We're going to be in Romans 3. Almost said 8. Romans 3. Also. I absolutely love history. I don't know why, but I always
have. I love to talk about things of old. I love to read about
them. I love to observe what I can. Those who love to talk
about and reminisce about things. Some of my favorite pastimes
throughout my life is to sit with grandparents and great-grandparents
and aunts and uncles, some who were born before the turn of
the 20th century, and to just listen to them talk about their
lives. And as we get older, you realize we can remember that
which happened a long time ago, but not today. It's really odd. And the reason that I think I
enjoy that is because I love to, in some sense, see where
people are and to try to experience where they've been by just hearing
them share about their lives. Some people call that anthropology
or whatever you may say it is. But beloved, I just think it's
a passion for people. I think when we have a desire
to understand history, you know, the old adage, if we don't know
history or understand history, we're doomed to repeat it. But
I think there's a bigger adage there. There are those who pay
attention to it who get to sit by helpless while those who don't
pay attention to it are doomed to repeat it. But history isn't
really repeating, it's just continuing. And your life is one day going
to be history. our lives are going to be nothing.
As a matter of fact, the things that we are and the things that
we've accumulated and the things that we have done and all the
investments that we've made and the lives of humanity in this
context will one day be in a box. One day be in a box. Whether
it be three years or 17 years or 40 years or 100 years. Beloved,
so when we think that way, it's extremely depressing. if that's what the meaning of
life is all about. If that's why we gather here every Lord's
Day, just so that we can get through life and be done. And we don't read the way we
used to read. I mean, just intellectually, we don't process information,
whether we read or not, or listen. We don't listen and process information
the way we used to. In my life, We don't process
information historically the way people did 100 years ago,
or 1,000 years ago, much less over 2,000 years ago. The attention
span of the human race has become obsolete, except on things that
really, really matter to us. And then we can hone right in.
We can binge. Day after day after day on incredible
shows. You remember when you had to
wait seven days for your show to come back on? And over a year,
you saw 10. And you saw Bounty and Tylenol
and Kool-Aid commercials throughout. I need to go buy some Kool-Aid.
No, not now. Just drop them all at one time,
download them to the device, sit down with a pot of coffee
and stay up. 17 hours later, you know exactly
what happened. You should do like I did when
my family was very big into reading some fantasy books and I felt
out of the loop. I read the first three chapters of the first book
and the last two chapters of the last book. Ah, finally, get
to the point. That's not how you do it. You
miss the story. That's not how we live life.
We don't live life trying to get started and then trying to get
finished. We don't live every day with the end in mind if that
end is worthless. There's a Stephen Covey reference
there, I think. That's not what we do. That's
not what the scripture teaches us. So as God's people, as people
who have been born by the spirit of God, we are to be transforming
the way we think. Not going in the ruts of our
culture. Not standing in the same way
in which people stand so that we would receive information
identically as our neighbor. Believers, when we hear things,
when we see things, when we understand things, we are to arrest those
thoughts and filter them through the sovereignty of God's revelation
to us. We are to put them down. to put
off the flash, even in our thinking. And this pulpit, and many like
it, this position of teaching, we could talk about anything
I deemed important. Think about that for a second. Even it's just a 30 second blip.
I could just put it out there, and once I put it out there,
there's nothing you can do about it. not being in your ears, right? For those of you who can speak
other languages, someone says something in another language,
the rest of us don't understand it. Sometimes things are said
in our own language, but it's so far away from our comprehension
or from our experiences that we don't understand it. And the
next thing we know, we're going down rabbit holes. We're spending
time trying to grasp something that we did not know. We love
to learn as people, but beloved, the process of learning, as God
has intended it, is a process. It's not an instapot. You can't open the Bible, put
your hand on it, and absorb it, and then wake up the next morning
and go, I used to could stare at a piece of sheet music or
at a score before I went to sleep, and I could go to sleep practicing
that in my head, dream of me playing it, and wake up the next
day more fluent in that performance than I was the night before.
And my professors in music school were like, how in the world are
you getting, you know, because I practiced all night in my sleep. I think the Bible would be the
same. The question is, what are we
trying to learn? And beloved, I'm going to tell
you right now, this is the most relevant letter for our time
in history. Paul's writings to Timothy. because
we are in a new age of not thinking for ourselves. We're in a new
age of allowing our emotions and our fears and our frustrations
to be collective. Why in the world would I be up
in arms to my own destruction about something that's not happening
to me just because I know about it? Because I don't believe in the
sovereignty of God. in the midst of that knowledge. That's why
we get upset because we're not trusting in the sovereignty of
God. That's why we get upset because we care more about the
information or the misinformation at large than we do about the
historical and truthful sovereign revelation of God. This is just
a fancy introduction to say the same thing I say every time I
stand here, which is read your Bible. That's all it is. So for those of you who like
to be coaxed, there's your coaxing. Read your Bibles. And do not debate it. Accept
it. Embrace it. Breathe it in. and quit worrying about every
knuckle-headed ideology, and philosophy, and history, and
anything else that could come along that could uproot what
God is revealing. God, it reveals it to us, and
we rest in it, and when someone else comes along and cannot see
it, that is God's fault. And I use fault very purposefully. That is God's fault, because
He has not given them eyes to see. And He is not obligated
to do so. So how is it that we are to deal
with and handle, this is the occasion of Timothy's writing,
of Paul's writing to Timothy, how are we to deal with and handle
those differences of opinions, those demonic opinions, those
frustrating, informative opinions, how are we to deal with them?
