Matthew chapter 5. Now if you've looked on the front
of the bulletin at the title of the message, The Law Honored,
Fulfilled, and Replaced. Now most people of Jewish religious persuasion
and Christian religious persuasion or profession were they to look
at that title they could see the law honored and they would
say good. They could see the law fulfilled
and they would say good. But when they got to that word
replaced they would say now just hold on a minute back up the
bus what do you mean the law replaced and in a very real sense the religious warfare that has
been going on ever since Cain got angry and killed his brother
has been over that issue, the law replaced. Now the Lord's
prophetic ministry was rather radical. The Lord Jesus Christ
came as Messiah, which means he was the anointed one, that's
what it means. Same as the Greek word Christ. And there were three offices
to which a man would be anointed in the Old Testament way of doing
things. That was as a prophet or a priest or a king. And they
would be anointed which symbolized that God was pouring out his
spirit upon this particular person in a special way that he might
carry out a work in behalf of God's people. And all those prophets,
priests, and kings of the Old Testament were pointing to a
single single anointed one. Interestingly enough now, the
word Messiah was applied to all those prophets, priests, and
kings because it simply means anointed. So there are the anointed
prophet, the Messiah prophet, the Messiah priest, the Messiah
king. But all of them were pointing to a single person who had come,
the Messiah. who would embody all three of
those offices in absolute perfection. He would be that prophet that
Moses spoke of to whom all the people would give an ear. And
he would be the great high priest which would finally allow the
descendants of Aaron to lay aside their robes and halt their sacrifice
and cease their labors for he would come and actually finish
the labor that only they could picture with their sacrifices. And he would be the one that
would cause or should have caused every king to remove his crown
and bow at the feet of the Lord Jesus and call him Lord. In all truth, this entire universe
and everything that happens in it is about one person, the Lord
Jesus Christ. It says that the creation was
made by him and the creation was made for him. This creation
in which you and I live, I don't know whether it's the only creation
God made, but the only creation I've got anything to do with.
And this creation which God made, He made it precisely as a stage
upon which to demonstrate the glory of His Son and thereby
glorify Himself. And we're not gonna understand
anything either that goes on in history or that's written
in this book until we come to terms with that reality. This
world is not about us, it's about him. This book is not about us,
it's about him. But in his prophetic ministry,
he was radical. He went from place to place preaching. And what he had to say upended
everything that was in place when he showed up. It was so
radical. Just like when he went into the
temple and overturned the tables of the money changers in the
same way through his teaching, he was overturning the teaching,
the rabbinical teaching that had held the people in bondage. Whereas those money changers
were making merchandise out of the worship of God. The rabbis
and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the religious uppity-ups
were making merchandise of the souls of men. And he came and
overturned it. It was radical in that he spoke
with such an authority about him that it was said never a
man spoke like this man. Now, there have been a lot of
men speaking. Men have been talking ever since they were created.
And ever since man fell, every time he speaks, he lies. Paul
said, let God be true and every man a liar. And that wasn't Paul
just setting up some kind of logical premise. That's the truth
of the matter. If any man tells the truth, it's
because the grace of God has worked in him to overcome his
natural propensity to lying. But he spoke with the authority
of truth. They sent men to arrest him one time. And they went to
where the Lord was teaching. And then the men who were sent
to arrest him came back empty handed. And they said, we sent
you to arrest Jesus, now where is he? And they said, never a
man spoke like this man did. He spoke with authority. Not
like those Pharisees and the Sadducees who supposed things
and debated things and had highly sophisticated arguments by which
they tried to prove things. Jesus Christ spoke and anybody
with an honest ear heard the truth in it and even those with
a dishonest ear could discern the truth in it and that's what
infuriated them. Now I can speak And my voice
and my presence, it's not gonna convince anybody of anything. I don't have any authority. But as Brother Mahan used to
say, if my voice is the only voice you hear, you've wasted
your time coming. Because my voice won't do you
any good because it has no authority. That's why I pray every week
that Christ would speak, that the Spirit of God would come
and add the voice of Christ to the words of this preacher. Because
if Christ speaks, there's authority. And it convicts the hearts of
men. The prophetic ministry of the Lord Jesus was radical in
that it was simple and understandable and had the ability to pierce
the veil of hypocrisy. I don't have anything against
men going to school to learn things from the scriptures, but
