The New Testament

Let's pray. Thank you, God, for today. Thank you for your goodness to us, Lord.

Thank you for your care over us, Lord. Thank you for those words in that song, how you protected your people in times of great distress and need, and how you led them out of captivity. And Lord, just like the children of Israel, you led them through the water.

And there's many instances, Lord, how you saved Noah in a boat, Lord, and used all kinds of things. The Hebrew boys, Daniel, and Lord, the list could go on, how you delivered your people. And I just pray this morning, you would deliver us again from the clutches of the devil this morning, and you would set our spirits free for those of us who have not given you all the ground that you really deserve.

I just pray for my brother, Jeremy, here this morning. I pray, Lord, that you would bless him this morning, keep him in your care, put a guard over his heart, his mouth, his mind, Lord, as he preaches your word here for us this morning. And Lord, that he would just preach your word as you give it to him.

And Lord, just bring to his memory the things that he has studied about and the things that you once shared by him for your people here in this place. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Your son says we have to quit by noon. Good morning. Lord bless each one.

You know, as we were singing that song, I was thinking of, you know, some of you and I thought, this feels kind of funny, especially with modern day phones in the song. But, I mean, that's what we do, right? We sing these songs about Daniel, dare to be a Daniel, and, you know, the three young Hebrew children. It's a modern day hymn.

But it goes right along with, in fact, a lot of the songs Brother Roger picked this morning goes right along with what I'd like to preach about, this concept of faith. And where these missionaries were at when Brother Roger was reading that they saw God's grace and they were living in the middle of a miracle. And yet I would dare to say many of them, if you sat down with them right now, they would say, I don't know how it's happened, but somehow, you know, coming back to the here in the United States, somehow it's not the same.

I'm not seeing God working as much. And we might need to look at what they were living like, what their lives were like, what was happening in their lives to experience God the way they did. So the first exercise I want everybody to do is get your Bibles out.

And I want you to find the center page that divides the two, the New Testament and the Old Testament. See if you can find it. You don't often go to this page when you're preaching a sermon, but you ever wonder what this page is all about? Interesting page.

Now take your Bible and just hold it and look at how much is in one side of the page and how much is on the other side of the page. I counted the pages this morning. I think there was 1,400 pages on this side.

As you see, it's pretty thick. And there were like 400 pages on this side, roughly. That's quite a bit more on this side versus this side.

Yet we have the center dividing page called, what is it called? What does your Bible say it's called? The New Testament. Does anybody know what that means, that word testament? Covenant, a covenant, an agreement, a will. Right.

The new agreement, the new covenant I'm making with my people. I don't know, but for years and years, I've been on a search trying to know what that page is all about. I remember years ago when I finally woke up to truth.

That's some of the questions I was asking. What did Jesus really mean? Why was Jesus sent to the church? What was he meaning by these things? And it feels like over the years, it's been a progressive learning, a learning about what that page right there is about. I can say probably 10 years ago, I would have preached a different sermon, what that page is about.

I actually think back sometimes of the sermons I used to preach here, like seven years ago, and I just, oh. Yeah, and I think they're even recorded some places. But it's a good thing that we're growing, right? It's a good thing we're growing in grace.

And the Lord keeps showing us. He keeps revealing things to us. He keeps opening the eyes of understanding.

So I'd like to preach about that today, is what is this page here in the New Testament about? At least what I've seen up to this point. Now, we're going to be going to the book of Galatians. Last week, if you remember, I had Bible study, and I got a wild hair and just threw out all the participation.

And we just looked at all the verses about, if you remember, the law and what it is in our life, how we relate to it. We saw many verses about that no flesh is justified by the law, that the law has been abolished, that has been done away with, that the glory has been superseded by a greater glory. In Hebrews, it talked about a change of law.

So many verses about the law. So I want to look at the opposing side. We've had that as a foundation.

I thought this would be a great time to look at the opposing side. We know Jesus said, see if you can help me with this verse. The law and the prophets were till when? John.

