Unfathomable Riches in Christ - Freed from the Law - Part I

So we have part one of freed from the law. This is one we're going to end up spending several weeks on. Why would we spend several weeks looking at freed from the law? Is that overkill or what do you think? Yes, so the tendency among much of Christendom is to still keep the principle of law in place, and they may differ over what the law is, but still keep law in place. As a matter of fact, there are those who apply Israel's law to those in the church, There are those who want to take only a part of Israel's law. I want this little bit. I'll take the Ten Commandments and accept the Sabbath thing, and I want to tweak that. And I'll take the Ten Commandments, modify the Sabbath, but add the tithe.

Never mind that the tithe was only to be given If you had agricultural production and it was only given to the Levites, those of the tribe of Levi, and they used that to force people, twist their arms about giving money to the church, right? How many pastors are of the tribe of Levi? Probably very, very few. And to make matters worse, Right before the tithing law, in the law, right before the tithing law is the law about what you're supposed to eat and not eat. So you have some pastor going, bang, pulp it, you'd better tithe, right? And then he'll go out and go to Red Lobster. Imagine what a horrible thing, right? Anyway, so, freed from the law.

And last week we looked at this diagram which said that in Adam, before faith in Christ, we were separated from Christ and joined to the sin nature, the principle of law, and the world. And then in Christ, after faith in Christ, on the right-hand side, we are joined to Christ. And by the way, that's in the context of marriage. So that's a marriage context there in Romans 7, 1 through 6.

And separated from the sin nature, Romans 6, principle of law, Romans 7, and the world, Galatians 6.14. Add to that a few other passages as well. So what we're going to do is look at various passages that continue to underscore we are freed from the law.

Suppose we hang on to, let's say that somebody said, I just want to hang on to one of the ten. I really like this one of the ten, so I want to hang on to that. Yeah? You're shaking your head, Jim. Yeah, if you want to keep one law, you've got to keep one law.

Yeah, that's one thing that the Apostle Paul said to the believers in Galatia. That's several different churches there in the area of Galatia. He said to them, if you sign up for one law, and he gave the instance of circumcision, which was considered like the front door to the law, if you're as much as circumcised in order to keep the law, you have to sign up for the whole thing. So what biblical justification is there for signing up for one or a part of the law of Moses?

None. Zippo, nada. And the book of James, James gives the complementary truth. You break one and you've broken them all. So, if I intend to keep the Ten Commandments, what does that say? It means that I intend to break the other 603 laws. How about that? If I break one, what's the problem? I've broken the whole thing. If I only say I'm going to keep the Ten Commandments, then that means I've made a commitment, I am determined, I am intentionally going to break the other 603 laws. And you had better not eat an apple with a worm in it, because that's against the law.

And by the way, are you giving your half shekel to the temple? See that? No, no shekels. No shekels and no temple to take it to, right? There's no sacrifices. As a matter of fact, if I go up to the Temple Mount right now, and the Muslims are up there, they're in control of the Temple Mount, and I say, hey, where do I put my half shekel for the Jewish temple tax? Boy, they would get very, very upset and probably pitch you off the Temple Mount, right? been there, they weren't happy when I wanted to go into the Dome of the Rock. Anyway, terribly disappointing. Anyway, so here we have this. We've been freed from the law. We have one more thing.

Principle of law, how is that different from saying the law of Moses? What's the difference between the principle of law and the law of Moses? A principle is a fundamental truth the way things are of both. Right. So a principle is a fundamental truth the way things are of both. So a principle of law might apply to any law that I come up with that is supposed to achieve righteousness, the righteousness of God. Right? Any law.

I remember my mom telling about them having a service at the church. because somebody in the church had gone to see a movie. Can you imagine that? They'd gone to see a movie. They were praying that the Lord might forgive it. Can you imagine that? So what is that? That's a principle of law.

Is it in the Ten Commandments you can't go see a movie? No. It's a principle of law, and so somebody cooked up this law that you can't go see a movie because that's just awful. So in different times and places and cultures, people come up with different laws. Do you know there are different places in Europe centuries ago where you had to have a Christian haircut? What's that? I don't know, it's been a while. Nancy's never given me one of those.

But they actually had, you know, you have a Christian haircut, and you've got to have this Christian haircut. About the fifth century, the church issued an edict that if you had a Jew come and bless your crops, you'd be excommunicated from the church, pitched out, you know. So sure, it's a great idea to have a Jew come bless your crops, but I mean, the way in which they'd make different rules about different things was like, oh boy, you know. And that was at a time when getting excommunicated meant you lost your salvation. That's something else, too.

