1689 London Baptist Confession (part 43)

We started talking about the Old Testament, New Testament, and maybe the continuity, discontinuity

issues.

And after we got done, of course, the best discussions happen after we're done.

Now, that's not really true, because almost as soon as we were done last week, what did I do?

I bolted out upstairs and talked to the VBS volunteers that I had

momentarily forgotten about.

Sorry.

Sorry.

But anyway, somebody asked, well, you know, I thought that

basically the things that were said in the Old Testament, the commandments that were given, unless they're

repeated in the New Testament, they're not in force.

And I think there's a lot of truth to that, and we're going to talk more about that.

But, you know, when people talk about the Ten Commandments, for example, and that door is just going to bother me

until I close it again.

Thank you.

When we talk about the Ten Commandments, which of the Ten Commandments is not repeated in the New Testament?

The Sabbath.

And so we're free to do on the Sabbath whatever we want.

True or false?

What is the Sabbath?

Somebody even asked me this one last week.

Well, I thought the Sabbath was Saturday.

Is the Sabbath on Saturday?

It was.

I mean, should we go down to...

Where is that?

Down there.

Yeah, college.

The former college.

Anyway, it's getting ready to close.

But should we go down there and worship with them on Saturdays?

Why don't we worship on Saturday?

It's kind of tricky, isn't it?

What's that?

Example, which was?

I'm sorry.

Okay, the New Testament Christians who would gather together on the first day of the week.

So what are we to make of the fact that we no longer gather together on

Saturday, Sunday?

So what does that mean about Sunday?

How do we view Sunday?

Lord's Day, which means worship,

rest.

But can it mean that you worship the Lord in the National Forest?

Okay, thank you.

You should not forsake the assembling together of the saints, right?

Isn't that what the writer of Hebrews said?

If we all go to the National Forest, or we go to the church of Becky once a year out there...

I understand she gives a powerful sermon.

False.

That's false.

But for the most part, I think that's right, right?

Unless it's explicitly said in the New Testament, then it doesn't necessarily carry over.

But I think we're going to talk more about that.

But we were talking about the moral law last week.

And I'm going to...

Well, you know, I have some notes about this.

Maybe I should skip to that.

So let's do this.

Because I stole from Phil Johnson some of his notes that I actually liked.

Oh, not that I shouldn't like his notes.

But he talks about the third use of the law, which is to say the moral use of the law.

And here's what he said.

This is actually from the Lutheran formula of Concord, which you'll no doubt go home and memorize.

The law has been given to men for three reasons.

Three.

Three reasons.

Number one, to maintain external discipline against unruly and disobedient men.

In other words, this is just a general restraint against

sinfulness by unbelievers.

Number two, to lead men to a knowledge of their sin.

This is the one that we're most familiar with, right?

It is a tutor, as I believe Charlie said last week.

It is something that is there to teach us that we fall short,

I guess, is a good way of looking at it.

And number three, and the one that we're concerned with now, after they are

reborn, born again, after they are regenerated, once they become believers, and although the flesh

still in here is in them, in other words, our remaining sin nature,

as it were, the sin hangover, to give them on that account a definite

rule, according to which they should pattern and regulate their entire life.

Phil Johnson goes on to say this.

In other words, the third use of the law makes the laws moral standards, the rule by which the faithful

must order their conduct.

In this sense, the moral strictures of the law remain binding on Christians, even though we are not under the law

in the Pauline sense.

So, let's see what Calvin said this about the third use of the law, the principal use of the

law, he called it, or this moral use of the law, the third use of the law.

You know, sometimes we'll be in the office and Pastor Mike will say the third use of the law, and I have to kind of

go, it's the moral use of the law, all right?

So, here's what Calvin said about it.

The third use of the law, being also the principal use and more closely connected with its proper end, meaning

its proper use, has respect to believers in whose heart the Spirit of God

already flourishes and reigns.

For although the law is written in a graven on their hearts by the finger of God, that is, although they are so

influenced and actuated by the Spirit that they desire to obey God, there are two ways in which they still

profit in the law.

And these two ways are that it enables them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what the will of the

Lord is which they aspire to follow.

You want to know what God wants out of you?

Read the law of God, read the Word of God.

And to confirm them in this knowledge.

And then the second benefit for believers is because we need

doctrine, or not doctrine merely, but exhortation also.

The servant of God will derive this further advantage from the law by frequently meditating

upon it.

Listen to this.

By frequently meditating upon the law, he will be, or the believer will be, excited to

obedience and confirmed in it, and so drawn away from the slippery paths of sin.

