Jesus & The Law of God

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Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. You can open your Bibles to Gospel According to Matthew chapter 22.

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Gospel According to Matthew chapter 22. For those of you guys who are new to the scriptures and your relationship with the

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Lord, that's the first book in the New Testament, Gospel According to Matthew. We are in a significant section that I've been looking forward to from the very beginning.

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And we are today unpacking Matthew chapter 22, verse 34 through 40.

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Matthew 22, 34 through 40. Hear now the words of the living and the true

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God. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

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Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him,

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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

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And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

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As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray as a church. Father, we come before you as your people that you've redeemed out of darkness and brought into the kingdom of your son.

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We recognize, Lord, that we are standing on holy ground. We hold your word.

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This is a gift to us. And these are the words of the creator and sustainer of everything.

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In God, we recognize a fallible man standing before your people.

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And so we ask, God, that you would teach today through your word, by your spirit, that you would grant to us understanding.

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Help me to be faithful as a pastor of these people. We pray that you would open our eyes to the truth, change our minds and our hearts.

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And we pray, Lord, that your revelation would be the place that we stand. In Jesus' name.

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Amen. So question is, how do we get here? How do we get here to this section? I told you last week that I'm taking this kind of as a block.

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Jesus has told his disciples that he's coming into Jerusalem, that they're going to kill him.

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He's going to rise again from the dead. He comes into Jerusalem, that epic scene that was prophesied long before Jesus came.

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He comes in Jerusalem, yelling, Hosanna! Hosanna! And they're laying down these palm branches.

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Jesus comes in for that second cleansing of the temple. Jesus now finds it diseased, as the priest was supposed to do from the

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Old Testament law. The priest comes in first to check once, and the second time, then there's the dismantling.

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So very symbolic things happening there with the cleansing of the temple. Jesus, the true and perfect priest, comes in and examines

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Jerusalem. He's looking for fruit. He comes to the fig tree. He finds only leaves, no fruit, and he curses the fig tree.

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Then Jesus' authority is challenged in Matthew 21. By what authority are you doing all this?

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You can't just be nobody coming into Jerusalem, acting like you have all this authority, that you have the authority to cleanse the temple and to lay these curses down.

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Who are you exactly, and by what authority? And Jesus' wisdom embodied actually cuts to the core of their foundation, gives them a question that they couldn't rightly answer without exposing themselves.

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And then Jesus goes on to these parables. He gives three parables here in Matthew, and there's four questions.

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So three parables that are really an indictment upon that first century generation there, an indictment on them.

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They can hear through all of this. This is him confronting them. They recognize it in, of course, the parable of the vineyard owner and the tenants.

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They perceive that he was talking about them. See, Jesus is doing these parables. He's indicting that generation, the religious leaders, really, of that generation.

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And then there's these four questions where they're coming to cross -examine the Son of God. What arrogance!

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Coming to cross -examine the Son of God. They have their three questions here in Matthew, and then Jesus asks them a question.

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We're not there yet, but we're on this third question. And it's powerful, and it relates very much to everything we do in life.

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This is foundational. I would say that if you ask the average Christian, globally, anybody, what the two great commandments are, generally, they'll know.

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Love God, love neighbor. Many hipster churches today will put that on t -shirts, right? Like, this is the sum of all of life.

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Love God, love neighbor. And no, we're not a hipster church, despite what many would say. Love God, love neighbor.

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Hey, that's it. And ask people today, is that true today? Love God, love neighbor.

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That's the foundation and the basis for the life of the believer, where to love

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God, love neighbor. I'd say we'd globally be all on the same page. That, yes, those are the two great commandments, and they actually are relevant today in our generation, under the

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New Covenant. Love God, love neighbor. Jesus now has asked this question.

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But it's interesting, because Mark gives a little more detail here that I think would help with this particular passage.

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So, we just went through Matthew 22, 34 through 40. If you would, move over just to the next gospel, and that would be

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Gospel of Mark. And if you move to Mark chapter 12, you'll see kind of the same section through Mark, and it starts in verse 28.

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And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, which commandment is the most important of all?

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Jesus answered, the most important is, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the

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Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

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Mark says, the second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

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And the scribe said to him, you're right, teacher. You truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.

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And to love him with all your heart, and with all your, all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole -born offerings and sacrifices.

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And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God.

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And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.

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Powerful section, right? It's amazing, because this is something that the Jews would have understood.

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I mean, Jesus now is in conflict with religious leaders. They know the Scriptures. They know the law of God.

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They know what God has said about himself. And as a matter of fact, this starting point, the first and greatest commandment there, that first one quoted there, is from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4.

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It was part of the morning prayers of the Jews, and many today start that same prayer every morning.

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It was the hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now, we've done this a lot at Apologia, but I'll make sure we all know it.

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Let's do it together. Shema. Oh, let's, come on, you can do better than that, guys. Shema. Yisrael.

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Yahweh. Eloheinu. Yahweh. Echad. There you go.

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Gesundheit. All right. So, this is where they started. This was the foundation.

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This is what they believed about God, that he is the only God, and you love him with all your heart, soul, and mind.

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That was fundamental. And so, coming to cross -examine wisdom, the embodiment of wisdom, coming to cross -examine the

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Son of God, they come to ask him his perspective on the law of God.

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Now, this is vitally important to get. If they could have demonstrated that this

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Messiah, who says he's the Son of God, has set himself in opposition to the law of God, it would have been easy to demonstrate that he is not the promised

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Messiah. He couldn't be David's son. He couldn't, not if he's at war with the law of God.

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This is critical, because if we read the law of God, God provides a basis for us as to whether we know, or how we can know, if someone is actually from God.

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So, some tests of a prophet. Deuteronomy chapter 13, Deuteronomy chapter 18.

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We do this often when we're out doing evangelism with the cults, right? We talk about the test of a prophet in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

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How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and a thing follows not, nor comes to pass, that is the word which the

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Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.