We are to patiently, boldly teach the truth and trust in God to
transform the mind of those who hear that they will be taught
the truth. And part of that truth is that
in the middle of this error, in the middle of this season,
in the middle of all of this stuff going on in our world,
God's people will collectively follow a particular path of behavior
because not only do they trust in him as truth, they trust in
his way of resolution and promises as truth. That's why James says
that he who is double-minded should expect to get nothing
from the Lord. Nothing, not one thing. You know what that means?
When the Bible says, go here, say this, put your left hand
in the air and do the hokey pokey and I will give you bread and
you do everything but that, expect no bread. Expect no bread. Expect no water. Expect no anything. says there's no nothing, but
then that would be everything. And beloved, we're guilty of this
because that's what the human flesh does. That's what our mind
does. We want to emphasize our hopes and dreams and ideologies. We want to really press into
the working grind of this world because we, my generation was
taught that if you sat down, you were worthless. If you needed it done, you better
pull up your pants and you better roll up your sleeves and you
better get to work because you can't depend on anyone else.
This is my generation. And almost every one of my peers have the same problem. And what do we do when we approach
the scripture as believers with a new mind? with a powerful supernatural
infusion of life. We accept the scripture as written,
we rest in it, and then we get to work proving that if it weren't
up to us, God's work would never be accomplished. That's what
we do. And that not only had become
what we were taught, it's what our parents were taught, it's
what our grandparents were taught, it's what my great-grandparents,
who I had the privilege of knowing for most of my life, were taught. And then we had children. And they saw us, the walking
dead, hopelessly hopeless with peace and despair. We are the
generation of dichotomies. We are the oxymorons of the world. Beloved, I know what it's like.
I know what it's like to take a breath in of rest and to breathe
out. And you know why you breathe
out? Because it gives you more power to push. And we want to settle it all.
We want to have it all fixed. We want every feeling to be in
check. Look, I'm a checklist person. It's how I live every day of
my life. I make a checklist. I have a
brain dump. I put it all on paper. I have
a schedule through September. I have meetings in September. It's ridiculous, you see. I put some goals of mine on paper
this past week, and I said, you know, I need to reinvent myself
in some of these areas. That's a fancy way of saying
get in shape. I need to get my shoulders strengthened, because
I shot some basketball yesterday, and it's like, ow, I can't do
this anymore. Abby's like, dad, come on. I mean, you know, I
got to rehabilitate this shoulder. So I have to schedule it. Because
I'm not one of these people. If I'm sitting down and I've
got a book or I'm doing something else, don't say, hey, want to
shoot some basketball? Get out of my, that's not the way it
works. You don't just get up. You don't just go to the bathroom
because you have to go. You schedule it. You know? This is nonsense. What's the point of it? I love
to live by laws. That's the point of it. And you
do too, some of us. Some of us think we're free spirits.
I just go with the wind. No. That free spiritedness in
and of itself is a law for you. Because when things come along
that are solid, foundational, you touch it and it doesn't move.
I'm not stepping on that. It's too rigid. My law is move. That's where the hippies come
from, right? Not standing on any solid ground here. I want
to walk in the mud, baby. It's groovy. So we all love rigidity,
no matter what it may seem to be. It's not going to be the
same for me and for you. And so we read information, we
look at the news, we hear each other, and now we are more connected
than we've ever been in the last two years through the pandemic.
The world has taken notice of nothing, yet we see everything. We listen to everything. Notification
settings. Do you know it took me four hours
to fix my notification settings on my phone when I got my new
phone? And what are my notification settings? No notifications. I
don't want to see a button. I don't want to see a number.
I don't want a vibration. Because do you know what? My
wrist would be massaged all day long. The notification would be when
it stopped. And then I go, something's wrong. See, that's how we live.
I don't want that. Yet we are always inundated with
stuff and instruction and doing. And beloved, where is the rest?
Maybe the assembly should be once every fifth Sunday we take
a nap. Everybody's gonna sing a hymn.
We'll have a sister with a pleasant voice can lullaby us to sleep
and then we'll set an alarm for one and we'll get up and have
lunch. Some of the teenagers are going, yes, that sounds great. Some of the parents are going,
is there a nursery for that age group? Here we are, Paul answering this
issue of someone in their culture, in their time, in the same way
that I'm speaking, receiving information about the law of
God, the prophets. And he's walking through all
these things because these people gain some new information. And
what do the infantile and immature and unwise do when we gain information? We tell it. We don't arrest it. We don't process it. We don't
receive it and then put it in its proper place. We tell it. I'm not talking about gospel,
I'm not talking about stuff, I mean, like the woman inside
Carl's, she runs back and tells everybody, behold, I met a man
who told me everything I've ever done. Could he be the one anointed,
holy, sent from God? That's what Christ means, by
the way. Could he be Messiah? Nah, I'm not talking about that
in excitement, like, my team won the Super Bowl! I mean, you
know. And we sort of can't contain
ourselves. But when we gain information, when we're immature, we just
think we're qualified to share it. Have you ever tried to share
something you just learned but you really don't know it? And
the experts in the room are looking at the wall going, is this guy
on drugs? And you think about what you
say a couple of months later after you've had time to study.
You ever given a presentation in school? when you didn't read
the material. Yeah, we've all tried that. We've all tried to write the
essay. But not every class is philosophy. And even some of
those classes want the history. Well, but the same is true when
it comes to the word of God. We need to receive it, and we
need to arrest it, and we need to sit on it, and we need to
grow in it, and we need to collectively listen to one another. We do
not need to make confident assertions about things which we do not
know about. But that is a plague amongst
our world, isn't it? It started going through in the
last few months and I just, every time I see a theological assertion
within my friend circle on the internet, I just ask myself,
do they know it or are they just regurgitating it? And do you
know that eight out of 10 times in my loose mathematics, they're
just regurgitating it. And no, they may have a whole
list of memorized proof texts from the Bible, little verses
or two, that may prove what they're trying to say is what they're
trying to say, but they don't know the information. They haven't
been taught of God, see. Because if the context of Scripture
is not your answer, if you're not able to go to Paul's writing
to the Romans and answer according to Paul's whole letter, then
you haven't learned it. You've just memorized addresses
and you've pointed them, created yourself a little chart. Beloved,
these are the seasons when we're learning that we are to be quiet. That's why I share with you often.