What does he mean?

The more you study the Word of God, then what?

The more you think, I need to obey less, I have my freedom and I need to go

about exercising my freedom.

Calvin says, the more you study it, the more you're excited to obedience

and drawn away from the slippery slopes.

So that's the third use of the law, and I wanted to just kind of get that out there,

because that's the moral, when we talk about the moral law, this is kind of the application

of that.

And the Statement of Faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith says this, the moral law

doth forever bind all.

In other words, and remember, we're talking about those laws that were given that reflect

the eternal moral character of God.

Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not commit adultery.

Those kind of rules and regulations.

Thou shalt not steal.

These things.

Moral law doth forever bind all, as well as justified persons as others, in other words, believers,

to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in

respect of the authority of God, the creator who gave it.

Neither doth Christ in the gospel in any way dissolve, but must strengthen this obligation.

And if you recall, we went to Matthew 5, where Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law,

but rather to fulfill it.

So we ended on that.

The next section of the Confession of Faith says this, although true believers

be not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned,

in other words, we're no longer under the strictures of the law

in this sense, that obedience brings justification

and disobedience brings condemnation, because we come into the world

condemned.

That's an interesting thought, right?

A little baby, you hold the baby, we talk about babies being vipers,

which is so cute until you really think about it and, you know, it gets a little scary.

I don't want to go to sleep around a baby because I might not wake up.

But the child comes into the world,

in one sense, condemned, right?

Now we could say, well, if the baby dies, not condemned, and I think that's true.

But unless something happens to this baby somewhere along the way, and it's not going to be baptism,

unless something happens to this baby along the course of its life from now until old age,

well past where Pastor Bob is now, you know, into your second century sometime.

He gave me a Tay Absolvo.

Way, way past that, then that person is going to be condemned.

This acknowledges that we are not in a position in which our only way to be justified is

to fulfill the works of the law.

If we had to fulfill the works of the law, if we had to perfectly obey the law, then what?

We're toast.

The confession goes on to say about the law, yet it is of great use to Christians as well as to others,

in that as a rule of life informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk

accordingly.

This is what we were just talking about.

The confession says that we are no longer under the covenant of works.

However, when we enter into a covenant relationship with God, we take an oath.

And this goes into some other notes I have about antinomianism.

We talked about it being against the law.

This idea, and it really became an issue, I don't know, maybe in the 80s and then

90s.

MacArthur wrote his book, The Gospel According to Jesus.

He didn't write that in a vacuum, by the way.

There's a book called Absolutely Free.

Anybody ever heard of it?

Absolutely Free, written by Zane Hodges, who used to teach at Dallas Theological Seminary.

And when you hear a title like Absolutely Free, what do you think?

I'm sorry.

The sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

So you are free to do what?

Whatever you like, right?

It's immaterial.

So we will hear the most outrageous things done by people.

But they've made a professional faith.

But they've been baptized.

But they did this or that or the other thing, and therefore they're a believer.

And so whatever they do is under the blood.

In fact, that whole strain of antinomianism, which comes out of

the, sadly, dispensational school of thought,

basically says, you know, if you make a profession, this is easy believism, you make a profession of

faith and you can then, you're free from the law, absolutely free.

You're free to sin.

You're free to do whatever you want.

There was something else that was on my mind here.

But it regards grace as a license,

basically, to sin.

But now this idea that when we enter into a covenant relationship with God, we take an oath.

Well, when we have somebody baptized, what do we say

about baptism?

Baptism is the outward sign of

something that's already happened inside.

But it's also the first of something.

It's the first step of obedience, right?

It signifies that you are entering into or you have entered into a covenant relationship with

God.

The idea then that one would profess faith and say, I want Jesus Christ as my

savior, but I don't want him as my Lord.

Can you imagine that one?

I'm here to profess my faith in Christ, but I really don't want to follow him.

Can I get baptized now?

I want forgiveness, but I don't want to follow him.

I don't want anything to do with obedience.

Don't give me that obedience stuff.

Just give me heaven.

Does that sound like anything we would read in the Bible?

Not really.

But we don't enter into the old covenant.

We're not entering into all the Old Testament strictures.

Not all of them.

Christians are under the new covenant.

Let's look at Galatians 4, verses 8 to 11.

We're going to be in Galatians a little bit here.

Galatians 4, verses 8 to 11.

And would somebody read that, please?

Verses 8 to 11.

What is Paul warning the Galatian church against?

Or really, what's he rebuking them for?

