The People of God

What I talked about five months ago was, if you remember, I went through, and I'll just recap a little bit of it to launch into what I want to cover now. It's basic material, but it's very important material as we go into Pentecost to think about. What I talked about was Israel in prophecy. And I went through it showed that replacement theology, the idea that the church replaces all the promises made to Israel, is not true.

But Israel, what God is doing with Israel, changed with the coming of Christ. And the promises he made to Abraham and to those people, he also promised them a new covenant. He told them they would go into captivity, and he told them they would come out of captivity and be reunited with God when the Messiah comes.

So there's a time period between them going into captivity and they're being reunited as the people to God. And those prophecies all say they'll be reunited as a whole to God when the Messiah comes. So then, where are God's people now? Now, I talked about how there were three basic reasons God used Israel. One was Israel was a family God was going to, through whom God was going to produce a Messiah. Genesis 12, we'll just review this real quick. Genesis 12, it's the problem when you get the second part five months later.

So it's like he gave a sermon on that? You have to go look up your notes. Genesis 12, verse 1, Now, when we look at the Old Testament, the entire Old Testament is how God works with Abraham's physical descendants. You know, most of the mention of other peoples in other nations are direct relationship to their relationship to the descendants of Abraham.

There's nothing about the Chinese in the Old Testament. There's some mention of probably what are oriental peoples, but very little is mentioned about people all over the rest of the globe. Predominantly, it's how people are relating to those physical descendants of Abraham. So he says all the people of the earth will be blessed. And so it's through these people that God would work out salvation history so that the Messiah would come.

He would punish them. He would take them out of the nation or the land. He would bring them back to the land. He would send them prophets. He could continually work with these people so that when the time came, and this is what's amazing, from this point to the time Jesus is born, at the exact time He's supposed to come, in the exact place, there's a young woman named Mary who's the exact person to be the mother of the Messiah.

That isn't by accident. That's not by accident. And this whole history of the Old Testament is to that point. They get to that point. Now, there's other reasons for God to use those people, but that's one of them. Look at Acts 3. Acts 3. Now, remember that at this point, Peter is talking to predominantly a Jewish audience. He is at the Temple. There are a bit of proselytes there, but it's predominantly a Jewish audience. And he says to them in verse 25, this is the end of his sermon, You are the sons of the prophets and the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying... Now, what does he go back to?

Well, we just read. He goes back to Genesis. So, okay, here's the promise. And his promise is coming to you first. So who's he talking to? To those people first. That means it has to go to others also. When it comes to first, there has to be a second. And to you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you, and turning away every one of you from it, you're iniquities.

So what we have is, he came to those people first because he said he would. Now, the course of the entire New Testament, the whole book of Acts, and everything that's written after the book of Acts, is basically how this message of who Christ is, and his coming to set up God's kingdom on the earth, and the need to accept his sacrifice, and who the real God is, and that becomes the message of the entire New Testament as it spreads out to Gentiles.

Till you get churches like Corinth, where there doesn't seem to be hardly any Jews at all. Circumstances mention one time in the church of Corinth. It's not important. It sure is if you have a lot to choose. He'd offer to idols. All the other issues in Corinth, those are Gentile issues. So it expands outward, just like he said. So one of the reasons he picked these people was so that the Messiah would go through them.

The physical, you know, Jesus, his divinity, who he is is the divine Son of God, but that his physical part would come through these people. He is a son of Abraham, the son of David. A second reason is, and I won't go through the Scriptures that we went through, but Israel was to be a witness of the true God to all people. They were given a system of laws. They were given a system of worship, and they were to witness. And the word witness is used. You know, what is a witness? A witness says, I have seen something, and I'm telling you the truth.

They were to say, I have seen the true God. We know the true God. We worship the true God. And all people were supposed to look at them and say, they are different. Now, I don't think what Israel fully understood was that in Satan's world, the whole world was going to look at them and say, you are different. We're going to kill you. That's what they weren't prepared for. The third reason is they were to preserve the teachings of God.

We have the Old Testament because the Jews died to give us the Old Testament. They kept it. They made sure that those things were preserved. Now, they added a lot of things. That's why we don't have a Talmud we preach from. But we do have the Old Testament that was preserved by those people. So, through them, the Messiah was going to come.

Through them, they were to be, and they were, from the time of Abraham, almost 2,000 years, to the time they were destroyed, 135 AD as a nation. What you have is that being a witness. Not always a very good witness. In fact, most of the time, they were a bad witness. But they were a witness of God. Everybody knew about even what Israel was doing wrong. They were associated with the God of Israel.

