The right law will set you free.

Authority

You might not feel like rules could ever lead to freedom.

How do you view rules?

Some have a positive view of rules, others are just natural opposed to rules.

Some rules keep us safe!

What are some rules that keep us safe?

When we follow God’s rules (laws), more good happens than just our safety.

They can lead us to being blessed by God, most notably with Salvation.

It doesn’t always feel like freedom when a rule limits something you want, but what you want changes when you know who Jesus is.

You become a free person.

No longer are you bound by sin, but you have the freedom to walk in NEWNESS OF LIFE.

You no longer fear death, because the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, now lives in you.

Love is displayed by our obedience to God’s rules.

Following the rules won’t save you. Why? Because our efforts are insufficient!

Our Efforts Are Insufficient

What does the word insufficient mean?

When you try and use a debit card, are there isn’t enough money in the account (because you spent everything you own on nerd ropes), the bank will decline your card and let you know that you have INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

Throughout the Bible we see example after example of people trying to follow the Law perfectly.

Why? Because they knew that the Lord that created the universe was holy and they were sinful.

We are incapable of paying our own debt. Our own efforts are insufficient.

The Law Could Not Save Us

Romans 8:2–3 NASB95

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

The Law could not save us, because the Law couldn’t make us HOLY.

Even if someone were to live a perfect life theoretically, they would still have A SIN NATURE.

Jesus talks about this in John 3, he says, that all must be born again.

Romans 3:23 NASB95

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

That’s why Jesus origins are so important!

Jesus wasn’t born of a man, but born of God!

John 1:14 NASB95

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So he is holy, because he is existed outside of our fallen world.

Our Savior had to be Jesus, it couldn’t have been anyone else.

The Law (10 Commandments, Ceremonial Law, Religious Law) could not save us!

Because we couldn’t make ourselves holy.

God is Holy. We’re not!

God’s Holiness Matters

John 6:68–69 NASB95

68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

Holy isn’t a synonym for Pure.

Holy means of another substance.

God’s LIKENESS (what he’s like), is different than ours.

Last week learned that Jesus is TRUTH.

He doesn’t just say true things.

Truth is the substance in which he is made.

Now we are learning that God is HOLY.

Have you ever put oil in water?

They can’t mix.

In the same way God’s holiness cannot mix with our SIN NATURE.

God’s Holiness matters, therefore, our LACK OF HOLINESS is a serious issue.

It matters that we obtain Holiness somehow. (The law won’t work)

So we need A NEW NATURE.

Romans 6:5–7 NASB95

5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

That’s why the cross is something we talk about every week. The cross of Christ, is where the penalty of sin was poured out.

We should’ve been on the cross.

Jesus took our place.

Now we have an opportunity to die to ourselves and no longer be slaves to sin, but children of God.

How To Be Saved

Paul and Silas answer this way in Scripture...

Acts 16:31 NASB95

31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

That’s it. Believe in Jesus, Repent, and follow Him.

So What Now?

This is where a lot of us get sluggish. We’re born again, but we grow so slowly.

If you feel like you’re not growing, listen to this next section.

We have to follow God with all we have!

What were about to read in James is going to help us so much.

What Not To Do:

(Don’t) Fight God’s Authority

Some people have such a hard time with submitting to God’s authority because it keeps themselves from doing things they want.

Be careful what your definiton of fun is.

I don’t have to go down the list.

Fighting God’s authority in your life, will lead to seasons of discouragement and at times, serious consequences.

You will walk around in your 40s with the same spiritual immaturity you had in your 20s.

Your life will be marked by little to no growth.

James 1:20–21 NASB95

20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

Whatever you have going on in your life sin-wise, if you don’t take care of those issues, they’re going to KILL your growth.

What To Do:

Put Aside Sin

After we are born again, we should PUT ASIDE SIN.

We put aside the former things:

Bullying

Lying

Cheating

Theft

Drunkeness

Sexual Immorality (Sex outside of marriage, sexual images on your phone, lust, desiring anyone other than your wife. *If you don’t have a wife, that’s every woman.)

EVERY DAY you should ask, what sin am I going to put off today?

Matthew 16:24–26 NASB95

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

We should pray that way in the morning.

LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER ME FROM EVIL!

When you hear the word filthy what do you think of?

When you hear the word wicked, what comes to mind?

For me I think of something covered in mud for filthy. And when I think of wicked I think of a witch like from the musical Wicked!

We don't tend to think of the sins that we commit, as muddy or witch-like do we?

How do we tend to view our sin?

But Jesus said...

Hate = Murder

Lust = Adultery

Jesus's concern lies with our lack of HOLINESS, not only on our behaviors.

We must put aside our sin.

Pray that you would love the difficult people on your life, and not murder them in your heart.

Pray and ask the Lord to purify your thoughts, that you would focus on things above, not lust after sexual explicit images on your phone.

What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting to get caught?

Don’t.

Turn from your sin and repent.

So you’re born again… now what?

Put aside sin!

Be Humble

Humility precedes (happens before) transformation.

Romans 12:2–3 NASB95

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

How do I become humble?

Look in the mirror (God’s TRUTH).

James 1:23–24 NASB95

23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

The proud, those who have an elevated (inaccurate) view of themselves, cannot receive Christ.

In contrast those who humble themselves, by rightly seeing themselves as a sinner and Jesus as KING, those who believe will not parish but have eternal life.

Those who are humble, have moved beyond the way they formerly saw the world, and now, choose to allow TRUTH, to define the way they see the world.

“Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility, and so prepares the mind for true divine light without darkness, and so clears the eye to look on things as they truly are. -J. Edwards”

Allow The Word To Implant

IN HUMILITY, we RECEIVE THE WORD.

Matthew 13:5–9 NASB95

5 “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6 “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. 9 “He who has ears, let him hear.”

Prove Yourself

I’m born again, what now? PROVE YOURSELF!

EXAMPLE: Laura and I took 6 months to plan our wedding. Laura and I had a special day that celebrated the covenant that we were entering. Right as the "I-Dos" were over, I began to prove whether or not my public declaration of love was genuine. I'm still doing that today!

Everyday in my marriage I am proving myself to Laura that my words are TRUE.

Me proving myself doesn't mean I’m not her husband it just means my words alone are not enough.

I must prove my love for her everyday. No just on our anniversary or on date nights.

If I leave, it proves the opposite, that I didn't mean what I said on our wedding day.

BIG IDEA: The right LAW will set you free.

James 1:25 NASB95

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

Psalm 119:97–100 NASB95

97 O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. 98 Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. 99 I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.

A love of God’s Law is not a salvation by works!

Galatians 2:16 NASB95

16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.