WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.640 If you have your Bibles, you can turn with me back to Matthew chapter 5, verse 17, page 969 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:21.879 ! of the Church Bible. And we're going to ask ourselves the question today, why do I need 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:28.879 ! the Bible? We have a big aim for today. My big aim is that you and I would love the Bible, 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:34.140 that we would understand every time we read the Bible or hear it, we are encountering God. 00:00:35.039 --> 00:00:41.840 It gives us an opportunity to hear the voice of Jesus. It's the place where we go to discover 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:49.659 truth and grace, that the Bible unfolds God's great story of salvation with Jesus as hero and 00:00:49.659 --> 00:00:59.699 climax. It's the one book that gives shape to our lives. My aim is that, and my prayer is that our 00:00:59.699 --> 00:01:05.379 church worship, and every time we pick up the Bible by ourselves, it would be with a sense of joyful 00:01:05.379 --> 00:01:12.420 duty. But of course, to say that is to recognize that there are big barriers to overcome. 00:01:12.420 --> 00:01:21.359 There are, as ever, the distractions that would keep us from the Bible. We have that issue with our 00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:29.879 diet, where we'd rather consume something else. Perhaps when we open the Bible, we come with a 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:37.500 sense of distrust. Can I really trust God's character or God's promises? Or maybe, and maybe 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:41.359 especially if we're new to the Bible, we open it and we get a bit disorientated, a bit lost, 00:01:41.359 --> 00:01:50.219 what's it all about? How do I make sense of it all? So our big idea from the text is that we would let 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:57.719 Jesus teach us about this question, why do you and I need the Bible? That we'll learn together that 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:08.719 because Jesus has fulfilled God's law, and he loves God's law, his followers can now love it and obey it 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:16.639 too. So in a sense, this is a Q&A session with Jesus about the Bible. And here's our first question, 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:26.439 how should we read the Bible? And our answer is we should read it seeing Jesus as the fulfillment, 00:02:26.819 --> 00:02:33.039 as the point, as the destination. Hear what Jesus says in verse 17, 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:40.199 do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:46.759 but to fulfill them. Now we might be familiar with these words, but we need to hear again how 00:02:46.759 --> 00:02:52.840 radical this teaching is. Jesus, as it were, picks up the 66 books of the Old Testament and he says, 00:02:53.079 --> 00:02:56.959 no, the 39 books of the Old Testament, we can include the 27, the New Testament, he says, 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:05.819 these books are all about me. I am the center of God's story. I am the source of God's wisdom. 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:17.560 I am the one who has prophesied. Jesus' point is that he is the Lord God, and as such, the Word of God 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:25.200 points to him. The Bible reveals Jesus' character. It speaks to us of the character of God. Jesus is God. 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:32.780 The Old Testament speaks to us of the commands of Jesus. They're the commands of God, and Jesus is God. 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:40.199 And the Old Testament reveals to us the covenant love of Jesus, because Jesus is God. 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:48.339 So it's really important when we read that we don't put a gap between the God of the Old Testament and 00:03:48.339 --> 00:03:54.659 the God of the New Testament. The God of the Bible is unchanging, and Jesus reveals himself to us. 00:03:55.199 --> 00:04:04.639 And Jesus' notice says, I have come to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. So there's already an 00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:10.199 accusation. This is quite early in Jesus' ministry. There's an accusation that Jesus is anti-law. 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:16.639 He seems to be working on the Sabbath. The law of Moses says rest, but Jesus is doing miracles, 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:23.419 and miracles sound like work. So is he anti-law? And Jesus says, no, I've not come to abolish the law. 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:33.020 I've come to fulfill it. Or I've come to fulfill the law. In the sense that when we read about Jesus in the 00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:41.840 Gospels, we are invited to understand, ah, now I understand God's Word. When it teaches me to love 00:04:41.839 --> 00:04:49.119 God and love my neighbor, now I see it perfectly in Jesus. Now I understand the law because Jesus fills it 00:04:49.119 --> 00:04:56.399 full. He fulfills it too in the sense of being the climax to which the story is pointing to. 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:06.000 An old English preacher used to say that just as all roads in England eventually, one way or another, 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:14.019 lead their way to London. So all of the Old Testament eventually leads us to the Lord Jesus. 