Two Invisible Webs From Hell (Mosaic Covenant part 2)

[0:00] Today will be our last sermon in this series called Covenant Theology for this semester. We'll take a break going into the Psalms this summer, and then in the fall we'll have probably four more sermons on Covenant Theology to wrap up that series before we go through another book of the Bible.

[0:20] Last week we looked in Exodus at how the Lord gave the law to the people at Mount Sinai. And today we're going to see now what is the role of the law in the life of a Christian and the covenant through Jesus Christ that's gracious.

[0:36] What role does the law have? That's why I'm calling it Mosaic Covenant Part Two. Let me give you a bit of context because I won't read the whole chapter this morning. But in Galatians Chapter Two, Paul is writing to a church in this region of Galatia.

[0:52] And he tells them there is a practice that has been happening that is unrighteous. There's something very wrong going on. You're going to pick up on what this was.

[1:05] He mentioned Cephas, and that's Peter. When we finish the series in John, remember, it's Peter who received grace from Jesus. Peter knows grace. It's Peter also who preached grace.

[1:18] And remember, when Peter preached in Acts 2, those who heard him were cut to the heart. Austin reminded our group in baptism, that's language of circumcision of the heart, as we read in Jeremiah 31.

[1:30] So let's pick up in our reading. I'm going to start reading at verse 11. But our sermon text, because you've got to handle what you read in the sermon. Our sermon text doesn't start until verse 14. But I'm going to start reading at verse 11.

[1:42] Give us an on-ramp. Galatians 2, verse 11. Paul is writing to the church in this region of Galatia. But when Cephas, that's Peter, came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

[1:59] For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party.

[2:14] Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. Now, verse 14. When I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, If you who are a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?

[2:40] We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. And yet, because we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus.

[2:56] This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. Because by the works of the law, no human being will be justified. But if we ourselves are also found to be sinners while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin?

[3:15] Absolutely not. If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker. For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God.

[3:30] Now, here's the part we should all memorize. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

[3:47] I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. This is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, and sufficient word.

[4:01] Thanks be to God. I know I didn't say it like we normally do. All right, you may be seated. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

[4:35] Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for how your word comes down like rain and it washes over us.

[4:52] And by the power of your spirit, it accomplishes what you intend. It always prospers for your purpose, by your power. We pray that your Holy Spirit will minister your word to us by your power again today, Lord.

[5:09] Pray that anything that is not of you will just fall to the ground like dust and blow away. But I ask for your help, that every word that comes from my mouth will be pleasing in your sight.

[5:21] And I pray for your Holy Spirit to help the believers to discern well, that you will illuminate your word to all of us. And so build us up together into the body of Jesus.

[5:32] Thank you for each precious soul here, Lord. You know what each one needs. We trust that you will minister according to your will. Amen. Amen. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I want to warn you today, like Paul was warning the churches in Galatia, of two invisible webs from hell.

[6:07] Two invisible webs from hell. Let me illustrate it this way. Picture a dragonfly, the noblest of all the insects, trying to make its way out of a barn.

[6:20] One, it sees one web and swerves only to get caught in another. You and I are like that dragonfly. There are two sticky, invisible webs.

[6:33] And they both appeal to our flesh and our pride. Both are a constant threat as long as we're living in the flesh in this world. We can call one of those webs legalism, the other web lawlessness.

[6:50] I'll show you my hand up front. It's everything I'm going to do my best to summarize from these verses. I'm trying to align myself with, well, the most helpful summary to me is Sinclair Ferguson called The Whole Christ, handling the law and gospel, the marrow controversy, and our tincture of being united to Christ.

[7:11] That's what I'm going to do my best to align with. And from that book, he wrote that each is a web of attitudes of the heart. It's an emphasis, a tone, a feeling about God, a way of reading Scripture that is strongly present in a soul, in a family, in a pulpit, and in a church.

[7:33] That's the end of his quote. And you and I, we get trapped by Satan into rejecting God's grace.

[7:43] This translation said, Do not set aside the grace. Think about that. There's nothing that Satan wants to do more than to keep you and me from God's grace.

[7:56] That's his mission. And that's why these webs are from hell. So don't reject God's grace. Beware of these two invisible webs from hell.

[8:09] The first sticky web, it's invisible, but it teaches this. Works complete salvation. Works complete salvation.

[8:24] Look at verse 14. Paul says, This is an invisible sticky web.

