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Please stand for the reading of God’s Word, my main sermon text for this Lord’s Day morning. We’re going to take a
little break from Isaiah and we’re going to consider a passage from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,
Romans chapter 3, verses 19 and 20. And you’ll find that on page 1118 in your pew Bible. So,
I’m going to read verses 9 through 20 to fill out the context a little bit. So, let us hear God’s
Holy Word. And just to kind of put this passage in its setting, the Bible has been showing that both
Gentiles and Jews are guilty before God, that we are under sin. But at the beginning of chapter 3,
Paul begins, Paul mentions the advantages, the spiritual advantages that the Jews have
as those who have been recipients of the oracles of God, those who’ve received the Word of God.
But nevertheless, that raises the question, are the Jews better off than the Gentiles?
Well, that, to that question, Paul answers that question in our passage for today. Here the Word
of God, beginning at verse 9, what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have
already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous,
no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside together,
they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave,
they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of
curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law,
no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the
Lord to bless the proclamation of His Word. Almighty and most merciful God, gracious Heavenly
Father, we thank You for the gift of Your Word. It is indeed a lamp unto our feet, a light unto
our path, a guide to our way. We thank You, Heavenly Father, that Jesus Christ is at the heart
and center of Your Word. And we would pray that as we consider this portion of Holy Scripture,
that by Your Spirit, Lord, You would illuminate us, enlighten us. We pray that You would cause
Your Word to find a lodging place in our souls. We pray that You would reveal Jesus to us this
morning in the Word. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may
be seated. Well, friends, I have to apologize because usually I supply a sermon outline that
you can use, and that outline is on my desk at home. I forgot to pack the sermon outlines this
morning, so I would encourage you to take notes if you can find a place to do so, but I apologize
for forgetting to bring the sermon outlines this morning. But usually I supply a number of
key words that the children can be listening for, and adults as well, who find this helpful. And so
there are a number of key words you can be listening for in my sermon today, the words
grace, justification, works, law, faith, and uses. Well, friends, as many of you know, October 31st
has historically been celebrated by some Protestant Christians, not as Halloween,
but as what? Reformation Day in commemoration of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door
of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st, 1517. Dear ones, that event is
often viewed as the catalyst that triggered what has come to be known as the Protestant Reformation.
Now, since Reformation Day is just around the corner, it gives us as Protestant Christians
opportunity to pause and to consider afresh just why it is that we are Protestants and not Roman
Catholics, and just what it is that we are protesting. Now, while there are many important
differences between historic Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, when you sift through all of
the many differences, differences in doctrine, differences in worship practice, and so forth,
when you get down to the foundational differences and the foundational conflict between
Rome and the reformers, there’s basically two major differences. Number one, Protestants and
Catholics have different views on the ultimate basis of religious authority. And number two,
Protestants and Catholics have different understandings of the gospel and thus different
views on how we sinners are made right with God, our holy creator. Now, in terms of religious
authority, as many of you know, the Roman Catholic Church views scripture and sacred tradition to be
equally infallible authorities in the church. And the Catholic Church looks to the teaching
magisterium of the church under the authority of the pope to be the infallible interpreter
of both scripture and tradition. So in the Catholic system, there is infallible scripture,
infallible tradition interpreted by an infallible interpreter, namely the magisterium of the church
and ultimately the pope. Basically, what the Catholic position amounts to in the end is
sola ecclesia, the church alone. But we who are Protestants believe that scripture and scripture
alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice in the church of Jesus Christ. Why? Well,
because the Bible and the Bible alone is the infallible, inerrant, authoritative word of God.
In other words, we Protestants affirm the principle that is known as sola scriptura,
which is simply a fancy way of saying scripture alone. Now, that’s what it comes to when it comes
to the authority question. But what about the question of salvation and in particular,
the question of justification? Well, when it comes to the question of our justification of being
declared righteous before the righteous God of the universe, Roman Catholicism teaches that we
sinners are justified and saved by faith working through love. In other words, they affirm the need
for faith in Christ, but in their system, we are justified through faith in Christ plus Spirit-wrought
good works. Whereas the Protestant Reformers correctly and biblically taught that we sinners
are declared righteous before God by faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from good works,
though the Reformers and all historic Protestants have always recognized that true faith will always
result in a life of good works as fruits and evidences of that faith. So in other words,
friends, we Protestants not only affirm sola scriptura, scripture alone, we also affirm the
principle of sola fide, justification by faith alone. Now, what does all of this have to do with
our passage for this Lord’s Day morning? Well, quite a bit. You see, our passage for this Lord’s
Day morning is particularly relevant to the question of our justification before God.
