What is the life of the believer? Our life, you that believe the
Lord Jesus Christ, our life is a life of faith, trusting and
believing and hoping. in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
Paul tells us in Galatians 3, and you can be turning there,
turn to Galatians 3 and put a marker there because we'll be looking
at a few scriptures throughout the message this morning from
that area. Paul tells us in Galatians 3,
11, saying, no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. It is evident. for the just shall
live by faith." That's how the justified live. We live by faith,
believing the promises of God made unto us in the promised
seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit is given
to us to teach us what the scriptures have concluded, what the scriptures
are telling the child of God, teaching the child of God concerning
our salvation, that we're not to go to the law. It's not about
following the law for a righteousness. In fact, the scriptures teach
us. The Holy Spirit makes it known
that going to the law is bondage. bonded for the believer. But
the scriptures show us that the children of God are to live by
faith. That's how the justified, the
righteous of God, the saints of God live. We live by faith. And Paul dives into this spiritual
truth over in Galatians chapter 4. Look at chapter 4 now, picking
up in verse 21. He says, tell me ye that desire
to be under the law. There's a lot of people still
in our day that desire to be under the law. He asks, do ye
not hear what the law saith? Don't you hear what the law is
saying? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one
by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the
bondwoman was born after the flesh. The bondwoman had a son,
Ishmael, and he was born after the flesh. But he of the free
woman, Isaac, was by promise. He was according to the promise
of God made to Abraham and covenanted with Abraham in that covenant
of grace that we saw in Genesis chapter 15. And he says, they are concerning
these things. He tells us in verse 24 that
these things are an allegory. They're an allegory. For these
are the two covenants. They're pictures. They're types
of the two covenants. The one from the Mount Sinai,
which gendereth the bondage, which is Hagar, the bondwoman. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai
in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is. at Jerusalem on
the earth and is in bondage with her children right now under
the yoke of the law. And so Paul uses an allegory
to help us understand this truth of what he's saying, that no
man is saved by the law, but rather the law puts us in bondage
because of this flesh. It leads to bondage. And he says
that the children of God are saved through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are saved graciously by our
God in Christ alone. An allegory will use persons
and things that have happened, and they make use of those things
to have a symbolic meaning. their symbolism and allegory
to help us understand a lesson, a truth that we're to hear and
understand. And in this case, the symbol
is the bondmaid, that servant girl of Sarah, whose name is
Hagar. Hagar, she represents the law
of the covenant or the covenant law that was given by Moses at
Mount Sinai. And Abraham's wife, Sarah, she's
a free woman. And she represents the covenant
of grace. Because the covenant of grace,
of our God's grace, sets the sinner free. God graciously sets
the prisoner free from their burden, free from their yoke,
and are made free to worship and serve our God in faith, in
joy, in hope, in gladness, knowing that all things are settled,
that we have the comfort of our God in the Lord Jesus Christ. So do you that believe that the
law is the believer's rule of life? Because there are people
that say today that the law is our rule of life. And that by
the law, we sanctify ourselves. That we look to the law to make
ourselves more and more holy. That's what religion teaches. Well, give Paul your attention
then. If you think the law is the believer's rule of life,
give Paul your attention. Because he shows us, the spirit
shows us in the scriptures that you cannot produce good fruits,
righteous fruits by the yoke of the law. But instead the law
leads to bondage. It's a yoking bondage and it
leads to death, spiritual death. And what the scriptures show
us is that's not why the law was given. The law wasn't given
to give you life. The law wasn't given to make
you holy. The law has no such power over
this flesh to make anyone holy. The law says you that are holy
and you that are unholy. The law shows us that we are
sinners, that we're sinners. In fact, look at Romans 3. Keep
a marker in Galatians, but put another one in Romans 3, because
we'll look at a few scriptures here as well. Romans 3 verse
20, Paul says, therefore, we conclude,
therefore, By the deeds of the law, trying to keep the law for
righteousness, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. The law helps us to know what
sin is and the sinfulness of sin and just how weak, how sinful
this flesh is. That's what the law shows. If
you try to keep the law, and you're honest, and you're made
honest trying to keep it, you're going to see just how weak and
insufficient we are, how short we come of the glory of God. That's what we learn. And so
the law was given to reveal sin, to show us our death in Adam,
to show us that we don't know how to worship God, that we can't
come to God by our works. We need His grace. We need his
help, we need his spirit, we need his salvation. But in religion,
men turn to the law to make good fruits. Men turn to the law thinking
that this is their righteousness, and this is how they bring forth
good fruits. And they try to sanctify themselves. And that's where we see in the
scriptures, from the Pharisees, we see they said, stand off. Stay away from me. I'm holier
than thou. Don't come near me and pollute
me. I'm righteous. I'm holy. I'm sanctified. Don't
bring your stuff near me, because you'll only ruin me. And they
don't see that I'm the polluted one, the one saying that, that
I'm keeping the law. I'm the polluted one. I'm the
one in darkness. That's what the scriptures show
us. Men turn to the law to produce
good works. They turn to the law to deliver
themselves and keep themselves from death. But that's not what
happens when we turn to the law. That's not why the law was given.