I have noticed this about most seminaries. They teach the men
who go there how to speak in such a way that it sounds like
they're telling truth, but it doesn't trouble anybody. They teach them how to say that
we are sinners, and yet somehow or another leave people thinking
pretty goodly of themselves. They teach them how to say that
salvation's by grace, but in the end, they've got people doing
things in order to be blessed by God. But our Lord Jesus spoke in such
a way that those who are hiding in a hypocritical outward veil
of self-righteousness, by which they fooled all the people into
thinking they actually were righteous people, His word pierced that
veil. More than pierced it, it ripped
it off. and left those hypocrites exposed
for everyone to see them for exactly what they were. He is the Word of God and he
spoke the Word of God. And the Bible says that the Word
of God is living and it's powerful and it's sharper than any two-edged
sword. It's able to separate between
soul and spirit, between joints and marrow, and it says it's
able to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. Nearly
all religion is occupied simply with what you do. And so religion
tells you, be kind. In fact, it might mention to
you some of these things that the Lord says we ought to do
here in Matthew, this so-called Sermon on the Mount. And it will
lay them out and say, and this is how we ought to live, and
this sort of thing. And actually, it gives people
the impression they can do these things. But people wrap themselves up in
an outward version of these things that never penetrates to the
heart, never changes the person. And the word of God comes along
and reveals them for what they are. And it makes them angry. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
was not crucified because they did not understand him. He was
crucified because they understood him perfectly. The Word of God is powerful,
and God save us from the words of men, which have no power at
all. But most of all, the prophetic
ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ was radical in that it set aside
the form of worship that this nation had been observing for
1,500 years. It was a form of worship set
up by God himself and written with God's finger upon tablets
of stone. The ministry of the Lord Jesus
Christ set aside this form of worship by which the nation of
Israel for all these years had either experienced the goodness
of God or the wrath of God according to whether or not they obeyed
the terms of the covenant. He came and he set aside a form
of religion in which no fault could be found. Now, I've been
preaching here for 30 years, and you know that quite often
I have in one way or another said that we are free from the
law. The law that the Lord is speaking
of. We're free from the law, but
I've also said, but that is not to say there's anything wrong
with the law. There are those, unfortunately,
who would claim a freedom from the law based on the fact there's
something wrong with the law. Brethren, we're not free from
the law because there's anything wrong with the law. No, there's something
wrong with us, but there's nothing wrong with the law of God. But here was a form of worship
that God set up by which the nation had experienced blessing
or curse. And you could find no fault in it. And even in the
New Testament, it was called a law that was just, holy, righteous,
and good. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to set it aside. He says things which can be taken
in no other way than that he is bringing an end to that form
of worship. However, Christ takes pains to
explain that what he is doing will, or he takes cares to, excuse
me, he takes pains to explain what he is doing so that all
may be assured that he intends no violence to the law, even
as he sets it aside. Listen to him in verse 17 of
Matthew chapter five, do not think that I have come to abolish
the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them,
but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven
and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least
stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until
everything is accomplished. Now, it was no sin for the religious
leaders of that day to be alarmed by the things that Christ was
saying, because he was saying some alarming things. Their sin
was allowing their alarm to express itself in unbelief. Now let's
look at this. The law honored. fulfilled. and set aside each
one of those points. Let's see the Lord Jesus Christ
honor the law. Now, what do we mean by the law?
Well, not what do we mean, what did the Lord mean when he says,
do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets
and that none of the law would pass away, not the least point
of it, until the universe disappears or everything is fulfilled. What
is he talking about? Well, of course, he includes
in this the Ten Commandments. We're familiar with them. That
was part and parcel of the law, the law covenant that God made
with the nation of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt.
And we can see that because as he begins to preach concerning
this, look in verse 21 of Matthew chapter 17. You have heard it said that it
was said to the people long ago, do not murder and anyone who
murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who
is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. So obviously
when he's talking here about the law, he's making reference
to the Ten Commandments because that's one of the Ten Commandments.
