Alright, let's turn to Romans
chapter 4. Here in Romans 4, the Holy Spirit
gives reasons why justification is through faith by the obedience
of the Lord Jesus, and then His righteousness imputed to us through
faith. He gives us some reasons. We
saw one reason last time we were here. He said in verse 13, for
the promise that He should be the heir of the world was not
to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness
of faith. God saves by promise, by covenant
promise. He promised Abraham a children,
a people, out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue under
heaven. And He promised Christ would come through Abraham and
He would justify His people and make us righteous. And through
the righteousness of Christ, Abraham would receive an eternal
inheritance. All by promise, all by the righteousness
of Christ. So, salvation, righteousness,
justification, it's through faith in Christ that it might be by
promise. God made it to Abraham by promise.
Now the next reason, or three reasons, is found in verse 14
through 15, and I want to look at just these tonight. Now he
says there in verse 14, and this will be our divisions, he says,
for if they which are of the law be heirs, first of all, faith
is made void. If justification be of the law,
if you receive eternal inheritance by the works of the law, faith's
made void. Secondly, and a promise made of none effect, If it's
by the works of the law that we're made righteous, then God's
promise is of no effect. God promised it freely. And I
want to get to this point particularly, verse 3, because law worketh
wrath. For where no law is, there is
no transgression. That's why it's through faith
in Christ. Now, I want to preach on the subject of no law, no
transgression. No law, no transgression. That'll
be mainly our third point. But let's look at these first
two. Now here's what we just read. If the righteousness comes
by the law, by you doing the law in any regard, then faith
is made void and the promises made of none effect and every
sinner under the law is yet under the wrath of God. He's under
the wrath of God. being made righteous in Christ,
through faith in Christ, according to the promise of God, being
made righteous in Christ. Believer, you're not under the
law. There is no law against you. And therefore, there is
no transgression that will ever be laid to your account by God. Ever. Ever. Now let's look at
these three things. First of all, justification cannot
be by the works of the law, for then faith is made void. He said
in verse 14, if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is
made void. If they which are of the law
be heirs. Now, one, that means if natural
Jews be the heirs, just because they're the natural children
of Abraham. If they're the heirs, then faith's made void. Faith's made void. But it not
only applies to natural sons of Abraham, it applies to us
Gentiles too. If any sinner is made righteous
by the works of the law, faith has nothing to do with it. Faith
is made void. Faith is out of the picture entirely.
Now, let's get to where this matters. It's the motive of the
heart. If the motive of our heart is to do works of the law, or
any works for that matter. Any works for that matter. But
if the motive of our heart is that we're doing to indebt God
to give us the inheritance. We're trying to indebt God to
count us righteous or count us holy and give us the inheritance. And brethren, we don't have faith. Faith is made void. If our motive
in our heart and why we do what we do is we're trying to indebt
God, then it's not faith. It is not faith. It's only through
faith in Christ that we fulfill the law. Only through faith.
The only way a sinner like you and me establishes the law is
Christ established it for us, and God gives us grace to believe
on Him, and He imputes the righteousness of Christ to us because that's
what Christ made us by His obedience. The only way you establish the
law is through faith in Christ. Faith establishes the law. We
don't make void the law. That doesn't mean we fulfill
it. we establish it by faith. Look back there at Romans 3.30,
seeing it is one God, Christ our one God-man mediator, seeing
it's one God which shall justify, that means which shall establish
the law and establish us in the law in righteousness. It's one
God which shall justify the circumcision, that's the elect Jew, and he
does it by faith. in Christ and the uncircumcision,
that's the elect Gentile and he does it through faith in Christ.
Don't let by faith and through faith fool you. That just means
the same thing. Whether you're Jew or Gentile,
we're saved through faith in Christ, made righteous through
faith in Christ. And it's God that did the justifying.
That's what it is to establish the laws, to be justified, to
be righteous before the law. He said it's one God that does
the justifying. He did it. Christ did it. Do
we then make void the law through faith in Christ? No! We establish
the law only through faith in Christ. And we do it just like
Abraham did. Look at chapter 4 and verse 2.
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath worth the glory,
but not before God. That's what's said in the Scripture.
Abraham believed God, and he was imputed to Him for righteousness. You see that? That's how we establish
the law. Only through faith. But now,
listen. self-sanctifiers, Judaizers,
modern day, there's plenty of them today, they'll say, but
that's only for justification now, that just applies to you
standing before the law of God. They say, but we're keeping the
law for sanctification. That's what they always say.
