By favor adopted thy sons we
appear, And led by thy spirit we boldly draw near. When Jesus, beloved, and washed
in His blood, With hope we adore at the footstool of God. The man who is blessed with hope
in the cross is free from the bondage of guilt and the curse. The blood of his surety By faith
he renews, While hope in that fountain His spirit renews. The world knows us not, But in
this we rejoice, To God were no strangers, but objects of
choice. His love from eternity gave us
a home where now we are whole. Been in safety to come Arranged
in obedience All wrought by the Lamb By Christ our Jehovah The
Ancient I Am With boldness we journey while Christ leads us
on and hope soon in glory to praise the three ones. Uh, turn that if you would, to,
uh, him number 487. 487. Let's see, let's do the
turn of Let's Be Tied. Christians, dismiss your fear. Let hope and joy succeed. The great good news with gladness
here, the Lord is risen in thee. The shades of death withdraw
His eyes their beams display So wakes the sun when rosy dawn
Unbars the gates of day The promise is fulfilled, salvation's work
is done, justice and mercy's reconciled, and God has raised
His Son. He quits the dark abode from
all corruption free. The holy, harmless child of God
could no corruption see. angels with saints above the
rising victors sing and all the blissful seeds of love with loud
hosannas ring Ye pilgrims to below, your hearts and voices
rise. Let every beat with gladness
blow, and every mouth sing praise. My soul, thy Savior, Lord, Who
all thy sorrows bore, Who died for sin, but lives to God, And
lives to die no more. His death procured thy peace,
His resurrection's sign. Believe, receive the full release,
Tis signed with blood divine. All right, how about back to
427. 427, we'll send this to the doxology. Jesus, and shall it ever be,
a mortal man ashamed of Thee, ashamed of Thee whom angels praise,
whose glory shine to endless days. Ashamed of Jesus sooner
far, Let evening blush to own a star. He sheds his beams of
light divine, O'er this benighted soul of mine. Ashamed of Jesus just as soon. Let midnight be ashamed of noon. Tis midnight with my soul until
he. Bright morning star bids darkness
flee. Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend,
on whom my hopes of heaven depend. Know when I blush, be this my
shame, that I no more revere his name. Ashamed of Jesus, yes I may When
I've no guilt to wash away No tear to wipe, no good to crave
No fears to quell, no soul to save ? Till then nor is my boasting
vain ? ? Till then I boast of Savior's slain ? ? And oh may
this my glory be ? ? That Christ is not ashamed of me ? His institutions
would I prize, Take of my cross the shame despised, Dare to defend
his noble cause, And yield Obeah to his laws. and pray that we're not ashamed
of Jesus. I know that we often have peer
pressure, especially as young people, young children, we have
peer pressure when we're around people that aren't Christians
and they like to talk their talk that they do and do the things
that they do. And sometimes we kind of get
silent on our convictions or silent on our being saved in
Christ It's easy for us to just sit back and blend in with whoever
we're around, but whenever we do that, that's because we're
ashamed. It means that we're ashamed of who we are if we're
Christ, and we're all guilty of that. We all do that. All
right, does anybody have a song that you'd like to sing? To our Redeemer's glorious name Awake the sacred song O may his love immortal flame
tune every heart and tongue. O may his love immortal flame
tune every heart and tongue. His love, what mortal thought
can reach? What mortal tongue display? Imagination's utmost stretch
in wonder dies away. Imagination's utmost stretch. Sorry. imaginations utmost stretched
in wonder dies away he left his radiant throne on high left the
bright realms of bliss and came to earth to bleed and die Was
there ever love like this? And came to earth to bleed and
die Was there ever love like this? Dear Lord, while we adoring
pay our humble thanks to thee. May every heart with rapture
say, the Savior died for me. May every heart with rapture
say, the Savior died for me. Amen. Well, I pray that one day
all of you can say that. I pray that those who can, can
already say it. Anybody have a song that you'd
like to sing? Turn with me if you would to
Galatians chapter four. Galatians chapter four. We'll be in the same section
of scriptures as we was last week. As I mentioned last week, I wanted
to go back. We looked last week at Because he are sons, the whole purpose in God's electing
was to redeem a people for himself. The reason that God elected a
people for the foundation of the world was that he might redeem
those people from sin and that he might free them from the bondage
to the law. And so we looked last week at
the fact that all those who are the heir of Christ, or the seed
of Christ, the elect of Christ, we use the words that Jesus used,
the wheat, the goats, I mean the sheep, his children, his
generation, all these things, and if you remember, we talked
about the two seeds, there's the spiritual seed, there's the
natural seed, there's the natural seed which is in the flesh of
Adam, and that flesh can do nothing good, And then there's the spiritual
seed, which is born from above, which is the life of Christ.
It's eternal life, it's Christ himself in us, and that that
life is perfect and holy, and it cannot sin, and that that
dwells in this fleshly jar of clay. And that seed of people
that receive that life are receiving that life, as we've seen in verse
six last week, because you are sons, God has sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And so
the whole reason that we receive the experience of salvation is
because we have, number one, been elected to salvation. We
have been given to Christ Jesus in an eternal, vital union. And that would probably have
been my title for last week, is eternal, vital unity, because
we see that everybody who is in Christ Jesus, everybody who
is an heir of Christ, a brother of Christ in Christ Jesus, his
people, his children. And we use the word brethren,
not as like brother here, but as in relationship. We are a
brother in Christ, a brethren in Christ. So we are children
of Christ Jesus. We've been given to him by the
Father and he has come to save us. Matter of fact, if you remember,
Whenever it was to be told that Jesus was going to be born, the
angel said, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people, his people from their sin. So last week we looked at
the fact of the reason that we are receiving our recipients
of being given the knowledge of what Christ has freely given
to us is because we are able. And if ye be Christ, then are
ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. If, if ye be
Christ, that's the deciding point. If ye be Christ, only Christ's
people will be the heirs and receive the things of God, that
salvation and the experience of knowing that salvation. Okay. And so we, we looked at that
last week. Now I mentioned at the end of
last week that we were going to go back We're gonna look at
these same verses again because there's other things that we'd
like to pull out that I'd like for you to ponder on in these
verses. But let's go to the Lord and
ask him to be with us this morning before we read here and get into
the message. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we thank you today for your grace and mercy that we have in Christ
Jesus. The very things that we've sung about, Lord, we do pray
and hope Uh, for you and for all that you have done for us,
Lord, we know that anything that we do of our own self cannot,
uh, bring us, uh, into, uh, acceptance. You cannot keep us in, uh, preservation,
uh, perseverance. We know that everything is by
your hand. Lord, we know that you procured our salvation through
your blood. That is because your death, your
resurrection, that we have life and that we have it abundantly.
