Preacher- Adrian Warnock

Of Jubilee Church

Law and Grace

Gal 1:10 Gal 2 16-3:3 Gal 3:10-14 Gal 3:23-26 Gal 5:1, 13-18

3 Points- The value of the law The problem with the law Freedom from Law

The Value of the law

The puritans describe the law as 'the needle that draws the gospel thread' Samuel Bolton

Wycliffe- 'The highest service to which a man may attain on earth is to preach the law of God'

Wesley 'I suggest preaching nine tenths law and one tenth grace'

Finney 'Failure to use the law is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience and to fill the church with false converts.'

Bunyan 'The man who does not know the nature of the law cannot know the nature of sin'

Luther 'The first duty of the gospel preacher is to declare Gods law and to show the nature of sin'

Spurgeon 'They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy law’

Piper 'The quickest way to the heart is through a wound' (desiring God p63)

Gal 3:24 In charge to lead us to Christ- by showing us what sin is like and what God is like and what we are like!

The problems with the Law

3V25 says we are not under law AND 5:18

Christians often remain under law either fully in theory or at least in practice. E P Saunders has made the point that at least in theory Judaism was never a legalistic religion. Nor is Christianity but neither Jews nor Christians have ever stopped being at risk from legalism.

legalism- Marks of legalism-

• Winning approval of men (and to a degree God if we are doing the wrong thing to gain his approval) Gal 1.10 Fear of what people will think but Jesus was not afraid to offend.
• stress on obedience rather than faith/trust Gal 2.16
• an underestimation of the value of Jesus death 'yeh I know that!' instead of awe and wonder! v 15
• a concern that the gospel might promote sin Gal 2:17-18
• Diligence without joy 'I must do it, if I don't do it no one else will.'
• Weariness, Depression- Happiness and legalism cannot coexist
• Critical attitudes- judging appearances while ignorant of the real issues.
• Looking for 'inconsistencies'
• Resentment of authority- hearing 'pressure' and 'telling off' when its not there.
• dependence on our own efforts (3.3)
• Going through the motions- absent minded devotions, activities that have lost their purpose
• Giving up altogether
• an absense of the vital activity of the Holy Spirit (3.4) Resistance to the Spirit NB 'receive' the holy spirit need to know you have it! 'got it all? Where in heavens name is it!'MLJ
• This results in a sense of God as distant, uninvolved and non active. We need an active God!!!
• Legalistic religion can continue without God. How would our meetings change if there was no God, if God went on holiday? Are we in a vibrant relationship where God surprises us or in a predictable environment where rules and principles govern what happens next on Sundays and in our lives.

The problem of the Law is US

If you are a legalist you will always struggle with pride or condemnation 3.10 ie Instability We dont want to be under this covt!!! (no one does EVERYTHING in the law cf also sermon on mount).

Do you really believe that God loves you no matter what you have done or will do in the future?

THE RESULTS of this are Imprisonment not freedom 5:1

The antidote to legalism is Galations!

Freedom from law

It is not about what you do it is about who you trust! Now Jesus died to wipe the slate clean we can do what we like!

Print on a page can never make us holy on its own!

Je 31:31-34 “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. ;And I will

be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

1 Cor 3. 17 Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is ;freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, ;beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. If we had someone elses spirit we would start being like another.

Colossians 2:21=2 "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. (NIV)

A true freedom comes from a genuine understanding of the grace of God leads to a welling up of greatful love for God an others and internal, unforced change (chocolate to sunday school boy story) We almost incidentaly fulfil the law as it is now written on our heart (this does not mean we dont study it but we study it not legalistically but to establish its values and principles)

Biblical principles applied with Godly wisdom and the leading of The Spirit become our guide, rather than an ever more detailed list of human laws to protect Biblical laws.

NO church 'book of rules'

Living in step with the Spirit

includes gifts and miracles but most important is power to change and the fruit of the Spirit

MLJ 'What is being taught in Christendom today is this, that since we have got the New Testament canon, since we have got the Word now, we do not need these direct interventions, we do not need God to speak to us directly, as He spoke to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and these patriarchs. We have got the Word now! Is this superior to the direct speech of God? I think we are mad! There is no other word for this. We are mad' We are meant to be in a superior position to every Old Testament saint because of what has happened in our blessed Lord and Saviour! But this teaching would have us believe that we do not need this direct contact with God now, and that all that has come to an end since the formation of the New Testament canon.......remember that the great point of the whole teaching of the Bible, of all you can deduce from it, is to tell you that God is a God who acts. And our only hope this afternoon is that this is still true. He has not finished acting. He is going on....There is only one hope. That is that He is still the living and the acting God. Christ is at His right hand, and He is seated and waiting until His enemies should be made His footstool.......

I have been defending the faith - and people have praised me for doing it. Rubbish! What a miserable failure it has all been! From now on I am determined to do one thing only, and that is to give God no rest nor peace, until He does prove Himself and show Himself. I have expended so much energy in reasoning with the people about this faith. We have got to do that, it is part of preaching. But if we stop at that it will avail us nothing. But what I now am concerned about and I am concentrating on is this - asking God to show Himself, to do something,to give this touch, this manifestation of power. Nothing else will even make people listen to us. ....Nothing is going to call the attention of the masses of the people to the truth of this faith save a great phenomenon, such as the phenomenon of the day of Pentecost, the phenomenon of any one of the great revivals, the phenomenon of a single changed life. This is something that always arrests attention, maybe curiosity - what does it matter? The people come and listen......

We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible………………… Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act? That is the question; that is the ultimate challenge. Or have we, for theological or some other reasons, excluded the very possibility? Here is the crucial matter. Do we individually and personally really believe that God still acts, can act and will act - in individuals, in groups of individuals, in churches, localities, perhaps even in countries? Do we believe that He is as capable of doing that today as He was in ancient times - the Old Testament, the New Testament times, the book of Acts, Protestant Reformation, Puritans, Methodist Awakening, 1859, 1904-5? Do we really believe that He can still do it? You see, it is ultimately what you believe about God. If He is the great Jehovah - I am that I am, I am that I shall be, unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable, the everlasting and eternal God - well, He can still do it. ‘

GRACE is all about relying on the acts of a merciful God. If we truly know God and experience him by his Holy Spirit this is a major antidote for legalism which tends to take over when God seems distant and instead turns God into our debtor and makes him a slot machine who if we put the right things in he will give us the right thing back!

Need to know the working of the Spirit in us so we are doing what God requires. Lets pray for revelation, and for filling with the Spirit that we can truly say we are no longer led by the Law but by The Spirit.