Walking in the Spirit or The Law Is Not Rescinded

We hope you're going to be glad to hear what I have to say when I'm done. First, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your part in our ministry, in the Lord's ministry through us. We've never met you people. We know Courtney and Ingrid. Two and a half years ago, we had a conversation in their house, standing in their kitchen for over an hour and talking about grace. And we were both like, wow, wow.

And they started praying for us and supporting us and the next thing we knew the church said we want to have a part and we just really appreciate it and The Lord is sovereign God is sovereign We do not know if we're going back to Thailand. There's a small possibility that we're going back to that school, but we might go back to another ministry there. And I don't want to go into all the reasons, but God is sovereign. Man might have his reasons, we might not always understand them, but God is leading us, and so we're trusting him with that. There's a picture of us, and I don't do PowerPoints, and Roger said, send us your PowerPoint. Hmm, okay, that's going to be good.

And send us the title. We were supposed to be traveling to Toledo, where we're going to stay for this year, and we weren't going to share in any churches until we got there. because we're going to take a break this year. But we've never been to this church. We came to Colorado.

Ingrid said, they're going to let you have 10 minutes to do a little missionary presentation. OK, great. And then, no, you're going to have 20 more minutes or so to share from the word. Not so ready. And I was staying with my parents in California, a well-known preacher. Let's see if I can make this thing work. A well-known preacher that my parents were watching said, he was talking about conditions in the US right now and how things are getting crazy.

And he said, he was teaching, he said, they are the 10 commandments. I agree with that. They are the 10 commandments. They're not the 10 suggestions. I agreed with that. And then he said some other things. And then he said, and the law is not rescinded. Real, to me, it's like, he has a huge congregation.

I'm not, I wouldn't use the word rescinded in my congregation. I think half the people wouldn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it, I wasn't sure of what it meant. So I'm like, I'm not, I don't think I, I think I know what he's trying to say, but I don't think, I don't agree with him, and I don't think he really believes that either. So, the law is not rescinded, that was my question.

I've been to a couple studies with some of you folks this week, and we've been talking about this, that do we live by law? Or in the church age, do we live by grace upon grace? We're saved by grace. This teacher, he knows, he's justified by grace, he knows that. But in his walk, it sounds like he's saying we walk by law. And I'm like, So I looked up, what does rescind mean? I wanted to see. So it says, rescind, to make a law, agreement, order, or decision, no longer have any legal power. So how's he relating that to, you know, are we walking under the law? Has it been made of no power? Well, no, the law is holy and the law is good. The law is excellent. The Jews were supposed to live according to the law. They weren't saved by the law, but they were to walk. That was their method of walking.

What does it mean when something is rescinded? To officially end a law, take back a decision, or say that an agreement no longer exists. Which part of that definition is this gentleman using in his sermon? I was not clear. He said they are the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.

The law is not rescinded. I think what he's saying when he says the law is not rescinded, that the law is still the rule of our walk as a believer. Anybody here agree with that? You walk according to the law. We don't want to go there. Is the law rescinded? Well, that kind of depends on which part of the definition you pick.

It's not rescinded, it's fulfilled. It wasn't taken back. It wasn't destroyed. He fulfilled it. So it's not the principles. There's something better that's come in now. It was good, it was right for them to walk according to the law at that time. So I underline part of this, to officially end a law. It's officially ended in that he fulfilled it.

And so my title, walking in the spirit or the law is not rescinded. We either walk in the spirit or we walk under the law. We often fail at walking in the spirit. We're not perfect. And sometimes we fall into making our own laws of judging one another. We're modern day Pharisees.

But the Lord's plan for us is Jesus Christ is our very life. It's his life through us. It's his spirit. The walking in the spirit is the spirit of Christ in us. flowing through us, so I put either or. Either walking in the spirit or the law is not rescinded. We're either walking in the spirit or we're making our own set of rules. And maybe some of those are included in the Ten Commandments and the other laws that are found in the scriptures. So it's either walking in the spirit, the very spirit of Jesus Christ leading us, leading our life, being our life, or the law is still the rule for the believer.

And that's, we need to be discerning when we listen to teaching. And what this gentleman shared that day, I was like, man, he shared some really good stuff, some stuff that I'm applying, that I'm using in my life. But when he said, the law is not rescinded, we're supposed to follow the 10 commandments, basically is what he was saying in that. I'm like, does he follow the 10 commandments? I'm sure he would say no. So is the law the rule for the walk of a believer today? Anybody say yes? No, definitely not.

So I just wanted to bring up one example. So we read two scriptures today, two portions. We read out of Matthew and we read out of John. Okay, Matthew, what dispensation? Jewish law, okay? So this is Jesus was asked a question, what are the two greatest commandments in the law? Neither of his answers came from the Ten Commandments. But he said, two great commandments. And I really appreciated the gentleman who read the scriptures and his translation of it. I wish I had it here in front of me. But he said, these are the fulfillment of the law. Verse 37 you shall hmm.

No go back The question teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law He didn't say, what's the greatest commandment during the church age? He said, what's the greatest commandment of the law? And Jesus said, you shall love Jehovah, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment of the law.

And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets. He didn't say, these are the two greatest commandments of the church. So am I saying we're not supposed to love our neighbor and we're not supposed to love God?

No, but I'm saying grace is so much more than that. They could do what the law said. They could do this. As a Jew, under the law, they could love God. with all they have, all that God's provided. There's some other passages, parallel passages in Mark and Luke, and also there it says, with all your strength. So with everything God's provided, God's telling the Jews, that's another thing about the law, it was never given to a Gentile. It was never given to Gentiles. It was only given to the Jews. Any Jews here? Okay. So I don't, again, I don't see why we would try to bring it in and say, yeah, that's the principle of our walk today.