We know that through your resurrection and through your death, that
we have been reconciled to God, that we have been justified before
God. We know that by your death, Lord,
that we have been freed from the bondage of the law and that
you and your fulfilling of the law satisfied everything that
God required for holiness and for righteousness. And that that
has been imputed to your people. And so Father, we are so grateful.
We know this morning, Father, that anything that we do here
that is to be worshiped to you in spirit and in truth as you
require, we'll take the Holy Spirit of God enabling us. So I pray, Lord, that you would
help us in our spirits today to not only lift up our hearts,
but that you might renew our minds, that you might teach us,
Lord, these things. I pray, Father, for those that
are here. I ask, Lord, that they might be saved. I ask, Lord,
that they might be counted among your elect. I pray, Lord, for
those that have not been converted, that you would draw them by your
spirit, that you would give them and grant them repentance and
faith, that they might trust in Christ alone for their salvation.
And thus, Lord, that they might come forward for baptism and
that we might receive them as members of this church, Lord.
I ask that you might be with us as we stand in the gospel
in this town, that you might keep us faithful, Lord. We can't do this without you.
You're the sovereign God of all things and in control of all
things. And Lord, we know that we are weak and that we can do
nothing in this flesh. So anything that we can do as
far as word and pronouncing the doctrine of Christ and the gospel,
Lord, it's because of you and your words being given to us
and an understanding of it being given to us. So Father, I just
pray that you would help us. Lord, we lift up our brethren
that are not here for Kevin and Jacqueline and Alessandro, Lord,
who have went to Guatemala. We ask, Lord, that you'll just
be with them while they're there, give them safety while they're
there and on their way home when they come back. We pray for Brother
Ed again this morning, Lord, that you might be with him and
for For Beth and Lord, we just thank you so much for all that
you have done for this church and for all of us individuals.
Lord, we just thank you for everything in the name of Christ. Amen. Galatians chapter four and verse
one. It says, now I say that the heir,
as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though
he be Lord of all. but as under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father. Even so, we, when we
were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his
son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods,
but now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God,
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto
ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months and
times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain. Now we will stop right there.
I added a couple more verses just so that it will bring us
to the place of where it seems that there's a little bit of
a break there. But we want to go back and look here at pretty
much what we are going to look at at least this morning is what
does it mean to be in bondage under the elements of the world?
We want to look there at verse three. It says, I say that an
heir as long as he is a child. And if you remember last week,
I shared with you that What we are talking about as far as being
as a child, that's in our understanding. We're a child in our understanding
or our experience of our salvation. Whenever we come into this world,
we don't come in with repentance and faith already being given
to us necessarily. Now, I'm not saying that that
can't be the case. We know that John the Baptist, he was in the
mother's womb and he was full of the Holy Spirit. And he lived
for joy whenever he heard about Jesus. So I'm not saying that
that can't be true. I don't know. That goes beyond
what I understand and the clarity of scriptures isn't quite there,
so I don't know. But I'll say this, that whatever
the time that God gives us repentance and faith and grants us those
things, we begin to understand the gospel. We begin to understand
the spiritual things of God. And whenever we are a child and
we don't understand all those things, the Bible says here that
we are under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the
Father. So we're talking about our knowledge of things, our
understanding of things. Why do we need a tutor? A tutor
is there to teach us something, right? A governor is there to
control us, right? That's what that's there for.
is something that holds things together or holds things down.
If you have a governor, he's the head of the state, and he's
the one who tries to keep everything in control. If you have a governor
in your car, that's something that won't let you go beyond
a certain point. If the governor is set for 60
miles an hour, you can't go over 60 miles an hour. It controls
it. It just stops you there. So the
Bible here says that as we are children in our understanding,
as we are children in our experience of salvation, now I understand
whenever I say experience, and the reason I'm gonna define this
is because of some conversations that I've had with some brethren
online who misunderstand sometimes what we mean by experiential
salvation. Whenever I say experiential salvation,
I'm not talking about things that we do in the flesh. I'm
talking about experiential salvation in the fact that God gives us
repentance and faith to repent from false thinking to right
thinking, from repenting of our thoughts of righteousness being
by our works to righteousness by Christ alone. And then giving
us faith to trust in Christ and his righteousness alone as our
salvation. that's what i mean by our experience
of salvation we are experiencing in our knowledge before god give
us repentance and faith we didn't have knowledge as we've seen
here we didn't know we thought we were just servants in this
world we didn't know that we were children that we were heirs
we didn't come to the knowledge now we may have thought we were
religious and that we had some sort of a form of religion and
in that that we were children of god because of our religious
nature and the religious things that we do, but whenever God
gives us repentance and faith, he gives us an understanding
that it isn't about our self-righteousness things, the self-righteous things
that we do, it's about his righteousness. That's the only righteousness
that counts, because all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. All of our righteousnesses are
evil, only continually, the Bible says. The Bible says that we
can't do anything to please God in this flesh. So we have to
look to Christ alone as our salvation. And so whenever I mean experiential
salvation, I mean that God brings us from not knowing that, to
knowing that, and not only knowing that, but trusting that as our
salvation. So that's coming from being a
child, to coming to this knowledge or this more mature understanding. Now remember, brethren, the book
of Galatians or this letter to the Galatian churches was written
by Paul because those Christians in those churches in Galatia
had been bewitched. They had fallen under false teaching
that had come in by the Judaizers. The Judaizers had come in and
began to tell them that oh yeah, what Paul said was true, but
you have to do this. You have to keep the law of Moses
and you have to circumcise or you can't be saved or you can't
stay saved. You have to continue in the law
to do this. So Paul's whole purpose of writing
this letter is to inform them that the gospel is not about
keeping the law, but about trusting Christ who kept the law. It's
about Christ whose righteousness has been imputed to the Christian.