[8:48] You know why? Peter got caught in this. This means that their church, when they would gather, they would share a meal. Strong biblical encouragement for the body to break bread together and share that meal.

[9:03] But did you catch what was happening in verses 11 through 13? Peter used to eat with those who were uncircumcised. He would sit at the table. We are one big family. And now there is a separate table.

[9:16] Well, that's how the synagogue and the temple were arranged. There were spheres of holiness. The closer you get to the holy of holies, the closer you are to God. But if you're a woman or a Gentile, you get pushed further and further out.

[9:29] So do you see the mistake that the early church had been making? Even Peter, an apostle, who knew grace, he had made the mistake of patterning the church after old Jerusalem.

[9:40] They were patterning their fellowship, their community, the way that they break bread after the synagogue and the temple.

[9:51] They're failing to see how Christ has fulfilled those heavenly shadows and types. The real pattern is what Christ brings. There's a newness to the new covenant. Amen. We are all susceptible to this.

[10:07] If Peter could, I can. I do. And you need to call me out like Paul called Peter out when we do this. In verse 14, we see that Paul had to confront Peter publicly.

[10:18] If this happened before Acts 15, I think it is, then that means by the time we arrive with the leaders from the churches that are scattered all in Jerusalem for the Jerusalem council, Peter is an ally and he agrees and he's on the side of Paul.

[10:34] But it took some correcting at the beginning. They were compelling other Christians, so they were compelling these Gentiles to be circumcised in the flesh. They were trying to apply a law to fellow Christians that Christ had already fulfilled.

[10:51] But the motivation was so that they could secure their salvation. Complete your salvation by adding on this work. How can legalism, how can that get into a Christian church like these in Galatia and like ours right here?

[11:09] We look back at the beginning of chapter 2, we see that it was false brothers who secretly brought this in. These were wolves in sheep's clothing. And they were coming in the recommendation of the church in Jerusalem, James.

[11:25] We read in verse 12, even James, you know, had sent them. They seemed very credible. But Paul warns Titus of these same false teachers, these Judaizers in Titus 1.10, many are insubordinate, empty talkers, deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

[11:46] Well, let's check ourselves right now. How can you and I tell? Yes, we know that we are saved by grace alone. Probably tired of hearing that around here.

[11:58] We know that. But are you still trying to do more to really lock it in? I can fall into that very easily. Here's another test for each of us.

[12:10] Are you more focused on how another Christian disappoints you than your own need for grace? Here's a third test.

[12:22] If you're like me in my flesh, we tend to think of God's commands separate from the person and work of God.

[12:34] Here's a fourth one. Are you laboring for assurance instead of resting in the completed salvation and then instead just laboring in joyful gratitude?

[12:52] In this church, they were clinging to an outward sign of assurance, circumcision of the flesh, rather than God's goodness as the covenant keeper.

[13:05] Paul's correcting them. Your works do not complete your salvation. Your works are an evidence of God saving you.

[13:17] The same Lord who decreed your salvation, who accomplished it, and who is applying it, He completes it in you. He gets all the glory. Look at verse 21 once again, the last part of chapter 2.

[13:32] If righteousness is through the law, through your works, then Christ died for nothing. That's what's at stake. It's the glory of Christ in our salvation. Do not reject the grace of God.

[13:45] Second question I want to put in front of you is this. How does legalism snag your heart?

[13:57] We've seen it's invisible and it's sticky. How does that actually trap you? How does legalism snag your heart? Legalism grows in our heart because of pride and because we have the wrong view of God.

[14:15] Those are the two root causes. We have pride in our flesh. We'll be battling our own pride until the last day we take a breath. The second thing is a wrong view of God.

[14:27] Well, where does that wrong view of God come from? Even for Christians. It's because Satan is the accuser. Satan is trying to take Christians and accuse God to you. Look at verse 15.

[14:41] I think we get at the heart of how they got snagged by the way Paul addresses them. Remember, they're sitting in separate tables. This is the table for the circumcised only.

[14:53] So you can get circumcised, then you'd be welcome over here. And Paul's basically calling out their pride. He says, we being Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners.

[15:07] He's saying, yes, I can talk as one at the cool table, the circumcised. We're not like the sinners over there. And then he just destroys them like only Paul can do.

[15:18] He's basically telling them, do you forget you were a sinner also? Have you not read the Bible, the Old Testament? It's been so clear all along.

[15:29] Jeremiah 4.4 Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh and take away the foreskins of your heart. That's what Yahweh is after with his people.

