Well, good morning guys, My name is Mike.
If, if we've not met yet, please find me after the service and,
and come and meet me. I'd like, I'd like to get to
know you and, and just welcome you to, to our family here.
It really is a wonderful thing as we've been going through.
This this sermon series through. The book of Matthew, especially
recently in in Matthew 5 and what's called the Sermon on the
Mount, we've seen Jesus layout some some beautiful facts.
He's he's preached some great news, some real hopeful truths
about God's blessings for his follower when they conduct
themselves in a God honoring way.
And, and these have been great to learn about.
We, we've seen blessings for those who mourn, blessings for
the pure and heart, blessings for the meek.
And these are comforting things for us to hear because we
probably all look to ourselves and make assumptions that Jesus
is talking about us because we occasionally demonstrate these
characteristics. But then the sermon changes a
little bit. Jesus starts to address some
things that the Pharisees and even his followers
misunderstood. And so this, this passage today
sets up the next 6 clarifying points from Jesus that we're
going to cover over the, the coming weeks.
And and so in our, in our very first, in fact, let me just read
our, let me read our passage here.
And and then I'll. I'll continue on.
I'm stuck. Are you able to move?
Me along. That's not the right one.
OK, well, we'll get to it. Let me, let me read our passage.
Matthew 517 through 20. It says, do you not think that
I've come to abolish the law or the prophets?
I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not
an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is
accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one
of the least of these commandments that teaches others
to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does them and teaches them will be called
great in the Kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you
will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.
So in our in our very first sentence in our passage today,
Jesus says do not think that I've come to abolish the law
right. That's the language that we that
we see here. But, but really, what we, we can
read that that's similar to the way that he speaks in the next
several passages that we're going to study over over the
next couple of weeks, where he doesn't contradict or correct
the Old Testament, but rather he has clarity by explaining
himself. So in our Sunday school class
today, we were, we, we learned about some things like
figurative language and, and, and, and Hebrew poetry and, and
non literal pictures in the passage.
And that's not what we have here, but it does remind us of
different methods that scripture utilizes for our understanding.
And, and often in ministry, Jesus spoke in parables and, and
sometimes he answered questions with questions and he had
redirection of, of thought. And these these parables, these
rhetorical questions and, and these redirections exist to give
us an opportunity to gain context or perspective on what
might otherwise be a difficult concept for us.
An example of that I don't have a, a slide for this, but in Luke
18, verse 18, it says and a a ruler asked him, good teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?
No one is good except God alone. So in that passage, Jesus
doesn't answer the direct and and really.
Critical question, right, that's.
A question we would. All as as believers, we would
all love it. If somebody came up to us and
was so bold and said, OK, tell me, what do I need to do to get
to heaven? We would want them to tee it up
that way and, and, and and be able to give them a direct
answer. But Jesus doesn't do that.
He in in that passage, he adds perspective for us by going more
in depth about his character. And so this is something that
that Jesus is often in in in Scripture.
And I heard a teacher yesterday describe this this phenomenon as
both astounding and frustrating. And I think that that's fair if
you'll bear with me for a second.
But but you know, as a child, I I'm quite certain that I often
got frustrated as my parents tried to teach me things.
But in my in my immaturity and my ignorance, I was just
frustrated. But my frustration, though, was
based on my own lack of understanding, not because they
were teaching something unclearly.
So Jesus does this to get us to wrestle.
If some of these teachings. And if you think back to to
Genesis and and the story of Jacob wrestling with God,
there's something that's connected there about our own
wrestling with God over these truths that are difficult for us
to grasp. I don't know why that keeps
cutting out like that, but just bear with us.
I apologize for it. But but anyway, that's that the
reason why that's great that we get to to wrestle with that is
because the the fact is that we we lack the key to understanding
some of these passages. Now, if you guys can remember
some of the older folks in the crowd, if you can remember way
back when cereal boxes came with like a toy or or something
inside. And one of the the popular ones
was a was this sort of a puzzle that had a a whole bunch of red
and blue squiggly lines all over it.
And and you might have been. Able, and when you looked at
this, you might. Have been able to tell that
there was some kind of an image there but it was it was very
difficult to to understand what the image was until you use the
secret glasses with red lenses and and when you looked at the
puzzle the blue line suddenly jumped out clearly displaying a
picture or a message and I think that's a fairway of looking at
this passage today Jesus is the key component here the important
lens that we need to look through to understand what is
otherwise complicated to decipher and so.