The whole letter is to dispel or to put down the notion that
in any way, shape or form, our salvation is dependent upon something
that we do outwardly or actually inwardly. Our salvation isn't
dependent upon anything that we do at all. Our salvation is
completely outside of us in Christ Jesus. And that's the purpose
of Paul's letter. So let's not ever lose sight
of that as we're going through, though we may be talking about
different things in here. Remember the overarching theme
of Paul's letter is it's not the law, but it is grace. It
is not your works, but it's God who gives grace. It is not what
you do in making your own righteousness before God that makes you accepted
or kept. It is Christ alone. that does
that has done that for you and has laid that to your account
and so our knowledge should go from thinking that we can keep
a law for righteousness to trusting Christ alone as our righteousness
and know that nothing that we can do is going to merit anything
before God and that our consciences should be clear that whatever
this flesh does do, it's sinful things that we have been forgiven
of those things and that we should be thankful, and that we should
go before God confessing those sins, sorrow, we can let sorrow
over our sins, which we surely do. I mean, we sorrow over that.
I hate that I sin. I don't like to sin. I don't
like to do things against God or that would bring God's name
into the dirt, you know, or do anything like that song that
we sang, you know. I wouldn't want to be ashamed
of Jesus. I wouldn't want to do anything that would bring
black on his name. I wouldn't want to do any of
those things. But yet my flesh is weak and it can't keep the
law of God. It can't do those things. And
there will be times whenever I sin, but the Bible has been
given to us and written to us who are children of grace, that
we might know that we are not only heirs, but that as heirs,
the Bible says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus. Remember that in Christ Jesus,
tells us that we are in him, we are his seed, we are in him
seminally, spiritually. His life is our life. Whenever
we were born again, it's his life that's put in us. So we
are actually his children. And because we are children,
there's no combination for us. And so our attitude should be,
well, great, I'll just do whatever I want. I can act however I want,
do whatever I want. I'm saved. Once saved, always
saved. You know, that's not the attitude that we have because
the spirit of God in us lusts against the spirit of the flesh,
or the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh. The spirit inside of us wants to keep the law of
God. It is a servant to the law of
God, but our flesh can't produce that. Our flesh can't do that.
And so that war is going to be there. Uh, if we just do what
we want, there's no war. We just have whatever we want
to do. We do. We don't care. You know, there's nothing that
ain't, that ain't the flesh wrestling against the spirit and the spirit
against the flesh. That's the flesh is doing whatever it wants to do.
And that's it. The child of grace will have
this inward principle in us that in our mind, in our knowledge
of things, you know, we know we're, Hey man, we should be
doing that. And we want to do that. Not thinking that that's
going to keep us before Christ or not that it's going to justify
us before Christ. But we want to do that. So we
have the desire to do right things and everything, but never for
salvation or keeping salvation, but just because they're right
and stuff. And so we have this in us. And
so as children, our thinking is, will we keep these things? This is how we are to please
God. This is how we are to be accepted
by God. If I do, I mean, you look at it, you look at all the
different, TV shows and movies and books that you read and matter
of fact, a lot of the teaching and preaching on TV basically
goes in this direction that if you do good, good things are
going to happen to you. Well, we was watching something
just recently. Well, we've been watching My Name is Earl. You
know, the whole thing on, you watch that? I've heard of it.
Well, the whole premise of that is him trying to please karma,
which we don't believe in karma. That's a new age cult stuff. But anyway, the whole premise
is if you do good, good things can happen to you. If you do
bad, bad things are going to happen to you. Well, the mentality of
the natural mind, our Adamic wisdom and understanding, is
that very thing that happened in the garden, we can be as God.
We can be as God. We can be just like God. We can
keep and do things and be like God. And we can't. Our nature is we cannot please
God. That's how God designed us. That's
how God intended us to be. Whenever God created Adam, he
created him with infirmity. The Bible says that the creation
was created subject to vanity, which that word vanity, means
an inability or a sinfulness. So we were created subject to
sinfulness, subject to inability to keep God's law, to keep God's
righteousness, to keep God's holiness. And so we are created
in that way. And so our natural mind, it thinks
that we can do things to please God or to be as God. And that
was from the very beginning. That's why whenever Adam and
Eve did break God's law, They thought they could fix it themselves
by doing good. If I do something bad, if I do
something good, God's going to accept me the way that I am.
And so what did they do? They went and they made for themselves
a suit or a coat of fig leaves. And they thought that what they
did would please God. And it didn't please God, right? He stripped them of them fig
leaves and he covered them himself with the coats. That's where our understanding
lies. Our understanding before we are given repentance and faith
is an understanding that this law is given to us and we can
go out and as long as we try to keep this law the best we
can, that we're going to be accepted by God or kept in the faith by
God, kept in salvation by God. But see, this is what Paul was
trying to get at. He said, the law is given to
you just like a governor just like a tutor. It's there to teach
you something. And it's the most elemental,
most rudimentary thing that God teaches us. It's one of the first
things, if not the first thing, that God teaches us whenever
we have been given repentance and faith. One of the things
that God teaches us, and as I said, probably the first thing that
God teaches us, is that we cannot keep the law. The law is there
to tell us, to show us, we cannot keep it. The Jews had the law
for however many thousands of years, a couple thousands of
years or however long. They had the law and year after
year after year after year after year after year, the priest had
to go into that tabernacle and had to make that sacrifice It
was bloodbath after bloodbath after bloodbath, reminding everybody
that this law is impossible for us to keep. And in Jesus' days,
these Pharisees and these religious leaders who thought they were
keeping the law had deceived themselves. They thought that
they were righteous because they were keeping the law of Moses.
But as we've read and seen, we cannot keep the law, none of
those men. As a matter of fact, Jesus even said, unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisee." He said, you won't
ever enter into the kingdom of God. And the Pharisees, they
were the best of the best in trying to keep the law, but yet
nobody can keep that law. And so the law is there to show
us, to keep us under its boot. So until God teaches us that
there is no hope in law keeping, there is no hope for righteousness
in law-keeping. And therefore, as we become mature
and we learn that lesson, there is no hope in law-keeping for
righteousness, then maturity is, because there's no hope in
law-keeping, I have to look away from myself and look to Christ
alone for righteousness. That's what is being said in
these first few verses. Now I say that the heir, as long
as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, A servant, what
does he do? Give me my orders and I'm going
to do it. That's what we hear in most religious institutions
today. Let me sit up here and preach
to you your rule book and now you get out there and get to
doing it. And if you don't do it good enough, bad. You need
to get down there to this altar and repent of your sins and get
right with God and start doing better. And if you keep doing
it, you might lose your salvation. I mean, there's some churches
that preach that you can even lose your salvation. Which is
crazy, that just shows that they don't understand the gospel,
they don't understand how someone's saved. But what do we preach? Week after week after week after
week in these religious institutions that's out there. What do we
see in church? We've all grown up in churches that's been like
this, or been to churches that's like this, and seen this stuff.
