The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 8: The Law and Faith

Episode Date: March 4, 2018

The LAW and FAITH are eternally connected gifts from God. The Law shows us our NEED FOR faith. Faith gives us the ABILITY TO uphold the law. To neglect one is to neglect the fullness of the Gospel.

Amen, amen, amen. I feel like we, at this point in the series, we should start every sermon with previously on Romans. And seriously, if you've missed a week of Romans, like you need to get your Roman study journal and you need to go podcast that junk, right? You just need to stay caught up. And here's the reason. Part of the reason you need to get caught up on the series of Romans is because Romans is this letter in which Paul is building this deep and rich argument that salvation is in Jesus Christ. alone. The other reason that you need to go and keep up with this Roman series is Pastor Jobi has been straight slinging it. And you're a fool if you don't, if you missed that. Like it's on you. If you got all this awesome stuff right in front of you, you're like, nah, not for me. So you need to go get it.

Like in week two, Pastor Jobi shared the four things that he is praying for us as a church. And one of those things was this prayer. Pastor Jobi is praying for us that we would know that our identity in Christ precedes our activity for Christ. Now, why is that important? Well, today's text is one of the many biblical foundations of that prayer. And so previously in Romans chapter 3, Paul has argued very well that salvation is only found in faith in Jesus. And as he's going to close out this argument, Paul is going to engage in this imaginary objector to his argument. And so, So there's going to be a couple of objections that Paul's just going to go ahead and argue against. And objection number one is, look, I get that Jesus is the Savior.

But is there anything I can do to attain or maintain my salvation? Is there any part of salvation that man can take credit for? Here's how Paul says it, verse 27. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded by what kind of law? by the law of works no by the law of faith so it says then because of righteousness that comes from christ alone we have nothing to boast in our boasting is absolutely a hundred percent excluded but what excludes our boasting paul says is it our works no like what would we boast in like our ability

to not uphold the law would we boast in our ability to get everything absolutely right wrong and even to break promises to ourselves, our boasting is not excluded by our works. Our boasting is excluded by our faith. And if our works could save us, then we should go ahead and get our boast on. But since salvation is from God alone, you and I got nothing to boast about. You cannot boast in something that you did not achieve by your own merit. It would be like if one of you fine gentlemen or ladies at any of our campuses felt in your heart that the Lord was leading you to give me a brand new red and black, God's favorite colors, F-150, four raptor, just jacked up. And I began to tell everyone about how hard I worked for this free gift.

Boasting in your works that accomplished nothing is just stupidity. So today we're going to dig into this idea that faith is what excludes our boasting. Today we're going to go, we're going to spend a lot of our energies on this relationship between law and between faith. And so before we dig into each verse, it's just wise of us to Paul's and make sure we're using the words law and the words faith in the same manner that Paul is using.

Now here and throughout many parts in the book of Romans, Paul, he's really, really smart, and he gives us both the specific view of the term law and a general view, meaning this. Specifically, Paul is pointing to the law, the Old Testament, Jewish people would call it the Torah. Today's, we would call it as Christians the scriptures that Paul is pointing to the entirety

of the commands, the laws of the scripture. But at the same time, in only a way that Paul can do, because he's really smart, he's also defining the word generally in response to the demands of God on us in regards to holiness. So Paul, when he says the law, he is talking about the scriptures, the Old Testament, the Torah, and at the same time is alluding to this. this larger view of the law, which is the demands of God on us in regards to holiness. Now, why is it important that we get this understanding of the term law?

Because the demands of God on humanity in regards to holiness are eternal. The demands of God existed before God gave the Ten Commandments. The principles of holiness of God, they have always existed and they will exist into eternity, into heaven, in heaven. the principles or the demands of God's holiness will exist forever. Now, faith also is a very important word in today's text, and faith is a trust or a belief in things unseen. Faith is a declaration that Jesus is the only one that can secure our salvation. Faith is saying that I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, it counted for me.

