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Christ and Alcohol · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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  Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?
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  ! So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do
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  ! it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly. I do
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  not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I keep it under control, lest after
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  preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. And we saw Paul and his attitude towards those
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  who were lost, and we saw his, in this text, his self-denial and his self-control, ultimately
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  for his joy. And kind of our focus in our study has been the last half of 22 and 23. I have
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  become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the
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  sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. And so Paul, knowing that
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  he's been liberated by Christ, he's still holding to the law of God in Christ, he's been liberated
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  from the sacrificial system, but says still, even though I now can do some things that I couldn't
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  have done before, I have self-control and I have self-denial that I might see people come to Christ.
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  And so we've been talking, we've been in this vein through this summer of our liberty and
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  how it is as Christians we should be engaging our culture for the sake of the gospel. In fact,
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  as some have said, changing our culture, seeing Christ come into people's lives and change who
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  they are. And that's what we've been working through together, and we've talked about a number
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  of things. We've talked about language, how it is that we should speak, art, sexuality. We've talked
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  about patriotism, money. We talked about abortion and a number of other topics. And a lot of these
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  topics have very simple black and white answers. Some don't. In some there is gray. Some darker grays
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  than others. But there's a spot in between that causes us to rely on God in Christ, the spirit that
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  dwells within us for the answers to some of these questions. And so today, not intentionally,
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  with college students returning, but it's probably fitting, we're going to talk about Christ and
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  alcohol. I'm using this as a hot issue to talk about all those things, all those liberties. So it
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  doesn't just include this, but in order for us to unpack it, I didn't feel like I could also talk about
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  how we eat and how we dress, how we adorn ourselves. But this is kind of the gray area
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  sermon this morning. So read with me now. We're back in Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20.
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  Our main text today will be in the book of Colossians, but I feel it's necessary for us to
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  start here with the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning in verse 17. He says,
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  Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them,
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  but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota,
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  not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the
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  least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of
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  heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell
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  you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom
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  of heaven. So we have this interesting line to walk as we're set free in Christ from the law. How is it
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  then that we're still beholden to the law? And Christ gives us some clues to that here, and that he came
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  to fulfill it. It's we're able to keep the law in Christ himself. And we must understand what is it
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  that Jesus Christ is talking about when he talks about the law? Because do you know that throughout
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  the Old Testament there are a number of different types of law? There's not just the law, but there's
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  the moral law, there's the ceremonial law, and there's the civil law or the judicial law. And the moral law
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  is what is commonly, most commonly being spoken about in the New Testament. The moral law being the
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  Ten Commandments found in Exodus chapter 20. Jesus summarizes them for us, brings it down even simpler,
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  those Ten Commandments, in Matthew chapter 22, verse 37 through 40, where he says, you shall love the Lord
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  your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first
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  commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments
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  depends all the law and the prophets. All right, so Jesus brings it down even simpler for us. Really the first
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  four of the Ten Commandments are about the loving God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul.
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  And the second to the last six commandments are about loving your neighbor as yourself,
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  serving them properly. So he even simplifies it for us a bit more. And this is the law that Jesus is referring to here.
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  This is the law that expresses God's character to mankind. In fact, God spoke these laws and he wrote
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  them on the stone tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain with his very own finger.
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  These never change. We are to keep these laws, the moral law. And then the moral laws that were added
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  to that by God throughout the scriptures were meant to point to, continue to bring us back to,
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  further explain these Ten Commandments given to us. The ceremonial law was meant to be a picture,
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  was meant to be a shadow, was meant to show, was meant to point back to the character of God,
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  was meant to show God's people how very incapable they were of doing what God had asked them to do
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  on their own. They couldn't do it. And that's what that was about. The sacrificial system over and over
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  and over and over and over again. Sacrifice had to be made for the people because they transgress
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  God's moral law. The temple was a very busy place. Blood flowed constantly. There was no furniture
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  in the temple in God's very careful design of what the temple would look like. There were no places for
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  priests to sit down. You know why? Because they didn't need a place to sit down. Because they were
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  constantly at work making atonement for the sins of Israel. It is significant in Hebrews chapter 1
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  when the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.
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  To Jewish readers they would have said, whoa, because it meant that the sacrifice had been made
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  once and for all. That's what Christ meant when he said, it is finished. The ceremonial law
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  at that point was abolished. There was no need for it any longer because the perfect sacrifice
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  had been made. So we have record of the ceremonial law. What purpose does it serve us now? To point to
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  our inability and what is necessary to atone for our sins. Our inability to keep the law and what is
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  required for us to be righteous before God. And that's found in Christ. It's a shadow of what was
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  coming in Christ. And now we have that revelation. So we don't keep the ceremonial law any longer.