I mean, that's not such a subtle thing.

I'm afraid I labored over you in vain.

This is like your dad saying to you, I'm ashamed of you.

How could you do this to me?

Right?

That's how Paul feels about these Galatian believers.

Well, what in general, what were they doing?

Exactly.

They'd become Roman Catholics.

Oh, sorry.

I didn't say that.

Having been set free from the law in Christ, they were now returning the law.

They were adding all these Old Testament ideas.

And Paul calls them worthless elemental or elementary principles.

Right?

These things that give an appearance of doing something holy, of doing something

righteous.

Maybe it, you know, sticking with the Roman Catholic theme.

And I'll just tell you, this is really heavily on my heart.

I mean, I have like an anti -Catholicism fire burning in me

right now.

Let me tell you why.

Last Sunday evening at 517, I didn't see the text because as I said on

Facebook, I'm a world famous bad texter.

I just sat down and I was turning my phone to silent here as Andrew was getting ready to go up, so it was like 531.

And I see this text from my brother, Roger.

And he said, it's been a tough day in the Cooley household here in Maryland.

And what had happened the day before was my brother's brother -in -law, so he's

no direct relation to me, my sister -in -law's brother, committed suicide.

And what was hard, and the reason why I'm down on Catholicism

even more so than normal, I talked to my sister -in -law yesterday.

And her family is staunchly Roman Catholic.

She is saved, but her family is very Roman Catholic to the point where even it was,

let's see, 27, 28 years ago when they got married, I can remember the

struggles over whether there was going to be a crucifix or a cross at their wedding, right?

They got married in a place where there was a crucifix, and my brother, being the handy guy that he is, constructed a

giant cross that fit over the crucifix and covered the whole thing.

So my brother's brother -in -law, depressed.

Well, his parents, who were very aware of it, and his brothers, who were very aware of it, would not tell my

sister -in -law because Joe, the young man, young, 48, who killed

himself, was a professing Christian, and they were afraid that

they could see, they were trying to steer him back to Catholicism, and they were afraid that any kind of interference from my

sister -in -law would interrupt that.

And so shortly before he killed himself, he had

his father drove him to see a priest, and he went through a confession.

And at his funeral and after his funeral, family

members were saying things like, Well, he's in paradise now.

He's also interceding for us.

And in fact, my sister -in -law told me that her parents wanted to pray to him,

and she said, I really got angry because they're telling me

that he is in paradise and that he no longer has any cares or anything else, and then they tell me that he's

going to be constantly interceding for us.

But then he also committed an unconfessed sin by committing suicide.

So by Catholic doctrine, he should go to purgatory.

So he's in purgatory paradise and interceding constantly in prayer for us.

You can see how convoluted the Roman Catholic system is.

And I say all these things just to say, this is what happens when you abandon grace

and you find some rules, some laws, that seem good

and right and grace -giving,

because it appeals to us.

This whole idea, there are two errors.

We've talked about this a lot.

There are two errors.

One is this Zane Hodges, absolutely free.

Christ died for your sins.

You may do as you please.

Don't let anybody tell you that you can't own whatever kind of business, no matter how scurrilous it is,

or do whatever you please, because God doesn't hold anything against you.

And then on the other hand, there's this kind of formalistic religion where

you're on this stairway to heaven, this step -by -step

-by -step -by -step, earning the favor of God.

Do these seven, what are they called?

Seven sacraments, all these kind of things.

This is what was going on, a form of it, right?

It's not Roman Catholicism, but it has all these kind of trappings.

Let's impose, if being saved is good, then being saved and obeying rules

must be better.

So let's make rules up.

Let's look at Galatians 5, verses 1 to 12, and I'm going to read that because it's pretty long.

For freedom Christ has set us free.

Stand firm therefore.

Not run crazy.

Stand firm therefore.

And do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

What's he saying?

They didn't get set free from physical slavery.

This wasn't their, you know, a revolution.

This isn't Spartacus, you know.

Set free from the slavery of the law.

So don't submit to it again.

He goes on, verse 2.

Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no

advantage to you, and I don't want to get caught up in a discussion about circumcision.

Suffice to say, it has no spiritual value.

Verse 3.

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

In other words, if you think it has spiritual benefit to you, then you are going back

to the Old Testament law.

Verse 4.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

You have fallen away from grace.

For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

Talking about our future perfection.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything,

but only faith working through love.

You were running well.

You started well.

You got saved and things seemed so good.

Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

In other words, it's not from God.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.

And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted?