Our main idea here today is Jesus clears up some significant
misunderstandings, the purpose of the Messiah, the purpose of
the law, and God's heart towards sin.
Understanding Jesus is the key to connecting the Old Testament.
And the New Testament, I heard somebody say that, that when
you, when you look at your Bible and like we are in, in Matthew
here, and you have the Old Testament to the left and you
have the, the New Testament to the right.
And the, the Gospels, the story of Jesus are right here in the
middle. They, they serve as the, the
hinge point that helps us to see that those, the Old Testament in
the New Testament are not at odds with each other, but that
they are perfectly symbiotic. And so today for my, for my
first point, I want to look at the misunderstanding of the
purpose of the Messiah. So in verse 17 and 18 it it says
I'm sorry. Guys, that's in the that's in
the wrong. There we go.
It says, Don't misunderstand why I've come.
I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of
the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their
purpose. I tell you the truth, until
heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of
God's law will disappear until its.
Purpose is achieved now. That's the, the NLT version of
our, of our passage here today. And, and I think it kind of
helps us to understand this. So, so throughout Jesus
ministry, he's repeatedly confronted by the Pharisees and
the, and the scribes about him misunderstanding and misapplying
scripture. Right.
That was what they thought was that Jesus was misunderstanding
and misapplying scripture. They had the nerve to tell the
Son of God that He didn't know as much as they knew.
About the book that. He wrote.
And because they misunderstood Jesus, they also had significant
misconceptions and delusions about their own goodness.
See, when it comes to the Old Testament, many Pharisees
studied Scripture like crazy. But since they didn't know
Jesus, since they didn't understand the heart of God,
they, they didn't truly understand what they were
reading. So we should expect that their
application would be messed up as well.
And the same goes for us. So we've, we've, we've all
probably seen things in the, in the Old Testament that are hard
to understand. In Exodus 21, it says that if
you have an ox and your ox gores somebody to death and this ox
has a history of boring, some of boring people, then you can be
put to death. And now that might not connect
because very few of us in the room probably own oxen.
But if imagine if it was like with a with a dog, if you have
a, a dog that had a history of biting people, it seems a a bit
hard to justify my death when it was my dumb dog biting people,
right? But so it's kind of hard for us
to understand. In Deuteronomy 21, it says that
if you have a rebellious son that won't obey, it says to drag
him out to the city elder so they can stone him to death.
Well, maybe they'll seem kind of far fetched.
So, so we don't think that you know that that's much of an
issue. But but what about premarital
sex? Deuteronomy 22 says the woman
who has premarital sex should be stoned to death.
Chapter 19 says that lying is punishable by death according to
the the God that we were just singing praises to.
Now often we can be afraid to preach these ideas.
We can we can be afraid to defend them publicly or even
admit that we agree with them. Maybe we don't agree with them
because we misunderstand the Messiah ourselves.
Now, Warren. Weirsby, who was a A.
Pastor and a theologian, you know, he, he's, he's passed now,
but back up, you know, 100 years ago he used an acorn analogy in
reference to verse 17 that I think is, is.
Pretty good. It says if I have an acorn I can
destroy it. One of two ways I can put.
It on a. Rock and smash it with a hammer,
or I can plant it in the ground and let it fulfill itself.
By becoming an oak tree and he he goes on and explains his
analogy by claiming in either case, the acorn comes to an end.
However, the distinction between the two methods is critical.
In the case of the Mosaic legal obligations, Jesus did not bring
a metaphorical hammer to end them through opposition and
destruction. Instead, he came to cultivate
the law and profits into what they were always intended to
become. See, many people believed that
the Messiah would bring about another dispensation, A
dispensation meaning a transfer from one law or rule to another.
They believed that he would remove and abolish the law and
prophets. Now that phrase the law and
prophets it, it refers to the Torah, which is the first five
books of the Bible and then the the rest of the prophetic books
of the of the Old Testament. This is one of the ways that one
of the creative ways in that we see Scripture referred to in
scripture. So he's referencing the entire
body of God's word available to the the Jews of the time.
And Jesus is saying the Old Testament isn't going anywhere.
It's it's still completely relevant.
Now the law would continue to hold its proper place as the
revelation of God's holy standard until heaven and earth
passed away. You know, the, the, the law is
authoritative and in effect forever.
They they continue to exist fully as a testimony of the
example and teaching of God until all is accomplished.