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  We don't have an altar here, right? Because we don't make sacrifice any longer. Jesus Christ made
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  that sacrifice and it's finished. And then there's the civil law or the judicial law. At the time,
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  they were living under a theocracy. God ruled over Israel. And so all of those civil laws,
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  the judicial laws, things like if a child is disobedient to his parents, you're to take him
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  out to the gate and stone him to death. Things like that were meant to show us how seriously God takes
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  sin. I would not suggest now we punish disobedient children in the same way. Although God still requires
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  that children be obedient to their parents. We should still be pressing our children to do that.
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  Children, you should be keeping that law. But we don't punish it the same way because the government
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  that God's placed over us, which we're told to obey, would not like it if we stoned our children.
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  So we're then freed from that. So here's what Jesus is talking about. He's saying he has come and
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  he's bringing to us power to give us righteousness that we might keep God's moral law. So we're set
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  free in Christ. We have liberty from some of these things, but we're also held to an incredibly high
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  standard. So you have to hear me today as we talk through this issue. I want you to recognize your
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  liberty, but I don't want you to be licentious with it. But I also don't want you to become
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  legalistic. And that's the two sides of this tightrope we can fall off of. It is a tightrope.
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  Most of theology is. And we have to work to stay on it. If you're going to fall off one side or the
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  other, you're going to become legalistic or you're going to become licentious. And we don't want that
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  to be the case in your life. So join me. I'm going to lead us in prayer. And then we're going to dive into
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  Colossians chapter 2. Don't turn there yet, but let's pray together and then we'll do that.
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  Father God, I love you. And I thank you so much for the great love that you've shown me
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  in Christ. I thank you for these people who have a desire to come together on a Sunday morning
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  and study from your word. And I pray, Father, that you will bless that as they've been drawn here by
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  you, that you will speak to all of our hearts. And as we talk about an issue that certainly we have to
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  be careful with, I pray, God, that no one misunderstands what you intend for us to do
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  with this topic. Pray that none of us become licentious. None of us become legalistic. And
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  I pray all this in Christ's name. Amen. All right. So Colossians chapter 2. This is where we're
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  going to camp a little bit. I used to work for Truett McConnell College and Truett McConnell
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  gave me a computer that I could use. And so my typical habit was to type notes and print them,
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  have them available. And when I stopped working there, I no longer had the computer. And so I
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  went and bought myself an iPad because I figured most things I do, I can do on it. But copying and
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  pasting text out of my ESV study Bible on the iPad, I can't do. So we're going to turn more today than
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  we ever do because I have to get there to see it. So I hope that's okay with you. All right.
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  So Colossians chapter 2. We're going to start reading in verse 16.
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  Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a
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  festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance
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  belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels,
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  going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not
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  holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints
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  and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of
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  the world, why as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle,
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  do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human
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  precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made
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  religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they have no value in stopping the indulgence
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  of the flesh. And my main concern, what I want to talk about primarily, is something that plagues us
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  all. We all have the danger of slipping into legalism. It is rampant. You may not know this because we
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  don't have it on our sign, but we're a Southern Baptist church. Southern Baptists are legalistic
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  about the topic of alcohol. I think probably every Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting,
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  and probably every Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting, there's a new resolution passed against
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  alcohol. I don't know why they keep doing it, as if they haven't made the point before. They just
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  continue to pass a new resolution that Southern Baptists do not drink alcohol. And it's fairly
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  legalistic, and my fear with that is that legalism says that you should look like me, not you should
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  look like Christ. Legalism is rooted in a self-reliance and not in the grace of God and Christ. On the one
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  hand, legalism means treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power
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  in order to earn God's favor. On the other hand, it means erecting specific requirements of conduct
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  beyond the teaching of Scripture, and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified
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  for full participation in the local family of God, or the church. In the first case, we use our own
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  power to make ourselves moral. In the second case, we use our own power to make the church moral.
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  In the first case, we rally, we fail to rely on the power of God for our own sanctification. In the
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  second, we fail to rely on the power of God for the sanctification of others. And that is the danger.
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  It is rooted, legalism is rooted in unbelief. It's rooted in unbelief that God will complete the good
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  work that he began. That's Philippians 1.6. In Philippians, Paul is confident. He tells the
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  Philippian believers that they will be perfected one day. He's not doubting God's work in their life.
