the effect of hypocrisy in the Jews?

 

They know the word but they don’t believe the word. They make the word an obedience thing and not a law thing. They use their knowledge of the word to help others, but they don’t allow it to help them.

 

Piper writes, “Love uses truth to bless others; but sin uses truth to exalt self.^”

 

So, Piper preaches, “My point is simply this: one of the reasons Paul dwells on the demonstration of sinfulness in Romans 1–3 is that we are so resistant to seeing it and feeling it. We find ways of avoiding the issue and softening the indictments and escaping the evidences of our sinfulness. And there are endless ways, it seems, to admit to a little bit of it, while not being broken and humbled by it. But brokenness and humility are the gateway to paradise, and indeed they are the road to paradise. In this life, we never outgrow our need for ever-new experiences of brokenness and humility because of our sinfulness.^”

 

So, how does this apply to Christians today?

Piper writes, “These Jews are people of the book. And Paul agrees with that. But there is clearly something wrong. And we, who are Christian people of the book, should be all ears and on the edge of our seats to find out what went wrong, lest we make the same mistake. There is nothing wrong, in themselves, with relying on the trustworthiness of God’s law or boasting in God or knowing his will or approving things essential. But evidently there is a way that all that can go wrong. All of that good use of the Law can be a part of what shows a person to be a sinner.^”

 

Faith in God for his gracious gift of forgiveness, and a right standing with him, and the enablement to obey his commandments. But instead, you use the law to establish your own righteousness and thus rob God of the most basic thing he demands from you, humble trust in him for his mercy. And what is this but adultery as you give your heart and trust—that belong only to God—to another? And what is this spiritual adultery except the taking of the very idols of the world and making them your own—as if to rob their temples because God himself is not good enough for you.

 

Lord, may your Word humble us from faith to love...

 

 

 

 

Steve Allen

ACTION Zambia

www.aliveinafrica.com

 

 

#31 - Piper - Who is a true Jew - Romans 2:25-29

Romans 2:25–29

For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

 

The essence of the Christian life is to have your heart changed in such a way that you obey by faith the moral law that God gave to us. 

 

Here is what Piper says:

In other words, behind this language of “letter” and “Spirit” is Paul’s whole understanding of the Christian life as an expression of the “new covenant.” In the promises of the new covenant, which Jesus bought with his own blood (Luke 22:20), God promises to take out the heart of stone and give us a new heart and put his Spirit within us and cause us to walk in his Law. Listen to Ezekiel 36:37b: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (see also Ezekiel 11:19–20).

 

This promise shows that keeping the Law and fulfilling the Law are something that God promised when the Holy Spirit was given to his people in the fuller measure of the new covenant. So when verse 26 says, “If the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision”?, we should understand this of the Christian Gentile who has been given the “Spirit” and has stopped treating the Law as a dead “letter” that kills. Rather, the Law now has become the expression of God’s good moral will for life that grows like fruit from a circumcised heart of faith that the Holy Spirit has brought about. In other words, keeping the requirements of the Law is a free gift of the Spirit.

 

Piper also makes clear that our heart should be changed so as to desire to obey the law:

This makes it clear that the idea of fulfilling the Law is a Christian experience and that it really does happen, and that it happens in the lives of those who walk according to the Spirit. Christ died for us and purchased for us the new covenant blessings of the Spirit, and now He is at work in our lives enabling us to live out—not perfectly, but enough to show we trust him—the moral law of God.

 

So, Paul is saying that we need to become like Jews, and though that sounds a bit weird, he clarifies with an interesting thought:

One Person knows who we are. God. He made us. He defines us. If we are ever going to know who we are in our essence, we will learn it from God or not at all. Therefore it is a great gift to us that he should tell us that an essential part of our identity is that we are true Jews if we fulfill the obedience of faith. Don’t reject God’s good gift because you can’t see the benefits of being a true Jew. That’s the first thing I would say: God is telling you who you are. Pay attention. Receive the gift. Don’t assume you know a better thing to be than what God says you are.

And finally, I would say, you ought to want to be a true Jew because “salvation belongs to the Jews” (John 4:22), and all the promises of God are yours if you are a true Jew (see Romans 11:17–18). What a great thing it is to be able to go to the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, and know that “this is my book.” I am a Jew. These are my promises. This is my story. This is my Messiah. This is my God (Jeremiah 31:33). You can say that today—Jew or Gentile—if you will trust in the all-satisfying mercy of God in Christ Jesus and repent of your sins.