Even when they were worshipping idols, you could separate them from Yahweh. They were still attached to God. And so, they witnessed. And three, they preserved the teachings of God. But there was a problem with the covenant God made with them. When He came out to Mount Sinai, God made a covenant with them. What we call the Old Covenant, the Sinai Covenant. He gave them His moral laws. He gave them a priesthood. He gave them agricultural laws. He gave them laws on how to run a society.

We've been doing this series of sermons on holiness. And everyone we go through, we spent about the first half going through holiness of the Old Testament. And then applying that into the New Testament. Because this concept, you are a holy people. He gave them what they needed to fulfill these things. But they kept failing. They kept failing. The reason they kept failing is explaining back in Numbers 11. They never fulfilled what they were supposed to be. Numbers 11. Some did. Most did not. Numbers 11. Numbers 16. Moses had gone to God and said, I just can't do this. I'm overburdened. He just became overburdened with the rulership over Israel.

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and placed the same spirit upon the seventy elders. And it happened when the spirit rested upon them that they prophesied, although they never did so again. So they began to speak with this inspiration, although they never really spoke with inspiration again. But two men had remained in the camp. One was El-Dad, and the other was Medad. And the spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed that who had not gone out to the tabernacle, yet they prophesied at the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, El-Dad and Medad are prophesying at the camp. So Joshua, the son of Dadd, Moses' assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, Moses, my Lord, forbid them. They're preaching. They're prophesying. We need to go stop this. And knowing Joshua, he said, I have a sword strapped on. Do you want me to take care of it? And verse 29, and Moses said to him, Are you zealous for my sake? Or jealous as it is translated, some translations. Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. He says, if everybody had the spirit, we'd have a lot less work to do. There was a problem. The problem was that these people had God's presence right there in the cloud. The very presence of God. They had the laws. They had priesthood. They had the holy days. They had sacrifices. They had everything God had given them. But they did not have the ability to change inside themselves. They could do external changes, but they did not have the internal changes, or ability to make the internal changes. And Moses said, if everybody just had the spirit of God. So there was a problem with the covenant. Now, once again, this is very basic information, but I think it's important we go back sometimes and relay certain foundations to review these things. Because it's so easy. Well, it's like I said when I came back from the conference. We're just going to get off into things that don't matter. And that happens all the time in the Church. We drift off into...and I'm preparing a sermon on how in our society, what's happening in our society, that actually moves us into secret knowledge and the deed for secret knowledge, and the secret deed for what we think is new knowledge, when we don't even understand what God has given to us. So it's important to go back through some of these basic concepts. So, Israel was told over and over again, the covenant doesn't work, and the covenant doesn't work for one reason. You don't have God's Spirit. That's not new. Ezekiel told him. Jeremiah told him. Moses told him. This isn't that hard. How many times? It's not far from you. This isn't that hard. Just do what God says, but he never could keep it up very long. Even one generation might, but sooner or later they would do it. It's because they didn't have God's Spirit. So you have Scriptures like Ezekiel 36. Let's look at this one. Just look at 1. Ezekiel 36. Some of you did. This is basically an overview of what we covered in that first sermon. And we'll watch this into the next important concept about the church in God's plan in prophecy. Ezekiel 36. 16.

So this is after the people had been taken into captivity.

They were not a very good witness of me here, so I scattered Israel throughout the lands. And now they're a bad witness of me. Every place they go.

Now it's very interesting because wherever they went, people said, all these are the people of the land of Israel. There God kicked them out. Because remember, in ancient times, the concept of local gods was absolutely dominating in their lives. The God of Babylon, if they defeated the God of Israel, what did that show? If the God of Israel existed, it showed that their God was stronger than the God of Israel. So the fact that they get defeated by another country is profiting the name of God, as far as other countries are concerned. The fact that they're taking into slavery is like, well, their God isn't much, is he? He could protect them. Our gods were stronger.

Verse 21 says, but I am concerned for my holy name. I am concerned for my holy name. God says, I didn't have concern for you, so don't take this too personal. Is that I am concerned for who I am, and the fact that all these people are profaning me. Wherever you go, people say, oh, these Israelites, where their God isn't much. He says, I had concern for my holy name, whereas the house of Israel had profaned among the nations, wherever they went. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, that says to the Lord God, I do not do this for your sake. It's real encouraging if you're an Israelite. Other than this for you, folks. But it is in another way, because it shows the faithfulness of God to do this. To do what is right. And to fulfill His... If He made a promise, He's going to do it.

I do not do this for your sake, oh house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations, wherever you went. And I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed... Now this is interesting. When I am hallowed in you before their eyes.

He says, when I make you holy, people are going to say, wow, that really is a great God.

So He tells Israelites, and this is part of the prophecy, and that's why you can't now throw out Israel as having importance to God. Even in captivity, He said, I did this because of you, but I will save you because of me. And you will be made holy some day, so the people will say how great that God of Israel is.

