September 15, 2024

Mount Zion Community Church iconMount Zion Community Church

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So at this point, we've covered quite a bit of stuff in the
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Gospel of Matthew. We got all the way up to the Sermon on the Mount. And now, as part of the
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Sermon on the Mount, we've covered the Beatitudes. We've covered the practical outworking of the Beatitudes, which is becoming salt of the earth and light of the world as Christians.
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And we've also covered Jesus' statement that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but rather he's come to fulfill them.
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And that brings us to a new section in the Sermon on the Mount. And in this new section, what we're going to see is our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, beginning the process of correcting some false teaching that had been going on in the church, correcting some false teaching that had started to permeate the religious lives of the
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Israelites. And the section that we're getting ready to enter into, it spans from verse 21 to verse 48 in chapter five.
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And what I wanna do right now is read all of those verses to you. Now, as you probably guessed, we're not gonna cover all of those verses from verse 21 to verse 48 today.
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But what I wanna do is give you something of an overview or a little introduction to the themes of this section before we dive into the more specific principles in the coming weeks.
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So again, we're in Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 21 and reading through verse 48.
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You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be guilty before the court.
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But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. And whoever says to his brother,
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Rachah shall be guilty before the Sanhedrin. And whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
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Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go.
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First be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer and you be thrown into prison.
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Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last quadrants. You have heard it was said, you shall not commit adultery.
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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
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And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
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Now it was said, whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery.
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And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not make false vows but shall fulfill your vows to the
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Lord. But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven for it is the throne of God or by the earth for it is the footstool of his feet or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king.
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Nor shall you make an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black but let your statement be yes, yes, or no, no.
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Anything beyond these is of the evil one. For you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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But I say to you, do not resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
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And if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your garment also. And whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too.
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Give to him who asks of you and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be the sons of your father who is in heaven.
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For he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
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And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
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Therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. So now you have a preview of what we're going to be covering for the next many weeks.
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I don't know exactly how many, but we'll find out. And obviously there's a lot in there.
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There's a lot in there that we have questions about. There's a lot in there that needs further explanation.
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There's stuff in there that people have asked me about directly. So it's really exciting to get to that.
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But as we've taken a first step here to take a look at this, what
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I wanna do as we consider the overarching theme and the overarching concept of all these verses is
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I want to illustrate it or attempt to illustrate it with a small example from my own life.
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Now, at our house, I wash a lot of dishes. I don't wash all the dishes. I'm not saying that.
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But I do wash quite a few of them. After all, Amy cooks the vast majority of the meals.
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So it's probably only fair that I would wash a lot of those dishes. But not only that, I'm actually good at washing the dishes.
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I'm thorough. I'm fast, effective, efficient with this stuff. Even if I do say so.
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What's that? I do not. And you'll see why in just a minute. So now it's rare,
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I know. Don's done some dishwashing here this morning. But it's rare that the dishes will still be greasy.
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They won't have bits of food left on them or anything like that. And sometime even the pots and pans that she uses are heavy.
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So I'm the best person to lift them and hold them and wash them and all that kind of stuff. So there's all of that. But all that is to say, one of the ways that I contribute at my house is by doing the dishes.
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And then every once in a while, Amy will kind of sucker me in with that fake flattery sort of thing.
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You know how people do that? They're like, oh, but you're so good at it. You're just a lot faster than I am.
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You should probably do it. But here's the thing. I don't,
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I do it, but I don't really like it. It doesn't fulfill me or give me joy or anything like that.
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And if somebody else really came in and wanted to do it, I would let them. So you might even say that I do it out of a sense of obligation.
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And normally that doesn't matter, right? It's okay. That doesn't even come up. But there's always that one time.
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And if you're married, maybe something like that, this has happened to you. Something that causes a little bit of friction.
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Now, this isn't like a verbatim account. This isn't exactly what was said, because I honestly don't remember. It was probably like one time.
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But the scene went a little something like this. So Amy would say something to me like, can you do the dishes?
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And I would say something like, yeah, okay, sure. And without a word,
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I can sense that something is not right. I just get this feeling back there. So I can look at Amy and see that she's not exactly pleased with my response.