It is especially relevant in denying that we sinners can be justified by what the Apostle Paul
calls in verse 20, the works of the law. As verse 20 tells us, for by works of the law, no human
being, whether that human being be Gentile or Jew, by works of the law, no human being will be
justified, declared righteous in his sight. Why? Since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
We’re going to try to unpack the significance of this in my sermon for this Lord’s Day morning.
But you know what? In order for us to fully appreciate Paul’s references in our passage
to the law and to the works of the law, we would do well to take a journey back in redemptive
history, to get into a redemptive historical time machine and go back to Exodus chapter 20.
We would do well to go back to that revelation of God’s 10 commandments to the newly delivered
people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, as that is recorded in Exodus chapter 20, and in
particular, the preface to God’s giving of the 10 commandments in verses one and two. And as we
consider this passage, it will be an aid in helping us to understand the relevance and the role of
God’s law. As I hope to demonstrate, one of the truths that God’s preface to his 10 commandments
implies is the same truth that is clearly and openly affirmed in our main passage for today,
namely, the impossibility of justification by works of the law. That’s the first main point,
by the way, if you’re taking notes. The impossibility of justification by works of the law.
So keep your finger on Romans chapter three, and let’s go back to Exodus chapter 20 and look at
verses one and two. At first sight, you might be thinking, well, what does this have to do with
what Paul is saying in Romans chapter three? Well, just stick with me and let’s dive in.
It says in Exodus 21 and two, and God spoke all these words. God is a speaking God. He’s a God
of revelation. And this was supernaturally and audibly spoken to the gathered people of Israel
as they were gathered around Mount Sinai. God spoke all these words saying,
I am the Lord your God. I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery. Again, what is the setting? What is the context of this Exodus 20
passage? Well, remember the children of Israel had been slaves in Egypt under Pharaoh and the
Egyptians. They’d been slaves for a long, long time. And God heard their cries in fulfillment
of his covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God raises up the prophet Moses
to be the covenant mediator of the old covenant. And God supernaturally through the ministry of
Moses delivers the Israelites from their slavery. He liberates them. He saves them. This is a
typological salvation, a salvation from physical slavery. But nevertheless, it is a
physical salvation that points to ultimate salvation, salvation in Christ, the promised
Messiah. So God had brought the recently liberated Israelites to Mount Sinai where he revealed
himself and revealed his law to them in a supernatural display of his powerful theophanic
presence. In the preface to the Ten Commandments as recorded here in Exodus 20 verses 1 and 2,
one of the things that we see, brothers and sisters, we see that God revealed his law
in the context of his grace. If you get nothing else out of this sermon today,
get this point. God revealed his law as a gift. He revealed it in the context of his grace. In
other words, God did not reveal the Ten Commandments as a pathway for gaining his favor or for earning
salvation, but rather he revealed the Ten Commandments as a gracious gift to his people,
a people whom he had already graciously delivered from slavery and whom he had already graciously
taken to be his people. Again, God prefaces the Ten Commandments with these words, I am Yahweh,
Yahweh, the covenant name for God, Yahweh, the God who is a faithful covenant-making,
covenant-keeping redeemer God. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
I’ve saved you. I’ve liberated you. I’ve liberated you from the house of slavery.
He’d already taken them to be his people. My friends, when we study what the scriptures teach
us about God’s law, and we are considering today the relevance and the role of God’s law in our
lives as believers, what we see is that the Ten Commandments, they originate from God,
they reveal the character of God, and they reveal important truths about God, such as the fact that
he is a personal speaking God, and also that the God who revealed these commandments is a gracious
covenant-keeping God who sovereignly redeems unworthy sinners like the Israelites. God’s
preface to his Ten Commandments reveals that law in the context of Yahweh reminding his people,
again, that he had already redeemed and liberated them from their slavery, freely,
out of his bountiful grace, and not at all based upon the Israelites’ works or their worthiness.