Our boasting is excluded because our salvation is not. achieve by our works, but received through faith. So you and I cannot achieve salvation. We can only receive it. Verse 28. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of law. If you want to memorize a verse, we've got a lot of memory verses throughout this series. And the reason we're doing that is because we believe is we hide God's word in our heart. We would not sin against him. Whereas Romans 12 says, we would be transformed by the renewing of our mind. and this is a great one to memorize. In fact, this is one that Christianity, this is a major tenet in Christianity.

Something we believe is this, we are saved by faith alone. Your activity cannot save you. Your activity cannot secure for you an identity in Christ. The scripture, what it alludes to is that you were not right with God and you will never be right with God except for the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This is something for us to settle into, our salvation cannot be achieved. It can only be received. And praise Jesus that it is not our own works that save us. Amen?

It's his work on the cross that says. According to Galatian 614, there is nothing for you and I to boast in except for Christ. Now, we cherish this truth for three reasons. One, we cherish the truth that in Christ alone, in faith alone, because we can actually find rest in the sufficient work of Jesus. We also cherish this truth because we know that the path to salvation by God's grace is the same for everyone everywhere. And here's a reason why I cherish this truth is because Jesus didn't come to be a moral example to set you and I up to fail over and over and over again. Jesus didn't come to be a moral example. He came to be our ransom. He came to ransom us from our sins and from the debt of death that we owed. Goes on in verse 29. It gets good right here. Or is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. So Paul says this. Hey, can Gentiles be saved? Yeah, you and I are living, breathing examples. You and I are Gentiles. You may be Jewish, but most of us here are Gentiles.

and you and I are, we have access to salvation. And we can only be saved by faith alone because the law was given to the Jewish people. And you and I have found Christ. We have found salvation. So it means that Gentiles can be saved even though Gentiles didn't have the law. So Paul is going to create this kind of tension and this argument. And he's going to say, hey, two options. Either there is one God for the Jews and one God for the Gentiles.

The God for the Jews saves by the law and the God for the Gentiles saves by faith. Well, that's wrong because there's only one God. So Paul says, well, what about this? What if there's one God and he saves all people the same way? And the Jews go, yeah, we're into that. And everybody listening to Paul goes, yeah, one God, we're in. He goes, great. There's one God and he saves through faith in Jesus Christ.

That's the only way we find salvation. Salvation is thus inclusively exclusive. It's inclusive in the fact that God is God of all. Everybody's included. everybody who is a part of the all people, God is God of them and actually exclusive in the fact that there is only one way to God. All are welcome to come to God through Jesus, but Jesus is the only way to God for all. Meaning this, God is God is God of all. God is God of the Christians.

God is God of the atheists. God is God of the Muslim. God is God of the Buddhist. God is God of white people. God is God of black people. God is God of Latino people. God is God of Asian people. God is God of rich people, God is God of poor people.

God is the God of smart people. God is the God of people. God is the God of people who love him. God is God is God of. There is no people group that this earth has ever seen or will ever seen that God is not sovereignly God of. And according to Scriptures, amen, you're going to clap, clap, we ain't got time for golf claps. All right, we're working too much across all these campuses, right?

According to Scripture, God is God of all of these people and all of these people are coming or have the invitation to know God in the same way Jesus Christ. Now this is not a declaration that all roads lead to heaven. This is a declaration according to the scriptures that there's only one way to heaven and his name is Jesus, but praise Jesus. He is available to all people through faith. Now verse 29 and verse 30 are both great news and an incredibly stern warning. It's great news that Christ's work on the cross is sufficient for all people. And it's a warning to anyone that lives or functions apart from that truth.

