Amen. We have the privilege of coming and singing praises to that one who is ruler of all. It's the reason that we're here today. There's a lot of things that a lot of beautiful people are doing on a Sunday afternoon. And we are here lifting up the name of Christ because he is the exalted king. He is the ruler of all. And he is the name before which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. And we also have the privilege of hearing from that Lord through the preaching of His Word. We believe that when Christ's Word is faithfully preached, it is Christ's Word that's heard. And we get to hear from our King. And we pray, go ahead and pray and ask for His Spirit to give us understanding, to give us wisdom, and to convince us of the surpassing mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, You are a great God. We come to you as Father, Son, and Spirit and ask that you minister to us this morning. We confess that we come with trials and difficulties and struggles, struggles outside of ourselves with other people and our circumstances, trials and struggles within our own hearts, our affections that are contrary to your word, the things that we desire that displease you. And I pray for your mercy this morning upon us. I pray that your mercy would be revealed first of all that we would understand your word. That we would understand the weighty matters that our Lord has placed before us and that you would give us understanding and that you would be merciful to us to conform us to the very image of Christ that we would delight to see ourselves looking more and more like our Savior. And we pray that as we endeavor, all of us, to do those things that you will cause this place to be a city set on a hill, to cause this people to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world for the glory of our King. We pray this in His name. Amen. You may be seated. I invite you to turn once again to Matthew's gospel in the Gospel of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. Our text this morning is in Chapter 5, and we will continue looking at this paragraph that we started last week, the paragraph that includes verses 17 through 20. And I'll read that paragraph in a moment. Our emphasis this morning will be primarily on verse 19. But before we get there, some comments. I think it's fair to say, even to a casual observer of our culture, that our society is overcome with lawlessness. Let me think about this. Our political leaders lie to us and say, it's just a short circuit. It's just a bad memory. Abortion is considered a reproductive right instead of murder. Homosexuality is considered a lifestyle rather than a transgression of God's law. Good is called evil and evil is called good, and we see this all around us. But if we're honest, we also see it in us, don't we? Because aren't we prone to say things like, well, I made a mistake. That was a lapse in judgment. It was an error. It was just a lapse. It was just poor character, just careless words. Rather than saying what it is, it's sin. It's sin. So even we, as we gather here in a church building on a Sunday afternoon, we have to be honest with ourselves and say, we struggle to admit ourselves that it's sin. We struggle to admit that what we find in ourselves is actually lawlessness. It's easy to spot it. It's harder to own it, isn't it? Last week, as we consider Jesus' words in Matthew 5, particularly in verses 17 and 18, He teaches us that the Law and the Prophets, the sum total of the Old Testament teaching is still binding, it's still useful for us. There are many who would say, you don't need to look at the Old Testament anymore. Because Jesus came, the Old Testament, I mean, it's just basically a history book, if even that. It's antique. It's kind of old. It's not really useful anymore. It's a bunch of names that are hard to pronounce and a bunch of rules and regulations that we don't understand. It's not even useful. And what Jesus is saying is, I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, which is a summary statement. That's shorthand. When he says law and the prophets, that's shorthand for the whole Old Testament. And he said, I didn't come to abolish that. I didn't come to weaken it, soften it, do away with it, undermine it, replace it. But instead, I came to fulfill it. I came to accomplish it. And even, he says, even the smallest letter. He's talking here about the Greek alphabet when he says an iota or a dot. It's basically, it's sort of like our English letter I. The lowercase i is the smallest letter in our English alphabet. And the dot that goes over that i is the smallest stroke. And he's saying, look, not even the smallest letter, not even the smallest stroke is going to go away. It's all going to be fulfilled in me. And as you know, we have, as a church, have a confession of faith that simply summarizes what we believe the Bible teaches. These are things that we believe because God's word says it, that it's true. And these become helpful summary statements. So I would direct your attention, pick up a hymnal, and go ahead and just put a bookmarker in here. We're going to turn to this several times today. But this is a helpful way to kind of get your mind around some of these concepts that are, frankly, difficult concepts. Some of these things are not easy to understand and it takes some repetition. It takes us kind of hearing them again and again and again before the light bulb starts to go on and you're going, aha, I'm beginning to see more clearly now. But in your hymnal, in the very back on page 682, it's not hymn 682, but in the page number 682, you'll come to a chapter. The heading is chapter 19 of the law of God. And in paragraph five, it's a very short paragraph, speaks about the moral law of God. And the moral law of God is summarized in the Ten Commandments. But the moral law of God does forever bind all as well justified persons as others. So in other words, Christians and non-Christians. Those who profess faith in Christ are bound to the moral law. Those who do not profess faith in Christ are also bound to the moral law, because we are all descendants of Adam. And the law was originally given to Adam, and it's unbroken. The law is remaining in effect, unbroken in that sense. Adam, of course, broke the law, and all of us after him have broken the law. And that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the creator who gave it. So in other words, not only are the things contained in the law valid and binding, but also is God's authority because He's the one who gave it. His authority is binding. Neither doth Christ in the gospel anyway dissolve but much strengthen this obligation. So that's in one paragraph a summary of last week's sermon. It is a, in no way does that law go away or be reduced, but actually it's strengthened. Our obligation is strengthened to the law. Now that might strike you as different than what you've heard before. You may have heard and been taught that, well, the law goes away for the Christian. And what we actually believe the scriptures teach is that's not true. The law