What do they do every week? They preach, do this, don't do
that. And then what do they do? They
give you a time at the end of the service to come and make
it right. They have this, what they call an altar, so that you
can come and cast your stuff on the altar and before God,
confess your sin. And if you do all that, then
you're made right with God again. Now turn around and go back and
this time don't do it. But what happens? Then you're
here again next week, then again the next week, and it's all about
Do this, don't do that, but if you do, here's your altar, come
to the altar. It's idolatry. It's thinking
that we can do something for God to be righteous or stay righteous. Okay? You never see that anywhere
in scripture. There's no such thing as an altar
in the New Testament church for somebody to come down and pray
at. They didn't have those things. They didn't have invitations
where they invited people to come to Jesus. They didn't have
all these modern things that we see in these churches. And
so as a servant, what does a servant
do? A servant gets its orders and
then goes and does that for its master, okay? And so what do
we think? We think that we're a servant.
We think that we do have our rule book, so now that we're
gonna go out and do the things that we're gonna do. And so therefore,
we are under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the
father. Whenever you have a tutor, I think I mentioned this a few
weeks ago when we were talking about some of these things, but
a tutor or a governor, somebody that's over you like a taskmaster,
schoolmaster, what do they do? They tell you what to do, and
if you don't do it, do they offer you any way of doing it? No,
what do they do? They discipline you for not doing
it, right? They don't offer any help on how to do it or give
you any way to do it. They just tell you this is what
you need to do and if you don't do it, you know, you're going
to get the rod, you're going to get the spanking, you're going
to get whatever, the discipline. See, that's what the law is.
The law offers no ability to us at all. The law, if we study
the law, read the law, memorize the law, know every law that
God has made and love it as much as we can, which we can't, love
that law to the nth degree and try to go out and do it, there
is no way that we can keep that law. And the only thing that
the law offers whenever it's broken is condemnation and death. There is no alternative. The
law doesn't offer you a second chance. The law doesn't offer
you some moral support, oh, that's good, just pick yourself up and
go out and try again. The law doesn't say, oh, well,
God knows your heart, it's all right. The law doesn't say, hey,
you know, you tried, we give you an E for effort, go back
out there and do it again. The law doesn't say that. The
only thing that the law says is that the wages of sin is death,
nothing else. So the tutor, the governor, as
long as you're under that law, comes to you and the only thing
it says is, you missed the mark, now you're going to die. You
missed the mark, you're condemned. And there's no way to get out
of that condemnation on your own. There's no way to get out
from underneath the wage or the curse of the law. The curse of
the law is sin, and there's no way for us to get out of sin
because that's all the flesh can do is sin. So there is absolutely
no hope for any man, woman, and child to get out from underneath
that curse, except for Christ. Christ is the only way that any
man, woman, and child is brought out from underneath the curse.
And they're not brought out by them being reformed in their
life and then becoming more holy in their walk, they're brought
out from under the curse by Christ dying for them. And then in dying
for them, they have the imputed righteousness of God laid to
their account. God has forgiven them of all
their sins. God has justified them before
himself and his righteousness and his holiness. That's the
only way that you can be saved. There is no law keeping that
could ever save you. And Paul is trying to get this
across. The taskmaster, the schoolmaster, all he does is strike you. All
he does is condemn you. All he does is tell you, you
missed the mark. You missed the mark. You missed the mark. Look what it says. It says, but
as under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the
father. See, there is a time appointed by the father. that
we come into the knowledge of our salvation. Yes, the law is
crashing down upon us. We are guilty of all these things,
but yet there comes a time whenever the father comes to us and gives
us knowledge that we are his son. Let me ask you, I mentioned
this last week, remember the product of son. You know, he
went away from the father, took all that he had coming to him,
And he went out and he squandered away to the point where he ended
up, he was having to eat in a pig trough to stay alive. And it
squandered all of his things away, didn't have nothing. And
it was eaten with the pigs, which to a Jew is bad because the pig
is an unclean animal. And so there he was with the
unclean animal eating in a pig trough. But whenever the Bible
says that he came to himself, meaning that All of a sudden,
the thought come into his mind, he began to have a different
understanding of things. He said, hey, my servants are
treated better than what I'm having right now. He said, I'm
gonna go back to my father, and if I just have to be a servant,
I'd rather be a servant than where I'm at right now. But what
did he find? Whenever he went back, he found
out that his father still loved him. His father had forgiven
him of everything that he had done, and welcomed him back,
he put a robe on him and he fed, you know, he killed the fattened
calf, had a feast for him. I can only imagine that that
son at that point, after seeing how horrible he was, he was a
horrible son. He was a horrible example. He
had squandered everything that had been given to him, he had
lived in debauchery, he had lived in sinfulness, he had, you know,
ended up where he was. And listen, whenever he got back,
his father still treated him as a son. He probably felt more
like a son at that point than he did before he left. Before
he left, he didn't have really the knowledge of what it meant
to be a son until he went through all of that sin and came back
and found forgiveness. When he came to see that his
father loved him, despite his sin, that his father forgave
him of all of his sin, and that his father accepted him, not
based on anything that that son had done, other than the fact
that that son was in him as his son. And see, that's how it is
with us, brethren. We live our whole lives, and
God gives us all this time, however long a time it is, to see our
sinfulness, to live and see how misguided we are in our understanding. But there comes a time where
when we come to ourselves, and it's not by ourselves, we come
to ourselves because God has given us understanding. He's
given us knowledge. He's given us repentance and
faith. And then we see, and who do we
go to? We don't go back to the law. The kid, whenever he came
back to his father and he found out that You know, he was still
a son and that everything was good. He didn't say, well, awesome.
I'm going to go back and do all these other things because I
think I can get it right this time whenever I leave. No, what
did he do? He stayed there under his father's
care as a son. And so we see here, that's what
the law was given to us. And so he says, but we are under
tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.
So there is a time when we no longer need the law to tell us
this thing. And what is it, that point in
time? Well, that's repentance, that's
faith that is granted to us by God. And he says, even so we,
when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
And that's what I wanted to talk about mostly today, is being
under the elements of the world. What is this talking about? Well,
that word element there, in your Bibles is translated a couple
different ways. One is rudiments and one is elements. That Greek word that's behind
there, this word means to march straight. We are under marching
orders. We are under something that tells
us to keep in step. You know, you think of the army.