It's a lot of things that I think about I don't dare say. Because
I have to write them out. I have to think about them. I
have a whole list of propositions that I mull over. Now some of
you in private conversation, I'll throw those at you. And
depending on how you slice back with a sword or either go, I
test the waters like a comedian with a joke. He'll test it at
his mama's house. If it goes over well, he'll do it at the
senior center. If it doesn't go over well there, it goes in
the trash can. Don't want to use that at the retirement banquet.
Beloved, we have to think about things. We've learned a lot over
the last few weeks already about this text. Paul, let's look together and see in this introduction.
There's so much here. I just don't know when I'm going
to move out of it because there's things that I want you to see.
I want you to look at verse 5 and I want us to go down to verse
11. Verse 5 says the aim of our charge, of our command, is love. And that love issues from a pure
heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving
from love that issues from a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere
faith, have wandered away into worthless talking, worthless
dialogue. worthless conversations, worthless
Twitters, tweets, worthless Facebook posts, worthless this, worthless
that, worthless phone calls, worthless text messages. So there's
only two ways to communicate in this first century. You wrote
a letter or you opened your mouth. Now there's a whole lot of ways
to communicate. And the reason they did this
and wandered away is because they forgot the love of God.
Does this sound familiar? You know what's really interesting
to me is that this very city, the church here in Ephesus where
Timothy is, what I would say, one of the chief elders, if not
the primary elder who got everything started under Paul's tutelage,
is that in John's revelation, we see the Spirit of God writing
to John a letter to the church of Ephesus. And Jesus indicts
this church, doesn't he? How does he indict this church?
He brings a judgment against this church and says, you have
really done something. To the angel, to the messenger,
to the pastors of the church in Ephesus, write these words.
The words of him who hold the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden
lampstands. We know that imagery. If you
don't know, we've got a very quick series of 25 sermons on
the reading of Revelation. Jesus says, I know your works,
the beloved of Ephesus. I know your works. I know how
hard you've worked. I know your toil. See, I think
they were my generation, you know? You worked real hard, and
I know your patience, endurance. You've had to endure a lot of
suffering. You just really had a lot of problems, but you stuck
through it. You are stoic people. See, that's
what people say about my class. Y'all are stoic. You push through. If we weren't ADD, we'd probably
rule the world by now. We didn't know that was a thing
then. It didn't exist. It did, but you know what I mean. And it says you're stoic, you
endure with much patience, you work hard. I know your works.
You work hard. You do not bear those who are
evil. You don't put up with it. In
other words, you're not sitting there and congratulating them. Not
like Corinth, who just lets it run them up. You dealt with it. And you have done so by testing
those who call themselves apostles. And they're not. And you found
them to be false. How did they test them? Through
the written word of Christ. through patient endurance. The same thing Paul will tell
Timothy just in a few chapters. You remain patient. Patiently
endure evil. You're not in a hurry, Timothy,
to do anything. God says, I am the one who will
sort. You do what I tell you to do
and let me be the one who fixes it. You have tested them to be
false. Verse 3, Revelation 2, I know
you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake, and
you have not grown weary. See, that's something that some
of us do, we gotta just give up. Oh, I'm so tired, I'm sick
of it. Just wanna quit. And we all have those seasons,
but we don't. My generation, we couldn't quit if we wanted
to. You just can't quit. You've not grown weary, but I
have this against you. So he gave them a commendation
and now he's given them a word of condemnation. I have this
against you. You have abandoned the love that
you had at first. Remember therefore from where
you have fallen. Isn't that odd? These are gospel
soldiers. Hoorah! They're gonna not let
anybody tear the Lord's word down, the Lord's name down, tear
the gospel down. Hoorah! But God says, I hate
this about you. You have forgotten how far you've
fallen. Hoorah, that's right. change your brains and do the
works that you did at first. If you do not change your thinking
and do the works that you did at first from love, I will come
to you and I will tear your butt apart. That's what Jesus says. Quote him on that. Figurative
language, I will come to you, remove your lap stand. That means
I'm coming there and tear you up. I'm gonna remove everything
you have, I'm gonna destroy you. Eternally, no. In this life,
absolutely. When's the last time you got
a good report of the gospel in Ephesus? Doesn't there, it's
not there. Unless you change your mind.
Yet this you have. You hate the works of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will
grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God,
and so on and so forth. Now this is the same congregation.
You understand, there were many meeting places, there were many
assemblies, many congregations, one body. So the congregation
in God's eyes was all the true believers of that location. Multiple
elders, helping oversee multiple congregations logistically, administratively
through the deacons who hold the office and those who serve
as servants to the church while the elders pray and teach and
look and watch and check and measure and pray and teach and
look and watch patiently. Comforting those who doubt, encouraging
those who fear, rebuking those who sin, So these persons swerving from
the love of Christ, swerving from this love, they became bitter,
fearful. Do you know what cannot happen
if I speak a damnable heresy from this pulpit? It cannot cause you to lose your
eternal life. It cannot cause God, because
you heard it, to sift you into abomination, into desolation. It should not cause you to fear
anything. You should say, pastor, what
did you mean by that? Because what you said, this is
what I heard. And chances are I'm going to look horrified.