And then what does the rest of the verse say? Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. This is a pivotal, pivotal verse we have to understand. The law and the prophets were until John.

This was a period of time. This was the period of time, the law and the prophets. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

We need to understand the difference of this idea. The law and the prophets and grace and truth. Now, for many years, I was part of a group that, I'll just write these ideas down here, that would have, if you would have, maybe in theory and theology, they would have answered what this page was about.

They would have answered the correct words. Have you ever heard people answer the right words, but their life demonstrates what they really believe. So the right words might be something like this.

This new, this new Testament is about doing away with the law. I'll just write it shorter, abolishing the law. And then they might've said, after God abolished the law, he forgave our sins through Jesus.

And then this is how they live. Okay. Sure.

They understand the theology, but the last thing is we get heaven, right? For years, that's where I was. And it felt very shallow. It felt very get out of heaven free card.

And there was all these words like, Oh, we, we, we love God's grace. And we love, you know, we're, we're justified by God. And there were all these terms that just didn't ever connect with my heart.

They were just these high level things we sang about, but they, they didn't feel right. When I finally came to truth, it became a little bit more, it was abolish God's law for abolish the law. I'll say he forgave our sins.

Let me see how I wrote this on my notes. And then I had, he gave us a higher law. I'll just write a short higher law to live by.

And lastly, we get to go to heaven. And I think I'd probably land. Was it under this impression for, I don't know, six, seven years, let's say.

Now, like I said, thank the Lord. He works with us and reveals truths to us and opens the eyes of our understanding. And sometimes we can read a verse 10 times over, never see it, never understand it.

And then also in one day, the light just comes on. They've ever had that aha moment. That's called revelation.

That's called opening the eyes, enlightening your understanding. And all of a sudden just clicks and you're like, that's what it is. So anyway, all of this put what we're, and I'm sure, you know, in 10 years, if I preach another sermon, I'll have another one, but okay.

Let me see how I wrote these things. Cause I was trying to be really careful how I wrote it. He forgave our sins and he is justifying us, not just, and this might've been, this concept of justify was kind of tied in here and here on these other beliefs, but he is justifying us as in a present day, real thing happening to empower us.

This is going to get really long to keep a higher law. So there's the higher law, but there's another thing in here if you notice. So we can have a relationship with God now and forever.

I don't, I can't write all that, but I'll just put relationship. Okay. So these are some different ideas that we need to see.

And I want to go through the book of Galatians this morning and really understand what is the difference between the covenants? What was God coming to do? It's going to have to be a high level run through. We just don't have time to go through this whole thing and read it verse by verse and explore every verse and do this for the next three months kind of thing. So let's just start off on Galatians two.

The Galatians one, he's opening up and he's, starting his letter off and basically giving the reason why he's writing the letter. But in Galatians two, I want to pick it up. We can see, and we're just really quick to get an understanding.

He says here in verse four, there's some false brothers that have come into this church in Galatia and they are basically trying to bring them into bondage. They're trying to bring them under enslavement. And we're going to get this idea as we go through, but I want to jump to the, uh, to around verse 16.

We looked at some of this last week with how Peter, Paul came to Peter and said, you live, you're living like a Jew and somehow, I mean, you're living like a Gentile yet you're a Jew, but I want to pick it up in verse 15 and read this here. And Paul's starting off with his argument. He's saying we who are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles.

We didn't come from the heathen. They might've thought of these guys, uh, the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. So he, he introduces this idea where we who are Jews have realized that we're no longer justified by the works of the law.

Now, I don't even know if they ever really were, because if you read in the old law, time and time again, they would say, you need to, if some man does this and go and kill this animal. And then it says the blood will be spilled. And then it says, and he shall be forgiven over and over and over.

And he shall be forgiven. Never says any shall be justified. It just says he shall be forgiven.

But Paul says this new idea that knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus. So he's coming to honesty. He's coming to an honest truth saying we've realized we're these Jews were these special people of God.