I've never been in the military or anything like that. I've watched
lots of military shows. And I know people who've been
in the military, and listen, they are relentless. They are
ruthless in getting men trained for war. And in doing so, there
is no give. There is no softness there that
whenever that drill sergeant tells you to do something, you
do it. If you don't do it, you're punished
immediately. I mean, it is a relentless, of
your person and that is telling you you're going to walk in step.
You're going to do what I say. You're going to do exactly what
is told to you. No questions asked. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. That's all it's going to be.
That's kind of what this word is. This word rudiment or this
word elements is comes from a word that means an outward religion
or an outward form of walking. And so it says here that we were
under or in bondage under the elements of the world or the
outward religion, the outward walk of religion of this world. The word here also means that
it could be not only just an outward religion, but it means
that we are under the bondage of its understanding of things,
of how it tells us to walk instead. And so here we see it, and if
you think about it, all of us at one time was under that as
well, even whenever we began to be religious. Some people,
like me, I grew up in church my whole entire life. And so
in growing up under church, I never was out in the world where I
so to speak, didn't know anything about the church or anything
about Jesus or anything like that. I grew up hearing about
this stuff all the time. Doesn't mean I was saved, but
I mean, that I was, uh, that it was, uh, converted or anything,
but in growing up underneath there, uh, you know, I, I had
an understanding of, you know, religion. Well, um, whenever
that gets ingrained in our mind, we think, Hey, this is how I
got to live this. I mean, even today, Knowing the
truth of scripture, it still is in our nature to have an outward
form of religion to prove who we are, to prove what we are,
to make ourselves look good to everybody else. I mean, whenever
you go to church, don't you try to dress up a little more or
try to act a little more godly, act a little more holy? You talk
about things, you know, I noticed that sometimes You know, whenever
you're around certain people, you know, they may have a foul
language. But whenever they come around a Christian, what do they
do? Oh, anytime they say something bad, you know, they're like,
oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm
sorry. Why? Because they know that you are
a Christian and that that is bad. We shouldn't be doing that. So they think because they're
around you, they shouldn't be doing that. As a preacher, people
that know that I'm a preacher, some of my customers, they know
I'm a pastor and a preacher. And sometimes they'll do stuff
or say stuff, and they're like, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you were
a preacher. Like I'm some sort of a holy relic that they should,
you know, be pleasing or something. You know, that's outward form
of religion. That's how our nature is. They think, we think that
we have to clean ourselves up on the outside to make ourselves
presentable, acceptable to God, and to also show to others how
good we are. And that's our natural bend. But here it says, We're in bondage. That is actually bondage to think
and live under a walk-in step religion that you have to walk
in step to be acceptable or to be kept, that that is actually
bondage. That this is the elemental thing.
The Jews, whenever they, this word that, I'm sorry, not the
Jews, the Greeks, this word that's used here, whenever they heard
this, The rudiments are the elemental things of the world. The way
the Jews understood these things, they understood these things
as like ABCs and one, two, three. What's the first thing you learn
whenever you start going into school? A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You learn your alphabet, right?
You learn one, two, three. You learn how to count, okay? Those are the rudiment or the
elemental things of learning. We have to learn the alphabet
before we can learn to read. We have to learn numbers before
we can learn to do math. We have to learn those rudiment,
elemental things. Well, this is what this is talking
about. We are in bondage to the elemental
thing. We are in bondage to the very
first thing that is being taught to us by God when we come into
repentance and faith is that the law is there to tell us of
our inability, not as a walking rule of life. That's the elemental
thing. The Bible here is equating the
law with the rudiments or the elemental things of the world,
which is the very basics. The very basics of Christianity,
the very basics of learning the gospel, the very basics of anything
in doctrine is to first know that you cannot keep the law.
It's not something that we teach people way on down the line.
Like I said last week, keep some things for more mature believers.
The very first thing that people ought to hear is this is what
the law says. But guess what? You can't keep
it. That's the very rudiment thing of the world. And we are
in bondage to that. We have ourselves in bondage
to that each time we think that we can be righteous before God
by doing self-righteous things. That's disregarding the very
rudiment, very fundamental things of Christianity. Therefore, we
are in bondage to the very elemental things, elementary things. That's
like saying right now, you kids who are at the age that you are
still in your schoolwork, learning your ABCs. By now, you should
know more than your ABCs. Well, for a Christian who has
been given knowledge spiritual knowledge, who's been given repentance
and faith, and as the Holy Spirit teaches them, they should be
past the point now, and that's kind of what Paul's telling the
Galatians here. He said, listen, the gospel, remember, he told
him, he said, you know, but I certify you, brethren, that the gospel
which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ. He said, you know, what I taught
you was what came from Christ. This is not what I taught you.
He said, you're going back to the very rudiment and elemental
things, and you're being held in bondage by this understanding
that the law can make you righteous and holy. And that's the very
first thing that the gospel should have taught you is that you are
unrighteous. That's the very first thing.
That's your ABCs and one, two, threes, and you're going back
from the death of the gospel of Christ, saving you and being
your righteousness and you being complete in him. And then you're
turning back and thinking that you can do something of your
own accord. He said, that's going back and being in bondage to
the rudiments of the world. He says, verse four, but when
the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of
a woman, made under the law. So that means that he was born
in flesh and blood like we are. He was made of flesh and blood,
born of a woman, born of a woman. I'm not going to get off on that.
