Alright brethren, let's go back
now to Matthew chapter 1. In the last message we saw Christ
fulfilled the prophets. In this message we are going
to see Christ fulfilled the law. Christ fulfilled the law. Verse
22 says, Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin
shall be with child, and, and the reading here is, a virgin
shall bring forth a son. And they shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. Then Joseph,
being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had
bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till
she had brought forth her firstborn son. And he called his name Jesus. Joseph knew her not till she
had brought forth her firstborn son. Why did God include this
fact in His Word? Why did He include that? Why
was this necessary? Well, it was necessary that the
Lord Jesus Christ be conceived in the womb of a virgin and it
was just as necessary that the Lord Jesus be born of a virgin
in order that He might not only fulfill the prophets but that
He also would fulfill the law bringing in everlasting righteousness
for his people and honoring God his Father. It was necessary
that he be born of a virgin. Matthew 5.17. Go there with me. Matthew 5.17. Now listen very carefully to what
the Lord Jesus Christ says in this verse. Verse 17, think not
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, you know that means
this is of utmost importance, this is a necessity. For verily,
I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, One jot or one tittle,
one dotting of the I, one crossing of the T, shall in no wise pass
from the law till all be fulfilled. Now let me ask you a question.
If something is filled full, can you add anything to it? Not
a thing. See this glass right here, it's
not filled full. So you can add to this glass.
When that glass gets to the point to where if you put one more
drop in it, it's going to overflow, then that glass is filled full
and you can't add anything to it. Unless you want to create
a mess, you can't add anything to it. That's what Christ did. He came and did what He came
to do. He fulfilled full. He fully filled
the law and the prophets. He filled full the law. When the angel said unto them,
ìFear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy.î When he said,
ìI bring you good tidings.î He didnít say, ìI bring you good
advice.î He is saying, ìI am bringing you good news.î And
the good news is this, God the Father sent forth His Son, and
His Son perfectly filled full the law for His people. That's
good news. If you're a sinner and you know
you're a sinner, that's good news. Because what the law could
not do, and that is weak through our flesh. Now that means before
conversion and after conversion. We could not keep the law. Still
can't keep it. Not in righteousness as God demands. And anything less than God's
righteousness is not anything. It's not obedience at all. What
the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh,
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and
for sin, condemned sin in His flesh. And He did it so that
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled, filled full
in us. Now, who walk not after the flesh
but the Spirit. And He didn't say fulfilled by
us. It's fulfilled by Christ. It's
fulfilled by Christ and revealed in us when He creates in us a
new man in righteousness and true holiness. Christ is the
fulfiller of the law. So this is why Joseph knew or
not till after she had brought forth her firstborn son. Christ
must fulfill the law for His people. But now what does that
have to do with Christ fulfilling the law? Him not knowing his
wife until after she brought forth her firstborn son. What
does that have to do with Christ fulfilling the law? Turn with
me to Luke chapter 2. Luke 2 verse 21. We read here, When eight days
were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, His name was called
Jesus, which was so named of the angel before He was conceived
in the womb. And when the days of her purification
according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought
Him to Jerusalem." Now watch this, "...to present Him to the
Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every male that openeth the womb
shall be called holy to the Lord. And to offer, she came to offer
a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the
Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now Joseph
knew her not so that Christ would come forth from the womb obeying
the law of God. By His act of coming forth from
the womb, Christ obeyed the law in perfection. It says there,
as it's written in the law of the Lord, every male that openeth
the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. Every child born
of Adam comes forth from the womb. How? We come forth speaking
lies. We come forth lawbreakers. Not
our Redeemer. He came forth obeying God in
perfect righteousness. That's how He came forth. It
was written in Exodus, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever
openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of
beast, it's mine, God said. And he said, why, in Numbers
3, because all the firstborn are mine, for on the day that
I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I hallowed,
I made holy unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast,
mine shall they be, I am the Lord. And Christ is the first, firstborn. who truly opened the womb. He is the only one. Every other firstborn son was
ceremonially sanctified and they were holy before God. Ceremonially
they were. But every one of them pointed
to Christ. And that law was given for Christ
to fulfill perfectly. And all of them that came forth,
no other firstborn son fulfilled the law of the firstborn in perfect
righteousness. No other child did. And here's
why. Every other child was conceived
of man's seed. And so the womb was opened at
conception when the seed swims from one end of the womb to the
other. That's when the womb was opened at conception. But Christ
was conceived of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, not knowing her until
he was born, Christ came forth, the firstborn son who truly opened
the womb. He fulfilled that law in every
jot and tittle. He dotted the I and crossed the
T on that law. Now the second thing I want to
show you is this means Christ is God's true firstborn son. He's the true firstborn son.