For I will take you from among the nations, verse 24, gather you out of all the countries, and bring you to your own land. This hasn't happened yet. The restoration of the Jews to what is now Israel in 1948 didn't fulfill this whole... This is the promise to all of Israel, not just to the Jews. And I will sprinkle clean of water on you, and you shall be clean. And I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. This hasn't happened yet. This hasn't happened to the Jews that are there. And I will give you, this is interesting, a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirits within you, and cause you to walk into my statutes, and you will keep my judgments to do them. Then you shall dwell on the land that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. That hasn't happened yet. That's in the future. Now that's the prophetic point where God is going to take ancient Israel. But when Jesus came, He pronounced He was doing something different. When He said, I am going to create my church. I am going to create my church. So, as the people of Israel fulfilled what God was going to have them do in bringing about the Messiah, because they didn't fulfill what they were supposed to do as a witness, and they were obedience to God, they were going to be taken back into captivity. Not only Israel, but now Judah was going to be taken back into captivity. And they would disappear. The Romans, the Romans destroyed them with 35. They don't show up again in that land until 1948.

So, between that time, and still those people haven't turned to God, they haven't repented, they haven't accepted Christ as the Messiah. What is God doing? Well, this is what Jesus meant when He said, I will start a church. And this points us right to Pentecost. Matthew 16.

You know, let's go to Isaiah. Just real quick here. I'm trying not to do too many scriptures here. I really want to get into the church. But this one is sort of important. Let's go to Isaiah 42, and we'll come back to this, Matthew 16. Isaiah 42 is a Messianic prophecy that speaks directly about Christ coming. It is seen as a Messianic prophecy by Jews and Christians. That's why this is so important. And verse 1 says, Behold my servant, who I uphold, my elect one with whom I sold delights, I put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles, the Dacians, everybody. This prophecy about the Messiah is a whole lot more than just a prophecy about the Messiah coming to the Jews. In fact, he says, He will not cry out or raise his voice, or cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he will not quench, he will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands will wait for his law. Every place, all around the earth, every place you go will be waiting for his law. So, the Messiah comes to bless, remember, the promise made to Abraham, all nations. When God was working only through Israel and Judah, all nations were being blessed. Unless they were blessing Israel, then he blessed them. But they weren't being blessed. So, how does he include all peoples? Now, let's go to Matthew 16. Matthew 16. And verse 13. Matthew 16 and 13. When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, is or am? And they said some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. People actually believed he was a reincarnation of these men because of the work that he was doing. And, you know, I mean, this is a strange concept, but they're actually thinking he's so great, he must be a reincarnation of one of these great men of history, or God that resurrected this person back to life. And Jesus says to them, who do you say that I am? Okay, you're my disciples. What do you tell them? And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He said, you're the Messiah. You are the Son of God. And Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood is not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it. Now, this verse has been used to say a lot of things. First of all, he's building a church, so we know that. Now, the word church is important. That Greek word, eklesia, ek, being out of, klesia means a calling. You know, you're being called out. The way it was used in contemporary Greek was it meant an assembly of citizens called together to do the work of the government. In other words, they had sort of a pseudo-democracy in the different cities in Greece. And actually, in many cities in the Roman Empire, they had a pseudo-democracy. They would have the Roman governor or somebody in charge, and they would have some kind of what we would call parliament or senate, you know, sort of group of leaders. And then a lot of times they would have an assembly of all the people. I'll show you a place where that's used. Keep a marker here in Matthew. But let's go to Acts 19.

Acts 19.38.

Some of the journeys of Paul here.

Verse 38 says, Therefore if the Beatrice and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open. And this is where someone is saying that there's a lot of turmoil on the streets. They're saying, well, let's stop this because, you know, we have a big enough riot and a Roman legion is going to show up, and we don't want that. He said, so, you know, there are courts. There's a system of law to deal with this, and there are pro-councils. Let them break charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly. You could just as soon translate that the lawful church.

Now, they're not talking about the church of God. They're not talking about, okay, the assembly, where everybody who are decision-making come together for decisions. So you could call, you know, if you have a city council and they come together, you could call that a church in Greek, a klesia. And that would be a proper use of the word. So he says he's gathering people together. He's calling out people to come together as his group of people, his assembly, the assembly of Christ, to be the people of God. We're the church of God. So we go back to Matthew, though.

That's why it's not a building.

It's not even a corporation. It's the people. How many people tell me sometimes, well, the church does this and the church does that and so on. What do you mean by that? You know, the church. Okay, you're the church. So what does that mean? Why about the church? Well, what are you?

Well, what do you mean? Are you a member of the church? Are you a part of the klesia? Yeah, well, then you're the church.