I'm going to, oh, I've got to fix that. Because it's not what
I meant to say. Or I was wrong. Only the apostles and their divinely
inspired writing and their spirit-led proclamation were inerrant. Every
man, woman, and child since then are constantly getting it wrong. Now, we don't get the gospel
wrong. I'm not saying that. People wanna impose upon the
truth I just said with nonsense ridiculousness. I'm not saying
that we walk around with false gospels. Come on, people. But
yet you can't appease those who do not love. You see that, right?
You can't appease those who do not love. They desire to be teachers of
the law, but they do not understand what they are saying, and so
therefore they make confident assertions and they sound silly.
And then last we looked at verse 8, now we know the law is good
if one uses it lawfully and we got halfway through our understanding
of that and Paul expresses it to Timothy in saying understand
this is the law was written and the law was given and the law
was laid down to dispose to expose not dispose but to expose guilt Now that's not an evangelistic
appeal there. I do not hold nor can I get behind
the idea that the law must be taught so that someone knows
they need the gospel. That's nonsense. Because in my
experience, anecdotally, I've shared the gospel I don't know
how many times. I remember having to keep up
with that. It used to turn in like a thousand a week. You share
the gospel a thousand times? Yeah, I talked to about that
many people and usually unless I'm making a doctor's appointment
or picking up a dry cleaning, we're gonna talk about Christ
somewhere and all that. And of course it was hyperbole
but I stood my ground and they stopped asking me to do that.
It was the beginning of the end for me in evangelical life. So here we are, we have this
sharing of the gospel, and many times I've said, well, you know,
God sent his son to save sinners. And people would say, well, I'm
not a sinner. Aha! Then you haven't heard the
law. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart. Done it. Have no other idols before. Done it.
Wow. It's the same story of the rich
young ruler. Done it. Finished it. Accomplished
it. Check. It's easy. Check. Never committed
adultery? Check. I'm not a liar? Check.
I've never stolen anything? Check. You see? So it's not going to
make a difference. The Spirit of God destroying
the human flesh of His people and balling it up, bursting it
into flames. Poof! Out of the flames comes the Phoenix
of Life! The Spirit of Life? Wow! I met a man that told me everything
I've ever done. You see? That's what the woman in
Sychar said. I'm a sinner. Woe to me. I'm not looking at the heavens.
Please, propitiate for me, God. That's what the sinner, that's
what the publican says in the text. Satisfy your wrath for me. Thank
you God I'm not like that guy that I'm born again and I have
all the knowledge of the truth and I've got a doctrinal statement
that stands against all fortitude and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. That man goes home condemned. You see? That man goes home condemned.
The law is good. Psalm 119 verse 97. We read it
this morning. It says, the law, I love your
law. It is my meditation. I think
about it all the time. I'll be honest with you. I don't
want to think about the law of God all the time. But this is
what the psalmist says. Your commandment, singular, makes
me wiser than my enemies. For it is ever with me. It is more understanding than
all my teachers for your testimonies are my thoughts and focus, meditation. I understand more than those
who are older than me and more experienced than me because I
keep your commandments. I follow your ways. I hold back my feet from doing
evil in the eyes of you so that I may not sin against you, so
that I may keep your word. I do not turn aside from your
laws, from your rules before you have taught. How sweet are
your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through
your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false
way. Now listen, see the problem we have is that we're not listening
correctly when we don't see Christ in that. The point of this is that the
law is good. The law is good. I love the law. Paul says it
in Romans 7. Oh, with my mind, I love the law of God. But Paul,
when he was converted, that's the whole point of conversion,
is he understood righteousness rightly. Pun intended. He understood righteously the law of God. It is good. It's not the law of Georgia good.
Is not the law of these United States good, most of them? Like when you kill someone, you
serve time or you die. You burglarize or you arm rob,
you go to the penitentiary, you serve, there's recompense. You
hurt someone, you destroy life and property, you pay for it.
You perjure, you go to prison. Well, depends on who you are.
You go to prison. So it's good, isn't it? Those
are good laws. The law is good. I love the law
because it does its job. What is its job? To indict and
prosecute and to bring a verdict of guilty
and a sentence of death. That's what Paul says to Timothy. That's what Paul says to the
Galatians. That's what Paul says to the Romans. How are we looking at the law? The law is good that
it brings wrath upon wickedness. Do we understand that the wicked
are we? We are the wicked. Do we understand
that missing judgment is a matter of mercy, not obedience? You don't get to, well, sometimes
you do, you don't get to murder people and then just sort of
hide for a while and then people just forget about it. Oh, there
he is, he was wanted for murder 30 years ago, but, ah, it's been
too long. I'm not talking about statue,
I'm talking, you know, they're looking for you. You're guilty. You don't get
to hide for a season and then come back around and go, ah,
that was yesterday, I don't even like that car you stole anymore.
Don't worry about it. It's not how it works. You're
guilty. You don't get to escape judgment through doing good works
on top of bad. Even obeying the law of God perfectly
does not escape judgment. Number one, because no one can
and no one will and no one ever has. It's a matter of mercy. That's why it's called good news. We know, or do we know that we're
to live by faith, not by sight? Do we hear those words? Living
by faith, the law of faith, the law of love, the law of Christ
for the believer is to live by faith in the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me. Jesus fulfills the law, not abolishes
it. In other words, he doesn't wipe
it away and say sin can abound, nobody cares about sin. No, he
becomes the, he becomes the object of wrath for the law. That's
how He fulfills the law. And it actually points to Him. It actually points to Him. We see that we're not to live
by sight, which is the law, and the flesh, and fear, and the
demands of others, of even the precepts of Moses, et cetera,
because we know that love, as John would teach us, casts away
all fear, not reverence. Oh, I don't have to fear the
Lord anymore. You know, reverence is a different. We're not silly.