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:21.279 We read every theme understanding that that theme is fulfilled in Jesus. 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:27.620 Here's another way perhaps that we can think about it, and it's kind of timely. We're going to use the 00:05:27.620 --> 00:05:35.800 image of wedding vows. Okay, so tomorrow we'll have a wedding. And at the moment when wedding vows 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:46.199 are made, the engagement has been fulfilled. Because the destination or the purpose of an engagement is 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:53.720 always the marriage. And of course when marriage begins, that's not the end of the love story, but it's 00:05:53.720 --> 00:06:01.639 a new phase of that story has now been reached. Now think about that in terms of what Jesus is saying. 00:06:02.439 --> 00:06:09.240 In God's story line of salvation, which is part of what the law and the prophet speaks to us about, 00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:21.560 where God says, I will be your God and you will be my people, the coming of Jesus presents the climax of 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:30.599 that great story. It's a new demonstration of God's covenant love as Jesus' body is broken and His blood 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:36.760 shed so that our sin can be forgiven and we can be restored to life with God. He is the Son who comes 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:45.320 to rescue His bride. He is the one who offers Himself to save us. He completes the story of God's covenant 00:06:45.320 --> 00:06:54.200 love. Jesus has come to fulfill the law and the prophet. Let's take just three examples of how Jesus 00:06:54.199 --> 00:07:00.759 fulfills the Old Testament. Just to help us to think about how to read the Bible. There's loads more that 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:05.399 we could choose from, but one theme that we get right from the beginning is the theme of the seed, 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:12.839 the promised seed, this child who would be sent. To Adam and Eve there was the promise of a seed who 00:07:12.839 --> 00:07:21.959 would come and he would undo the curse. One would come who would defeat evil and death. That's Jesus. 00:07:22.759 --> 00:07:29.239 To Abraham the message came that a seed would be sent who would be God's way of blessing the nations, 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:39.239 who would bring the nations into life with God. That seed is Jesus. David was told about a son who 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:44.920 would come, who would be the true king and he would reign forever and he would reign in perfect 00:07:44.920 --> 00:07:53.319 righteousness and gather his people to himself and that king, that seed is Jesus. So he fulfills 00:07:53.319 --> 00:08:01.720 that theme. Jesus also fulfills the whole sacrificial system. As John the Baptist tells us, Jesus is the 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:07.560 Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So now we read about the Passover and we understand it 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:16.920 that for people who were slaves to be set free, they needed to paint blood and be covered by the blood 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:21.959 of a sacrificial lamb so that judgment could pass over. Now we look at the cross and we understand 00:08:21.959 --> 00:08:33.000 Jesus is our true Passover lamb sacrificed for us. Jesus is also the great high priest. Just as the high 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:39.720 priest would serve and make sacrifice, Jesus is the great high priest who sacrifices nothing less than 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:48.519 himself. And Jesus continues to serve as our high priest. He carries his people into the very presence 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:58.840 of God and he ever lives to pray for us. Another really important theme that Jesus fulfills is this promise 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:05.720 of the sending of the Spirit. So the Bible is really clear from Old Testament, New Testament, the great 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:13.160 problem that we have as people is the problem within our hearts. It's the problem of sin that makes us both 00:09:13.160 --> 00:09:21.480 unwilling and unable to love, to trust, and to obey our God. And we need that sin to be removed and we need 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:28.440 God to do a new work in us to give us new life. And there is this promise in the Old Testament that God 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:35.960 would send his Messiah and his Messiah will be the means of establishing this new covenant. And within 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:42.120 the new covenant what God is going to do for his people is he is going to put a new heart in us, take 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:50.120 away a heart of stone to give us a heart of flesh that is able to love God. And he's going to put his own 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:56.519 spirit within us so God's going to come and live within us. And he's going to write the law on our hearts 00:09:56.519 --> 00:10:02.440 in such a way that now the people of God can truly obey. And Jesus came and he was filled with the 00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:10.200 Spirit and he now sends the Spirit. And so he fulfills that promise too. And thinking about that one in 00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:20.520 particular explains why as Jesus begins to teach, he talks about that greater righteousness, a righteousness 00:10:20.520 --> 00:10:29.160 that surpasses the Pharisees. Not just an external surface level obedience. Jesus by sending the Spirit 00:10:29.160 --> 00:10:38.840 makes it possible for us to obey God from our hearts. So how then should we read our Bible? So imagine the next 00:10:38.840 --> 00:10:45.080 time you go to pick it up. Or what even more is going to motivate us to pick up our Bible to read it. 