Oh, come on. Let's think of this through because we're going to be talking about the church. So before we use them, people will say that they will, I don't like what a minister did. Well, the minister's a member of the church, but he's not the church.

We're the church. We're the ones God has called out. And he says, back in verse 18, that you are Peter, and oh, this rock it will build my church. Now, the Catholic Church used to use this to claim that Peter was the first pope because this rock refers to Peter. There's a lot of Catholic scholars today who would not support that because they know that if you look at this in Greek, this is a play on words. Peter Petros is a detached stone or a small rock. Petra means massive rock. You are a little rock, and on this big rock, I'm going to build my church. In the New Testament, Peter is never referred to as the massive rock or foundation. The word foundation is used also. A foundational stone. Back then, foundations were all built out of stone. So they were large stones. Jesus is called over and over again the foundation. In 1 Corinthians 10, he's called the rock. And of course, the rock is actually a name of God in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God is called the rock. So this is a play on words. He's not saying, I'm going to build my church on Peter. Peter is part of it. All of us are part of it. We are called living stones. In this analogy, Peter later calls us living stones in his writings. So we are all rocks. We're all stones. We're just little ones. And we're built on the massive rock that is Christ. The important thing is, a church is being built.

Verse 18 says, And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whenever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven. Whenever you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven. Verse 19 has been misused at times to say that basically the church can make up whatever it wants in terms of doctrines or how it administrates things. This was basically the same kind of statement that was made to the Levites. The Levites had to make judgments on how to make things work or how to apply God's law.

They didn't have the right to work outside of those those who were in those restraints. So the church, whether it's the entire ecclesia or whether it's ministers within that church who have to make certain decisions, have to work within the confines of the law of God and the teachings of God. We're just not allowed to go make up things. So that verse has been misused sometimes to do some anti-biblical decisions.

By what authority? Well, the authority of that. Now, that authority is that we have to make decisions, and we have to do that all the time.

How long should a woman skirt me?

They never had that decision to make in the first century.

Every society in the Middle East told you how long it was and touched the ground, basically. That wasn't an issue they never had to deal with.

Sometimes we have to ask those kinds of questions, right? And that church has to come up with some kind of answer.

We have to make those kinds of decisions all the time, and we can't make them arbitrarily. We have to look at the confines of the Scripture to make certain decisions. So that's what he's saying. For this community to work, then you have to be able to make community decisions. And sometimes we'll do that as a group. We've set down as a group at a congregational meeting and made a decision on how to do something, or how to work it on something, or we can make that as long as we're saying, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to keep Christmas. We don't have the right to do that. We can't vote to keep Christmas to be still the Church of God. So it always has to be with the confines of God's way. But obviously, there's also an understanding here. Just like he gave the Levites and elders. In fact, there's a place in the Old Testament where he says, if you have a problem, do not go to the Levites and the elders. Because if you do, I will hold you accountable that you must do what they say.

So he said, as best you don't. Because you're probably not going to like their decisions. But if you do that, I will hold you accountable that you must do what they say. But the Levites and the elders could not work outside the confines of God's structure. Now sometimes, you know, they weren't perfect at it. Just like the Church has never been perfect at it. Whether it be the members, the elders, when we work together, they pretty much were dysfunctional.

Read the New Testament.

It was a pretty dysfunctional Church. I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit poured out on Pentecost. It's not too much later. It's not more a few weeks later. They have a huge battle going on at church between Hellenistic Jews and Hebrew Jews. But they're all Jews. They don't be the same to you and me. They didn't see each other as the same. And they had to fix it. They had to come up with a decision. Do you know what the decision was? Or date deacons. We've got to put somebody in charge of this mess. And the Apostle said, we're not going to do it. We're going to date somebody else to do it. Because we have other important things to do. So they created deacons. You don't have to find deacons in the Old Testament. Where did they get that from? They just sort of made it up. I mean, with God's help. But you know what I mean? They had to come up with a solution to the problem. With God's help, they did.

But they came up with deacons. Or table waiters, as they are called there. They're not called deacons. They're just guys that wait on tables. So they had to ordain table waiters. Now that's an interesting job, isn't it? We're going to, after services, we're going to date three of you mid-table waiters.

So now let's go to Acts 2. Let's look at what we're going to be celebrating here.

Well, we're going to be celebrating next Sunday.

When the dead Pentecosts had fully come, they were all one place and one accord. Now who were these people? These were the disciples of Jesus Christ. They weren't ordinary Jews. They were men and women who had been called out to personally follow Jesus Christ. And they didn't fit in the regular Jewish community. They sure didn't fit in the Gentile community. What he was starting was new. And it was going to first go to the Jewish community, but it was going to leave the Jewish community behind.

Modern Judaism is not the true religion of God. It has elements of the true religion of God, but it's not the true religion of God.

