Freed from the Law, for the Law

Down Summit my pastor Jeannie Greer talks about the relationship between the law and grace. When you summarize the walls love God, love of the people, and then you'll obey all the commandments. What is really required to be free from the wall and when I rule because I realized how much trouble I'm here because I don't love God and I don't love others like I love myself and I can't change my heart through simple obedience.

What the law does is the mirror is it drives me to see how desperate my heart is all sin sick it is and how badly I need a Savior like the Bible teaching ministry of pastor Dr. Elysian Jeannie Greer.

As always, I'm your host Molly events you question. Is Christianity and religion or is it a relationship.

After all, religion is about what you do. While the gospel is about what God did for you and if that's the case then why do Christians still feel like they have to follow a certain set of rules why we still go to church and read our Bibles and try to obey the 10 Commandments strategic answers these questions today as he continues her series called freedom between the title of this message, free from the law for the law. So grab your Bible and turn to Galatians 3 that today Galatians as I hope many of you are probably a dozen times now, this series of reason you can't help but ask yourself the question, where did all get this hatred of the law, people had grown up on the wall but in Galatians Paul attacks the wall mercilessly is to say things like, in chapter 3 for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. The law is not even based on faith metal laws based on your own ability to do things and it tells you that the one who does these things will live by them. In chapter 5, Paul is going to completely take the gloves often and say this about those who teach adherence to the law as a means of getting close to God. I wish those who still preach circumcision might also let themselves be mutilators of your translations.

They emasculated bear which is much closer translation will Paul say it. This is honestly one of the most jarring statements in the Bible. Paul is literally saying I would like to see those who insist on circumcision. Let the knife drift up a little farther so that they can't reproduce their heresy anymore. This is Paul speaking of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Paul has made the case in the first half of chapter 3 pretty convincingly, but the law plays absolutely no part in getting us declared righteous in God's sight, nor Kim obedience to the law produce the first tremor of spiritual life in our hearts is biblical proof for this is is Abraham.

Abraham, who in his old age believed God's promise that he would have a child even photo for nearly a century, he and his wife and tried to have kids but could not. Yet when Abraham believed God's promises promise, Genesis 15 tells us that two things happened Abraham number one. He was judicially counted righteous before God, which meant that you Genesis 56 he was declared righteous's faith was credited to him as righteousness. The second thing that happened to him was new life flooded into his physically dead body so that he could reproduce Paul as was this owing to any inner strength and Abraham was it a new technique that he learned a new mental mindset that he had adopted that release this power in him no of course not the righteousness and power. Paul points out were gifts from God. Abraham obtained them simply by believing the promise in the same way Paul says we, you and me are declared judicially righteous. When we believe God's promise that Jesus died for our sin and rose again and we receive spiritual power through the Holy Spirit as we continue to believe that by the way, it is amazing how unified the Bible is and what it teaches about salvation from cover to cover in the Bible there is one way of salvation, and that is the faith in God's promise in the Old Testament, they were saved by believing that God will keep his promise that Jesus would come in the New Testament rose by looking backwards is a God did keep his promise and Jesus came and died for our sin, and in both testaments, when you put faith in what God said he would do righteousness is credited to your account, and spiritual life is released into your heart, with all that is true then here is the very natural question is there no purpose then follow all arrears of the apostle Paul would say in verse 21 is the law. Therefore, contrary doesn't somehow go against God's promises. After all, didn't the law originally come from God. Didn't he inspire law we still use laws in our society today to good effect. We even use laws, sometimes in church anything about how often we say things like, well, you should read the Bible you should pray you should go to church even when you don't feel like you should door use the time to get your first fruits to God, even when you don't feel like it's you should flee temptation even when you feel like indulging in in those temptations.

Those are all statements of law.

Is Paul telling us to reject all of that kind of talk or think about it this way, say some married man comes up to me after one of our services of these as pastor. I was walking to the mall the other day and I saw this really beautiful woman in front of me smell my wife to dress and really skimpy clothing and pastor I knew what I was supposed to think I knew what a truly righteous heart would think a truly righteous heart would look at her and say this woman, while beautiful is not God's will for me. She is not just some object for my sexual pleasure in honoring my wife and honoring her and honoring the God who saved me are far more satisfying and important to me than indulgence and lust would be faster. I knew that's what I was supposed to be thinking, but that is not what I actually was thinking my thoughts toward her. In that moment were entirely immoral and isn't forcing myself to do what's right that is turning the other direction and going home to my wife and not relying on the law. Well I didn't want to be a Galatian heretic, so I acted on my heart's desires and I got the girls number and then I went home and believe the gospel to get God's forgiveness not you think I'm to say that's great work that's exactly how I was hoping you would understand and apply the book of Galatians. No of course not, but think about it, didn't tell them this guy to force himself to choose one thing, even though his heart wants something else.