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:53.160 Let me give you two words. We should read our Bible with expectation. There's a great children's 00:10:53.160 --> 00:11:00.360 storybook Bible with the subtitle, Every Story Whispers His Name. And it's a great Bible that's showing how 00:11:00.360 --> 00:11:05.400 all the great stories, all the great characters, or even all the great failures in one way or another 00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:15.879 point towards Jesus. So read with expectation, expecting to both meet with and to hear from Jesus in His Word. 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:25.079 Read the Bible looking to discover how is Jesus the true hero of this story? How is He shown as the great 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:30.120 law keeper? How is He the promise maker and promise keeper? 00:11:32.520 --> 00:11:43.560 Pray for help to see Jesus, to worship Jesus, and to obey Jesus as we read the Bible. So we read with 00:11:43.560 --> 00:11:54.040 expectation but also read for excavation. Okay, now we're thinking about digging. Two senses come to mind. 00:11:54.039 --> 00:12:06.039 One we excavate in order to dig for gold. The Bible speaks about itself as gold. So we read our Bibles with 00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:16.519 great care. We read prayerfully. We read studying it and looking to meditate on it so that we would find the 00:12:16.519 --> 00:12:28.120 Lord Jesus Christ and His good news as our great treasure. We're invited to dig for gold. But also, when we think about 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:36.759 excavation, we dig down to lay a solid foundation for our lives. As we get towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, 00:12:36.759 --> 00:12:43.480 Jesus uses that picture of the wise man who builds his house on a rock. And that rock is Jesus and His Word. 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:52.039 So we need to learn to get rid of the shifting sands of building on our own sin or our own desires or living 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:59.960 life our own way in order to build on the solid rock of Jesus and His Word. Because you and I need to know His truth. 00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:10.360 We need to know the promises that He makes. And we need to know God's great love for us in Jesus our Savior. 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:19.639 So today is a great day to pick up our Bible and read. Today, if you haven't done it for a while, 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:24.919 is a great day to renew that practice. And there's heaps of resources up the back there to help 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:32.360 you and I to dig in so they could discover and delight in Jesus. So that's our first question. 00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:38.680 How should we read the Bible? Our second question is this, why should I obey the Bible? 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:46.599 Why should I obey the Bible? And again, Jesus would teach us we obey because God's Word is unbreakable 00:13:46.599 --> 00:13:50.599 and permanently valid. Verse 18, Jesus says, 00:13:50.599 --> 00:13:57.399 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the 00:13:57.399 --> 00:14:02.679 least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. 00:14:02.679 --> 00:14:09.000 Okay, I'm going to guess that the majority of us in the room, we know the idea of paying for things in 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:14.599 installments. And maybe we bought our car on higher purchase or we've got a mortgage for our house or 00:14:14.599 --> 00:14:22.359 we've used Klarna to pay up our shopping. And if we've ever paid in installments, we know that once 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:29.560 payment is made in full, the company can't expect anything else. We are free from that debt. 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:37.560 So here's the question. Since Jesus has said he has fulfilled the law, and the Bible teaches that he 00:14:37.560 --> 00:14:44.600 fulfills it both in the sense of giving perfect and full obedience and meeting the demands of justice for 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:51.960 law-breaking by dying as if he were a sinner in our place on the cross, since Jesus has fulfilled it, why 00:14:52.519 --> 00:15:00.920 should we obey it? Or to ask the question that is often asked, are we now free to live as we please? 