And another one's over here in verse 27. You have heard that
it was said, do not commit adultery. So in this, Matthew 5, as he
goes on explaining what he means by all of this, he's quoting
directly from the Ten Commandments, but he's also including what
we might call the lesser laws, those various regulations which
God laid upon the Israelites as ways they were to observe
these laws. For example, in verse 38 we read
this, It has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give
her a certificate of divorce. And also we read, excuse me,
I read the wrong verse. I'm at verse 38. You have heard
it that it was said eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Now that's
part of the old covenant law. It was the sword of justice that
was demanded of the Jewish nation. And yet our Lord's going to address
it. And he even addresses some of the rabbinical traditions,
such as verse 31, it's been said, anyone who divorces his wife
must give her a certificate of divorce. Now, what do I mean
by rabbinical tradition? Well, it was just the opinions
of the guys who were supposed to be the authorities on what
the scripture said. And they said, well, we're reading
the scriptures near as we can tell. What it means is, you know,
if you're going to divorce your wife, you've got to give her
a certificate of divorce. You got to write something out,
make it official. so that everybody knows, you know, that kind of
thing. And other such rabbinical tradition. And he also meant
by this to include all the prophets. In fact, he includes in this,
these words in verses 17 and 18, the entirety of what we call
the Old Testament. Because the Jews would often
refer to the entirety of the Old Testament as the law and
the prophets. That's what the Old Testament
was made of. And Christ says, I did not come to abolish them. He honored it in this way. He did not abolish any aspect
of that law. Now, it'd be good for us to understand
what that word abolish means. In the Greek language, it means
to tear down. In fact, it's original use or
one of the uses that it has, it would be to describe at the
end of a day's journey, you know, you've got a pack animal and
here's all this stuff tied on to him, you know, and you untie
it all. You loose it. The word strictly
means to loose down. And so you'd untie all the pieces
and piece by piece, you'd take it off of that animal. And then it got to be used also
to describe any destruction in which there was an utter loosing
of whatever held things together. A tearing apart, a blowing up,
that's what this word means. And he says, I did not come to
do that. Also, he honors the law in that
he magnifies the very least of it. Notice what he says, I tell
you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest
letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear
from the law until everything is accomplished. Now he was speaking
Aramaic, which was a whole lot like Hebrew. I was likely speaking
Aramaic and where it says the smallest letter, he would have
been saying Yod, which in the Hebrew language looked pretty
much just like an apostrophe to us. Yod. And then when he
says the least stroke of a pen, there were little dots and whatnot
that they would put in their writing to signify things. And
the closest we would come to is saying that not even a dot
over an eye is going to disappear from the law till heaven and
earth pass away or it's fulfilled. Now that shows that our Lord
Jesus Christ had great respect unto the law that God gave to
the Jewish people on Mount Sinai. And why shouldn't he? He is the
God that gave that law. Did you ever stop to think about
that? He says in one place that he
is Lord of the Sabbath. You know why? He's the one that
made the law about the Sabbath. It was his finger that wrote
it into the stone. For every time God has spoken,
except two or three occasions that we have shown in the scripture,
every time God has spoken to men, it has been God the Word,
God the Son that does the speaking. Now we don't understand the mystery
of the Trinity, and I'm not going to try to unravel that for you,
because I can't even unravel it for myself. But I know this,
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. And the word's the only word
that's ever been spoken to us. And every time God speaks, it's
the word that's speaking. And when he came down on Mount
Sinai in the full, well, the fullest revelation of himself
that sinful men could dare to look upon, that was none other
than our Lord Jesus. And I saw, you can be sure our
Lord Jesus had no problem with the law. It was his law. He honored it. And then he honored
it by making its removal dependent upon one of two things that no
human being could do. The complete destruction of the
universe. or the complete and perfect fulfillment
of every aspect of it. So here's what our Lord's saying.
Don't think that I came to abolish the law. I didn't just come here
to blow things up. He says, I tell you this, not
the least part of the law is going to disappear or be set
aside or rendered null and void unless the whole universe disappears.
for every jot, every yod, every tittle is fulfilled. And you
know something? I can't destroy the universe.