So, alright, so the principle of law is an application of law, even if it's not the law of Moses. Does the Law of Moses include principle of law? Is that a principle of law? Yes. So a principle of law applies to both the Law of Moses, any portion of the Law of Moses, any modification of the Law of Moses, or any other laws that are made up intended to convey righteousness, holiness, and goodness before God, right? whether it's in the Law of Moses or not.

Even if it's some rules about, you know, not seeing movies and, you know, Nancy and I wear to church where, you know, you don't wear any makeup. The gals are not supposed to wear makeup that's sinful and, you know, go to hell for things like that. Okay, so now, while I have this in a certain order, I'm going to wait to read Galatians 3, 23-25. So, don't get too confused, keep your thumb there so you don't lose it.

But we're going to look first at the people of Israel at the bottom there. So when the people of Israel were given the Law of Moses out in the Sinai, God had his purpose in it. Were they doing the wrong thing by getting this law and Moses going out there and the exit, was that wrong? No, it was not.

As a matter of fact, one of the things we see is that it was holy and righteous and good, and Paul even says so in Romans 7, 12. The law is holy and righteous and good. So should we as Christians be bad-mouthing the law? We should not. Sometimes we can err in trying to stand on grace, we go and bad mouth the law. That's not what Scripture does. What's the problem with the laws? Are the laws bad? The problem is we're bad. We're not up to it.

You know, you occasionally have Christians, even pastors, teaching that, you know, the law is written on your heart. Ever hear that? The law is written on your heart, and that sort of thing. That's for the new covenant for Israel. The law is not written on our heart.

Christ died to separate us from the law, right? So if I go and try to implement law, it means I don't understand at least part of the purpose for which Christ died. Wow, that's pretty big. Imagine, what if Christ was on the cross and he was announcing, this is what I'm dying for. What we have is the rest of scripture describing that. But if Christ were to say, I'm dying for this and this and this and this and this, people would go, oh, and they'd probably think about it some more. But it's other places in scripture that talk about what were the purposes for Christ's death on the cross. Yes, Dan?

Doesn't it also have to do with the fact that the law was for the Jewish people and they grew up under the law for many generations, and now that the dispensation was going to change to the Gentiles, it would be virtually impossible to get the Gentiles to follow something like the law, so they... It wasn't given to them.

Right, and we have the Holy Spirit to guide instead of this basic book of the law. Here's even an example. Among the Jews, if there was a God-fearing Gentile, like Cornelius, who came to believe, and like Dr. Luke, authored over a quarter of the New Testament, a God-fearing Gentile, did they require them to keep the law? as Gentiles? Were they required to keep the law? No, they were not. If you were to convert to Judaism, then yes. But you could be, and the Jews would still respect that, a God-fearing Gentile, and they would have very minimal requirements for a God-fearing Gentile. They would not expect them to keep the law. There wouldn't be any exhortation to do so.

So, let's continue on here, from the 613 individual statutes of the Law of Moses were given by the inspiration of God to Moses for the people of Israel, and the people of Israel were baptized into Moses. So this is one thing, is the Law is not only something that we shouldn't badmouth, the Law was given by inspiration of God himself. It wasn't an accident, it wasn't just simply a sociological development.

Yeah, Jim? The law is a representation of God's perfect character. Yes, and that's why we say the law is holy and righteous and good, because it reflects God's perfect and moral character, right? that many of the pagan peoples had no connection of morality with their deity. This, however, is a god different from all the pagan gods in that here is a god who is fundamentally moral and righteous. Yes?

I'm wondering if because it was an inspiration from God, is that why so many people, denominations, everything, think that still some parts of it should be followed? Because it was holy, it was an inspired document, and so how can that be not understanding how it can be changed? One of the most important principles of understanding scripture at every point is what's called comparison and contrast. What's the same and what's different?

And so if we don't do proper comparison, what's the same, and contrast, what's different, and confirm that solidly in scripture, if we don't do that, then the human tendency is to go to extremes. Boy, isn't that amazing? Human tendency to go to extremes? Well, yes. So what happens is you get these extreme understandings instead of, now wait a minute, here's a comparison, here's what's the same, and here's what's different. Under the law, was God a good and moral and righteous God? Yes. Under grace, where we live now, under grace, is God a good and moral and righteous God? Yes, both. God has not changed, right? God's character has not changed. God is simply operating with human beings differently as to time and to group. But God's character has not changed. God's still a moral God. That's why it is a mistake for Christians to badmouth the law any more than it's a mistake to take the law and put it upon a Christian. Both of those are error. Both of them are error. What we need to do is to look at what's the same.