Now I'd go so far as to say that Jesus will one day accomplish
all that he's told us he that he would do death, resurrection and
2nd coming right. But but even then, the law won't
be abolished because Jesus is eternal and Jesus is the
fulfillment of the law. Let me jump to Hebrews chapter.
1. Somehow we've got last week's
slides in here. Let me jump to Hebrews chapter 1
verses one through 3. It says long ago that many times
and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but
in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He
appointed the heir of, of all things, through whom He also
created the world. He is the radiance of the glory
of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the
universe by the word of His power.
There we go. It's up there now.
So as I mentioned a bit ago, the law held its proper place as the
revelation of God's holy standard.
And how far people were from achieving that standard.
And the Old Testament points directly at Jesus, not just
through specific prophecy and and not just the sacrificial
system that we see throughout, but because it's describing the
character of God. Now in Genesis 15 verse 6, it
says that Abraham believed God and it was counted as
righteousness. But Abraham didn't know Jesus
right? He didn't get to sit under Jesus
ministry or witness the events surrounding the crucifixion, but
he believed in the Messiah that the law was pointing to.
So now when we see Jesus, we see that he is the precise nature of
God personified and the flawless embodiment of of God's Word.
Jesus met that standard. He was the oak tree that the
acorn contained inside it. He he perfectly exemplified what
the law intended and not. Just to the level of.
Of saying that you know Jesus lived a really good life.
No, that that doesn't cut it. Jesus never sinned.
He never took anything that wasn't his.
He never dishonoured his his parents.
He never looked at a woman with lost he he never disobeyed God
in in the slicest He lived to do the will of the Father who sent
him. Now that impossible to follow
law that we read about and and dismiss much of often times in
our humanity. That unfair and and unattainable
standard that God set for us was followed and obeyed perfectly in
his Son. But the people failed to
recognize Jesus as the Messiah that the law was talking about,
despite the many prophecies and and that identified him and
despite his miracles and his teaching.
Isaiah Isaiah 35 five says then the eyes of the blind shall be
open, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
The, the people never in a million years thought that they
were the blind ones or that they were the deaf ones.
Even if they had recognized him as Messiah, they understood what
the Messiah was all about. The, the, the Jews at the time,
the Jews sort of perpetually looked at themselves as victims.
They knew that God favored them as his chosen people and that
they, they also knew that they'd be persecuted.
And so they, they pretty much just dwelt in that victimhood.
They often pointed out the sinfulness of their oppressors
and they they totally recognize their need for a Savior from
persecution, but they failed to pay attention to their own
historic and individual sinfulness, and therefore they
ignored their their own need for a Savior from sin.
They didn't recognize the absolute perfection with which
Jesus lived his life and why that was key to understanding
their own situation. With God.
Jesus lived a life sinless and in perfect obedience to God's
law, but he continues in perfect obedience to God's law still.
And so he still serves as an example to follow today.
And that's our our second point here is the misunderstanding of
the purpose of the law. Verse 18, We already read this,
but I'm going to read it again. It says for truly, I say to you,
until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot
will pass. From the law until all is
accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one
of the least of these commandments and teaches others
to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven,
but whoever does them and teaches them will be.
Called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
So often we might think that the law given to Moses was a a brand
new creation of of God's the day that he wrote it on tablets.
But the the the law was in place when Adam lived as well.
Romans 514 says, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even
over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam,
who was a type of the one who was to come.
So we can understand that that murder was a sin even before
Cain killed Abel. It existed even if they they
they hadn't heard about murder as a as a as a sin, as a crime.
Adam had the choice in his state of sinlessness to choose not to
sin, not to dishonor God. But He did choose sin, and that
sin was passed to each and every one of us in our bloodstream.
We. Are sinners at at at birth and
therefore already guilty So God's law existed before he even
delivered it to Moses Now in our in our human way of thinking, we
might say that that's unfair, right?
How can we know what we're not supposed to do if we've never
been told what the, the law is? But you know, in our, in our
legal system, in our court system, you know, here in our
country, there's a, there's a principle called ignorant
ignorantia juris non excuse act. And that means that ignorance of
the law is not an excuse for violating it.
No justice system allows ignorance of the law to, to, to
prevent justice from from happening.
And yet God did give the law to Moses.
He gave it to Israel and he gave it to us to understand his
heart. He made a covenant with Israel
called the the Mosaic covenant. And it was in in a nutshell, it
was if Israel is obedient, then God will bless them, but if they
disobey, then God will punish them.
And and so what's happening here in our in our verse here is that
Jesus is pointing out that the Pharisees tendency is to be very
legalistic about lighter commandments.