There's some thoughts I have on that, whether or not he actually
got his humanity or his manhood from Mary or whether it was already
existing. I believe it was already existing,
but however. But when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might
receive the adoption of sons so that the reason that Christ
came and died for us and kept the law fulfilled the law for
them is to redeem his people who were under the law who were
under this mentality of religiosity that I can be something before
God by keeping the law. He came to redeem us. From the
law. Now I want you to pay close attention
to the wording of that. He came to redeem us. What does it say there? That
we're under the law so that we might receive the adoption of
the son. To realize you don't have to keep the law to be my
son. You're already my son. You're my son. And because you're
sons, God has sent forth his spirit of his son. He didn't
send forth the Spirit because you're a good law keeper. He
didn't send forth His Spirit because you are a fine, outstanding
Christian or a Baptist or a whatever. Or a Luddist or a Jehovah's Witness
or a Church of God, Church of Christ, Catholic, whatever. He
didn't send His Spirit because you did any of that. Why did
He send His Spirit into you to bring you from a childlike understanding
to a mature understanding? Why did he do that? Because you're
his son. That's what we talked about last
week. Therefore, excuse me, and because
you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. What do you do whenever the spirit
comes in and gives you understanding and knowledge and brings you
from that child understanding to a mature understanding? You
quit looking to yourself and you cry, I'm a father. You begin
to look to your father for help. The Bible says, we look, I don't
want to mess it up. We look under the heaven whence
come our help. Our help comes from Christ. We
look to our father, Jesus Christ. He is our help. He is our righteousness. Abraham saw Christ and counted
Christ as his righteousness. He says, wherefore thou art no
more a servant. So now in our understanding,
we see whenever the child of grace has been born from above,
given the spirit of God, and then at a point in time, whenever
God comes and grants repentance and faith and gives us the knowledge
of our salvation, as 1 Corinthians says, to show us or to teach
us that that has been freely given to us, whenever that point
comes, then our understanding is changed. We turn from wrong
thinking to right thinking. And what do we start thinking?
That, hey, we are sons and that we are no more a servant. I am
no longer trying to keep the laws and the rules for acceptance. I am no longer a servant. I don't
have a rule book now telling me this is what I have to do
to be right before God. This is what I have to do to
be holy. This is what I have to do to
be saved. This is what I have to do to keep my salvation. I
don't have that anymore. I'm no longer a servant, but
a son. What does a son do? He enjoys
the inheritance. He enjoys, he rests in the fact
that I am his son. I am the son of the king. I am the son of Christ. I rest
in what he did. His work on my behalf is enough,
not only for God, which is the most important. If it wasn't
good enough for God, then we're all dead. We're all goners, okay? But it was good enough for him.
If it was good enough for God, then it ought to be good enough
for us. How be it then, when ye knew
not God, ye did service unto them, which by nature are no
gods. But now, after that ye have known
God, been brought to an understanding of God and salvation and righteousness
of Christ, or rather known of God, how turn ye again, here
he is saying it again, to the weak and beggarly elements, where
unto you ye desire again to be in bondage? He said you've been
brought out from underneath the law, now why do you want to turn
around and go back in? Because that's called bondage.
That's called servitude. That's called keeping in step.
That's called being under discipline. And what's the discipline? The
only discipline the law can bring you is condemnation of death.
The discipline isn't go sit in that corner for a little while
until you've learned your lesson, then get back in the game. No,
it's death. Bondage. Now, Paul uses this
term, elements of the world, or this rudiments of the world,
in several places in scripture. He's already used it once. Turn
with me to Galatians chapter two and I want to show you this,
what the Bible says about this. A lot of people don't think that
the rudiments or the elements that I'm talking about here is
actually talking about the law. They're thinking it's talking
about other things, worldly things, you know, the elements of the
world. It's talking about how you used to act as the world
used to act and all this kind of stuff. Well, the world still
acts like someone with an outward religion. Even though, look,
Don't take Christianity, I'm talking about take anybody. Take
anybody that's outside of Christianity. What do the Buddhists believe?
You gotta be a good person. What do the Hindus believe? You
gotta be a good person. You know, what does Jehovah's
Witness teach? You gotta be a good person. What do the Catholics
believe? You gotta be a good person. I mean, you take every
religion in the world and it tells you that you need to work
and do something to be rewarded. Works for reward. It's all works
religion. Christianity is the only place
where you're taught the exact opposite. That it's grace, not
works. Grace is what rewards you. God
giving you grace gives you the reward. God giving you grace
to be in Christ Jesus as his children is what gives you the
reward at the end. So it's just the opposite. It's
not talking about that. It's talking about the rudiments
of religion or Christianity. It's talking about exactly the
thing that Paul is arguing in this whole letter is that you
are not saved or kept by law keeping. That is elementary in
our understanding of Christianity and the gospel. We are not saved
by words. We are not kept by words. Now look in Galatians chapter
two, verse four, remember he said this, and that because of
false brethren, false brethren, not true brethren, false brethren,
unawares brought in, who came in prevalently to spy out our
liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring
us into bondage. See, the gospel is a gospel of
liberty, freedom. from being out from underneath
the law. Christ has nailed all of our sin to the cross. And we are no longer in bondage
to the law anymore. But what does it say here? There
are those who come in and they see our liberty. There are those
religious zealots who come in and want to say, well, these
guys They have no regard for all the laws of Moses. You know,
they don't keep the laws of God. They don't believe that they're
under the law. Well, they're anti-Gnomian. They're lawless.
They're without law, which isn't true. You gotta define which
law. Are we under the Old Testament,
Old Covenant law? No, we're not. That was fulfilled
in Christ on our behalf. He fulfilled the law of God on
our behalf. We are under the law of Christ.
which is to believe on him. That's the law of Christ. But
it says here, they come in that they might bring us into bondage. You've seen in our verse in chapter
four in verse nine, but now after that ye have known God or rather
known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements,
same word, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage. The law
brings us back into Bondage, look at chapter five in verse
one. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free. Now that's what God's telling
us. Stand fast in liberty, not in
bondage. Stand fast in the fact that you
are a child of God and you have been freed from the law. He says, stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. What's the yoke of
bondage? The law. Remember whenever they
had the Jerusalem council and they were talking about the Gentiles,
Paul and Barnabas had come in and was telling them about the
Gentiles being saved and that all this stuff that was going
on and that some of the members of that Jerusalem council who
were Judaizers stood up and said, yeah, but we need to make sure
that they're circumcised, that they keep the law of Moses. And
what did the apostles do? They stood up and they said,
well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Why would you put a yoke around
the neck of the Gentiles who have never been under the law
when we who have been under the law know that we've never kept
the law? Nobody has ever kept the law.
So why would you now go out and preach the law for them to keep
the law for salvation or to keep the law to stay safe? Why would you go out and preach
that to someone who's never been under that yoke? Why put that
yoke on them? That yoke is a yoke of death
and condemnation. And that's what Paul's saying
here. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of the law.
Might as well just say the yoke of the law. Look at Colossians, if you will.
Chapter two. Colossians chapter two. Let's
look at verse 8. Let's back up to verse 6. It
says, As ye therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk
ye in Him. Now let me stop right there.