God's character is the same. God doesn't change. During the tribulation period, will horrible, awful, terrible things be going on on earth? Yep. Could start today. During the middle of the tribulation period, will God's character change? No. So God can deal differently with different people in different times, but his character is unchanged. And the tendency of people is to go to one extreme.

Oh, well, the law is good. We've got to stick with it. Well, no. Christ died on the cross to make sure that that wasn't the case. And then you get other people, oh, we've got to throw the law out and bad mouth it, and the law is horrible, and that's wrong too. We need to compare, see what's the same, and we need to contrast what's different. We need to do that carefully. Failure to do so is the cause of a great deal of division in the body of Christ and among people within Christendom, among different churches. Failure to compare and contrast.

So now, a key point, the people of Israel were baptized into Moses and the law of Moses and the whole nine yards. That's 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2. Are we baptized into Moses? We're baptized into Christ. So this is a very important thing. It's one of the reasons I don't just go grabbing for the Law of Moses. Why? Am I baptized into Moses? No. I'm baptized into Christ. There is a different, fundamental, spiritual baptism. We're going to have a baptism here behind the screen before this morning is out here. What's that doing? It's picturing the baptism into Christ.

So, baptism into Moses, baptism into Christ, and it's not mix and match. A little bit of law, a little bit of grace, you know. Back and forth, a little grayscale. None of that. It's black and white. You're baptized into Moses or you're baptized into Christ, not both. That's it. It's as simple as that. Alright, now, flip side.

Okay, so here's the other thing Paul in this passage in Galatians will be looking at next. He uses a word, peidagogos, okay? Peidagogos. Ordinarily I try not to be too greeky geeky, but this is a particular word that's good for us to get clear. It is translated in the Numerican Standard as a tutor. It is translated in the King James and some of the others as a schoolmaster. Neither of those terms is fully adequate. So, what's he trying to say here?

Apeta Gogos, this is from the top of page 2, Apeta Gogos referred to a slave who did more or less everything regarding a single student's schooling. And the typical pattern was to hire this, not hire, buy this slave tutor. He would be a slave and he would be the one who would not tutor, not be a schoolmaster, But he would be the one in charge of the education implementation for a student from age 6 on into about the time they were starting into their teens. And even later.

So what would this pedagogos do? He would see to it that the student got back and forth to school. If that was it, that would be one thing. But he's more than just a bus driver. So that pedagogos would grab the student by the hand, take that student to school, take the student back home. Ah, but that's not all. Then the next thing is this pedagogos, this hired or owned slave, would then drill the student all the way to school and all the way home from school. Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill, there and back.

Now when the Pedagogues got to school with the student, you know what they'd do? They wouldn't go off and have lunch and play games. They would sit or stand in the back. and listen to everything that the teacher was saying so that, one, the paedagogos could drill the student on everything that the teacher said, and could you get away with the argument, the dog ate my homework? No, because the paedagogos would make absolutely certain that you knew what the assignment was and that you did it. and that you brought to school, whatever it was, that's what you're going to do.

And the pedagogos is there with you all the time. It was very nearly as if you were chained to that pedagogos. Certainly there were some situations where there was a good relationship and the pedagogos was kind, but the generalization was that this person was a tyrant. and you were glad to finally get to an age and stage in your growing up where you no longer had a pedagogos. You would think when you finally got old enough, the pedagogos was out of your life, you'd go, oh thank God, I don't have a pedagogos anymore.

So, what is the Apostle Paul doing? You see at the last slide there, the pedagogos is to prepare the student for life after education. Because until you're done with that, it felt like you were dead, right? Because it was a pay-to-go gas. A professional education harasser, right?

The law was to prepare Israel for the time after the law, which is now. See that? Stan? So since Paul was a Pharisee, I have to presume that the Pharisees kind of considered the law as this, right? And so did they feel that they finally matured to the place where they really didn't have to follow it themselves, but it was for the other people?

Yeah, so let's kind of explore that. First of all, this Paedagogos was a Greek work, right? And so he's writing to people who are largely Greek, and so this Paedagogos tradition that he's referring to is largely in the Greek world, right? Using this Greek word. However, the Apostle Paul being a former Pharisee. In Acts, he actually still claims to be a Pharisee among the gathering there of the Sanhedrin. But here's the Apostle Paul.