And we have to understand that. We're always fascinated with Judaism because we trace our roots back through that. But if it was the true religion of God, they would have accepted Jesus Christ. See, they have elements of it, and we should ignore it. But we have to realize it's not the true religion of God.

They were now, this church, this group of called out was beginning to separate themselves. And here's how they were really going to be separated. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one set upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews devout men from every nation under heaven. What was missing in the first covenant? What was promised for the second covenant? What is happening? It's the Holy Spirit, which was missing in the first covenant, is now being poured out. Peter sees this. Peter immediately, in verse 16, he immediately begins to say, you know what? We were told this! This is what the prophets talked about. Look at verse 16. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.

That shall come to pass as the last day, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Now, I want to stop there, because the rest of this is a prophecy about Israel. That Israel would receive the Spirit of God. But in the very first sentence of Joel, it says, on all flesh. That's very important, because now we're back to Genesis. We're back to Genesis, where it says, He will bless all the families of the earth. When this church was started, and it starts here with predominantly Jews, because He said it will start with them, it wasn't supposed to stop with them. The church now was to go to everybody, everywhere. I think sometimes we have to be careful, and I wish I could get the wrong idea about what I'm saying here, because I believe it, but we have to be careful about our emphasizing the modern Ephraim of Manasseh. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's true. We teach it as part of our doctrines. But you know, we've emphasized that to the point we've actually driven Gentiles out of the church. Besides, can anybody here actually prove that they're an ancient Israelite? I can! In fact, if we look at it. You know, one thing is interesting about Manasseh, the Ephraim, they never were a people that somehow was purely Israelite. They were half Egyptian to begin with. Remember? Joseph married an Egyptian woman, so they never were somehow some pure peoples.

So we have to be real careful what we do with that teaching and that understanding. It helps us understand history and prophecy. It tells us nothing about salvation.

Because the church was to go out and expand out to whomever God called everywhere. It doesn't erase the fact that God has a purpose for those people. But we really have to understand that what Pentecost represents is the last 2,000 years of God reaching out to everybody and creating a people who were God of people. Galatians chapter 3. Here Paul just makes it so succinct. Galatians chapter 3.

Verse 26. He's talking to a church who is arguing and splitting and fighting over, how much of a Jew do you have to become to become a Christian?

And that was a hard argument to get through. How many ceremonies do you have to do? How much washings do you have to do? How many sacrifices do you have to do? Do you have to be circumcised? I mean, that's a hard question. They had to wrestle with that. He says, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ and put on Christ. So inside the church there's either Jude or Greek, there's either slave or free, there's either male or female if you're all one in Christ. Now that doesn't mean we're still not different. I mean, if you were a slave at this point, guess what? And your master was not Christian? You were still a slave. And so far we're all still male and female. Thank God for that. So, he's not saying physically you've changed, but in here and how we accept each other has changed. You know, in the church there is no separation like there was in the synagogue where the women sat in one place and the men in the other, or that Gentiles were in one place and Jewish bed were in another. No. We all come together as one family. As he says, in verse 29, If you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the prophecy, well, I'm not Abraham's seed, I'm not a physical Israelite. The promise was made to all peoples, remember? All families. The promise is made to the physical Israel, as we went through last time, is land. It's land, and that they will be the witness of God. The promise made to the church is all things. It's a little bigger. It is a little bigger. And it still comes through Abraham. He says in verse 1 of chapter 4, Now if I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, then he is a master of all, right? If you are a child, and you are being taught, you are not the master of the house yet. And all the adults tell you what to do. And in that society, it was very interesting, because children sometimes were raised by slaves.

They had slaves that would teach them, and train them, and be with them. And so, yeah, the slave was over the child.

But it is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so, we, when we were children, were embodied under the elements of the world. And when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. To redeem those who were under the law, then we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, there were adoption there, it's very interesting, because in the Gentile world, in the Roman world, adoption to a Jew wouldn't have meant anything. They were born the children of God. Right? What's the argument to Jesus? Wait a minute, we were circumcised on the 8th day. We are the children of Abraham. We can trace our bloodline clear back to Abraham, right? We are the children of Abraham.

We are the children of God. Adoption doesn't mean anything. But in the robo world, adoption is an incredible concept. Because in the robo world, when you were adopted, you became fully blood. I mean, there are many cases where in Romans, a Roman may not like his son, but they like another person, who's a...they say, well, that's a decent young guy. And they disown the son, and they adopt him, and that person becomes his son.