In fact, if you know your Old Testament, one of the things that you know about the children of
Israel, you know that they were a stiff, hard-hearted, stiff-necked people. They
often rebelled against the Lord. And consider this generation that had been liberated.
Consider their wilderness wanderings. Most of them fell in the wilderness because of unbelief.
Even though God had physically redeemed them, many of them proved to be, ultimately, to be
unbelievers. They did not trust in the Lord, and therefore, they did not go forward
into the promised land. So God did not redeem the Israelites because they deserve to be redeemed.
He did not rescue them from their slavery because they were worthy of that. No, they were an
unworthy people. They did not deserve the least of God’s mercies, but he took pity upon them.
He redeemed them by his grace and his grace alone. Again, God revealed his law in the context of
reminding the people of his grace. In revealing the Ten Commandments to his people,
God was not saying to the Israelites, okay, here’s the deal. If you will show yourself loyal to me,
if you will obey me, then I will rescue you from slavery, then I will take you to be my people,
and I will be your God. That’s not the way it worked. No, he had already redeemed and saved them
from slavery, and his commandments were revealed to them, not as a pathway to salvation,
but as the way in which he wills for his redeemed people to live, to show their gratitude for his
bountiful mercy. After all, it has always been true. It’s not just true now under the new
covenant. It has always been true that after mankind’s fall in Adam, it is simply impossible
for fallen man to gain salvation and eternal life by the keeping of God’s moral law.
So this is the redemptive historical background that we need to keep in mind as we consider our
main text for today. So with all of this background in mind, we now turn back again to our main passage
for today. Now in Romans chapter three, now remember where Paul has been. Romans is a wonderful
portion of Holy Scripture, but it is an intricate argument. Paul, in an unbreakable argument,
develops his thought throughout the epistle. And so far in Romans, Paul has demonstrated the fact
that not only are Gentiles under sin, under the dominion of sin, and thus guilty before God,
because even Gentiles who have not had access to the law of God, they have broken God’s law.
They’ve broken the works of the law. They violated their own conscience.
Even though they don’t have the written code, they have the works of the law written on their
hearts, and they violated that. We all violate our conscience, whether we have access to the Bible
or not. And not only that, they’ve rejected God’s general revelation, his revelation in creation
and conscience. Paul makes that point in Romans chapter one. But then he turns to the Jews and
points out that the Jews too are guilty before God, because though they have the written code
and circumcision, they lack true faith. They don’t keep the law. And so that raises the question at
the beginning of chapter three. Then what advantage have the Jews? What’s the advantage
of being a Jew? Paul says, or what is the value of circumcision? He says in chapter three, verse two,
much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. God gave them
his word. God’s historical people had been given the scriptures, the oracles of God. And what a
privilege that was. But here’s the question. Did that make them better off in terms of their
spiritual condition? Paul answers that question in verse nine. He says, what then? Are we Jews
any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks,
are under sin, under the dominion and thus the curse and condemnation of sin. And then he
strings together a series of quotes from the Old Testament to show that all are under sin,
under the dominion and power of sin. And then he says this in verse 19, as he kind of summarizes
what he’s been saying thus far. Now we know that whatever the law says, let me pause there.
When he uses the term law here, Paul uses this term in some slightly different ways depending
on the context. And in this context, he probably has in view the entirety of the Old Testament
scriptures. The law that the Jews had access to, not just the moral law as such, but the whole
shebang, the whole thing. We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under
the law, or that could be translated, who are in the law, those who are involved with the law.
Namely, again, he specifically probably has the Jews in mind. He’s already declared that gentiles
are guilty before God. And now he’s saying, he’s driving home the point again to his Jewish
objectors that yes, Jews too are under sin. So that every mouth may be stopped, not just gentile
mouths, but Jewish mouths as well. And the whole world may be held accountable to God. In other
words, all of the world is guilty before the infinitely holy creator God, not just the gentiles,
but even the Jews. Again, my friends, he goes on to say, what’s the conclusion of all of this? Verse
20, for by works of the law, no human being, no human being, whether gentile or Jew, no human being
will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Now there are some
theologians today who try to make the case that, well, when Paul talks about the works of the law,
he’s just talking about the ceremonial law, those boundary markers that set Israel apart from the
gentiles, like circumcision and the Passover and so forth. But how is it that the ceremonial law
and the ritual law reveals human sin? It seems that in verse 20, by works of the law, he has in mind
not just the ceremonial laws, he has in view the moral law of God, which is summarized in the Ten
Commandments. And by works of the law, works of the moral law, no human being will be justified
in his sight. Why? Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. My friends, the impossibility
of being justified, of being declared righteous before God by our own efforts to obey God’s laws
is highlighted by two biblical realities. Number one, the perfect righteousness of God,
which requires perfect personal and entire obedience if we would be justified by law keeping.