It was given to show us, to give us the knowledge of sin. And
when we turn to the law, it binds men in self-righteousness, and
the fruit that's born in us is what we see in the Pharisees
who despised others. They despised the publicans. They despised those that they
counted as sinners because of their plain works, and they didn't
see how they themselves are sinners in need of the grace of God.
And Christ teaches His children, in John 15, verse 4, He said,
Without Me ye can do nothing. And ye can do nothing. And he
graciously allows us to see our own weakness through trials,
through temptations, through infirmities and sicknesses and
just, he lets us see what our sin is capable, what our flesh
is capable of doing and it's ugly. Because it's sinful and
it's darkness in ourselves. And he allows us to see that.
And so, this is what was made clear to Sarah, because Sarah,
as we'll see today, Sarah turned to the flesh, and Sarah turned
Abraham to the flesh, or to the law, allegorically speaking. She turned Abraham away from
the promise that God had given him to give him a son, and she
got tired of waiting, and Abraham stopped waiting on the Lord,
And he was turned to the flesh, which is a picture of our turning
to the law. So the question for us back in
Galatians 3, Paul asks, Galatians 3, 21, he asks, is the law then
against the promises of God? God forbid. No, that's not against
the promises of God. For if there had been a law given
which could have given life, verily righteousness should have
been by the law. The problem is this flesh is
weak. I'm infirmed in my flesh because
of sin, because of my sin nature which I'm born with in Adam. and I've proved it by my own
works, that my works are sinful. And every one of us here has
proved that we are sinners, born of flesh, born of the seed of
Adam, which is corrupt and defiled and spiritually dead, until the
Spirit is given to us, the Holy Spirit, and regenerates us and
gives us life because of the life of Christ, in Christ, by
the Lord Jesus Christ, being born of His seed. And so it says
in Galatians 3.22, but the scripture hath concluded all under sin. That's the right understanding.
When I read the scriptures, I shouldn't be saying, oh, if I do this and
I do that, then I'll be righteous before God. No, when I read the
scriptures, we see there's a lot of sinners in here. There's a
lot of sinful people in here, just like me. People who are
weak. people who didn't do what they
were supposed to do, people who are saved by the grace of God
through Christ. And so the scripture hath concluded
all under sin for this purpose, that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. He makes us
to believe Christ, to trust, to believe the hope and the promise
of God made unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord
Jesus Christ is salvation. And when he delivers us from
death, we're not to turn now back to the law, back to the
flesh. Having begun in the spirit, are
ye now made perfect by the flesh, Paul asked in Galatians 3.3.