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And I'll say, is something wrong? And she'll say, no, of course. And I'll say, are you sure?
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I mean, I said I was gonna do the dishes. And she will say, but I want you to want to do them.
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Now, that example is a little silly, obviously. But there are a lot of other areas where that example is less silly.
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And there are parts of a marriage, for example, where you truly do owe your spouse the doing of something in a manner that's enthusiastic, or at least willing, and not simply out of a sense of obligation, where you make it obvious that it's out of a sense of obligation.
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Because there are areas where you should joyfully do that because it's important to your relationship.
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And while this is not the passage that we're looking at today, this is sort of the meaning of what we see in Ephesians of a wife being submissive to a husband, and a husband loving his wife as Christ loves the church.
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So again, both of those pieces are there. But the point I'm trying to make here is that actions matter, they do.
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But in a lot of circumstances, the intent and the motivation and the attitude that accompanies your actions matters as well.
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And it might matter more than the actions in a lot of cases.
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So how does this idea or this concept connect with this section of the
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Sermon on the Mount? Before we get there, the next thing I wanna do is share a selection of Scripture with you.
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I'm gonna share several passages. So just listen to these and see if you're discerning any kind of theme.
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The first one is 1 Kings 8 .39, and this is part of a prayer of Solomon. It says, "'Then listen in heaven, your dwelling place, "'and forgive and act and give to each according "'to all his ways, whose heart you know.
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"'For you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.'" We move on to 1
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Chronicles 28 .9. This is part of David's advice to his son Solomon. "'As for you, my son
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Solomon, "'know the God of your father "'and serve him with a whole heart and a delighted soul.
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"'For Yahweh searches all hearts "'and understands every intent of the thoughts.'"
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Now in 2 Chronicles 16 .9, a seer says to King Asa, "'For the eyes of Yahweh move to and fro throughout the earth "'that he may strongly support those "'whose heart is wholly devoted to him.'"
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Proverbs 16 .2 says, "'All the ways of man are pure in his own sight, "'but Yahweh weighs the motives.'"
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Then we have Jeremiah 17 .10 that says, "'I,
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Yahweh, search the heart. "'I test the inmost being, "'even to give to each man according to his ways, "'according to the fruit of his deeds.'"
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Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 4, 4 -5, "'For I am conscious of nothing against myself, "'yet
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I am not by that acquitted, "'but the one who examines me is the Lord. "'Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, "'but wait until the
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Lord comes, "'who will both bring to light the things hidden in darkness "'and make manifest the motives of hearts.
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"'And then each one's praise will come to him from God.'" I have two more here. Hebrews 4 .12, "'For the word of God is living and active "'and sharper than any two -edged sword, "'and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, "'of both joints and marrow, "'and able to judge the thoughts "'and intentions of the heart.'"
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And then the last one that we're gonna look at is from Revelation 2 .23. This is part of the letter to the church at Thyatira.
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"'And all the churches will know that I am He "'who searches the minds and hearts, "'and
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I will give to each one of you "'according to your deeds.'" And that's not even an exhaustive list of verses about this idea, but it should be enough to drive home to you that what matters when it comes to your life as a
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Christian and what matters when it comes to your service to God is that what you have going on in your heart is more important than what you have going on externally.
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You remember just a few weeks back when we were looking at the Beatitudes, we talked about a
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Beatitude that was about being pure in heart. That was Matthew 5 .8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
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God. And we said that a significant part of the meaning of that Beatitude is that your heart is not divided.
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Your heart is not split between God and something else. Your heart is not split between God and money, God and work,
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God and sports, God and youth sports, God and whatever. Your heart is wholly devoted to God.
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Deuteronomy 6 .5, which is also echoed in Matthew 22 .37 in Mark 12 .30
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and 31 says this. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
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This is what it means to be pure in heart or to have your heart undivided. So to reiterate, your actions matter.
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They do matter. I'm not gonna discount that, but they only matter to the extent that the motivations of your heart align with the word of God.
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So back to the topic at hand, now that we have that as a foundation, what we see in chapter five, verses 21 through 48, is
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Jesus highlighting the difference between following the letter of the law and following the spirit of the law.