He's the only true firstborn who perfectly fulfilled the law
of the firstborn. Romans 8.29 declares Christ is
the firstborn among many brethren. Colossians 1.15 declares Christ
is the firstborn of every creature. Colossians 1.18 declares Christ
is the firstborn from the dead. Hebrews 12.23 declares God's
elect who are redeemed by Christ are the church of the firstborn.
And right here our text declares Christ is God the Father's firstborn
son. That's who He is. Firstborn. Now what does that mean to you
and me? as children of God. Well, it's significant to us
because the firstborn son was given full responsibility by
the father to be over his house and to see to it that all the
law was upheld and all righteousness was fulfilled and all debts were
paid and the whole house was cared for so that his children
were all taken care of and all provided for. That all was put
on the shoulder of the firstborn son. The Father made the firstborn
son to be the prophet, priest, and king of His house. That's
what He was made. The firstborn only. And that's
what God the Father made Christ and Christ was faithful to God
His Father. Go to Hebrews 3. Hebrews chapter
3 verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren,
partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high
priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him
that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
See, saying Christ was faithful in all His house, like Moses
was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy
of more glory than Moses, and as much as he who hath built
the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is
built by some man, but he that built all things is God. And
what that means is Christ who built up all His people in His
house is God. And Moses verily was faithful
in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things
which are to be spoken after, but Christ as a Son. Christ was faithful as the firstborn
Son over His own house, whose house are we if we hold fast
the covenants and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. That's
why the firstborn is significant. That's why it's significant that
Christ is the firstborn. He's the prophet, priest, and
king over God the Father's house. He's responsible for all God
the Father's children. And He regarded that whole house
to be His own house. It was His own house to take
care of. Another reason it's significant
is the whole purpose of election. Why did God choose some and pass
by others? Why did He choose us by His free
grace? The whole purpose of election
is for Christ the firstborn. Romans 8.29 says, whom He did
foreknow, that is, whom He foreordained. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. So you see here, brethren, our
Savior, the God-man, according to the law of the firstborn,
He's the only true firstborn Son. And He's responsible for
all God's house. And He was faithful to God over
all His house. So this is significant to us
as God's children. So see, we broke the law. We
were like children who, if we were children in the house
of the firstborn and we went out and ran up a bunch of debt
and robbed and stole and committed a bunch of crimes, that firstborn
son, we would heap up a ton of responsibility on the firstborn
son. And that's what we did. All our
day we broke God's law. We broke it in the garden. We
broke it ourselves. We incurred a massive debt to
God. You think the national debt is
something? We incurred a greater debt than
that to God by our law breaking and we couldn't pay it. And all
that responsibility fell on Christ the firstborn. Now thirdly, by
Christ being the first and only to fulfill the law of the firstborn,
we see here now, He's the only one to fulfill the law of the
firstborn. He's the only one who perfectly, truly opened the
womb. He's the only true firstborn.
And seeing that, that He fulfilled that law perfectly, that's a
foreshadowing. to declare to us He fulfilled
all the law just that perfectly. He fulfilled all the law just
that perfectly for His brethren in His house. Now as the firstborn
presented to God, that means He is the Nazarite. He is the
firstborn. He is holy, separate from His
brethren, sanctified to God, for God's holy use, consecrated
and devoted entirely to God the Father. That's how He came forth
from the womb. He came forth to serve God in
perfect righteousness. Relations 4 verse 4 says, When
the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law. That's what this is declaring.
He was made under the law. He came forth under the law.
that He might fulfill that law in righteousness for His people,
so that we might receive the adoption of children. That's
why He came. Now in our text, we see Him serving
the Father under the law in perfect righteousness, and He even gives
us a double confirmation that He did so. Because not only did
He fulfill that first law, the very first law He had to fulfill
was He had to be the firstborn son. He opened the womb. He fulfilled it perfectly. The
second law He had to fulfill perfectly was He had to be circumcised. And look here. Luke 2 verse 21
says, When eight days were accomplished
for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus which
was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Circumcision was instituted by God as a symbol of the new birth. That's what circumcision typifies. Circumcision doesn't typify baptism. Men have tried to replace circumcision
with baptism and that's how they excuse baptizing children when
they're infants. Circumcision didn't replace baptism.
