WEBVTT 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:08.000 We're looking at Romans chapter 7. 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:13.919 So as we dive into 7, we're going to be introduced to this reality that we're freed from the law. 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.199 And this is coming out of Romans chapter 6, where Paul helped us understand that we were free from sin. 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:26.719 So we're going to look at these kind of two things and try to understand the distinction between them. 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:32.560 Romans, as we've said, was called by Martin Luther purest gospel. 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:40.880 And we've been working through the first six chapters, really understand what the gospel is and how the gospel changes and transforms us. 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.240 And then Romans is going to start working into then how do we live? 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:48.079 So from here, we're going to understand all the implications of the gospel. 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:52.960 We're going to understand what it means to us and how it transforms who we are as people. 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:58.320 And then it's going to inform how we actually are to live our lives in response to this truth. 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:06.480 But we've got to kind of get at least one more thing clarified and understood, and that's that we're not just free from sin, but we're free from the law. 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:08.879 But something happens that we're going to work through. 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:13.040 We don't understand this well, especially in a Christian context. 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:17.280 And we tend to approach this in negative and unhealthy ways. 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:22.400 You see, in chapter 6, Paul brought us into the realization that we were once dead in sin. 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:26.079 So before Christ, we were dead in our sin. 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:29.519 There was nothing that we could do to actually make us alive. 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:37.920 There was nothing that we could do that would bring righteousness that would produce justification because we were separated from God in our sin. 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:44.319 We were dead in our sin, and there was no righteousness available to us. 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:52.480 But now, in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we have died to sin and are alive in him. 00:01:52.719 --> 00:01:57.359 So we were once dead in sin through Christ and the faith in his gospel. 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.640 We are now dead to sin and are alive in him. 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:03.840 This is what we were talking about as the whole gospel, right? 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:07.120 Many of us kind of approach the gospel in just a partial lens. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:09.439 We might understand that we are dead in Christ. 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:19.599 We were crucified with him and that we died to sin, but many of us forget that he actually uh actually uh rose from the grave, right? 00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:20.960 Jesus is alive. 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:28.719 He rose from the grave and when we are in him, we are not just in his death, but we are also in his glorious resurrection as well. 00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:38.960 And so when we died to sin, we were made alive to God so that righteousness and everlasting life might be ours. 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:53.280 You see, sin is a wicked master, and it enslaved us in our former life, bound us to unrighteousness, but now we've been made dead to sin, that we may be alive to God and his righteousness. 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:56.879 So this morning we're gonna expound upon our freedom that we have in Christ. 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:02.319 This is true freedom, but like a lot of things in the Bible, it often doesn't sound like freedom, right? 00:03:02.479 --> 00:03:05.039 If you want to gain your life, you have to lose it. 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:15.280 And here we see another kind of thing that doesn't seem to make sense, this kind of upside-down kingdom reality, that if to be free, we're bound to another. 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:22.080 We're bound to Christ and how he has freed us from sin, but from the law also. 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:29.919 So we're gonna look at these two things, they're distinct freedom from sin, freedom from the law, but yet they're inseparable from one another as well. 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:41.199 So when we look at the beginning of this passage of scripture in one through three, uh, what we're gonna see is this summary that if we have died in Christ, then the law no longer binds us. 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:48.159 If we have died in Christ, right, through faith in his gospel, then the law no longer binds us. 00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:51.520 Paul's gonna open up this passage of scripture with an analogy. 00:03:51.759 --> 00:04:00.159 And he's gonna try and use something very common to our understanding to help us understand how we are actually free from the law. 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:04.240 And the analogy that he's gonna use is marriage, right? 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:06.879 Most of us in this room can understand marriage. 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:18.480 And the audience of which Paul was writing to, to the church in Rome, Christians who were both from Jewish background or origin and Gentile or non-Jewish background and origin, they understood marriage, right? 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:26.639 This was a common reality of something that they could try to put their minds around to help them understand how they were free from the law. