Well, we're back to talking about God's law. And so if you still have handout from class four, we're just gonna finish that up first, and then we're gonna talk about the next one, which is about loving God. So we're talking about, okay, so there's this Old Testament law. and yet we are Christians in the new covenant. So like, how does the old Testament law connect to us? And we've been saying that like, just because we're now in the new covenant and the old covenant is no longer, you know, in effect, doesn't mean that like, okay, now we just sort of throw out the old Testament or the old covenant and all that it has for us. Instead, we realize that, look, we're basically in the same covenant, the covenant of grace that is all about God saving us, and so therefore we must obey. And the old covenant is a manifestation of the character of God, which obviously doesn't change. And so there's lots of things that don't change from old to new covenant. And the things that do change, usually when you think about what Christ has done, you can have a pretty good idea of, okay, that's something now that's changed that we don't need to keep in the same way. Christ didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law, right? So he fulfilled the law of the sacrifice. And so he is the ultimate sacrifice on the cross. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been offered. Paul says, 1 Corinthians, so let us keep the feast. This doesn't say, so let us forget about Passover. No, it says, let us keep the feast. Now that the Passover lamb has been sacrificed, we who are part of the new exodus, out of bondage to sin, not just to Egypt or whatever, We now remember that sacrifice every Sunday right here and we rejoice in that. But what I want to talk about now is another really big change that's happened between old and new covenants. And we're going to do this kind of quickly because I did a lot of this under when we talked about covenants a little while ago. But just really want to remind you that one of the very big differences between old and new covenants is that we are now able to obey. And this is Roman numeral two on the handout four there. The old covenant did not bring with it the power to obey. So like there's all those good laws. But Moses said, you know, as soon as I die, I know that you're gonna disobey. Joshua 24, 19, right after the people, they're renewing the covenant. You know, they've taken the land and Joshua says, you know, he says that they need to honor God and obey him. And they say, oh yes, we will do that. Everything that the Lord has commanded, we will do. And then there's this really surprising line where right after they're just like, yes, we will obey. Joshua says, you are not able to obey. You are not able to serve the Lord your God, for he is a holy God. And it's like this really sobering moment right at the beginning of Israel's story in the land that says like, already because of their sin, the seeds are already there of their eventual exile from the land, which eventually happened. And so when you think about it and you're trying to understand, okay, how is it that like, Israel can't obey, but then there are still like really amazing Old Testament saints like Abraham and Daniel, which I have here, and plenty of others we could mention. We realize that God was pleased in the Old Covenant to give his spirit and kind of intrude into that Old Covenant time with his power to enable some to obey. Some individuals did obey, but Israel as a whole was incapable of obedience. And so that's why when we come to the great new covenant passage in Jeremiah 31, this is what we read in Jeremiah 31. It's right there in your handout, but I do want to read a little bit more of the context where it says, Jeremiah 31, 31. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke. So okay, this covenant that was broken, the old covenant, How is the new covenant going to be different? Then he says it. For this is the covenant that we'll make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them. So instead of the law being written on tablets of stone, it's now being etched into our hearts. I'll put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God. and they shall be my people. And then he talks about the faith that will emerge from this gift, that they'll be able to obey. And lots of other great passages on this, if you look at your handout. Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness. I will give them a heart to know that I'm the Lord. They shall return to me with their whole heart. Probably an allusion there to the great command, which we're just gonna look at in a moment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And you see the other ones there. Ezekiel 36 is a great one. I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit, removing the heart of stone so that you can obey. And so, Jesus comes to give us the power to obey. And when we think about our class, which is all about the law, we realize like, man, it'd be a really terrible thing if somebody thought, wow, Jesus came to get rid of the old covenant so that we don't have to obey God's laws anymore. Like, what? Instead, what do you hear the Old Testament saying in terms of what Jesus has come to do when it comes to the law? What's this affirming to us about what Jesus has come to do when it comes to the