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:11.960 Is there no law left for us except for the law of love? And so we need to listen to Jesus again in order 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:19.879 to get this right. John Newton, the hymn writer and pastor of many years ago said that the Christian 00:15:19.879 --> 00:15:25.800 relationship to the law is maybe the biggest struggle that we'll have in the Christian life. 00:15:25.800 --> 00:15:32.440 We're always going to be tempted either to a form of legalism where we're thinking, oh, if I do this 00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:37.400 obedience well, then God will be more pleased with me, or we'll be tempted in the opposite direction to 00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:45.159 lawlessness or license or since Jesus has forgiven me, I can do whatever I want. So why should you and I obey 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:52.840 the Bible? What does Jesus say? Notice verse 18 begins, for truly I tell you. This is a phrase that says, 00:15:52.840 --> 00:16:03.240 okay, here I am speaking with authority and it's time to listen up. And he makes it clear that none of the law 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:13.159 will disappear. Not one letter, not even a little squiggle of a letter will disappear until heaven and 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:22.680 earth disappear. So this is Jesus' way of saying God's law is permanently valid until the end of history. 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:31.879 There will be a day when Jesus returns and the world is made new and everything is accomplished. 00:16:31.879 --> 00:16:40.519 In the new creation, when the believers in Jesus will live in a glorified state. When our love, 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:47.159 our worship, and our obedience will be perfect. We'll have no more need of the law. It will be so 00:16:47.159 --> 00:16:53.399 tattooed onto our hearts that we will forever be unable to break it. But until that day, 00:16:53.399 --> 00:17:02.279 we need to know the law and obey the law. Why do we need it? It's all about its purpose. 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:10.519 What does the law reveal? What is the law's purpose? Well, to understand that is to recognize that the 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:18.200 law reveals to us both the character and the will of God. It's as if God writes down for us, 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:31.720 this is what I value. These truths in my word, they reflect my heart. So God says, be holy because I am holy. 00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:42.839 The law also shows the character of us as people. The law functions as a mirror and that mirror serves to 00:17:42.839 --> 00:17:51.319 expose our spiritual flaws when we look deeply inside it. The law is the equivalent of that ultraviolet 00:17:51.319 --> 00:18:00.039 light that shows the moral bacteria and infection that we have. But the purpose of the law is also 00:18:00.919 --> 00:18:10.119 to reveal the character of salvation. Because when we read the law, we find within it the story of God's 00:18:10.119 --> 00:18:19.159 gracious rescue. And we discover that God provides sacrifice so that we can be forgiven and restored. 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:28.279 And when we read the law, we understand that God's goal is that he would be our God and we would be his people 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:37.320 in restored relationship. So the law is good, its purpose is good. To know God truly, to know ourselves truly, 00:18:37.320 --> 00:18:44.440 to find the true way to be saved and brought home, we need to read and to obey God's word. 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:54.200 For us as Christians, we need to obey the Bible. Again, think about what this has to say for our 00:18:54.200 --> 00:19:02.120 worship. Again, to borrow from the image of a marriage, if a wife says to a husband, this matters 00:19:02.120 --> 00:19:09.000 to me, this idea, this thing, this is important to me, a good husband will say, well, if you value it, 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:18.920 I value it too. So when God says, my word and my law matters to me, we value it to show that we value our 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:26.839 God. But we also absolutely need it for our lives. Think about our everyday lives. Think about our work. 00:19:26.839 --> 00:19:34.759 If we're busy at home, we're doing routine tasks, we're dealing with family issues, we need a constant 00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:42.920 supply of God's grace, God's wisdom, God's patience, God's love. If we're at work and we're working with 00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:49.000 people with a very different value system than us, or we're surrounded by office gossip or the pressure 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:55.799 to cut corners, then we need to know and to do God's truth and God's justice and to pursue God's will, 00:19:55.799 --> 00:20:05.240 even if that's costly. Or in the world of education, where we're surrounded by social media use which 00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:12.119 can be profoundly unhealthy, or where people like to pick on differences in others. We need lives that 00:20:12.119 --> 00:20:19.000 are built on what does God say is right? What does God say about other people? What does God teach 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:27.079 about how to speak? Think about our witness too. Remember what we're saying to the boys and girls, 