WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:09.839 A lot of people believe that there's some connection, some link between how good you are and being right with God. 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:23.199 So if I get the right amount of morality correctly, or I'm good enough at church, or I'm good enough at spirituality, or I'm good enough in the world, then all of a sudden this link is legitimate. 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:26.160 This connection, all of a sudden, I'm right with God. 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:29.199 And the classic question is, is how good is good enough? 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:38.479 That's a classic question that we ask is okay, well, if that's true, well then how all of a sudden do you get good enough to know that in fact this connection with God is right? 00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:40.640 How good is good enough? 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:46.640 And it's easy for a lot of us, if we've been in church, to go, oh no, no, no, like I know it's not like how good is good enough. 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:48.640 I I know to say no to that. 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:59.200 I know to speak grace, and I think it's also very easy for the experience of life to be quite different than the very thing that we speak. 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:09.439 And I think of it this way: when you when you wake up in the morning, do you wake up to a deficit of worth and righteousness? 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:16.959 Or do you wake up into an abundance of worth and righteousness that never leaves you? 00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:23.359 Last week I told you about my very prestigious Hertz Gold Club membership status. 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:26.159 There's a couple of us in that club, very prestigious. 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:31.519 Well, I'm also a member of the National Park Conservancy Association. 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:33.840 Is anybody else a member of? 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.560 So I'm feeling even more important now. 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:38.159 I mean, it's very prestigious. 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:40.159 See, it's not just for anybody. 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:42.159 So I I love the national parks. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:46.159 I'm a national park nerd, like I totally nerd out on them. 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:50.159 And I'm a member, I when I grow up, I want to be a ranger. 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:54.239 I want to wear the hat, I want to walk around in the woods, that's my dream. 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:55.920 I get a monthly magazine. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.040 You didn't even know this existed because none of you are a member. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:06.879 But I get a monthly National Park magazine, and I get it, and I sit down and I dork out over all the articles. 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:08.400 I read it cover to cover. 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:18.159 When if we go to a national park, I pull out my National Park Conservancy Association card, I show it to, I get a discount, and I feel so incredibly special. 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.000 It's a pretty, pretty big deal, you know. 00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:21.680 And I feel a part of something. 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:26.159 I feel like I belong, uh, just like my Hertz Gold Gold Club membership status that I have. 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:37.439 And then this week, this week, um not making that part up, this week I actually got this letter from the National Parts Conservancy Association, this great club that I belong to. 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:46.639 And it says, your annual membership in the National Parts Conservancy Association has come up for renewal. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:54.400 And you read on about all the wonderful things that we are doing and how I belong to this, and then there's this other sheet of paper. 00:02:54.560 --> 00:03:00.560 They slid this other sheet of paper in there, apart from that letter that was really motivating me, and I felt such belonging. 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:06.080 And then this sheet of paper says, I want to renew my membership,$50,$75,$100. 00:03:06.479 --> 00:03:14.000 So actually, right, this belonging, like so many things in our lives, comes down to a payment. 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:19.759 And I'll pay it because I want to belong to them and I like what they do, so I'm gonna pay it. 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:30.159 But it just reminds me, I was reminded again this week when I got that in the mail, it reminds me that if I stop paying, I stop belonging. 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:38.800 And it's so easy for us to feel like that with God, to wake up into that deficit and like, oh, I gotta make some payments today. 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:40.319 Or you screw up, right? 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:45.280 After the screw up, it could be afternoon, could be evening, and all of a sudden you go, oh, I'm in the deficit again. 00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:47.520 I need to make my payments. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.840 And that question does come up: how good is good enough at this point? 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:57.759 And so you're in that deficit, you go, I gotta get enough good enough in order to get good enough. 00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:01.680 But the good news is the Bible teaches something completely different. 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:04.000 It's what Paul's been laying out for us in Galatians. 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:05.280 We get to Galatians 5. 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:11.360 We've been working our way through this letter, and this is probably his most emphatic, strongest language. 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:16.959 Verse 1, he says, For freedom Christ set us free. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.920 Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:23.680 So a few points working our way through this. 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:30.480 Point number one is you are free in the gospel, so don't return to the slavery in the law. 00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:35.040 You are free in the gospel, so don't return to slavery in the law. 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.560 Now let's explain that. 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.680 Law and the scriptures, law is what we should be. 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:47.199 It's the standard, it's the right and holy standard, and it guides us to what we should be, but then it also breaks us because we're imperfect before it. 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:54.560 And so in that way, then it breaks us, and then it shows us that we need the grace of God, known in Jesus, to be our righteousness. 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:56.399 And he's the one that frees us. 