And number two, the universality of human sin and of our inherent total depravity due to our
fallen Adam render all of us incapable in our sinful fallen state of perfectly obeying God’s
law, as we would need to do if we are to be justified and saved by keeping the moral law.
And this is why we can only be justified and saved by the infinite merit and sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we receive that gift of salvation by the God-given grace of
trustful reliance upon Christ and Christ alone. In other words, we are justified by faith,
by personal trust in Christ and Christ alone. Now, this leads us to the question then, why the law?
And what do we do with passages, for example, like Romans 6-14, which tell us that we are not
under the law but under grace? In connection with all of this, some might ask that question. Well,
what about the fact that Paul says we believers are not under law but under grace? Doesn’t that
mean we can ignore the Ten Commandments? I mean, what does that mean? Well, friends, understand,
for those of us who are in Christ, when Paul talks about us not being under the law but under grace,
for those of us who are in Christ, there is a very specific sense in which we are not under the law
but under grace. First of all, we are not under the curse and condemnation of the law,
because Jesus Christ our Savior took our curse and condemnation upon Himself as our substitute,
as our sin bearer. When Paul says that we are not under the law but under grace, that’s what he
means. We’re not under the curse and condemnation of the law. Christ took that curse upon Himself.
He died as our sin bearer, our substitute. He fully satisfied for all of our sins.
We are also not under the law as a covenant of work like Adam was, a covenant whereby we are
justified by our own good works and by the keeping of the law, or even partly by our works and the
keeping of the law as Roman Catholic theology would suggest. But even as believers, there is
a sense in which we still are under the law. We are under the law in the sense that God’s moral law
as summarized in the Ten Commandments is and remains God’s universally binding objective moral
standard, the standard which defines objective right and wrong, objective good and evil,
and therefore God’s moral law is our ethical guide for how we are to live a life that is pleasing
to our Heavenly Father and to demonstrate our gratitude for His amazing gift of salvation
through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Dear listener, let me ask you, are you still under
the law as a covenant of works in Adam, or are you in Christ? You say, well,
pastor, I try to live a good life. Some of you are familiar with evangelism explosion and the
question that you’re supposed to ask folks that you engage with evangelistically in gospel
conversation, and that question goes like this. Let’s say if you were to die today, God forbid,
and stand before God and He were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you
say? How do you think most folks today would answer that question? Most folks would answer
that question by pointing to themselves. Well, I’m not perfect, but I’m a basically good guy.
I help little old ladies across the street. I recycle. I give to charity. I devote my time
to community service. I try to keep the golden rule. Some might even say, well, I follow the
Ten Commandments. But here’s the kicker, my friends. If you think you can get to heaven,
if we think we can get to heaven by our good works, then what’s the standard? How many good
works? I think many folks think, well, as long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, I’m okay.
But who declares what is good and what is bad? And furthermore, does God grade on a curve?
No. You see, God is perfect. Heaven is a perfect place. And we need a perfect righteousness to
serve as our title to enter into heaven. And none of us has that. So if you try to get to heaven
by your good deeds, you’ve got to be perfect. You’ve got to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength all the time and never once mess up. But here’s the problem.
We are messed up from the start because we inherit a sin nature from Adam, our original
covenant head and representative. We are covenant breakers by conception and birth.
We are fallen in Adam. We have a corrupt nature, a nature that is disposed toward rebellion against
God. And we willfully choose to live according to that nature until God’s grace intervenes.
And that’s why we need a Savior to come and rescue us. And the law of God serves to show us
our sin so that we know our need for the Savior. That’s the point that Paul is making
at the end of verse 20, where he says, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Now,
that leads me to my next main point. Let’s consider the three uses of God’s moral law,
uses or functions, if you will, of God’s moral law. Now, Paul mentions one of them
in our passage for today in verse 20, and we’ll focus on that first. But then I want to mention
the other two uses of the law that we can detect from the scriptures. First of all, the first
function or use of God’s moral law is what could be described as the evangelistic function.