Is that how we're made perfect? No. Having begun in Christ, we're
made perfect in Christ. That's what he shows us. Turn
over to Romans 8. Look at Romans 8. Here we see that we are led by
the Spirit. This is why we need God's help
always because this flesh is corrupt. We need the grace of
our God. We need His Spirit. We need His
grace to us. Romans 8 verse 13 For if ye live after the flesh,
If you're trying to keep the law, if you're turning like Sarah
does when she turns Abraham to Hagar to produce the promise,
if you're living after the flesh, keeping the law, which Paul says
is an allegory of the law, that covenant under Mount Sinai, ye
shall die. But if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as
are led by the Spirit of God, They are the sons of God. For
ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, trying
to keep sin in check by the law. That's the spirit of bondage.
Remember Paul said, Hagar is bondage. He's in bondage. If
you try to do that, you've not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby
we cry Abba. Father, Abba Father, it's to
show us that we live and depend on the grace of God. And we live
and depend on His Spirit. And when we see sin in our members,
which we do, we cry out, Lord save me, Lord help me, Lord deliver
me from this, keep me, keep me walking in faith, keep me in
love, loving my brethren, help me to walk faithfully before
you. Now having seen that, go back to Galatians 4 once more. Tell me, I want to read it again,
verse 21 through 25 now, having looked at those scriptures, tell
me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? Don't you hear that's bondage
of death? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one
by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the
bondmaid, that fruit, Ishmael, was born after the flesh. But
he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory?
For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai,
which gendereth the bondage, which is Hagar, For this Hagar
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which
now is and is in bondage with her children." So when we try
to bring forth fruit by the law, we're bringing forth fruit born
of bondage. We're bringing forth fruit of
death. Only by faith in Jesus Christ
do we bring forth fruit acceptable unto God. I'm sure when you consider
the Galatians, I have no doubt that they kept the name of Jesus
on their lips, but their heart was removed from Him. They said
the right things, but their heart was removed from Him because
their confidence was taken off of Christ and put on their circumcision. put on their keeping of the law. And when you think about it,
that's a lot less than what people are saying today in religion. They speak of, well, I'm progressively
making myself holier and holier. I'm making myself better and
better, little by little. By what I do, I'm improving myself. And they boast in their righteousness
under the law rather than their righteousness by Christ. And
I want to show you. that we bear fruit by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Turn over to Romans 7. Let's
see that. Romans 7. Romans 7 verses 4 through
6. Verse 4, Wherefore my brethren,
Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. It
cannot get any more clear than that. Only men today separate
the law into different parts, but they never do here in the
scriptures. It's one whole law, civil, ceremonial,
moral. It's one law given by Moses,
that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised
from the dead. You're not married to Moses,
you're married to Christ. He's your husband, hear him,
hear him. Even he's raised from the dead
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in
the flesh, when we were under the law, the motions of sins
which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth
fruit unto death. It's not making you holier, it's
turning you from Christ, and it's turning you to the flesh,
and that's death, he says. But now we are delivered from
the law that being dead, wherein we were held, that we should
serve in newness of spirit. and not in the oldness of the
letter. And religion has abundantly gone
back to the oldness of the letter and thinking that's their righteousness
and snaring people with the law. Alright, now having laid that
foundation, let's go back to Genesis 16. You can hold your
places in Galatians and Romans because we'll probably come back
a couple times there to see it again. But Genesis 16 is our
text, the first six verses. This is the account where Sarah
gives her bondmaid, Hagar, to Abraham. And she's trying to
effect the promise of God made to Abraham in chapter 15. She's
trying to bring to pass what God had promised to Abraham,
what God promised to Abraham. And she tries to do it with Hagar.
And that's why Hagar is a picture of the law. After the promise
was made by God, the law came. Hagar came after the promise
in chapter 15. So Hagar is a picture of the
law, and what Abraham produces with the law, with Hagar, is
the product of the flesh. It's the product of the flesh.
Rather than life, it brings forth death. It brings forth trouble.