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  He even says that if God hasn't yet revealed this to you, he will. What I'm telling you now, you should
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  believe to be true about the gospel. If he hasn't yet revealed it to you because you're his children,
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  he will. He had a sure confidence and therefore was not a legalist. So the redemptive work of Christ has
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  set us free from legalism. We don't have to be that way. We don't, aren't meant to live under our own
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  power anymore. We're meant to live in full reliance on the grace of God. And so in light of the redemptive
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  work of Christ, I want to show you five things from our text this morning, right? Five things. Number one,
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  what a person eats or drinks is not a basis for final judgment. What a person eats or drinks is not a basis
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  for final judgment. The only basis for final judgment where somebody will end up for eternity
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  is whether or not they're found in Christ. Whether or not they have saving faith in the one,
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  the one way back to God. When they stand before God and are judged, are they clothed in Christ's
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  righteousness and seen as holy? Or are they not? And all of their sin is exposed. That is the only basis
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  for final judgment. Now, those of us in Christ are meant to live holy lives, right? The evidence of
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  who we are, of where our faith is, is our work. So we're not saved by our work, but our work shows
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  that we're saved. So we must handle things like this carefully. So ultimately, we're not judged for this.
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  Verse 16, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new
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  moon or a Sabbath. But however, what and how a person eats or drinks, dresses, matters.
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  Paul speaks to it. Ephesians 5, 18 says, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery or an
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  abandonment of that which is life. Prodigality, it's licentious, to be drunk with wine. There are
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  strong warnings all throughout scripture about wine. One example, Proverbs 21, says, wine is a mocker,
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  strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. But it says, whoever is led astray
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  by it is not wise. It doesn't say whoever partakes of it is not wise. And I am not willing to make a
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  regulation for you as an individual, for us as a church, that's not in the scriptures. That would be
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  isogesis. That would be reading in the scripture what we want it to say, not reading out of scripture what it
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  actually says about the topic. So there's strong warning. We certainly should be very careful
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  with how we handle alcohol, but we cannot make it a law that you cannot drink. This is going up on our
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  website. I'm sure I'm going to get in all kinds of trouble if anybody in the SBC ever discovers us. I
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  doubt they will, but to say such a thing. But here's the deal, all right? But here's the deal. We could
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  take this a step further, and I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians. Put your finger, put your
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  Bible marker, 1 Corinthians chapter 8.
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  Which does not speak specifically to the issue of alcohol, but to food being offered to idols.
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  And the Jews avoided this at all costs. Okay? But the gospel liberated them to eat meat that had been
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  offered to idols. It was offered to idols and sold in the marketplace, and Paul's writing about that, and the
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  principle applies. Chapter 8, beginning in verse 8. Food will not commend us to God. What we eat, what we
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  don't eat, what we drink, what we don't drink. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we
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  do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a
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  stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple,
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  will he not be encouraged. If his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols. And so by your
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  knowledge, this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus sinning against
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  your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food
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  makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
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  So what is Paul saying there in 1 Corinthians?
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  He is saying, if somebody else has an issue with it, should you do it?
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  1 Corinthians chapter 9. Paul said, to the weak, I have become weak. And that could be frustrating.
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  That could be really frustrating, because we don't want to be judged for things we do that we've been
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  given the liberty to do that we would like to enjoy. But more than that, I want to experience the
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  advance of the gospel. I want to see people come to know Christ and share with them in its blessing.
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  So what's more valuable to me, that people come to know Christ and I can share in that blessing
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  forever, or a drink on a Saturday night? Put those on a scale, right? I don't drink because of my
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  position, primarily. I don't want anybody to come here and not hear what I'm saying, because they may
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  have seen me out at a restaurant the night before. It's just not worth it to me. But even with that,
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  even with 1 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul's saying, be very, very careful. It's not worth it. If you
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  have any doubt in your mind about whether or not you should be doing the thing you're doing, don't
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  do it. I think our congregation as a whole should barely ever drink. We certainly should never be known
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  for it, right? And there are congregations that are known for it. We must be so, so careful, and not
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  in our self-denial and our self-sacrifice, not that we're really ultimately missing out on anything,
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  right? Because there's greater blessing stored up for us as we live to Christ. Now, as a caveat,
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  there's a lot of young people in the room, and I don't know all of you. I would presume that many of
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  you are under the age of 21, I am not giving you permission to go drink. It is illegal for you to
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  do that, all right? We could be talking about, you know, people will say, you know, look at all the
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  things alcohol does, all the things it causes, all the alcoholism, which is rampant in our society.