I can't even conceive of the universe, let alone destroy it. And I for sure cannot fulfill
the law. I can't fulfill the first part
of it. Love the Lord with your God with all your heart. Anybody
here wanna say, oh, I've done that. Since I was conceived in
my mother's womb, I have loved God with all my heart, mind,
body, soul, and strength. Never been a moment that I was
in rebellion against him. Friends, you and I are shut down
on the very first thing, aren't we? Very first command God gives,
and we're down and out. And there's nine more to go. So there's one thing for certain,
neither you nor I can bring an end to the dominion of the law. Can't be done. Not by us. Seeing that heaven and hell,
excuse me, heaven and earth are still here, then either the law is still
in full force, and you and I are under its curse, or somebody
has fulfilled it. Now, one of those two things
has to be true. If the only way for the law to disappear is for
the universe to disappear, or for it to be fulfilled, well,
we know the universe hasn't disappeared, because here we are. So that
leaves us with only one of two choices. We are under the law,
and as Paul says, therefore under the curse of the law, or somebody has fulfilled it. It's the only two choices we've
got. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
fulfill and thereby finish the law. You see, the law that he
speaks of was a contract, an agreement between God and those
Israelites that he brought out of Egypt. He says, I enter into a covenant
with you today. It's not even a covenant that
I made with your forefathers. This is a covenant, not the same
covenant he made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all them.
This was a different covenant by which he established them
as a nation. But that covenant by which he established Israel
as a nation also stands as a picture, picture if you will, of the very
simple justice of God which demands that we be righteous or pay for
it. Jesus Christ came and he fulfilled
the law. Every last bit of it. He fulfilled the law in all its
demands for righteousness. The law said do this and Christ
did that. The law said don't do this and
Christ didn't do that. That's pretty simple isn't it? In every way, the Lord Jesus
Christ lived in perfect conformity to the law that God handed down
there on Mount Sinai. Never once, never once did he
stray from that path. You say, well, what about that
time at the temple when he was 12 years old and his parents
leave thinking he's with them. And as a 12 year old boy, he
should have known he was supposed to travel with them, but he stays
behind. discussing things with the rabbis
there at the temple and lets them get all worried about him.
And his parents came back and kind of challenged him on that
point, said, didn't you realize we've been worried sick about
you? Wasn't he dishonoring his parents by not following? No,
there was a confusion over who his parents were. He was honoring his father. He
said, didn't you understand I'd be about my father's business?
Remember Joseph was not his father. Now, I'm not casting off on Joseph
here. I tell you, the Lord handed that man a difficult life. Now,
you think of it. He falls in love with a young
woman. He's pledged to marry her and find out, here she's
pregnant. And then God comes and says to
him, now don't you be afraid to take her as your wife. Don't
you be ashamed of it or anything. You just take her to wife. That
which is in her is from the Holy Spirit. And Joseph had to accept
that on faith. And Joseph had to live the life
of a man who all the rest of his community thought had been
cheated on. And he had to raise a boy that
was not his own and who was very unusual in his
spiritual understanding. Now, when I say it must have
been difficult to raise the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't mean it
was because he was a, quote, difficult child. But how in the
world do you raise the Son of God? We're kind of out of our depth
there, aren't we? And yet, our Lord in every aspect
was in subjection to his parents, as a young man should be. Is
there anybody here want to make the claim that from their youth
on up they have honored their mother and father and obeyed
what they said to do? Any of you young people here
that want to make the claim that even this morning you have not
in some way or another had some thought towards your parents
which really wasn't what they're worthy of? Oh, none of us have fulfilled
this. The Lord did. The Lord never raised his hand
against any other person. They raised their hands against
Him. He never did. He freely gave to all and stole
from none. As Lord of the Sabbath, He allowed
His disciples even to pick grain on the Sabbath to feed themselves
because they were hungry, defended them against the charges of the
Pharisees with regard to that, but we have no record that He
Himself did anything that could ever be taken as a breaking of
the Sabbath, except when he healed people. They get all upset about
that. Can you imagine how hard-hearted you'd have to be? For somebody
born blind, made able to see on the Sabbath, and all you can
think of is whoever healed him must have broken the Sabbath
to do it. He fulfilled all its demands
for righteousness. And then he did something that
we cannot conceive of. He fulfilled all its demands
for justice against sin. Now it is one thing for the son