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It's also no coincidence that just before this, if you remember a few weeks back, we talked about how
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Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law, but he came to fulfill the law. And what he's doing in these verses is speaking directly against the righteousness of the
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Pharisees. So again, he had to clarify that he didn't come to abolish the law because he's getting ready to tell everybody that's listening that what they see of the law or what they understand of the law or what they're being taught of the law is not truly the law.
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And that would be disorienting for a lot of the people that were listening to him. Because when you start talking about how wrong the
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Pharisees were at this time, people would have trouble understanding that because the
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Pharisees, they were known for their diligence. Like we said, they were known for keeping, like making up and keeping all kinds of little laws and rules, you know, over 600 of them.
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But as we already discussed, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was just external righteousness.
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We can gather from looking at what their lives were like that internally their motivations weren't there, they weren't right.
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And now what Jesus is doing in these verses is he's giving specific examples and he's giving reasons why.
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So this is a big task to undertake and the people that were listening to him are gonna struggle with the concepts.
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Now one of the first things I wanna do as we continue with this overview is look at the technique that Jesus used when he was approaching this teaching.
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This was a rabbinical technique used for teaching concepts. But we see it first in verse 21.
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So he begins with the phrase, you have heard that the ancients were told. And then he mentions something that was taught.
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He mentions the teaching. And then he follows it up with an expansion or he follows it up with a clarification in the next verse.
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For example, in verse 22, which starts with, but I say to you. So he's saying, you have heard, it was said, but I say to you.
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So he's giving the teaching, the incorrect teaching, and now he's correcting it. So he does this with six different things in all these verses.
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So what we have to be clear on is that even though he just said that he's not teaching something new regarding the law, he's not changing the law, he's not abolishing the law.
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Rather, he's clarifying it, he's correcting it, he's giving a proper interpretation of what it means to keep the law, something that the hearers at the time wouldn't have had.
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And more important, as John MacArthur puts it, he says he shows that even in regard to the specific biblical commands against murder and adultery, their tradition was at variance with the
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Holy Scripture, which reveals that God's primary concern has always been for inner purity, not simply outward compliance.
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Along these same lines, the 19th century pastor and theologian, Patrick Fairbairn, put it this way.
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The scribes and Pharisees of that age had completely inverted the order of things. Their carnality and self -righteousness had led them to exalt the precepts respecting ceremonial observances to the highest place, and to throw the duties inculcated in the
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Ten Commandments comparatively into the background. Now, that's 19th century talk for the
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Pharisees obeyed the letter of the law without obeying the spirit of the law. They kept to the specifics of what the law said without regard for the true meaning or the true intention or the true goal of what the law is, and that's something that we will get into in just a minute.
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But first, how could the
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Pharisees get away with this? How could they teach these things? How could they make these things up and enforce them as holy religious requirements and have the people not stand up against this?
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What I actually learned in studying this passage from Martin Lloyd -Jones was, for historical context, the state of Judaism at that time, it was very similar.
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He compared it to the state of the church in the early 16th century, so in the 1500s.
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Now, in the 16th century, people that were coming to religious services didn't have the scripture in their language.
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They had no access to a translation. And again, we're talking about Europe primarily at this point.
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Scriptures were in Latin. Masses were in Latin, hymns were in Latin, readings were in Latin, and people didn't know what they were hearing.
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It's as if I was speaking to you right now in a different language that you didn't know and you all just had to sit there and nod your heads at me and assume that I'm telling you the truth because I say it's the truth.
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So the people didn't know the meaning. So the meaning was whatever the priest said that it was. And when a homily was given, people had nothing to compare it to.
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They had no way to check it against what scripture said. And as a result, in the 16th century, the church basically controlled the message of the
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Bible. They put themselves as the sole authority and the sole interpreters of scripture.
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And this church, just like the Pharisees, also started putting in place a lot of their own traditions, a lot of their own rituals and ceremonies and things along those lines.
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They elevated them to the level of importance of the words of God that are necessary for salvation, even though they were created by man.
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And it was the Protestant Reformation that brought scriptures back to people in the languages that they could read them.
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It was the Protestant Reformation that gave the Bible to the common man, to the lay person, and allowed them to identify the false teachings of the church.