law? Yeah. Thank you, Benny. So he's given us a heart of flesh that wants to obey our Lord as compared to just a set of do's and don'ts. We have a loving father that has replaced our heart and we want to obey him as compared to just being obliged. Yeah, and I like how you put it, too, that it's not just a bunch of do's and don'ts. Like, okay, I'm checking all these boxes here now to get on with the things I really want to do, right? It's not that kind of rule-keeping kind of obedience, although, of course, the rule-keeping is part of it, and we do need to keep God's rules, but it's so much bigger than that. We're talking about loving Him from the heart, and actually having inside of us the desire to serve and to love Him. Yeah, and that's what Jesus has come to do. I just want to remind us all, Jesus has come to break the power of sin, so that we now have the power to obey God's law. So if you ever feel like obedience to God is too hard for you, think again. Like his law is not too difficult for you, that's Deuteronomy 30. And more than that, he's given you the spirit. He's circumcised your heart. Everything that you need to be able to obey, you have right now in Jesus Christ. Okay, any questions on this point? Because now we're gonna apply with that, we're gonna basically take that in the next step here. Okay, so turn on the back of handout for class four, where it talks about the uses of the law. And this is summarizing our confession of faith, but really it's just summarizing the Bible. And it talks about how do Christians, use the law. So this is particularly for Christians. And one thing I just want us to remember is that when I say law in this class, remember the definition all the way back in the first class? It's that which God requires of you at your phase of history. So What is the law of God for us now? Well, it's the new covenant. Everything that the new covenant stipulates. All the ways it shows us, this is the character of God, and now you as the image bearer need to picture God in these particular ways in this time. So when we think about how do we use that law, well here are three really important uses. This goes all the way back to the Reformation. Number one, to keep driving us to Christ by showing us our sin. And here are a few texts. If it had not been for the law, Paul says, I would not have known sin. He says something very similar in Romans 3. And then he says, Romans 8, verse 3, for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. And that fits my point here, because it isn't just that the law shows us our sin, but also shows us what? When we see our sin, what do we say next? If you really see the extent and power of your sin, yeah, Bob, Yeah, I need to seek forgiveness. Okay. Sorry, I should have made you wait there. Yeah. Yeah, I need to seek forgiveness. Like I can't fix this by myself. I need Jesus. And I need his forgiveness. And I also need his power, right? I need him to change me. And so that's where Romans 8 3 comes in. God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. I can't do it myself. That's what the law is showing us. It's humbling us. And so conviction of sin prepares us to see our need for the cross. I give a couple examples of this. Isaiah was convicted of his sin. He sees the glory of God in the throne room. All the angels saying, holy, holy, holy. And he says, woe is me for I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people of unclean lips. Same thing when Peter was preaching in Acts 2 and he says that they, have crucified Christ. And they're cut to the heart, like we have crucified the Messiah. And they say, what are we to do? What happened? Their sin led them to their need for Christ. And I love this diagram. And it's sort of like the Christian life like this. You know, we first come to Christ as you grow. And when you come to Christ, you think, oh man, I'm such a sinner. and you see, wow, I really need the cross. If I'm gonna get from me and my sin to a holy God, I'm gonna need the cross to bridge this divide. But then what happens? You start to realize, oh man, like the law of God is really big and my sin is really big. And then you realize the bridge to get you across the chasm is even bigger. And then, you know, by the end of your life, it isn't that you're saying, and this is, I hate the doctrine of perfectionism. This is something that goes back to 1700s. Wesley and others taught the idea that Christians could achieve perfection in this life. Like, no, the most holy person among us is the one who so sees the depth and horror of their sin that the cross is really big. And as Jesus says, he who has been forgiven much loves much, right? How much have you been forgiven? Well, as much of your sin as you see so far, right? But one of the uses of the law is to say, aha, you actually are far worse than you think, right? Yeah. But also, all this conviction only comes if God lets us see it. We can't even come to that understanding by ourselves. It's such a gift, even for these men to say to Paul, what shall we do? Because that is only given by the Spirit. You don't quicken from the dead on your own. And it's God doing it. Yeah, thank you for that. And isn't it incredible that the same sermon could utterly cut someone to the very heart, like they're weeping because of their sin, and another person's there like this, like when is this thing going to be over, right? And it's like, Wow, it totally illustrates your point. Like, yeah, and again, it's such an encouragement to us preachers, right, that it isn't ultimately how skillful the preacher is or whatever. It really does come down to the Spirit opening people's hearts. Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, Ryan. That's why I've always admired a lot of the older reformed generation as they go along their journey. And as we go along our journey, we realize just how absolutely blessed we are that God, in the doctrine of election, it's not something for us to boast in. Obviously, we boast in God. I know that there are some who can and who have boasted in their election. But as you open your eyes to the depth of your sin, it really, there's an awe to it that that God was so loving and so gracious to me, and I don't deserve that. I could be, you know, like some of these university professors that are pushing the most horrid of teachings, but God was so merciful that He opened my eyes, and I don't know why. It's just His good pleasure. Yeah, amen. And I think that when you get that, as God Himself says, I didn't choose you because you were among the most righteous of the peoples, Deuteronomy 7, but because you were the least. And same thing, 1 Corinthians 1, God chose the poor things of the world to shame the proud. Right? So we're the scum of the earth. That's what Paul says, 1 Corinthians, right? And that God has chosen us, not because we're so great, but because he's so merciful. So that should really humble us. And again, that should make the cross really big for us. And it's the law that helps us with this. So I just want you to reflect like in a good sermon, what's the usual flow of the sermon? It's, here's what you're supposed to be. And at the point, if the preacher is doing his job, at that point in the sermon, you're feeling this big. because you're like, whoa, I have not done these things, and you're convicted. So the law is helping us. It's use number one, right? It's bringing us low. And then what happens? Then we see the glory of Christ offered to us. Like, yes, but Christ is this big. Like, he covers it. He makes, he bridges the gap. And then we're energized and filled with hope so that when we leave, We're not feeling cut down. We're feeling, man, that was convicting, but thank you, Jesus, for being such a great Savior, right? So that's the use, I think, of this in context. I don't know if I'm supposed to know the answer to this, so I'm going to ask about what's rumbling around in my mind. So before we turn the page, we are talking about God's relationship with Israel, and then what happened when the Holy Spirit came. And so my question in my head today is, well, God's triune and he has been from eternity on. Oh, for sure. And so the Holy Spirit existed. And so, yes, we had some unbelieving saints that obeyed in the Old Testament. But why did God wait to give us the Holy Spirit? Was that supposed to come with the Messiah? Only it was a promise with him, but the promise was the Messiah. And so this is what's rumbling in my head What's the answer to that question? Why did I not give the Holy Spirit to Israel? Yeah, great question. And it's sort of like, we could even put it like this, like if Jesus was the plan all along, why wasn't it sort of Genesis 3 and then immediately thereafter, Jesus, right? And when you think about it, what would be the effect if it was just like there was no Old Testament, it was just simply Genesis 3, then straight to Jesus, right? What would be the effect of that? I think one of the key effects that would come away from that is that we would never really have grappled with the utter depth of our hearts, of our broken hearts. What does the entire story of Israel do? It shows us, like, but by the grace of God, there go we, right? And it's like this story, it's a tragic story, right? It's a story of God giving them everything, just like the Garden of Eden, and they threw it all away. And they had bazillions of chances. The prophets came over and over again, repent, repent, repent. They didn't do it. So they had literally everything. They had the land, the king, the temple, the sacrifices, the law. They had it all. except the power to choose life. By doing it the way God did it, I think when you get to the end of the Old Testament, and you know, narratively, the end of the Old Testament is actually the end of the book of Nehemiah. So, like, what's the last chapter of the, basically, before the, sort of, the curtain closes on the Old Testament drama, and it won't open again for, you know, another 450 years when Jesus comes. What's the last thing in Nehemiah 13? It's them having just made these promises. Yeah, we're gonna keep the tithe, and we're gonna keep the Sabbath, and we're not gonna intermarry with foreign women. And those very three things. They've gone back to all three. They've broken all three. And so, at the end, you're just sort of like, deflated, right? Here they are again. They have another chance. Still can't do it. We really need the Holy Spirit. Yeah. I may have missed this in a earlier Sunday school. You're answering this, but so how was their true faith and obedience? Yeah. In the old covenant. Yeah. Hebrews 11 and else. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. So that's why on the front there, I tried to thank you. Thank you for the clarifying question. I tried to say, um, It's under the power to obey. And then we're in says, as a nation, Israel is incapable of obedience. Although there were some individuals in Israel who truly repented and had circumcised hearts. So. You know, when you look at the nation as a whole, they're under wrath. They lack faith. They are dead, and they are in the flesh, which means they're in their sin natures. But without question, there are all these people of dramatic, glorious faith. I mean, Josiah, it says he repented to the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, which is the only time those three modifiers are used except for in the great command that we're hopefully going to look at, which is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might. And so, like, how is Josiah able to do that? if not by the Holy Spirit. And you know, like you mentioned, Hebrews 11 is a great example, like the Hall of Fame of Faith. Those are all Old Covenant people, right? And so what do we conclude? We conclude that, of course, Abraham had spirit-given faith, Of course, Daniel got his courage from the Holy Spirit. Where else can you get such things? But the people as a whole lacked it. Yeah, I think I saw Ryan there. You might have to press the button. Is the button, does it show green? Okay. Yeah, good. Chapter 10 of Corinthians, the apostle Paul is going through the Red Sea history. Yeah. Immediately after, as Moses is up on the mount, the Israelites rise up to play and indulge in all these immoral acts. Right. Paul tells us that these were examples for us. So it shows God's severity toward his people who disobey. And I do believe also, I think it's Hebrews 11, I think, where God will judge his people. So we are reminded to continue pressing on, continue pressing toward belief and obedience. Good. Lest we fall away and apostatize. Yeah, right. The Old Testament is written for us so that we would be challenged and would learn to obey. Yeah, Jake. I think to use the words of Jesus's parables, it seems like under the Old Testament, God had some wheat in a field full of tares, and then in the first century, he kind of cleared house, and now he has a wheat field with some tares in it. I think that's a good way of putting it, that like when you think about the people as a whole, is it a weed field with some wheat growing in it? Or is it a wheat field with some weeds growing in it? Right? And it's the first one when it comes to the Old Covenant. But now in the New, the people of God is not yet perfected in glory. There are false brethren in the Church. who go by the name Christian, have been baptized, all that stuff. And that's why we have, you know, excommunication and whatnot to purify the body as those false professions become clear. And one of the ways those false professions come clear is use number one of the law. When you're confronted with God's law, what do you do? Do you go to Christ and ask for help? Or do you just say, I want my sin, so stay out of my life, kind of thing. And use number two is connected to this, where it talks about the law restraining our evil desires by showing us the severe consequences of sin. And so here are a few scriptures that demonstrate this. Psalm 119, I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me." Why does he not turn aside? Because of the teaching of the law restraining him from turning aside. Hebrews 12 verse 6, the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. And so when we think about the wages of sin being death, and that has a whole bunch of different layers to it, right? Like as Christians, like, wow, if I were to commit this act of severe immorality, you know, this would destroy my relationship with my spouse. This would wreck my relationship with my family. This would destroy my relationship with my church in terms of like, you know, there would need to be consequences for this, discipline for this, and like, worst of all, right, this would destroy my relationship with my Lord and my God. Like, that should put the fear of God in us, right? Fear of the Lord is a virtue, right? Fearing, like, okay, God is not a God to be messed with, like, We don't want to sin. One of the reasons why we don't want to sin is we fear God's discipline, like he's a good father. And if we think, oh yeah, I can do this and nothing bad will really happen. No one will ever know. Do you trust God? Do you believe that he's a good father? He's going to come after you? He will, in love, but it's not going to feel good, right? Discipline doesn't feel good. And so the law reminds us that If you're gonna live in God's world, you gotta live by God's rules. And if you don't live by God's rules, you can say, oh yeah, I'll jump off this cliff and nothing bad will happen. Well, there's this thing called gravity that's gonna bite you there. Right? So, more down to earth, right? Like if we try, in the case of sexual morality, if we try to say, oh yeah, God's plan for sexuality, which is one man and one woman committed for life and with vows of marriage. If we try to say, well, yeah, I mean, for some people, but I know better and I can do this other thing. Okay, now you're breaking the ways that God has made the world to work, and you should expect it's going to hurt now. Yeah. I was going to say the last two minutes of what you