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So, false prophecy is a way for us to know, definitively, whether or not this person actually speaks for the true and living

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God. And why? Because God is sovereign, amen? He controls everything, all of history, every molecule.

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Everything is controlled by this one true and living God. And so God sets up an acid test.

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If you want to know this person's from me, speaking from me, well, if he gives you false prophecy, not from the sovereign

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God. I wouldn't do that. He couldn't be speaking for me because I wouldn't give you a false story of history.

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And so that's one way you know. Another way is Deuteronomy chapter 13, reading verses 1 through 5.

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And that is that the test is whether or not that prophet speaks in accordance with, check this out,

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God's previous revelation of himself. And he even gives you an example of, even if there are signs and wonders, it looks legit.

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It looks so Christian. It looks like it's from God himself. All the lights and the movie, the movement and the emotions.

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And it looks like there's even miracles taking place, signs and wonders. God says this, but if he leads you after other gods, gods which you have not known, then you know this person is not speaking from the true and living

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God. So what was the basis for those Jews? Listen closely. The revelation of God.

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God's own self -disclosure. God's revelation of himself. He's condescended.

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He is not absent. He is not far from us. He's actually entered into history and he's spoken to his people.

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He's revealed himself and the test that God gives to his people as to whether or not that prophet speaks in accordance with his previous revelation.

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These are acid tests. They're the kind of tests that we can apply today when we're engaging with our

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Mormon neighbors, our Jehovah's Witness neighbors, our Christian scientists neighbors, whether you're talking to the

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Rosicrucians or the Baha 'is or whoever, the tests are the same. God's revealed himself.

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He's spoken. That's how I know. You want certainty? You stand on the revelation of God.

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In the Reformation, this principle was called Sola what? Scriptura.

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That really is fundamentally at the bottom of Sola Scriptura, a revelational epistemology.

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You don't let that word throw you. Epistemology is a theory of knowledge. How do you know something?

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How do you know? And Christians have a revelational epistemology. God has spoken. His word is the standard.

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I can have certainty because God has spoken. And so for believers, we rest on the word of God and his own self -disclosure.

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So when we talk to the Mormon, for example, phenomenal text, Mark chapter 12, right?

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Think about it in terms of our interaction with the Mormon neighbor. Mormons believe that God had many gods before him.

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They have mommy gods and daddy gods. Here a god, there a god, everywhere a god god.

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Everywhere's a god, right? There's no end to the gods of Mormonism, right? More gods than matter.

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That many gods, right? Elohim is one God amongst a pantheon of gods.

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He had a god before him. Who had a god before him? Who had a god before him? Jesus is a creation of Elohim.

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He was created in the pre -existence through Heavenly Father and one of his goddess wives. And lo and behold, you can all become gods like Elohim, right?

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As a matter of fact, Joseph Smith in History of Church, History of the Church, said exactly that. He said, you've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you.

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That was his revelation. So what is the standard for a Christian that approaches that in the modern context?

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The same standard, listen, listen, that these Jews were supposed to apply, were supposed to apply to Jesus.

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What do you say about God's revelation? And let me say this real fast.

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That's actually a good question. That was a good question to ask.

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You see, some of these questions are really trying to entangle Jesus. Let me get two people that hate each other kind of teaming up, becoming bedfellows for a moment, right?

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The Pharisees, and the Herodians. Not bedfellows, right? Getting together to ask

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Jesus questions and flatter him. You know, we know that you're not a respecter of persons, but what about taxes,

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Jesus? Trying to get him twisted up, right? Very deceptive. But now this person comes to Jesus and asks him a very good question.

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Greatest commandment of law. Which is it? These are good questions to ask the Messiah. If you want an acid test, find out what

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Jesus says about God's revelation. Is he in opposition to it? And when we apply that test today, when we're going to the

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Asian market, not far down the road, which always has Jehovah's Witnesses in the entrance, you're welcome.

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That was an invitation to go get them. What do we do? We apply the same standard.

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What do you say about God's revelation? Because if you're like Joseph, and you teach that there's many gods before God, and you can become one one day, well, let's use as an example, when

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Jesus was asked about this in Mark chapter 12, he says, hereo Israel, the Lord our

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God, the Lord is one. And he says you should love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love God and love your neighbor. The one

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God. And of course, this person hears Jesus say that and says, you're right. There isn't any other

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God besides him. There's only one God.

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That's right. But, as you look at this, we need to ask the question, as we're unpacking this, about Jesus' view of the law of God.

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Now, I've already done a sermon and a message. You can go and get it later on Matthew chapter 5, but let's at least today talk here about these two specific commandments from the law of God, from the

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Old Testament. And we need to ask the question about Jesus' own position on the law of God.

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So let's stick with Matthew first. Just move back. I'm not going to fully unpack it today, but just direct you towards it to Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 19.

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Here's an example of Jesus talking about the law of God in Matthew 5, 17.

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This is in the most famous sermon in the history of the world, and that's the truth, the Sermon on the Mount.

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And Jesus, after talking about us as the salt and light in the world,

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He says this in verse 17 of chapter 5, Matthew. Do not think, do not think, that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly,

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I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the

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Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So the text here,

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Jesus talking about the law of God in the Sermon on the Mount, mei nomosete, do not even begin to think, don't let it enter into your mind.

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Jesus doesn't say here, stop thinking that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets, stop thinking that.

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He says, do not even begin to think, don't even let it enter into your mind that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. So Jesus, when he speaks about the law of God, speaks about it very differently than we hear many evangelicals today, in terms of, you can think about popular figures today like Andy Stanley, arguing that we ought to unhitch the

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Old Testament from the New Testament, that we need to essentially ignore that revelation of God's.

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Andy Stanley demonstrating that he's in very strong disagreement with the Apostle Paul in 2nd

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Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 and onward, the Apostle Paul says, all Scripture is theanoustos.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God, profitable for what?

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Doctrine. What? Reproof. What else? Teaching and correction, that the man of God may be equipped, fully equipped, right?