Completely... Have you ever watched the movie Ben Hur? You know, as Ben Hur gets adopted by a Roman general, and he calls him son, and he calls him father, and they hug each other, and there's this bond between them. Actually, that's what happened. Adoption was...if you asked a Roman, are you an adopted child, they would have looked at you, they probably wouldn't have known what you meant. Adoption was something that took place after it took place. You weren't adopted, you were the son. You were the child of that person, just as real as if you were physically begotten by that person. It was that intense. So when he uses this word adoption, the power in a church is overwhelming. You are the children. I can...we're not physical in the sense of Abraham. He says, yes, you are. Well, how can we be that? Because you're adopted. Oh, we are the children. They were, in their bloods, literally children of Abraham.

That's incredible, because he's bringing these people together and saying, no, no, no, Jews, you can't say they're not the children of Abraham. Now, we're going to get into a minute where he had to also deal with the Gentile problem. He says... Verse 6, Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son did err of God through Christ. So they literally now became heirs of Abraham. Not heirs of the physical land, because the physical promises are made to the church. But heirs of the kingdom of God. Because that's the promise that comes through Christ. So how, then, does the church in Israel relate to each other? Now, it's very interesting, because when you look through Galatians, you have Jews trying to make Gentiles become Jews in order to be part of the church. When you look at Romans, you basically have Romans saying, ah, those Jews, you know, putting down the Jews. They had to deal with both. Unfortunately, what actually happened is these Gentiles, who hated the Jews, won out.

And when they literally pushed the Jews out of the church, and hated them, and they've ended up persecuting them, they also threw out the ten commandments, they threw out the Sabbath, they threw out the Cleveland and Clifey meatballs, they threw out the Holy Days. They ended up throwing out the truth of God, because they were driven by anti-Semitism.

That was already started in the first century. For the first couple decades, they dealt with Jews who wanted to grab all the Gentiles and say, nope, you've got to become just like me. You've got to wear a prayer shawl. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to wear a prayer shawl. You've got to pray just like I do. And Paul said, no, they don't. There is a neighbor in him through Christ. So they wanted to become Jews. When the Gentiles got control of the church, and the apostles were gone, the opposite happened. Well, you've got to get rid of the Jews. And they threw out the truth. And we have what is considered a Gentile church today, who is proud that it's against Judaism, and sometimes proud that it's against the Old Testament. So how does Paul deal with that? Let's go to Romans, which is... Romans said your Bible is before Galatians, but actually it's written years after Galatians. And he has to deal with this in the city of Rome, where he has a church that's Gentile and part Jew, and what are they dealing with here? And he deals with this in Romans 9, 10, and 11. And we're just going to look at a couple of places to get a feel for what he tells them. Romans 9, verse 1.

Paul says here... Paul just bears his soul here.

So he says, I'm talking here specifically about Jews, and by extension Israelites.

Who pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises? Of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is overall the eternal blessed God, Amen. Now, he really sets the stage here for Gentiles, who are anti-Jewish. First of all, he says, you know, I wish all Jews came into the church, because how important are Jews to God's plan of salvation?

Well, let's see. Here's all the things that pertain to the adoption. Remember, adoption means a lot to these people. They now become children of Abraham. The glory. That has to do with the Shekadah, the Spirit of God. The covenants. Remember, the New Covenant is made first with Israel. The first people to receive the New Covenant were what? 11 Jews who were sitting with Jesus. Who were the first people to receive the New Covenant? Except for Judas, there were 11 Jews. Why? Because the covenant was said, it first starts with you.

He says, the covenants, the giving of the law. He doesn't say, of course, that dirty law that's been done away with. He says, we have the law because God gave it to them. Which is an odd statement. If he's so anti-law, everybody makes him out to be. He's telling you what's good, God gave them the law. The service of God and the promises. He's telling the Gentile church, how many promises were made to you through any other person except Abraham. All families of the earth. He says, let's go back and remember before we throw these people away.

And of course, of whom are the fathers? Now he doesn't say the fathers of the Jews. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. They're all considered fathers of the church, too. He doesn't say their fathers. He says the fathers. So their fathers of the church. According to the flesh, came. So Christ came. Okay, so then Christ came as the Messiah, according to promise. So let's set the stage here. Verse 6. But it is not that the word of God is taken to effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel.

Nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham. But it's Isaac your seed shall be called. He said, what does that mean? That seems a little confusing here. Let's reverse to the next verse. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.

But the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise, at this time I will come, and say, or shall have a son. What he's saying here is, the physical descendants of Abraham haven't always been all the children of God.

You see, what does that mean? Well, when Israel came out of Egypt, there was a great multitude with them that was not Israel. When Abraham went and attacked the kings of Assyria, who had taken lot, with his army, you know, always slaves, and they were considered his tribe, right? How many of them had come from his loins? None. The tribe of Abraham, at that point, had zero children of Abraham. Now, they weren't calling Israelites yet, because Israel hadn't come along, but they were Hebrews. They were the tribe of Abraham. So, you say, you know, not all Israelites were actually Israelites. Of course, even Abraham wasn't Israelite, which is what I think the play of words is, until Israel came along, and there were no Israelites.