We're the chosen, but we can't seem to justify ourselves. We never can seem to walk it pure. Even though this is the same guy who said I clipped the law blameless.

You remember that verse that says that I think we were even around there today in acts, but he says a man cannot be justified by the works of the law. But then he says, there is a way you can be justified. You can be justified by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Now let's keep reading. He says here, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we are also found sinners is therefore Christ, the minister of sin. He's trying to address this idea out there that, um, the Jews probably put on them.

You can see it over in Romans two. Shall we sin that grace may abound if while we're being justified by Jesus, cause we're not being justified by the law anymore. We're found to be sinners is, is it now Jesus who has made me the center? No, it's not.

And this is, this is a very tricky doctrine, this idea of justification. And I'm afraid there's two ditches like everything there's, and we're going to see it here. I don't want to get into it too much, but a very sloppy.

How many of you, when you hear somebody say, we just need to be filled with the spirit. How many of you a little bit like, like hesitate a little bit? Why is that? I mean, that is a doctrine of the Bible. Why do we hesitate? Because there are abuses out there that say, Oh, we're filled with the spirit and they've used it as Liberty to the flesh, right? They go around.

Oh, I, I just am doing what the spirit tells me to do. And somehow that's always what he wants to do, not what the spirit wants to do. Right? So we've seen that time and time again, and we are a little bit, maybe concerned.

And Paul, even in his day was saying this, that there could, this could happen that people could be found to be sinners when they claim they're being justified by Christ. Watch what he said in this verse 18. For, if I build again, the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

If I go back and I say I'm justified by Jesus, but yet I'm living a life of the, my old man, I'm the transgressor. I'm the sinner for I, through the law and dead to the law that I might live to God. Now this is important.

We must understand that difference. I want to write this on the board. Well, I'm going to write it in a minute.

I, through the law and dead to the law, I'm no longer bringing forth where this wood here is dead. It's no longer being it's not connected to a tree anymore. It's here.

It's in our presence, right? But it's dead. It's not bringing forth fruit. He's saying, I am no longer trying to bring forth fruit to following this law.

I'm dead. What I'm doing now is I'm living to God. Now remember that as we go through this concept of life and death, life and death, let's keep going that I might live to God.

And there's this verse. I think many of us have memorized a great verse, great verse to remind us at times when we are in trouble, when we are in times of temptation, Paul says, as he just made this point, I am crucified with Christ. Think of that.

I am on the same cross that nails were put into Jesus. I'm crucified there with Christ, but somehow I'm still alive yet. It's not me.

That's alive anymore. It's what Christ in me, this concept, you know, the verse in caution says when Christ, who is our life shall appear, we need to remember this. What is this whole thing of the new? What remember the question is, what is the new Testament? When I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live yet.

Not I, it's not me. It's Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, present tense, present active tense. You know what that means? It's not last week.

It's not two weeks ago. It's not a year ago. It's not back when you made your decision to follow Jesus, the life, which I now live right now.

If you're not living, if Jesus isn't living and walking in you and you're not walking with him, then you're in darkness. The light is going ahead and you're back here in the darkness, right? What does it say? Walk into what light? So he says here, the life, which I now live present tense. I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now let's jump to verse one of chapter three. Oh, foolish Galatians, who is tricking you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been inevitably set forth, crucified among you. Verse two, this only what I learn of you.

Now here's the question. Here's the key we need to think about. What's the difference.

Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? What do you think the answer is? Hearing of faith. Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit out? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? Listen to this in another translation. How foolish can you be and ask yourself if this is you in any way after starting your Christian lives in the spirit? Why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human efforts? Think about that.

We have to, we have to be careful that we don't read this. Uh, we all hear about the letter of the law, right? The letter. Let's get the spirit of what Paul's trying to say.

Is he just saying you can, you can, uh, don't ever try to follow the Mosaic law, but you know, any other law you can try to follow. It's fine. No, he's trying to bring up a point between two things here, the law, and I'm going to write it up here.

So here's that dividing page. We said, what was until John? Yeah, we'll just put law. Okay.