of God to enter the world and live perfectly, even as he lived
in a cursed world among sinful people. Now that must have been
distasteful. Be like you, you and I trying to live in a filthy
and roach infested house. But our Lord did far more than
that. He bore in himself our sins in his body on the tree
in the presence of God. All of us have an innate understanding
that it's one thing to have sin. It's another thing to bear that
sin right in the presence of God. The Lord said to the Pharisees,
unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Now
what does that mean? Well, it's appointed unto man
once to die and after that face judgment. So that means if you
die in your sins, you come into the very presence of God in your
sins, bearing your sins. And what the Scriptures tell
us is that God, in a work that only He had the authority to
do, and in a work that God the Son said He was willing to do,
God took the sin of His people, laid it upon the shoulders of
Christ, and it is written that Christ bore those sins. He offered
Himself Without spot to God. He had no spot of His own. He'd
done no sin. He desired no sin. He thought
no sin. In Him was no sin. He knew no
sin. These are all things the Bible
says about Him. Yet He bore our sins in the very presence of
God. With nothing in between Him and the Judge. And what did God do? Did God
say, well, He's got sin on Him, but after all, He's my Son. I
think I'll go light. He's bearing sin, but really
I know he didn't do it. He, you know, the sins he's bearing,
he actually not the one that doing it. So I'll just give him
a token punishment of it. No God to judge. Visited on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Everything a God can do against
sin. It is written, cursed is everyone
that continues not in every point of the law to do it. And God
cursed his own son and poured out upon him everything the curse
means. And I keep saying it that way
because quite frankly, I don't know all that that means. I hear
our Lord cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And the words break my heart to hear them and sometimes they're
even hard to say in a sermon because they're so full of emotion.
It's a heart-wrenching cry, but I will tell you, I don't know
a tenth of what that means. I know what it would be like if my parents were still alive
to show up at the door of their house knock on the door and have
my father open up the door and look at me with a glare in his
eye and say, get out of here. You're no son of mine. In Jesus Christ, the only begotten
son of God, was in some sense, at least in an experiential sense,
that is by his experience, he was stripped of his sonhood.
And he appeared before God as a sinner. He wasn't one. He was
not a sinner by anything he did, said, thought, or anything like
that. But that's how he appeared before God. And God showed him
absolutely no mercy. None. Everything that any sinner in
hell experiences, Christ experienced it and more. Why? You say, how
can it be more? Well, because Christ experienced
it to the very end. And sinners in hell never get
to the end of it. Jesus Christ said, it is finished. And He's the only one that ever
finished dying. Everyone else who dies in their
sins dies forever but understand that the full weight of The judgment
of God and the full fury of the wrath of God came down upon the
Lord Jesus Christ Right there on Golgotha Now you and I if
we had been there we couldn't have seen that we wouldn't have
known that was what was happening Nobody there knew that Nobody understood that. It just
looked like a crucifixion. It was a sad and sorry sight,
but nobody realized what God was doing behind the scenes.
But on that day, our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled everything the
law demands in response to sin. Now what does that mean? Well,
heaven and earth may still be here, but the law has been fulfilled. Right to the last jot and tittle. There's not one more thing that
can be done to improve upon what the Lord Jesus Christ did in
fulfilling the law. Now the law was a covenant, it
was a contract. And what happens when a contract
is fulfilled? If you're in business and you
draw up a contract with someone, you say, if you do this, I will
pay you so much money. And so the person you've contracted
with does whatever it is you wanted them to do, you write
the check, and what do you do with that contract? You fold
it up, you may file it away for future reference, but it's done. However good a contract it was,
it's done, it's finished, it's fulfilled. And therefore, since
that contract has been fulfilled and thereby set aside, The book
of Hebrews says that the Lord Jesus Christ by the fulfillment
of the will of God has set aside the first covenant that he may
establish the second. And that second covenant speaks
on this wise. Their sins and iniquities I will
remember no more. Under the first covenant there
was no way that God could not remember your sins and iniquities
because by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law proves our guilt
over and over again. Jesus Christ fulfilled it, set
it aside. Now there is a covenant in which
God can forgive our sins, forgive our iniquities based upon the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore forget our sins
and iniquities and never bring them up again. He replaced it. He replaced it