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:30.399 But before he dives into this analogy, he's gonna make his point. 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:32.480 And this is what Paul typically does, right? 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:36.639 He asks this question that has kind of a no-brainer answer on the back end of it, right? 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.639 It's like a duh question. 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:44.720 But he does it to try and assert the point that he's going to make, and then he elaborates or expounds on that point. 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:52.000 And the point that he makes is this the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:57.759 The law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. 00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:02.879 Paul begins as he is prone to do with this common sense question. 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:11.920 He's able to do this because, like I said, he's speaking to people who would very well understand this principle, especially in light of the analogy that follows it of marriage. 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:15.839 While he's speaking of our freedom from the law of the covenant, right? 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.519 The law of the Old Testament, the Mosaic law, that's what he's referring to. 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:27.360 He's gonna use something that's extremely common to all people to help them understand how they are liberated from that very law. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:35.519 The tension here is that the church in Rome was filled, like we said, with both Jewish believers and gentile non-Jewish believers. 00:05:35.600 --> 00:05:47.040 And here's what happened: in this tension that we see throughout the entire New Testament, there's often two kind of implications that happen or propensities that these two people groups have, right? 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:58.959 So those who are Gentile non-Jewish believers, as they approach the gospel, as they try to understand their new life that they have in Christ, their propensity is that they go back to the former sins of their old life. 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:02.319 That's kind of the propensity that we see throughout the New Testament. 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:06.000 Don't go back into that idolatrous life that you once lived. 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:09.439 Don't go back into those sinful behaviors that you once had. 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:15.839 You'll see Paul and other New Testament writers exhorting Gentile Christians to not go back to that. 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:19.839 But then the Jewish believers, what did they have a propensity to do? 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:21.600 They go back to the law. 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:24.399 They don't go back to their sinful idolatry. 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:26.000 What is sinful idolatry? 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:36.399 We'll get to why that's true, but they go back to the law, this perception of righteousness, this perception of obedience for justification's sake. 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:44.560 These are two people groups that Paul's trying to unite under a reality that they are free, free in Christ. 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:52.240 Now, through chapters 6 and 7, we're illuminated with the reality that in Christ, we have freedom from both. 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:56.800 We have freedom from our sin, and we have freedom from the law. 00:06:57.120 --> 00:06:59.680 So Paul now segues into his analogy. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:01.519 He's going to prove his point here. 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:11.279 He uses marriage and its law-abiding reality to show for us how in light of death we are no longer legally bound to the law. 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:20.480 And there's three segments in this analogy that we need to break down that Paul helps to understand, helps us to understand what exactly he's talking about. 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:27.839 Segment one is this if the spouse dies, you are free or unbound from the law of marriage. 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:29.120 That's kind of a no-brainer, right? 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:34.720 Your spouse dies, you're not bound to them any longer in the law of marriage. 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.839 Maybe some of you don't realize that, but you would be free. 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:43.199 You wouldn't have to continue in any type of obligation to that. 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:50.480 There are demands, there are expectations, there are standards that bind a person in the law of marriage. 00:07:50.639 --> 00:08:01.120 When we make a covenant with someone else and we legally bind ourselves to them in marriage, there are standards and expectations that are there that need to be met. 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:05.120 If they're not met, right, then we have consequences for that. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:14.639 But we're not only bound to these expectations and standards, but we have to realize that they are explicitly bound to the one that we have relationship with. 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:17.600 They're not just generic standards that are placed upon us. 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:29.439 They're not just generic expectations that are meant to have with every human relationship in our life, but they're bound specifically and explicitly to the one we make the covenant with. 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:33.200 But if the spouse dies, we're free. 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:36.639 We're unbound, is the language that the Bible uses. 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:38.080 So that's premise one. 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:40.320 If the spouse dies, you're free. 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:47.039 Number two is if they're joined to another before their spouse dies, they're an adulterer. 