Circumcision is a picture of the new birth, being circumcised
in the heart. The flesh, the filthy, corrupt
flesh of the heart being cut away. It declares God's children
have to be created anew and given a pure heart. That's what it
declares. And Christ was born holy without
sin. So what need did He have to be
circumcised? He had no sin. He was not born
again. What need did He have? He wasn't
declaring by that He needed to be born again like every other
child was. He had to be circumcised for
the same reason He declared He was baptized. Do you remember
what that was? He said, thus it behooves us
that all righteousness be fulfilled. He was circumcised so that the
righteousness of the law would be fulfilled. So that God would
be obeyed in every way perfectly. That's why He was circumcised.
And He did this for His people. He did it for His people. When
He was circumcised, He wasn't declaring He was imperfect in
heart. He was declaring He was pure
in heart. And when He was circumcised, He was declaring He's one with
His brethren as our surety. That is to be our head, to obtain
and perfect righteousness in everything He was doing. He was
doing it, fulfilling the law so that it would be fulfilled
by His people in Him. Now just as circumcision identified
the children of Abraham as His children, that's what circumcision
did. Every child that was born in
Abraham's family was circumcised. God only gave it to Abraham.
He didn't give it to anybody outside that family. Just Abraham. So everybody we read about in
the Scriptures came from Abraham. All the Jews came from Abraham.
They were all circumcised and it identified they were all the
natural sons of Abraham. But not everybody that was circumcised
were the true spiritual sons of Abraham. But by Christ being
circumcised, it made him identify with the true spiritual elect
seed of Abraham. That's what he was doing. Go
with me to Hebrews 2.16. For verily, he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. You know what that means? the
elect, the spiritual seed. Remember Romans 9, who accounted
for the seed? The children of promise, the
children of election, the children God chose. He took upon Him the
seed of His spiritual elect. Wherefore in all things it behooved
Him to be made like unto His brethren. That's who He came
to save. That He might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. So by submitting to this ordinance,
our Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily made Himself to be submitted
and indebted to keep the whole law of God. Go with me to Galatians
5. By submitting to this ordinance,
it made him a debtor to keep the whole law of God. Look at
Galatians 5 and verse 3. I testify again to every man
that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. And Christ made Himself a debtor
to perform the whole law by being circumcised. That's what he did. That's what he did. Whenever
a child was circumcised, that meant he legally was responsible
to keep the law of God. Not one child born of man ever
did it. They never did it. They were
obligated to, but they never did it. And yet by this one act
of circumcision, Christ came under the law and pledged himself
to perfectly fulfill the law for His people. That's what He
was doing. He pledged Himself to be a debtor to fulfill it,
even to the point of being made sin for His people, even to the
point of bearing the wrath and justice of God for His people,
even to the point of shedding His own blood for His people.
He did that. He entered in and made himself
a debtor. But why was it necessary? Why
was that even necessary that Christ lay down His life as a
substitute for His people? Why was that necessary? It was necessary because God
cannot justify the guilty except His law be upheld in strict justice. It's impossible for God to justify
a guilty sinner except His law be upheld in justice. That would
make God to be unholy if He did that. God won't do that. God's holy and righteous. Righteousness
must be maintained. Justice must be satisfied. While
God pours out mercy and grace on His people, justice has got
to be satisfied. The two have got to be honored.
That's what He means when He says, I'm a just God and a Savior. He means I'm going to satisfy
justice and I'm going to show mercy. That's what it means when
it says, by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged. Mercy and
truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Thou, O Lord, art God, full of
compassion and graces, longsuffering. And that's where the world stops
right there. God just wants to save you so
bad. Christ did everything He could
to save you. That's not where it stops. The verse says, and
your plenteous in mercy and truth. Justice had to be satisfied.
That's why Christ came. Well, did Christ accomplish the
work? Did He accomplish the work? Why was His name called Jesus?