But with the weightier ones, they don't even abide by them
themselves. They have like a sliding scale
of obedience. Here it is in Matthew 23.
Verse 23 He says, What do you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have
neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy
and faithfulness. These you ought to have done
without neglecting. The others see the the Pharisees
would be very legalistic and and demanding as they come to, you
know, to talk to you as they'd talk to the crowds and stuff.
They'd be very legalistic and demanding about about tithing
things like the produce in your in your garden.
But then they would just kind of skip over demonstrating mercy to
people or, or or showing their own faithfulness.
And what's worse is that they were demonstrating and teaching
the the habit to those people who look to them for a better
understanding of God's ways. After all, these are the
religious teachers and Jesus is commanding he, he's demanding A
commitment from them and, and from us to obey both the lighter
and the heavier commandments. And and he condemns those who
confuse the two, those who think that there are laws to follow
and and some that are too. Hard or.
Too messy to follow. So what about us here today?
I just mentioned some of these Old Testament laws that are
difficult to to deal with, right?
Some of the ones maybe we're like, I don't really want to
talk about that with with people.
But how do you really think that Jesus would respond to your sin?
A better, better. Yeah.
How would he respond to your defense of your sin?
The way that we, we kind of make room for it, right?
The way we, we put a little asterisk next to it and, and we
say, well, this, this sin, I, I can explain.
You see in our culture, it's, it's viewed differently.
These Pharisees when, when looking back at Scripture, they
should have recognized how strict the law was about what
was considered sin and, and about what dishonored God and
how absolute that standard was. And they should have applied the
yardstick to themselves, but they didn't.
But with Jesus, they argued that he was disobeying God's law and
that he was was just sort of stomping all over it.
And we already talked about how they believe the Messiah was
going to set up a new government, but they didn't even
believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
They, they simply thought that he was some some sort of
uneducated nobody. That's, that's disrupting their,
their power position by screwing up the teaching of the law.
But Jesus says that's not the case.
Back in verse 18. It said until heaven and earth
pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until
all is accomplished. Now we can understand that
heaven and and the new earth are eternal and will never pass
away, but it continues, not an iota, not a dot will pass from
the law until all is accomplished.
So, So what does that mean? Like is, is that suggesting that
God will at at some point accomplish everything that he's
intended and then we'll do nothing more forever?
I don't. I don't think we could infer
that from from that passage right in Romans 10.
Verse 4 it says for Christ is the.
End of the law for. Righteousness to everyone who
believes. But when you?
When you. Look at this passage in the
Greek that word end. There is the word telos, which
means a culmination or a goal, right?
It's the law, then will not pass away until it culminates in its
in its goal, and in. Galatians 3 verse 24 it says so
then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that
we might be. Justified by faith.
Now the role of a of a guardian the way it was talking about
there in in that passage, it refers to like a a hired servant
that was responsible for a child until maturity was reached.
They'd been listening to Jesus instead of arguing with him.
If they would have. Understood him.
They'd have understood that that God was more interested in the
condition of our hearts than He was in the letter of law.
They should have seen Jesus for who he was, but they didn't.
When God showed up in their midst and and even lived and
walked among them to demonstrate the standard, they should have
seen him for who he was, but they didn't.
But let's look briefly at the passage elsewhere in Scripture
where Peter does see him in Matthew. 16 verses 15 through
18. This is Jesus talking.
With with Peter, he says he said to them.
But who do you say? That I am Simon.
Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed
are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this
to you, but my Father, who is in heaven.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church and the gates of hell. Shall not prevail against it.
Peter is is proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah that the
whole Old Testament was talking about and and pointed to and and
and that is the truth that the church is built on.
That is the key. To our.
Understanding as the church the law was always pointing to and
it was always pointing at perfect Jesus.
So think about how how much we can accomplish as the church
when we understand that Isaiah. 5511 says So shall my word be.
It goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall
succeed in the thing. For which I sent it.
The world has a sin problem. Many people have a basic
understanding of the concept of sin, but if they try to look at,
at, at descriptions and definitions of sin and sinful
behavior in the Bible, and they try to make sense of it through
the lens of the culture that they live in.
The one that's that's continuously telling them that
they can define their own truth or that right and wrong are, are
subjective and, and, and based on their own feelings and
experiences, then they can never understand how dangerous sin is
to them. They can never understand that
they need a savior because they don't see anything that they
need to be saved from. A common belief amongst
unbelievers is that people are generally good.
