Our Heart’s Desire: Obedience to Laws OR Love of God

We often rely on our inheritance, rather than on God.

Different kinds of inheritances:

property (ownership),

genetic (physical, psychological), and

theological (lived theologies from family or origin and other significant adults).

Some inherit more than others, and no one inherits anything equally.

So, for those inheriting less, more is needed to make them equal with those who already have it.

These forms of inheritance are not interchangeable; neither are they absolute.

These forms of inheritance influence us, both with and without our choice.

Without our choice, property (including money) is given to us as a gift, but it is our choice in how to handle them, either by our ancestor’s wishes or against them.

Without our choice, we are given a body (and minds) as it is given to us, but it is our choice in how to maintain it, as we are able, either toward health or destruction.

Without our choice, we are given ways of understanding the world and the possibility of faith in God, but it is our choice to receive or reject those ways.

It is also the choice of those that have an inheritance to help those who do not.

Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps still requires having boots, and that they be strong enough to hold your weight, but without someone else adding their weight too.

When we rely on ourselves, it will always end in disaster.

We need help from God, and we need help from each other.

Paul says the Jews trusted in their inheritance through the Law over trust in God.

Vs.1 - Paul prayed that his people might be saved; they were not saved by their birthright and simply attending to commands.

Vs.2 – The Jews had formed their lives around attending to the things of God, but not necessarily to trust in God’s self.

Vs.3 – Ignorant of the way of salvation God has established, they sought the way of self-righteousness.

Vs.4 – Christ is the End of the Law, the reason for it to exist, the only truly righteous one.

The Law shows humanity is wholly inadequate to come before God on our own.

The only righteousness that is for everyone is the righteousness that comes from Christ.

Vs.5 –Moses testified to the exacting standards of the Law of righteousness, but this only Christ fulfilled.

Paul quotes Lev. 18:5 to explain the relationship between the Law and righteousness.

But, Jews who sought righteousness from the Law, excluded those without it, meaning all others.

“Since that relationship then depends on one’s own trustworthiness (“works of the law”) rather than on God’s trustworthiness (“faith”), it will not be a stable or even a real relationship. Such a real relationship can only be based on total trust in the trustworthiness of God, a trust Christ came to elicit [draw others toward].” – IC

Israel rejected Christ and did not trust in him, as it had rejected the Law as a matter of trust.

The same rejection of the purpose of the law (trust in God), also led the Israelites to reject Christ (who similarly called for trust in God).

Paul presents Two contrasting ways of viewing the law:

As a summons to uphold our relationship to God with our good works

As a summons to trust in God to uphold that relationship as an act of sheer grace

“Obedience to the Law as something that we accomplish, leads to a false sense of our ability to meet God’s trustworthiness to his promises with a trustworthiness of our own, making any real reliance on Christ as the sole basis for our relationship with God impossible.”

Paul insists that anything other than total reliance is another manifestation of idolatrous rebellion.

Upholding an inheritance by trusting in your own work will end in Disaster.

Trusting in God to uphold us in his inheritance always ends in Glory.

Jesus Christ suffered and died that we might be pardoned and be given new life, where the law can only bring death.

The dead were not justified and raised until Christ had arisen.

Moses and Elijah were not brought to life again until Christ had come.

Lev. 18:5 - Moses assured them that God’s law is accessible to them, that is by faith in God.

Vs.6 – Righteousness from faith is right relationship with God through trusting in Christ.

Christ is the End of the law because he is also the incarnation of the goal of the law—the demonstration of God’s faithfulness to his creation.

Christ’s Incarnation embodied the Law, so trusting God in Christ is fulfillment of the law.

Jesus’ resurrection shows God can be trusted even to overcome death.

Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30:12–14 to show that righteousness is attainable. “Near to you.”

Trust in God as the only way to a relationship with him that will not in the end prove illusory and disappointing (v. 11).

The chosen people now includes Everyone, Gentiles as well as Israelites. There is finally no distinction between them (v. 12). The same God is Lord of all races.

The same God lavishes the riches of his mercy on ALL PEOPLES alike.

The same God proves his trustworthiness by delivering from their bondage to sin and rebellion all who call upon him in the trust that he is trustworthy and he will maintain them in his love (v. 13).

The real meaning of faith is the abandonment of any claim to goodness on our part alone.

Learn to fully rely on God, not just with your mind but deeply within yourself.

The goal God had in mind with the beginnings of his chosen people and their law is now embodied in Jesus Christ.

God who made a way through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for all who trust in him for their salvation fulfilled the promise made to Abraham to bless all the nations of the Earth.

If you have been given much, God will require much from you to help your brothers and sisters into equality in the family of God.

God does not leave anyone out of his inheritance who calls on him.

God does not leave anyone to pull themselves up on their own.

God calls us together to help each other up so that we can continue to walk in his way of righteousness.

Galatians 3:28 NIV

28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(White, Black, Red, Brown, Yellow, or whatever shade of pigment your skin happens to be, all are one in Christ Jesus.)

Let us be moved to self-examination that probes our selfish desires to place trust something else and absolves us of total trust in God as we approach the Lord’s Supper.

It is God alone who makes us worthy of his nearness by his grace.

God is as near as heart and mouth, and he calls us, only to acknowledge his availability.

This is the Christian life a trust open to all and at hand to all that God has for us.

God who will deliver us from that bondage of preoccupation with self.

All mean all, Everyone means Everyone; who declares with their mouth and believes in their heart that Jesus Christ is Lord will be saved, made a new creature in Christ, only by the grace of God. Live in that hope of God who saves you only by God’s grace.