remains in effect. In fact, our obligation to the law is even stronger now. Now what does that mean? Does that mean that all of the obscure rules and guidelines in the Old Testament are still binding in exactly the same way that they were before. No, it doesn't mean that. So I'm not in sin here because I have on a shirt that contains cotton and a suit that has wool, because I've got mixed fabrics. Under the Old Testament law, that would have been unlawful to have that. because it was a constant reminder to the people of Israel that they needed to be distinct and not intermixed with their pagan neighbors. It was a constant picture. Every time they got up in the morning and got dressed, they were reminded of the fact that they needed to be a distinct people. It was an ongoing visual and object lesson for them. So the law is still binding. I still must be distinct as a person of God, as a man of God. I am unique in Christ. compared to those who are outside of Christ. But that doesn't mean that I have to observe the laws in exactly the same way. Now, we'll spend more time next week in looking at some of those kind of applications. But I just want to put that before you now, because those objections immediately come to mind. Well, what about all the minutia in the Old Testament? And we'll deal with that again next week. But that doesn't mean that the law is not at all useful for us. So this law is now, according to Christ, fulfilled. It's brought to its complete purpose. It's now demonstrated in the person and work of the Son of God. And since that's true, there's a very important question we have to consider. Because it's true that the law of God has not gone away at all, we need to consider this very important question. How do we then, as Christians, under the New Covenant, under the reign of Jesus Christ, how do we relate to the law? It's a good question, isn't it? How do we as Christians, who are under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ, we are under the new covenant washed by his blood, how do we relate to the law? And there are two errors, and they're opposite errors that we have to avoid. Number one is assuming that Jesus abolished everything to do with the law. And now, we as Christians, we don't have anything to do with the law. So that's an error. We looked at that one last week. But there's another error, and it's the opposite. It's acting that we act as if sometimes that after the incarnation, the life, the death on the cross, the resurrection of our Lord, His ascension, His promises of coming again, we act like after all that, that nothing has changed. And that we can go to the Old Testament and impose the law exactly as it was under the Old Testament to life and practice now. Well, let's read what Jesus says here, and we'll remind ourselves kind of how to correct those two errors, and we'll deal primarily with the second one today and next week. So look at Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 17. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven. the kingdom of heaven. Thus reads the Word of God. Jesus says something here in verse 19 that's very important. He says to us very clearly, and we saw this last week, I've not come to abolish the prophets, but rather to fulfill them. Therefore. And that therefore statement connects it together. It says, well because this is true, because I've come to fulfill the law, and the prophets, and not to do away with them, not to soften them, not to weaken them. Because that's true, here's something else that's true. Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. And, or but, whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So that's our focus today. What does Jesus mean by this? What does it mean to relax these laws, these commandments? What does it mean to obey them and to teach others to do the same? And again, the question here is, how do we as Christians under the new covenant relate to this law, the law that Jesus says hasn't gone away? How do we avoid doing what he says not to do here? He warns us, don't relax any of these commandments or teach others to relax them. But instead, we have to do them. and teach others to do them. So let's consider this. So again, option number one, that Jesus has abolished everything to do with the law and we have nothing to do with the law. We know that can't stand because Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish it. And option two isn't an option because Jesus says something important. I've come to fulfill and accomplish the law and the prophets. So we have to note something, that something changes between us and the law. Something changes between us and the law. Something is different because of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. Now, hear this carefully, and I'm going to repeat this a couple of times throughout the sermon. If you get nothing else out of this message, get this. The law itself has not changed, but our relationship to the law in Christ has changed. The law hasn't changed. The law represents the perfect, unchangeable character of God. But our relationship to that law, because of Jesus Christ, has changed. What do I mean by that? That's the issue we have to wrestle with this afternoon. How do we approach the law? As a church, how do we approach the law? As individual Christians, how do we approach the law? How do you, as fathers, apply the law to your children? How do you, as husbands, love your wives and wash her with the water of the word, which includes the law? How do you, as wives, submit lovingly and graciously to your husbands under the law? How do you, as singles and as children, Regardless of your circumstances, how do you consider the law of God as it relates to you? Especially the moral law expressed in the Ten Commandments. Again, not an iota, not a dot has gone away. So how has our relationship to the law changed? Well, from the time of the Reformation, It has been universally understood. And what you'll see in your worship guide, there's three headings there. And those represent what are commonly known as a threefold use of the law. There are three uses of the law. And Reformed Christians universally have agreed on these three uses of the law. And it didn't matter whether you were a Congregationalist, or a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or an unaffiliated. If you were a product of the Reformation, this is what you believed. It's what you confessed to be true. So you'll see these three headings. In your worship guide, the law is useful to order the lives of all men, the law is useful to instruct and lead us to Christ, and the law is useful as a rule of life for the Christian. So the sermon title is, The Abiding Usefulness and Blessing of the Law. Abiding Usefulness and Blessing of the Law. So let's look at the first heading first. The law is useful to order the lives of all men. So in verse 19, Jesus has just said, nothing from the Old Testament, none of the Old Testament moral imperatives are going away. Nothing from the Law and the Prophets is going to be abolished or diminished. And notice