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Now, despite this, just as an aside, millions of people are still deceived. Despite having the Bible in their language, millions of people are still deceived by these man -made traditions.
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Going back to the Jews of Jesus' day, where they were concerned, what happened with them is during the
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Babylonian captivity. So the Babylonian captivity, somewhere between 597 to 538
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BC, they were taken away, taken away from their people, taken away from their homeland and held captive.
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This lasted around somewhere between 50 and 70 years, depending on the specific details, which we don't exactly know.
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But what happened during this time is since they were taken away from their culture, they had lost the
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Hebrew language. Jews had lost the Hebrew language because as you're probably familiar with, they started speaking
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Aramaic sometime in this general range. And when Jesus came, many of them were still speaking
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Aramaic. But what that meant for them practically is that they couldn't read the
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Law of Moses. They couldn't read these original books of the Bible because they were in Hebrew.
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And over the course of the couple of generations they were in captivity, they lost the ability to read Hebrew. Not everybody did.
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Obviously we have teachers, we have scribes, we have Pharisees. And not everyone was a false teacher.
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For example, we have the example of Nehemiah, who is a great person to read about if you're ever curious about diving into the
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Old Testament. But I just wanna point this out because this is what a faithful teacher does.
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And it also sort of provides an Old Testament example of expository preaching or expositing the scripture.
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But if we look at Nehemiah chapter eight verses five through eight, it says this.
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And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up.
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It's kind of why we do that here too. Everybody stands up when we read the word. Then Ezra blessed
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Yahweh, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, while lifting up their hands.
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Then they bowed low and worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground. Also Yeshua, Bani, Sherabiah, Jaman, Aqab, Shabbatai, Hodiah, Messiah, Khalidah, Azariah, Jehozabod, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the
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Levites were providing understanding of the law to people while the people stood in their place.
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They read from the book from the law of God explaining and giving insight, and they provided understanding of the reading.
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So they were trying to help them understand because they didn't have the language. But when we get back to the
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Pharisees and the scribes, much like the cardinals, the bishops, priests, the popes of the 16th century, the
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Pharisees took advantage of this position. They took the opportunity of the people not understanding to add things to the law.
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And this did a couple of things. It helped them to control the people, but it also helped them look more righteous.
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It helped them look more holy as they could follow all these additional laws that they made up. But the difference in this situation, although it provides us a significant lesson, is that the
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Protestant Reformation at some level happened, was sparked by the word of God coming to them.
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Now, the word of God came to them in written form, in the form of the scriptures translated to them.
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For the Jews, they received this directly from God, from God incarnate, from Jesus Christ.
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This highlights something very important. And again, this is just an aside as well, but that revival comes only through the word of God.
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Revival is not an emotional experience. Revival is an experience where your affections for God and for his word are stirred by the
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Holy Spirit, which comes from the reading and the teaching of God's word. But what
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Jesus is telling his listeners here is that while the specific things that they're taught, and in some cases, specific commandments from the 10
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Commandments are important, there's something even more important to understand, and that's the principle underlying the commandment or underlying the teaching.
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But there's something even beyond that, and we'll get to that in just a minute. But one thing that I've told you a bunch of times over and over is that salvation never comes from simply checking off items from a list, right?
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We don't automatically get counted as holy because of our behaviors, because we do religious things or we do things that appear pious.
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You don't get points that accrue to your account until you have enough points at which you go to heaven and you can stop doing stuff, because that's not the way it works.
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But we want it to be the way it works. We want it to be that way because we all, we wanna be told what to do in a lot of cases.
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We don't wanna be told what to do, but if there's something that we want, we wanna be told how to get it. Like, just give me the steps, and if I follow the steps,
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I can't fail. That's what we want. And the steps are all in here, but they're more than simply just a checklist.
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That's the best way that I can think to put it. And honestly, a checklist to get to heaven is kind of a childish way to approach your faith, right?
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And that's not all bad because when we were children and we needed to know how to do something, sometimes we did need step -by -step instructions.
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But as we get older and we do this more and more, we internalize those things.
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We start to understand the meaning. And when it comes to your faith and your Christian life, eventually the idea is that the
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Holy Spirit has transformed your heart, and you're doing these things because that is what is in you to do.