But anyway, Jesus here, he says, these are the fulfillment, all the rest of the law is encompassed in this. Love God, know God with all that God's given you. given the Jew, at that time, with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and in Matthew and Luke it says, with all their strength. And then love their neighbor as they love themselves. The John passage, which dispensation? When Jesus taught it, when Jesus was speaking, which dispensation was it?

It was still the law, but it was the last week of his life, and he's talking about, when I go, I'm gonna send another who's exactly like me to live in you. He will teach you all truth, and he will live my life through you. So he's, yeah, he's teaching it during law, but he's talking about church. He's talking about today and Verse 34 chapter 13 verse 34 a New commandment I give to you that you love one another Is that new That's the same thing we read just a minute ago.

Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. How's that new? Read the rest of the verse. It's not love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is grace. This is so much more. He says, love one another as I, Jesus, have loved you. That's not just with all your mind, soul, strength. That's with all Christ's mind, soul, and strength.

There's none of that under the law. And so when we say, do we walk in the Spirit or do we live under the law? Those who think they're living under the law, they're saved by grace, they know, they're justified by what Jesus did for them. But they're missing so much of what, God's provided something more. They don't just have their body, their soul, their strength, their mind. They have Jesus Christ living in them. And he's desiring to use them and love others with that.

So he says, it's a new commandment that I give you, that you love one another as I loved you, that you also love one another. And then the other verses are in, there's actually some in verse 14 that are similar to that, chapter 14, I'm sorry. And then in chapter 15, he says, this is the commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. He restates it. And he says in verse 17, these things I command you, that you love one another. Which kind of love? As I love you. It's not stated in that verse, but the context is very clear. They didn't get it right then. They didn't understand it right then.

But after his death and his resurrection and the Holy Spirit coming, in Paul's writings, Peter's writings, they began to realize, oh, it's not just Matthew 22 provision. It's not what we used to be able to do before we had the Holy Spirit in us, but it's now what we can do when we have Christ, Christ's very life in us. So much more. And when we don't teach the fullness of it, yeah, they're still saved. This gentleman that was preaching that I got this idea from, he has a brilliant ministry, but I think he's handicapping, in some sense, his people when he doesn't say things clearly. I came to Bible study on Tuesday. I watched Wednesday night on Zoom. I was in Sunday school today. I've seen a few of your services from Thailand on Zoom before. And I just really appreciate the emphasis here.

We need to be gracious. They're still our brothers and sisters in Christ. They're saved by the blood of Christ. They know that. They've got justification pretty clear. But then when it comes to the walk, they miss this part. They're trying to sanctify themselves by their own efforts.

I was there for years. I didn't always understand this. When Beth and I joined the training with New Tribes Mission, we got into Romans 6, 7, and 8. And Beth said, is this a cult? We'd heard bits and pieces, little bits here and there, but it never connected. It wasn't clear. It wasn't consistent. But then we began to hear and understand.

And in Thailand, we have lots of brothers and sisters, and Thai people and tribal people. In the slideshow that we showed, we showed several of our students are from different tribal groups in Thailand. And they're going and sharing. Buddhism is the main religion in Thailand, and it's all merit-based.

Everything is on, you know, you get blessed because you did something good. And that seeps into the church. And several people have said grace is the hardest thing in the world to learn, because it's so simple. it but God provided it all in Jesus Christ and we you know when people come to the Lord they rest there for their justification but he is our justification and he is our sanctification and that's something we try to teach at our school the two other teachers that there are there I've been there 20 plus years, they're still growing, they're still learning about it.

It's still a need. It's not as pretty. It's not as developed as I would like their understanding to be. We love those guys. We've worked with them for 20 years and we continue to pray for them. Even if we do not return to that school, those men are still precious. They're families. They have families. They're very close friends with us. We trust the Lord to continue to teach him, even if we're not there.

Is the law still the rule for the walk of a believer? No. I hope we all see that. The very life of Jesus Christ is what directs us. It's so much more than the provision of the law. Walking in the Spirit is so much more. Just again, thank you for your participation. in what God's been doing in our lives for these few years.

We do not know where he's gonna lead next. Yesterday we were talking with Courtney and he said, my main two things are God's sovereignty and God's love. And that's where we're at. We've been asked to leave that school. We walk by faith, not by understanding. We don't understand why we're asked to leave. But above that is God and God's leading.

And maybe we'll go back there. Small, very small possibility. Maybe we'll go back to Thailand to work in some other aspect of it. Maybe Lord will lead us to Thai ministry in America somewhere. Our mission, we're still members of the mission. Ethnos 360, they have needs all over the United States, Bible school, headquarters, things we could fulfill. Some of them are mowing lawns. That's my favorite job in the world, doing landscaping, because I don't have to think. I love to do it, so it just comes natural, so I can think about the Lord.

And I don't know where we'll end up. Pray with us. God will direct us. And again, thank you for the opportunity to share this morning. Let me pray. Father God, continue to teach us. When we hear teaching that doesn't seem clear to us, help us not to just reject it instantly, but to search the scriptures to see what your Word says, to rightly divide the Word, to allow your Spirit to grow us. And when we know other people, sometimes we have opportunity to talk to them. about the fullness of the spiritual life for the believer today. And so show us how to do that in a gracious way, not in a battle, in a battling way, but in a way that really encourages them to see all we've been given in the life of Christ and to walk with that. Lord, I thank you for this morning. Thank you for the leading of your spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.