We're keeping the law for sanctification, to be made holy, to be made pure.
Well, let's go to Galatians, and we're going to be back and
forth, so Mark Galatians. That's what the Judaizers were
saying to the Galatian believers. They were telling them, it's
okay to believe Christ for justification, for righteousness, but you had
to come under the law, be circumcised, come under the law for sanctification.
That's what they're dealing with. Paul said, Galatians 3.3, Are
you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made
perfect by the flesh? Look down at verse 5. If Christ,
therefore, that minister you the Spirit, and works miracles
among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing
of the gospel? By the hearing of faith. Even
as Abraham believed in God, it was counted to him for righteousness.
You see there, Scripture says, verse 8, the Lord preached before
the gospel to Abraham. It was the hearing of faith by
which Abraham was given faith, his heart was made pure, his
conscience purged from these dead works he was under, and
therefore he looked to Christ who was all his righteousness,
and God imputed the righteousness of Christ to him. We saw this
not long ago. When God used Moses and He enjoined
that old covenant to them, when Moses came down out of the mount,
Moses killed a lamb and He sprinkled the people and the book and the
altar and almost all things, He sprinkled it with the blood
of a lamb. That was a picture of sanctification. That's what
that was. And here's what the Hebrew writer
said. He said, How much more shall the blood of Christ purge
your conscience? Purify your heart, your conscience
from dead works, from the dead works of trying to justify and
sanctify yourself by your deeds. Purge your conscience from that.
to serve the living God. And he said of those works and
what that picture was that Moses did, he said, the patterns of
things in heavens were purified by those things Moses did. They
were pictures, they were patterns of what God does. And he said,
they were purified by the blood of the Lamb, sprinkling the people
and sprinkling the book and sprinkling the altar. He said, but the heavenly
things themselves, that's you who he's saving. You who He sanctified,
the heavenly things themselves, His people. He said they had
to be sanctified with better sacrifices than these. They had
to be purified. would better sacrifice it." And
he says, so Christ has not entered into the holy place made with
hands, he's entered into heaven for us. And he put away our sin
and it's his blood that purges our conscience, brethren. Christ
told his apostles, now you are clean, you are purified, sanctified
through the word which I've spoken to you. That's how the heart's
made pure. And that's how you're given faith
to believe Christ and believe that He justified us by His obedience. See, justification and sanctification
are so vitally connected, you can't separate them. It sounds
like Paul's just dealing with the area of self-justification
in Galatians. But that's really not what the
Judaizers were saying. They were saying, it's okay that
you believe on Christ, but you still got to be circumcised and
keep the law to be sanctified. And Paul said, if you began in
the Spirit, by the hearing of the gospel, by Christ, by him
purifying the heart, And so that you really believe He made you
righteous before the law. He said, you're going to continue
the same way. It's Christ working in you. He's
doing it through the Spirit. Now, you remember, go over to
Acts 15.8. I just want to make this point
because it's vital. This is what people are using
in our day, the subtlety that would deceive the elect if it
was possible. They came down there and they
said, these Judaizers, they came down and they said, it's okay
that these Gentiles believe on Christ for justification, but
they've got to be sanctified by the works of the law or they
can't be saved. That's what they were saying.
And look, you know that's what they were saying, but listen
to how Peter, how he answered them. Acts 15, 8. He said, God
which knoweth the hearts. When you talk about the heart,
you're talking about sanctification. You're talking about a purity
of the nature of the new heart. He said, God which knoweth the
hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as
He did to us. And He put no difference between
us and them, purifying, sanctifying, making holy their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why tempt you
God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither
we nor our fathers were able to bear?" Peter said the same
thing over in his epistle in 1 Peter 1.22, he said, seeing
you have purified your souls. in obeying the truth through
the Spirit unto unfailing love of the brethren, see that you
love one another with a pure heart fervently." You get what
I'm saying? Those sanctified by the Spirit
love godliness. We love the law. We love the
law. but it's Christ who purified
us, it's Christ who sanctified our hearts through the gospel,
by his blood, and then he gave us faith in him to see we're
justified by his obedience and made righteous by his obedience.