As one theologian puts it, the first function of the law is to be a mirror reflecting to us both
the perfect righteousness of God and our own sinfulness and shortcomings. You look into the
law honestly, and if the spirit is at work in your heart, you will see, wow, I don’t live up to this.
I don’t measure up. I need help. So the law is a mirror reflecting both the perfect righteousness
of God and our own sinfulness. Again, as Paul says in verse 20, for by works of the law,
no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
He says something similar. He makes a similar point in Galatians chapter 3 verse 19. In Galatians
3 19, Paul writes, why then the law? He says, why after giving the promise to Abraham did God add
the law in the days of Moses? He says it was added because of transgressions until the offspring
should come to whom the promise had been made. That would be Jesus. In other words, the law was
added because of transgressions. Now there’s commentators and the exegetes debate and
what precisely that means, but it seems that what he is saying there is basically the same thing as
he’s saying in Romans 3 verse 20, that through the law comes knowledge of sin. We come to see our sin
as we measure our lives against the law of God. What all of this means, beloved, is that one of
the main functions of God’s moral law is to show us that God is holy and we are not. God is holy,
we are sinful, and therefore it is to lead us to the realization that we desperately need a Savior
who is fully qualified to save us from our sins. And that Savior, in order to be fully qualified,
must be true God, fully God, and fully man in one person, and that’s Jesus. He is the word made flesh,
Emmanuel, God with us. God’s law shows us what God demands of us as our creator and king.
He’s our creator, we are the creatures, we owe him obedience. And by this it shows us that it
is impossible for us to fulfill those demands because of our own inherent sinfulness. In fact,
scripture indicates that God’s law actually has the effect of stirring up enmity in the hearts of
unconverted sinners. And by doing this, it makes it all the more obvious just how sinful sin is.
Maybe you’ve had conversations with an unbeliever and you start pressing home upon their consciences
the requirements of God’s law. You know, the Bible says you shouldn’t be sleeping with your
girlfriend. The Bible says you shouldn’t be, you know, you start personalizing to them the demands
of God’s law, and they start to get defensive, and the hostilities start to rise. Now the Holy
Spirit can use that to humble them, but if the Spirit is not at work, you’ve just made an enemy.
Our reaction to the law of God is hostility unless the Spirit works in our hearts. But the law,
in a sense, stirs up that hostility and therefore shows just how sinful sin is. For the law is good
and holy, but the thing that makes sin so sinful is that it rejects that which is good and holy.
Namely, the law of God and the God of the law. By acting as a mirror that shows us how sinful we
are and how far short we fall of God’s moral demands, the law drives us outside of ourselves
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who fulfilled God’s law in the place of his people as their
representative and who took the punishment for the sins of his people as their substitute
when he died upon the cross. And that leads to a second main important function or use of God’s
law. That’s the use that we might call the civic use. Again, in the words of one theologian,
though the law cannot change the heart, it can to some extent inhibit lawlessness by its threats of
judgment, especially when backed by a civil code that administers punishment for proven offenses.
Thus it secures civil order and serves to protect the righteous from the unjust. What this means,
my friends, is that the law of God and its principles are useful in restraining criminal
behavior in society and thus establishing a civil order where lawlessness is punished
and where the law abiding are protected. At least that’s ideally what it’s supposed to do.
While a saving or justifying righteousness before God cannot be gained by the keeping of God’s
moral law, nevertheless an external and outward keeping of the principles of God’s moral law
can promote what theologians call civic virtue or civil righteousness, an outward social righteousness
that enables a basically just and stable social order to exist. And we all want that, don’t we?
We all want to live in a basically safe society where you don’t have to worry that if you walk
out on the street someone’s going to attack you or assault you or what have you. But that leads us
to consider the third and final function or use of God’s law, and that is to act as an objective
guide for the believer’s spiritual growth. In other words, God’s law shows us God’s moral will
and therefore it serves as an objective guide to our sanctification and growth
in grace. It shows us as believers how we are to live in a way that is pleasing to God
and how we can show him and show others our gratitude for his wonderful gift of salvation
in Christ. So God’s law shows us our sin and need for Christ. It provides restraint,
a social restraint in society, and it also guides the believer in the way of sanctification
and holiness. My friends, God’s law is good for us if it is used lawfully.
