What About The Law?
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Our sermon will be on Luke 16:14-17
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What About The Law?
What About The Law?
Have you ever seen some of the weird laws around us?
For example, in OKC, you can’t tip over a casket at a funeral.
And don’t take a bit out of someone else’s hamburger.
Also, make sure you tie up your car before you head into the store.
If you’re in Wynona, don’t use your birdbath to wash your clothes.
If you’re in Tulsa, Don’t open a pop bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer.
We laugh at these, but there are some things that seem silly in the Bible as well.
Like in Deuteronomy 22:11
11 “You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.
Or some of the dietary laws.
They couldn’t eat rabbit, shellfish, pork and many other things.
Oof, Cristy, that means you can’t have your shrimp.
And oh me oh my, I can’t have bacon.
So the question is, why don’t we follow these laws?
We are going to try to answer that today.
14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.
15 And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.
17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.
Context
In order to understand what’s going on here, we need to backtrack a bit.
Two weeks ago we talked about the unjust steward.
It’s about how we should be thinking about the life to come instead of this life.
So they are upset at Jesus for what he’s saying.
So Jesus just gives them more fodder.
Justifying yourself before God is a lost cause
Justifying yourself before God is a lost cause
The Pharisees were all about how they appeared to others.
Appearances were everything.
I’m not talking about looking nice.
Yesterday was the association meeting.
I walked in to the minister’s study and all of these guys were dressed up with most of them in a suit and tie.
Here I was in jeans and a decent shirt.
Was there anything wrong with how I was dressed?
Was there anything wrong with how they were dressed?
What we are talking about is not just the way they dressed but they way they acted.
God is not worried about how we are dressed, although he is probably glad we are dressed.
They were not worried about what God thought about them but about what others thought
When Jesus was teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, he laid out the fact that God was worried about your inward desires.
Lust is adultery of the heart, hate is murder of the heart, etc.
That means their attitude was the sin of pride.
This little saying Luke 16:15
15 And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
The bad news for them (and for us) is that we cannot justify ourselves before God.
As Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:6
6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.
Where does that leave us?
Jesus bridges the gap between old and new
Jesus bridges the gap between old and new
16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.
Jesus is telling us that something new is coming.
It was pressing them and now we are in it.
What the Pharisees and scribes didn’t know was that Jesus was what the Bible was about.
39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
If you look through the scriptures you will see a pattern emerge.
The thing that ties it all together is Jesus
People have said that Jesus is the scarlet thread that sows the Bible together.
That’s a reference that goes all the way back to Joshua where Rahab, through faith, trusted in God and helped the Israelite Spies down out of Jericho by a scarlet thread or rope.
That thread takes us to Jesus.
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
When we look at the whole of the sacrificial system, we see it points to Jesus.
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;
27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
That brings us to Luke 16:17
17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.
A jot and a tittle are described by this picture. Like the difference between an “O” and a “Q”
So what does the law have to do with us?
21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.
22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.
24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
So what laws do we follow?
We need to remember that there were different aspects of the law.
Many people break it down into the Moral aspects, and the Ceremonial
Things like the shellfish and the mixing of types of threads were Ceremonial.
Things like the 10 commandments are part of the moral law.
Later in what some call the first council of Jerusalem, the law was reduced to this:
29 that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.
But that’s the do nots.
What about the dos?
13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!
Paul had been telling the Galatians that we are free of the Law.
Someone had been telling them otherwise.
So he quotes what Jesus said about Love
Here’s the question for you: Can you fulfill that command?
Jesus did, maybe Mother Theresa, but I can’t.
So what’s the answer?
The Law brings us Condemnation, But Jesus brings us Sanctification
The Law brings us Condemnation, But Jesus brings us Sanctification
That’s the big message here.
We can’t follow the Law. We can never to it perfectly.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But God loved us so much, that even though we are impure, he gave Jesus as the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sin.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We are not righteous because of what we do or not do, instead we are declared righteous if we believe.
So what about all those laws we talked about and what’s in Exodus Leviticus, and Deuteronomy?
They can inform us as to what is right and wrong, but it is impossible to follow them perfectly.
The Law brings us Condemnation, But Jesus brings us Sanctification
The Law brings us Condemnation, But Jesus brings us Sanctification
The Law was always pointing to the perfect Lamb that would come and now has come.
Jesus died so that I could be free of sin and it’s trappings
Are you ready to be free?
Are you ready to go eat some bacon?
Let’s go and let’s spread the good news.
We have been freed, let’s go free some more.
The Law has taught us that we are condemned
But Jesus taught us that we can be free and we can be cleansed by his blood