And what are we hearing here? What is Paul putting in contrast to the law? He says, did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? And then he says, having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the law? So that last verse I just read, what could I put over here? That would be the opposite. If this was considered works of the law, faith. Okay.

We'll put that. Okay. Grace.

And I want to put bigger than all that spirit because that's God, right? This is us. This is his work, but this is hidden, right? Okay. So let's think law works of the law and the works of the spirit.

These are the two contrasts. This is what we're trying to get at. What is the difference of the, this center page having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the law? Have you suffered so many things in vain? Now let's see.

I think I was going to jump to verse eight. I'm going to jump across some things so we can keep on track. Verse eight.

And the scripture for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith says this, he preached before the gospel to Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed. You remember that story? Abraham, God appeared to Abraham. Abraham said, God told him, go leave your father's house, go out to who knows where.

And Abraham had to just believe in faith and start going. But one of the promises God told him when he came to him was, in thee, I will, let's read it. It's in Genesis.

You can turn there if you want, but now the Lord had sent him to Abraham chapter 12, get thee out of thy country and from my kindred and from my father's house unto a land I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shall be a blessing. I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless thee.

And it says that shall be a blessing. So here's this promise to Abraham. And now Paul's saying, this is coming to us.

I know this is probably, I feel like this is going to get like really complicated, but we got to keep your minds engaged because this is super important. You may think, oh, this is kind of boring. Okay.

Is the new Testament boring? We need to understand what the new Testament is about, right? What does Paul try? I mean, he wrote this to a church. If he wrote this to us, what would he want us to understand from it? Let's think that. So he's saying, God made a promise to Abraham.

He said, I'll bless you. And I will bless, I will make a great nation out of you to have a nation of people. What do you have to have? You have to have, if you're the only person and you're going to have a great nation, I have to have what do you think? Yeah.

A child, right? So I'm, this is in chapter 12 before anything happened. I will make a great nation and I will bless you and all the nations will be blessed. Okay.

So keep going. We are just in verse eight. Let's jump down to verse 10 for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse of under the curse for it's curses everyone that continuous not and all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Now let's stop there. So God just got done saying, I mean, Paul just got done saying that God brought a blessing on Abraham. It's now ours to have.

What is that blessing? We're going to find out. And then he goes back to the law. Remember this side of the page.

And he said, it's written. If you don't do everything in the law, what does it say? Anybody see it? What are you cursed? If you don't do what all things. So if you want to be justified by works, if you want to go before God and say, okay, I'm my own human effort.

I'm going to try to do this. Then you better be ready to do every single thing and not mess up in one place, all things. It says curses everyone who continuous not in all things.

So that way that means if you're, um, how can I say this? If you're just doing great with not looking at pornography, good job. But if you get angry, you're cursed because guess what? If you don't continue, if you don't continue one thing of the law, you're cursed. That's what it's written.

No, man. So we can only conclude by that. Is anybody here, uh, in that category of you're doing good, justifying yourself.

In other words, you've lived that way. I think everyone would have to say, no, none of us are justified. We haven't been able to keep the whole law.

So first 11, no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident. Now here's the verse. This is recorded four times in the new Testament.

It comes out of the book of Habakkuk. The just shall live by faith. This is what Martin Luther's aha moment was when he said, uh, this is not how I've been taught.

And when the Lutheran chart and the Protestant, uh, reformation took place, this verse came on a light bulb for him. The just shall live by faith. Uh, this is an idea of not just the judge shall make a decision by faith.

This is an idea that just shall live by faith, right? Tomorrow morning you wake up. If I'm going to be just, I have to live by faith Tuesday. If I'm going to be just, I have to live by faith.

Can I deduce from this that if you don't live by faith, you're not just the just shall live by faith. Okay. So let's keep going.

This is what we wrote this up here. This is what the new Testament is about. Okay.

So as we keep going, but the law is not a faith. It says here in verse 12, the man that do with them shall live in them. If you want to be justified by rule keeping the law, that's what the law is.