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It's a response to mercy. It's a response to grace. It's a response to salvation. And it's not simply a task that you check off.
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And I'll say this too. You can be old and be young in the faith, and that's okay.
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Everybody starts somewhere, and everybody starts at a different time. But we all have to grow.
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And a large part of that is our responsibility. And another part of that comes from the
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Holy Spirit. So again, we'll continue to drive that home but if we're only looking for the process and we're only looking for just tell me what
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I have to do, what happens is we get kind of a soulless, mechanical approach to something that should actually be joyful.
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It should be inspiring, and it should be something motivating that you wanna do because it's moving you to your eternity, and it's moving you towards your eternity worshiping in the presence of God.
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We wanna avoid hell, but that can't be our driving motivation either. So it's pretty amazing in light of what,
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I'm kind of picking on some today, but in light of what some people teach about acts like confession, attending mass, abstaining from meat on certain days, praying specific prayers to dead people, how these things are required, are somehow taught that they're requirement for salvation.
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And just so I'm not being too overly unfair to one group of people, this happens in the
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Protestant world too. I've talked about this before. Churches that go into the
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Bible and say that if women wear pants to church, that's not allowed or any kind of external thing.
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None of those are ultimately contributing to your salvation. So we all do this in some ways.
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But if you consider confession, attending worship, prayer, and calling those requirements for salvation, that gets some traction because it's kind of like a half truth.
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You do have to do those things. You do have to come to church. You do have to pray. But if those are things that you just sort of trudge through and you push through under your own effort and you treat them like things that you have to do, then it's not joyful, it's not helping.
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It's a sign that something else is going on. It's a sign that what we really need to do is stop and ask the
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Holy Spirit. You call on the name of the Lord for salvation. God have mercy on me a sinner.
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But the only things you have to do are repent of your sins and believe in what Jesus has done on the cross.
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And even repentance and faith are gifts of the Holy Spirit. But when those are given to you, then you won't look at the things that you have to do as a duty.
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You won't worry about your checklist because those will be things that you wanna do. Psalm 37 four says this, delight yourself in Yahweh and he will give you the desires of your heart.
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And I'll tell you what that doesn't mean. That doesn't mean what this scripture has been twisted to mean, that if you become a
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Christian, you'll be healthy and wealthy and all that other kind of stuff. The material desires of your heart, those will go away.
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Delight yourself in Yahweh, delight yourself in his word and you'll want the things of God and you will get them.
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That's the thing. It's not that you'll become rich even if you do, that won't be as important to you as receiving salvation.
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And there's one more thing that I wanna highlight about this concept before we start to wrap things up and look at some takeaways.
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But I wanna talk briefly about the supremacy and the sovereignty of God and his law.
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This quote blew me away. John Calvin said this, let us agree that through the law, man's life is molded not only to outward honesty but to inward and spiritual righteousness.
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And he's talking about the law of God, the moral law. Although no one can deny this, very few duly note it.
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This happens because they do not look to the law giver by whose character the nature of the law is to be appraised which means we don't look at the law and the fact that it's coming from God and consider all that God looks at.
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So he goes on to say this, in contrast, if some king by edict forbids fornication, murder or theft, an earthly king,
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I admit that a man who does not commit such acts will not be bound by the penalty. That is because the mortal law giver's jurisdiction extends only to the outward political order.
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So you see where we're going here, right? God's law is far more all -encompassing than man's law.
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You can follow man's law and be fine because it doesn't matter your motivation for not killing somebody.
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As long as you don't do it, you won't go to jail for that. He goes on to say this, but God whose eye nothing escapes and who is concerned not so much with outward appearances as with purity of heart forbids not only fornication, murder and theft, these are the outward acts, but lust, anger, hatred, coveting and deceit.
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For since he is a spiritual law giver, he speaks not less to the soul than he does to the body.
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And this is sort of a preview of what we're getting ready to talk about as we look at some principles that we're gonna discuss here.
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So remembering that this is an introduction and sort of an overview to this set of verses,
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I wanna share five principles that we can keep in mind. These five principles, and the reason we're doing an introduction today is because these overarching ideas are gonna be things that you have to keep in the back of your mind as we look at the specifics of the verses.