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Now, this is the Apostle Paul, just consider for a second now, Jesus, think about timelines here, brothers and sisters. Jesus has come, lived righteously, died for sinners, rose again from the dead, and he has ascended at the right hand of the

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Father. He is on his throne, putting all of his enemies, where? Under his feet.

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This is the Apostle Paul, post cross, post resurrection, post ascension, saying all

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Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable. Question, was he referring to the completed

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New Testament canon? He's referring to what? Old Testament.

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Revelation of God. But we have a popular view today that says, essentially, we want to ignore much of that Old Testament Revelation, call it defunct, call it void, and that wasn't the position of the

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New Testament writers, and we're going to talk a bit about that. But another example, if you move to Luke chapter 16, verse 16, just as a point of contact, in terms of reading later

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Jesus' discussion about the law of God, in Luke 16, verse 16, here's another moment where Jesus talks about the law and the prophets.

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He says, the law and the prophets were until John, that's John the Baptist, since then the good news of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it, but it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become, what?

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void. So when Jesus talks about the law, it is in a way that is consistent with what you would expect from the

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Messiah, from David's son, from the Son of God. Now, we need to talk about this particular point of contact.

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When the Lord Jesus is making these statements about the law of God, don't even let it enter your mind that I've come to destroy it,

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I didn't, I came to fulfill it, when he says things about people teaching to disobey even the least of these commandments, being least in the kingdom of God, we need to talk about where Jesus pointed whenever there was conflict.

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Jesus had a revelational epistemology. Today, this is really important, because watch, you might be thinking right now,

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I came to church on Sunday, my kids are here, I'm not sure if they know what epistemology is, I don't know, right?

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They're eating a goldfish off the floor from last week, and I'm not sure that they're really there.

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Is this really important to talk about on a Sunday? Well, I'm going to tell you this is very, very important, because you are going to come into contact with this all week long.

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When you pull up your Facebook, when you pull up your Twitter, Instagram, when you are watching the news, when you are, when you're on YouTube and listening to people make claims, we are constantly in the midst of a conflict of epistemologies.

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A conflict between competing worldviews and theories of how you know what you know.

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This week, we stood before the City Council, and we went before the City Council, and we called abortion murder.

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On what basis are we doing that? Because in that room, I assure you, listening to all the gasps, and the sighs, and looking at all the rolled eyes, and the members of the

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City Council literally standing up and walking out when Desi was actually speaking to them, they all had a basis for what they were doing, how they were feeling, and how they were responding.

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They all had a theory of how they know what they know. What they know is true. Here you have Christians standing before the

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City Council and demanding of these people that they obey Jesus, that they repent of this, uphold justice.

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Now, watch. What arrogance, right? What arrogance if it isn't true?

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If it isn't true. But on what basis do we stand before the City Council and call them to repentance and uphold

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God's standards of justice? On what basis do I call abortion murder? Is it because I feel personally like it's murder?

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Well, that's audacious. Considering how many women in the United States of America have had one, what kind of audacity is that for me to say it's murder?

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That's because, listen, we stand on God's self -disclosure. We stand on his word.

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We stand on God where he says, you shall not murder. We stand on God's word when he talks about the nature of what's in the womb.

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It is not a cosmic accident. It's not a pile of meaningless tissue. It's the very image of God, and when

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Christians in this culture stand against an evil and injustice like abortion, we're not doing so on our say -so.

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We're doing it because of a revelational epistemology. God has spoken, and believe me, when you come into contact this week with your neighbor, they have a theory of knowledge as well.

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And oftentimes, and I was actually, it came across my feed this week, an old discussion that I had with the vice president of the

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Atheist Society at Cornell. It's available online. You guys can go listen to that. It's interesting. As he was pressed, and he was pushed, and as he was questioned, and as he was challenged on his worldview, and how he knows anything at all, he admits in that conversation, vice president of the

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Atheist Society at Cornell, not ashamed to say, no, I have no certainty. I don't know anything.

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Why? Because when you really whittle it down, there are a few options for you. How do you know something to be true?

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Well, you can do it through reason. How do you know that's true? Well, the laws of logic tell me.

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Human reason tells me. I've reasoned through it. I've come to certain conclusions through my own human reasoning.

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Well, that could be challenged. How do you think you got here? Well, my ancestors were bacteria, and then there were some fish, and then

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African apes, and then, right? Ask the question. Well, was there any purpose or design behind you?

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Any mover? Any cause? Anything sustaining, or is this all just matter in motion?

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Oh, no, it's all matter in motion. Okay, so you want to base your knowledge claims and truth claims on human reason?

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What's human reason in your worldview? Well, if you listen to guys like Harris and Dawkins, human reason is nothing more than biochemical responses happening in your brain.

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So basically, you're just fizzing chemical thoughts, right? I'm fizzing Christian chemical thoughts.

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You're fizzing atheistic chemical thoughts, and so nothing is really true, then, is it? There's no certainty, is there?

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It's just a bag of stuff making noises because of fizz happening in their three -pound brain.

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So your basis is human reason. Okay, well, that's done. How about empiricism?

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Popular today, people will say, well, no, you can know things because of experience, right?

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You have to experience it. You got to see it. You got to test it, taste it, feel it, experience this.

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You got to, you know, work out the laboratory tests and observe. Empiricism, you have another version today.

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Pragmatism, well, works for me. And boy, oh boy, is that the popular epistemology of our day, right?

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It works for me. I saw a funny thing this week.

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It was so funny. Allen West, right? Is Allen West the conservative?

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Yeah. Allen West was at a public talk, and he's black. And this millennial girl comes up to ask her question, and she says, do you identify as black?

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And the audience just, what? Whatever do you mean?

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And Allen West was trying to be respectful and cordial, and he, and she goes, no, no, hang on. And everyone's like, ooh, like, what are you asking?

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She said, no, no, no, hang on. He may not identify as black. And Allen West was like, yeah,

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I'm black. Which I, it just goes to show where we are today, and that is an epistemological claim.