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:57.680 That's how we're free. 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:01.920 Now, maybe when it comes to this word freedom, you a whole bunch of different images maybe come to you. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:06.560 Maybe for you, you see Mel Gibson on a horse and Braveheart, he's yelling out freedom. 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:16.800 Maybe for you, it's simply the image of freedom is like on the beach, you know, in a cabana with a Mai Thai, and you're looking at that, all that is like freedom, hearing those waves. 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:18.160 Like, that's the picture of freedom. 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:27.839 Maybe it's just a Saturday morning, and there's nothing in front of you for that Saturday, and all the laundry's done, and there's dishes are clean, and you just feel like such a sense of freedom. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.000 For me, the the image is uh a summer night. 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:40.879 I'm a high school senior, I'm in my jacked-up big tire four-wheel drive Toyota 1985 truck. 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:42.399 Windows are down. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:50.879 I put a sunroof in it, so the sunroof's out, and I'm blaring Garth Rook's greatest hits. 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:56.639 And that that for me, that that that is the image and the feeling of freedom that I get. 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:59.439 But all that's kind of circumstantial freedom, right? 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:02.240 That truck eventually broke down. 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:07.040 But Paul's talking about an inner freedom, something much deeper than all of that. 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:12.000 And the idea here is a freedom that's been completed for you. 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:15.040 And there's nothing for you to add. 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:16.879 It's just given to you. 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:21.360 And yet, then Paul says, stand firm for it. 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:22.879 Now, isn't that interesting? 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.160 So it's a freedom completed for you, you are free. 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.519 All your sins put upon Jesus on the cross, is righteousness given to you. 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:36.639 That's what creates this freedom for you, and it is for freedom that you have been accounted free, and yet you have to stand firm for it. 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:42.399 So, while it's secure, our experience of it is it can be fragile. 00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:44.480 And that's point number two. 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:48.000 Your experience of gospel freedom is fragile. 00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:50.959 My experience of gospel freedom is fragile. 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.600 It's secure, but it's fragile. 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:58.639 And one reason it's fragile is because freedom can be scary. 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:11.439 There's this great scene in Shawshank Redemption, maybe you remember it, and uh red and the the guys they're in the prison yard and they're sitting on some bleachers, and their friend had just been released, Brooks. 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:20.959 He had spent 50 years in prison, 50 years inside of walls and prison bars and high structure and no freedom. 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:24.800 And finally, Brooks gets out on the outside and he's free. 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:27.920 And yet, in that freedom, he didn't know how to operate. 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:28.959 Right? 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:35.600 His anxiety gets higher and higher and higher without all these, without these controls over him, these boundaries over him. 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:42.399 So while the walls are gone, and yet he gets more and more afraid, and eventually he kills himself. 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:47.360 And Morgan Freeman's character, Red, he explains this to all the guys sitting on the bleacher. 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:52.160 And here's what Morgan Freeman says He says, In here, Brooks is an important man. 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:54.160 He's an educated man. 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:56.480 Outside, he's nothing. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:59.759 Just a used-up con with arthritis in both hands. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.160 Probably couldn't get a library card if you tried. 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:03.600 These walls are funny. 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:06.399 First you hate them, then you get used to them. 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:09.519 Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on them. 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:11.680 That's institutionalized. 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:15.120 They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:17.680 The part that counts anyway. 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:21.120 And a performance-based life. 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:23.680 Be good enough to be good enough. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:25.519 It's very similar. 00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:26.079 Right? 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:30.240 The idea of obey, then you're accepted. 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:30.800 Right? 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:33.440 That puts walls around your heart, and at first you hate it. 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:40.879 At first you resist it, maybe you rebel from it, but then very often, very often slowly we begin to depend on it. 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:50.960 Because it gives us a sense of self-righteousness, helps us feel better when we compare ourselves to others, gives us a religious identity. 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:55.360 But all the while, we're still insecure. 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:58.240 Because how good's good enough. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:09.600 And Paul's trying for these people to understand for us as we read into this letter that gospel freedom, it is the end of earning, and that's why you're free. 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:22.240 And this letter shifts here at the end of this passage and moving into the rest of five and six, it shifts and it says, but effort is inside the freedom of the gospel. 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:26.080 Let's reread verse one again. 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:31.279 For freedom Christ has set us free. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:38.080 Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:42.879 So maybe you're raised on a farm, maybe you drove by a farm, you've seen a farm, you've seen pictures of a farm, something like that. 