said is almost unheard of in a lot of evangelical churches. So sometimes when people come to our church, that's the first time they've heard these things. Yeah, and even like, you know, one of the reformers, they were thinking about what's the marks of a true church? And this is really important, the Reformation, because they're trying to figure out, like, what is the true church, right? And they came up with and I think it's a really good biblical summary, the true preaching of the word, which includes the law of God, the sacraments, and church discipline, where if you're not gonna walk faithfully with Jesus, and the key here is you're not going to then repent when that lack of faithfulness comes to light, then we can't keep calling you a Christian, because everyone who truly believes obeys. And so, again, isn't it such a good thing for us, as we're thinking about this, that we know that we're called to obey, but when we don't obey, there's always grace for us. Yeah. God says in His Word, He will not be mocked. Yeah, thank you for that. He will not be mocked. And you're not getting away with anything. Right. Yeah, thank you. And to say that we can disobey God and He won't do anything about it is to mock Him. Right. Yeah. Yeah, and so the law, like it's severe. Remember like the end of the law, it says all these curses of the covenant, like that's enough to make anybody go pale, right? If you read that chapter, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, it's like, whoa, God means business. It's even in his character description. We're just talking about this with the youth on Friday night. The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. But then he says, at the same time, he does not leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity on the fathers and on the children to the third and fourth generation. So God doesn't mess around. He's gracious, but he's also just. And then use number three, and this is really the main use that we're focused on in this class, which is to encourage obedience and show us how to obey. So the law is of great use to us because we love Jesus, we want to obey him. Well, what are we supposed to do? Well, God tells us, and that's what these two quotes from Psalms say. By your commandments is your servant warned. In keeping them, there is great reward. In other words, God didn't just give these commands in the Old Testament and in the New just to say, wow, isn't that nice? No, he wants us to keep them. Psalm 119, verse 11. I have stored up your word in my heart. Why? So that I might not sin against you. So those are the uses of the law. The third use is really what we're about in this class is like, we want to know how to obey Jesus. What is God commanding us to do? But the other two are really important too. And then I have these two points about uses that don't apply to us now. To earn our justification. No, that was forfeited when Adam sinned. When he fell, it's over. Like, no human being since him, except for Jesus, was able to keep the law of God. We're all born with sin and are tainting our hearts. We've all failed. And God's command for us for life is perfect and complete obedience. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, Matthew 5. Well, if you're not obeying God perfectly, sorry, you're not worthy of eternal life. That's why we need Jesus, right? So anytime a Christian tries to say, yeah, you know, you do believe in Jesus, but then you also need to do these good things or you won't be forgiven, we should say, whoa, red alert, like wave, red flag waving, right? We are not saved on the basis of our obedience. but on the basis of Jesus's obedience. And Ephesians 2 gets it so clearly. Let's just look at that real quick. There are these Christian traditions, like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, that actually try to say that if you believe in Jesus, okay, fine, but then you need to do these good things or you won't be forgiven. Please read Ephesians 2 again. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, that's verse one. But then verse four, God being rich in mercy when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved. And then he says it again, verse eight, by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Let me say it again, not a result of works. Like he's just beating the drum, not works, not your works, so that no one may boast. But then check this out, right after that he says, we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. In other words, recreated in him through redemption for good works, which God prepared beforehand. that we should walk in them. We're not, we don't obey so we can be saved. We are saved so we can obey. And if you mess that up, if you get the order reversed, or if you just scrub out, we're saved, and then the part about obeying, you scrub that out, you are in serious, serious error. So this does not apply to us. We do not use the law to earn our justification, nor do we use the law to threaten our condemnation. So there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So when I'm warning us, about the wages of sin is death, like don't turn from Jesus. I'm warning you, like be afraid of the discipline of God. Like I'm not saying be afraid of being destroyed because in Christ that redemption, that condemnation has forever been taken away. So like you