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How do you know something is true? How do you know? Is it objective? Is it true, whether you like it or not?

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Or is it true because you feel like it? Because, hey, it feels good to me. Should we be dressing up our little eight -year -old boys like girls?

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Should we be pumping them full of hormones to change them from male to female? Well, I really feel like in my life, in my world, like that's the right thing to do.

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We feel like it's true. It feels right to me. You have to base it off of emotion. So, see, these are all epistemological claims.

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How do you know? And here's the thing. Jesus has a revelational epistemology.

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When he's asked here, what is the greatest commandment in the law? He says, what?

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Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He appeals to God's revelation. You shall love the Lord your

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God with all your heart and soul and mind, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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Here's an important point. What's he quoting from? The Old Testament revelation of God. He points to God's revelation.

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Another example of Jesus challenged on something is from Matthew chapter 19, verse 1.

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Go there quickly, Matthew 19, verse 1. This is a famous section where Jesus is actually right in the midst of a controversy in the first century.

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We talked about this when we were there. Remember that? Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Shammai, two opposing perspectives in this day.

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You had the Hillelite marriage clause, which was a clause that said, hey, as long as you give a certificate, doesn't matter if the reason is biblical, it could be for any cause, and it was an any -cause divorce.

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You had the more conservative school, Rabbi Shammai, the Shammaites, that would have said, no, you can only divorce on biblical grounds according to how

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God says to divorce. Now, Jesus is put into that conflict here, and Jesus answers this way, verse 3.

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And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for, and there it is, any cause?

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He answered, watch, have you not read?

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There is where Jesus rests it. Isn't it amazing? Jesus is God in the flesh.

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Amen? Yeah, you have to say amen to that. Okay. Jesus is God in the flesh.

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God tabernacled among us. He can speak, and his words have authority.

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Yes? But when Jesus is in the midst of a controversy in his day between different schools of thought, what does

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Jesus do in terms of certainty? What does he go to as the standard? He goes to the scriptures, to God's own word.

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He says very clearly, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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What does he do? He actually refers to the law of God, the word of God, his own revelation of himself.

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That was Jesus' standard. Jesus held to a revelational epistemology. God says, because God says.

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Now we need to talk about the context here, Jesus coming into Jerusalem, Jesus as the

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Messiah himself, Jesus as God in the flesh, and this question asked of Jesus about the law of God.

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He gives us two foundations. One is love God, and the other is love neighbor, from the

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Old Testament. Love God and love neighbor, and he says that all of the law and the prophets come from those two commandments.

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But we need to actually ask this question, too, when we look at the ministry of Jesus. What was the expectation in the ministry of Jesus, in his work, from God's Old Testament promises?

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So very quickly, just move to Isaiah chapter 2. I just want to give you a point of reference. You guys can go and read these in more detail later.

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Isaiah chapter 2, starting in verse 1. I know some of you guys are still getting there, but I'm going to start.

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The word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, verse 2 of chapter 2, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the

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Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.

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And many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the

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God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.

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For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the

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Lord from Jerusalem. So one of those promises that was proclaimed before the life and ministry of the

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Messiah was that God himself was going to draw the nations up to his mountain, and his law would go forth.

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Those were expectations. Another expectation most of us are familiar with is from Jeremiah.

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This is one of those New Covenant promises. It's in Jeremiah chapter 31.

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Jeremiah chapter 31. These are expectations. Because you see,

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Jesus, remember, it says there that he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

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Brothers and sisters, we have to know what that was about. You see, we think about the gospel today in a truncated way, where we truncate it down to justification through faith, and amen.

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We are only justified through faith alone, in Christ alone, by God's grace alone.

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Amen? Yes? But the gospel was a good, was gospel of a kingdom, of the rule of the

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Messiah. These are some of those promises. Isaiah chapter 2, Jeremiah 31.

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31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, and I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

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I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the

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Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

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I will put my, what? Law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their

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God, and they shall be my people, and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying,

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Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the

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Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

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One of the amazing promises of the Old Testament coming into the

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New Testament with the expectation is that God was going to do something spectacular, something amazing in the

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New Covenant that was different from before, but it wasn't an abrogating of the law of God and dismissal of the law of God, avoiding of the law of God.

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It wasn't a hatred of the law of God, as though it were some bad thing.

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God actually says in a New Covenant, God now no longer has his law on stone tablets outside of the people of God, but the promise is now he's going to take the law and he's going to put it where?

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On our inward parts. Now, rather than having the law of God on stone tablets outside of people in the flesh, applying pressure from the outside, now through God's Spirit in the

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New Covenant, with the forgiveness we have in Jesus, we have God taking that law and putting it inside of us.

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So now we have the internal motivation to love God and love who? Neighbor, the very greatest commandments in the law of God.

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Another expectation. I'll just point you to this one. You guys should know this one by heart by now. Ezekiel chapter 36.

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We love that as Reformed folks. Amen. Yes, if you had Calvinist chestnut verses, they'd be there, right?

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Ezekiel 36, God says he's going to cleanse his people. He's going to cleanse them of their idols.

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Sprinkle clean water on them, so they'll be clean. He says that he is going to remove a heart of stone and give a heart of what?

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He's going to put his Spirit within them and, here it is, cause them to observe his statutes.

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Are you hearing it? The Old Testament promising us in the

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Messiah and his kingdom and through his work, we would have a new way of relating to God and to his law.

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The promise of God raising us to newness of life, the promise of God putting his law on our inward parts, the promise of God by his

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Spirit causing us to obey his statutes. We see today so much of a dismissal of the law of God and evangelicalism, a hostility toward the law of God in evangelicalism.

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We hear us as Christians today in the 21st century talking about God's law in terms of it is just bad.

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It is just mean. It is just from a wrathful God. Isn't it so great now we have

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Jesus where we can have a God who is gracious and no more of that law stuff?

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But you see the expectation of the kingdom of the Messiah was something very different than we hear today in popular form.