00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:33.240 we are image bearers reflecting God's glory to the world. When people look at a Christian, 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:42.279 they should be able to see that God is like this. We become living Bibles to a watching world, 00:20:42.279 --> 00:20:51.319 and so we need to be Christ-shaped. Christ came to do the law. We want to be obedient too. 00:20:53.879 --> 00:20:59.319 What about if you're here today and you're not a Christian? I would suggest that you also need to 00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:06.759 obey God's law. Not in that sense of trying to earn God's approval. That's not how God designed the law to 00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:13.319 work. You and I can never be good enough to earn God's approval. But we do all have a responsibility 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:21.720 before our Creator and our King. So what is the obedience that Jesus wants you to give to Him today? 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:30.359 It's the obedience of repentance, of turning from sin and turning to trust in God. 00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:39.959 It's the obedience of faith that trusts that He can forgive, that He would bring you into life with God 00:21:40.679 --> 00:21:42.039 through trusting in Jesus. 00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:49.879 For all of us, when it comes to the question of why do I need to obey the Bible, it's really important 00:21:49.879 --> 00:21:56.439 for us to recognize that Jesus is the one who has obeyed perfectly and obeyed perfectly where we have 00:21:56.440 --> 00:22:07.720 failed. He is the one who truly loves as the good neighbor. He is the great friend and He is the 00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:17.000 Lamb of God and the perfect sacrifice. Our third question is this one and it's related. How should I feel 00:22:18.120 --> 00:22:25.160 about the Bible? That's an important one for us to think about together, I think. And again, the answer 00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:34.200 Jesus would give to us is that we should feel that the Bible is good and for our good. There's an Old 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:40.759 Testament professor in the States called Jay Sklar. He teaches Old Testament and every year he asks his 00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:49.320 class the question, he says, how do you feel about God's law? And he invites them to say whether they feel 00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:55.960 positive when they hear about God's law, negative or a bit of a mixed bag response. And most of them, 00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:02.119 and it reveals the honesty in the class, most of them feel a negative sense towards the law. 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:09.399 For some of us, we hear the word law and instantly, well that sounds restrictive. I quite like the message 00:23:09.399 --> 00:23:14.200 of freedom without limits. That sounds really attractive. Law, well that sounds like it's restricting 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:19.720 my freedom. Other people perhaps, we've been brought up in certain Christian backgrounds, we hear the law 00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:25.799 and we think, ah, I want to avoid legalism. I don't want anything to do with rules. I had lots of extra 00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:31.960 rules imposed on me and it was really suffocating and it wasn't good, it wasn't gospel. And so the law can 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:38.519 sound really negative because it was used perhaps as a, as a control method. I wonder if you can sympathize 00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:45.720 today or identify with that class when we hear God's law, it can sound kind of negative. How does Jesus 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:50.759 say we should feel about God's law? How does he say we should feel about the Bible? That's really important 00:23:50.759 --> 00:23:56.599 for us to hear. Before we sort of dive into what Jesus says, first we need to recognize, 00:23:58.039 --> 00:24:03.960 this is a general principle that right restrictions will always tend towards flourishing. 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:10.920 We think about that in terms of our bodies. When I restrict my diet, so I eat what's good instead of 00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:16.920 what's bad. When I restrict the time that I spend awake, so I get enough sleep. When I restrict the time 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:22.680 that I spend on a screen, I will be a healthier person. Restrictions lead to flourishing. 