In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

If they want to put blessing, if they want to put spiritual favor, if they

want to say that God favors those who circumcise themselves, then let them go

the whole way and mutilate themselves, Paul says.

Does he really want them to do that?

Of course not.

But his point is, it doesn't do any good.

And if you're going to do things that don't do any good, then just knock yourself out.

He was pretty angry.

In R .C. Sproul's words, Paul wondered, what was the matter with these people?

What's wrong with you people?

Christ has fulfilled all the Mosaic Covenant stipulations.

You have embraced Christ as your redeemer and have trusted in his perfect work for his for his fulfillment

of the curse.

You are now going back to the old situation as if Christ did not really fulfill the covenant.

It's hard, though.

And we've talked about this a lot.

Antinomianism on one side, legalism on the other.

How do we just stay in the middle?

How do we stay faithful without having just rules and on the other hand,

having no rules and doing whatever we want?

Well, that's the Christian life.

If we insist that we are under covenant, we're falling into the Judaizing heresy.

We're trying to add the Old Testament law to grace.

It is a kind of legalism, and we have, in effect, denied the perfection of the work of Christ.

We're trying to add to his work.

I mentioned the Sabbath earlier.

From time to time, we've had people here who are like, well, you know, do you keep the Sabbath?

What do you think as soon as somebody asks you, well, what about the Sabbath?

Do you keep the Sabbath?

What's your first thought?

Okay, my first thought, I'm going to write this down.

This is the John Zook response.

What do you mean?

That's the first thing I want to know.

You tell me what you're talking about, because my first thought is, are we talking about Saturday?

If we're talking about Sunday, then here's what I want to know.

Like I said with my kids when we were all growing up together in the faith, because I was a child in

the faith myself, I came up with Sunday rules.

You know, we're not allowed to squabble in the bathroom on Sundays.

The rest of the week, you can do whatever you want.

But on Sundays, we're not allowed to slap each other in the back of the car on Sundays,

especially not on the way to church, right?

Those times are holy.

The rest of the week, it can be slap fest back there, right?

Why would I say something like that?

There were two reasons for it.

One is because I wanted them to stop so that I didn't have to pull the car over and, you know, I'd say, if I have to come back there again, I'm

cracking skulls, you know.

The second reason was kind of a little subtle and maybe not a good parenting move, I don't know.

They seem to have turned out okay, by the grace of God.

Was to subtly tell them our conduct on Sunday should be what?

Well, I would say different, but I didn't want it different any other day of the week.

You think I wanted squabbling in the bathroom on Tuesday?

No, we're going on Sunday, we're going to worship the

Lord.

And that's true.

And that's the main difference, I would argue, on Sunday.

If you're not making that your priority, you're kind of missing the point.

Why wouldn't you want to gather together with the saints?

Why wouldn't you want to exercise your spiritual giftedness with your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Why wouldn't you want to express your joy for the Lord by singing His praises,

by hearing His word?

Why wouldn't you want to do these things, right?

This is some horrible obligation.

If you get out of the car on Sunday morning like this, kind of

like you're walking into work on Monday morning, right?

This is Sunday, not Monday.

Here's our Sunday rule.

Don't be joyless when you get out of the car.

And don't look for the time clock when you come in the door, right?

Here, give me my punch card so I can punch in the clock and show everybody that I was here for an hour and 20 minutes or

however long you're here.

That's not the point.

And this isn't some sort of...

Is it an obligation?

We enter into an oath with the Lord.

We promise to obey Him and to follow Him.

Is that something we should view as a negative?

This isn't like...

I hate signing loan papers, first of all, because it's like...

Anybody ever have a mortgage in here?

How many of you have actually read your mortgage?

Anybody who raised their hand, I'm just going to say you need to repent because you're not telling the truth.

It's like 300 pages.

I'm not even kidding.

I don't even know how they...

And they have to have little sticky notes everywhere that you have to initial and everything like that.

And you have a cramp by the time you're done, right?

Well, getting saved isn't like that.

It's not a bunch of rules and regulations and initial here.

But if you're going to say, well, the first step of obedience is obeying the Lord by being baptized.

True.

Well, what other steps are there?

Coming to church.

Not forsaking the assembly of the saints.

Submitting to elders.

All these kind of things are all wrapped up in that.

But is this drudgery?

And should we view it as drudgery or is our joyful service?

And I think this is so important.

And I say this all the time.

And I hope that somebody is listening out there.

If you view life through this lens, I deserve

hell.

I deserve hell.