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The law of God was going to actually take a new position and it was going to take a position from inside God's people actually empowered by, motivated by,

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God's Spirit. There's the fulfilling of it. But when you see Jesus the Messiah coming into the world, he's talking about the law of God in a very different way than we often hear today.

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Here's how God talks about it. Deuteronomy chapter 4. In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 4,

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Jesus quotes from two chapters after this. Jesus quotes

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Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6 comes, of course, after Deuteronomy chapter 4.

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In Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 4, this is how God speaks about his law. But you who have held fast to the

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Lord your God are alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the

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Lord my God commanded me that you should do them on the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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Keep them and do them. For, here it is, that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

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For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him?

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And here it is. And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

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Do we think about God's law like that today? Do we think about it like that today?

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God here is talking about his law in terms of that's gonna be your wisdom in the sight of all the people.

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They're gonna see all these statutes, all these rules, all these righteous standards. They're gonna see these as they look in from these pagan surrounding nations.

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They're gonna look at these laws and they're gonna say, what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I've set before you today?

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It's so good. Wow. We are today so far removed from history and from a proper understanding of the law of God and the

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Word of God that we've now found ourselves in the position that much of the time modern evangelicals, professing

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Christians, talk about the law of God as though it were only a curse, only oppressive.

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And brothers and sisters, that is not how God speaks about his law. Let's just do this quick test. Move to your

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Bibles to Psalm chapter 119. Psalm 119. It's funny as you guys get there today,

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Tim messaged me and he was like, hey, which Psalm do you want us to do before church today? Maybe one that relates, of course, to worship today and the

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Word today. And I laughed and said Psalm 119, which, if you don't know, is the longest chapter in the entire

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Bible. So that's obviously gonna make worship difficult if Tim is up here for 45 minutes reading from Psalm 119 before we even get started.

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But let's just do this. I'm not gonna open Psalm 119. I'm gonna have you guys there. Let me ask you to do this just for the next minute or so.

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I want you to look through Psalm 119 and I want you to find me a verse or two that speaks about God's law, the goodness of God's law, and how we're to relate to God's law.

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Something about God's law in Psalm 119. And just so you know as you go there, it's not going to be hard at all.

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The whole chapter is about God's law, our relation to the law of God, God's standards.

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So Psalm 119, here's what we'll do. Just give me one verse or two verses from Psalm 119.

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Raise your hand. Say it nice and loud. Jim, please. Every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

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Let's get another one from Psalm 119. Somebody else. Psalm 119. Wait. Very good.

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Yes. Good. Jerry.

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I hate those who are double -minded, but I love your instruction. I love your law. Yes, ma 'am. My eyes fixed on your commandments.

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Kathy, say that first part one more time.

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Nice and loud so everyone can hear you. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules.

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Connor. Okay, so let's just hang there for a minute.

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Psalm 119, we can go with this for the remainder of the sermon really. But if you read

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Psalm 119, question, is that true today? Is that how our heart should relate to the law of God as God's people?

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Somebody might say, no, Pastor Jeff, what you don't understand is that Psalm 119 is really the mind of Christ.

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That's how Christ is about the law. That's the righteousness that we need, is we need the righteousness of the one who actually is that way about the law of God, who does feel that way about the law of God, fulfills the law of God in that way,

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I would say, amen. That is precisely how Jesus, the Lord Jesus, related to the law of God, responded to the law of God, absolutely.

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And the only way to have that righteous standing before God is through faith, having his righteousness as a gift.

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Amen? Yes. But the question is, in light of the fact that Jesus is our

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Messiah, he is our righteousness, we're being conformed to the image of who?

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Christ. So the way that Jesus is, in terms of his relation to the law of God and his obedience, is how the

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Spirit of God is sanctifying all of us today. So, the perspective of the law of God in Psalm 119, very different from we often hear today.

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Again, Jesus is asked, Jesus is asked, go back to Matthew chapter 22, he's asked, which is the great commandment in the law?

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And Jesus again quotes two passages from the Old Testament. Jesus quotes from the

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Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 6, and he quotes from Leviticus chapter 19.

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So as we unpack this, we have to recognize that Jesus isn't coming up with this for the first time.

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This isn't new stuff. This is now Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, raised under the hearing of the law of God, in synagogues, singing psalms.

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This is Jesus pointing these Jews, God's covenant people, back to God's revelation.

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God says, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.

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And he says, the second is like it, you love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now, those two commandments come from the law of God.

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Oftentimes, we think as Christians about our yearly Bible reading plans, and we think about that Old Testament time, where we're reading through our yearly Bible plan and going through the

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Old Testament, and oftentimes we stumble, and we get into difficult moments, and we get into genealogical passages and things like that.

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Know this, God has those there for a reason. That's inspired revelation. It's necessary for God to demonstrate his faithfulness in giving us

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Messiah by giving us those moments of genealogies. But, it's interesting, we'll go to the

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Old Testament, and at times, as Christians, we go to sections in the Old Testament. We hear about oxes not being muzzled.

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We hear about parapets on the roofs of houses. We hear about these things, and we go,

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I just don't know. I don't know what benefit there is to reading this today.

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Remember this, Deuteronomy 4 says that that was to be their wisdom in the sight of the peoples.

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And one of the things that God wanted his law given to his people to do is actually provoke a response from the pagan nations that what great nation is this that has rules and statutes so righteous as this?

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Now, if you read, Jesus says, love your neighbor as you love yourself, but I want to point you to where that's from, Leviticus 19.

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A lot of moving back and forth today, so move to Leviticus now. Leviticus chapter 19, everybody's favorite book in the

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Bible. Leviticus chapter 19.

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By the way, just a reminder in terms of how important this text is for understanding the

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Word of God. It's Leviticus 14 43 that demonstrates to us what was behind Jesus' cleansing of the temple.

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So this book matters, it matters a lot. In Leviticus chapter 19, I'm going to read you some portions of this.

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This is where Jesus quotes from. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 11.

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He says, you shall not steal. You should not deal falsely. You should not lie to one another.

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You should not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You should not oppress your neighbor or rob him.