For He shall save His people from their sin. Remember when
God the Father spoke from heaven and He said this, This is My
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. What well pleased God? The word is well satisfied. What
well satisfied God? Go to Isaiah 42 verse 21. I'll show you what well-pleased
God. Let's read verse 1 first because
I want you to see who we're talking about in this chapter. Isaiah
42, 1. Behold My servant, whom I uphold,
Mine elect, whom My soul delighteth. I have put My Spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He's talking
about Christ the Lord. A bruised reed, verse 3, a bruised
reed shall he not break. Smoking flax shall he not quench.
Verse 4, He shall not fail nor be discouraged. We know that
speaking of Christ. And here is what will please
God. Look at verse 21. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and He
will make it honorable. That right there, that ought
to end any man's boast. that he has pleased God by his
law keeping. And that's what men are boasting
in, that's what they're saying after conversion, men are saying
they're keeping the law to please God. Mine and your law keeping
don't please God. God is well satisfied by Christ
keeping the law because He magnified the law, He honored, He established
righteousness and honored the law of God. Isaiah 53, 10 says
it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It satisfied divine justice
for the Lord to bruise Him. That's why He's well pleased
with God. All His people, for all His people, Christ took our
place as our substitute. That means He bore our sins. really truly bore our sin. I
don't know how it could be that He bore it in such a way that
He felt what it's like to be sinful. And He felt what it was
like to be ashamed before God. And He felt what it was like
to be forsaken of God. all due to sin. He owned our
sin as His own sin. It had to be a literal substitution
to take away not just our sin but the crime itself, to blot
it out off the record book. And then He bore in our place
our curse. God withdrew from Him. This is
where I think it all and hinges on. I think this is where he
was made sin, where he was bearing justice. All of it hinges on
God removing his spirit because that's how Adam was made sin.
God took his spirit away from him. And he became spiritually
dead. Well, Christ didn't become spiritually
dead because He is God also. But He was forsaken and He bore
that hell, that second death of being separated from God so
His people wouldn't have to bear it. And He made perfect satisfaction
to justice for us. He honored God. He declared God
just and the justifier. And so now for everyone that
believes on Christ, go to Colossians 2. For everyone that the Spirit
of God brings to believe on Christ, this is what the Scripture said.
This is why I implore you who don't believe to believe on Christ.
Listen to this good news. Listen to this, Colossians 2.10. And as I declare, as I say to
you, believe on Christ, this is what I hope Christ will come
forth and do to you, in you. Verse 10 says, You are complete
in Christ, which is the head of all principality and power,
in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ. We were buried with Him in baptism,
wherein also you're risen with Him through the faith of the
operation of God who raised Him from the dead. Right there, I
think that's talking about the baptism Christ bore on the Calvary's
cross when He was immersed in the judgment of God. We were
in Him and baptized in that judgment with Him. And then we were raised
in Him. And then look what He did. And
you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you
all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances,
the law that was against us, which was contrary to us, took
it out of the way, and nailed it to His cross. Go to Romans
7. Romans 7. Here's what it means. Here's what all that means now.
Romans 7. And verse 4, for the believer,
this is what it means. Verse 4, ìWherefore, my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.î Dead
to the law by the body of Christ. The law acknowledges all that
were in Christ to be as dead as Christ died on Calvaryís cross.
Dead. You know what happens when a
man is dead? A man who owes the law something, when he is dead,
you know what happens? He doesn't owe the law anything
else. He is dead to the law. Now, the law looks at him and
says, well, he is dead. He can't pay me anything. He
is dead. He doesn't owe me anything now. Justice is satisfied. And
that is what the law says to all God's people. He is dead
to me. Justice has been satisfied. I
have got my just payment, which was death. And that you should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that through him we should bring forth fruit unto God. Here is
the last thing I want to show you. Seeing that Christ is the
only one who fulfilled the law, what does this mean for us sinners? What does it mean for us sinners?
One, it means the only way we can establish the law. The only
way we can establish the law before conversion, or after conversion. That's really
not how to say it because we have to be brought and converted
to believe on Him. But you get what I'm saying.