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:50.799 So this is premise two of the analogy that Paul's trying to use. 00:08:51.039 --> 00:08:57.360 Their obligation to their spouse is still intact, even though they work to bind themselves to another. 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.799 And this has been really the history of God's people. 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.200 This has been the history of humanity. 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:07.039 That we've been spiritual adulterers. 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:14.960 We've constantly labored and worked to be joined to another while we still have covenant with the God of all creation. 00:09:16.799 --> 00:09:20.559 You see, let's look at Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 20. 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:27.679 This is one of many times that God calls out his people for being adulterers. 00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:38.000 He says, This surely as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:50.799 You see, there's been this long history of spiritual adultery, working to be joined to the world in its idolatry while still being bound to the law of the covenant. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:52.799 So it says, You're not free. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.360 Unless you die, you're not free. 00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:58.080 Or less your spouse dies, you're not free. 00:09:58.159 --> 00:10:07.120 And if you try to bind yourself to something else, before that happens, you're spiritual adulterer, or you're an adulterer in your nature. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:21.279 Number three, the third segment of this is if the spouse dies, they are free, but also they can be joined to another without the stain or identity of being an adulterer. 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:33.519 So not only are they free if their spouse dies, but they are free to be joined to another without the stain or the identity of being an adulterer. 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:36.480 Through the death of the spouse, they are unbound. 00:10:36.799 --> 00:10:41.360 This word unbound means to no longer be a slave or under the obligation of. 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:42.720 That's the important part. 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:48.399 We're no longer under the obligation of the law and its demands. 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:56.960 All that was binding them to the spouse and the fulfillment of their covenant has been undone, removed from them in death. 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:05.440 And so now, if they are joined to another, the identity of adulterer would not be theirs to carry. 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:12.799 They would be free from their former self, their former relationship, and their former ways. 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:15.919 So this is the analogy that Paul's helping us understand. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.960 How are we free from the law because we have died in Christ? 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:23.840 And he goes on in verse 4. 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:33.919 If we look at verse 4 through 6, we would summarize it by saying that we have been unbound from the law so that we might be bound freely to Jesus. 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:39.679 We have been unbound from the law so that we might be bound freely to Jesus. 00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:42.159 You see, this is this follow the analogy. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:45.840 If your spouse dies, you're no longer under any obligation to them. 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:52.080 If you try to be joined to another while still in relationship and marriage with your spouse, you're an adulterer. 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:56.720 If the spouse dies, you are no longer under any obligation. 00:11:56.879 --> 00:12:02.240 And if you are joined to another, you no longer carry the identity and stain of adultery. 00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:11.679 So what are we as Christians who in our death in Christ supposed to be supposed to be bound, joined to another groom? 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:28.080 You see, he starts off with likewise, likewise, like the spouse who has been freed from death, Paul says, We have been set free from the law through death, being united in the death of Christ. 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:41.519 It's in his death that we died to have the law, uh, that we died to the law also, so that we may now freely, without obligation to the law, be joined and bound to Jesus. 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:43.840 He's the better bridegroom, right? 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:45.600 He's the better spouse. 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:51.759 And this analogy is going to work itself out in the reality of who we are in Christ as Christians. 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:54.480 And he says that there's a purpose in this. 00:12:54.639 --> 00:13:06.879 There's a purpose in this that we've been made dead in Christ, freed from the law, and the purpose is in so that or in order that we might bear fruit to God. 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:10.159 Why have you been saved? 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:15.679 Many times we only focus on the reality that we've been saved to be able to escape from hell. 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:17.039 That's a good thing, right? 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:18.399 You guys excited about that one? 00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:18.799 Yeah? 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:21.360 That's gonna be a good, that's gonna be a good future. 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:26.559 Uh but that's not the only reason that you've been saved. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:41.679 We can see from the Old Testament all the way through the new that the purpose of being united to God as his people is that we might bear fruit in good works and righteousness that demonstrate and display his glory to the world around us. 