So sanctification and justification are vitally connected. And when
we're talking here about not being justified by the law, we're
not sanctified by the law either. You get that? You get why I'm
saying that? If we did that, brethren, faith is made void,
it's all entirely up to you then. That's what he says. The law,
faith doesn't make the law void, faith's the only way we fulfill
the law. But the law makes faith void. The law makes faith void. If the motive of the heart is
to indebt God, to try to do works to get God to count us as justified,
or to get God to regard us as sanctified and holy by the works
of the law. Listen, if a man is trying to
make himself holy or just by the works of the law, or If he's
trying to appear holy before men and justify himself before
men by the works of the law, if that's the motive of the heart,
faith's not involved. This man is in bondage under
the law, faith's not even in the picture. You get what I'm
saying? Faith's made void by that. Look
back now at Galatians 3.11. but that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God is evident. For the law, for
the just shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith.
The law is not of faith. You see that the justified, those
made righteous by Christ, we live. We have a new purified
holy man and we live now. And we're justified and we live
one way, by faith in Christ. It's all Christ who did it. He
justified us and he made us holy. And the law's not of faith, but
the man that doeth them shall live in them. If the law enters,
and if our motive is law, faith's made void. A man is living to
himself, he's living to Moses, he's not living to Christ. If
he's doing it, if that's the motive of the heart, is to make
himself righteous or holy by the works of the law. He's living
to himself, he's not living to God. Now, that's the first thing. Here's the second thing. Like
in our text, it says if justification or sanctification were by the
law, then the promise of God is made of none effect. He said,
if they which are the law be heirs, faith is made void, and
a promise made of none effect. God promised to give the inheritance
to Abraham freely. Not for Abraham to earn the inheritance,
for God promised to give him the inheritance freely. That's
the promise of God. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we're children of God. And if we're children,
we're heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. If we
suffer with Him, it's a free gift. But back in Galatians 3,
look at verse 18. If the inheritance be of the
law, it's no more a promise. But God gave it to Abraham a
promise. You know, when God made that
promise to Abraham, this was the promise God made him. He
could swear by no greater, so he swore by himself. He gave
a promise, and he swore by himself. God who cannot lie promised Abraham,
and he swore by himself. And this is what he promised.
Surely, blessing, I will bless thee. And multiplying, I will multiply
thee. Nothing about Abraham entered into that. God said, I will do
it. I will bless you and I will multiply
you. And so, what did Abraham do? He patiently endured. He suffered through this world
of trouble, trusting the Lord to do what he promised he would
do. Trusting the Lord was able to do what he promised. And when
he had patiently endured, he received the promise freely given. Why? Because all the promises
of God are yea in Christ and in Him, amen, unto the glory
of God. Everything God promised, Christ
performs it and freely gives it to us. You see, you ever heard
of a child that didn't receive an inheritance because he works
to receive it? He receives it because He's a
child of the Father, whose desire it is just to give Him the inheritance,
or her. And that's the case with our
Father. He chose us freely, Christ redeemed us by His grace, God
regenerated us by His grace, and God promised us, I will give
you this inheritance freely. Christ is the one who God Himself
came and did all the works, and He gives us the inheritance freely.
So if it works in any way, it's no more about promise. No more
about promise. Now last, and I want to focus
on this because this is going to be a blessing to you right
here. This is a blessing to God's people right here. Now the first
part is a warning to men who want to be under the law. Here's
why. Salvation, justification. Sanctification,
this is why it has to be by Christ alone, by His obedience, by His
works, by His person, and it's all worked in us by Him, purifying
our hearts through faith, and giving us faith to trust He's
all our righteousness. Here's why. Verse 15, because
the law worketh wrath. For where no law is, there is
no transgression. Now, the first part is a warning
to anybody who wants to be under the law. The law worketh wrath.
If the motive of the heart is to find acceptance with God based
on our works, whether it's for justification or sanctification,
if that's the motive of the heart, that man's under the law. That's
a man under the law. And everybody that's under the
law is under the wrath of God. Everybody. And everybody that's
under the wrath of God, that means they're under the curse.
They're under the curse. Religious folks are always arguing
against us, especially people that claim to believe the doctrine
of grace, believe that they're sanctified by their works. or
in some way justified by their word. Men who believe that, they're
always claiming, no, we're under the law. Paul said, do you not
hear the law? The Word of God says the only
ones that the law speaks to are those who are under the law.