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The wages of a hired worker should not remain with you all night until the morning. You should not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, and you shall fear your

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God. I am the Lord. You should do no injustice in court. You should not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.

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You should not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor.

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I am the Lord. You should not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him.

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You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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I am the Lord. I say those are good things. What do you think?

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Amen. And Jesus points back to that. You should love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love God, love neighbor.

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Love God, love neighbor. Now here it is. Ready? Here's the sum of all this. Jesus says, watch, all the law and the prophets are built upon love for God and love for neighbor.

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Let's unpack that for just a moment, okay guys? Love for God, love for neighbor. First part, love

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God. Second part, love neighbor. Interesting. Can anybody think about any list of commandments given to us that really spell out loving

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God and loving neighbor? Anybody can think of anything at all? What's that? The Ten Commandments.

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It's right there in the back of the church, y 'all. Love God, love neighbor.

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Say, well, how's that look? Well, let's do it. We can't do it all today, but just a bit of it. You shall have no other gods before me.

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By the way, that is not like, let me in there, right? Just don't let the gods be before me.

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No other, right? That's how we read it sometimes. No other gods before me. Like, let me be the first God in your system of gods.

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No, actually, no other God before me is no other God in my sight. So that's loving

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God. You shall have no other gods before me. Love God. How about love neighbor?

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Isn't it obvious? Don't kill them. Right? Don't lie to them.

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Don't commit adultery. Don't covet their stuff.

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That's loving neighbor. So when Jesus says two great commandments, love God, love neighbor, all the law and the prophets built upon these two commandments, you can see how the

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Ten Commandments flow out of loving God and loving neighbor. They flow out naturally.

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Love God and love neighbor. So what motivates, what motivates the commandments of God?

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These are not rules, oppressive rules, just to slap down on somebody so they can go to heaven one day.

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That's impossible. Justification has always been through faith. Abraham believed

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God and it was credited to him as righteousness. God didn't give these laws to be a mediator between him and his people.

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He gave his law and it was a revelation of his own character. His holiness, his righteousness, his goodness.

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And so we think about God's commandments. What is the motivation for having no other

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God before God? I love God. God's calling me to love him.

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When God says you should not commit murder, what's motivating that?

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Love for neighbor. Don't lie to your neighbor. Why? Because you're to love your neighbor.

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Those two things are the foundation of all of God's commandments. But it gets more interesting actually.

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Because as you move through the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, as you move through the

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Pentateuch, you see not just love God, love neighbor. Oh, and the Ten Commandments.

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Here's how you love God and here's how you love neighbor. Then Jesus says all of the law and the prophets are built upon love

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God, love neighbor. So now we move to the book say of Leviticus or anywhere in Deuteronomy and we should see more expressions of loving

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God and loving neighbor. It is really an extrapolating on what it means to love

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God and love your neighbor. I'll give you an example. Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 8.

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You can write it down or you can go there now. Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse 8. There is one of those laws that today we see as Christians and we go,

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I don't see how that relates to me. At all. And that law tells people to bear, to actually build a parapet or a railing around the rooftops of their houses.

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Now some of you guys are thinking, well, I guess we're all going to Home Depot after In -N -Out tonight. Start some work of building railings around the roofs of our houses.

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Here's the problem. When we look at the case laws in the Old Testament, these are case law examples that give us a principle of the preservation of life.

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We don't take the law of God from the Old Testament where it tells us how to love God and love neighbor and then slap that down on society today saying, hey, it says build a parapet around the roofs of your houses.

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So everyone start doing so. No, the principle there in that case law example is this.

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You shall preserve life. Why? You shall not kill.

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Thou shalt not kill. So we preserve life. So a parapet around the roofs of the houses today in Arizona doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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We're not spending a lot of time on our roofs today, are we? Some of you weirdos might be, but I don't know, right?

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We're not doing a lot of like hanging out at nighttime on the roofs of our houses because glory to God we have air conditioning.

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If you go to our house in Kauai, you might want to spend the night on top of the house because it's hot, right?

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Now, they actually would go to their rooftops to cool off, to hang out, to store things.

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And so God gives a case law example of the preservation of life. How do you love your neighbor?

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Here's how. Preserve their lives. If there's a risk of them falling off and hurting themselves, preserve their life.

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Now one note here real fast. God didn't say that there were any fines or tickets offered because you didn't do it.

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But if you didn't have the parapet around the roof of your house and somebody fell off, you were disobedient to God and you were thus accountable.

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But no ticket was offered. No fine was offered. So how would we apply the general equity of this law today?

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How do we love our neighbor today in light of God's commandment there of building a parapet around the roof of your house?

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Well, here's how. Anybody have any pools in their yards? It would be righteous to say you build a fence around your pool to keep children from falling inside of it and perishing.

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Or anybody have land with a deep well in the land? It is a righteous thing to build a railing or a fence around that hole there.

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Why? Love God and love neighbor. That's why we do this because we love our neighbor.

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We want to preserve life. So again, we have two great commandments. What are they? Love God and love who?

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When you move through the Ten Commandments, you see expressions of what it means to love God and to love neighbor.

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And when you move into God's statutes, His case law examples, you see examples of what it further means to love

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God and love your neighbor. I'll give you another example. Exodus chapter 22. There are laws about theft and repayments.

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In Exodus chapter 22, you can just record that down now. You can see where God tells his people how to actually handle theft in a way that loves neighbor.

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Now, this is critical today because watch, we live in a system today that says no to God's law. Our first Supreme Court Justice John Jay lived in the context of the

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Christian worldview. And our first Supreme Court Justice John Jay, who was very much into evangelism and missions.

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He was a great man of God. He appealed to the law of God as the first Supreme Court Justice of the

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United States of America. We're in a very different time today where now it's olly olly oxen free.

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Anything goes, whatever you like. We say no to this book as a standard.

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We say no to God's revelation. We say we don't want all that law. That's a lot of law from God. We don't want that.