We know what we're we know the difference. I'm not scared of
my father, but I fear my father because he's my father. I revere
my father. I'm not scared of him. He'll
do everything that's good for me. Perfect love casts away all fear.
If we don't understand that, then the law brings us anxiety
and hopelessness. The law used rightly does not
burden the church with do's and don'ts. Think about that for
a second. 1 John, this is not burdensome
for you. What is the command? To love
your neighbor as yourself because God has first loved you. You
understand this is the revelation of God in the gospel of Jesus
Christ, that He is good and merciful and loving toward His people,
and He does not have to be. But in order for Him to be just,
as we'll see in a minute in Romans 3, He must execute judgment on
the innocent one. And moreover than innocent, on
the righteousness, who is Jesus Christ. The law is not to burden the
flock with do's and don'ts. It's a matter of love in all
things. In what things? Well, the law of correction.
I mean, Paul's writing to Timothy here about charging these false
teachers and those people who are continuing to have these
divided opinions to stop, to stop and put it aside. And there's
no other delineation whatsoever, except they stop and put it aside
and rest in the sufficiency of what they've already been taught.
There's no deeper supernatural boogeyman garbage that comes
out of this. Paul is not trying to dig under
the psyche of these people and see some snake slither out from
between their toes and say, I knew he was the devil. Paul doesn't
think these people are the devil. He thinks there's brothers who
are dividing the church through their silly ignorance who want
to do and say things that aren't beneficial for the church, like
children. That's what children do. Why?
Because they don't know better yet. Why? You can't run for president
until you're 35. I mean, your frontal lobe isn't
really developed yet. In your 20s, the law of correction is about
love. The law sometimes of of doctrine is about love. And
without love, what we end up doing is just creating a new
law. We have the law of evangelism. If you're a real Christian, you'll
share the faith. If you really believe the gospel, you'll share
it this way. I've got an outline for you, a tab, a whirligig,
and all sorts of things. This is how you do the gospel.
This is a law, the law of temperance. Depending on where you live in
the country, real Christians don't drink anything. Water only,
and it must come from a well. If it's municipal, it's sinful.
That's chemicals. The law of health, the law of
nonsense, the law of dress code, how long
should a skirt be if the woman really loves Jesus? I don't know,
it depends on how long her legs are. This is nonsense, you see? But
yet you take a poll of most people who even believe the gospel and
you ask them one of the biggest problems they have in the context
of the local assembly is they feel judged and threatened by
the very presence of other Christians who feel judged and threatened.
But we all put that legalistic cowl on and we say that it's
sovereign grace, but we're scared to death that somebody's going
to make a judgment against us. There is no place for judgments
in the household of God whatsoever. God is the judger of men. Our
job is to love one another, sacrifice our lives, times, treasures,
and talents for one another, and to live according to the
love that God has given us in His free and sovereign gospel
so that we might be fruitful in helping others grow in joy,
which is ultimately growing in grace. No, we've got the law of entertainment.
I lived by this for a long time. I wouldn't watch TV. I felt dirty
turning on a television. Where everybody knows your name. Oh gosh, God knows it. I'm watching
Cheers. They're drinking at that show.
It's at a bar. I'm not mocking anyone's conviction. I just remember watching that
show and enjoying that show and thinking, this is sinful. So
I stopped watching that show. It might have been sinful for
me, but was it sinful for you? What is most beneficial? Let's
work on what love really does. You know what's really worse
than spending time watching Cheers, and I'm not spending time embracing
my duty to love you, and to prepare to love you, and to teach you,
and to pray for you. And then if I have some time
left over, and I want to spend it watching Cheers, then watch
Cheers. Cheers. But what you put in, you gonna
plant. We have a law of entertainment.
We have a law of hemology. Well, we're not singing out of
that book. There's a heretic in that book. Well, we'll just
skip his songs. I'm serious. You can think I'm
joking. There's some songs in that book that we have that,
you know, probably don't hold up to the gospel. And there's
some songwriters in that book. If you look and can see, if you're
my age and don't have your glasses, you won't even know who wrote
it because you can't see it. It's the bottom left and it's just this light. Ant
feet prints. You know, that's the rights that
they get. Ants come in, they go, da-da-da-da. You can't see it. But there might
be some heretics who wrote some good hymns. And there are some
people who refuse to even be in the building because the man's
name's on the paper. The law of textual versions. Well, if it ain't the King James,
I don't want it. Well, which one? Not the new, the old. Really? What King James do you
have? Is it a 1611? I doubt it. It's
probably 18th century. And even then, I guarantee you,
you got some typos in there. I'm not using NIV. I'm not using
ESV. I'm not using... How about you
read what's in it? And when you get that going,
you can come talk to me about textual criticism. The law of
variance, the law of textual. translations, the law of theological
unity. If you don't understand the 11
and a half precepts of justification and the nine propitiatory laws of Semitic redemption in 300
BC, then you are going to hell. And I just made half that up.
So don't go looking at it. It's just a law. The law of scheduling. See, that's
my law. I've already confessed it. The
law of parenting. This is how God says to parent.
He said, a rod? Give me the rod. Here's a wooden
broomstick. No, rods are metal. Give me the
pipe. And we laugh, but I mean, I'm
serious, guys. There are people who have confronted
me. because I didn't beat my children with a rod. He said,
no, I use a belt. Oh, dear heavens. Belts? You know, I was spanked with
a belt as a kid. Most horrifying sound in the world before you're
a parent, when you're a parent, it's blech at three o'clock in
the morning. But when you're not a parent, when you're a kid,
it's that belt coming out of them loops. And then the jingle
of the buckle. It's like dead man walking. My last meal, I'm gone. And I
was making jokes about that, and I got hate mail, literal
hate mail, mail to my house from people in the building that I
was an abusive, maniacal, manipulative criminal. I'm going, wow, and that hurts.