And it condemns everybody under the law. It only speaks to those
under the law, and it only speaks wrath. Listen to Galatians 3.10. As many as are of the works of
the law are under the curse. For it's written, Cursed is everyone
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. If you break one law, you've
broken all the law. One sin has all sin in it. If there's just one sin, all
sins that can be committed are in one sin. That's what it means. If you break one law, you broke
the whole law. None of us can keep the law. You can't keep
the law. If a person has offended you,
they've extorted you, they've slandered you, they've betrayed
you. And let's say this is a child
of God who did this. Could a child of God do that
to somebody? Well, when Peter denied the Lord, he committed
every sin that could be committed. He broke one law, He broke them
all. So yes, a child of God could do that. And brethren, if they're
being gracious to that one, and they're trying to restore them,
and they've offended you so badly, there's a part of you that sinful
part of you wants to condemn them. That's just your flesh. But the Spirit of God's grace,
the Spirit of grace, It makes you to know you don't want to
be under the law. That's putting yourself back
under the law to want to condemn somebody for their sin. You're
saying by that, you're saying you're better than them because
you hadn't done what they did. That's legal. That's putting
yourself back under the law. And anybody that's under the
law is under the curse. Listen, we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become gifted
before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. And the law, this is what I'm
getting at, the law stirs up wrath in us and in the well-worshipper. It is the affection and the lust
of our flesh. It's the affection of our flesh
and the lust of our flesh to try to justify ourselves by law. It's the lust of our flesh to
want to sanctify ourselves by the law. This is the enmity that's
in our heart. We want to mind the things of
the flesh, mind the beggary elements, mind the works of the law ourselves
and come to God by what we've done. And so it's a... It's the
loss of the flesh to justify ourselves and condemn others
by the law. That's our sinful nature. That's
what we have to be saved from because that's nothing but curse.
If God left you there, you'd be cursed. But this next part
applies to one who Christ loved, who God the Father chose freely,
who Christ redeemed, who the Spirit of God regenerates and
gives faith, one who believes the Lord Jesus Christ. This next
part applies to you. You that have been made righteous
in Christ and been sanctified in your heart so that now you
believe Christ is all your righteousness and all your sanctification,
you're not under a law. There is no law to condemn you.
You're under grace. Look, and where no law is, there's
no transgression. Romans 4.15, where no law is,
there's no transgression. The believer made righteous by
Christ is not under the law. This is the best news. If God
teaches what this means, this is the best news you could ever
hear. The world hears that and immediately
says, you can't tell that to people. You know why vain preachers
say that? Because they're going to lose
their power to yoke and bind men and try to make them do what
they want them to do. I'm not trying to yoke and bind
you and make you do anything. Christ the Lord is going to make
His people obey. And He's going to do it in spirit
and in truth. And I don't even have to try. I just declare this
and He does it through this Word. But that believer made righteous
by Christ, he's not under the law. There is no law against
us, brethren. Therefore God shall never impute
transgression to one for whom Christ died. You're justified.
Do you see what a blessing that is? When you know yourself to
be a sinner and you see sin in yourself, yet to hear God say,
I'll never condemn you because you're justified by my Son and
my Son. Scripture repeats this to the
believer. You're not under the law, but under grace. Romans 6.14 says, Sin shall not
have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under
grace. When that says sin won't have dominion over you, it means
two things. Sin's never going to condemn
you, because you're not under the law anymore, you're under
grace. And the Spirit of our Lord is not going to let sin
separate you from Him and take you away and bring you away from
Christ and into the bondage of death again. Because Christ is
going to keep renewing you inwardly and keep you sanctified unto
Him. Why? Because you're under grace. If
you were under law and it was up to you to please God to make
that happen, you'd be cursed forever because you could never
please God by your works. But you're under grace. That
means no matter how you fall, because you're under grace and
Christ has already justified his child, he's going to keep
you separated to him and looking to him and following him. The
law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Grace and righteousness, grace and truth, grace and righteousness
came by Christ Jesus. He's our righteousness and by
grace, he makes us believe him and makes us follow him. and
He paid a price. See, this is why God's not going
to look to you or me in our works. He made Him sin for us. Do you
see the perfect obedience of God's Son? He willingly submitted
Himself to be made sin for us who knew no sin. And by what
He did, He made us the righteousness of God in Him. That's as good
as it gets. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And He did it that
the blessing of Abraham might come on us through Jesus Christ. That we might receive the promise,
the eternal inheritance, the promise. And that we might receive
it of the Spirit, being sanctified in the heart, and our hearts
made pure through faith in Christ by the word of this Gospel, by
the blood of Christ. and that it might be through
faith, that we might see the faithfulness of Christ by which
He gave us faith to trust Him for everything. It's all this
way. Now get this, brethren. Get what
our text means. For where no law is, there's
no transgression. This goes back to why it's so
important to understand the scriptural meaning of imputation. God only
imputes what a man's been made by a prior act. Christ made his
people the righteousness of God in him. So there's no law against
a righteous man. There is no law to condemn a
man made righteous by the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no law
against righteousness. That would be a law being against
the law. There's no law against rationing.