here that His first emphasis, this is kind of a careful distinction, but listen to it. His first emphasis is not on obedience, it's on teaching. Now obviously obedience follows, but look what He says. Therefore, verse 19, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But the contrast to that, whoever does them, that's obedience, and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. The obedience is not negotiable, but what Jesus is drawing our attention to is how do we think about these laws? How do we encourage one another? How do we encourage our own souls as it relates to the law? So his main point is, who would ever relax the smallest commandment and teach others likewise is called least in the kingdom of heaven. Now I'm going to say at the outset something about that statement, the least of the kingdom of heaven and greatest of the kingdom of heaven. I don't know what that means. I hope not to disappoint you, but I don't know what that means. I literally set this morning with my software, I have three commentaries, Reformed commentaries, open side-by-side, and all three of them have a different view of that phrase. But I think what Jesus is saying, what He contrasts, we heard even in the reading this morning in Matthew 13, the Kingdom of Heaven is like this, the Kingdom of Heaven is like that. And one of the key themes that Jesus develops through His whole teaching is there are those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven and there are those who are outside the Kingdom of Heaven. You're in or you're out. The entrance into the kingdom of heaven comes through the Lord Jesus Christ in Him alone. He is the only gate. He is the only road. He is the narrow way. And there are those who are outside. You'll notice in verse 20 here, I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What does that mean? The scribes and the Pharisees are not in the kingdom. They are outside of the kingdom. So whatever he's saying here about least and greatest, he's saying that these are people within the kingdom of heaven. These are Christians. And some of them don't get the teaching on the law correct. There are Christians, faithful brothers and sisters, who don't understand these things. Who teach others to relax them. Jesus admonishes them to get their teaching correct. and he admonishes those who are gathered here to hear his sermon on that day to understand these things correctly. Whoever teaches others to relax the commandments are least. Those who teach and do are called greatest. Now, because Jesus says that the Old Testament, the Old Covenant is still binding, then we can go to the Old Testament and find it very helpful as it explains some things from the law. So I want you to turn to Psalm 19. This is a psalm that is often quoted. This is a psalm of David, the great king. And I want you to see the kinds of things that David says in very poetic form about God's law. Getting back in the beginning of chapter 19, in verse 1, he says this, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat." What is David saying? And again, it's poetic terms, but what he's saying is when you go out and gaze upon a night sky, I mean a really dark one, not like we have around here, but a really dark sky, and you see the stars just exploding in the heavens, declares the glory of God. We got to stand a couple months ago on the rim of the Grand Canyon and look out into that and say, wow, how awesome is our God. When you stare into the eyes of a newborn baby, And you say, wow, God is good. He's an amazing God. So what David says here is that what we would call the book of nature testifies about God. What we would call general revelation. He speaks to every man through this sort of book. And I'm going to use the term, I could use air quotes. It's a book. We can look out and see that there is a God in heaven. We don't know from that book a lot about this God, other than he's glorious and he's powerful. Scott opened this morning, he mentioned sitting on his couch and hearing the thunder roll, hearing the voice of God, as it were, speak through the thunder. Now God's not speaking specifically, but he's testifying that he exists, okay? But now in verse seven of Psalm 19, there's another book. There's the book of nature that testifies to every man, and then there's the book of revelation, the book of special knowledge that God has given to man through the prophets. through men like David. And look what he says, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. Now, so what he's doing is he's putting side by side, here's the book of nature that testifies about God. But because of our sin, because of our inability to see things clearly, we don't fully discern what that book is teaching us. Everything it teaches us is true if we perceive it correctly. But the law of the Lord is perfect. It makes no mistakes. It never testifies falsely. Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Did you catch what he's doing? As great as the glories of heaven are, as much as they testify to the glory of God, His Word is worth more than that to us. Why? Because His Word is completely sufficient for everything that we need. It's completely perfect. It's infallible, meaning it can't be wrong. And it's without error. It's to be desired more than gold, even fine gold. Sweeter also than honey. and drippings of the honeycomb. So whatever nature provides for us, and there are good things in nature, aren't there? Gold, honey, those are pretty good things. The Word is better. That's his point. The Word of God is better. Moreover, by them, these statutes, these words, Your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." Now there is something very important that Saul 19 teaches us. And again Jesus says none of that has gone away. I've not come to abolish it, I've come to fulfill it. What Psalm 19 tells us is that the heavens are wonderful and declare the wonderful attributes of God and yet they are insufficient to teach us about how we can be reconciled to this God. Oh, but the Word of God is not insufficient. The law of God is perfect. The law of God is able to make us make wise the simple. So now we see that this psalm speaks to all mankind, not just Christians. And we know that because he speaks about the heavens declaring the majesty of God. Who do the heavens speak to? Every man, every woman, every child. Therefore God's law also speaks to every man, every woman, and every child who hears it. And so this natural revelation and special revelation perfectly agree together. There is no conflict between what we observe in the heavens, for instance, and what we read in God's Word. If we understand them both correctly, there will never be a conflict. So why am I saying all this? Because under our first heading, the law is useful to order the lives of all men. If special revelation, if the book of the law is better than what applies to every man, then it is also applicable to every man. Because the law flows out of the very character of God and reflects His nature, we must see the law as useful to every man, every woman, every child. Creation