Let me put it this way. The way you view God will either fuel compassion for or fuel contempt for people that don't look and act like you. Praise Jesus that God is not so small that he would only be God to one exclusive group. And woe to any of us who live as if God is only God. to our people. There is one God of all. And because there's one God of all,

all come to God in one way. Not by the works of law, but by faith alone in Jesus Christ. So Paul handles objection one here. Paul argues and very well defeats this first objection. Can I attain or maintain my salvation in any way based on my activity? Paul says, nope. Paul says, look, here's the deal.

in no way can our activity positively affect our identity in Christ. Through faith and faith alone is our identity firmly established in the activity of Christ on the cross. And our activity follows that identity. There's nothing you and I can do to earn our salvation. Christ did all the work on the cross. We cannot achieve it. It has been achieved. We can only receive salvation.

So now Paul, on his imaginary argument, moves on to the next, the logical argument, which is this. Objection number two. So if the law works cannot save me, if the law cannot save me and I'm saved through faith alone, can we just get rid of the law altogether? I mean, if the law, if it's just this group of rules, it can't save me anyway, can we just get rid of it? Well, here's how Paul puts it in verse 31. do we then overthrow the law by faith? He says by no means, which I love this. You'll miss this in the English,

I mean, it's got an exclamation mark there. But like in the Greek, the demonstrative here is like, do we overthrow the law by faith? It's kind of like, heck no. It's like, hey, can I get in the ocean and not get wet? Paul's like, you're too dumb to talk to. Like that's kind of what Paul said. I might be misinterpreting a little bit,

but he says, can we get rid of the law? And Paul says, no. heck no that's not even an option that question doesn't even make sense he says can we just get rid of the law now that we have faith can we move from law to faith he says no on the contrary we uphold the law you see faith does not get rid of the law faith fulfills the law completely let me say that again faith doesn't get rid of the law all the laws of the old testament all the laws of scriptures all the all the demands of God for holiness, for all humanity. Faith does not get rid of those demands of holiness. They fulfill and uphold those laws of those demands of holiness. It's really easy for us to attempt to take law and to take faith and make them these opposing points of a continuum.

To treat them almost as these enemies of each other competing for our attention. The danger in opposing. law and faith is this, we neglect the gospel and in opposing law and faith, we often miss Jesus. Here's what I mean. It's easy for us. I got this fence post over here. And it's easy for us to get into this point where we take the law and we take faith

and we kind of oppose them to each other. Now, here's what happens in doing this. We usually start in the right spot. We usually start with truth. and then when we ignore or isolate one from the other, we get to the spot, we kind of meander or drift into the spot that is no longer even good theology. Let me show you this. So the law, right? We think the law.

We think truth. We think the justice of God. We think God saying the Ten Commandments, Thou shall not still, thou shalt not commit adultery. You should have only one God. There's a clear set of rules, and those rules have a clear set of consequences. And so many of us grew up in church, and the only thing we actually knew about church and Jesus was the law. We thought that was the relationship, was the relationship with the law. And we start in this right place where we think law.

That's truth and that's justice. And what happens is we kind of move from the law. And in isolation from faith, we can kind of drift out here into a different lane that I call Christian karma. Which timeout, if I ever hear a Christian say karma, I'm going to slap you because karma and Christianity, are not the same thing. You can't just go, I'm a Christian, I'm going to pick this one, pick this one, and make it my own. But I'm going to call it Christian karma because here's what Christian karma is. My circumstances have a lot to do with God's delight in me. Here's what this looks like. We begin to drift from the law and we begin to think, if things are going bad in my life,

God must be mad at me. If things are going well, it must be because I tithed last week and God's got to, he had to get me back. Now here's the problem with Christian karma, the Bible. Right? God delights immensely in Jesus and Jesus suffered greatly on the cross. So maybe the more you suffer, maybe more God delights in you. Maybe He is so good to you to let us sometimes suffer in things that we would be grown up in righteousness. That as we suffer with Christ, we might also experience the power of his resurrection. You see, Christian karma, it just ain't true, right? Now here's the problem.

We go from law, which is truth and justice. and the first step is out here in this kind of land of Christian karma, and then the next step is just full-blown legalism. Now I'm going to tell you legalists, y'all are the worst. Because here's what legalists do. Instead of just going like my circumstances are based on God's delight in me, they take it a step further, and what they say is this, is I can appease or achieve things with God

based on me following this set of rules. Now here's why legalists are the worst, because not only do you get this set of rules for yourself, but then you begin to project them on others. Why? Because you realize I kind of stink at this, and the only way to make myself better about this is to make me feel that other people are worse than me.