[15:42] Jeremiah 9.25 Behold the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh.

[15:54] Have you not read your Bible? Well, what happens in legalism? In this case, they were worshipping a visible sign instead of the invisible Savior.

[16:08] Worshipping a visible sign instead of the invisible Savior. It's easy to do that or to want to do that, isn't it? I can see this big celebration.

[16:22] I can see people, you know, wearing t-shirts and getting baptized. I don't know if they've been discipled, but we're going to celebrate what's visible because I can do that. Rather, the invisible Savior because that requires faith.

[16:35] That requires me having a different view of God. And it's only possible if He's circumcised my heart. In this case, they were also emphasizing a physical behavior for Jesus, for God, rather than the spiritual union of a believer to Jesus.

[16:54] They were emphasizing a visible behavior. You go and do this so that we know. Instead of emphasizing union to the Savior. Legalism fell for the same thing that Adam and Eve fell for.

[17:12] Remember, it's the lie that God does not have your best interests in mind, that He is not loving and gracious, and that He requires you to work to complete your salvation by your own strength.

[17:30] And He's going to hold that over you until you're done. And that's a lie. When Satan tempted Eve, remember what Eve said?

[17:41] We're not supposed to eat of any of the fruits. Oh, that's the wrong view of God. God said, eat from all of the fruit, from all the trees. This principle of legalism was introduced, whether Eve came up with that from Satan, or maybe Adam preached it wrong to her that way.

[17:55] One or the other, they were being legalistic with what God had told them. Jesus attacks this in almost every parable. Think of the prodigal son.

[18:09] There's the elder brother. He refuses his father. He refuses the feast that his father's inviting him to because of the grace the father showed the rebellious little brother.

[18:22] Think of the workers. They worked all day for a day's wage, and that was fine until they saw those who showed up late got the same wage. That's when they had major issues.

[18:33] It's seeing that God is gracious that makes a legalist mad. That's what exposes legalism in our pride and in our flesh. If we feel strongly that I need to compel a saved sinner and I need to bind their conscience more than Jesus Christ himself does, then I'm stuck in this web of legalism.

[18:58] Verse 21, if righteousness were that way, then Christ died for nothing. To get trapped in that is to reject God's grace.

[19:11] That's how legalism snags us though. Third question, how does the Holy Spirit untangle you and me from this web of legalism?

[19:23] We see how he gets stuck in it. How does the Holy Spirit set us free and untangle us out of that? Well, in a short answer, the Holy Spirit gospels you out of it.

[19:36] The Holy Spirit gospels us out of that. That's what Peter hears from Paul next. Paul preaches two things with the gospel. What's the same and what changed.

[19:47] First, what's the same? The Lord reminds us that He is the same. He does not change. He has always saved anyone older new covenant the same way.

[20:00] Look at verse 15. We being Jews by nature, Jews according to the flesh, circumcised from the line of Abraham and not Gentile sinners.

[20:10] Verse 16, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Read Galatians 3. This is how God saved Abraham.

[20:21] It's by faith. We know this. God has always said this. Take for example Hosea 6.6. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

[20:36] That's what God is always after. He desires a covenant love. He desires hesed, the Hebrew word for steadfast love, covenant bond with His people, not the ceremonial law.

[20:51] That's what Samuel preached to David in his sin. 1 Samuel 15.22. Has the Lord has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord.

[21:05] Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. The Lord is always after the covenant love, the covenant bond, the covenant obedience of His people.

[21:18] So what's not changed is God. What's not changed is how God measures and requires obedience and that's the moral law of God.

[21:29] The moral law of God is the same law. Adam and Eve had it. Every person that's made in the image of God has the moral transcendent law of God. We saw last week in the Mosaic covenant the Lord writes this law, the moral law, the Ten Commandments with His own finger on tablets of stone.

[21:49] And then He gives the ceremonial law as a resource to make that right or to understand now how you can be in communion with God knowing that you're a sinner. Why did God require bulls and goats of the Israelites?

[22:03] It's because they had broken His moral law. Why did the Israelites need priests that would mediate a blood ceremony for the forgiveness that God would attribute to them because those animals don't forgive anything?

[22:16] It's because they knew the moral law of God and it was given as clearly as anyone could ask. The moral law reflects the nature of the holy God. God does not change.

