Christ the Controversialist (Part 2 of 2)

Alistair Begg: Do you believe that a good God will reward nice people for trying their best? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg explains why this popular assumption is totally incompatible with the death of Christ on the cross and the good news that he proclaimed. We're studying in chapter two of Mark's Gospel.
Alistair Begg: The issue was this. People are looking around, they see the Pharisees' disciples fasting. The disciples of John fasting. The disciples of Jesus partying. True? Levi's house, party time. What's going on here? One group's fasting, another group's fasting. What do your guys do? They seem to have chosen the easy path. That can't possibly be right. If a person's going to be accepted with God, there's so many things he has to do. And we, the Pharisees, the organizers of religion, the custodians of that which is external and orthodox, we know what they should be doing, and your boys aren't doing it. And we want to know why. Now, if you think about this in Luke 18, and I'll only give you this one, I might give you two cross-references, but this is just one. Luke chapter 18. If you turn forward one book, let's just set this in context because I think this is helpful. And the context is absolutely crucial. Verse 9 of Luke chapter 18. To some who were confident of their own righteousness. Okay, their own righteousness. In other words, a righteousness that they themselves created, established, maintained by what they did or didn't do. To some who were confident of their own righteousness. We're either going to stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness, or we're going to stand before God on the basis of the righteousness of another. These folks were confident in their own righteousness, and as a result, notice, they looked down on everybody else. So Jesus looks at this group, he says, here they are, Mr. and Mrs. Smug and all the smug little children, doing all of these things and despising all these other people, just able to look down on them all. He says, let me tell you a story. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The people, the listeners loved these stories. They just must have waited for the punchline every time. It's so exciting. Here we go again. Jesus has got another the Pharisee versus the sinner story. Wonderful. So, next we have the Pharisee. He stood up and he prayed, verse 11, about himself or to himself. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector here. What he's doing up at the temple to pray, I will never know. You see where his confidence lies, in what he doesn't do, and then in what he does. What does he do? Verse 12. I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of all that I get. I am a tither and I am a double faster. I'm twice as fast as anybody else. Here I am. Twice a week fasting, tithing, not like this Joker. Well, who told you to fast twice a week? No one. There's only one place in the whole of the Old Testament where fasting is demanded. And that's recorded in Leviticus chapter 16 in relationship to the Day of Atonement. Fasting appears all over the place for all kinds of reasons, good. But in terms of God actually saying, this is what I want you to do, it only comes there in relationship to the Day of Atonement. You see, the issue here is not fasting per se. It is that fasting represents the way in which the Pharisees with their systematized, organized religion, believed that they could be and would be accepted by God. So as long as they kept doing all these things meticulously, then God would be pleased to look on them with favor. And so in answering the question, and we're back now in Mark 2, in answering the question, Jesus absolutely disarms the questioners. Why are they not fasting? Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? In other words, you don't fast at a wedding, he says. My wife and I were at a wedding yesterday. We went into the reception. It was a wonderful meal. No time for fasting. No. There was fasting. There was no fasting, they were eating, man. It was it was fantastic. It would have been highly inappropriate, wouldn't it? And if the father of the bride had said, you know, I hope you enjoy these rich crackers. And help yourself to a second glass of water. People would have said, what kind of party is this? And justifiably so. Which is what Jesus is saying. Now you understand that he's pointing out that he is the bridegroom. He's already noted the fact that John the Baptist is the best man. Mark has told us John the Baptist is the best man. He stood on the stage of history, spoken for a moment, got out of the way so that the bridegroom might be introduced. Christ is the bridegroom, is amongst his friends and followers, and he says there's no way that my disciples are going to be fasting while I am here with them. It would be entirely inappropriate. He says verse 20, there's going to come a day when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. Now some people are taking that as a mandate, but it is actually an observation. Jesus is saying, when they have reason for sorrow, when they have reason for disappointment, whatever it might be, that on that day, fasting may be appropriate, but it's not appropriate today. Right now it's, it's party time. It's party time. In fact, the more I read the gospels, the more I realize this. I said there would only be one cross-reference. I'll give you a second one. You'll read it for yourself. Luke chapter 15. And you remember how Luke chapter 15 begins? It says that the tax collectors and the sinners were gathering