How did we receive Christ Jesus the Lord? How did we receive
Him? Well, the Bible tells us that
we received Him by faith. We received Him by faith. Not
that we got saved by faith, hit our faith. Not that it wasn't
until our faith was exercised that he give us his spirit. That's
not what that's saying. We received the understanding
and knowledge of our salvation and our airship in Christ Jesus
by faith. See, Christ had to give us repentance,
turning from wrong knowledge to right knowledge, and faith
seeing the right knowledge and then trusting in that right knowledge
alone for our salvation. He had to give us faith to receive
Christ as our salvation. Abraham was given faith to receive
Christ as his righteousness. So do we, we have to be given
faith. And so how did we receive Christ? We received him by faith.
So what does it say? As ye have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, go walk in the law, walk under the rule
of the law. Is that what it says? No, it
says, so walk ye in him. How do we walk before God? We've
got saved. That was our legal salvation
before God. That was by the cross. Everybody,
even in, you know, false Christianity says that, oh, it's by the cross
alone. Oh, Jesus and his blood and righteousness. They sing the song, there is
a fountain filled with blood drawn from the angels veins.
They believe that the cross is the place where Jesus saved everyone. But brother, it says here, not
that we then say, all right, we were saved at the cross. Now
we go walk in the law. It's saying as we receive Christ
Jesus and what he did on that cross as our salvation, then
we also walk trusting Christ in keeping us. See, There's two
words in the scripture that talks about us being kept from the
time that we're born to the time that we die and to keep us from
falling away or apostatizing or falling away from the faith.
And that is called persevere. The Bible admonishes us to persevere
in the faith. The Bible says, only those who
endure to the end shall be saved. And there are some people that
say, well, there you go. We have to endure. So we got to get this
law book out and we got to start doing what it says. We got to
endure to the end, otherwise we'll fall away. And if we just
dabble in sin and if we break the law and if we don't do this
or don't do that or do this or do that, then we're going to
fall away. So we have to preserve ourselves
or persevere ourselves. But the Bible says there's another
word, a P word, it's preservation. Preserved. Same coin. Two sides. The Bible tells us
to persevere in the faith, but on the flip side of that coin,
the Bible says that it is Christ who causes us to be preserved. We are preserved in Christ Jesus,
the Bible says. We are preserved. It is He who
keeps us from falling, according to the scriptures. Okay? So,
it says, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
So walk ye in him rooted and built up in him, not in your
walk, not in your actions, rooted and built up in him and established
in the faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with
thanksgiving. So as we've been taught the gospel,
we walk in the gospel. We look at the Christ and him
alone is our salvation and our keeping. And give thanks for
that. That's why we pray and thank
Christ for what He has done for us. That's why we come and we
worship. We worship Christ in thanksgiving
for what He has done for us. And then it says, verse eight,
now watch it. This is where it says, beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after
the traditions of men and after the rudiments of the world and
not after Christ. So there's two things that can
be an attack against your liberty in Christ Jesus. Two things that
can be an attack against your mind about the gospel. One is the traditions of men,
which is philosophy, vain deceit, okay? They philosophize. You come to these law keepers
that claim to be Christian, what do they say? What's the first
thing they say? And I'll tell you, I've had many
conversations, and whenever I talk about being freed from the law
and things like that, one of the very first conversations,
one of the first questions that pops up in any kind of Facebook
thread or anything like this is, so are you saying we can
just live the way that we want to live? Do whatever we want
to do? The second question usually is,
so you're an antinomian? The third question is, so We
just disregard the law and the law is not holy and righteous
then? That's usually the questions
that you get. And all those questions is absolutely no. We don't believe
that, okay? We don't believe that, okay? It says, beware lest any man
spoil you. See, if you listen to those who,
through philosophy, vain deceit, after the traditions of men,
and those who are preaching that you are to walk in the law for
righteousness, that is going to spoil you. Not spoil you in
a good way, spoil you in a bad way. What happens whenever something
spoils? How many of you guys have gone
into the refrigerator and opened something up? Well, here we go. Last night I was in the mood
for some orange juice. I remember we had some orange
juice in the in the refrigerator, but orange juice had been in
there for a little while. And I went in there, and your mom
had gotten that out, and I was like, man, all right, man, I
was wanting a glass of that. It wasn't any good. It wasn't
any good. It was spoiled. It was bad. It went bad, okay? What does that mean? It means
it got spoiled. It got nasty. It got gross. It began to rot or to ferment. Don't let the rudiments of this
world, the law, don't let philosophy and vain deceit in the traditions
of men. See, we're coming into a holiday
season that is a tradition of men. Easter, tradition of men. You see all these things that
are the traditions of men that are pressed on you by religion,
by religion, by religion. Coming through the altar, that's
a tradition of men. Confessing before the church
and saying, you know, writing down your name on a card or whatever,
whatever activity you got to do so that you're saved. That's
all the tradition of men. Every head bowed and every eye
closed. Have you ever been in a service where someone has said that?
Every head bowed and every eye closed. Now, if you feel that
the Lord is calling you today, raise your hand. No one looking
around. No one coming forward. Or excuse
me, no one looking around, no one peeking. But just lift your
hand up. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.
Just lift your hand up. And they slipped their hands
up. And then what does those false preachers do? They said,
well, everyone that raised your hand, you need to come forward
and make your profession known to everybody. Because the Bible
says that if you don't confess me before men, I won't confess
you before the Father. Well, what was the whole purpose
of every head bowed and every eye closed? And you're raising
your hand silently. No one looking around. whenever
the end of it is you coming forward and openly, publicly telling
everybody, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It's a
tradition of man. That's not found anywhere in
the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible. And how many of us have done
it? How many of us have seen it been done? How many of us
have thought in our mind, well, this is just how it's supposed
to be. Why? Because that's what we've seen
our whole lives. Because we've been surrounded by people who
through philosophy, and vain to see after the tradition of
men and after the rudiments of the world have preached to us
religion and not Christ. They've preached to us religion
and not Christ. So see, this rudiment of the
world is something that is something that can spoil us. Look at Hebrews
chapter 9. A couple more verses and we'll
be done here. Hebrews chapter 9. Look with me if you would. Let's see. Let's start at verse six. Verse 10
is what I really wanted to look at, but let's start at verse
six. It says, now when these things were thus ordained, the
priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the
service of God. But in the second went the high
priest alone, once every year, not without Blood. See, even
this priest could not do service without blood. The only thing
that counted was blood. The blood superseded everything. If they went in and did service,
but the blood wasn't the main focus of it, it wasn't service.