It's a list of rules. If that's how you want to try to be justified, then you need to continue in all of them. Now look in verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.

For it is written curse. It is everyone that hangs on a tree. Now here it is that the blessing of Abraham, we talked about that might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, semi-colon that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith.

Did you get that? The promise of the spirit is in this side of the page and we can prove that I don't have time to prove it, but Jesus himself said to his own disciples, the spirit is with you and shall be in you. If you remember that on Pentecost, it said Jesus, uh, Peter was preaching and he says, everything you've seen out, Jesus is standing by that right hand of the father, receiving of the promise of the Holy spirit is pouring out the promise. And so this promise of the spirit is the main point.

You see that, that we might receive the promise of the spirit. Now, how do you, how do you get it? It says through faith, the just shall live by faith. So the way we walk our life out is through faith.

Um, just like it says in Romans, Abraham was fully persuaded. This is a definition of faith, fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to fulfill. He, God, not Abraham, God was able to perform, to perform.

So the just shall live by faith. He has faith in the promise spirit, right? Which will go on. He's going to, Paul's going to continue on with this and make his point.

And if I try to make Paul's point, we'll be here all day. So just remember that as we keep going, let's jump down to verse 13, 21. Sorry.

Actually, we got to go to 19. So what serves the, what's the purpose of the law then if, if this new thing called the spirit and faith is here, what's the purpose of the law? Paul gives it right here. He says it was added.

Remember that the law was an addition. It was not the original, um, intention. When God set them up in the, our garden of being, do you think he was thinking now I need to set up a law? No, that was not his intention.

Man fell, man, disobeyed God. He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The law was added because of that sin.

But then the word says here till you see that in your Bible till that means the law was added for a certain period. And there's an ending, right? Until the seed should come. Uh, I think the newly living translates it like this.

Why was the law given? It was given alongside the promise. That promise was to Abraham to show people their sins, but the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. Who's that Jesus, right? So can I safely say the law was an addition.

Here's the garden of Eden. We'll just draw a little tree here. Here's the law, but it was until I'll put till and we'll just draw a cross there for the representation of Jesus.

The law was added this period of time. It was added. Let's go to 21 is the law then against the promise of God.

So do we just think, oh, somehow God made a mistake, you know, oops, that was, that was a mess up. No, God forbid. For if there had been a law, do you see that had been, I have it circled in my Bible.

If there had been, if God could have found any awesome law, he could have been right here to bring about what he really intended. Then surely what does it say? Verily righteousness should have been by the law. Did you notice that word? I told you to look at it earlier.

It says, which could have brought forth. What does it say? Life. If there had been a law that could bring forth life, look in the verse, verily righteousness would have been by that law.

If there had been, there's not a law that can bring forth life. So therefore we can conclude there is no rule keeping that can bring forth life. That's what Paul's saying.

So let's keep going. Now you can see how this could get really stretched easy. So you got to keep your mind engaged because there's a point here, but the scripture and concluded all understand that the promise by faith of Jesus might be given to them.

That believe there's that promise again, but before Keith faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterward be revealed. Do you see that afterward? That means we were shut up when we were in the law. Imagine yourself back then you were shut up.

There was a faith that would ask your word. I'll put it here. Be revealed.

It hasn't been revealed yet because we're still under this school master. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster. It was our tutor.

It was our instructor to bring us to Christ that we might be what no longer justified by works, but justified by faith. Okay. Okay.

Let's move on to the next page of my Bible. Probably not yours. Chapter four, verse one.

Now I say that the air, as long as he is a child differs, nothing from a servant though he'd be Lord of all, but he's under tutors and governors until the time appointed. Do you see that word time appointed that shows us that there was a time that was coming a time that would be appointed. They were still under this tutor.

Even so we, when we were children were in bondage under the elements of the world, but when the fullness of time was come that cross right there, God sent forth a son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth his, there's this promise, the spirit, right? The spirit into your hearts. Now you're not a son, a servant, but a son.