It brings forth persecution on Isaac later on. He persecuted
Isaac, the son of promise. So what we see here is Abraham
waited not. Now back in verse 1, Sarah, Abram's
wife, bare him no children. She didn't have any fruit to
speak of. She had the promise, but she had no fruit to speak
of. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian. And that's what the
law is. It's a handmaid. It's to show
you we're sinners. show us that we cannot work a
righteousness by ourselves. And she had a handmaid an Egyptian
whose name was Hagar. Hagar is the bondmaid who is
a type of the covenant that was given at Mount Sinai. I'm not
making that up. Paul tells us that very truth.
And that's where Moses gave the law to Israel at Mount Sinai. She pictures the covenant of
works of which Paul told us in Galatians 4, verse 24, he said,
it gendereth to bondage. What does gendereth mean? It
means to bring forth. It means to beget. It means to
give birth to. It gives birth to bondage. That's what he's saying. Even
you think of what Peter said in Acts 15. He said, he said,
we, our fathers, we weren't even able to keep the law. We tried to submit our necks
under that yoking bondage and we couldn't do it. We couldn't
do it. Why are you telling the Gentiles
to go back to the law? So it gives birth to bondage. That's its fruit. It leads away,
it takes away, it turns us away from the promise of God. Just think of where this is placed.
Last chapter, chapter 15, we saw the promise of God, the covenant
God made with Abraham of grace, where God did the whole covenant.
He fulfilled the whole covenant and gave Abraham promise And
then comes chapter 16, which is the law, turning away from
that faith. And so men think that the law
today is their life, and it has become a snare to them, because
it stirs up self-righteousness, and it provokes the flesh, and
it turns us against one another. Well, hold your place there in
Galatians 5, 5 Galatians 5 verse 1-2 Paul tells us, Stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. of your holiness or sanctification
or righteousness, justification, whatever you want to put on it,
when you turn back, it's entangling, it's getting tripped up. It's
like having weeds and vines growing around you and tripping you up
and giving you trouble. It's a yoke of bondage. Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing. And don't limit it just to circumcision. It's the law. It's looking to
the law for some part, some aspect of your salvation, and it's deadly. It's deadly. And we see that
with the Galatians. Some professing believers might
say, well, we're not saying be circumcised. Well, in America,
actually, Today, probably 50% of all males are circumcised
anyway for medical reasons. And back when I was younger,
probably close to 100% of all males were circumcised just for
medical, you know, they said it was a purpose. So that's very
easy for the flesh to say, yeah, we're not talking about circumcision
because it's already been done. Your parents did it for you under
the doctor's orders. Anyway, not for religious purposes,
but because it was a health thing they said back then. But that's
very appealing to the flesh, that, well, if I do need circumcision,
well, it's already been done. So I'm not saying circumcision,
but they are turning back to the law for their sanctification. We only use it to progressively
sanctify ourselves, to improve ourselves. And so they practice
the law to what? When you say I'm progressively
sanctifying myself, you're saying I'm whittling away the flesh.
I'm weakening the flesh. I'm binding the flesh. I'm putting
it under wraps and putting it in its place by my focus of the
law, by looking to the law of Moses so that progressively I'm
getting a little better. Each and every day I'm just tweaking
it here and tweaking it there. I'm doing a little bit here and
there. to improve myself and what they're saying is I'm cutting
away the flesh. I am circumcising myself by the
law. I'm cutting it away. I'm cutting
this thing out and I'm chopping that thing off and I'm removing
that bit of flesh from my person. That's adherence to the law.
And Paul says if you do that, if you submit to circumcision,
you've submitted yourself to the whole of the law, the curses
as well. You submitted yourself to the
whole thing of the law, and you're saying, I circumcised the heart
by my keeping of the law. I'm doing that which only God
can do. Galatians 5, 3 through 5 says, for I testify again to
every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the
whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you. Whosoever of you are justified
by the law, you're fallen from grace. And so that's the issue,
is by our turn to the law, we are playing a very dangerous
game. And we are ensnaring ourselves.
And I know that most people wouldn't say they're justified by it.