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:47.279 You see, in our former ways, we bore fruit to the flesh that brought death. 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:56.559 The law, nor ourselves while under it, had any ability whatsoever to bear fruit to God that would bring about any eternal life. 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.879 It only brought about death. 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:12.879 Every effort, every striving to try and be obedient only brought about fruit to death because its demands could not be fulfilled, and we could not withstand its obligations. 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:21.519 So while we lived in the flesh, through the law, our sin was not only lived out, but it was amplified. 00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:24.480 Paul says that it was aroused by the law. 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:37.279 Imagine being so frustrated with what the law's demands and obligations put upon you that you rebelled even harder in your inability to follow. 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:50.320 You ever have that relationship with like a parent or a boss where where the demands and obligations seemed to never be able to be satisfied, so you just thought, well, why not just be even worse? 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:57.679 The law aroused, Paul says, it amplified our unrighteousness. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:04.480 The very law that sought to restrain wickedness in us actually inflamed that very wickedness. 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:13.279 It was as if the mirror of God's holy law so showed us our inability to fulfill it that we sinned all the more in response. 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:22.159 As Paul tries to close out this section, he starts to juxtapose the difference between living in the flesh and living in the spirit. 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:22.639 Right? 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:30.799 And these are two things that he wants to put in contrast with one another to help us understand that in our former life, when we lived in the flesh, this is what produced. 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:33.600 It was fruit that bore death. 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:40.000 But now if we live in the spirit, we have a different outcome, a different reality. 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:42.960 Fruit that bears righteousness and eternal life. 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:47.519 You see, we as people are fruit bearers. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:50.000 We can't escape that reality. 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:56.960 Uh, we are in who we are as people, as image bearers, fruit bearers. 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:01.840 We are trees, we are plants, we are something that produces. 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:08.000 You see, our identity actually determines the fruit that we bear. 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:11.360 Who we are determines what we bear. 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:13.120 We often get that very confused. 00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:20.240 We think that if we tack on good works, good fruit, the tree itself will become good. 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:22.320 We're really bad. 00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:24.879 Um uh what is plant people called? 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:26.480 Man, I had that. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:28.080 Yeah, botanists. 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:31.360 We're really bad botanists, agriculturalists, that's what I wanted to say. 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:32.879 Thank you for your help, though. 00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:35.759 Um we're really bad at that, right? 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:44.320 Because they understand what you put in the ground and the identity of that plant will produce the fruit that it's supposed to. 00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:51.039 We think that if we tack on fruit to this tree, eventually the tree itself will become different. 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:59.919 Much like an apple tree is expected to bear the fruit of apples, so we, dependent upon our identity, will bear its corresponding fruit. 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:04.160 So, if our identity is in the flesh, what are we going to bear? 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:07.200 Fruit that leads to death, fruit of death. 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:14.480 But if we are in the spirit, and that's our identity, we will bear the fruit of life. 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:18.000 Galatians 5, 19 through 23 says this. 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:21.279 Now the works of the flesh are evident. 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.960 Sexual immorality, this kind of junk drawer, right? 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:27.039 Of sexual misconduct. 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:29.119 The Greek there is pornea. 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:31.920 Imagine you ever been in your kitchen and there's you have that junk drawer. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:33.440 How many have a junk drawer in your kitchen? 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.519 Yeah, you, and then when you clean that out, you're just like, oh wow, I didn't know that was in there. 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:38.720 That was a shocker. 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:40.319 Been looking for that for years. 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:42.400 This is literally what pornea means. 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:44.960 It's this junk drawer of sexual sin. 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:48.400 And it's not linked to anything certain. 00:17:48.559 --> 00:17:57.599 What it does do is it's anything that's not a covenant relationship between one man and one woman with sexual intimacy. 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:03.599 So we have sexual immorality, we have impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, right? 