So now he starts to take this in a different perspective. So he says, not all Israel are of Israel. Now, he actually explains this a little bit earlier in this book. Let's go back to Romans 2, verse 28. I don't have time to go through a lot of Romans 9 and 10 and 11, but I just want to capture a couple points. Romans 2, 28.

He tells them here, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor a circumcision that which is outward of the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inward, and circumcision is that of the heart, and the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. What he's basically saying here is, okay, we're going to look at this in two different ways.

There are physical heirs of Abraham, who are physical descendants of Abraham. And then there are spiritual heirs of Abraham, who are spiritual Israelites. We'll call them spiritual Jews, okay? We'll call them...but why? Because they are adopted into the spiritual family of God, and they receive the spiritual promises made. That doesn't negate the physical promises he made to the physical descendants, but they are a whole lot greater. And these people are spiritual Jews, or spiritual Israelites. This is the church, and this is what was started on Pentecost. Now, Paul has to try to explain this to the Roman world, to the church in Rome, which is very confused over this.

Let's just, in closing here, let's just look at two short-word sets of verses. Romans 11.1. Paul says, I say this, has God cast away his people? Now, he's talking about the physical Jews and the physical Israelites. He says, certainly not. For I am an Israelite, at the seat of Abraham, by the tribe of Benjamin. He says, you know, I'm not even a Jew.

He says, I'm an Israelite, I'm the tribe of Benjamin. He says, God has it thrown those people away. He says, it was a plan for them. God has not cast away his people, who before do. Or do you not know that the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets and tore down your altars, and I alone have left, and they seek my life.

And this is what Elijah said when he just gave up. He says, everybody in Israel has turned against you, and I just give up. I'm the only person left. But what does the divine response say to him? I have reserved for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed their knee to Baal. He didn't even know there were 7,000 men, plus their families in Israel. He didn't know that. He says, God even had back then, when Israel seemed to be a total rebellion, he had those who he was working with. But what, verse 5, Even so then, at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. He says, remember, God, there's always going to be some physical descendants of Abraham in the Church, someplace.

We may not all know who is and who isn't. That doesn't matter. That really doesn't matter, folks. It doesn't. But there will always be within the Church a remnant of the physical descendants of Abraham, because he said it would be. But it's just a remnant.

And if by grace, so it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it's no longer grace, otherwise the work is no longer work. So what we have here is, God's going to do this in spite of themselves sometimes. But God's always going to call someplace. There's always going to be a remnant of the physical heirs, physical descendants of Abraham, from all the different tribes. And he said, well, that means of Jews, not necessarily, because the point he makes at the beginning of this is, I'm not even a Jew! He said, I'm from the start of a Benjamin. And there are going to be remnants for those people. They won't even know who they are scattered in the Church. So just like we can't go to the extreme that says all, you know, genealogies, let's figure out who's an Israelite. You know, I guess the more Israelites I have, the stronger our Church is.

We can't go to the other extreme and say, oh, well, you know, God's throwing away all the Israelites, or all the Jews. We can't do that extreme either. The whole purpose of the Church is, it is a remnant of Israel and people from all over the world brought together into the most improbable community that you could ever imagine.

I told the people in San Antonio this morning, I said, you know, I had a conversation with someone recently who said, I didn't tell them this, but I brought out in a different way. The person who moved to San Antonio, they said, you know what? This Church is one of the most dysfunctional Churches I've ever been in. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows everybody's faults. Everybody is sort of at odds with each other at times. Everybody confesses their sins to each other. He says, I've been in different congregations all my life and everybody basically knew each other, only its avocervices, where everybody was very proper and they shook hands. But nobody really ever knew anybody. And he says, the more you know each other, the more you know each other's faults, the more dysfunctional it is. And he said, this is what the Church is supposed to be. I said, yeah, welcome to my world. And every place I go, I create a dysfunctional Church. I have. Because otherwise it's just a big sham that we pretend it's not a dysfunctional Church. So let's just make it what it is. Let's just get to know each other, then I have to go and stop this fight, and this person's sin was found out, and this person did this, and okay. But isn't that what we're supposed to be? Otherwise we're just pretending we're not. That's all we're doing. Because when everybody comes to Church, and you know, I've been in congregations where people had, for ten years, didn't even know each other shook hands every week, discussed some things. You know, what do you know, so is, oh yeah, great family, you know, how many kids they have? I don't know. They have four kids? Really? Yeah. They have four teenagers? I didn't know that. You've known them for ten years and don't even know they have four kids? Yeah. Because they don't really know each other. The Church is to be the family of God.