near, were all coming around to listen to Jesus. So all the all the people who were messed up, left out, burdened by their sin, aware of the fact that their life was a was a walking mess, they are all coming, said, I can't, I, we want to hear from Jesus. But the Pharisees, the religious establishment, they were muttering to one another. And what were they muttering to one another? This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. You see what they're saying. So if he is the person, he couldn't possibly be the person he claimed to be. You couldn't possibly have a Messiah who did this. You couldn't have someone who fulfilled all of the Old Testament expectations and did this. Surely when our Messiah comes, there will be none of this in him. He will be absolutely fastidious. He will have his all the rules and regulations kept. All of his followers will be marked by all of these things. And Jesus said, well, let me just tell you a few stories. There's a lost sheep. There are 99 safe. Shepherd went for the one that was lost. Lady broke her necklace or her coins or whatever it was, and she had nine tenths of it intact, but the tenth of it was gone. She scoured the entire house looking for it. He says, I, the reason I told you that is because that's that's God's disposition towards those who are lost. He goes out looking for the lost one. He's an initiative-taking, seeking God. He's not hiding behind a corner the way that it is suggested on the media. That somehow or another God has gone, is in disguise somewhere or is hidden off somewhere, and we're all looking around for him. No. No, the Bible says that God is actually, he came down, he's, he's Good morning. I'm here to speak to you today. So glad you came to this service. Are you listening to what that funny Scotsman is saying? Are you listening to this God says inside of you? How are you going to stand before God? Are you going to stand before God on the basis of your goodness? Or are you going to stand before God trusting in the goodness of someone else? That's the question he's asking. That's the question Jesus is posing. That is the vital question. And you remember when he finally gets to his third story, he says, and a man there was a certain man had two sons. And one of them went off and blew it out. And another one blew it out while he was still in the house, externally present, externally correct, doing everything that was expected of him, but doing it like a slave. The other boy went off and went totally hog wild. But he came to himself and he repented, and he came back to his father, and his father forgave him and gave him a wonderful party and with the singing and the dancing going on. The elder brother, he came and he heard the singing and the dancing, and the servant said to him, your brother is back. And the lionries, but he refused to go in. Why did he refuse to go in? For the same reason that some of you still do not trust Christ. Because you like the idea of earned acceptance with God. Because it puts you in a better light. You don't like this idea that the worst, most miserable, lying, cheating, scornful, immoral person is in Christ, covered over with his righteousness, accepted, redeemed, restored. And all because of another and not because of him or not because of her. That message will always stick in the gullet of a Pharisee. And that, you see, is what makes Jesus so controversial. That's the significance of what he says about the shrinking of the garment and the bursting of the wineskins. It's very simple. You don't need to beat it up. You don't cut up a new garment to make patches for an old one. It won't work. The shrinkage will tear it apart. You don't put new wine into old wineskins because the wine that is new has still a fermentation process, and if the wineskins are old and brittle and so on, old leather wineskins, then the fermentation process will actually blow the wineskin apart. What is Jesus saying? He's saying the wine of new life which he has come to bring, cannot be contained in the shrunken, brittle old wineskins of a man-made religion. What he is saying is that the liberating, life-transforming message which he has come to proclaim, that of unmerited favor with God with free forgiveness, it cannot be stitched into their form of established religion. It actually tears it away. In other words, Jesus is controversial because he is pointing out that the two approaches, one represented by the Pharisees and the other represented by himself are mutually incompatible. They are mutually incompatible. That's what he's saying. You're not going to be able to come up with a hybrid. You can't do it. It won't be done. You say, well, we're far removed from the Pharisees. We're not Pharisees. Well, I hope you're not. Let me tell you what Pharisees believe, just in case you might believe this. Pharisees essentially believed that a good God will reward nice people for doing their best. A good God will reward nice people for doing their best. Now, I wager that if I go with you this afternoon to all the little festivities over here in chagrin Falls, and we just go up and down amongst the crowd, that will be the prevailing view of people that we meet. If there is a God, how would we, how will he ever accept us? And it will come back to you again and again. Well, if he's a good God, he'll be happy if nice people like us just do our best. And then that begs the question, what in the world was Jesus of Nazareth doing hanging up there on that cross? You see, Jesus was proclaiming a salvation that depended entirely upon God. The Pharisees were proclaiming a salvation that depended largely upon them. Jesus was asking men and women to face up to the fact of their leprosy, stained and spoiled by sin. And then to realize that he is the one who makes them clean. He was asking them to face up to the fact of their paralysis, as it were, in terms of the healings that have taken place. And then to realize that he is the one who's able to set us on our feet. But the two notions are incompatible. Let me finish with two quotes. One from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, which you can find in the bookstore, from yesterday morning's reading, the 23rd of May. And Spurgeon is writing concerning the the trust of the psalmist in God, the Rock of Ages. And he says of the psalmist, the psalmist was wise, he rested on nothing less than the Lord's work. And then he wrote this. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us. It is he who has carried it on, and if he does not finish it, it never will be completed. Now here's the sentence that I didn't mark, but I didn't scribble, but I marked it in my mind. Listen to this sentence. If there is one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness, that we must insert ourselves, then we are lost. If there is one stitch in the in the celestial garment of our righteousness that we must insert, then we are lost. Do you see what he's saying? Jesus did not die upon the cross to get us started, so that we might contribute to our acceptance by God as a result of good things that we do. Jesus died upon the cross, bearing all of our sin in himself, and providing for us a free and a full salvation, and a robe of righteousness which is all his righteousness, all his acceptance with God, all of his keeping of the law, all of his sacrifice for sin. So that if we actually think to ourselves that we are stitching into the celestial garment of righteousness our own stitches, then says Spurgeon, we do not understand the Gospel. And I am fearful that some of you, particularly from a Roman Catholic background, are just about exactly there. Let me give you my final quote. From the 18th, 18th century. A vicar in England in Bedfordshire, his name was John Berridge. He was an interesting man. He wrote his own epitaph and I'll read the epitaph and then we'll be done. This is what is written on his tombstone. Here lie the earthly remains of John Berridge, late vicar of Everton and an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, who loved his master and his work, and after running on his errands many years, was called to wait on him above. Okay? So we walked through the graveyard and say, John Berridge has gone, where is he gone? He's gone to serve Jesus. He's just doing it somewhere else. Okay? What else has Berridge left for us as we walk through the graveyard? Well, now he addresses the reader. It actually says, reader, in big bold letters. Reader, art thou born again? No salvation without new birth. Exclamation mark. I was born in sin, February 1716. Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730. So what is that? He was 14? I don't know, 30 minus 16. 14. You must help me with this. This is not rhetoric when we do the math. You've got to stay right with me. It's not, I'm not. This is not. These are real questions. So, born in sin, February 16th, remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730. Now listen to this one. Lived proudly on faith and works for salvation till 1754. All right? So from 19, from 1730 to 1754, 24 years, 24 and 14 is 38, until he was 38, he lived proudly on faith and works for salvation. Was admitted to Everton Vicarage 1755, when he was 39. He becomes the minister in the church. Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756. After he has been preaching for a year to his congregation, he finally gets it himself. It is solely on account of what God has done in Christ that I am ever accepted by him. And therefore, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to his cross I cling. Naked come to him for dress, helpless come to thee to him for rest. And therefore, stinky old me to his fountain flies. Saying, you better wash me, Jesus. Or I'm a dead man. I'm a dead girl. And you see how insidious the sounds of established religion are ringing in our ears. Oh, you don't need that silly old stuff. You're a good fellow. You're a fine girl. How dreadful it would be, wouldn't it, to be kept, to be kept from all of the wonder of what Jesus came to do, kept by our goodness, kept from him by our goodness. Kept from him by our badness. I'm so bad he could never fix me. What? Who do you think you are? And perhaps today you might be able to enter into your journal, I've been living for so many years, proudly on the strength of faith and works. Cast myself entirely upon Christ. Cast myself unreservedly on Christ. Told them I have got not a hope in the world, Jesus, apart from you. Apart from you. That's what it means to be a Christian.
Alistair Begg: You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. He'll be back in just a minute to close today's program. We know that when we pray according to God's will, he answers, but it can be difficult to know how we ought to pray and how to look for the answer. Today on Truth For Life, we're offering a free audiobook that you'll find tremendously helpful. It's Alistair's book, Pray Big, Learn to Pray like an Apostle. As you listen to the audiobook, you'll unpack the prayers of the Apostle Paul and learn how to pray with confidence for the things God desires, things like spiritual growth or steadfast faith, or like John Berridge in the story Alistair just told, to find refuge.