[22:30] So that's how He first gospels Him through it is clarifying God does not change, the moral law does not change. But now what does change? The Lord reveals to us that Christ's incarnation and work changes everything for His people in the best way.

[22:46] What do we mean? Well, Paul says next in verse 16, he says, even we, meaning ethnic national Jews in the same way as the Gentiles, we believe in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ.

[23:03] We are justified in Christ. if you are in Christ, being united not by any works but by faith alone, you are in Him and God declares you justified.

[23:18] You are righteous. You are holy. You can enter the holy of holies if you are in Christ. He tore the veil. This is why it changes everything. But it changes it for everyone who is in Christ.

[23:31] The same. Not by works of the law because no flesh, no flesh, no matter what people group you're from, will be justified by the works of the law.

[23:43] He explains this same point to the church in Rome, Romans 2.29. Paul says, He is a Jew who is one inwardly. Circumcision is that of the heart by the Spirit.

[23:58] So you're saying circumcision has no relationship to baptism? No, we're saying that the church patterns itself off of New Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. Those who have been circumcised in the heart receive the sign of the new covenant.

[24:15] Moses didn't only give the Ten Commandments written by God's finger to the people of Israel. That's the moral law. He also received from the Lord a ceremonial law and a civil law. The ceremonial law was fulfilled by the person and work of Jesus.

[24:31] Ephesians 2.15. He abolished the law and commandments expressed in the ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in the place of two and so making peace.

[24:46] What about the civil laws? Well, the civil laws were given for national Israel as their rule under God as their king for life in that land.

[24:59] How does the New Testament command the church? Well, the New Testament, the church, is an international people of God spread throughout a lot of different nations and cities and rules by those people and we are told to submit ourselves to those worldly rulers that God has ordained, Romans 13, as long as their laws don't contradict the higher law of God.

[25:25] So now for the church, what's the role of the law? What's the role of the law? Well, we can be feeling at this point, I hate legalism.

[25:38] I don't want to be that. I want to be like that dragon flying swerve as far away from legalism as I can. But that's only the first invisible web. The second sticky web from hell is this.

[25:52] You are saved, but you're not united to Christ. You're saved somehow, you're declared righteous, but you're not united to Christ.

[26:06] Verse 17, we read, If while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found sinners, is Christ a servant, a promoter, a minister of sin?

[26:20] Certainly not. Absolutely. not. Verse 18, For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a lawbreaker.

[26:33] This is a, these verses are difficult to interpret. I'm going to save you my exercises trying to figure it out. I think the best clarity I got was from Calvin's commentary. When Paul says in verse 18, If I build up again those things, Calvin's interpretation is that Paul is using language in general, like, I wouldn't even do this.

[26:56] I wouldn't tear something down just to build that same thing back up. If I wouldn't do it, Jesus Christ definitely doesn't work that way either. That's the argument. So, Jesus Christ is no lawbreaker.

[27:08] His work does not contradict himself. 1 John 3, verse 8 says that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. And Christ does not build sin in his people.

[27:25] Because that would be a foundation of destroying the works of the devil, destroying sin in the life of his people. Why would Jesus now be a minister of sin? Why would Jesus be ruling over his people like saving them but not freeing them of that bondage to sin anymore?

[27:41] That's the argument. It might be better understood by this paraphrase by Matthew Henry. To live in sin because you are justified by faith alone is to try to make Christ the minister of sin at any thought of which all Christian hearts would shudder.

[27:59] Matthew Henry is pointing out that same thing. If you are truly in Christ, the thought of Christ now building a life of sin in you would make you shudder. Anyone who's truly in Christ would never view sin that way.

[28:14] But why can we get tangled up in this other invisible web? Why is it, why does it work on us? Sinclair Ferguson calls these two unidentical twins, like non-identical twins from the same womb.

[28:28] They both come from hell and they both appeal to the same thing. They appeal to our pride, again, and a wrong view of God. when we become frustrated by our weakness to obey God's law, we all have, that's Romans 7, we don't do it well, we don't love God and obey Him as much as we wish we did.

[28:54] Then what our pride wants to do is to blame God's law. Doesn't it? Well, surely I can't be the problem, it must be the law of God that's the problem. in Christ, you are justified and you are no longer under the dominion of sin.

[29:13] If you are in Christ, He will rule over your life as your covenant Lord. You are truly in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. Sin no longer has dominion over you if you are in Christ.

[29:27] 1 Corinthians 7, 19 says, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but keeping the commands of God. So it's the Christian who can read Psalm 119 and agree how I love your law.