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  There's no doubt about that. It does, it can have unhealthy effects, but you could also argue that it
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  has some healthy effects. I've heard many studies on glass of wine a day, fending off heart disease,
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  and things of that sort. So, you can make that argument either way. You could carry the same
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  argument to cars. People die in cars all the time. Should we all stop driving? No, we shouldn't stop
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  driving. We should be careful when we drive, but if you're under 16, you shouldn't drive, right? Because
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  the law doesn't allow that to happen. I can remember being in high school and having kind of an open
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  discussion high school, Sunday school class, and this is like the only issue that anybody wanted to
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  talk about. And the main guy that was making the argument, I have a horrible memory, but I can
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  remember him. His name was Rob, and he really, really, really wanted permission from our Sunday
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  school teacher to drink. He really wanted the Sunday school teacher just to say, you're right, you're
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  right. There is no commandment. There is no black and white on the issue. It's a gray one. He really
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  wanted him to say that, and to the point of annoyance on my part, and I finally just said, Rob, you're 17.
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  Think about it in four years. It doesn't matter right now. That makes no difference. So if you're
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  under 21, stop thinking I'm giving you permission, because I'm definitely, definitely not. So it's
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  not the basis for final judgment, okay? Number two, second implication, the redemptive work of
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  Christ that we can find here in Book of Colossians chapter 2. The fullness of deity dwells in Christ,
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  not in our practice. Verse 17 and 18, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance
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  belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in
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  detail about visions, and puffed up without reason by his sentious mind. As is always the case, there's false
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  teaching in the church. And from the beginning, the beginning of remittance of history to now, there's
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  false teaching in the church. And what was going on in the church of Colossae was that they were being
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  led to very strict regulations, man-made regulations, that's the asceticism part, and then the worship of
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  angels. And it was false, and it caused these people to be puffed up and to think that they could
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  accomplish holiness on their own, and it's bad, bad theology. Paul writes to the Galatians in chapter 3,
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  having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? The particular wrong
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  teaching there was circumcision. The Jews were coming and saying, for you to be holy, Christ is
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  good, we like that, but let's add to that circumcision. It was no longer the case. Paul actually said in
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  chapter 5, verse 1 of Galatians, for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not
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  submit again to a yoke of slavery. He says in Galatians, if you're circumcised, Christ is of no value to you.
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  You think you can earn your salvation by the work that you do? Christ is of no value at all.
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  So the fullness of deity dwells in Christ. You can see Colossians chapter 2, verse 9.
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  For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of
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  all rule and all authority. That has nothing to do with your action. It has everything to do
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  with his. He died for your sin that he might make you perfect in him, and you have been filled
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  in him. I heard a super cool analogy, simple analogy, talking about the us in Christ and
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  Christ in us, and how that works out. This guy, great, funny guy, talked about Christ being the ocean.
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  The ocean is the ocean, whether or not we have anything to do with it. The ocean is the ocean.
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  We're like a cup floating in the ocean, like a Dixie cup floating in the ocean. It's got that little
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  rolled corner, so it's got air in it, and it tends to float. We don't change the state of the ocean by any
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  means, but the ocean's in us, and we're in the ocean. And that's kind of a picture. I want to make you feel
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  pitiful by being a Dixie cup, but that's the picture of what's going on. We are found in Christ, and our
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  righteousness is in him, not in what we do. He possesses all deity. Thirdly, third implication of
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  Christ's redemptive work. The source of life and purity and growth is through holding fast to Christ.
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  So we're called to that. We're called to grow in our faith. We're called to progress towards perfection.
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  That's the fancy word for that is sanctification. We're meant to be putting off the old self,
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  Colossians chapter 3, putting on the new self. We're supposed to become more perfect. We're supposed to hate
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  sin more and love righteousness more. That's a process that's going on in our lives, but the solution
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  to it is not legalism. It's not erecting a bunch of rules that aren't found in the scriptures. The
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  source of that, life, purity, and growth, is through holding fast to Christ. So here's these false
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  teachers we saw in 17 and 18, and then in verse 19, and they're not holding fast to the head, from whom
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  the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is
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  from God. That's the source. Jesus Christ is where all righteousness comes from. So we go on in
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  Colossians. Man-made, subtitles, chapter headings, verses. Those were not inspired. Chapter 3, keep
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  reading. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is,
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  seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on
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  earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life,
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  appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Then he goes on to tell us, beginning in verse 5,
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  put to death the following things in your life. In verse 12, put on then, as God's chosen ones,
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  these things, right? We cleave to Christ. We hold to him so tightly that these other issues are all
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  sorted out for us. The issue of alcohol in your life. If you will hold tight to Christ, he will give
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  you the answer in every moment, in every situation. Right now, I don't drink. Will that be the case
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  forever? Probably, but I don't know. I don't know. I've got to ask that question. Sam and I might go on a
• 27:49
  fantastic vacation one day on a cruise line. I might think, this is the place I think it'd be
• 27:55
  appropriate for me to have a drink. I'll ask. That's all you have to do, right? We have a
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  relationship with the most holy God. Is this an appropriate time, God? Would this be a good thing?