declares the character and the majesty and the glory of God, but it's insufficient to lead us to the God that by nature we desire to worship. So think about this, just as there are unchangeable laws that govern nature, If you were to climb this afternoon up on this wet roof and climb up and jump off, and I don't recommend this, but if you were to climb up and jump off, there is an immutable, unchangeable law that immediately will overtake you. It's called gravity. And you will fall, all of you, no matter how big you are, whether you weigh 30 pounds or more than that, you're going to fall at exactly the same rate of speed. Why? Because the universe itself is governed by unchangeable laws. That's true in the physical realm, and it's also true in the spiritual realm. There are unchangeable laws that govern every man. We find those laws inscribed to us on the Ten Commandments. God's law governs all of society, and when men shake their fists at God and say, we will not obey you, that doesn't mean his law has gone away. It doesn't mean his law isn't binding. It doesn't mean his law isn't useful. So how else is the law useful? It helps us to govern society. It's what's known as the civic use. And it's helpful. We think about this. The second table of the law says, thou shalt not murder. Well, there are a lot of laws that we should have on the books in the state of Texas, the city of Conroe, in the US, at the national level, that have to do with that Sixth Commandment. And we violate those to our shame and to our judgment. When we slaughter babies in the womb and pretend there's nothing wrong with it and say it's a choice. When we rip them limb from limb and say it's a choice. No, we are violating the law of God. When he has said, thou shalt not murder. When we shake our fists at God and our culture says, I will not be who you've even created me to be. You created me a male, but I don't want to be a male. You've created me a female, but I don't want to be a female. Or at least not today. Tomorrow may be different. We shake our fists and say, I will not even acknowledge your most basic authority as Creator. We are violating the seventh commandment. Thou shalt not commit adultery. That has more to do with than just marital chastity. That has to do with all of human sexuality. And Jesus is going to make that very clear later on in the Sermon on the Mount. When we as a culture tolerate theft of all different kinds, we are violating the Eighth Commandment. When we decide lying and truth-telling are not important distinctions, we are violating the Ninth Commandment. When we say, I want someone else's stuff, and by power of force, I'm going to make them give it to me, we're violating the Tenth Commandment. Thou shalt not covet. So these laws are very important, even at a civic level, just to order society. They're very important. But the second use of the law, when David says in Psalm 19 that the law makes wise the simple and enlightens the eyes, he's dealing with what we would call the second use of the law. It is useful to instruct men. and lead them to Christ. Throughout the wisdom literature, the Psalms and the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, when the term simple is used, it really means ignorant, those who don't know. We have the simple and we also have the fool. The fool is the one who knows and says, I won't obey. The simple is the one who says, I didn't know that was wrong. So children are often described as simple. They have to be instructed. And what the psalmist says here, David says, that the law of the word is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. It educates us. The law teaches us and instructs us what is right and what is wrong. Those of you who have children, they don't yet have to be taught how to lie, do they? They don't have to be taught how to take something from someone else by whatever force they can muster. They don't have to be taught those things. They have to be taught the truth. They have to be taught that to take your brother's things after you've accosted him with it is wrong, and there are consequences. They have to be taught that. They are the simple, but the law makes wise the simple. That's exactly what Paul says in Romans 7, and you can write this down in your notes and look this up on your own. In Romans 7, Paul addresses this issue, and he says, I would not have known sin except for the law. And lest the law had said to me, thou shalt not covet, I wouldn't have known I was a sinner. Paul said, in my own mind, I thought I was righteous. The law came along and said, do not covet, and now I know I'm a sinner. That's the purpose of the law. And that agrees perfectly with what David says in Psalm 19. Again, in verse 12, who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. And for those who are in our midst this morning who are not Christians, maybe just the children here, there are probably adults here as well. And what the scriptures teach to us is that we have hidden faults, we have hidden defects, and by nature of something that's hidden is we can't see it. We have things about us that we may be perfectly convinced are right and they're not. We are sick and we don't know it. That is exactly what the book of Galatians teaches. Paul says that the word of God, the law of God, was like a tutor. It's like a schoolmaster who instructs us and leads us where? To Christ. Shows us that we have a need of a Savior. We read through the law, we understand the law. When the law says, and Jesus is going to do this in the Sermon on the Mount, you've heard it said, do not murder. But I say to you, that anyone who is angry with his brother is also liable to judgment. Okay, I didn't know that. I thought as long as I didn't actually kill someone, then I'm not a murderer. But Jesus says, no, the law goes deeper than that. It presses in on your thoughts, your intentions, your motives, your secrets. And all of us have those secrets, don't we? All of us have those hidden places, don't we? And if we're honest, we know we do. Walt Chantry, in a delightful little book, it's called Call the Sabbath a Delight, but he has a great illustration here about this, about the law being a tutor. And it goes like this. If you owned property that was on a lakefront and you had a toddler, now, what kinds of rules would you put in place to keep your toddler safe? You would tell them, don't go any near the water. Don't go past the tree line. Don't go out on the dock. Don't go in near the boat. You have very strict lines that you would draw, and there would be severe consequences if you cross those lines. Immediately, you get a spanking if you cross the line that daddy says or mommy says, don't cross that line. You want to make sure they don't get in the water. Pastor Chandler says the Old Testament law is kind of like that with Israel. They didn't yet have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. They didn't have the full revelation of Christ. They didn't have everything that was fulfilled in Christ. So they needed those stringent laws. But what happens when that toddler