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So the first one is this, and we've said this already. The spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law.
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And this is gonna be the primary concept here. Now, as many times as I've repeated this, we still can't make the mistake of thinking that the letter of the law is irrelevant to us, because it is relevant.
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Again, if we say thou shalt not murder, we still have to obey that.
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But if we only consider that top level of meaning, if we only consider the highest layer of what's going on, we'll have missed the point, and we'll have misinterpreted the whole principle that's going on here.
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Because most of us have been taught our whole lives about following rules. So it's become second nature for us to want to do that.
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In fact, a lot of us, if we're the people -pleasing type, we follow rules, people are pleased with us, well, that's like a reward all in itself.
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So then we wanna know what rules are so we can follow them so people will still be pleased with us. So it's just second nature for us to wanna read the rules and then act in a way that prevents us from breaking them.
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And that's good, that's very good, up to a certain point. And in certain situations, but as we just heard in that quote from John Calvin, where God's law is concerned, that's not enough.
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That's not going far enough into it. And ultimately, that's only partial obedience. So number two, the law is not just negative, it's also positive.
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So what this means is that the moral law, the 10 commandments, what we're talking about here, they're not only designed to tell us what not to do, in addition to this, they're designed to lead us in the direction of what we are to do, how we are to live, how we are to act.
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And obviously, this ties directly in with the first point. But if we only consider the things that we're supposed to avoid without considering issues like why we're avoiding them, and then what we should do as an alternative, then we're really only getting part of the picture here.
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And we can even take this concept one step further and say that not only is the purpose of the law to teach us what is right, but it's also to teach us to love what is right, to love what is right, and also to teach us to love the source of the law.
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I mean, that takes us back to that verse, Psalm 37, four, right, delight in Yahweh, he'll give you the desires of your heart.
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That's what that verse is all about. So again, it's not enough to say, well,
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I didn't murder anybody or cheat on my spouse or whatever, so I'm good. Because we have to understand, we have to internalize why we don't do these things.
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So number three, following the law perfectly is not the end goal.
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Righteousness is. Following the law perfectly is not the end goal.
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Righteousness is. And hopefully, it's evident how these principles are building upon one another.
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Because just a moment ago, we mentioned the law is not only negative, but also positive, and that it teaches us what we should do.
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And the reason that it teaches us what we should do, and again, as we said last, or three weeks ago, the reason the moral law is still binding on us today is because the overarching purpose is to help us progress in sanctification.
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It's to show us what a holy life looks like, to teach us how to live a holy life.
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With the help of the Holy Spirit, the law actually helps us know God better.
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And it helps us to become more like Christ. And it helps us to live the
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Christian life that we saw in the Beatitudes. So, obedience to the law ultimately instills in us a desire for holiness.
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And the things of God become our delight. It moves us beyond just believing, or just knowing the words, not believing.
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It moves us beyond simply knowing and comprehending the words to understanding that God's desire is for our holiness,
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God's desire is for our salvation, and this is how we become more like Christ. Psalm 119 .97
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says, Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. And the psalmist writes that from a position of somebody who is bound by the law, but is seeing beyond just the words, and seeing how it actually applies to their life.
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Number four, the purpose of the law is not to keep us in a state of obedience, but a state of spiritual growth.
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And I know this one sounds almost like a restatement of number three. But the idea, again, here is that if we're simply following the letter of the law, like I didn't murder anyone today, check, you definitely did something that you should do, that's great, but that alone is not by itself evidence that we're growing as Christians.
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It's not evidence that you are growing as a Christian, or you are becoming more sanctified, or you are understanding who
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God is. But rather, we have to understand the spirit of the law.
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We have to observe what that is telling us as well in order to grow spiritually.
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Again, holiness, sanctification, righteousness, a couple weeks ago, we talked about how
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Jesus said that our righteousness has to surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees.
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And while that sounded impossible at the time, that this is actually how it's done, by following the spirit of the law in addition to the letter.
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Probably our most important point here is number five, and that is, ultimately, the law points us to our dependence on Jesus.