Isn't that using the wall in his life. Is Paul saying that is bad will obviously know that I will say however that the fact that you have that question is a good one. And it shows that you're really starting to understand what Paul is teaching both frequently and is teaching about the gospel has to stop and answer that question is in the middle of the Romans to resign and are you I'm not really saying that is due on seminary what one of the signs that you're starting to feel the radical implications of the gospel is that you start to ask the question of whether or not Paul was telling you that you go do whatever you want.

They'll Paul got a really good answer for that question. But my point is that if you don't ever find yourself asking the question, you probably get to grasp a truly radical things that the gospel is teaching here Paul gives his answer start in verse 19. Why then was the law given it was added for the sake of transgressions, until the seed of the promise was made would come is the law.

Therefore, contrary to God's promises absolutely not worth 22 the Scripture in prison for the law everything under since power so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe the law then here's a keyword was our guardian.

I was our guardian until Christ so that we could be justified by faith. Verse 25 but since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian for through faith. You are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. A keyword there is guardian. Some translations will say to your schoolmaster. Paul is referring here to a schoolteacher or an Manny who oversees a child training them up in the ways of adulthood and making sure they don't kill themselves accidentally before they become adults. Three ways Paul says the law is like our guardian or tutor our Navy or schoolteacher and these are the three ways by the way, the ongoing uses of the law and the life of a believer. Okay three ongoing uses of the law by laws being God's commands about what we should and shouldn't do with or talk about 10 Commandments are coming to church and doing the quiet times of the like that three ongoing uses of the law in our lives. First three metaphors first law is a curb is a curb through threats of punishment or consequences. The law keeps our simple natures and check we obey sometimes to be because were scared of the consequences, forcing ourselves to obey the law does not erase the presence of sin in our hearts, because sin consist primarily of corrupt desires, and these are to be present in us, whether we act on our impulses are not by obeying the law to keep us from the further damage that is caused by acting on sin to go back to our illustration of the man in the mall. It is true that the root of this man's sin is in his heart and that is not going to be cured by the fact that he doesn't follow the impulse to the floor with this girl but by obeying God's will is not to engage in adultery evenly done for like abatement law. He keeps himself from the further damage that sin would bring like destroying his wife and family like this. Honoring this girl like corrupting his own heart or displeasing God to the law says that him you may feel like committing adultery but this is what it do to your marriage and your family, your heart, and the glory of God to this man obeys the law even when he didn't feel like it because it curbs the effects the harmful effects of the sick.the first thing it does is it curbs the effect of sin number two.

The loss for us as a mirror below reveals to us as if looking in the mirror how simple our heart actually is because the wall reveals to us what a righteous heart is supposed to look like, and when we look in the law, we see what our heart does look like, and it leads us to despair is resealed twisted heart is not just we are for Savior commandment number nine.

For example, thou shalt not lie tells me that I'm supposed to love honesty so much that I never even tempted to lie even when a little lies going to get media advantage or it's going to get me out of a bad situation. Commandment number seven. Do not commit adultery shows me that I'm supposed to love purity so much that any sexual desire I have for somebody else besides my spouse gets outweighed by my love of purity and doing things God's way. Commandment number six thou shalt not kill shows me that I'm supposed to be so aware of God's kindness to me I wouldn't dare think a harmful thought about something happening to somebody else. Commandment number 10 you shall not covet shows me that I'm supposed to be so satisfied with God and so trusting of his plan for me that I don't get jealous even when somebody else get something that I wanted that's what I'm supposed to be like.

But when I look in the mirror of those laws I say I'm in deep trouble because those of the opposite of what my heart usually feels in those moments, and merely forcing my heart to do the right thing is not going to change my heart ever. The law compared in this regard to a thermometer rather than a thermostat thermometer tells you the temperature to change temperature, you'll get sick thermometer inside to hold your mouth and you'll get better. I just tells you what's the temperature is a thermostat can change the temperature below is the thermometer that shows you how sin sick your heart really is.

The gospel is going be the thermostat is going to change her spiritual temperature. When you force yourself to obey the law when you force yourself to do it, even when you don't want to do it in a couple things happen.