We can't do it ourselves. And I say after conversion because
there's a host of people that think that once you're born of
God, you can keep the law. That's not what God meant when
He said, I'll put my law in your hearts and you'll keep my judgments
and do them. He meant by that, I'm going to
put my the gospel in your heart. I'm going to put the law of love
and the law of mercy and the law of grace and the law of faith,
all these laws that are spoken about in the New Testament that
make up the gospel. And to do His judgments is to
do what He commands you to do under the gospel. We'll see that
in a moment. But see, there's no way you and
I can keep the law. If there was, think of this now,
God wouldn't have sent His only begotten Son. and made Him bear
what He bore on Calvary's cross if you and I could have kept
it. If all we had to do was be born of God to keep it, He could
have just made us be born of God and we could have kept it.
No. The only one that could keep
it was His Son. The only one. The only ones that
that offends are self-righteous folks who want to say, no, I
kept it. That's adding to the glass. That's
adding to a glass that's already filled full. And that just makes
a mess when you do that. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law through faith. If you want to see it, look at
Abraham, Paul said. That's how he established the
law. Through faith. 400 years before it was given.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without
the deeds of the law. Without the deeds of the law.
So I say to every unbelieving sinner, and I say to every self-righteous
sinner, the only way a sinner can fulfill the law of God is
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who by Himself fulfilled
the law for all His people. That's the only way. That's the
only way. Here's the second thing I want
to show you. Knowing Christ fulfilled the law for His people, every
believer is free from the law and given at Mount Sinai, and
that includes moral law and ceremonial law. God doesn't divide the law. He doesn't divide the law. Men
divide the law. And they do it so they can say,
well, Christ fulfilled the ceremonial, but He didn't fulfill the moral.
We're still obliged to keep the moral. He had to reveal the moral
for us too because the moral is what declared us guilty. See,
that's absurd. The law is what declared us guilty,
the Ten Commandments. So he had to keep that. He bore
the justice for that, satisfied justice for that as well as the
ceremonial law. And because he did it, that text
I just read in Romans 7 says now we're delivered from the
law. 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 letter. Not only is the law dead to us,
he's saying that law is dead, not only are we dead to the law,
the law is dead to us. That's what Paul meant when he
said, I'm crucified to the world and the world is crucified to
me. The law was called the rudiments of the world. I'm crucified to
the world and the world is crucified to me. Not that I'm shaming the
law or dishonoring the law. No, sir. Through faith, I've
honored that law perfectly because Christ honored it perfectly for
me. So I'm delivered from it in every way. Paul said, I through
the law am dead to the law. So now I can live unto God. See,
men who think they're under the law and think they're keeping
the law and think they're really worshipping God and pleasing
God by keeping the law, they're not living unto God. They're
living unto Moses. And God's not pleased with it.
I through the law, I through Christ coming and fulfilling
the law, am dead to the law. It's nailed to the cross. It's
taken out of the way. So now I can actually worship
God and live unto Him. Nothing between us now. reconciled,
peace between us. That's where the believer is.
We're free from the law. Here's the third thing. We must
never attempt to worship God from a legal spirit, using the
moral law, nor any of the carnal ordinances of the law, lest we
be found like the Pharisees. We must never use the law to
attempt to worship God. Never. Or we will be found like
the Pharisees. Listen to this. Go to Romans
10.2. Romans 10.2. Paul said of the Pharisees, his
brethren after the flesh, I bear them record, they have a zeal
of God, but not according to knowledge. He is saying they
are lost as a goose in a hailstorm. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. And when you read righteousness there, For the
man who's going to argue and say, well that's just righteousness,
that don't mean sanctification, yes it does. Christ of God is
made unto us righteousness and sanctification. Sanctification
is to be holy and separate unto Him so that you believe Him to
be your only righteousness. And you can't do it unless you're
sanctified. So that making you holy, you're either out of the
light or in the light, out of unbelief or in belief. You can't be partly. So when
He makes you holy, you're holy. And when He brings you to faith
in Christ, you stop trying to work for righteousness. That
includes both. And those that attempt to keep
God's law, here's what they do. They nullify the law and they
dishonor the law. That's what they do. Men who
try to keep the law bring the law down to their level. That's
right. Neither they themselves who are
circumcised keep the law, Paul said. They desire to have you
circumcised. They desire to bring you under
the law for one reason. So they can glory in what they
made you do. You give that to the self-righteous
preacher next time he tries to bring you under a yoke. You're
only doing this so you can glory in what you made me do. That's
what the scripture says. You've not kept the law either.