If you've ever been around a legalist, boy, it'll wear you out. It moves from, there's this truth and there's this pursuit of holiness to, if I'm not doing it just right, God's got to get me, to if I behave in a certain way, God owes me. You see the law and isolation from faith is dangerous.

Now the same thing is true over here in regards to faith. We get over here in faith, and what happens is that we root it rightly or correctly in God's grace. If law is like, hey, I get what I deserve. Graces, I don't get what I deserve. And grace is, I get something I could never earn. Salvation. Now, grace is, faith is awesome. It's rooted in grace.

It's rooted in this fact that God has given us salvation and we don't deserve it. Now, here's the danger. when we take faith and isolate it from the law, we start with truth and we begin to drift. And I call this kind of area right here, this gray area. I call it the cheapening of grace. Grace is when you get things you don't deserve and the cheapening of grace, we begin to live in this way that we go, you know what, God's going to forgive me no matter what. So I got this bucket and I'm just going to go fill my sin bucket all week long.

I'm going to be angry. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to over-serve myself. I'm going to overeat. I'm going to do what I want to do with who I want to do. We just kind of get this whole sin bucket. and it's just swashing around. And we know, you know what, I'll just run a church on the weekend, dump that thing out at the altar,

take my bucket back with me, rinse, recycle, repeat. And so it starts with God forgives me and gives me things I don't deserve. And it moves into this cheap grace area where we're just going, you know what, rinse, recycle, repeat. I got a sin bucket. Here's the problem. When we get in isolation, when faith gets isolated from holiness and law, what happens is it moves from faith to cheap and grace to what theologians called anti-nominism. which you're like, I don't know what that means.

I'll tell you. It means without the law. There's just this extreme over here in which we go, the moral demands of the law have been fully met, and they don't matter anymore. It completely gets rid of the law. Legalism completely gets rid of grace. Anti-nominism gets completely rid of the law.

And what happens out in this anti-nominism, this place in which the law doesn't exist anymore, it's as if we live with a lifetime haul pass from God and we can go cheat on him with the world all we want. And when we get hired or when we need something, we come home and go, okay, God, I need you. It is dangerous. Because what happens when we separate the law from faith

is we separate the demands of holiness that God requires of us from his delivering of holiness to us. It is dangerous. You begin to separate these things and you get this unrealistic work of your own salvation, it's unrealistic hope in your own abilities. and then over here you get this unholy abuse of your identity. Our identity precedes our activity.

And when we try to live our whole relationship with Jesus based off our activity, you can't. It's unrealistic. And when we try to live our whole relationship with Jesus void of his demands and principles of holiness, what we end up doing is having an unholy abuse of identity that Jesus gave his life for. We cannot separate these. God never opposed law to faith.

He composed them together like a great symphony for our joy, for our satisfaction, for our wholeness. Here's what I mean. The law shows our utter inability to do what God has asked of us and drives us to a need for Jesus. And over here in the law, we have this utter inability. And over here in faith, we see the ability of Christ in which he has fulfilled everything. In the law, we see that we owe a debt of death, and in faith we see that Christ's death has satisfied the law completely. Over here in the law, we see that it is important. The law is very important and yet ultimately ineffective to save us.

And what we see over here in faith is this. Christ's work on the cross is fully sufficient. The law and faith are not opposing extremes. They are eternally connected gifts from our Father in heaven going. I love you so much. I'm going to demand holiness of you and deliver holiness to you. Simply put, the law shows us our need for faith. When we see the law, we see, I can't do this.

I can't make this on my own. It says, I need something. I can't. And for many of us, my biggest prayer for us is that we would come to the point where we see, I can't save myself. I need a savior who is greater than me to save me. But here's the thing. It is not a two-step.