It's easier, folks, if we just pretend. If you want to have perfect unity, just pretend. Come to Church and pretend, and you will have what feels like unity. It won't be the Church in accordance with what the Scripture says, but it will feel like it. When you live with each other, you go to each other's homes, and you get to know each other, you find out each other's not perfect, and you love each other anyways. That's the Church. That's what it's supposed to be.

Verse 16. Verse 16, he says, For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. I'm breaking into a bit of a thought here, but he's basically saying, I'm going to have a tree. And the root is holy. It's of Christ. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you being a wild olive tree were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. Now, what do you see on the Gentiles? Okay. We have a pruned...we have an olive tree that's been taken care of. But some of the branches went bad. So the owner of the olive tree sipped off branches, and they grafted in on their branches, which that's done all the time, you know, if you work in agriculture. He says, but we're real careful here. You're grafted in, and then you can't say, oh, wow, boy, God, God, God, get rid of all those Jews, which is what would happen in the church when he's predicting it would happen 100 years later. Well, less than that, but within 100 years would be predominant. So he says that, but if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, the root supports you, the root is Christ. You will then say branches are broken off that I might be grafted in, well, well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, that you may stand by faith, do not be haughty, but fear. If God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either. Boy, that's a strong statement, isn't it? So just like in other places, he says, beware of the circumcision. He's so angry with Jews. They're trying to make people be circumcised. He calls it, it's actually translated from the Greek acts. He says, beware of the mutilation. There's mutilators. I mean, he's pretty, he's getting angry. Now he's turning to the other side and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, folks. Remember in God's plan here, those people still have a purpose. And if some of them are cut off because of their unbelief and your graft in hand, don't get too proud about that because he might snip you off too.

He says in verse 22, Therefore, consider the goodness and severity of God on those who fell, severity but towards you, goodness. And if you continue in his goodness, otherwise you might be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in. For God's able to graft them in again. He says, remember, God's going to call some of those people back too. Of course, we know in the future, he's going to call all of them back. For if you were cut off out of the olive tree, which is well by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature, to a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who were natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

So here Paul is able to take this whole controversy that was inside the church for over a hundred years and bring it down to a simple concept. A simple concept. The realization that God was taking a remnant of Israel and all these others' people and bringing them together to create a church. And that just like Gentiles did not have to become Jews, Jews weren't to be looked down upon because of the failure of those people. And surely the teaching of the Old Testament weren't to be put down and looked down upon. But that's exactly what happened. And so what Paul was fighting here is what the church became. At first he fought so hard to keep it becoming...what the church was headed into in Galatians was almost becoming a branch of the Pharisees. The Pharisees who believed in Jesus as the Messiah. That's what they were close to becoming. He said, now we're not going that direction. The church cannot become just another branch of Pharisees. Then later he's fighting, oh no, we're moving into a Gentile viewpoint that, you know... This really...well, he has to fight this too that would become pagan. He talks about that in some of his writings. You know, you're starting to write pagan ideas in, though. You can't do that either.

What's interesting, over the course of time, the Gentile group went out. Then the church became paganized, just like Paul figured. Except for a small group. A remnant of Israelites and a remnant of Gentiles. The church, the true church, is actually a remnant. And it's a remnant of Gentiles and a remnant of Israelites.

So we're all a remnant. Let's not worry too much about our physical remnant. What our background is, where we come from. You know, it doesn't mean anything. We're all a remnant of God. That's what we are. We're a remnant of God. We're a remnant of God, brought together to be His children and His people. So, when you keep the Feast of Pentecost here, in eight days, celebrate the Feast of Pentecost and realize that how important this festival is. When God finally began to remedy what was wrong with the entire Old Covenant, He began to create and form together the church, the ecclesia. The group of people called out to become His children in preparation for Christ's Second Covenant. Israel had to be there for the first coming of Jesus Christ. We are being prepared for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And when you look at it, then, what is the purpose of the church?

Israel was the family of God who was going to produce the Messiah and be there for His first coming. The church is the family of God who is going to be there to cry out the way for the Second Coming of the Messiah.

They had their job as the family of God to produce the first coming. We have our job as the family of God to bring about the crying out and declaration of the Second Coming. They were to be a witness to the world as the true people of God. You and I are to be a witness to the world. You and I are not to hide our lights under a bushel. We are to be, every one of us, a witness of the true God to the world.

Israel was to preserve the teachings of God. You are here today because you believe in the true teachings of God. You are here keeping the Sabbath when the majority of Christians don't believe in the Sabbath. Hang on to those true teachings. As you can see, what God achieved through ancient Israel is actually very similar to what He's achieving through the church. Only what is promised to Israel are those physical promises through Abraham. What is promised to the church and to Israel in the future and to all mankind in the future are the spiritual promises God made through Abraham.