[29:45] It slays me, it makes me humble, it teaches me I am weak on my own but it brings me back to my union in Christ, the only mediator.

[29:56] That's why I love your law. I don't hate the law, I don't blame the law. Your works do not complete your salvation but your works are evidence of your salvation.

[30:10] And just like legalism is to reject the grace of God, lawlessness is the same. You reject grace if you detach the way you live from the person and work of Christ.

[30:23] You have a wrong view of God if you get trapped in this because it means you don't believe that Christ has any real power. You don't believe that He loves you even more than you love yourself because He does.

[30:39] Satan wants you to have that wrong view. Satan wants to accuse God to you. Satan wants you to not believe God could possibly want you to have assurance.

[30:51] And there's nothing that God wants more than for you to be assured of your union and you're standing before Him in Christ. That's the gospel. When you get stuck in this web, you accuse God's law, you believe that God is not love or good, Satan stirs up that pride into even more disobedience.

[31:16] And what this does is your disobedience and mine, it robs us of ever truly enjoying assurance, of ever truly trusting God and trusting that His grace sanctifies you because you truly are in Christ.

[31:40] When we get stuck in one, we want to overreact and we're like that pendulum on an old grandfather clock. We want to overcorrect, don't we? Satan wants us to think that lawlessness does not free you.

[31:55] I'm going to say that a different way. I'm so sorry. When I'm stuck in legalism, I think, in my flesh, with Satan accusing, I think the way to get out of legalism is to go to lawlessness.

[32:10] When I'm in lawlessness, I think the way to correct that is to go back over to legalism. Look at what Paul says next in verse 19. He says, For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.

[32:28] For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God. Paul is saying lawlessness is not what frees you out of legalism.

[32:42] It's the law that kills legalism in you. The problem was never God's law. Satan wants to use God's commands to deceive you about the nature of God who gave the command.

[32:58] But the problem all along has been my own sin. Would you turn with me to Romans 7? Look at Romans 7, verse 8. Romans is laid out as a systematic theology.

[33:15] It's laid out sequentially in a very purposeful order. I believe Romans 6 is about justification. I believe Romans 7 is about a Christian being sanctified.

[33:28] Romans 8 is about assurance. Romans 7, starting at verse 8. Paul, writing in the first person, it's his own testimony in this battle.

[33:41] He says, sin, seizing an opportunity, how? Through the commandment, through the moral law, stirred up all kinds of covetousness that was inside of me.

[33:54] The law of God exposed the sin in me. Is the problem the law or my sin? Paul's giving his testimony. The problem is my sin. Look at verse 10.

[34:06] Paul writes, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. Under the Mosaic covenant, the arrangement was do this and live.

[34:18] If you can obey it all perfectly, personally, and perpetually, the promise of life. So it promised life, but it proved to be death to me because I can't do that.

[34:30] Verse 11, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me. Verse 12, so the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

[34:47] The law of God is holy, the moral law of God is righteous and it's good. The moral law is holy, it's from God, from the creator, two creatures.

[35:01] It is righteous, it is still pleasing to God, it has not been abrogated and it is good, it is a blessing from God for me.

[35:12] That's how we ought to view the law. You can turn back to Galatians chapter 2. Paul says, through the law, I died to the law.

[35:25] God's law killed me in the best way. God's law is what killed my pride. God's law killed legalism inside me.

[35:37] When we use God's law, when we use the Ten Commandments as a mirror, like we read in James, it does this. It helps us to die to legalism. It shows us, if I'm not in Christ, I am utterly hopeless because I can produce no good works on my own.

[35:58] When God exposes sin in you and me, it makes us want to praise Him for one reason. It shows me that I am united to Christ on the point of my sin first because it was my sin that Christ paid for on the cross.

[36:20] And therefore, I'm united to Christ in His paying for my sin. And because my sin unites me to Christ's crucifixion in my place, look at what Paul writes in verse 20.

[36:36] That's how I, my pride, my sin, my flesh, have been crucified with Christ. The law is not what dies.

[36:49] The law kills our pride and it kills legalism inside of us. We are dead to legalism, we are dead to sin's dominion, but the law does not die because the law is a reflection of the eternal transcendent God.

[37:04] And Christ rules over His people as He always has with a good, holy, and righteous law. But we don't take the law as we had to at Mount Sinai, the people of God with trembling knowing they'll come short.