can be a true Christian and you can have a really rough life Why? Because God in his fatherly discipline is disciplining you for your sin. And you made one bad choice after another bad choice after another bad choice. You didn't listen to God's word, okay, another discipline. You didn't listen to God's word, okay, God loves you. He's not going to like let you, spare you the rod here, you know. Okay, but you will never be condemned. Even that Christian who struggled their whole life with obedience, they will never be condemned thanks to the blood of the cross. So, any questions on these things, the uses of the law and why we still use the law today? Okay, as always, I'm really doing well staying on schedule. So let's look at handout five, at least the beginning of it. Now we're going to start talking about, in the spirit of the third use of the law, we're going to start talking about, well, what is God actually commanding us to do? And the greatest of all commands is what we'll hopefully get to talk about, but First, I just want to remind you of how God put the law together. So there's the two great commands. Anybody remember? Love God, love your neighbor. Right. And then there's the 10 commands. And numbers one through four are largely about loving God, and five through ten about loving neighbor, although you can say that they're all about love of God and they're actually all about love of neighbor because when you're not an idolater, first commandment, you're really encouraging the other Christians around you not to be idolaters too. But anyway, it's like God is expanding. Okay, you want to know what it means to love me? Worship me alone. Worship the way I told you to worship. Don't take my name in vain. Keep my day holy. Those are my love languages, God's four love languages, right? And here are the love languages for everybody else. Honor those in rightful authority over you. Don't murder your neighbor. Don't commit adultery against your neighbor. Don't steal, et cetera. These are the love languages of God for himself and for others. He's expanding on the two great commands. Well, then what we get when we keep reading is what's called the case law, which largely begin with if or when, Hence, case law. And these are like all the detailed laws. Basically, in Deuteronomy, it's Deuteronomy 12 through 26. And it's all these really specific things. And I think I give some examples there. Yeah, or at least one example, the law about pledges. So let's just look at one of these, for example, Deuteronomy 24 here. Verse six is where it starts, but he's got a bunch of them in there. No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge. So like when you take this means of someone grinding grain, you're basically taking their livelihood from them, right? And so in a sense, this is about thou shall not steal. It's also about thou shall not kill, right? Same thing with, you know, a little bit further down. You know, when you make your neighbor alone of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside. He shall bring the pledge to you. And if he's a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. In other words, taking his cloak. No, you shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you and it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God. So these are showing us in very specific ways. It's like he's kind of riffing on one of the, or sometimes multiple ones of the Ten Commandments and explaining, okay, now here's how this plays out. But obviously it's not exhaustive. And one person was pointing this out to me. You compare how thick the law of God is to how thick the legal code in Ohio is, or the US tax law. It's just so huge. Nobody knows what all is in there. Now they're at the point where before you can make one new law, you have to get rid of three old ones, which is a really good practice. God in his wisdom gives us these cases as illustrations of this, but they're not meant to be exhaustive. They're meant to be evocative, like, okay, well, if this is how we apply in this circumstance, what about this? And then that's where Proverbs also helps us. Proverbs is all about applying God's law well. What does it mean to be in the image of God, to live well in God's creation? So here's one example. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame. And I say there are implications for the fifth command and the eighth command. Fifth, you know, honor your father and mother. Eighth, you shall not steal. How does this proverb illustrate those commands? Gathering in summer, prudent son, sleeping in harvest, son who brings shame. How are those evoking and developing the commands? What's so bad about the son who's dozing off in the haystack when it's like everybody's working real hard? Well, the lazy, the son that's bringing shame is not doing any work and he's not bringing honor to his parents in that way. His parents are supposed to train him up in the way they should go. The one that is a prudent son gathers in the summers is showing wisdom and also, you know, Sorry, and making sure that things are well fed. Yeah, exactly. He's honoring God with his time and strength. When he's sleeping, what's happening? He's basically robbing God and his family of what was rightfully theirs. So there's theft there in his sleeping, but then there's also obviously dishonoring parents, right? Dishonoring