One, you really start to resent the law and your obedience becomes very short-lived. Even when the pressures of the Lord there. You can form at the moment there's pressures are gone, you go back to the original state of your heart here so you hear that you got a high school student who went there around right influences mom and dad are the law thereafter one way, but when there with their friends and parents are around. They act a different way because their hearts in the shape of your or we put so much pressure on them to conform you, do this you gotta be this you gotta talk about Jesus that when they finally leave high school go to college. They feel like I am free. I finally out from underneath that tyranny. I hated my parents rules. I hated always be drug to church and now I just throw off all my faith because I have snapped spiritually. Paul says that's what happens when we just try to change through the wall we end up resenting God. It's like Martin Luther talked about the law to the law made me hate God, the more the law showed me what I should be. The more I realize how much I was it Luther talked about the dilemma of the great commandment in the great commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the dilemma that is God is commanding us, something that by definition can't really be commanded because if you don't love something that no command can make you love it. I hate mayonnaise mayonnaise is the nectar of the devil. I don't think it's good to be in heaven having God as as as as early segmentation for me is gotten rid of that taste out of my mouth is disgusting thank you comments.

I hated you. If you command me to eat Manny if you're strong enough you might force mediated no command your Skamania love it right.

The flipside of that is also true of already love something only to be commanded to love it or to do it. You never have to command me to eat a steak or kiss my wife or play with my kids. I love those things I don't need to be commanded to do them. And Luther said that's the dilemma is always commanding us to do something that if we don't love it, we can't be commanded to love it if we do love it really to be commanded. This is so you think about it wouldn't statement what the law requires is freedom from the law when you summarize the laws love God, love other people and then you'll obey all the commandments. What is really required to be free from the law and when I realize I realize how much trouble I'm in because I don't love God and I don't love others like I love myself and I can't change my heart through simple obedience. What the law does as the mirror is it drives me to see how desperate my heart is how sin sick it is and how badly I need a Savior to know what Paul said.

Verse 19. Why was the Lord given it was our guardian. It was a tutor that brought me to Christ, so that I could be justified by faith, so that the change that I'm looking for would not come from me, it would come from what he did in his life giving resurrection power would flow into me as I trusted in his work and not my own. So it's a mirror is a curve that keeps us from the further damage of sand. It's a mirror that shows us are need of a Savior. Thirdly, it is false as a guide, it is a guy or a compass or a map after being saved. The loss shows us the best way that we can please the God we now love you see the law perfectly reveals God's character to us and it shows us what a life that is pleasing to God look like illustration I use for this last week was that the law is like railroad tracks. Railroad tracks can point to the direction that you're supposed to go by the railroad tracks are powerless to move the freight along the tracks right, you need an engine to move freight along the tracks.

The gospel is the locomotive that moves the freight of your obedience along to the tracks even after you got the engine, however, that the tracks the law can be helpful in showing us the direction that we need to go. You could say in that sense. By the way that the law drives us to grace, but in our experience of grace drives us back to the law. The law drives us in desperation to grace within our experience of grace drives us in devotion and love back to the law, having been justified by grace we now desire to please the God who has saved us and we learn how to do that from the law. Thoughts go back to her married guy in the mall for a minute and try to pull all this together.

What this guy should say in that moment when he is feeling those immoral thinking those immoral thoughts about this woman is. He should say this in his heart God. I know that I should love, faithfulness and purity more than I desire this woman, but I don't right now and that desire reveals how sin sick. My heart actually is not. I'm not going to act on this impulse as I know that it would harm my marriage. It would harm this woman.

It would further entrench since power my own heart and would dishonor you but I realize God that my force obedience here is not to heal the distorted desires of my heart.

Only you can do that through the power of the resurrection, and that power flows only from the finished work of Christ.

Therefore, while I force myself to do the thing that I don't want to do right now I am looking to you, trusting in the power of the spirit on the basis of the finished work of Christ for you to change my heart, so that one day I love purity more than I desire last that's what you should say remember all that when I'm in the mall.