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I challenge you to go to the law library in Phoenix and tell me how many books you see, how many new statutes, how many new rules and regulations, down to how many screws you can put into your wall.

01:00:12

But we live in a time today where we don't we don't focus in upon, as God does, victims' rights and loving our neighbor.

01:00:20

So when theft happens in today's society, the victim may never get paid back.

01:00:26

Today's society, the state becomes the victim. God's concern, and Jesus points to it, is love

01:00:33

God, love neighbor. And his law, as he even gives penalties, focuses on love for neighbor.

01:00:42

And again, if you read Exodus, a passage I pointed you to, you'll see God's concern for the victim, for the neighbor.

01:00:51

And God actually has righteous statutes and case law examples of what to do if somebody is stolen from.

01:00:58

Do you know what the answer isn't in God's law? Five years in prison. Do you know what it is?

01:01:05

Pay it back. You will pay it back, because the victim has rights and you must love your neighbor, love your neighbor.

01:01:14

Today we have a system that doesn't focus on love for neighbor and victims' rights, as God is concerned with, and as Jesus points to.

01:01:22

But we are now allowing the state to be the victim. We say, let's create more victims.

01:01:29

So I'll give you two examples. One example would be in some Arab countries today, if somebody steals something, what's the consequence?

01:01:38

Cut their hand off. I'm going to say that God would never allow for such a thing that is unjust.

01:01:45

The victim has received ultimately no rights and protection, and now we've created another victim by maiming somebody for theft.

01:01:54

God would never have anything to do with such a thing. He says, love God and love neighbor. We also have a system today where we create more victims where we don't love our neighbors.

01:02:03

For example, today in this room, we are all, because we ignore God's righteous statutes, victims of other people's crimes.

01:02:12

So what we say today is if somebody robs somebody or steals something, let's take that person and put them in prison for a number of years.

01:02:20

Question, who's paying for that? We all are paying for that. So now we all actually become victims of coercive taxation.

01:02:29

How? The state demands of us that we pay for the crimes of somebody else. We pay for their shelter.

01:02:36

We pay for their food. We pay for their sex changes, possibly. But we now become victims today.

01:02:42

Why? Because we don't focus on two great commandments. Love God and love neighbor.

01:02:48

God says theft at the bottom requires repayment. Repayment.

01:02:55

And when you follow God's righteous statutes in terms of repayment and loving your neighbor, now the person who stole something can actually be reconciled to the victim and come back to society whole again.

01:03:09

God says love him and love neighbor. Another example of God's law of loving him and loving neighbor is

01:03:16

God's laws against rape. God says rape is a sin and a crime.

01:03:24

And if somebody has demonstrated to be a rapist on the basis of two to three independent lines of evidence and testimony, what's the penalty according to God for rape?

01:03:34

Why? Love God, love neighbor. I gave you guys this example before and I think it's a powerful one.

01:03:42

When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend and in high school the girl that I was seeing was actually a victim of rape at her 16th birthday party.

01:03:55

She was at home with her family and friends. More friends came and they invited a stranger that she didn't know.

01:04:01

And this stranger came into the house, was hanging out, and when she went to the bathroom, he followed her into the bathroom, did an evil and horrible wicked thing.

01:04:10

He was caught. He was brought to trial. He was found guilty and he ended up serving six months in jail.

01:04:19

Six months in jail and he was released. God says love him, love neighbor.

01:04:26

And when he expands on what it means to love him and love neighbor, he does so even in terms of standards of justice and loving neighbor the victim.

01:04:36

And he says this is the righteous rule to love neighbor in this instance. Another thing that we get from the law of God is the good things that are the basis of our just laws today.

01:04:49

They are laws that relate to loving God and loving neighbor and they provided the basis and foundation of much of what we enjoy today, although I'm not sure for how much longer.

01:05:01

And that is a scary thing. But how about this? Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15.

01:05:08

God says that you were never to accept the testimony of one witness, of one witness against somebody.

01:05:18

One witness can't rise up and have somebody charged with a crime. You needed two to three independent lines of witness and testimony in God's law.

01:05:27

And what did you always have in God's law? Because you love your neighbor and you love

01:05:32

God. Here it is. Listen closely. The assumption of innocence. The assumption of innocence.

01:05:41

You needed two to three witnesses. How about the laws today about warrantless searches and seizures?

01:05:48

No cop can come and just start running through your stuff and break into your house.

01:05:54

Why not? Because atheism. It was the

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Christian worldview and Christians in history that developed a righteous way to view society and culture based upon God's law and commandments.

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You know that there's a history of Christianity behind us. We're not the first ones to take a stab at this, right?

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And we're grateful. Dr. White's gonna be doing a church history course for us soon, so that'll bless us all a bunch.

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But let me just say there are examples in history of Christians who were abused by the magistrate to the degree that they were actually charged with crimes without sufficient evidence.

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They were forced to swear against themselves and they were forced to testify against themselves.

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God's law was the basis of no warrantless searches and seizures that we have in our law today.

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Have you ever heard the right to remain what? That came from atheism.

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The assumption of innocence is in God's law.

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That's how we're to love our neighbor and I'm not forced by God's law to testify against myself.

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Here's the point. If I'm truly guilty, listen, in God's law, if I'm truly guilty, you don't need my help.

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If I'm truly guilty, there is evidence and witness to prove it. So there's so much we can talk about here in terms of separation of church and state as a biblical principle.

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Church and state are institutionally and functionally distinct. In Israel, the king and the priest were different offices.

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Saul lost the kingdom when he tried to usurp that. Uzziah was struck with leprosy when he tried to offer incense.

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So when we talk about even the separation of church and state today, that wasn't given to you by atheism. That is from Christianity.

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You're welcome. How about this though? Separation of church and state did not mean in the

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Old Testament or according to Christians who gave it to the world that the state is not to be obedient to Jesus.

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It did not mean that. It meant that we were not supposed to have a church -run state or a state -run church.

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Those are distinct offices and Christ is the head of the church. Amen? But according to Romans 13, the magistrate is the deacon or the servant of God, wielding his sword of justice, ultimately.