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:05.839 Some of you have been watching Harry Potter too much. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:06.559 No, I'm joking. 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:08.160 I'm not that kind of guy. 00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:18.400 Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:24.640 I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things, listen to this. 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:26.240 This is explicit. 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:34.720 This isn't this isn't some kind of good gesture, this isn't some kind of well maybe, or let's see how wild I can be without suffering any consequences. 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:36.240 This is explicit. 00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:41.759 Who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God? 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:55.039 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:57.519 Against such things, is what Paul says. 00:18:57.680 --> 00:18:58.960 There is no law. 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:03.680 You see, we're called to bear fruit. 00:19:04.319 --> 00:19:10.640 And we're called to bear fruit not to earn anything from God, but to demonstrate what we've received freely from Him. 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:15.599 Fruit doesn't make the tree, the tree makes the fruit of the church. 00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:25.200 In our new life, being freed from the law through the death of Christ and being joined to him in his resurrection, we now serve God through the Spirit. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:28.480 Obedience to the law of God was how we used to serve him. 00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:31.119 But that ended up fruitless. 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:36.960 It ended up killing us because we could not meet its demands. 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:41.599 Our obligation to it was too heavy for us to bear. 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:49.599 But now, in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we're able to serve God in the spirit. 00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:51.680 That's good news. 00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:54.160 That's really good news. 00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:01.119 Freed from the law, because Christ Himself has fulfilled the law in its totality. 00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:04.480 There is nothing left for us to complete in it. 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:16.160 We cannot supplement the finished work of Jesus, and so now we bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives as we live in servitude to our true and better master. 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:23.119 We have been unbound to the law so that we might be bound to Jesus. 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:26.319 Here's our main idea this morning. 00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:30.559 In Christ, we are released from the law. 00:20:31.119 --> 00:20:34.160 In Christ, we are released from the law. 00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:41.759 Just like Lazarus' burial wrap was called to be unbound from him. 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:48.400 So we, coming from death to life, are unbound by the law that we might live to God. 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:53.839 You see, before we were joined to Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection, we were joined to the law. 00:20:54.079 --> 00:20:55.599 It was our spouse. 00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:05.920 We have to understand something, though, that the law is a revelation of God's standards of holiness, of his demands for relationship with him. 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:08.240 These are good things. 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:21.519 When God communicates to us through divine revelation what holiness should look like, when God communicates to us through divine revelation what relationship with him looks like, those are good things. 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.960 But they were overwhelming for us. 00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:31.680 They were demands that we could never meet because of our sinful nature that Paul works through in Romans 2 and 3. 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:44.240 We were bound, obligated to fulfill it, every I dotted, every T crossed, and under the weight of its crushing demands. 00:21:44.559 --> 00:21:55.519 James 2 10 says this even in light New Testament faith, uh, he says, forever keeps the whole law but fails in one part has become guilty of it all. 00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.039 You and I know we don't measure up. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:18.319 Our life was dependent upon tipping the scales of justice so that we put enough good works in one scale to be able to tip the weight of all the bad things we've ever done so that God might love us, so that He might accept us, so that we might be able to have eternal life in paradise with Him afterward. 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:35.920 What this demonstrates for us is that that is impossible because every time you try to put one thing in this good work bucket and you mess up and you don't do the right thing or you do what you know you weren't supposed to do, you'd put 10 to 15 to 20 more in this don't do bucket. 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:44.880 And so we keep continually becoming unbalanced because if we break even one part of the law, we are guilty of it in its entirety. 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:54.319 Imagine trying to put one pound in this scale, and then you mess up, and there's over 600 laws that you are now guilty of because you broke. 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:57.839 So you have to dump 600 pounds into this one. 00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:02.000 You can't make it, you can't tip that scale. 00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:06.720 We know this inherently within us. 00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:13.039 The problem of the law was that we couldn't live up to it. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:21.039 It was a treacherous master who placed demands on us that we could never fulfill. 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:30.640 And so, in light of this reality, we became even more sinful as the evidence of this aroused our sinful passions. 00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:33.920 So, what did we do? 00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:36.720 We became spiritual adulterers. 00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:44.720 We tried to bind ourselves to another, carried out by sinful passions that bore in us the fruit of death. 00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:52.960 Under the law, we only had one possible outcome: that we would be dead in our sin. 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:54.640 That was it. 00:23:55.119 --> 00:24:00.079 That was the only option, that was the only outcome, that was the only possibility. 00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:05.759 You see, here's what the scripture says about the role and function of the law before Jesus ever came. 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:07.839 We see this in Galatians chapter 3. 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:19.039 Paul says this, that now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:28.240 So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:30.799 The law held us captive. 00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:33.279 It imprisoned us. 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:37.440 There was nothing that we could do to escape from out under it. 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:42.640 And then it says that it was our guardian or custodian, the Bible uses as well. 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:47.680 It was something that taught us, that sought to try to have us mature, right? 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:52.400 A family back in those times would often have a custodian in-house. 00:24:52.480 --> 00:25:04.720 And the purpose of that custodian was to raise the children into maturity, to teach them and instruct them, to give them moral and ethic code so that they might mature into who the family desired them to be. 00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:08.640 But it had no ability to transform the heart of the child. 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:13.200 It had no ability to enforce anything of which it taught. 00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:14.720 Same with the law. 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:27.920 It was our custodian in that it sought to restrain sin in our lives and train us up into the maturity God desires for us, but it failed because it could teach, but it could not transform. 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:32.880 It could instruct, but it could not illuminate. 00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:35.359 We needed faith. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.440 You see, faith is ultimately the mark of maturity that the law could never produce. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:52.480 When we were sought to be mature in God and be raised up in Him, the one element that the law could not give us was faith itself, and that was the mark. 00:25:53.599 --> 00:25:58.720 Faith enables us to have righteousness, counted to us where sin once reigned. 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.599 The law was unsuccessful to obtain for us what we truly needed. 00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:11.759 It was insufficient to justify, but it was masterfully sufficient to condemn us. 00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.960 Faith was what we always needed. 00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:19.599 Faith was what our hearts have been holding out for. 00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:22.880 And so faith comes through the Spirit. 00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:25.599 And it was freely gifted to us. 00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:30.160 It wasn't something that we had intrinsically or innately in ourselves. 00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:41.039 It was something that the Spirit gifted to us that we might receive faith so that we might place that faith in the finished work of Christ, in his death, burial, and resurrection. 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:49.759 And through this faith, the old man who was joined and bound to the law has been released from it and all of its demands. 00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:52.480 Righteousness has been gifted to us. 00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:56.240 The righteousness of Jesus who perfectly fulfilled the law. 00:26:56.559 --> 00:27:01.839 So now in Christ we are released from the law. 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:03.680 Amen. 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:07.359 What good news this is for us. 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:13.599 But often we don't approach our new identity in Christ through this lens. 00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:15.599 We tend to do this in two ways. 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:19.440 Number one is that often we mistake liberty for lawlessness. 00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:22.400 We mistake liberty for lawlessness. 00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:26.559 Lawlessness means this absence or removal of law altogether. 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:37.920 You see, we see the truth of our salvation being freed from the law, as the law actually being abolished or completely removed from us. 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:42.960 The law is still intact because Christ fulfilled it completely. 00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:45.279 Christ didn't come to abolish the law. 00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:53.039 Christ came to fulfill the law because the law in its very nature was good because it was divine revelation from God to man. 00:27:54.400 --> 00:27:56.240 So Christ didn't come to abolish it. 00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:58.319 Christ didn't come to remove it from us. 00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:02.480 He came to set us free from it by fulfilling it completely in himself. 