The Difference One Letter Can Make

Good morning Church! It is so good to be back with everyone today! I hope that you are ready for a Word from God! Would you find in your Bibles, the book of Acts 8:1-3?

Acts 8:1–3 NKJV

1 Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

As we read this text, we see a man by the name of Saul initiating heavy persecution against the Church. As we will see in the message today, his intentions were true, but his interpretation was tainted. We all know that not long after this moment in scripture, Saul is saved by the grace of God and his name is changed by God from Saul to Paul. The difference was just one letter, but it made all the difference in the world. I want to speak to you today on this topic: The Difference One Letter Can Make!

Context

As we read the scriptures, there is one thing that remains constant above all else: the importance of God’s Word.

From the very beginning, we see the power of God’s Word. God speaks and the whole world leaps into existence.

Throughout the Torah, we see the giving of the law by God to Israel, and then we also the importance of living by that law throughout the rest of the OT.

We see in some cases, the severest of punishment for breaking that law, and we also see the greatest of blessings poured out on those who lived by it.

In the NT, we see Jesus’ entire life lived out according to the OT prophecies:

His birth was a direct fulfillment of several prophecies.

At the age of 12, Jesus is in the temple learning and teaching the OT Word.

Throughout the remainder of His life, Jesus’ every word and action was directed by the OT Word.

His entire ministry was showing how it looked to live out the law of God in one’s life, correctly.

He even taught how that the understanding of the law, and what it looked like to live in obedience to it, had been lost throughout the years.

The longest sermon we have recorded of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, is about this very thing. He would start by saying, “You have heard it said”, and then he would finish up with, “But I say unto you”.

Jesus needed them to understand that purity wasn’t only skin deep, but rather a matter of the heart.

When Jesus leaves His disciples, His last commission unto them, The Great Commission, was this:

Matthew 28:18–20 NKJV

18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

The authors throughout the rest of the NT scripture constantly lean on the Word of God as they write to others concerning their faith as well.

With all of that being said, I think it is obvious to see that the Word of God should be given the utmost importance in our lives. Jesus was born according to the scriptures, died according to the scriptures, and then commissioned us to live according to those same scriptures. The Word of God was at the top of the list for them, and it should be for us also.

With that being said, it is not just enough that we have the Word of God. It is not just enough that we read the Word of God. It is not even enough that we study the Word of God. We must make sure, above all else, that we are seeking God for help in the interpretation of what it says and what it looks like for us to live it out in our lives today. We see in our text today, what the results can be when we act upon an incorrect interpretation of scripture and a lack of spiritual discernment. Let’s dig in!!!

Content

Saul’s Journey

Paul was born in Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 22:3). He was the son of a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), so there is no surprise that he naturally excelled beyond his peers in school as they studied the scriptures (Galatians 1:14). Because he excelled beyond the rest, he was accepted by Gamaliel as a disciple (Acts 22:3) and became a devoted Pharisee (Acts 26:4-5). Measured by the law, his life was truly blameless (Philippians 3:6). Saul was one of the most promising young Pharisees in Jerusalem, well on his way to becoming a great leader for the Jewish faith.

To truly get a feel for what is happening, we must also understand the culture of this day. There are some key things to remember:

When we open up in the NT, there has been no spiritual leader, or even spiritual movement for that matter, for over 400 years. It has been that long since the last prophet of the OT was alive, so every ounce of spirituality within the religious leaders at this time has come from a very literal understanding of the law, and a very heavy focus on tradition. Without a Godly spiritual leader to offer any type of spiritual discernment, the very best they could do was read the words and then try to live it out. When it came to doing just this, Paul was at the top of the list.

The church was the government. Every dispute went through the priests and the judges, who were appointed by the spiritual leaders of that day. This means that the law of God was the law book. It was the final authority on all cases tried and when offered, it was obeyed concerning the punishment of that disobedience. If the Word of God said that one was to be put to death, they were put to death. If it said they were to be banished from Israel, they were banished.

With this type of mentality, everything that could be formed into a checkbox was put in one. We must do this and we cannot do that. Their lives consisted of do’s and don’ts. This is religion at its best. It is checking as many boxes as possible. It is trying to have more good than bad. The problem with this type of approach to Godliness, is that everything God teaches cannot be placed inside a checkbox.

Understanding these things helps us to understand why Jesus was hated so much by the religious leaders. They hated Jesus for many things, but the one thing they challenged him on the most was this: The Sabbath.