00:24:24.360 --> 00:24:31.720 Or if I want to get good at a particular skill, a musical instrument, if I restrict my time, so I focus on 00:24:31.720 --> 00:24:37.480 learning and practice. There is a restriction, but it allows me to flourish and it's good for me. 00:24:38.360 --> 00:24:46.920 So right restrictions lead to flourishing. We also, and this is why we've sang from Psalm 19 and 119, 00:24:46.920 --> 00:24:52.039 need to recognize that the law is God's good gift. Because it reflects the Lord's values, it is 00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:59.720 fundamentally good. And by God's design, following God's law is the way of true life. 00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:07.160 It should be the goal of our lives to be able to sing, I love your law, I delight in your law, 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:12.440 I want to think about it in the midnight hours, I want to practice it in the daytime hours. Now, 00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:19.720 let's look at verses 19 and 20, where Jesus speaks to the Pharisees. Verse 19, 00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:24.279 therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will 00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:29.240 be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be 00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:33.559 called great in the kingdom of heaven. So there was a group of religious teachers, religious leaders 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:40.120 called the Pharisees. They were seen by many as the religious elite, but Jesus knows their hearts, 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:47.480 and he knows that by and large they do not see the goodness of the law. With the result that they make 00:25:47.480 --> 00:25:54.279 it their practice actually to set the law aside. They make hundreds and hundreds of extra rules, 00:25:54.279 --> 00:26:03.720 but it leads them to relaxing the law to make it easier. They limit laws. Let me limit what it looks 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:08.839 like to be a good neighbor. Let me limit what it looks like to care for my elderly parents. 00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:16.439 They limit the law so they can make it a simple tick box exercise. So they're doing that for themselves, 00:26:16.439 --> 00:26:20.279 but on the other hand they're also making the law this really heavy burden that they're placing on 00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:26.599 others. There's no grace, it's just law. And Jesus' response to the Pharisees is to say, listen, you teach 00:26:26.599 --> 00:26:32.199 the law, but you don't understand the law. And you don't practice the law. And you don't love the law as you should. 00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:41.720 Because as Jesus says here, our attitude to God's law, well it will reveal our attitude to God himself. 00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:50.519 What did he say about kingdom greatness? It's measured by obeying and teaching the law. And we're 00:26:50.519 --> 00:26:57.960 only going to obey and teach the law if we believe it is good and valuable for ourselves and for others. 00:26:57.960 --> 00:27:05.720 So Jesus says our attitude to the law, it functions like an ECG for our hearts. It's a test of our 00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:16.840 spiritual health. Do I see God's word as good because it reveals a good God to me? Do I love and obey God's 00:27:16.840 --> 00:27:26.600 word because I want to love and obey God? We spoke at the beginning of the battle for our hearts. We're often 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:32.599 distracted, I think. Other things can seem much more compelling, much easier to get into than the 00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:40.519 Bible. Or the challenge of distrust. Will limiting my freedom to live God's way, will that really promote 00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:51.240 my joy? How can you and I truly love God's word? I think it goes back to Jesus having fulfilled 00:27:51.240 --> 00:28:01.640 the Bible. It goes back to that reality that Jesus in his work has now sent the Spirit and transforms our 00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:08.920 heart. And it's through that work of Jesus and the sending of the Spirit that we're now able to 00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:17.640 understand the Bible the way God meant it to be. So that we're now able to see Jesus as Savior and as 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:25.960 central to the story and we hear a message of grace. And as God works that into our heart, it increases our 00:28:25.960 --> 00:28:32.440 appetite for His glory and for His holiness so that by His grace more and more we would have a sense of 00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:40.840 joyful obedience as we come to God's word. So Jesus has given us some teaching here to help us to answer 00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:48.759 the question, why do I need the Bible? What is it that's going to get us setting our alarm clocks 10 minutes 00:28:48.759 --> 00:28:56.359 earlier? What's going to get us reaching for the Bible instead of reaching for our phones and our scrolling, 00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:04.839 our news feed? What will make us open the Bible at the end of a tiring day? Or when we feel stuck or we feel full 00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:11.799 of sadness, what will cause us to turn once again to hear God's good word? It's as we remember what Jesus 00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:19.799 teaches, that the Bible is good and it is for our good and it reveals our good Savior to us. When we 00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:28.359 remember that we read to meet with and hear with, hear from Jesus, we read to remember and to learn 00:29:28.359 --> 00:29:37.959 how to live to please our God and our Savior. And we read because we believe God is good, His ways are good 00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:40.759 and it's the way to a flourishing life.