Keep with it. Keep your minds connected. So now look in verse nine, he says, but now after that you have known God or rather a known of God, how are you turning back to the weak and beggarly elements where you desire again to be in bondage? It's no different than a brother.

Glenn, he, he goes to work every day. He welds, he fabricates, he loves that, right? And loves engineering ways to get things undone. I can tell that he lies in wait at night thinking about the next day, how he's going to get this pin out or whatever.

What would, what would it be like if brother Glenn decided on Monday to go to Harrisburg school, Lake Creek school and pull up his desk and, you know, just go back to being in school. I'm sure all you children would think this is just a little bit funny. Glenn can do all these amazing things and yet he's going to go back and just sit in school and learn his ABCs and, and his math.

That's the difference of us. This is so much better thing. Why would we go back to this, this concept of rule? Okay.

So that's what he's trying to make his point. He says, I'm in fear of you. You're going back to these things like elementary school.

We're almost to the point. So we're in verse, um, let's jump down to verse 19. My little children of whom I am travailing in birth again until Christ be formed in you.

You see, this is his goal. I want to see God, the spirit of God formed in you. I stand in doubt of you.

Now here is the crux of what I'm trying to get to. Tell me you that are desire to be under the law. Let's just put the word to be under rule keeping for a minute here.

So we can understand the spirit of Paul saying, tell me all of you that want to somehow make your relationship right with God by rule keeping. Watch what he asks. Do you not hear the law for it is written that Abraham had two sons.

The one was by a slave woman and the other was by a free woman. But he who was a bondage was born after the flesh, but he that is of the free woman was born by the promise. You see the difference.

One was born by the flesh and the other was born by the promise. Listen, I'm going to read it in another translation so you can think about it from a different angle and listen very clearly. The son of the slave woman was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise.

Who was the son of the slave woman? How was he brought forth in a human attempt to fulfill God's promise? But was it human? It says, Abraham listened to the voice of his wife. God made a promise. He said, I will bless you.

I will give you, you know, I will give you a great nation. I don't, I'm assuming some things here. I don't know what motivated Sarah, but she said, I'm old.

I can't have a baby. Here's my slave woman. Go have a baby.

Remember that? How does, how does, how does Paul look at that? It was born by a human attempt to bring about God's fulfillment. Now listen to this, but the son of the free born wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. Do you see that point? Now I should keep reading because Paul wants to make his point, which things are an allegory.

It's a, um, Bob, you love allegories, right? You feel like most of revelation is allegories. So therefore the dragon is a picture of something, right? That's an allegory. So what, what, what he's saying here is this idea of Hagar with Ishmael, Sarah with Isaac is an allegory of the two covenants, that middle page.

I can't find it right now. Right? That's an allegory. One was a human attempt to bring forth God's promise.

The other was God fulfilling his promise, right? Okay. So what's Paul trying to tell these guys? The one is from Mount Sinai with gender to bondage. Remember this word, the law brings us into bondage.

It brings us under tutors and the other Jerusalem above is free, which the mother of us all jumped down to verse 28. Now we brothers, as Isaac was our children of the promise, but as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that him that was born after the spirit. Even so now it is nevertheless, what saved the scriptures? Listen to this cast out.

What does it say? The bond woman and her son, who is the bond woman? I'm only asking this to keep us all because I know this is like, Oh, too much theology, but it's really important. Hagar is that was the human attempt to bring forth God's promise, right? What are we supposed to do? Cast out that cast out this attempt of trying to be made right with God through rule keeping that seems kind of weird. Why are we supposed to do that? I thought we had lots of things.

We're supposed to do cast out the bond woman and her son. The son is the works, right? Hagar was the wife. The son was the works, the fruit of that.

We're supposed to cast all of that out and we're supposed to keep Sarah, which is representing of Isaac. So I asked this in your life. This is the question we need to ask.

Whatever, what Paul's trying to tell us here is that we can have Ishmael's in our life and we can have Isaac's in our life. Do you see that picture? We can approach God by the bondage. We can approach God by the new way, the new and living way.