They always accused Jesus of mistreating the Sabbath. He would heal people on the Sabbath. His disciples picked some corn one Sabbath because they were hungry and so they were accused of working on the Sabbath. He was constantly challenged concerning His actions on the Sabbath. Why was this such a big deal? Listen to these verses from the law:

Exodus 31:12–17 NKJV

12 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16 Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’ ”

This law was kept with utmost importance because when it was broken, you died. There was no second option. There was no grace. The law required death, so death it was. The Jewish people did not do anything on the Sabbath.

That is why the religious leaders struggled so greatly with Jesus and the Sabbath. The Sabbath was normally a quite day, with little to no traffic at all, but everywhere Jesus went there was a crowd. This stirred things up and caused confusion amongst the people. Those with demons and physical infirmities were not so much worried about breaking a law as they were about being healed. This caused the religious leaders to question the motives of Jesus. They viewed His entire ministry as a mutiny or rebellion. They hated even more the fact that they could not justify doing anything about it. Every time they would throw a law at Jesus, Jesus would rebutle with sound wisdom from the scripture, but it would be something they didn’t know how to interpret because it wouldn’t fit into one of their boxes.

Leviticus 19:18 NKJV

18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Our Journey

Unfortunately, I will have to say that I can relate to Paul and these religious leaders all too well. Like them, I can see that many people today are starting to make the same mistake that they did by putting the characteristics of being a Christian into a checkbox list of do’s and don’ts. If I am a Christian, I must do this and I must not do that. It’s a check box. And then any time someone or something does not fit into our list of check boxes, we judge them, talk about them, treat them as outcasts, degrade them, and whatever else is necessary for us to feel better about our own lives. Listen to what the Word of God has to say about this type of thinking:

Galatians 5:22–23 NKJV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

See, love cannot be put into check box. You cannot put simple stipulations in a list for whether or not I acted in love toward someone today, because you cannot see the heart from the outside. Someone may do something nice, but you cannot tell whether it was out of love or not. The Pharisees have had the commandment of love all along. It was part of the law. They just simply didn’t know what to do with it. Listen to this verse:

Leviticus 19:18 NKJV

18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

The commandment of love was there all along, but they had lost the meaning of that because it didn’t fit into their checkbox mentality. “Don’t lie”; “Don’t commit adultery”; “Don’t steal”; “Don’t commit murder”. I can put a check on all of these. They were following the law in a literal sense, but they had missed the reason why the law was given in the first place. That is why Jesus summed it up a different way:

Matthew 22:37–40 NKJV

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Christ put all of the law into two commandments: Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. If everything falls into those two things, why do we let so many other things, with much less importance, come between us, separate us, cause animosity amongst us, and so on. Everything comes back to love, but that creates a problem. Love does not fit into my check box lifestyle. I cannot gauge that with external eyes only.

If we are not careful, we stand a very good chance of being modern day Saul’s. He stood on the Word of God, he judged others based off of what it said, but his interpretation of what it meant was skewed. Therefore, everything that came as a result of his misinterpretation, was actually against God, instead of for God. Paul wrote later on in his letter to Timothy that he did what he did out of ignorance (1 Tim. 1:13).

Paul thought he was an advocate of God, but because of his lack of understanding he actually became an enemy of God. He was murdering the very people that he was himself trying to be. We must be careful with the Word of God. It is the basis of our entire life, so we must read it. We must study it. We must live it out in our lives as faithful followers of God. But, we must make sure that we are not missing the big picture. We must operate out of love. We must do what we do for the glory of God, and we must do it with a great deal of spiritual discernment. We must seek God as we live our lives for Him.

Commitment

We must use caution when dealing with others concerning the Word of God.

We must make sure that every decision we make is based upon the love of God, not prideful hearts.

We must stop acting like modern-day Pharisees and judging others for where they fall short, when we ourselves could very well be just as guilty.

We must give the Word of God the importance it deserves seeing that it truly is the final authority over our lives.

As we read the Word of God, we must be sure to use every avenue possible to get the true meaning of every scripture. We should be praying for discernment of what it meant to them, as well as what it means to me today. We should be on the phones calling people with questions that we have concerning what something means. We should be seeking guidance as we pursue truth.

We must also make sure that when we are applying a truth from God’s Word to our lives and trying our best to live it out, we must make sure that that individual truth does not conflict with any other truths of God’s Word. We must also make sure that we are not negatively judging others for not living out a truth in their lives that we are living out in ours. How long did it take us to understand that truth? How long did it take us to be convicted of that truth? We must make sure that we encouraging them in a positive way to go deeper in their faith.

Let’s join together today to stop the trend of Checkbox Christianity. Let’s stand together as we fight to change the standard of what it looks like to live for God. Let’s work together to get back to the truths of scripture and live out those truths in our lives today!!!