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So, I bet every person in this room could read the 10 Commandments right now and say,
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I kept every one of those commandments. If we're looking at the letter of the law, right?
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I mean, most of those are very basic outward acts. Some of them are a little harder, some of the coveting and that kind of stuff, that sort of pops up naturally.
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But a lot of us could easily say that according to the letter of the law, we're good, but if we start to look more deeply, we look at the spirit of the law, that is when we see exactly how far short we fall, excuse me, of the full standard of righteousness.
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And we see that we're not even close. I see that I'm not even close, you see that you're not even close, nowhere near.
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And for you to truly study the law, it will very quickly reveal to you the true state of your heart.
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And revealing the true state of your heart is gonna reveal your unworthiness before God.
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And it's gonna reveal the fact that there's nothing that you deserve besides hell. A true understanding of the spirit of the law will show you the sinful state of your heart.
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And that no matter how hard you try, the perfect righteousness that is required by God will forever elude you.
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And that's why Jesus was sent. Jesus kept the entire law perfectly.
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Jesus kept the letter of the law perfectly. Jesus kept the spirit of the law perfectly. And that's why
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Jesus's death, Jesus's resurrection, allow you to stand before God justified.
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That is why he did what he did, because you could not do it on your own.
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So because of Jesus's work on the cross, because he did this, he kept the law perfectly, was murdered, crucified, dead, buried, resurrected on the third day, when
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God looks at you, he does not see all the ways that you have offended him.
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He does not see all the ways that you have betrayed him. Instead, God looks at you, and he sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus that has been imputed to you through no work of your own, but through repentance and faith.
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Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, just by way of explanation. He made him sin who knew no sin to be our, to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
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And then he writes this in Romans 1, 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the
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Jew first and also the Greek, which means that we're all covered by this, for everyone who believes.
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The law shows us our shortcomings. The letter of the law will deceive us into believing that we're righteous.
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The spirit of the law will never allow that. The spirit of the law will never deceive you as to your true state, and that the only resolution for that is
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Jesus. And that also highlights just the grace and mercy of God, the grace and mercy that has been shown to us.
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So Martin Lloyd -Jones summed it up this way. He said, in other words, as you examine yourself before you go to bed, you do not just ask yourself if you have committed murder or adultery, or whether you have been guilty or this or that, and if you have not, you thank
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God that all is well. No, you ask yourself rather, has
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God been supreme in my life today? Have I lived to the glory and honor of God?
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Do I know him better? Have I a zeal for his glory? Has there been anything in me that has been unlike Christ?
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Thoughts, imaginations, desires, impulses, that's the way.
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And I'll close with this verse, again, from Paul in Galatians 3 .24, that wraps this all up.
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It says, therefore, the law has become our tutor unto Christ that we may be justified by faith.
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Again, they had the law before Jesus came so that they would know that they couldn't keep it.
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The law now points us to Christ because it shows us our unworthiness and that God has covered all of that for us.
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Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, once again, we thank you for what is revealed in your word.
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God, I know that times get dark and times get difficult, times are confusing, and we feel like there's absolutely nothing that can be done.
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If we're honest with ourself, no matter what kind of face we put on in public, we know in private that we aren't worthy.
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We know the things that we've done even when other people don't know them, but you know them.
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And despite the fact that you know them, you still sent your Son to be an effective sacrifice for us.
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God, we praise you and we glorify you for the fact that there is no sin unrepentant of that could separate us from you in eternity.
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And we know that no person would ever treat us that way, and we don't treat people that way.
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Yet in your grace and your mercy, you've still given us an opportunity. You've still given us a way to salvation and you've given us your helper.
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You've given us the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and to lead us that way. God, I pray for those of us here who have hearts that are cold to your word, hearts that have become hardened to your word.
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If there's people that are here out of obligation who don't really care what your word has to say,
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God, I pray that the Holy Spirit would transform that today because it's not about the condemnation, it's not about the unworthiness, but really the whole message is the love and the mercy and the grace,
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God, and we thank you for that. So I pray that the Holy Spirit would help each and every person here receive that today, internalize that, accept it, call upon your name to be saved,
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God. So we thank you that you've given us that opportunity and we love you and we pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.