[37:18] We take it from the hand of Christ, our Savior. We take it with gratitude. If you are in Christ, when you break God's moral law, it has no power to condemn you any longer.

[37:33] You are free from that curse, and instead you receive only blessings because it draws you back to your need to be united to Him again. Well, there's still one problem we've got to resolve, at least in my own mind.

[37:48] we are no better as Gentiles than the Jews. That's Paul's whole argument. Jews, you are no better than the Gentiles. Gentiles, you are no better than the Jews either.

[38:00] If the Jews, the Israelites, lacked the power, the love inside of them like Hosea exposed to keep the law and obey God, what's our hope? We lack that same power if we're under that same covenant.

[38:14] I believe that's what is handled in verse 20 and 21. the power that you and I lack on our own. Look at verse 20. Paul says, now that I've been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me.

[38:32] That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. What is the secret to walking in Christ?

[38:47] What is the secret to having the power we would lack? Well, on Mount Sinai, the Lord called this mediator up the mountain and the Lord wrote on these stone tablets the moral law and he sent them back down with Moses mediating, ruling over the people with God as their king.

[39:11] And the law gave him a direction, live this way, this is pleasing to me. But it simply exposed their own flesh, their own inability to keep it by their strength.

[39:23] See the similarities. Moses himself prophesied, there will be a prophet like me, one of your brothers who will come and he will give you God's law. And Jesus in the same way, having completed his work, he ascended to the highest heaven.

[39:38] He ascended and from there he gives that same law, but he gives it by the power of the Holy Spirit not written on stone tablets, but written in the hearts of his people.

[39:52] The Holy Spirit not only writes the law in our hearts, but he also indwells the believer and he gives us the power that we lack to walk with him. 2 John 1.6 says, this is love, that we walk according to his commands.

[40:12] Love and the commands working together. Sinclair Ferguson commented, love for Jesus is expressed by commandment keeping.

[40:26] Love is the fulfillment of the law. Love is never said to be a replacement for law. It was not legalism for Jesus to do everything his father commanded, nor is it for us.

[40:41] The difference between you and I as Gentiles with the Israelites is that Jesus has kept the law savingly for us already. And on top of that, he has sent his Holy Spirit, what the New Testament calls the Spirit of Christ, to live in and through his people.

[41:01] Hebrews 8 says, everyone in the covenant with Christ will know him. And he will put his law in our minds and in our hearts. We're told as Christians to work out your salvation with trembling.

[41:14] We're told to run the race. This is language of forward movement as a Christian. If you're in Christ, you are marching behind him, you are following him.

[41:26] And forward movement, Sinclair Ferguson again pointed out, requires two things, a direction and a power. He gave the example of a train, an engine on the railway tracks.

[41:40] The Ten Commandments are the tracks. It gives us a direction of where we go. But there's this massive iron horse, this engine that needs to be moved. Where does that power come from?

[41:51] Well, the engine's power is the Holy Spirit in the believer. It's the love of God poured into our hearts continuously, filling us back up, jet engine to propel us on the tracks.

[42:04] So in the new covenant, we have both. We have what the Israelites lacked. We have the direction that we share, that doesn't change, but now we have the power. We have folks who have been preparing for baptism, and this is what is pictured in baptism, buried with Christ, and then raised to newness of life.

[42:27] You have been crucified with Christ, united to Him on the point of your sin, and now you're raised to newness of life with the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

[42:41] That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. You notice how this is really the refrain of every one of your favorite hymns and songs.

[42:58] I pulled a couple examples. John Bunyan who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, he put this in first person, how this was true for him in a poem.

[43:09] Run, John, run, the law commands, but gives neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings, it bids me fly and gives me wings.

[43:22] William Cooper, in a hymn he wrote, to see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear His pardoning voice changes a slave into a child and duty into choice.

[43:39] My encouragement for us today, don't reject God's grace. Don't let your pride get you entangled in either one of these webs.

[43:53] Don't let the lies of Satan accuse God to you. Believe who He is. As we'll sing in a moment, arise, poor, wretched sinner, and go to Jesus.

[44:07] He will embrace you in His arms. Rest in His grace again. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this glorious gospel that we do have life in Jesus Christ.

[44:27] We have been crucified with Christ for our sin, but we have life in Christ by Your power so that it is no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me.

[44:41] Please work this out, Lord, in every aspect of our lives for Your glory we ask. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[44:52] Amen. Amen.