Some people would. Some people will still say that,
professing to believe on Christ. But others would say, well, I'm
not justified, but I'm sanctified by it. I'm circumcising my heart
by it. I'm holier today than I was yesterday,
or the week before, or the month before, or the year before. And
if you ask someone who believes progressive sanctification, and
you say, are you holier today than you were last year under
the law? They'll say yes. But the scriptures teach that
we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. The Spirit grows us. We cry out to the Father, save
me, have mercy on me, deliver me from my sins. It's not that
we're without law. were under the Law of Liberty,
the Law of Love, the Law of the Spirit of God, to save me, to
deliver me. I don't want to reject Christ,
and neither do you. Even those that believe that
the Law is their progressive sanctification, they don't want
to lose Christ, but they're ensnaring themselves, they're turning away
from Christ, because why? When you put Moses When you turn
to Moses, to the law, you're putting a mediator, another mediator
between you and Christ. Moses is now your mediator between
you and Christ. And Christ is the only mediator
between you and God. Christ alone. The scriptures
tell us that by one offering he hath perfected forever then
that are sanctified. Christ is our sanctification.
But of God is Christ made unto us wisdom, sanctification, Got
it? Wisdom, sanctification, redemption,
righteousness and redemption. He's everything. He's our all.
Our sanctification and our justification. And then what we do is we end
up denying what he said, for we through the spirit wait. We wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. And as we'll see in Genesis 16,
Abraham didn't wait. He didn't wait. He moved to action.
He started to put in motion what he thought he should do under
the advice of Sarah. But the Spirit tells us, wait.
Wait on the Lord. Cry out to Him. Seek Him. We're not produced under the
law. We don't produce the fruit that we think we're producing
under the yoke of bondage. So let's go back to Genesis 16.
Genesis 16, we'll read verse 1 and verse 2 as well. Now Sarah,
Abram's wife, bare him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar. And Sarah started looking for
fruit. And Sarah said unto Abram, behold, now the Lord hath restrained
me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid.
It may be that I may obtain children by her. Go to the woman of bondage. Go to my bondmaid. Go to her,
who is a type of the covenant of the law of Mount Sinai, and
maybe you'll be fruitful there. You'll be fruitful there. You'll
get what God has promised you from the bondmaid. And Abram
hearkened to the voice of Sarah. But we've seen that by the law,
And in Romans 7, 5, what we bring forth is fruit unto death. It's fruit unto death. We're
to serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the
letter. We walk by faith, not under the
yoke, that burdensome yoke of the law. It's a yoke of bondage. And we're attempting to work
a righteousness by that law. And Paul said in Romans 8, 15,
ye've not received the spirit of bondage. The Lord hasn't given
you Hagar. You're born of the free woman.
You're under the covenant of grace. You've not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. I don't have anywhere
to turn. I can't go to my flesh. I can't
look at the law and say, make me better. I've been taught by
grace to go to my knees and say, Lord, save me. Have mercy on
me. Be gracious to me, Lord. Turn
me from the lust of the flesh. Turn me from wicked ways. Turn
me to your son to believe him. Notice Sarah in verse two, she
had the grace to see the Lord hath restrained me from bearing.
She said it, that's truth, the Lord restrained her from bearing. But rather than asking her husband,
Abraham pray, when's the Lord gonna bring to pass his promise?
When am I going to bring forth that fruit of promise that he
has given to you and to us? Instead she turned to the flesh
and gave Abraham another woman. But contrary to that, in Genesis
25 verse 21, we're told about Isaac. Isaac's the son of promise.
Well, he's a type of the son of promise of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it says that Isaac entreated
the Lord for his wife, because she didn't bear either. And he
entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the
Lord was entreated of him. and Rebecca, his wife, conceived.
If you would bear fruit unto God, like it says, if you would
bear fruit unto God, then go to your husband and ask him to
entreat for you. Lord, I want to bear fruit unto
your praise and glory. Help me, Lord. I'm barren. I'm barren. And if I turn to
the law, it's just a snare. It puts me in bondage. It makes
me think that I've done something when I've done nothing. And I'm
condemning my brethren. I'm angry with them because they're
not doing what I do. And they're bringing their pollution
near me. No, we don't turn to the law. We turn to our husband.