He grew up with, as did the Jews that Jesus called to be his disciples, they grew up with the tradition where you had rabbis and you had disciples, and the rabbis were to drill you with the law. You were to memorize everything they said, and they were to drill you with the law.

As a matter of fact, we hear about Christ saying, you know, take my yoke upon you and I will give you rest. The invitation, that was practically a marketing term for the rabbis. Take my yoke upon you. Yoke was the law. That's why in Acts 15, that's exactly what, I think it's Peter, calls the law, largely we put this yoke on people.

So this training you up for the law, that would be the Jewish idea. But in the rabbis' and disciples' traditions was the idea that it was to get you out from under the law. Was that the idea? No. No, not at all. As a matter of fact, take my yoke upon you so that you can carry this law yoke the whole rest of your life. Right? So this is different. So it's a point in contrast.

And so he makes an illustration here with these Greek speaking and Greek cultural people to get them to understand about this tutor, this schoolmaster, this pedagogos, And so it's an illustration used in the Greek culture primarily. And they would understand, they were no longer under a tutor, and just about every Greek boy would say, thank God I'm not under a tutor anymore.

These pay-to-go guys, because they were just education tyrants. And they would hold your hand, you might as well be chained to them. They would drill you and drill you and drill you. And if you didn't succumb to all that drilling, they'd get the parents after you. And boy, there was an immense amount of social pressure. Imagine this person, you can't get away from them. It's like when you go home, he doesn't drop you off.

He drills you and drills you and drills you. You're thinking, oh man, I want to go to sleep. Nope. You're going to get drilled some more. It's not time to go to sleep yet. Right? And when you're done with dinner, you better get done quick, because I've got more on this, you know, set of things to do. More on the schedule. Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. Right?

So let's turn to the middle of page one now, having covered that. We talked about Israel. We've talked about the Pedagogas, and I've got some illustrations there in the pictures that you can certainly go through and get that more firmly in your mind if you like. But in the middle of page one, bottom half in the middle, We have Galatians 2, 23 through 25, and the base of it is the New American Standard updated, that's NASU, but I've added some notes and minor edits in order to clarify some things. One, so, but before the faith, and a lot of the translations just have faith, but before the faith, and Christian faith in Christ growing doctrinally into the teachings of the apostles, the faith, The faith we have seen begins in Acts chapter 6 and continues on into the book of Revelation. Before the faith, the one begun by Christ, the one that is expanded upon and announced by the apostles, before that came we, and is he talking about everybody or just the Jews?

It says, the Jews were kept in custody under the law. And why do I say, I put an insert there, we as the Jews. Who is kept in custody under the law? The laws for the Jews. The laws for the Jews, given to the Jews. The book of Psalms they actually sing, and what other nation got this law except Israel? None. They actually sing that and rejoice over it.

We Jews were kept in custody under the law, and I put the in italics, it's not in the original Greek text, under law, so what that puts the focus on is the principle of law there, being shut up to the faith which is later to be revealed, but now has been revealed, Therefore, the law of Moses became, and this is perfect, active, indicative, right?

And what does that mean? It means that already, you know, it happened once, was completely set in place with ongoing and continuing effect, right? Our Pedagogos, to lead us, who's us? The Jews, right? To lead us to Christ so that we the Jews who had been under the law may be justified. That is, declared righteous, and by the way, it's important that we don't just say declared righteous because that's kind of shorthand. Declared righteous, having the redemption and the forgiveness in Christ.

Ephesians 1.7, Colossians 1.14. We're declared righteous, having the redemption and the forgiveness in Christ, How are we declared righteous? Because we worked real hard at it. Declared righteous because we really, really wanted it. How are we declared righteous? By faith. Any other way? Can we help it out? How about if we really, really work hard at it? Should we try to be a good person? How about if we say, well, what would Jesus do? I'll try to do that. Okay, Jesus walked on water, try to do that, right? That's not going to work so good.

It's by faith. But now that the faith has come, the faith which is the gospel as presented by the apostles, the faith which is the set of doctrines presented by the apostles, now that the faith has come, We are no longer, we are trying to get out from under.

We are eventually going to be relieved from a pay-to-go house. We're working on it. We look forward to it. What's the time frame here? No longer under a tutor. No longer. So then Christians will read that and say, oh, but we like the tutor. At least some of him. I'll take the right hand. You take the left. So isn't it a strange thing? He gets a statement like this.