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.279 And maybe you've seen this image of a yoke. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:10:01.759 And the yoke was it was what went over the ox, and the ox is connected from that wooden yoke that went over their neck and is tied to that big ox, and then it's connected back to a plow, that wooden plow, and that plow has, you know, that part that digs down into the earth. 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:07.840 So every step that that ox takes is a step of burden and resistance. 00:10:08.559 --> 00:10:09.840 And that's this image here. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:11.759 This was an agricultural society. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:14.240 They wouldn't even have to have this explained to them. 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:17.519 And Paul says, a performance life. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:19.519 That's what this, that's what that is. 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:24.480 It's the feeling that every step you take is burden and demand. 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:28.240 And you you can feel it in the world. 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:30.799 I'll be enough when. 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:33.679 Just get enough, get enough of these things. 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:38.320 Within church or religious society, I'll be enough with God when. 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:39.679 But Jesus says, no, no, no, no. 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:44.960 Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:49.440 Because our sin is put upon him, his righteousness is given to us. 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:51.919 And there's no payment to keep belonging. 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:57.840 You're not going to get the renewal notification in the mail that hey, your payment's due. 00:10:58.159 --> 00:10:59.919 Your righteousness payment is due. 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:01.279 You'll never get it. 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:06.720 Because it's by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ's work alone. 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:11.039 A couple weeks ago, I looked out my front window at my six-year-old. 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:13.919 She was skipping down the sidewalk. 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:23.120 She was moving from one group of friends in one yard to another group of friends in the other yard, and she's in between them, and she's all by herself, and she's just skipping along. 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:28.799 And that night I was tugging her in and I said, Hey, babe, you know, I looked outside. 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:32.399 I just was looking outside the window and I saw you just skipping along. 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:34.240 I said, I said, what, what? 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:35.519 Tell me about that. 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:40.480 And she said, Daddy, when I'm outside playing, I'm I'm free. 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:43.360 And I've been thinking about that, right? 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:45.360 I've been thinking a lot about that. 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:48.320 And I've been thinking about childlike faith. 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:51.679 And it makes sense that she feels free. 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:58.559 Because there's no teacher hovering over her, there's no parent hovering over her. 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:02.720 The record keeping over her has stopped. 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:08.720 Now, there's still morality, there's still consequences, that hasn't stopped. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:11.759 But the pressure's gone. 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:17.919 She gets to just be a child without the pressure of performing. 00:12:19.039 --> 00:12:26.559 This is what Paul's laying out for us in verses 2 through 12, and the language gets more and more aggressive as he goes if he didn't pick up on that. 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:28.799 He says, You want to be circumcised? 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:36.559 Like you want to go back to, and that would have been him picking up on the most vital, largest law of the Old Testament. 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:40.879 You want to live by law and performance and obey, then be accepted. 00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:43.039 You want to, he's saying, you want to do that? 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:45.279 Well, then you have to do it all the way. 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:50.879 And what that means is you have to be perfect and the payments never stop. 00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:54.320 How good is good enough? 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:00.720 You gotta you gotta ride that train all the way to the end, and it will be a yoke of slavery. 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:05.679 And then Paul says, but freedom, this is what he's been laying out for us. 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:11.200 Freedom is you're you're accepted, so obey. 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:16.240 And so then another question just pops up, right? 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:17.679 And Paul goes after it. 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:25.360 Because the question is, is if I'm already accepted before I do anything, then heck, why don't I just do whatever I want? 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:27.919 Well, you could, very possible. 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:30.159 Most of the time you do anyway, to be honest. 00:13:31.039 --> 00:13:33.279 But the reason is because sin is destructive. 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:33.840 That's why. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:38.799 Because sin has consequences, it's destructive, it'll blow your family up, blow you up, blow up relationships. 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:40.720 You know that, we've all done that. 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:45.600 But Paul's argument here is actually not the negative side of that, it's the positive side. 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:51.039 And what he says is he says, oh, well, gospel freedom just doesn't create that. 00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:56.159 It actually creates love, it doesn't create a license to sin. 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:04.720 Jumping down to verses 13 through 14, he says, For you were called to freedom, brothers. 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:11.840 Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:14.480 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:17.919 You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:25.200 And point number three is that as we are free in Jesus, we get to love other people. 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.679 Christy and I watched Crazy Rich Asians last week. 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:30.399 We've seen it. 00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:34.639 Supposedly the best romantic comedy that's come out in the last few years. 