Lord, pray for me. Help me. Teach me, Lord. Give
me your spirit. Fill me with that spirit of adoption,
not that spirit of bondage. Now we're told in Genesis 16
verse 3, And Sarah Abram's wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian,
after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave
her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Now that's sinful. We're not to have two wives.
The Lord made them male and female, one husband, one wife, and they
too shall be one flesh, one flesh, and together. they produce children. They produce fruit unto God. And so Abram's not to be married
to this woman. And what we're seeing there is
believers are not under two covenants. We're not under the covenant
of grace and the covenant of the law. We're under one covenant.
We have one wife. We are the wife. We have one
covenant, the covenant of grace. It cannot be both. And we either
bring forth fruit by our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, or we
bring forth fruit and fornication by another husband, Moses. It's
either by Christ or by Moses. It can't be two. There's not
two wives. There's one. And there's one
husband for the believer, the Lord Jesus Christ. one is of
faith and one is of the flesh and you can't get around it.
That's what the scriptures show us. Now it gets worse in Genesis
16 4 and and he went in unto Hagar and she conceived and when
she saw that she had conceived her mistress was despised in
her eyes. I can't think of a better picture
than when men turn to the law and and how they begin to bite
and devour one another. Because I'm doing it right, and
you're doing it wrong. And the other one's saying, well,
I'm doing this right, and you're doing what I'm doing wrong. And
so they start attacking one another because they're not aligning,
and they get angry with each other. Because the other one's
not keeping the law the way they think they should keep the law. And so that's what happens when
the flesh gets a taste of the law and it says, I'm doing good. I'm making progress here. I'm
getting a little better and a little better. and a little better here,
and they think that they're producing some fruit unto God and don't
see that it's fruit unto judgment. It's just fruit of bondage. And
we become just like those Pharisees who counted themselves righteous
and despised others. I don't know if that's Mark or
Matthew who words it that way, but they thought they were something
and they ended up despising the other Jews in Israel because
they could do it and the others couldn't do what they could do. And that's what we do. The law
causes us to despise our brethren, to despise them. Afterward, Sarah
then blamed Abraham for turning to the flesh. She's the one who
did it, and then she blames him and gets mad with him for attempting
to bring to pass the promises of God by the flesh. Verse 5,
and Sarah said unto Abram, my wrong be upon thee. I have given
my maiden to thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived,
I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and
thee. Now, the Lord purposed this for
good. And Abram, I mean, Sarah knew. She was a child of grace. She
saw that it was the Lord that restrained her from bearing,
but she stumbled and she turned to the flesh. She turned Abram
to the flesh. And so our Lord does that. He
shows us. He shows us that just how much
we need him. that we need Him for all things,
always. We need the grace of God to keep
us. We don't come to Him by our works
in anything. We come to Him in Christ always,
in all things. It's not through fleshly, elemental,
rudimentary things. We don't turn back to the ABCs
of religion to try and get better and better. return to Christ,
being led of the Spirit in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we're going to know the conclusion of Scripture. We're going to
know that the Scripture does conclude all under sin. That
I've sinned and come short of the glory of God. And I've tried
this thing and that thing and tried to please God this way
and that way. And I see now I was trusting
and leaning on the arm of flesh rather than leaning on Christ
to save me. and Christ to uphold me. How
are you going to go wrong trusting Christ? His grace doesn't teach
us to sin. His grace teaches us how desperate
we are for His grace. We need to be led of the Spirit
rather than being helped and propped up by our flesh. It's
not profitable. It's going to ensnare us, it's
going to turn us against our brethren, to divide from them
when they don't do what we think they should do. And it saps us
of that love. Paul labored to turn the Galatian
believers from the law. He said, all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If you want to do your neighbor
good, and the people in your neighborhood good, why do you
need the law? Don't you have the spirit? Love
them. Is love going to teach you? Oh,
I saw a shovel sitting out near the road. I think I'll take that
for myself, even though it's my neighbor's. Or if a neighbor's
sheep wanders onto your property, do you need the law to tell you
not to keep that sheep and to return it to your neighbor? No,
you love them. You love because you have the
spirit of love and you say to your neighbor, I think your sheep
are hunted over here. I got them penned up for you.