is a full-grown man and he comes back to visit? Do you have to tell him, don't cut past the tree line? No. You remind him, be careful around the water. And you trust that he's matured. That's what it's like to be in Christ now. We don't need all the minutia of the law. But we need to be guided by it. There are still principles there that we have to lay hold of and grasp. But I think it's a helpful illustration. But for the young people in particular here this morning, you need to understand you have faults that you don't see. You have faults that you don't see. And God, in His mercy, by means of His law, is faithful to point those out to you so that you will know you have a need for a Savior. You will know that you need to come to repentance and don't be deceived. Apart from Christ, you are dead in your sins. And here's the hard part to understand is most of those sins you don't even know about. And for those of you who have been walking with Christ for a long time, you can give a hearty amen to that, can't you? Most of the sins that you confessed as a new believer, they were the surface level stuff, it was the big stuff. And then as you walk along, you realize, wow, there's more and more here. This place is in worse shape than I thought. It's kind of like buying an old house. You got to start tearing stuff out and you realize, man, I thought it was bad, but it's a lot worse than I thought. Sin is like that. We start crawling around in the attic, get down in the basement, it's bad. But we also discover a Savior who's greater than our sin. And for the believer, the fact that we have these secret faults revealed by the law is evidence that the law is useful. Isn't it? The fact that you know about sins today that you didn't know about yesterday. That's evidence that the law is in fact useful and it's working. So don't buy into this idea that the law is not helpful, that the law is of no use. It's very useful to us. And in fact, it should lead us to Christ by convincing us that we always have secret faults and therefore cannot rely upon our own merit, our own perceptions, to fix ourselves, and we can't even rely fully on each other to see that. Now, we know that we're pretty good at seeing each other's faults, sometimes too good. But even that is no substitute for the law of God piercing us. The writer of the Hebrews says, the word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of thoughts and intentions of the heart. of a friend of mine that went in for an MRI, had a neck injury, and he went in just to get his old injury looked at. And mercifully, during that process, cancer was discovered. Had no idea. It was hidden. And graciously, that was able to be treated and cured. I worked for a man years ago that had kind of a recurring neck issue and he went and got an x-ray, come to find out he left the office in a C-collar and scheduled for surgery the following week. He had a fracture that, they said, even just lowering his office chair too quickly jarred him, could have paralyzed him for life. It was a secret fault. Our brothers and sisters at GFPC, when they get ready to buy this building, the new building they bought, during the inspection process, a plumber ran one of those cameras down underneath there, and literally the sewer line that ran bow to stern in the whole building, some six or eight feet under the ground, there was a major defect that could have caused the middle of the building to collapse if it had ruptured, and it was about to rupture. It was a secret fault. They didn't know it. There was no way from looking at the outside of the building, stomping around on the floor, I mean, there's no way you could see that. It had to have sort of specialized equipment The law is like that. It searches us out. It finds those secret faults. Sinclair Ferguson, I like the way he puts this. He says, Jesus did not weaken the law. On the contrary, he let it out of the cage in which the Pharisees had imprisoned it, allowing it to pounce on our secret thoughts and motives and tear to pieces our bland assumption that we are able to keep it in our own strength. Isn't that good? The law pounces on us. And it tears to pieces our sense of self-righteousness and our sense of, oh, I can do this. I can do this. The law comes along and says, OK, here's the bar. Oh, I can't do that. Praise be to God for the law. So Jesus strongly warns here against relaxing one of the least of these commandments and teaching others to do likewise. So think about this. A so-called gospel proclamation, whether it's from a pulpit or just you with a friend in your living room, a so-called gospel proclamation or presentation that does not uphold the perfect and righteous law is what? It's weakening the least of the commandments. How can we preach someone saved if they've not been preached lost, if they don't know they're a sinner, if they've never heard the law of God? We must proclaim the law because it is the law that searches out men's motives. And by the Spirit's work, a man is convicted of his sin. This is summarized for us in our confession. If you look in paragraph 6, there are all three uses of the law. You'll turn back in the hymnal to page 282. In paragraph 6, beginning there in the first of the paragraph, although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, means we're not saved by the law. No man can ever be saved by the law. Only one man was ever justified according to his law keeping, and he's the one who rose from the dead. So we're not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly. That's the civic use of the law. It directs and binds all men to live according to God's precepts. But here's this second use. Discovering also the sinful pollutions of their natures, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin. together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and the perfection of His obedience. In other words, the law pulls our hearts wide open and shows us the defects that we have, but doesn't stop there. It also shows us the need we have to be reconciled to God through His Son. And we have a conviction of our sin, a humiliation because of our sin, hatred against that sin, and then a clearer sight of our need for Christ. And this is true for the Christian just as much as it's true for the unbeliever. Even the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul had some accusations made against him, and in 1 Corinthians, responding to those accusations, he says this, in fact, I do not even judge myself, for I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted, it is the Lord who judges me. The Apostle Paul, I mean, perhaps the most sanctified man other than Jesus Christ who ever walked the earth. And Paul says, you know what? I don't even know my own heart. I don't know my own motives. Which, by the way, really ought to give us pause before we decide we know what somebody else's motives are. We don't even know our own fully. So Paul's not arguing against honest self-evaluation. He would later tell this same church to examine yourselves and see if you're in the faith. So he's not