But Jesus died for my sins, was raised on the third day.

And because of that, and because he gave me faith.

Because he caused me to be born again.

Because he gave me right standing before the Father.

Not only am I not condemned, but I am liberated to do what?

To obey.

To serve him.

To spend my life in joyful service to him.

Not in drudgery.

This isn't Fred Flintstone going to the pit,

the rock pit or whatever.

And for those of you who aren't 65 years old like me, it's a fun cartoon and you should look it up.

This isn't that.

The Christian life is neither drudgery nor is it

the Justin Bieber lifestyle, if I could say that.

It's neither one.

Those are both wrong.

It's a great question.

And I'll tell you, when I first got saved, I think I pretty much did everything wrong.

You know, these weren't really sinful actions.

And this wasn't, I mean, I think I just kind of went, when they say I did everything wrong, I

think I just kind of went into hyper drive.

Like I had, I don't know, let's say 450, 500 albums, something

like that.

A lot of them I had collected while I was in Japan and they were, you know, wonderful

vinyl pressings and I could go on about them.

I sold the whole collection, which I'm sure now would be worth many thousands of dollars.

Many, many thousands of dollars.

For a hundred bucks.

Because I just wanted to get rid of them.

You know, I was convinced in my own mind, and you know, some of the music was not the best,

but I got rid of all of it.

You know, I just didn't want anything to do with worldly things.

I had, you know, a lot of comic books that probably were collector's items and might have been worth a lot of money.

I got rid of all of them.

I think I traded them for a board game.

It just didn't matter to me.

I just wanted to get rid of everything, you know, that was just worldly at all, you know.

But gradually, the pendulum kind of came back a little bit to reality.

So, you know, striking that balance, finding that balance, and it's one of the reasons why I think

it's important to study doctrine.

It gives us a better sense of oughtness, you know, what we ought to be doing and ought

to be thinking and everything else.

But we need to balance that against, you know, am I doing this?

Is my sole goal in selling my record collection, you know, is it pleasing the Lord

or is it because I want to feel better about myself?

And, you know, I mean, I remember one of my kids when he made a profession of faith.

I guess that gives away.

You know, he just, like, got rid of all these junky things that he had

and I wasn't really brokenhearted about that, you know, and...

But I think it's a balance.

In fact, my notes here say we are walking that tightrope.

This is R .C. Sproul.

As we're between our continuity with the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And that really is the Christian life is walking that tightrope between legalism, thinking that the

things that we're doing make us more pleasing in the sight of God.

That, you know, we say this often, maybe not often enough, can

we do something that is going to make God love us more than he does?

And when you think about the love of God, if we looked at, say, Romans 8, how

much does God love us?

This much.

And that he set his affections upon us before time began, sent the Lord Jesus Christ

to come and live and die for us, and he called us in

time to be in Christ, and he's promised to never leave or forsake us.

That's a lot of love.

And if you read Romans 8 from, say, verses 28 forward, you won't see anything in

there, you know, that says, unless, you know, unless you fail to take out the trash, unless

you fail to close the refrigerator, unless, you know, you leave your dishes in the sink,

or more serious things, you know, unless you get rid of all your worldly records,

unless you get rid of your comic books, unless you...

Now, there are things in them, in some of them, that, you know, probably are unwise,

and so those are good things to get rid of.

If they cause your mind to wander or to stumble into sin, those are good things to get rid of.

But just saying, I need to do this because this will

cause God to think more highly of me, well, how can he think more highly of you than he does because you are

in Christ?

He doesn't love you because of you.

He loves you because you are in Christ.

Should we do something, or should we use the phrase that we do something to please the Lord?

I think we can because doesn't Scripture say, you know, that things are pleasing in the sight of the

Lord?

You know, well, here, let me ask you this.

What is the will of God for your life?

Some of you are like, well, I don't know if I want to say this.

I think it's my next job.

I think it's...

What is the will of God for every believer's life?

To serve, yes, but there's just one word that starts with an S.

Your sanctification, right?

Is that the will for God for every believer to be conformed into

the image of his son?

Isn't that what we're going through?

From the time we get saved to the time that we die, that is the work of the Holy Spirit, the triune God in

our lives to sanctify us.

So getting back to John's point, if we are being sanctified,

genuinely sanctified, isn't that pleasing to the Lord?

We're doing the will of the Lord, and I think the answer is yes.

So is it pleasing to the Lord to worship him?

I think so.

If we worship him rightly with our whole heart, yes.

Is it pleasing to the Lord to study Scripture?