00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:18.880 You see, because we see the law as abolished, we confuse liberty for lawlessness, and we can and as completely done away with, then lawlessness becomes the identity of the Christian life. 00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:27.680 We think to ourselves, since we've been freed from it and are no longer under its demands, we should have no regard for it whatsoever. 00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:31.519 That's not what being freed from the law means. 00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:39.680 It isn't that we no longer have any regard for the law itself, but that we're not justified by obedience to it. 00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:44.960 And that's this tension that we have to hold with the law in our new Christian life. 00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:50.640 It's not that it was abolished and completely removed or dismissed, it was fulfilled in Christ. 00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:52.240 It's still intact. 00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:58.640 But the difference between you and I is that we don't earn right relationship with God by obedience through the law any longer. 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:04.640 Christ earned our place in right relationship with God when we place our faith in him. 00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:14.240 You see, we still have a relationship with the law. 00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:19.680 And I'm going to try to help us work through how we understand as Christians our relationship with the law. 00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:25.599 And this comes from John Calvin in his work on the three uses of the law. 00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.880 We'll put them up here on the screen for you to see and read. 00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:40.960 Number one use he puts forth is that the law is to be a mirror, reflecting to us both the perfect righteousness of God and our own sinfulness and shortcomings. 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:44.559 So see that duality of the law in point one. 00:29:44.799 --> 00:29:49.440 It is to show us the holiness, the righteous, perfect righteousness of God. 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:53.359 So you want to see what the righteousness and holiness character of God looks like? 00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:54.480 Look at the law. 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:55.039 Right? 00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:56.480 You want to know more about God? 00:29:56.720 --> 00:29:57.599 Look at the law. 00:29:57.759 --> 00:29:59.359 And there that gets weird, right? 00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:03.279 I don't know why God has so many laws on leprosy, but he did. 00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:05.920 It just shows how holy he is. 00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:10.799 But you want to see God and his righteousness and holiness? 00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:12.240 Look at the law. 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:23.200 But it also shows us our sinfulness and shortcoming, how we don't live up to it, how we constantly fail, and it should empower us to be able to see our need for Jesus. 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:30.319 Not to give us faith, not to save us, but to show us how we fall short and how we need a savior. 00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:38.079 We have to remember that the law not only shows us our sin, but it also works to reveal to us the perfect righteousness of God. 00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:43.920 The law shows us both who God is and who he desires us to be. 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:50.240 You see, the law is good because it's inspired, it's given to us by God Himself. 00:30:50.480 --> 00:31:09.759 If we look through our theology of inspiration, we look through our theology of how we got the scriptures itself, the tablets, the Ten Commandments, are some of the uh I believe I'm right in this theology check, uh, but uh was the only one that was inscribed by the finger of God Himself. 00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:23.359 Every other one, the Spirit used the man, the author, to write down the inspired text, which was, but the Ten Commandments were scribed by the very finger of God Himself. 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:25.920 The law is good. 00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:43.599 If the law still serves a purpose in our life as believers, it is to create a profile, this spiritual divine avatar of what our conformity to Jesus and the living out of the righteousness that he has given us should look like. 00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:52.319 Second use of the law, Calvin puts forth, is that the law is for civil use to restrain evil. 00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:54.720 The law is for civil use to restrain evil. 00:31:54.799 --> 00:32:02.880 While the law cannot change or transform, it can be beneficial to restrain or subdue wickedness in certain extents. 00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:06.799 It serves to protect the innocent, to condemn the guilty. 00:32:06.960 --> 00:32:13.119 It is beneficial for providing order in a world that is prone to chaos. 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:16.960 It is beneficial to providing order in a world that is prone to chaos. 00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:20.400 How many of you are glad that it's illegal to murder people, right? 00:32:20.559 --> 00:32:21.920 I'm super glad for that. 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:25.200 I don't want this to be like the purge 24-7, right? 00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:28.720 I'm super glad that it's illegal for people to steal from me. 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:40.880 And I'm glad that there's consequence on the backside of those things because you know what that consequence does is that it causes people to honor the law that's put forth before them. 00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:43.200 They don't want to suffer that consequence. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:53.519 And so where we have law, we must also have consequence behind that law because it causes us to think before we do certain things, right? 