telling you don't even worry about examining yourself, but he's saying that on your own examining yourself, you still may not get the right answer. You may still not have an accurate picture of your own thoughts and your emotions and your motives or your deeds or your words. He's saying that the Lord alone is able to diagnose and heal us. In the Spirit's hands, the law of God is like that MRI that exposes something in us and points us to its cure. The law of God is like the plumber's camera that goes deep underneath and finds that secret fault that would have been damning, would have been very destructive. The law is useful for both the Christian and the non-Christian to discover sin that we didn't know about, especially sin that's in our hearts. But let's consider there's a third use of the law, and this one is unique to Christians. The first two, okay, the civic use of the law that it's useful to order all of society, that's useful to everybody. The second use of the law, useful to discover our sins and secret faults, that's useful to every man. But there's a third use of the law that's unique to Christians. It's unique to Christians. Back in Psalm 19, in verse 11, David said, moreover by them, these commandments, these statutes, these laws, these precepts, by them is who your servant warned. Your servant is warned. In keeping them, there is great reward for your servant. Who can discern his errors, declare me innocent from hidden faults, keep back your servant also. from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression." The law is useful and it's a blessing to the Christian. The law is diagnostic, serves a valuable motivation for us. In fact, we can say truly the law is especially useful to the Christian. We could say it's especially useful to the Christian. Why? because the author of that law dwells within us. The author of the law, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, dwells within us. And he bears witness to our hearts about the truth of this law. And again, the law hasn't changed, but now our relationship to the law has changed. Because of the penalty paid by Jesus Christ, because of his spirit dwelling in us, We now have new motivations. We have new desires. We have new affections. Things that one time we could never imagine that we would have desired. We now desire because of God's work in us. So the law becomes especially useful at this point to a Christian. Now again, here in verse 19 of Matthew, Jesus says, whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So among believers, among those who are in the kingdom of heaven, there must be a doing and a teaching of the law. He couldn't be any more clear. Among those who belong to the kingdom of heaven, there needs to be a doing and a teaching of the law. And again, in our confession, for the last time, we'll look at the last part of that paragraph in paragraph six. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, that's just a way of saying Christians, those who've been born again, to restrain their corruptions in that it forbids sin. The law restrains sin in us because it forbids it. It tells us, don't go there, that's wrong. And the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse and unalloyed rigor thereof." In other words, we are not condemned by the law. Our penalty was laid upon Christ. When He died on the cross, all of the penalty for all of our sins was laid upon Him. But the law still tells us what we would have deserved. what we rightly deserve, and it should motivate us out of gratitude for Him towards obedience. When we look at the law and God says, don't murder, and that means don't even be angry at your brother, and we consider what the violation of that law justly deserves would be our own death. We say, praise be to God that punishment has been laid upon Christ and not on me, and may I be motivated to obedience now out of gratitude for that. The promises of it, the law, likewise show them God's approbation or approval of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof, though not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. In other words, this is not a, a lawyer would say a quid pro quo. It's not a this for that. It's not that we're obedient and now God owes me. God doesn't owe you anything. Because even on your best obedience, even on my best moment of obedience, it's imperfect, isn't it? My motives, my thoughts, my actions, my words, all of it is stained, even on my best. So we can't look at the law and say, well, I did this. I mean, I wanted to kill my brother and I didn't, so I deserve something. No, what the law there does is tell us how much we actually did deserve worse than we got. So as man's doing good and refraining from evil, for the law encourages to the one and deter from the other is no evidence of his being under the law and not under grace. And what that simply means is, it says under the law means the covenant of works. We have to obey perfectly in order to be justified with God. And the fact that we look at the law as Christians and say, I want to obey this. That's not evidence that we're now back under the covenant of works. And it's not contrary to the grace of the gospel. When we say out of a heart of gratitude, I want to honor my Lord. I want to praise Him and bless Him by my obedience. That's not contrary to the gospel at all. But does the law give us the ability or power to perform it? So the law is useful to the Christian. We get that. I hope. But does the law then automatically give us that ability? No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all. In fact, that's Paul's argument in Romans 8. He says, for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Paul says the law because of the flesh, not because the law was imperfect, but because our flesh is imperfect. The law could not redeem us. But the Spirit has done what the law could not do. That's the words of David again in Psalm 19, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. David preaches the gospel to himself. He's just talked about all the ways that the law is perfect and holy and just and right and good, and then he recognizes his own faults. And then he presupposes, you know what, I got more faults that I can't even see. Those secret faults. So what I need, what I need, God, is that the meditation of my mouth, the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, my thoughts, my motives, my ideas, the things that pop into my head when I don't want them to, that those would be acceptable in your sight, through my Redeemer, because I will never get there on my own. David testified even under the Old Covenant. He was looking forward to a Redeemer that would come. And Jesus said, yeah, I didn't abolish that. None of it. It's all still good. You still need a Redeemer. You still need a rock. And I am He. David recognizes that unless the Lord, his rock and his Redeemer purifies him and delivers him from himself, his heart will remain guilty even if his hands are clean. Even if he doesn't murder his brother, his hands aren't clean, are they? Because he thought about it, wanted