You're not under the law, you're under grace. So God will never
charge one Christ justified with transgression. Where no law is,
there's no transgression. Now let me support this with
Scripture. Let's go to Romans 7. Verse 4. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. When we were in the
flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our
members to bring forth fruit unto death. Paul said, everything
I did under the law, thinking it was righteous and holy and
blameless before God, was nothing but dead fruit. It was sin. That's what he said. But now
we're delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were
held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, not in the
oldness of the letter. Look at Romans 8.1. There's therefore
now no condemnation. Where no law is, there's no transgression. There's no condemnation. You'll
never be condemned. to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, because
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death. You see that? Grace made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
and that it was weak to the flesh, God sent in his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and forced sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. In the nature of his elect, as
a man, Christ condemned the sin that was condemning us. He put
an end to the transgression. And not only that, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. Again, it means in the
nature of his elect, Christ taking flesh as a man, in us, in the
nature of his elect, Christ Jesus obeyed the law in perfect righteousness
for us so that when God gives you faith, God imputes you did
The law in perfection, and you've been holy from the womb, you've
done the law your whole life, all the way to your last breath,
in perfection. God imputes you to have obeyed,
we talk about future sins being forgiven, God imputes you to
have obeyed the law in the future. Justify. who walk not after the
flesh but after the spirit. He goes on to show you what,
to walk after the flesh is to mind the things of the flesh,
it's to be concentrated on touch not, taste not, handle not, thinking
you can come to God by the law, and a fleshly man is not subject
to the law of God, he can't be. But walking after the Spirit
is walking by faith. It's being led of the Spirit
of Christ, and it's the Spirit of Christ that mortifies our
flesh by renewing us inwardly to hear this good news, and it
keeps purging your conscience from the dead works of the law
to trust Christ. Read it there. You're constrained
by Christ's love for you. You're constrained by His grace
and mercy and forgiveness. So He makes you want to show
mercy and long-suffering and forgiveness to you, brethren.
It's all about Christ. Look at Romans 8.10. If Christ
be in you, the body's dead because of sin, but the Spirit's life
because of righteousness. There's life in you by the Spirit
of Christ because He made you righteous. And if the Spirit
of Him that raised Christ from the dead be in you, He'll quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit to dwell within you. That's how
the flesh is mortified. Therefore, brethren, we're debtors
not to the flesh to live after the flesh. If you live after
the flesh, you'll die. But if you through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the flesh, of the body, you will live. For
as many are led by the Spirit of God, they're the sons of God.
We're talking about here the children of promise. You led
of the Spirit, trusting Christ for all, looking to Him for all. You're a child of God. And He
didn't give you this spirit of bondage again to fear. He gave
you this spirit so He makes you cry, have a Father. He bears
witness in your heart that you're a child of God and an heir of
God and He makes you, that's how He renews you and makes you
call on Him. Go to Galatians 5. I want to
show you this. Paul said this to the Galatians.
Where there is no law, there is no transgression. This is the lust of our flesh,
brethren. Here is the affection and lust of our flesh. You tell
me this. Tell me this is not the affection
of your flesh. If somebody comes up to you and they start speaking
to you something scandalous about somebody, you just start salivating
to hear it. Just, oh, I want to hear that.
You hang on every word. Why? That's the affection and
lust of our flesh to want to condemn others to exalt our own
self. Now look here. But when the spirit
When you've been bewitched to turn back to the law, it's only
by the Spirit mortifying that flesh, by renewing you inwardly,
to remember you're not under the law, you're under grace.