It is not step one, identify law, realize you're a wretched, black-hearted sinner. Step two, find faith. Boom, you're done. No, it is this lifelong, eternal connection. Not only does this law show us our need for faith, but faith shows us our ability to walk out in the law. Our entire life is this person. suit of realizing that in our own works we cannot do the law but in the work of Christ the law is

fulfilled and we walk in holiness you see we spent our entire lives our whole life is found in deepening this grasp but our identity always precedes our activity but i'll tell you what church our identity never precludes our activity what paul is saying here in the text and in the scriptures yes what Christ did on the cross purchased for us our identity. We cannot earn our own salvation. Christ has earned it for us, but our identity in Christ does not preclude our activity of holiness in which we run after the heart of God who has already demanded from us holiness and delivered to us. We live out faith knowing that the demands of holiness will always continuously drive us to our need for Jesus and our identity in Jesus will fuel our activity if we walk in holiness.

Law and faith are together forever for our good. Verse 31, let me read it again for us. Do we overthrow the law by faith? Well, now that we've seen this, we go, no. On the contrary, the law leads us to faith, and faith upholds the law. So what does that mean? what does it look like for us to practically uphold the law? Three things that I think the text encourages us to do.

One, we uphold the law through what I call worshipful response. Worshipful response is this. Worship is a lifestyle. It is a daily living out of obedience to the scripture. It's a constant peering at the mirror in the map of scriptures and aiming our response to that. Now, the opposite of a worshipal response is worshipping for a reaction. Now, they look the same. The activity is the same, but the difference is the heart.

You see, when we worship in response to, it is driven by our identity. It looks like this. I'm my beloved, and I respond accordingly. My church attendance, my singing in worship, my engagement of the scriptures, my prayer, my community of believers, everything I'm doing, I'm doing that because I'm already his. And I'm responding to his love. I'm reacting to his love. I'm responding.

Now, when we worship for a reaction, it's the opposite. Instead of being driven by our identity, it's driven by activity. And it's kind of back in that whole camp of Christian karma that says, if I do this, then maybe God will do this. If I attend more, maybe God will give me that guy or that girl I've been looking for. If I give more, maybe God will get me that raise that I've been looking for. If I fill in the blank, maybe God will. It's Christian karma.

It is not biblical. We do not worship God and hope that he responds to us. We worship God because the only thing worthy of worship for him is responding to him and what he has done on the cross. And when we approach God and think our worship should stir you to respond, you're missing it. You do not call a holy God to respond to you, a holy God. God is demanded that we respond to him. And when we grasp faith, we get to work. We don't have to. We don't got to. We get to. We get to work. We get to walk in holiness. We're invited. When we focus on our works, we will miss faith and we will miss Jesus every single time. Some of the most religious,

legalistic people in the world miss Jesus to the point that they will spend eternity apart from him. You see, I do good things and I expect results is nowhere near. I trust you, God. And no matter what, I'll follow you. So we uphold the law by worshiping because we realize we can't earn our own salvation. We can only receive it by faith. And when we realize there's nothing I can do to earn this relationship anyway, we realize the only thing I can do is respond.

Then what we realize is we don't overthrow the law. But through our worshipful response, we walk. out the demands of holiness because we're simply responding to the one who loved us first. The second thing we do is we uphold the law through loving others well. Love fulfills the law. What Christ did on the cross was fueled by his love. And his life was a perfect life that fulfilled the law. And his death on the cross earned that righteousness for us.

And when we love God and we love people, all the other expectations of the law just fall in line. The Torah, the Jewish faith, had 600 plus laws. And when Jesus has asked, what do we do with the commandments? He says, love God and love people. Now, Paul's going to open up a concept that we're going to dive into later. In Romans chapter 13, I'm not going to kind of steal all the thunder because I kind of like my ball, so he could whip me. And so I'm just going to kind of get us in and get us out.

And so not to steal any thunder. But Paul's opening up an idea here that love fulfills the wall. Romans 13. Let me just read a couple verses for us. Verse 8. Oh, no one anything. except to love each other. For the one who loves another has what?