Chapter five, verse one, by the way, it says in where we just came out, cast her out and the sign for the son of the bond, which shall not be air with the son of the free woman. Five verse one. So stand fast therefore in the Liberty where with crisis made us free and don't be entangled back to this yoke of bondage.

And then he says to them a very interesting statement. If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. If they try to go back to that way of being right with God, Christ will profit them nothing.

Verse four, Christ has become of no effect to you. Whosoever you are justified by the law, you are fallen from grace for we through the spirit. Here's the, here's the key.

We through the spirit do wait for the hope of righteousness. This is the key. The Christian life has to be done with this way of thinking.

The way of, I have to, I have to love my enemies, right? That's the old way of doing it. This is the things I have to do. This is what my flesh wants.

So I have to do. That's not saying that we don't have to go through those phases in life to learn how to walk in this phase. But do you think when Jesus was hanging on the cross and he, they were nailing him and he was in agony and pain and he cried out, father, forgive them.

Do you think he was saying, I have to do this? I don't really feel it. I don't think so. I think that Jesus was motivated by the spirit of God in him.

And that spirit of God shed forth the love of God in his heart. And he could say it from his heart, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Do you think we're supposed to be like that? I think it's a fair assessment to say our goal is to be like Jesus.

However we can turn to Luke 18, look at verse 13. This is the story of, Jesus gave a parable and he said, some of these people, verse nine, trusted themselves that they were righteous and despised others. You know, one way you'll know that you have an Isaac in your life, I'm sorry, an Ishmael is when you've done it yourself.

You got to, you know, you are above sin. You, you don't look at pornography. You, you have, you don't get angry.

You don't talk like that. And you despise others. You'll know that's been a work in your own heart.

And guess what? One of these days, it's going to come out. You're going to end up falling. You're going to end up sinning.

They despise others. If you despise others, it's a pretty good sign that the fruit in your life right now is an Ishmael. Two men went up to the temple to pray.

The one was a Pharisee and the other was a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. What a disgusting thing, but sometimes that's what we do.

God, I thank thee that I am not as other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess.

And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as eyes to heaven and smote upon his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified. Do you hear that word? Justified.

This word, when Lot was trying to tell his friends, hey, I didn't do these things. I didn't do these things. And his friends, they got so angry.

They said, you're trying to justify yourself instead of justifying God. You see, that's what justifying. You're trying to say you didn't do anything wrong.

Do you see what this started with in this man's life? It started with honesty. The work of the spirit in our lives is what this whole thing is about. I won't say everything, but it's how God is bringing about justification.

It's how God is bringing about righteousness. Turn to Romans really quick. Romans chapter five, four, verse 17, for if by one man's effect deaths reigned by one much more, they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, the gift of righteousness.

Did you hear that shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ? And then look at the very last verse of this chapter, verse 21, that a sin has reigned to death, even so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. So sin sits on a little throne and as he and he's in your heart and he's got the little sensor and, you know, he's got the little crown. He produces what death, it says.

But when grace sits on the throne in your heart, it produces something. Righteousness and righteousness produces eternal life. What I know this is so confusing and I'm trying my hardest to get it out of my heart to you.

But the point is this, that if we approach God by he came to abolish the law, forgive our sins in heaven, there's so much more to it than that. If we approach God, even he came to abolish the law and he forgave our sins and now he has a higher law. All we've done in a sense, if we don't have this and we don't remember this, we've just gone back to this.

We're trying to be justified in our own works. And Paul is trying his hardest through the book of Romans and Galatians to say you can't approach God like that. His whole point was to bring in a new promised era where he would write his laws on our heart and he would give us a spirit.

So he came to abolish the law, forgive our sins, but now he wants to empower us. How do we get there? Is the question. It's not that we don't need to live holy lives and righteous lives and fulfill the righteousness of the law, but how do we actually keep God's righteousness? Back to that parable.