I I think you can you, you've probably seen this often where
people do random interviews and maybe sometimes it's somebody
doing like Christian apologetics and he comes up and interviews
somebody on the street and he asks them, do you think people
are good? And often we hear that, yeah, I
think these people are basically good.
They they believe that the the average person left up to their
own desires would be generous and and that they would be kind
and that they would be selfless and that they would go out of
the way being loving to other people.
But they're dead wrong. What they see when they look at
God's law is a jumbled mass of of red and blue lines that
doesn't compute with with their understanding of the world
because they are missing the key part of the equation that Jesus
demands perfection and will pour out his wrath on anything else.
And that takes us to our final point here today, which is God's
heart towards sin. This this.
Verse 20 here says. I don't know why those are mixed
up guys. I'm sorry about that.
Verse 20 says, for I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter
the Kingdom of heaven. Now hang on a SEC, because just
in that last little bit, you know, I thought we were we were
doing something really good, right?
When we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, right?
We just read that. That's what he said that he
built his church on. But now we're saying that we
have to live better than the Pharisees.
That's a guys. This is a big statement here
because this sermon that we're studying, it's, it's being given
to the Jews that, that gathered around there to, to listen to
Jesus. And, and these religious leaders
and, and scribes, these guys would always be close by.
They'd be, they'd be close by because they wanted to watch,
they wanted to report on and criticize the things that Jesus
was saying. And so Jesus, he's telling the
Jewish audience that that they have to outperform and live
better than the Pharisees that are considered the holiest, most
righteous men in their culture. And he's saying this right after
saying that, that, that they, they can't relax on any of these
laws, right? And so if and now if, if they
don't outperform the Pharisees in living a perfect life, then
they will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Not only does the Old Testament tell us that we were born with a
sin nature that demands our death, but then we learned that
the law given to us to obey so that we can receive God's
blessing is so strict that not even the Pharisees can follow
it. And yet somehow we're supposed
to be more perfect than them. It seems like a no win
situation, and in a manner speaking, it is.
The God's law was always letting us know that our brokering
relationship with Him has less left us helpless and completely
hopeless. So then why would our good God
give us a story that makes our helplessness and our
hopelessness so apparent? Because He's a much better
author than any of us, That's why.
He has a much better ending to the story than we could have
come up with. Compellingtruth.org.
Had had this that I thought was great.
It said the law was always meant to reveal our sin and our need
for the Lord. He gave the Israelites a
specific glimpse into who God is and how He wanted them to live.
It was always pointing to Jesus. God already told them what the
end of the story was going to be, but the Pharisees missed it
in Jeremiah. 31 verses 31 through 34 says, Behold, the
days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new
covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.
Not like the covenant that I made with our with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of
the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke,
though I was their husband, declares the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of
Israel after those days, declares the Lord.
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their
hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, and each his
brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from
the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will.
Remember their sin no more. Now I don't want to, I don't
want to make your head spin, but when God gave this prophecy to
Jeremiah to write down this, this new covenant already
existed And, and the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant
was, was already fulfilled because Jesus is eternal.
And this plan of redemption has always been in place.
It might not have happened linearly in in time, the way
that we understand it, but this was God's plan from the
beginning. This, this was already in place.
So while some of the laws that we might, you know, that that
that we see here might seem inconsequential or or maybe even
silly to us. The fact is, guys.
I broke every. Single one of them, and Jesus
fulfilled every single one of them.
Jesus wasn't Plan B. He wasn't replacing or fixing
something broken. It was always perfect.
God commanded us to obey and He knew that we wouldn't, but He
loved us so much that He made a way for us to be redeemed.
We have to understand His wrath is righteous right?
We sinned against God Almighty and and we deserve death.
Not only is His wrath righteous, but His justice is perfect and
His nature demands it. So He paid it.
Now he didn't nullify it. The payment must be made.
Imagine if you were to talk to your bank.
If if some rich donor came up and, and, and set up automatic
payments to go from their bank account to to your account to
pay your mortgage, the the, the payment still has to be made
every month, right? The obligation has not been
nullified. It's just simply been fulfilled.
So if you remember the Old Testament sacrifice of, of
livestock for sin, that law is no longer over us, but that
obligation still has to be for our sins.
Someone has to pay for your sin with death.
God is so obviously good that disobedience to Him demands
death. Romans 623 says for the wages of
sin is. Death, but the free gift.
Of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
This can't be stated often enough.
The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus.
So as we close here today, often times I I.