Because I mean, I'm not an abusive criminal. I might be manipulative,
but I'm not an abusive one. Don't call me that. The law of submission. This is
where our sisters get hung up. Your husband is your boss man.
No, he's not. He's the first to show you Christ.
That's what head means. Husband is andros, which means
head. You do as he does, not as he says. You see? Oh my God, he's egalitarian. No, I understand the gospel. And all those are cultural. All
those are cultural anyway. Beloved, don't teach your sons
to rule over their wives in a maniacal way and don't teach your daughters
to be subservient in a sinful way. Understand the grace of
God. Husbands, you are commanded to
love your wives as Christ loved the church. Little boys and young
men, And older men, you are to love your wives by dying for
her. That's how you lead. And then
there's all sorts of wisdom in the relationship as it moves
forward. But there's a law of submission. There's a law of
Americanism in our culture. Jesus, registered Republican.
Not today's Republican, the Reagan years. I mean, you know, I've
heard that. I've lost a lot of people because
I don't disclose my political points of view. But beloved,
y'all couldn't handle it. And there's not a political party
in the universe that can settle itself on my shoulders. Because
I think it's all nuts. Because a real believer will
understand the love of God. And a real believer will care
more about the poor and the marginalized and the weak and the minorities.
than they ever will about those in power who are keeping the
economy going. And a believer will care about
the unborn and the born. Law of church planting. I remember
this when we started Grace Truth Church. about two years before
we moved down here and we were trying to plant a church in this
area. All the big quigs all over everywhere. Sort of like throwing
a hot dog out in a bird field. Nobody's getting birds now. All
those bird dogs, they smell that hot dog. They heard that I was
trying to plant a church. And this organization and this
organization and this organization and this organization, all over
the place. Non-denominational, Baptist, evangelical. whatever
you call it, Presbyterian, all of them. Oh, you're playing the
church. We have the methods. We got the money. See, that was
always the draw, wasn't it? How you gonna get from California
to Georgia? Easy, I'm not coming. I got people
already living here. Oh, oh, sorry. Are they qualified? We got a 12-point test to qualify
the man for the ministry. Nah, Paul wrote that to Timothy.
I got it handled. Well, if they qualified under
our thing, we'll give it $50,000 a year for the first five years.
Hmm. Ah, never mind. No thank you. The law of church planting, the
law of constitutionalism, the law of requirements of life,
the law of the tongue, the law of thoughts, the law of Sunday
keeping. The law always kills, beloved,
because you know what? We might get hold fast to some
portion of something that we think is a good thing, but we
are failing so much more in everything else. What are we doing? Is that
not, you might think, where are you getting all that? You're
just making stuff up. No, I'm expressing what Jesus taught to the Jews.
Oh, you tithe, and you pray, and you come to synagogue, But you're ignoring the greater
things of the law. And you're ignoring these and
so you violate the very ones you're doing. You're guilty of
being a criminal against God because of the things you're
doing because you're not doing them all perfectly. You see? That's the place. That's the
understanding. But we have a problem in our culture when it comes
to Christian living that we bear down on people unspokenly. And when people come into the
fellowship of a so-called Christian church in America, they feel
the pressure of wondering who is thinking that they are not
making the cut. Whether it be doctrine or lifestyle. And this is hateful. Because at the most gross, negligent,
demonic expression of a false gospel, the best case scenario in which
we view it, the best place for us to view it is this poor soul
who has not been born again by the Spirit of mercy. So Father, use me as an instrument
of teaching truth. not being an apologist against
the error, but being an evangelist by the word use in and of itself. We cannot keep God's law, and
when we do, we are still guilty of it. Yes, in a practical sense,
we know that we can learn that when we lie and when we steal
and when we covet, we are sinning and that we should put away these
things until the next time these things come about. And then we
put them away again and then they'll and then we and then
and we saw the deeper reality of what the violation of the
law of do not commit adultery is that if any man lusts in his
mind, he is an adulterer. And some of us say, well, I've
never looked at a woman like that. Or maybe you've thought of a woman
that doesn't exist. You're an adulterer. You can't
escape it. And Paul would say, now, just
because that's true doesn't mean you just become an adulterer.
Christ died as an adulterer, and he wasn't an adulterer. He
took the place of the adulterer, and he's not an adulterer. Same
thing with lying. You know it's a lie to not say
the whole truth. To withhold the truth, not just
deceive. Yet we're all guilty of it. And
the guilt remains if Christ did not bear it in our place. We therefore cannot keep man's
additions to the law. Because that's what we're good
at, beloved. And I think that's what was going on here. There
were other laws being expressed. There were other distinctions
being required. There were other things that
Paul himself had not required of the churches in their unity
and in their established organization and in their oversight that these
people were adding because they were young and inexperienced
and knowledgeable, yet they were ignorant. And Paul wanted them to come
back. He wanted the reins to be pulled in so that these young
people could sit still. And I say young as in the faith.