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  Would this honor you? No? Okay. Moving on to tomorrow. Yes? Well, great. Thank you for the good
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  thing to enjoy. I will drink it to your glory. It's a famous story about Charles Spurgeon, which I
• 28:17
  absolutely love. It's also a story about the danger of turning the pulpit over to somebody that you
• 28:22
  don't really know. He preached a sermon on little sins and how little sins tend to amass themselves
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  into bigger sin, more licentious sinning. And he was going to give a few moments to a visiting
• 28:36
  pastor, and the pastor got up and talked very legalistically against the smoking of cigars.
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  And if you know much about Charles Spurgeon, you know that he really liked to smoke cigars. In fact,
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  one time he was asked how much smoking was too much smoking. And he said, well, two cigars at one
• 28:55
  time would be in excess. He liked his cigars. And the congregation knew that. I mean, so there's this
• 29:02
  man up there railing against the smoking of cigars. And the congregation knew this about him. So he
• 29:08
  stood up and he said, I just need to clear the air and say to you that I have no problem with the
• 29:14
  smoking of cigars, that it is not a sin. In fact, I'm going to go home this evening and smoke a cigar
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  of the glory of God before I go to bed. Now, in kind of reading about that, you know, this day we
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  have the tool of the blog, which serves some purpose, but I think more often than not it's
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  harmful to the church. And I hate how quickly the articles go out there and the responses to the
• 29:41
  articles, and it's all so distant and people don't really know each other. That happened back then,
• 29:45
  too. Newspaper writers came to large churches and wrote articles about the sermons and what was
• 29:51
  preached, and people responded in letter. It took a little more time than it takes. You can have a
• 29:55
  whole kerfuffle explode and die down in a week with our current technology, but it happened back then,
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  too. And I discovered that he actually ended up apologizing for the statement because he had
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  popularized in the following months the phrase, I smoke cigars for the glory of God. And he felt
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  like he had given people permission just to do it, just to go off and smoke, and that was the right
• 30:20
  thing to do. And he clarified his stance to say that we must carefully consider what we do, what we
• 30:28
  don't do to honor God. He said, it's okay for me. My conscience is clean about the smoking of cigars,
• 30:34
  but it may not be for you. And the apology letter was actually really beautifully written. So a really
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  great story about that. So the source of life and purity and growth is through holding fast to Christ
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  and not through man-made regulations. Fourth implication. Those who erect regulations do not know what it
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  means to die with Christ. Those who erect regulations do not know what it means to die with Christ.
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  And that means one of two things. Either they never have, they've never placed their faith in Christ and
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  died in him to the world. That's a possibility. You find sitting here that you have kind of a legalistic
• 31:22
  mind. That that's what you strive for. You're just kind of trying to amass the rules. You're just
• 31:27
  trying to figure out exactly how it is that you think God wants you to live, to be seen good in
• 31:31
  his eyes. You probably haven't died with Christ. You don't actually understand what it means to be
• 31:38
  given the grace of God in Christ. That you could have done nothing apart from him to earn his favor.
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  And that all that favor is bestowed on you because Jesus Christ died for your sins, bore the wrath of
• 31:51
  God for your sins that you've committed, that you're currently committing. Even in this room right
• 31:56
  now, I'm sure we're sinning in some way, some of us, or going to. All that past, present, future
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  Christ died for, it is finished. There's a chance you've never placed your faith in him. Or, if you have,
• 32:11
  you forget the gospel. We do that. All of us do that. None of us are immune to this. We have to preach
• 32:19
  the gospel to ourselves every day, every moment of every day, remembering what God has done for us
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  in Christ so that we don't do this, so we don't erect regulations. That is what our flesh wants.