with his gospel. I had a lot more plan to say,
but I don't have a whole lot more time to say it. So let me
simply put it this way. Verse 20, our Lord hints at what
this new law is. Verse 20 of Matthew chapter five. For I tell you, unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law,
you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, does
our Lord mean by this that unless you more strictly observe that
old covenant law than even did the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
you won't enter the kingdom of heaven? You know, I heard a sovereign
grace Baptist preacher preach exactly that. I went to another church there
in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I was pastoring back in the mid-80s,
before I came here. They had a special speaker. I
was friends with the pastor. He wanted me to come hear that
guy. And I did. Took Ben with me. Poor fellow,
he had to sit. Well, he laid there in the pew
while that guy preached for an hour and a half. And for an hour and
a half, he told us that we had to act better than Pharisees
did in order to get into heaven. And I was so blown away that
anybody that claimed to be a preacher of grace would say that, that
I wasn't even sure that that's what he said. I kind of wish that I had been
sure that that's what he said and been brave enough to tell
him what he was on the way out the door. Not the minister of righteousness
that he claims to be, but a minister of Satan. Friends, there's only
one way that your righteousness can exceed the righteousness
of the Pharisees. And that is that God gives you
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ as a free gift. You can't do better than the
Pharisees did. Jesus Christ did a whole lot
better than the Pharisees did and it says in in the book of
Romans but now a righteousness from God apart from the law has
been revealed a righteousness which is by grace
as a gift and received through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
Now, if you knew my activities, all of them, if you knew my thought,
thoughts, and if you knew my heart, you would say, you are
a wicked, wicked man. And you know what? I would agree
with you 100%. Let me tell you something else. I am as righteous the Lord Jesus
Christ in the sight of God. God looks on me and he sees no
sin. God looks on me wicked though
I am and his wrath and anger is not
kindled. He looks on me and And he calls me his son and he
says he's pleased with me. My friends, that's impossible
to believe unless God gives you grace to believe it. A lot of people think that Jesus
Christ came and gave us a law easier to keep. No, in fact,
the laws that he instituted, which I plan to preach a little
on them, but maybe another day, the laws he instituted, much
more difficult to keep than anything that was ever legislated there
on Mount Sinai. But our hope is not even in keeping
those laws. Our hope is this, that the one
who knew no sin came before God with our sin and though he had
done no sin, God counted him to be the most wicked man on
earth and dealt with him accordingly. And therefore he can look down
on such a one as me, who I could easily agree with,
I think I could at least sometimes, I could easily agree with God's
judgment that says I'm the most wicked man on earth. And yet
he looks on me and sees me as perfectly, spotlessly righteous. My righteousness exceeds the
righteousness of the Pharisees, so much so that their righteousness
is not even righteousness. Because the righteousness given
to me by the grace of God is none other than the righteousness
of Christ assigned to my account, as though I myself had performed
it. And until the living God can
find fault with the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he cannot and will not find fault with me. And if your hope is
in him, the same is true of you. Say, well, you shouldn't say
the law has been replaced. I must, I must say it. Because
brethren, if it has not been replaced, I'm under a curse.
That's all there is to it. Cursed is everyone who continues
not in every point of the law to do it. If it's enforced, I
didn't do it, I'm cursed, I'm on my way to hell, nothing can
be done about it. But if someone has come and fulfilled
it in my behalf, then that law no longer has jurisdiction over
me. I'm under another law. the law
of grace, the principle of grace, and God accepts me for Christ's
sake, and he accepts me as fully as he accepts the Lord Jesus
Christ, as it is written, we are accepted in the beloved.
You say, if I only knew that God loved me. Well, if you're
in Christ, God loves you like he loves Christ. If I only knew
that God saw no sin in me, well, he sees no sin in Christ. If
you're in him, he sees no sin in you. If I could only be sure of heaven,
my friend, if you're in Christ, you are in heaven because Christ
is there. And sooner or later, your body
will catch up. But you are seated with him in the heavenly places. The law. Honored. By Christ, fulfilled by Christ. and then set aside by Christ
so that sinners like you and me can come before an absolutely
holy God and not be burned to a crisp. Heavenly Father, bless
your word. We trust indeed it is your word.
Magnify your son. Lord, he has magnified your law.
He has magnified you. We pray magnify him in our sight.
Fill our minds with his glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.