Fulfilled the law. Another way to say upheld the law. If you love one another, you are upholding the law. For the commandments say this, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And any other commandment are summed up in this word.

Love your neighbor as yourself. If we loved our neighbor as ourselves, if we just got that right, you know what? a lot of these things just fall in line. You never cheated on yourself. You never murdered yourself. You never stole from yourself. I don't think you can. You've never coveted yourself.

If you have multiple personalities, you can't do all these things if you're loving your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is fulfilling or upholding the law. When we love God completely, our identity is wrapped up in him and he fuels our ability to love others. Think about that. When we get this vertical love thing right, we're just loving God because he first loved us,

because he went to the cross for us. We love Jesus, and we get wrapped up in that. It fuels our ability to love anybody else. Just take marriage. Like when you realize Christ loved me even when I was unlovable, man, my wife is a whole lot easier to love than I was as a wretched, blackhearted sinner who put Christ on the cross. My wife has never put me on the cross. She has never crucified me. Makes it a lot easier to love her because he loves me.

when we love God, it leads us to love people rightly. Let's just lay Romans chapter 13 next to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which is what we call the love chapter. You can't sleep around and commit adultery with people if you're loving them the way that Scripture tells you to love them. You know why? First Corinthians 13 says love is patient. You can't murder, or as Jesus put it,

be angry in your heart at someone and love them the way Scripture tells you to love them because love is kind. You can't use people still, their joy, steal their hopes, still their stuff for you, and love them well because love does not insist on its own way. And you can't covet the blessing God is giving your neighbors and love them the way scripture has told you to love them because love does not envy. You cannot use your neighbor and love them at the same time. So how do we uphold the law? We love God and we ask God to

use that love in us and through us. When we understand that we are not saved, by our works, but his love is what saves us, the overflowing of his love, we uphold the law by loving others. Simply put this, when we realize that we are loved, we love others. Loved people, love people all the time. The third thing we do is this. So we uphold the law through a worshipal response. We uphold the law by loving others well because Christ first loved us. We don't love other people to get Christ to love us. Christ loved us, and we become become the conduit of his love for the nations. The third thing is this.

We uphold the law by living from our eternal stance, not for it. Faith provides. For the first time in human history, faith provides us the ability to completely fulfill God's demand of His holiness, God's principle of his law. And because of faith, we are no longer trying to work for God. approval. That's an extremism of law that's isolated from faith. I have to work hard to get God's approval. No, Christ went to the cross. If someone dies for you and resurrects, they already approve of you. We are not working for his approval, trying to get God to be happy with us. Because of Christ's work on the cross, we are working from a stance of eternal approval.

You see, apart from faith, we can find that we can do nothing to become holy. But through faith, we are not. not trying to be holy, you are holy. And you can't not be what you are. What Christ did on the cross was declared to you. Whether you believe it or not, his truth, his declaration is not dependent upon your acceptance of his declaration. What Christ says is true no matter what. And he says that we are holy because we are his and we are clothed in his righteousness. I'm over-watching church people, try to run after Jesus and try to do all of these church things to get his attention. He went to the cross. What else can he do to declare his great love for us? See, we uphold the law. We uphold the law by worshiply responding. We're not trying to get God to

react. We're loving others because Christ first loved us. We are not trying to work for something, but we are working from something. And church across all of our campuses, if I could just make a plea with you on two things, it would be this. One, do not let your identity be rooted in your works. I can tell you, I spent a long part of my life just rooting everything I am and everything I've done in my works. And I'm telling you, I'm probably better than like 99% of you. I just am. Like I was saved at six, called to ministry at 14.

I've had sex with one woman. I've never been drunk. I didn't start cussing until I came to church here. You're like, I'm better than all of you. And I've allowed for so much in my life for my identity to be rooted in legalism. I would look down my nose at people because they were not as good as me until God just absolutely crushed my soul. And said, who do you think you are? Do not, church, do not waste your life in a fruitless, futile, rigorous pursuit of religion.