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As an aside, I'll just say this quickly. Matthew 28, 18 through 20 says about Christ's authority that he has all authority.

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Where, brothers and sisters? Heaven and where else? On earth. Are we to expect according to God's Word that the kings of the earth are to obey

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Jesus? Psalm chapter 2, God says, the Father says to the Son, ask of me,

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I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession. And he warns the kings of the earth to be wise and to kiss the

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Son, obey the Son or they will perish. Jesus is the king of what?

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I know we're finishing up here guys, but stay with me guys. Jesus is the king of what, guys? Kings. He's the

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Lord of what? King of kings and Lord of lords. I was saying like two weeks ago before an audience,

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I think in Oklahoma, these are great Christian t -shirts, right? And they're usually really ugly.

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King of kings and Lord of lords, right? We don't seem to know how to make nice t -shirts as Christians, right?

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They're always very funky and King of kings and Lord of lords. It makes a great t -shirt, makes a great oil painting, makes a great bumper sticker, but have we thought about the implications of that claim?

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That Jesus is the king of kings today. That he's the Lord of lords today.

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There are things that we need to embrace if we believe that. Jesus appealed to the law of God and said you're to love

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God and love your neighbor. All the law and the prophets are built upon those.

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If we're to be obedient as Christians and as communities and as states and as nations, we need to be obedient to God's revelation and disclosure of himself.

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Next week, I'm gonna talk just a bit more on this to unpack this a little bit more to demonstrate that the

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New Testament authors assumed the continuity of those foundational laws, love

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God and love neighbor. And they did it even to the degree of pointing to the Ten Commandments, to animal husbandry laws, and more.

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But I wanted to finish this up by just pointing to a summary. In the modern context, when we think about Jesus, listen closely, this is very, very important.

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In the modern context, when we think about Jesus and what he points to as the greatest commandments, what are they?

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Love God and love neighbor. We need to embrace this very important thing.

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This is from my friend Doug Wilson. I know he got it from somebody else, but he says it often. It's not whether we will have a

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God over our system. But which

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God will we have over our system? God is the ultimate.

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It's the point at which you do not go beyond. It's the final point of appeal.

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For Christians, we say it's Yahweh. We say it's the triune

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God of the Bible. It's his revelation of himself. That's the place that I stop. I rest on his revelation.

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He is God over everything. He has all authority. He sustains all things.

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And we think, well, the atheists in our culture don't accept God, so they don't have a God, do they? Answer, of course they do.

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It's not a question of whether we will have a God. It is which God?

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For the secularists today, for the humanists today, they say what? They say, well, it's not

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Jesus. It's not that book. It's us.

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In this moment, in our time. It's democracy. That's the ultimate standard.

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We decide. We're the reference point. Okay, great. Your God is Demas. Demas, from which we get democracy.

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It's the people determine. The people say. It's not whether we will have an ultimate standard of law, but which ultimate standard will we have?

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Jesus said God's two greatest commandments is to love God and love neighbor. Want to note that the two greatest commandments are from the

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Old Testament revelation of God. When we hear people today talking about unhitching the

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Old Testament from the new, we should see it for what it is. Here's the glory of it. Final words here.

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Ezekiel 36 Romans 8. When we think about Jesus pointing to the two greatest commandments and all the law being based upon those two commandments, we need to glory in the redemption we have in Jesus Christ, because God has not only declared us righteous as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, through faith in him and his work, he has not just given us as a gift a righteousness that is not our own through faith given to us.

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He has not just credited to us righteousness apart from works and not counted our sins against us as a gift all to his glory, all on the basis of his own work.

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God has also given us his spirit, given us new hearts, put his law on our inward parts.

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We have now a new way of relating to God and his law that is different.

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Romans chapter 8, Paul makes a very clear distinction between those who are in the flesh and those who are in the spirit.

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Those who are in the flesh, those who are dead, those who are in Adam, there is only condemnation and death and they cannot submit to God's law.

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Paul says they are not even able to do so. But if you are in Christ, not only do you have a righteous standing before God that is a gift that you have nothing to do with in terms of something you've earned, it is all to his glory, all by his grace.

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You also have the presence of his spirit and you are now in his spirit made alive and now you relate to God and his law in a new way.

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Now Christians love God and love neighbor, not because of stone tablets outside of us, but because we are now redeemed in Jesus, indwelled by his spirit and you have the spirit of God, Ezekiel 36, causing us to observe his statutes.

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So now as believers we have a new way of relating to one another and obeying God by loving him and loving each other and it is all by his spirit.

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We are not in the flesh. Amen? We are now regenerated, made alive, and now have right standing before God.

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And so now when God says love me and love your neighbor, the inner desire of the Christian is not resistance, but my soul longs for that.

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I love this. This is my favorite thing about being a pastor. Truly. Just know,

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I'm going to tell you ahead of time, if we ever do counseling together, which I have with most of you and you ever talk to me about all your struggles with sanctification, if I smile

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I'm not mocking you. I always smile when believers in Christ sit before me and tell me all of their hatred for their sin.

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I love when I see Christians with tears coming out of their eyes when they talk about, I just want to love

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God. I don't want to sin against God anymore. I want to be a better husband to my wife. I want to love my wife like God calls me to and I don't know what's wrong with me and I just want to get this behind me and repent.

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Pastor Jeff, what's wrong with me? I'm just... This is so lovely. It's so amazing because this isn't now the church and pastors taking law and placing it on top of people saying obey.

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This is now believers in dwelt -by -God spirit longing for the law of God.

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Longing to worship God, to obey God. And there, by the way, is one of the glorious examples of identification as a believer.

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If you love God and love neighbor and long for that, that is the work of the

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Spirit of God in your life. We relate to God in a new way. Let's pray.

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Father, I pray that you'd bless the words that went out today. Use them, Lord. Please to change us.

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We desire to love you, God, and love each other. Please grant to us a strength by your spirit to do it.