But if the law is used unlawfully, for example, if you are using the law of God self-righteously
in an attempt to earn your salvation by law keeping, well, if the law is used unlawfully
like that, it can do great harm. In fact, it can even damn your soul. Not because there’s anything
wrong with the law. The law is good. The law is holy. The law is just. But because our hearts
are corrupt and it is a violation of God’s word to unlawfully use his law. But if we use God’s law
in a lawful way, keeping in mind the proper biblical uses of the law, then it is a great
blessing and a great delight and can be used by God’s spirit to transform us by the renewing
of our minds. Brothers and sisters, are we using God’s law lawfully? Well, that brings me to my
final brief main point, and that is this. Let’s consider in conclusion the role of God’s law
in our lives. I started off this sermon by discussing the differences between Protestants
and Roman Catholics and in our Protestant and biblical embracing of the truth of justification
by faith alone, let us not make the mistake of thinking the law to be irrelevant. The law
continues to have relevance in our lives as believers. It can’t save us. It can only show
us our need for salvation continually. But what role does the law have in our lives? Paul says,
by the law comes the knowledge of sin. Well, friends, in line with the first use,
the law of God shows us our ongoing need for Christ. The law of God in its evangelistic use
is not just useful for the unbeliever to show the unbeliever their sin and their need to run
and flee to Christ. It does that for us as Christians as well. We as Christians, you know,
someone has said that Christians too need the gospel. I think it’s Michael Horton who likes to,
the theologian Michael Horton who loves to say that and point that out, that Christians need
the gospel too. It’s not just the unbelievers who need to hear the gospel so they can be saved. It’s
believers too who need the gospel to be encouraged and assured because our faith is so weak. But just
as we Christians need to continue to hear the gospel and the pronouncement of God’s gracious
forgiveness of our sins in Jesus, so we also need to continue to hear God’s law, for the law shows
us our ongoing need for the gospel. But also in line with the second and third use of the law,
it offers us as believers clear moral guidance in this time of great moral confusion and ethical
chaos. We live in chaotic times. We live in highly confused times and the cultural confusion out there
in our society has seeped into the church and it confuses even believers as well. So we need to be
transformed by the renewing of our minds. We need to know the standards that are laid out by God’s
moral law. In these times of ethical relativism and muddled morality, God’s law gives us moral
and ethical light, clarity, and guidance. But also in line with the third use of the law,
the law lays before us the goal and standard for personal holiness and sanctification.
There are some Christians in churches that say, well, you live a holy life by, you don’t drink
alcohol, you don’t smoke. If you’re a lady, you wear a dress a certain size and you have a hair
a certain length. That’s basically Phariseeism. And we all have a little Pharisee in our hearts.
The law of God shows us that holiness, it’s not just about outward decorum, outward behavior.
It speaks to the heart and it guides the heart when blessed by the Spirit. So it lays before
us the goal and standard for personal holiness and sanctification. I don’t know about you, friends.
When I was young in the faith and I started to read the New Testament especially and learn about
how I’m no longer under the law, that I’m saved by grace through faith, not by my works.
Then I would read passages like Psalm 119 and I scratch my head and I think,
why is the psalmist delighting in the law of God? I mean, the law is something that is unattainable.
Well, friends, brothers and sisters, you and I have been delivered from the curse and condemnation
of the law. That’s why we can love the law. That’s why we can delight in the law. It no longer
curses us. It no longer condemns us. It is an expression of God’s grace and love for us.
So beloved in Christ, let us delight in the law of God. Let our attitude be that of the psalmist
who wrote those precious words. Oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Amen. Let us
pray. Lord and Father in heaven, how rich, how deep your word is, how precious it is to our taste.
We ask that you would grant that we would be a people who delight in your law. Not because the
law can save us. We know it can’t. We know Christ alone saves us. But because the law guides us,
it is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. And Lord, as we delight in your word,
in your law, most important of all, may we delight in you, the Lord, the one to whom the law
and word of God points to. Be with us now, Lord. Help us to take these truths to heart
and help us, Lord, to be those who protest against error and for the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. In His name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. As we close our time of
worship, let’s rise and we’ll sing together 458, O Fountain of Unceasing Grace. 458.