To remember what Christ did for you. That's the way you're going
to do the same to others. No law means no transgression. He's going to make you walk in
the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, He's going to make you
exercise the fruit of the Spirit toward one another. Here it is,
look, Galatians 5.22. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such, there is no law. No law, no transgression. And
they which are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the
affections and lusts." Our flesh was crucified in Christ and when
He renews you in spirit in the new man, to remember that, that's
how He crucifies your affections and lusts day by day, by making
you remember that. That's why He's your sanctifier.
If we live in the spirit, let us walk in the spirit. Let us
not be desirous of vain glory. That's this lust of the flesh.
Provoking one another, envying one another. That's the dead
fruit of the law. That's what he's saving us from.
If a man's overtaken in a fault, you with your spirit will restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness. He does this in the spirit. He
renews you in the spirit. And there's no law against this
new man. Righteous. No condemnation. He makes you
consider yourself lest you're also tempted to be puffed up
and he makes you bear one another's burden and so fulfill the law
of Christ. I want to give you an example
of this. Remember Paul said in Romans 2, he said, when you condemn
another, and when we condemn another, what are we? We're under
the law because we're using the law to condemn. That's what you're
doing. You're condemning others with the law. Some aspect of
the Word of God, it might not be the Ten Commandments, you
may be using some of the New Testament Gospel Precepts, but
you're condemning in the letter of the law, in the spirit of
the law, when you condemn somebody. And Paul said when we do that,
we condemn ourselves. Let me give you an example. Fruit of the Spirit's temperance.
He humbles you down in meekness, settles you to wait on Christ
and trust Christ, tempers you. You take a man who he loses patience
and he condemns another brother for intemperance because of some
sin he committed. So he condemns him for intemperance
and he just loses his patience and he just rails on him for
intemperance. You know what the man, the brother
that's doing the railing, you know what he's proving? He's
intemperate in His flesh, and He cannot mortify it by Himself.
That's what He's proving. That's exactly what Paul said
in Romans 2. When you condemn another with a law, you just
condemn yourself. Did you not find that so, brethren? How is
a man going to be safe from that? How are you going to be safe
from that? you which are spiritual. While that one brother's doing
that, the Lord, He's given us another brother. He's renewed
him afresh, and he's in the Spirit, and He uses him to speak the
word of grace, and God blesses the two brothers that's puffed
up, and renews him inwardly, and brings him back down into
the food of love, and meekness, and temperance, and that's how
it's done. And that's what will happen.
If we're the Lord's and we become puffed up and we want to condemn
somebody, the Lord's going to use somebody that He's at that
point given a measure of grace to make them be in the Spirit
and to speak the word of grace and He'll bless that word to
us and He'll bring us to our right mind. He'll renew us inwardly
to humble ourselves and trust Christ. Because here's what we're
learning. I, through the law, am dead to
the law. That I might live to God. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. But it's
not me that's living. It's not my flesh. It's not anything
about me. It's Christ living in me. And
the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me. He's leading me. He's
guiding me. He's directing me. You see, sanctification
and justification is by the faithfulness of Christ. He purifies your heart
by faith. Making you trust Him. He's your
righteousness and your justification. And He keeps you walking by faith.
And where you've been justified by Christ Jesus, where no law
is, there's no transgression. You'll never be condemned. Let me give you three things.
If you never believed, don't Christ trust Him. It wasn't written
for Abraham's sake alone. It's written for our sake. God
will impute the rights of Christ to you if you believe Him. If
somebody never believed Him, you trust Christ today. Number
two, if you're being bewitched by will workers and by the lust
of your flesh to condemn somebody else, And I know it's hard, especially
if you're the one that's been offended. Brethren are restoring
them. They're being kind to them, gracious
to them. But they've offended you. There's a part of you that
just wants to cry down fire on them. That's your flesh. That's
the lust and affection of your flesh. If you've been bewitched,
turn back to the law and condemn. Just remember this word, brethren.
Paul said, if you're circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.
You go back to that law and you won't be under law. Christ will
profit you nothing. But if you believe on Christ,
you look to Him and you trust Him, because here's what matters.
We, through the Spirit, are waiting for the hope of righteousness
by faith. In Jesus, neither circumcision
avails anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love.
That's the law we're under. Faith which works by love. And
there is no law against that. There's no law to condemn us,
brethren. No law, no transgression. That's the best news. That's
our gospel. Try to remember that. He'll make
you remember it. He'll keep you renewed to remember
it. All right, brother Greg.