That's true. and to attempt to establish righteousness
by the laws to dishonor God and to dishonor Christ. Romans 2.23,
Thou that makest Thy boast of the law through breaking the
law dishonorest Thou God. And everybody through trying
to keep the law breaks the law. That's why Paul just a few verses
later says there's none righteous, no not one. None of us keep the
law. We all, if we're trying to honor
the law by keeping the law, we're breaking the law and we're dishonoring
God. Paul said, I don't frustrate the grace of God because if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. That's why we're
dishonoring God and His Christ. We're saying Christ is dead in
vain. We're saying, I still got to add something to fulfill the
law. God said, no sir. No, sir. Christ has become of
no effect unto you. Whosoever you are, you are justified
by the law. You have fallen from grace. And
men will say, well, I'm not saying I'm justified before the judgment
seat of God. But what you're trying to do
is you're trying to justify yourself before men. And any justification
that you attempt to do by keeping the law makes Christ null and
void to you. But men will say, well, you're
an antinomian, you're lawless, you're anti-law. No, sir. Not
at all. Scripture says we're either the
servants of sin or we're the servants of righteousness. What
is it to be the servant of righteousness? We read that in Romans 7 where
it said, now we're married to another. We're not married to
the law anymore, we're married to another so that we might bring
forth living fruit unto God by Him. Just like a husband marries
his wife and through that husband the wife brings forth a living
child, we are married to Christ and through Christ our husband
by His incorruptible seed, His gospel, we are going to bring
forth some living fruit now. And we are under the gracious,
loving, merciful rule of Christ Himself who rules effectually
in the hearts of His people as the head of His church. Paul,
as a believer, said, we're not without law to God, but we're
under the law of Christ. We're under His rule. We're under
Christ's rule now. We're living under God. He said,
if you be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. Led
of the Spirit means we're led by Christ. Through the Spirit
of God, we're led by Christ in how we ought to go, which way
we ought to go, what we ought to do, and we obey the commandments
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And His commandments are not
grievous. We obey His commandments and we don't try to obey Moses'
commandments. The law given by, of God given
through Moses. We don't try to obey that. We
have obeyed that through faith in Christ. We keep Christ's commandments. What are they? What are they?
1 John 3.23 says, this is His commandment. Here it is. that we should believe
on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as
He gave us commandment. That's His commandment. See why
it's a light and easy yoke? Believe on Christ. That's how
we fulfill all that big magnificent law that we couldn't fulfill
before. We believe on Christ. We trust Him to have done it
all for us. And now by His Spirit dwelling in us, we have the love
of God in our hearts so that we really genuinely love each
other. We love His people. We love sinners
in that we want to see poor ignorant sinners brought to Christ. We're
looking for His elect. That's why we spend and sacrifice
to send this gospel forth. We want to see His elect called
out. So we have a love in our hearts for one another. That's
why we keep assembling and supporting the gospel so our children and
we and our families can have it. It's a love for one another. And the Lord promised as we have
His Spirit in us leading us, He promised us sin shall not
have dominion over you because you're not under the law, you're
under grace. You see, when we were under the
law, sin had dominion over us. We couldn't believe Christ, not
solely. If we did claim to believe Christ,
we still kept saying, we've got to keep the law. And Paul said,
I thought I was righteous by my doing. The commandment came
and I saw my sin, it revived and then I died completely. But
see now, we can believe because Christ has entered in and the
law can't have dominion over you anymore. Sin can't have dominion
over us anymore. That means we'll never be able
to stop believing Christ and loving one another. A believer
won't. Not by ourselves, by Christ.
By Christ. We through the Spirit wait for
the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither
circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision. Not your
law keeping nor your law disobedience or not having the law. It's not
going to avail anything. Abraham didn't have circumcision
when he was born of God and fulfilled the law through faith. That's
what Romans 4 says. He did all that before he was
ever circumcised. He was circumcised testifying
that he had all that. So whether circumcised or not,
that doesn't avail anything. What avails? Faith which worketh
by love. Preacher, are you saying faith
and love is the believer's rule of life? That's what I'm saying. Faith and love are the believer's
rule of life. Christ Himself is our rule. Our
ruler and our rule. And we learn faith and we learn
love looking to Christ. So we follow Him. Follow Him. Amen.