We're no longer under a tutor. Does that sound like a percentage deal? We are 73.965%. under a tutor. We are 76.965% free from the tutor. Is that right? No. We are no longer absolute statement under the pay-to-go guys. Yeah, Stan? So if we are no longer under the tutor, are we under our conscience? Ah, OK. So this ends up being a really important question. We won't address that fully this time. So let's just ask the question.

Are we under our conscience? Is that the moral standard? Should we follow Jiminy Cricket and the Pinocchio song and let your conscience be your guide? Is that a biblical statement? No. What? Jiminy Cricket's wrong? I thought you mean cricket! Yeah? So what's the deal? Is it conscience? Is that the standard now? Jim? Our conscience is corrupt too. Yeah, so here's the deal.

Adam fell, right? What we would say, people would say, well, total depravity, well okay, what does that mean? It essentially means everything was corrupted. There's no part of a human being that was not corrupted in the Fall. The image of God remains, though, corrupted. But there was nothing that was left free of impact from the Fall, including the conscience. Have you ever known, known of, Someone who is free of conscience.

Psychopath. Yeah. I've met them. I've met several of them. As I've mentioned in the past, I have in my history of the past, I've known several serial killers or mass killers. Jim Jones was one of them. Used to sit across the PTA table from him. One lesser known guy was Leonard Lake. His wife was my teacher's assistant when I taught high school for a short period of time. Leonard Lake and his friend Charles Owen did in more than two dozen people and put their remains in buckets.

And they didn't die quickly. These guys were nuts. Absolutely crazy. Did they have a problem with their conscience? Yes. Here's Jim Jones. Took some of my high school friends and they drank the Kool-Aid. Guys are absolutely bonkers. Their conscience is exceedingly corrupt. Yeah?

Could you say the conscience came from The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was that a good thing? So knowledge of good, that's the conscience part. And then the evil part, that's also conscience, right? And the problem is that once you slip away from the absolute perfection of God's character, You got a problem. Here's part of the problem, we can put it this way. The sin nature in human beings is not always as bad as it could be.

You get that? Ever know a complete unbeliever is pretty nice? Yeah. And I've known some believers who have been, boy, I don't trust this person, right? But the conscience by itself is not you know, a good thing to trust in. Yes? The New Testament would make a lot of sense if the Old Testament wasn't there to further define and to help us understand what's being taught in the New Testament, correct?

And the law is the Old Testament. Yeah, so one of the reasons for the law is to provide contrast. Contrast. Very important principle. Why would God put Israel under this law? As a matter of fact, here's Moses. He had just gotten through delivering the book of Deuteronomy. Write all this stuff down, boy, and that's giving this new generation the whole law, and they just sit there, and he goes through point by point by point by point by point for over two dozen chapters. Chapter 28 is all the blessings and curses, right? After that, Moses gets done and you know what God tells him?

God tells him, they're not going to do it! Can you imagine it? And Moses goes, oh, what did I do this for? Yeah, they're not going to do it. God tells Moses right then, yeah, it's really good that you did that. They're not going to do it. They're not going to pull it off. They're going to mess up. Imagine how discouraging that would be to Moses. That would be a good time for him to die, right? Which it was. So, yeah, they're not going to do it. They're going to mess up big time.

So here's the law. It's holy and righteous and good. Moses went through all this effort to lay out the whole thing. They're just getting ready to go into the promised land. And God tells them, yeah, before you die, I just want to let you know, they're not going to do it. They're going to flub, all capital letters. They're going to mess it up. I'm telling you. But the law is there for contrast. He put Israel under the law which did reflect his holy and righteous and good character. Put them under the law knowing full well they wouldn't do it so that they would and we would learn from it. So Paul writes to the believers in Corinth who have got a mountain of problems. Lots and lots of problems. He writes to the believers in Corinth and what does he do? He goes in chapter 9 and chapter 10 and describes the Jews out in the wilderness.

Why does he do that? Because we need to learn from the law, including It's there reflecting God's holy and righteous and good character, but man is not up to it. And so guess what? What does the sin nature do with the law? So the sin nature's got a double problem. On the one hand, the sin nature goes and volunteers, pick me, pick me, and wants to jump in and I'll do this. So that's the fruit of the knowledge of good. Oh yeah, I approve of this. This is good stuff, right? And then evil.