to. He wanted to lash out in vengeance. And he recognizes, my heart's not pure. I need a Redeemer. I need a rock. Samuel Bolton, one of the Puritans, he says this, he said, with many, obedience is their precept, not their principle. Holiness, their law, not their nature. Many have convictions who are not converted. Many are convinced they ought to do this and that, for example, that they ought to pray, but they have not got the heart which desires and lays hold of the things they have convictions of and know they ought to do. Conviction without conversion is a tyrant rather than a king. It constrains, but it does not persuade. It forces, but does not move and incline the soul to obedience. It terrifies, but does not reform. It puts a man in fear of sin, makes him fear the omission of duty, but it does not enable him either to hate sin or love duty. Now, this ought to resonate with us in child training. doesn't it? We can make them obey outwardly, sometimes. But can we conform their hearts? Can we change and make them want to obey mommy? Make them want to obey daddy? No, we can't. And all the law can do is work on those external things. The law can't change the heart. Doesn't mean the law's bad. Doesn't mean we don't put the law out there. So in your training of your children doesn't mean you don't require obedience, but you have to recognize you can't change their heart. No amount of your faithfulness to apply the rod when necessary, and you ought to be faithful in that, will not transform their hearts. Only a Redeemer can do that. Bolton goes on, conscience tells a man that he ought to do certain things, but gives him no strength to do them. He can show him the right way and tell him what he ought to do, but it does not enable the soul to do it. Like a milestone by the roadside, it shows the traveler the way, but it does not give him strength to walk in the way. On the other hand, where there is the principle of the gospel, where there is grace, it is in the soul as a pilot in a ship who not only points the way, but steers the vessel in the way which he appoints. That's the difference between the law and the gospel. But the law is useful to us. Point these things out. To show us the way. But we need a Redeemer to get us along the way. So how do we think about these things? How do we think about this threefold use of the law? The civic use to order all of society. The second use of the law that's an instructive use, a teaching use. to show us our secret faults, to show men their sins, and then this third use of the law, to cause us as believers to know what does God's righteousness look like? Okay, I've become a Christian. I should be different now. What does that look like? Well, the law tells us that. And we'll consider next week some objections, because there are a number of objections. Wait a minute, don't we have the Spirit of Christ now? We don't need the law. The Spirit will just tell us what we need to do. a very subjective kind of faith. We'll consider some of those objections next week, but as God's children, how do we think about the law, particularly this third use? Several things for us to consider by way of application. If these things about the law are true, if the law is useful in all three of these ways, then our devotion to the study of them is absolutely critical for our sanctification. If we're going to grow as Christians, and hopefully we all want to grow as Christians, if you are a Christian, you by definition will desire to grow. And if this is the way in which we grow, then we want to study them. We want to pay careful attention to them. So as we go through the rest of the Sermon on the Mount in particular, we see the ways in which Jesus presses in the law and puts the law before us to search out our hearts. We want to pay careful attention to that. We should be characterized by prayerful hearts, eager ears, and minds willing to bend to the authority of God's holy law. That ought to be the Christian, ready to receive correction. Okay, I see now I was wrong there. I need to turn from that and turn to the one who will save me, my Redeemer, my rock, Secondly, the law needs to be studied carefully with an eye toward personal growth and corporate holiness. We need to be ready to be confronted by the law and pray for the power of the Spirit to enable us to obey it cheerfully and faithfully. I hope it becomes a habit for you as you are preparing for the Lord's Day. Hopefully, as Saturday is drawing to a close and you begin, even as you gather your families together and pray, pray that the Lord would use his law to search you, and that you would, that he would give you the gift of a willing heart and a ready mind to hear these things, receive them, and eagerly receive them, not begrudgingly. I saw a comedian a while back that had a talk about his sons and finally getting the obedience, and it's like he's walking in a wind tunnel. It's just, okay, I'm going, but I'm just not going willfully, it's cheerfully. we approach the scriptures that way. Thirdly, we need to lean on those who have gone before us in our study of the Decalogue. We need to understand how we can use our confession to kind of help explain these things to us. Again, some of these are difficult concepts and they're contrary to what has been taught. in a lot of evangelical circles. So we need to make use of the tools that we have. Our catechism and our confession are very helpful to help us flesh out some of these things and to get that repetition, not only for our own minds, but for our children also. In 1693, there was an assembly of, at that time were known as particular Baptist churches. They were what we now call reformed Baptist churches. And there was an assembly of churches gathered together, In 1689 our Confession of Faith, the one from which I read this morning, had been published. It was written in 1677 in England, but it was illegal at that point, so they couldn't publish it until 1689. Four years later these same churches met in an assembly, and they decided what would really be helpful was to have a catechism, which is just a simple question and answer format to flesh out the doctrines that are put in, I mean admittedly sometimes big words and difficult concepts in the confession. So they commissioned one of the churches to work on this catechism. Well, the project was delayed, and the minutes of these meetings, it's fascinating, the minutes of these meetings tell us that over the next couple of meetings, the association went back and asked the church, how's that catechism coming? We really need that. And do you know, when they first I think the number, and I'm relying on my memory, I think it was 2,500 copies is what they initially ordered, which this was before, you know, Kinko's or Office Depot printing stuff off. That was very expensive to print 2,500 copies of a catechism, and yet that's what they asked for. Well, Jim Renahan in the, if you have this edition of our confession, there's a forward to it, and in that forward, He cites how valuable they expected the Catechism to be and suggested that thousands