Is it pleasing to the Lord to serve one another?

Is it pleasing to the Lord?

I think that the answer is, to all these questions, the answer is yes.

The difference, though, in saying that I want to please the Lord and

expecting that somehow his affection for me is going to increase, and the answer, again,

is it's at full.

It can't go any higher.

Yeah, on a human level, we understand that, right?

When our children desire to please us and they do something that pleases us, do we go up on the chart and say,

okay, well, now Elliot has surpassed Asher, and we put it up on the refrigerator,

and Claire is trailing in third place, and, you know, yeah.

Charlie.

I'd like some more, though.

Right, and I think those things are good.

I think it's, but I, and here's the thing, we need to close, but here's the thing, when we talk about legalism

and stuff like that, and I'll go back to, instead of the purging analogy,

go back to the Sabbath analogy.

There's something unique about Sunday, right?

I mean, because we do, that is the day for gathering together, and this is good,

but when people tell me, you know, they're like, well, what about the Sabbath?

Why don't you guys talk more about the Sabbath?

Why don't we keep the Sabbath?

And then I say, you know, well, what do you mean by the Sabbath?

And if somebody's really serious, what do you suppose they do?

They give me a series of lists, rules, regulations, you know,

and in the back of my mind, I'm just like, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do, you know?

I mean, this is, this is

legal, you know, like, well, you can't, you can't work on Sunday, and I'm like, okay, I think that's a good,

I think it's a good guideline.

It doesn't really work all the time.

You know, you may have a job in which you don't have any choice, and that could be something important, like, you know,

policeman, fireman, nurse, doctor, something like that, or it could be something as

banal as, you know, being a salesman or something.

If that's what you do, that's what you do, and, you know, people are like, well, then you should just quit.

Well, okay, we have to, we have to work.

We have to do what we have to do, and, you know, would it be great if every Christian could have every Sunday off?

Yes, it would.

That's not always, not always how it works, but then people get into

more mundane things.

I had somebody tell me, well, you know, we shouldn't go any place where, on Sunday, where an

unbeliever, it's going to cause an unbeliever to have to work, and I thought, okay, well, that's a

fine principle.

This person happened to live some distance away, so I said, well, let me ask you something.

When you leave here today, because it was a Sunday, I said, when you drive home, are you going to stop at a gas station?

Well, yes.

I don't know what to say, man.

Your whole Sabbath thing just went out the window.

I, you know, one day, maybe gas stations will be perfectly automated.

I don't know, but it's this list

of rules that people want to feel better.

There was another guy one day, and I've talked about him before.

This is years ago.

There was somebody here who wanted to know if we had ever, now just think about this for a moment.

Church disciplines somebody out of the church for being overweight.

Had we ever done that?

And I looked at him, and in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do, right?

This is, this is the rules.

So, so what do we do?

Have everybody come in on Sunday morning, weigh, you know, look at the charts, see how they're doing,

and then commence an investigation about why they are or are not, you know, overweight.

Do you have a medical condition?

You know, is there anything else you'd like to confess to us?

You know, it's just people want,

and I think part of, you know, the desire for legalism, and I think maybe even in part

of my early days as a Christian, getting rid of this stuff.

Yes, I want a separation from worldly influences that I knew had had a negative impact on me,

but I can't help but think now, looking back on it, that maybe there was a little bit of me that just wanted to feel a little bit holier than

everybody else.

So, again, I think it's always a balance, and I think any time somebody comes to you with a series

of rules that they've promulgated, that they've written, that they've made up, that aren't

based directly in the word of God, I think you're, you know, you're on your way to legalism.

You're on your way to, you know, a series of a new

covenant.

You know, it's only, it's actually a new old covenant, and it's back to what Paul said.

You know, you're running back to the base, elemental things of the world and looking for God's approval.

You might as well go sacrifice some animals, and that's not what we do.

It's by faith and faith alone we need to close.

All right.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, his once for all sacrifice for

sin that we can't add to, and, Lord, we can

only negate by just adding rules,

regulations, putting ourselves on some kind of holiness treadmill.

We ought to pursue holiness, but as it's laid out in scripture, learning

more about you, learning to love you more, learning to love our fellow man as we

love ourselves.

These are the things that we ought to be about, not about finding new

rules and regulations that have an appearance of holiness, that have an appearance of

wisdom.

Help each one here to navigate that narrow path between

law and freedom and understand that we cannot

cause you to love us more than you already have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In him we stand complete.

Father, we praise you for that in Jesus' name.

Amen.