Come check it out, make sure it's yours and take them away. No, you love them. You don't
need the law to fulfill the law. He's giving you his spirit and
a spirit of love and adoption so that you do speak peaceably
and kindly and graciously and tenderly to one another. Just
because we're not under law doesn't give us liberty to go and use
our liberty as a cloak of unrighteousness. No, we have the spirit of His
grace in us so that we want to love. And when we see that we're
not loving and we hear the bitter words that can come out of this
filthy mouth, were broken. Lord help me. Help me to speak
according to the grace that you've shown me to one another and to
be kind to one another and helpful and loving. He said walk in the
spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Don't
walk in the law of Moses and you won't fulfill the law of
the flesh. Walk in the spirit. Walk in the spirit. He's giving
you that spirit. wait upon him, believe him when he says, I've
given you my spirit to keep you and to lead you. Now, after the
Lord established, we see after the Lord established that covenant
of grace with Abraham, then this family event occurred where Abram
was turned away from the promise by faith and he was turned to
the flesh. But even though he was turned
to the flesh, God didn't alter his promise to him. He didn't
alter the promise that he gave to Abram. And actually when you
look at it, well let me just read verse 6. But Abram said
unto Sarah, Behold thy maid is in thine hand, do to her as it
pleaseth thee. And when Sarah dealt hardly with
her, she fled from her face. And so bondage must give way
to grace. Bondage gives way to grace. The flesh gives way to the spirit. We're delivered by Christ and
we're set free by him to be at liberty to love one another in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that we want to love. If
you don't want to love your brethren, there's something wrong. But
we want to love one another in the Lord Jesus Christ. That picture there, and Paul
back, I won't go there because we're running late, but in Galatians
3, you can read how that law could not disannul the promise
of God made to Abram. And we actually see it in the
picture there in Genesis 16, how the promise was given, the
covenant of grace was established, and what happened? The law entered
in for a time. After 430 years that law entered
in. But that law that was given by
Moses never changed the promise of God to bless his people in
Christ, the promised seed. It did not alter it. And that
law was put into place. And that's what we see there
in Genesis 16. Abram was turned from the promise
and went to the law, the bondmaid, of bondage and tried to affect
the promises and then was put away and it didn't alter. It
didn't add one thing to Abraham. It didn't take anything away
either. It did nothing. It just showed us Abraham sinned
like we sinned. And we need the grace of God.
We need his grace and mercy. So I pray that the Lord help
us to see that, hold us by His Spirit, lead us and teach us
by His Spirit and grace, and not to let us be turned back
to the law, the yoking, snaring law, but to cry out, Abba, Father,
Lord, help me. Save me, Lord, by Your grace.
And He does that. He does that. We wait for Him.
we wait upon him for righteousness amen our gracious lord we thank
you for your grace we thank you lord for your mercy for your
blessing the blessing of life and your spirit in and by the
lord jesus christ we thank you lord we see how ensnaring the
flesh is, how easily we are turned from the hope that you've given
to us, waiting upon you for righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. How
easily we are turned to the flesh and to the law, thinking that
we can affect the promises of God by it. But Lord, teach us
by your grace. You know the weakness of this
flesh. You know that we are but dust. But you have given us Christ,
the mighty Savior. the husband, the friend of sinners,
the one who saves and delivers his people completely. Lord,
it's in Christ's name that we pray and give thanks. Help us
to love one another. Help us to see our sin when we
sin against one another and be turned to you and cry out to
you for grace and mercy. Lord, keep our hearts and help
us to be led of the Spirit and walk graciously in love toward
one another. It's in Christ's name that we
pray and give thanks. Amen.