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:36.080 Really, really well done. 00:14:36.159 --> 00:14:39.279 And it's about an incredibly wealthy guy, Nick. 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:45.039 Incredibly wealthy, one of the wealthiest families in the world, the wealthiest family in Singapore. 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:50.320 Real estate moguls, powerful, and yet Nick is living in New York City. 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:52.720 He's living as a normal guy. 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:57.360 He falls in love with, he's dating this, this lady named Rachel, who's a professor at NYU. 00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:00.480 Don't worry, I'm not gonna ruin the movie, but the storyline's important. 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:02.799 What's interesting is it's almost the same storyline. 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.799 Maybe you remember the movies in the 1980s, Eddie Murphy's movies Coming to America. 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:09.200 It's almost the same storyline. 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:11.360 And like, why, why? 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:14.000 Why this storyline, why does it repeat itself? 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:17.759 We could probably find more movies with the same exact storyline. 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:21.679 Somebody who's incredibly wealthy living like a normal person in order to find love. 00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:23.440 Why would we do this? 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:25.440 Why would we keep writing this story? 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:31.279 Because listen, how do you know you're loved? 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:37.600 How do you know you're loved if your wealth is a part of the equation? 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:43.039 And you say, I don't have to worry about that, I can barely afford guacamole at Chipotle. 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:48.080 I understand it's expensive, it's a it's a moment there, you're like, I don't know if I'm gonna go for that. 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:48.639 I get that. 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:50.320 But here's a deeper question. 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:53.679 How would you, how would you know God truly loved you? 00:15:53.840 --> 00:16:00.240 How would you know God truly loved you if your good behaviors were a part of the equation? 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:03.039 Well, you wouldn't. 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:04.320 You couldn't. 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:06.000 You could never know it. 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:11.440 That's also why the scriptures tell us while we were sinners, Christ died for us. 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:18.000 Now, if we go back to Nick and crazy rich Asians, he just wanted to be loved for him. 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:24.000 Not him and his billion dollars, or him and all his real estate, or him and his resume. 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:27.200 And also he was secure enough. 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:34.480 He was secure enough apart from those things to truly love another person whose resume just didn't stack up. 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:40.799 The brilliant British pastor and author John Stott, he writes this. 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:47.279 True love places constraints on the lover. 00:16:47.679 --> 00:16:50.159 For love is essentially self-giving. 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:54.080 And this brings us to a startling Christian paradox. 00:16:54.879 --> 00:17:02.399 True freedom is freedom to be my true self, as God made me and meant me to be, and God made me for loving. 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:04.880 But loving is giving, self-giving. 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:08.960 Therefore, in order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself. 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:10.960 In order to be free, I have to serve. 00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:14.319 In order to live, I have to die to my own self-centeredness. 00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:18.000 In order to find myself, I have to lose myself in loving. 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.480 True freedom is then the exact opposite of what many people think. 00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:28.880 It is not freedom from all responsibility to God and others in order to live for myself. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:32.240 That is bondage to my own self-centeredness. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:42.240 Instead, true freedom is freedom from my silly little self in order to live responsibly in love for God and others. 00:17:42.559 --> 00:17:45.440 And here's the principle that stops describing. 00:17:45.599 --> 00:18:02.640 You are always, we are always either hunting for the love we think we need to be full, or we are living in a place of the freedom of the gospel, secure and free as to love God and others. 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:10.400 If your love for other people is about how good is good enough, they're not people, they're projects for you. 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:13.440 And they'll know it eventually. 00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.640 And when they're hard, you'll move on to an easier project. 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:28.799 But you are free in your identity as beloved children of God because of Christ's work for you, which means you can finally love. 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:33.440 You can love people when they're easy, and you can love people when they're hard. 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.079 You are free from how good is good enough, which means you can finally love. 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:42.240 My brothers and sisters for freedom, you have been set free. 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:43.680 Let's pray together. 00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:04.720 God, thank you for these good words of Paul that set us on a path of freedom and move in stronger and stronger language of how the law is inept and how much we should fight and stand firm against anything of performance-based or merit-based spirituality and life and faith? 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:07.599 Would we have no tolerance for it? 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:16.960 And would you give us great love and compassion for ourselves and for any person caught in that toil? 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:23.839 And would you give us just greater faith and trust in Jesus to be our full righteousness? 00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:28.880 All we need to be in right standing with you. 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:38.799 And would this give us such freedom in our hearts and minds, not unto self centeredness, but to love you and to love others. 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:40.480 In Jesus' name we pray. 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:41.359 Amen.