We don't know how old they were. They could sit still and be taught
with their mouths shut and with their eyes open that the Holy
Spirit of God might show them the revelation of Himself in
a beautiful and brilliant way through the positive and negative
instruction as found in the Scriptures. according to the law and most
importantly according to the grace of God. So the law, as we see in the
Old Testament in its historical use, instructed God's people. From the very beginning of days
before it was ever written down, God gave instruction, didn't
he? That's what good fathers do. They give instruction. The
law showed Israel what was good and what was not good. The law
showed Israel how to remain in good health. The dietary laws. The law showed Israel how to
prevent infection. Washing their hands. Staying
away from people who were sick. Social distancing. It's amazing that it took to
the time of Pastor for that to become obvious. Had to prove
it. The law instruction to Israel
showed what God required, showed what was good for them. But most
importantly, it showed itself as a representation of God. Go
to Romans chapter three, the time we have left. I've already
taught it all. I've already said everything
that needs to be said here, but we need to hear it. The scripture says in Romans
3, and we're not going to read all of it, the Jews were given
the oracles of God. The law of God is inclusive of
all the writing of the prophets and also specifically the commandments
of God And then also, as we see it used in the New Testament,
it is paraphrased in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. It's a
paraphrase. The Ten Commandments are a paraphrase.
And then Jesus sums it up by saying, love the Lord and love
one another. Okay? We know that. We've already
gone through that. So the Roman Christian, the Gentile
Roman believers were saying, we've never followed all these
laws. We've never done all this stuff. We've never obeyed. We
don't even understand. Why do I need to do that? Do I need to buy phylacteries?
Do I need to do this? Do I need to draw a line between
my house and my mama's house so that I can see her on Saturday?
Do I need to change the way I wash my feet? Do I need to wash my
feet? What do I need to do? And Paul's
saying, listen, you think they're better off because they have
the organs of God? No. They were unfaithful. But does
their unfaithfulness deny or erase the faithfulness of God?
Does it nullify? Does it zero it out? No, because
it's not about them, it's about the one who is faithful. No means
let God be true, though every man be a liar. How many times
have you seen that out of context? That you may be justified in
your words and prevail when you are judged. Paul asks questions in Romans
3 verse 5, but if our unrighteousness, talking about the Jews, serves
to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That
God is unrighteous to inflict wrath upon us? I mean, I speak
in a human way. And he answers, by no means. Imperative. For
then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie
God's truth abounds to His glory, why am I still being condemned
as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come, as some slanderously
charge us with saying? They were telling us, they were
charging Paul as an antinomian. Their condemnation is just. What
then? Are Jews any better off? Not at all. For we've already
said, we've already charged, we've already come to the conclusion
that all Jews and Gentiles are under sin as it is written. Listen
carefully. None is righteous. No one understands.
No one seeks after God. All have turned aside. They become
worthless. They do not do good. Not even one of them. Their throat
is an open grave. Their tongues are lying deceptions. Their venom of asps is under
their lips. It's poisonous. Their mouth is full of curses
and bitterness. The way they speak is destructive. What they
say is tearing things apart. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, murderous, treacherous. See, I'm just quoting Paul in
other places where he starts to list these things out. And their paths are ruin and
misery. In the way of peace they have not known. There's no fear
of God before their eyes. What is he talking about? All
humanity, every single person from Adam to whoever the last
man born is, falls into those categories. So now, verse 19, we speak that
whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. So that every mouth may be shut.
The whole world may be held accountable to God, for by works of the law
no human being will be justified in the sight of God, since through
the law comes the knowledge of sin. And through the law comes knowledge
of sin. It's not a precursor to grace. For if it is, it's
another law unto itself. And grace in and of itself then
is a law that's required, that has a requirement. But now. I love this portion
of scripture. It preaches itself. We've talked
about it many times. I've preached it. Jesse's preached
it. Trey's preached it. Other people have taught it in
our circles and in our small groups and other things when
we've had intimate circles before COVID. But it reminds me of in Hebrews
where it says, but we have not come to that. We have not come
to the tempest. We have not come to the law.
We have not come. We have come to the festal gathering of the
ecclesia, of the saints. and the angels and the praise
and the glory. We've come to Jesus, the mediator
of a new covenant. Beloved, Paul is saying the exact
same thing here to the Romans that he said to the Jews in Hebrews
12. But now the righteousness of
God has been made clear, has been revealed, has been set forth,
has become visible. That's what manifested means
apart from the law. Although the Law and the Prophets
bear witness to it. The Holy of Holies bear witness
to the presence of God. The Ark of the Covenant bears
witness to God. The Law bears witness to God,
but it is not life. Sacrifice of animals is not life. Obedience to the precepts of
Moses is not life, because they all died. The righteousness of
God. What is this righteousness of
God apart from the law? Here it is, verse 22. The righteousness
of God through faith in Jesus the Christ for all who are believing. So the righteousness of God is
displayed in the law which points to Jesus Christ who fulfills
it. who takes the penalty of it,
and who promises truth in life, not death and condemnation. For there is no distinction,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
are justified by His grace, which is a gift, through the purchasing
of their salvation, redemption, that is in Christ Jesus. who
was put forward, by the way, by the Father, God, to satisfy
His own wrath by the blood of His own Son. How does it apply? How do we know what is happening? Where am I in the picture here
to be received by faith? To rest in the sufficiency of
what God's Word reveals concerning His Son. The law points to the
Gospel. Not as a requirement unto faith,
but as a picture, as a shadow of the faithful one. This was to show God's righteousness. How is the death of Jesus showing
God's righteousness? Because He's forbeared punishment,
divine forbearance. He passed over former sins. Because
everyone who died before Christ had no real-time sacrifice for
their sins. The debt had not yet been paid
in time. Yet they were still justified
in the eyes of God through the promise that God made of His
Son. How do we know if they were?