The key thing that man did was he was honest. He was honest. And the key thing we have to do is we have to be honest with God.

If we play games with him and we try to pull ourselves up with our own bootstraps, he's just going to let us wait and wait. Just like Abraham. How many years? I think it was 13 years.

You know, they tried to bring forth this Ishmael and they did a good job. And Abraham even said to God, oh, that Ishmael would stand before you, right? Oh, that my work I did in my own power would stand before you, God. And God said, no, that was not what I envisioned.

He had to wait 13 years until Abraham was impotent. In other words, he was unable to bring forth fruit and he finally had to have God do it. And I would venture to say the reason why we see such a powerful story here was because they became impotent.

Because they finally realized that God, that they could not do it without God. And they were honest. You know, they sat there daily and prayed.

They sat there daily and weep. They sat there daily and cried out to God. They had become impotent.

They had become humble. You know, it says in Romans 7, it says, this is what Paul said. He said, I have realized in my flesh dwells no good thing.

That's a revelation to realize that in our flesh, we're not talking about what God's doing in our spirit, but in our flesh dwells no good thing. You know what that means? That means when some problem comes into your life and maybe you want to go fix it, maybe you see somebody else and you think that's not being done right. That should be fixed.

What's your first response? Let's go fix it. Let's go talk to that person. Let's go rebuke that person.

We need to remember in our flesh dwells no good thing. We wait for the hope of righteousness. We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart and in all our ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct our paths.

Lord, should I say something? Lord, shouldn't I say something? Lord, I don't know. In my flesh dwells no good thing. I know if I open my mouth, I will make a mess of this.

Maybe we have a problem with getting angry or we have a problem with stressing out or whatever it is. How do we approach it? Do we approach it by, well, I can't stress out? If we do that, not saying it's bad. Brother Rogers always said, well, it's better to not let it out of your heart.

Keep it in there. Well, yeah, that's true. That's like kindergarten, right? But college is, and I'm saying we're all growing this, growing grace, it says in 1 Peter.

I'm not saying any of us have arrived. I have not arrived nor none of us have arrived. College is learning.

Lord, I am honest with you right now. I have a problem with this person, what they're doing, right? And God, I need you to change my heart. Lord, if it takes me 10 years, I need you to change my heart, but I want to be different.

I want to love this person until the work is done and we're seeking after what? The kingdom of God and his righteousness, not my unrighteousness, his righteousness. So I don't know if I've gotten clearly across, but this is what we have to go after. The law of the spirit.

Remember in Romans eight, it says that with my mind, I keep the law, but with my flesh, I keep the law of sin. That's what you have in the old Testament. Oh, my mind, loves God's law, but with my flesh, somehow I just keep serving the law of sin, but the law of the spirit, that's what the new answer is in the new Testament.

But you know what it takes is every moment of your life walking with God, every moment being honest. I remember I'll give you this quick story and then I'll be done. Maybe I've already told this year, but I'll tell it again.

If not, um, I was struggling with somebody, you know, they had, I don't want to say who, but I was, well, I'm trying to be careful how I say this, but I was struggling and, and I, I just confessed it to God. I said, God, I know this is a bad attitude and I know it's not right, but I'm just feeling it in my heart. And he immediately changed my perspective.

He said, oh, would you rather I'm dead? And it wasn't him, by the way, it was somebody just keeping it vague. And I thought, no, no, I wouldn't want that at all. And immediately my heart was just like at peace.

See, God will give you perspective changes. He will make a way of escape. He will, uh, he will give grace in that time when you need it to forgive.

You know, I'm sure Jesus struggled with these thoughts that came in and they're nailing you to a cross, but then God gave him their perspective change. He didn't pull himself up. I need to forgive them because that's the right thing to do.

He relied on God. You know, it even says Jesus was justified in the spirit. Think about that.

Jesus was justified in the spirit. So let's try to be like Jesus and let's try to, to, um, approach this new Testament in the right way. Not trying to approach God by our human efforts, but by dying to self and humbling ourself and relying on him.

God bless you.