were printed and distributed to the churches. And that by 1695, two years later, the Catechism had been completed and was already in its fifth edition. Already in its fifth edition. And Jim speculates this. He says, curiously, the earliest known copy in existence is that fifth edition. But this may be because they were intended for use in families. And perhaps they were so well used, they were worn out. The first four editions are gone. They were just paper copies. And the families made such ready use of them to help them understand difficult things and to press them into their children. So I would urge you as a way of application, use the tools that we have to help grow in our understanding of these things. Fourthly, we must grasp the law of God as vital for effective and God-honoring evangelism. There is no true evangelism apart from the law of God. There isn't true evangelism apart from the law of God. We must understand the law in order to proclaim to all men God's requirement of perfect obedience, accurately and effectively offering the gospel of God's grace found in the Lord Jesus Christ as their only remedy for their sin. One pastor put it this way, the first message of the cross is not God loves you, but rather God's law has been broken. That's the first message. Not that God loves you and has a plan for your life. No, you've broken God's law and you stand under his wrath. It's the first message of the gospel. Fifthly, We should comprehend the law of God as James describes it. If you're a Christian, you may need to reorient, recalibrate your instruments so that you're thinking about the law in the right way. We need to think of the law as the way James described it. It is the perfect law of liberty. We think of the law before we're a Christian as bondage and slavery. In fact, it is. Scriptures say that. We are imprisoned under the law, but in Christ we are now free. And again, our relationship to the law has changed. We are now free in Christ and enabled to obey something that previously we didn't want anything to do with. Listen to R. Scott Clarke. He says, because the law is God's objective standard for morality, it is actually a liberating gift because it frees me from the tyranny of fads and opinions. It frees us from those kinds of things that ebb and flow and come and go. The law is the law. The definition of sin does not shift with the tides of human whim. Do we need to be reminded of that or what? He goes on, no one may require of me what God has not. In that way, God's law is a bulwark against legalism. It protects me from your opinion and you from mine. The law is a law of liberty. We have the perfect law of God. If somebody says, you can't do that, the Bible doesn't tell me that. The culture says, you have to accept this lifestyle. And I can say, the scriptures don't demand that of me. It is a law of liberty. Lastly, most importantly, the law should magnify Christ in our hearts. If we understand the law as it truly is, and rejoice in the law as perfect and good, and then see and consider that our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled every aspect of it, and I've said this before, in thought, word, and deed, not once in all of his ministry, even in a thought, did he sin against the law, did he violate the law. Think about this, not once as he hung out with prostitutes did he have an impure thought. Not once as he approached lepers, people that outwardly were disgusting, not once did he have a selfish thought. Even as a child, and he had brothers and sisters, not once did he sin against his parents or sin against his siblings. Not once was he selfish. Not once did he rebel against his parents' authority. Not once. Didn't even think about it. That ought to cause us to glory in him even more with what he has done, what he has accomplished, and that all of that righteousness is now ours if we are in him. If we belong to Christ, All of our sin and our mess and the weight of all of that, all the penalty due was laid upon him at Calvary. And all of his perfect obedience, all of his righteousness, every bit of it, every jot and every tittle is credited to our account. I mean, if that doesn't make you want to glorify a Savior, I don't know what will. Has the Spirit of God convicted you this morning of your lawlessness? Then flee to Christ. Flee to Christ and confess that. Own it as lawlessness. Don't make excuses for it. Don't use euphemisms for it. Say, I have sinned, and I rejoice in a Savior that's greater than that. So again, and I want to repeat it again, the law has not changed, but our relationship to the law has changed. But I want you to consider something else. We look forward to a day when our relationship with the law will change yet again. If you're in Christ, your relationship to the law has already changed because the Spirit of God now dwells in you. The law remains perfect and pure and just and holy. But now you see the law as good and holy and you desire to obey it. Paul says the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. So there's still that ongoing war, right? Our flesh wages against the war. Our spirit wants to obey. Paul said, the things I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, that's the very thing that I do. And there's this war that wages within me. That's part of the new creation. The fact that there's a war going on in you is evidence of new birth. So the law, your relationship to the law has already changed, but it will change again. Because one day when Christ returns, and he gathers us to him. And our bodies are glorified. Guess what? One of the warring parties there will be gone. This body of flesh, the weakness of your flesh, the weakness of my flesh will be gone. We will stand before him complete. The spirit that was already willing will now be coupled with a body that is also willing. And yet again, relationship to the law will change permanently, eternally, for the glory of God. Saints, do you long for that day? Let's pray. Father, you are a gracious God and we thank you that you've given us these promises and I pray that we understand them, pray that we grow in our understanding, Well, we confess, as Peter did, that some of the things that we find in Your Word are difficult to understand. And we pray for Your grace to be upon us. Number one, in causing us to desire to do the work to understand them. Not to be content. Not to just leave here today and shrug our shoulders and say it doesn't matter. But to work to understand. Secondly, to having understood them, to rejoice in them. To rejoice in the perfect obedience of our Lord. To rejoice that you are conforming us from one degree of glory to another. And that we would delight in the law of God and our inner man. And I pray those that are here this morning, that remain in prison under the law, that still find the law to be a cruel taskmaster, that today you would open their eyes to see the glory and the beauty of a Savior, that they would be redeemed, reborn, and united eternally to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His name and for His sake that we pray.