I understand okay and of course to say this got them. It's usually the right thing, but I really want to do the wrong thing, please. Because of Jesus fix my broken water that's basically what you're saying those of the three ongoing uses of the law for the Christian, you see it's a curve is a curve that keeps us from the further damage that sin would cause in our lives is a mirror that shows us how simple we are not desperate. We offer Savior brings us to call out to Christ for mercy and then it is a guide showing us how to act in order to please the God who has saved us and how to bless others with the power to actually change the heart sadist of the key. The power to ascertain the heart the power to produce righteous desires of the heart is only found in the finished work of Christ and only that. That can only come by the power the resurrection that is released only by faith in God's promise, not by obedience or resolution that you're going to do better in chapter 4 Paul continues his thought thought you divorced when he said now I say as long as there is a child a difference in the way from slave, who is the owner of everything other words, you can slave growing up in a house one owns everything one Dutton but for the time being when their immature kids are both under the law, even the ones in charge. Instead he's under guarantee guardians and trustees know the time set by his father in the same way. We also when we were children were in slavery under the elements of the world.

In other words, before we came to maturity in Christ.

That is, before righteous desires are fully formed in our hearts we need the law.

Sometimes we have to be told what to do. Sometimes we are force ourselves to do the right thing even when we feel otherwise that time of immaturity. Listen to this included Israel before Jesus came, they were under the Mosaic law. It also includes we as immature Christians when we desire.

Things that we know we should not desire, like the guy in my story or me every single day. But the law was totally insufficient to actually bring about change in our hearts that actually put spiritual life in our hearts, so verse four Paul goes on when the time came to completion. God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons, God wanted to transform us into sons who wanted to obey you, not what they want us to remain the slaves were forced to obey, so he redeemed us. Jesus was born under the law so he could live the life that we were supposed to live a life that love God and love others like we were supposed to, and then die the death we were condemned to die, and in so doing, he bought us out of the orphanage of sin where sin was our mother and Satan was our father, and he adopted us into the household of God and because you are sons Paul said God sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts cry that daddy my father my father after God cleared our sin debt to Christ.

He put Christ, his son spirit into you so that you would start to love and trust God just like Jesus did. You see, every child who loves his daddy wants to be like him, my alibis, that is the tender Aramaic word for daddy is literally what it means. Daddy and every child that loves his daddy was to be like his daddy as he does now with my son, my eye once under seven years old and that he fiasco mass mastery of the day what you want to be when you grow up so you want to be a pastor or a spy. Now I know Rick is the pastor from us about the spy but you you want to be faster because at least of the stage in his life. He looked up the manuals means I will be on at that would be. I'm a daddy in one document he grows up and knobs that honors me and I don't know if that's what God is called of the do, but he wants to be like his daddy sometimes got told you when I look into the mirror and on increasingly as I get older and I'll be brushed my teeth and I looked up suddenly I see my father Lynn Greer. Looking back at me in the mirror and I think where did he come from, and that's what that's okay because I love my dad and I've always wanted to become the man that my daddy is and so I want to be like him. That happens to us with God our father went the spirit of his son comes into our hearts were like. I want to be close to my daddy, I want to be like my daddy, I want to please my daddy I love my daddy let me be close to my daddy let me be like him. Verse seven. See you are no longer a slave, he says you are a sign and that makes you free. No longer do we live under a law that forces us to do what you don't want to do right spirit comes in dies and changes our desires so that obeying the law is what we desire to become don't just immediately and instinctively know how to be a child of God.

It takes getting to know him in getting to know his word and that process helps us get to know him and desire to obey him more every day.

Freed from the law for the law that the title of our message today from Pastor JD Greer and Summit life to listen again or to catch up on previous messages in the study of Galatians visit JD Greer.com JB all know that it's important to read our Bibles, the best approach to reading the Bible to grow our relationship with God rather than just be a checkmark to accomplish each day. I will what you got it begin to see is that the Bible is God's word that he is living and active and he is using it to speak into your life to the promises you are unearthing her promises to you all the promises of God. Yes in Christ Jesus warning some some of them are going apply to you at different times in your life more than others that my dad tells me. For years I always thought my dad was a superhero question that we never missed a day in my time and when I was an old reason and I said this and I was troubled. Beginning December. What changed his he said I realize that in the morning when I would get up and read the Bible that God was more anxious to meet with me than I was to use equipment when I got that understanding the sin change because I began to want to hear from God's word. What we want to do this is is provide you with resources here Summit life that will help facilitate that relationship. Summit life is about increasing Bible knowledge is a lot of places that you can do that in writing books. But if we can help you know God better to serve him more faithfully in the love him and know his love for you better that's that's her heart. Here Summit life and I think this resource is one of the best tools we've offered to help you do that you can reserve a copy today discredit JD Greer.com.

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