Then the law also, in the same sin nature, develops this horrific rebellion. You're not going to tell me what to do and not to do. And the law ends up chafing and rebelling and bucking. How many laws does it take? Romans, chapter 7, starting with verse 7. End of the chapter, it takes one law. Thou shalt not covet. That's it. Is it a good law? The law represents holy and righteous and good character of God. That's all it takes, and the sin nature gets all stimulated.

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! And then that turns right around and says, oh no you don't! I'm not doing that. So because of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it goes both ways. Have you ever been down that path? Guess what? It goes both ways, right? You found out, yes, that's the way it works.

So, when we come to this, we get back to Stan's question, you'll be looking next time at, okay, if not this, then how does God expect life to get lived? So that's what we'll take a look at next. It'll take a whole time to really make sure we're thorough about how we understand it. But that's what is important for us to take a look at. God has an alternate to going the law route either way. You're going to volunteer for it, like it, gravitate towards it or are going to rebel against it and buck and chafe under the law.

Yes? I'm confused about the conscience. Isn't your conscience formed by what you believe and what you know? And sometimes it's a battle about what you believe and what you're tempted with, but isn't the conscience a part of that? Okay, so let's take a look at this. Let's take the conscience of the unbeliever. That conscience of the unbeliever, depending on culture, depending on the family, depending on the individual, will have different standards for different people.

The soldiers who followed Attila the Hun, who slaughtered the men, raped all the women, and then ate all their food. And by the way, they were so awful that from miles away you could see this black cloud of vultures and pestilence following these guys. They were terrible, awful. Did they have a conscience? Well, they had a conscience, but it didn't They didn't have the right stuff in it. Right. So that would be an example of the here's what the conscience does looks pretty bad. Right. And so this is the worst part of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

On the other hand, you'll have the neighbor next door may be an atheist, you know, pretty nice fellow or pretty nice gal. So the conscience of the unbeliever can have a range. The conscience sometimes appears pretty good and sometimes not so good, but that's the unbeliever's conscience. And the conscience is coupled with the sin nature. So now, a person becomes a believer. Does the conscience have a different place than it once did for the unbeliever? Well, it should be coupled with the Holy Spirit.

So here's one of the things, if you were to look into, because we were looking at Galatians 2.20, but later in Galatians in chapter 5, it says, here's the fruit of the Spirit, And here's the works of the flesh. By the way, that's works of the flesh and not works of the spirit. But fruit of the spirit, right? So here are the works of the flesh. This is the way the flesh works things out. And then, here I have the fruit of the spirit.

Is the fruit of the spirit my conscience. The difficulty with the human conscience is that it starts from a fallen state and is not adequate, and the living out of morality is not, for the believer, put to the conscience, but the living out is put to the character of the Lord himself. as we'll see next time. Walk in the Spirit and you won't satisfy the desires of the flesh. Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. And that produces what? Fruit. It's the abiding.

So it's not a matter of me going and saying, what does my conscience say? But it's the very life of the Lord. So it is a different, not just the conscience gets somehow improved, but rather it's a different standard. It's his life and therefore his character that lives out morality and right and wrong. It seems to me like your conscience gets reprogrammed. Yeah, and so as a believer, what am I looking at? I'm looking for my conscience to be changed, but it's a work of the Lord and not my trying to work on it. Right? And it's not what would Jesus do? It's what does Jesus do? What does Jesus do in me, not what would Jesus do if I were Him. Not even what would Jesus have me do, not what would Jesus do, but what does His life do?

We'll be looking at Galatians 2.20, and I'll translate it this way.

I have been crucified with Christ. By the way, that's perfect tense. It's a done deal. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. Do I do the living? No. If I'm putting my trust and confidence in Him, it's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me. And the life I now live, I live by faith in my conscience. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

So the sense of right and wrong moment by moment is ultimately the Lord's. And if there's some ingredient of conscience, it's a following. It is a following of the leading of the Lord, not the conscience being our guide. Some people, you wouldn't want the conscience to be their guide, or you sure wish it wasn't.

Okay, anything else? We've had just about enough. We'd like the fan to come off. Okay, let's pray. Lord, thank you that as we look at this we are indeed freed from the law. Thank you that we're not even limited to this one passage, so certainly it is a powerful statement. But rather, we're given very clear indication in multiple messages throughout the New Testament, the words of the apostles and the prophets that were the foundation laid by you for us. And so we look to you to teach us these things in our minds and in our hearts. And we entrust all these things to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.