• 32:33
  That is what Satan wants. Satan wants us to think we can do it on our own. Because he knows if he gets
• 32:38
  us in that position, that's what we're going to do. And we're going to be totally fruitless.
• 32:42
  Joyless, fruitless, nothing is going to happen for the kingdom if it's us, depending on us. Now, us
• 32:49
  depending on God, nothing can stop that. So that's what's going on in your life if you're erecting
• 32:57
  these regulations. Because these people don't know what it means to die with Christ. Verse 20 through 22,
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  if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why? As if you were still alive in the
• 33:06
  world, you submit to regulations. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all
• 33:11
  perish as they are used. He's basically saying these are elemental worldly things. They don't matter
• 33:14
  anymore according to human precepts and teachings. Why do you do that? It's because you've forgotten
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  the gospel. That's the answer to that question. You've forgotten that you depend on God for everything.
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  Number five, legalism is a distraction from holiness. It may not seem that way on the surface.
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  I can remember in kind of some crisis of faith in my life asking the question, why didn't God just make it
• 33:44
  simpler? Why didn't he just give us, give us the rules? Why does his book even need to be so big? Couldn't he
• 33:51
  just pass down a list and say, live this way? And I was totally missing the point. Totally missing the point.
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  Because I thought I could do it. God gives me the list. I can figure it out. God doesn't give us the
• 34:04
  list because he wants us to depend on him. He wants there to be gray. The gray is healthy for us. Because
• 34:11
  if we want to live righteously, we will ask the questions. We will come close to him. We will hold
• 34:18
  fast to him. Because there's no way to find the answer to some of these questions on our own. We can't do it.
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  So we will, in fact, cleave to him. Verse 23 says, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom
• 34:31
  in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value
• 34:38
  in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. That's really clear, isn't it? The regulations that we erect
• 34:44
  that are outside of scripture, or thinking that we can accomplish the standard we're held to in
• 34:50
  scripture, either way, is of no value. You could be the strictest. You could be on the outside,
• 34:58
  the exterior. You could look so moral. Take the Pharisees, for example. They kept the law from
• 35:05
  everybody's perspective. Everybody looking at it said, if anybody's doing it right, it's them.
• 35:10
  They have got it figured out. They had all those hedge laws. They were keeping those laws.
• 35:17
  What did Christ say about them? They're whitewashed tombs, pretty on the outside, looking good in
• 35:23
  appearance, but full of dead men's bones. They weren't actually keeping the law of God. They just
• 35:28
  looked like they were. And that's what we do when we become legalistic, is we build up for ourselves
• 35:35
  a self-righteousness that's not sourced from Christ. It's of no value. Legalism is a distraction
• 35:43
  from holiness. And that's why I'm not willing to be legalistic. The issue of alcohol, as my example
• 35:52
  this morning, I will not say to you, you cannot drink. I will say to you, you probably shouldn't.
• 36:00
  There's some good warnings about alcohol. Our culture is kind of hypercharged on this issue right now. We
• 36:07
  probably should all be setting ourselves aside and not drinking. But I can't tell you not to,
• 36:13
  because it would be legalistic. And there's a great, great danger in that. John Piper wrote of this text,
• 36:22
  wherever happy confidence in the sovereign power of God for our own lives and the lives of others grows,
• 36:28
  weak legalism creeps in. So wherever we're happy and confident that God is leading us and taking us
• 36:38
  where we should go, teaching us what we need to learn, guiding our lives, wherever that kind of joy
• 36:43
  exists, weak legalism creeps in. For we inevitably try to compensate for loss of dynamic faith by increased
• 36:52
  moral resolve and the addition of man-made regulations. But wherever joyful confidence in the power of God
• 36:59
  is waning, the flesh is waxing. So wherever the confidence in God is falling off, the flesh presses right on.
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  Which means that the very morality that we had hoped would save ourselves and the very regulations we hoped
• 37:12
  would purify our church fall victim to the massive power of the flesh and become its instruments of self-reliance
• 37:19
  and self-sufficiency. So let us not be individuals and let us not be a church that's legalistic.
• 37:29
  Let us also not be a church and individuals that are licentious. Let us pray. Let us draw closer to God
• 37:39
  through his word and through meeting with the people of God that our church will be purified by Christ.
• 37:47
  Let us have a confidence in him that that will happen. Because for all that God asks, he provides.
• 37:56
  We have to hold on to that. We cannot believe we can accomplish it on our own because it's counter-gospel.
• 38:03
  And if we do, Jesus Christ is of no value to us. Join me in prayer.