They believed in the promise of God. They rested in the revelation
of God's promise of life through Jesus Christ. So it shows God's
righteousness that He killed Jesus Christ and that satisfied His forbearance.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he
might be the just. He was just and forgiving sinners. Why? Because the debt was paid
in Christ Jesus. And he was the justifier of the
one who has faith in Christ Jesus. How in the world can someone
be justified because they believe in Jesus Christ? Because the
revelation of God, of Jesus Christ and righteousness is that Jesus
Christ sufficiently satisfied the law of death. And so when
you know this and you rest in this truth, it is because God
has granted you faith to know that righteousness is upheld. Holiness is upheld. The law points
to the gospel. It is about mercy. This is the
point. And any use of the law that does
not immediately focus on the love of God in Christ is nonsense. Though we can learn from it,
though we can understand some things historically from it,
though we can look to the Old Testament and learn some wisdom
there, the point of it is, is that it points to Christ. The
wisdom points to Christ. The psalmist speaks of Christ.
Moses, in the giving of the law, wrote of Jesus. You see? The Pharisees walked around going,
okay, we've got the handle on the program of ministry. We've
got the handle on the practice of ministry. And Jesus says they
were blind. Does it mean that we can't put
into practice some instruction? We're supposed to. How do we
know? The apostles make it clear what instruction is to be put
out. The apostles make it clear how we are to understand the
commandments and why. So we're not living by the law,
we're living by the love of God, by faith. Because the law is the revelation
of God's holiness. And it's all about mercy. And not only should the law and
the commandments of scripture help us focus on the love of
God because we know that we cannot meet them or accomplish them. That on that which we have been
given, which is not burdensome, which is to love one another
from that point of view, that is where the law flows. The commandments
flow from the love of God to His righteousness as a revelation
of His holiness. That God is set apart and different
in all of His ways and who He is in His essence. And scripture
reveals that we are not God and that no one seeks after God,
nor can anyone be God. so that we understand that the
law effectively is different than the gospel because it has,
as I said last week, different audiences and different promises. The promises of the law, even
if they bring success, as we saw the psalmist, it brought
success to the psalmist, didn't it? Doing what God says brings
success. Not in a worldly point of view,
but in a spiritual point of view. Doing what the Bible tells us
to do in relating to our enemies and submitting to the government
and paying our taxes and all that brings success. It keeps
us free in a temporal sense. We learn that way. That's called
wisdom, but it's not life. And we don't need to conflate
these things and try to merge them. There's a complete distinction
between that which is instructive and that which is absolutely
declarative. In the grace versus merit debate
will always be in the hearts of men. But the promises of the
law were very temporary and it was really unable to be understood
in any eternal light. But the gospel is an eternal,
that means it never began decree of justice and righteousness
for God's people through the gift of Christ on their behalf
to satisfy God. He Himself satisfied Himself
through Himself. And we're the recipients of that
contract. Therefore, as Paul would say in Romans 8, like he's
bemoaning in Romans 6 and 7, oh my goodness, what is happening?
How am I ever gonna escape it? I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying,
I'm trying. There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life. I read
it last week. We know this. We know that in accordance with
the gospel, the glory of the blessed God, as Paul says there
in Timothy, that God is pleased with himself,
that the word teaches what is good, and this is good news. That's an alternative use of
the word evangel. Good report in anything. It could
be a financial record, it could be A medical record, good news,
gospel doesn't always mean anything to do with the Bible. It's a
transliterated word that now has come to mean the good news
of Jesus and redemption. But in the scripture, it has
multiple uses. It's used in many different ways.
It is good news when the Bible talks about law and wrath and
justice, because justice is good. But it's not good news for the
creature, is it? Because we're all guilty. So the good news
of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ, is very explicit, very
myopic, very focused on the mercy of God. And the Word teaches
us the good report of Jesus, which is the good news of gospel. That God is happy with Himself.
He has done the redeeming of His elect children. He is pleased
with His work. He is satisfied. And Paul is teaching this instruction,
do this, do this, do this, Timothy, in accordance with the gospel
of the glory of the blessed God. The revelation of God in the
gospel also gives us the picture of God's
intentions and desires for His people who have been set apart
in Christ Jesus and how we ought to live in this world. The shadow points to the truth. And we have this testimony of
righteousness. So the law by which we live,
beloved, is not one that can kill us, nor can it condemn us. It's the law of faith, resting
not in the keeping of the commandments which is in the flesh, but in
the destruction of the flesh of the Holy One, through whom
we enter into the presence of God. The life, the body and the
blood of Jesus Christ crushed. Righteousness is not keeping
the commands. Righteousness is a gift of Christ
giving himself. And our behalf. For our guilt. And giving himself and his righteousness
to our account. We have life. So Lord, let us
rest in that. That's my prayer for us today
is that we would rest in this truth and that we would grow
and understand and that as we technically deal with the history
of all these debates that have been going on since the beginning
of time, we don't lose sight of our first love. And we love
one another, even in the hardest of circumstances, in the most
divisive of experiences. so that God is glorified in it.
Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for your
mighty work, for your grace, for your love, for your redemption. And Lord, I know that just in
the rapid way in which I speak in these types of topics, there
will be word combinations that upset the hearts of some because
they want to read more into what I say technically than what I
intend to preach in a focused theological way.
And so Father, help me to grow in that understanding. Help me
not to be hard-nosed or hard-pressed in language, but Lord, to be
generous and liberal In my love and grace. But father, to be
very stingy in the. In the point of which your word
reveals your mercy. Your law. But in everything,
father, help us to have love. Help us to see with eyes of faith. And to avoid creating a new law
by which we look. And through which we look. That
we would not judge one another, even according to a misinterpretation or even a false
gospel. But Father, we would inquire
and see to rectify that error with the preaching of the truth
that we would rejoice in you when you bring a lost sheep to
the gospel truth. We thank you, Father. We thank
you, Father, for your love and your mercy for us even now, as
we stand and sit before one another this day. As we take the remembrance
of the table, we thank you for your mercy. In Christ's name,
amen.