00:32:53.680 --> 00:32:58.319 Some of you will speed because the consequence is only a little bit of a ticket if you even get caught. 00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:06.319 But many of us wouldn't steal, maybe not because we have a moral compass that points us to that being wrong, but because we don't want to serve jail time. 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:08.160 It's a different consequence. 00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:17.759 So the law is actually beneficial for providing some sort of order to a opposed chaotic society. 00:33:19.279 --> 00:33:23.920 Number three, the laws to guide, this is important. 00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:30.799 The laws to guide the regenerate into the good works that God has planned for them. 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:33.279 It's a guide for us. 00:33:33.759 --> 00:33:37.440 Lord, your word is a light unto my feet. 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:40.160 It guides me. 00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:43.920 The footsteps of the righteous have been ordered. 00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:46.640 Ephesians says at the end of chapter 2, right? 00:33:46.799 --> 00:33:49.279 Many of us in the Reform Camp, we love Ephesians 2. 00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:55.039 Uh, but God, being dead in your trespasses and sin, made you alive together in Christ. 00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:56.640 It is by grace you have been saved. 00:33:56.720 --> 00:34:04.799 But then the end of Ephesians 2 says, you were saved for the good works of which God had ordained for you before the foundations of the earth. 00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:06.319 Why did God save you? 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:14.400 That you might live out the good works he ordained in your life, that you might reflect his holiness to the world around you. 00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:23.920 You see, we are free from the law as a system of salvation, but we are now under the law of Christ as a way in which we should live. 00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:32.719 Obedience to the law cannot earn anything for us in relationship to God, but it does demonstrate that we are actually in relationship with him. 00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:35.280 Let me say that again. 00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:46.000 Obedience to the law cannot earn anything for us in our relationship with God, but it does demonstrate that we actually are in relationship with him. 00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:52.880 Now that we have been made alive in Jesus, we get to joyfully respond in righteous obedience to his commands. 00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:56.800 Look at this in Matthew, uh, it won't be on the screen, but the great commission. 00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:02.559 The end of Matthew, Jesus gives us the Great Commission, and what is part of that great commission? 00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:07.360 It's not just go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. 00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:09.119 That's awesome. 00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:16.480 But teaching them to obey, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. 00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:18.480 That's a part of the Great Commission. 00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:26.079 A joy filled in obedience in response to the salvific work of Christ in us through faith. 00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:30.639 You see, liberty does not equate to lawlessness. 00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:37.199 It is foolish to look at the law of God and walk away from it as having no value or purpose in our life. 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:47.280 We have an obligation not to fulfill the law in ourselves, but be obedient to the very one who has fulfilled it in himself. 00:35:48.239 --> 00:35:57.840 If we are truly in Christ, liberated from the law, then we will bear fruit of righteous obedience to his very word. 00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:03.280 Remember, a tree without fruit is dead. 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:07.199 And it's useless in the kingdom of God. 00:36:08.159 --> 00:36:16.559 Matthew 7.19 says this every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:23.039 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:24.719 You cannot be a Christian. 00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:33.599 Say you're a Christian, say that your trunk and your fruit doesn't have righteousness in it. 00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:35.599 You can't. 00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.639 You're a tree without good fruit. 00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:43.280 And your end is not paradise, your end is the fires of hell. 00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:46.239 That's Jesus. 00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:46.880 I didn't say that. 00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:48.480 That's red letter, right? 00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:51.760 Praise God. 00:36:53.119 --> 00:36:56.800 Some of us, though, we don't mistake uh liberty for lawlessness. 00:36:56.880 --> 00:36:58.960 We mistake law for legalism. 00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:02.000 We mistake the law for legalism. 00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:05.119 We realize the law serves a purpose in our life, right? 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:06.480 We we understand that. 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:17.599 When God said uh don't do these things or do these things, we we understand that there's purpose in that and how we should live, how we should uh compose our lives. 00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:23.519 But we failed to remove it from seeking to earn merit or favor with God. 00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:31.840 We think that the better we are, the more that we will earn from him, the more that he will give us his love, the more that he'll give us his affection. 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:33.039 And that's not true. 00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:35.760