It is empty. Do not wear yourself out and everyone else around you with an unrealistic, expectation of self-righteousness that God does not even have for you. Legalists are pointing out people and calling people out for things that God said, I hand on on the cross. I don't have that expectation of them. And yet we find somewhere in our religiosity to point at people and have a higher expectation of them than God does. Do not misuse the Word of God as a club for beating down others in order to make yourself feel better. Don't let your identity be rooted in your works. Do not rip the law away from faith.

God did not design them to exist by themselves, but he composed them together in our faith. And there's some of you, you're like, I need to do some work with the Lord. I got one more plea and then we're going to work with the Lord. For others, can I plead this? Do not neglect holiness because of a partial view of the gospel. Do not neglect the principles and demands of God. God did not get rid of the law when he sent Jesus. He fulfilled the law.

Please don't claim to be a Christ follower. and then surrender nothing to Jesus. If Jesus is Lord, surrender at all. Surrender your future. Surrender your Friday nights. Surrender your family. Surrender your financials. Surrender your fears.

Surrender it all. If he's Lord of all, then he's Lord of everything. If he's not a Lord of all, then he may not be Lord at all. Now Jesus came in truth and he came in grace. Truth is this. Holiness matters a lot.

and grace is this. Every time we screw up, he's there to love us. But please, please don't mistake the grace of Jesus as an open-ended ticket for pleasing your flesh instead of running after the holiness of God. And please don't mistake the grace of Jesus for permission to live like hell while you bank on heaven. Hear me, unrepented, habitual sin is a problem

that you need to deal with. with the Lord. You can't continue to run apart from the law as if the law doesn't exist. It exists. The law exists. The faith exists. They are together forever to remind us that the demands of God on holiness on our life are real and the delivering of holiness in us is real. Please, please don't hear me say that God only loves the perfect you. That will never come into being apart from him. He loves you. And that's why we can go with the things of this world. And that's why we should cling desperately to what he has for us. That we should declare the demands of holiness are real and the delivery of holiness is great.

That the law has reminded me, I need Jesus. And Jesus has given me the ability to run after the holiness of God. Actions cannot save you. But if you are saved, your actions matter greatly. You cannot make yourself holy. But now that you are holy, by the blood and the work of Jesus, honor Jesus by upholding the law, by responding in worship,

by loving others well because Christ first loved you. And by living, not a life in which you're trying to get God's approval, but by one in which you have his approval, knowing full well that he demands of you holiness and delivers to you holiness. Church, let's pray. Father, we love you, and we thank you that you first loved us. Thank you, Jesus, that your work on the cross was a declaration that holiness mattered, that the justice of God mattered, that we were to be crucified for our sin and our death,

but Christ, you went to the cross to pay the debt of death. and thank you that the work of the cross not only declares that holiness that the principles of God of holiness the demands of God are eternally significant but faith and grace and mercy are eternally connected and may we never lose sight of the holiness you've called us to and may we never lose sight of the fact that our hope is built on you and you alone God stretch us grow us help us to love holiness love the law and help us to love faith and grace and mercy. And may we always see that the law drives us to our need of faith and faith and gives us the ability to walk under the law.

We pray all this in your precious and holy name. Amen. Amen. Church, would you stand with me? We're going to respond. And as we respond, I'm going to invite us to respond in these ways. If this is home, one of the ways we always respond is by giving of our ties and offerings and declaring Christ before all things.

we respond by joining our hearts and singing loudly and declaring that our hope is built on Christ that nothing less could give us hope and we sing and some there's some of us many of us me included that just need to come and pray and for some of us ask repentance because we've allowed legalism to drive us to look down on other people and we've allowed this some of us need to come and repent because we've allowed a partial view of the gospel to drive us to run after and live like hell and bank on heaven and we just need for many of us to come and repent and we just need for many of us to come and repent So in these moments, let's give, let's sing, let's repent.