The Spirit of the Law and the Letter of the Law (49 min)

Jesus didn't come to do away with the Law, but rather to help YOU fulfill it on a deeper level than the Pharisees.  Many preachers in our day teach a false grace message...they teach you got saved so you don't have to do anything more...just float along until you die and you'll be good...Jesus loves you just as you are.  Jesus paid for MUCH more than you to stay the same.  You got saved so you could become different!  Jesus loves you too much to let you sit in your sins.  The false grace message is a lie designed to steal greatness from you forever:

Matthew 5:17-20  "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  18  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.  19  Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  20  For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Following Jesus in this reality is a NARROW road:

 

Matthew 7:13-14  "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  14  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

On one side of the road is the ditch of false grace, but on the other side of the road is the ditch of legalism, or works-based salvation...equally deadly!  This is what Paul said:

 

Galatians 5:1-5  Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.  2  Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.  3  And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.  4  You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.  5  For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

So how do we reconcile these two statements about the law?  The answer is in the power of God inside of you.  Jesus made it possible for the AUTHOR of the law to live inside of you.  The helper, the comforter, the third person of the the trinity is IN the believer.  If we let the Spirit who wrote the law lead us, we do BETTER than the written law!  

 

Romans 8:1-4  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  3  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,  4  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

 

This is great news, but we have to respond to it.  We have to actively "wait" in partnership with the Spirit...contending for righteousness.  There is a specific way to "wait with the Spirit for righteousness"...it is called the Sermon on the Mount.

Don't fall into either ditch...learn how to grow in holiness in the only way that really works:

2 Corinthians 3:17-18  Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.