That priest could have went in and out that tabernacle all day
long, all day long. But unless there's shedding of
blood, there is no remission of sin. Everything is purified
with blood. Blood was the central part of
that whole service system of the priests. But into the second with the
high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which
he offered for himself and for the errors of the people, the
Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all
was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was yet
standing. That's why Christ destroyed that
tabernacle that was left. That's why he told the religious
leaders before he died, he said, tear down that tabernacle and
in three days I'll rise up. They thought he was talking about
that tabernacle. He did destroy that tabernacle, by the way.
But he was talking about the tabernacle of his flesh. He said,
tear down that tabernacle, because that tabernacle represented him
and his people. That tabernacle represented him
and his people. Tear that down in three days,
I'll raise it up again. And it wasn't until after his
death that what happened. There was a great earthquake
in the veil of that temple. The thing that separated that
first tabernacle from the second that separated the Holy of Holies,
where that priest went in with blood to offer that sacrifice,
there was a veil that was there. And nobody could go inside that
Holy of Holies, nobody, except for one priest, one time a year. And the only way that he could
go in is if he had already purified himself and had followed God
exactly in what he was wearing and prepared himself And then
he went in with blood and only him alone. And listen, tradition
tells us, history tells us, that those men, when they went in,
they would tie a rope around their foot. That whenever they
went in, in case they did not do something that God had told
them to do or did something that God told them not to do, and
God killed them, they'd pull them out of the Holy of Holies
with that rope because they weren't allowed to go inside there. Only
the high priest could go in. Wherever the high priest was
that year, he was the one that went in and he went in not without
blood. If he went in there without blood,
he died. That tells us if we try to do our service without
blood, we die. Because all we're doing is trying
to follow the law instead of looking to the blood. Look to
the blood. The blood is what does it. So
he says here, the Holy Ghost is signifying that the way of
the Holy is of all was not yet made manifest while the first
tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure for the time
then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that
could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining
to the conscience, which stood only in meats and drinks and
divers washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time
of reformation. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with heads, excuse me, that is to say, not
of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and of the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling of the
unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot of God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God? There it is. We're purged from
dead works. What are dead works? Trying to keep the law. See,
that's dead works. That's works in vain. Those men
continuing in that service would continue in that service in vain,
because that service, even though God ordained for that service
to be there, it was to point and show towards Christ's more
excellent ministry, but that service was there, it never did
cleanse the conscience. See, now, we are given faith,
repentance and faith, that our conscience might be cleared,
that we might be cleared of our conscience, just like Paul said,
I know that in me dwelleth no good thing, O wretched man that
I am. I will serve the law of sin with
my flesh." But he said, therefore there is now no condemnation.
My conscience is cleared. Who can separate anyone? Who
can separate any of God's elect? Nothing can separate us from
the love of God. Why? Because of Christ, because
of His blood. That has cleansed our conscience.
Do we sin? Yes. Do we know that we sin?
Yes. Do we acknowledge we sin? Yes. Do we confess our sin? Yes,
but in our conscience, faith has given us the ability to look
to Christ alone and it keeps pushing us to Christ alone where
our conscience is clear. We no longer are worried about
our missed failures or our mishaps and our failures and things like
that. But what did it say? Which stood only in meats and
drinks and divers washing. See, these are all the elemental
rudimentary things. These are law-keeping things.
that are imposed upon them until the time of Reformation, or until
the time that Christ came. And he put away those things.
He fulfilled the law, and then he put away our bondage. We are no longer in bondage to
him. All right, we'll stop right there.
We are gonna continue on in this thought next week, Lord willing. Are you gonna be here next week?
Yeah. After Christmas? We're going to continue in these
things next week, Lord willing, and because I want to talk a
little more and go through the scriptures. I've gathered a few
scriptures together about the law so that we can see just like
what Paul's telling here, you know, grace, good, law, bad. Okay. We want to see that the
Bible does teach this, not just in a little bit, Because I hear
this from people all the time, you're taking a few verses out
of its context. What about all the verses that
tells us about this law and that law and this law and that law?
Again, what was the law given to us for? To show us our inability
to keep it. To push us to trust and depend
upon Christ alone. That's what the law has given.
So anyway, I want to look next week and we're going to look
at some scriptures. We're just going to kind of start at the
beginning of the New Testament, mainly in Acts and Romans. And
we're gonna work our way through the New Testament and show in
several places where the law, where the Bible talks about the
law and what our attitude towards it should be. And so that's in
keeping with what we're seeing here today about not listening
to the rudimentary and elementary things of this world, but looking
into Christ Jesus and what he has said. So we need to see what
Christ Jesus has said about the law and about himself, right?
All right, anybody got any questions or comments or anything? All
right, let's pray. Father, we once again thank you
for Christ Jesus. And Father, our hope has been
that you have been here with us today, enabling us for this
worship, enabling us for these things. Lord, I pray that the
things that I've preached this morning have not been under the
wisdom of man, but it's truly been truth as It's revealed in
Christ Jesus and in this word. Father, I pray that anything
that is of truth, I hope that you have edified your people
by it. Lord, we pray once again for
those that are here, that you might convert them by the gospel,
that they might receive Christ Jesus as their salvation, that
they might receive him as their righteousness, account him as
their righteousness, Father, and that they might that they
might repent of their false understanding of how they are saved, how they
are kept righteous, kept in this life, Lord, and that they might
trust in you alone. They might come and proclaim
their faith through baptism and they might be received into the
church and be partakers of the ordinances of the church. Lord,
we thank you for all that you have done for us again. I pray,
Lord, as always, that you might help keep this church faithful
and that we might continue to be a light and a witness to this
community. Lord, we pray for other believers that may be scattered
throughout our area, that you might bring them to worship here,
Lord, that they might find a place of like faith and practice, that
they might come, Lord, to be part of the worship. Not that
we might tout how many people we have in our services, that's beside any point, Lord. That
is nothing important. But Lord, that we might have
others to join in the service of Christ, and Lord, that we
might be edified by them, and that we might have fellowship
one with another. Lord, we just pray that you might
exalt Christ Jesus through everything that we Uh, preach and everything
that we, uh, deliver, uh, in the form of tracks and, uh, sermon
audio or Facebook live, or we pray that it would be exalting
to Christ Jesus and it'd be for his glory and not for ours. And
that he might be the one that is seen. And, uh, Lord, we truly
want to, uh, uh, put forth Christ, uh, in everything that we do.
And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.