Don't know if you guys. Yeah, you can see that often
times I, I think that, you know, people approach God's Word as
though it's designed for for someone else, right, The person
down the. The row from you or the?
Person 2 rows in the back or you know, or or whatever it is.
We think it's designed for someone else.
That is is, that is just for the the heathen who's continuously
screwing up his life every day. But I like this.
Quote from from Paul Washer. He says so many people think
that the gospel is for lost people.
The gospel is for lost people, but it's even more for converted
people. The more you and I understand
about what truly happened on that cross, the more you and I
will be driven to serve Christ, not out of legalism, not out of
some fear or dread, but simply out of joyful appreciation.
Look. What he did for me, guys, it
should have been us. Up there on that cross.
Jesus did that as a gift for us despite all that we've we've
seen when we when we look through the lens of Jesus life
of the, of of his perfect life of the, of the standard that
that he set and how much we fall short of meeting that standard.
All the way back in Genesis 2 and in the in the Garden of
Eden, God made the future clear to Adam.
Life is the reward for obedience, and death is the
punishment for. Disobedience in Ephesians 1,
seven through 10. It says in Him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses according to the riches of His grace which He
lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us
the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which
He set out, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the
fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven.
And things on earth all right before this passage, it says
that God predestined us for adoption.
He knew that we were going to fail and he chose to offer us
redemption anyway. Our our redemption is available
by God's grace, but only through faith.
You can't work for it only because of the goodness of of
God when we believe that that. Jesus lived perfectly.
And they and that he he died voluntarily and he was
resurrected unilaterally defeating death finally that we
can experience his gift. That's what I hope for each of
us here today that that we would view the law through the lens of
of Jesus perfection and through his obedience to God the Father
and that we would recognize the depravity of our souls and how
desperate we are for a savior. Guys, I.
Hope that today. Is is the day that you let go of
any false. Hope in your in yourself.
And you cling desperately to Jesus, but you know, if you, if
you struggle with understanding God's word and its influence in
your life, how it's how it's supposed to affect you because
maybe some of these things, maybe this is the first time
that you're hearing. And it could be hard for us to
to understand what is this supposed to mean 2000 years
later in my life in in the situations that that I exist in.
Remember Jesus is the key. Understanding Jesus heart is the
key to to, to to. To know his heart is the way
that we can better understand his plan for for each of us.
And so if you have questions for about that, come and talk to us
afterwards. But let's give this up to to
Jesus in in prayer, Lord God. It's the contrast between your
goodness, Lord, and and our sinfulness can't be overstated
when we look at, at, at your law that you gave to the to the
Israelites all those, all those many years ago and, and the
desire to be legalistic and, and hardcore in, in following pieces
and, and parts of it. Lord, because we thought that
doing some good things was going to help us out.
We thought that that keeping the the parts of the law that were
easy or that that served us was somehow going to impress you,
Lord. But when we understand your
heart, when we understand how how much you hate sin and how
it's, it's completely at odds with who you are in your
character, Lord. It's only then that we can
understand how bad our sin is, even even what we would
sometimes in our, in our humanity call little white lies
or, or the, the, the lighter of the sins, or we understand that
all of that sin that we've done separates us from you.
And that's a good thing, Lord, your justice is good.
And so when we consider that and we understand that because of
that sin, we're separated from you for, for all time, there is
nothing that we can do. And still in that, in your
goodness, Lord, you came with a plan for redemption that you've
planned since eternity passed. Lord, there's just no way we can
put in words how how awesome that is.
How amazing. That is.
And even though it's, it's beyond our our ability to
comprehend, Lord, the choices are is whether we accept it or
whether we reject it. So if if there are people in the
room here today, Lord, they have not placed their full faith in
you or they they still hold on to the idea that they can do
something to impress you or just shred our hearts and help us to
understand that there is nothing good that we can do.
And that it help us to understand and and cling so
desperately to you as the one and only opportunity that we
have to find your grace to, to find redemption.
And then, Lord, as we make that decision, if we grab a hold to
you or we want you to pull us close to you, we want to know
more about you. We want to know more about your
heart. Because the more we know about
your heart, the the more that Your word comes alive to us and
is effective in our lives and it's influential to other
people. So Lord, as we walk away from
here today, help us to really understand that contrast so that
we can be reminded. It should have been us on the
cross, but it wasn't. It was you.
Help us to put our full faith in You for the forgiveness of our
sins. Lord, for your glory in Jesus
name, Amen.