authorities in that too. So I'm just trying to evoke in your mind that When we talk about the law, there's all these huge interconnections to the rest of the Bible. Like the book of Proverbs is all about teaching us how to live in the world that the law of God creates for us. The prophets are all about preaching God's law. So just look with me at Jeremiah 7. Where have you heard these things before? This is him preaching in the temple. All these people are going into the temple. In other words, they think of themselves as good law-keeping people. And it says, Jeremiah says to them, chapter seven, verse eight, behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods you've not known? Where have you heard those things, right? Steal, the eighth command. Murder, sixth command. Committed adultery, seventh command. Swear falsely, the ninth command. Make offerings to other gods, first command. And then, you guys gonna break all those commandments from the 10 commandments, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we're delivered. Only to go on doing all these abominations. And so this is the part of what I'm just trying to get you to see that when you read the prophets, what are they doing? They're preaching God's law and saying, guys, you're not keeping it. And now the curses of the covenant need to come. Some scholars talk about prophets as God's covenant lawyers. They're coming, bringing God's lawsuit against Israel. What's the basis of the lawsuit? The entire 10 commandments and the law. Did I see someone with a question over here? Okay. All right, so, any questions about how God put his law together before we dive into the greatest command in the last five minutes? All right, well, I wanna just get us going on this. We'll obviously have to come back to it later, but here's the greatest command. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. We've heard this before, hopefully. Let's talk about what these words mean. I'm going to talk about love in a moment, but first I want to just get clear what these modifiers mean, because unfortunately, Part of what happens when you're an English translator is there's like the force of all the tradition that's gone before you. Like the KJV has this huge influence and Tyndale, right, before the KJV. And so like there's certain texts that when you mess with them, you get in trouble, right? Like people are like, wait, you can't change Psalm 23. Yeah, and this is one of those texts. And yet, sad to say, there's really kind of. problems with how this is rendered into English. I made this little diagram to try to illustrate what these words actually mean. Heart is a good translation. If we understand by heart the inner core of who we are, that includes everything that we would actually call our soul. Our will, our emotions, our thoughts, our desires. If the first line said, you're to love the Lord your God with all your soul, that would be a good translation too. Heart also works. So we're talking about the inner part of who we are, our soul. But then it says, and you should love him with all your soul. And this Hebrew word is just not translated right here. This Hebrew word, the word nefesh, really refers to the whole person, and I give a few reasons for why this should be so. So Psalm 6 verse 4, he says he's sick, his body is afflicted, then he prays that God would rescue his soul, and of course you know our bodies and souls are connected, so you could see how he would pray that, but it really is much more natural for him to say, please save my Save me, you know, my whole person. First Kings 19 verse 10, it talks about people trying to put another person's soul to death. They're seeking after their soul to put them to death. It's like weird, doesn't quite work. It's because it's not really what it's saying. It's talking about the whole person, body and soul. And so I suggest a better translation. It's not just me. a great Deuteronomy scholar who's my advisor, Dan Block. I'm getting all this stuff from him. But yeah, especially when you're reading through the Psalms. Anytime it says soul, see what happens when you substitute the word person or self, just myself. Oftentimes, it makes a lot more sense. He leads me besides green pastures. He restores my self, my whole, all that I am. Right? He gives me all that I need for my whole self, body and soul. So we're supposed to love God with our heart, the inner part of us, then the whole of what constitutes me, my body and my soul, but then also our strength. And strength really isn't quite what he's getting at. It refers to everything that you have control over, everything in your sphere, your possessions, everything you have influence over, your authority. And even the word possessions isn't quite right, because in the diagram there I have a picture of kids. Kids are not really your possessions. Your house, you could say you possess that. Your kids are entrusted to you for a season. So we don't really have a word in English for this, right? But like the things that you have in your sphere, what would we use for that? I don't know. The stuff you have control over. And God's saying, I want you to love me with all those things too. And so you can see how there's a logic to how we organize this. He's moving inward, outward. I want you to love me from the very heart of who you are, down to the very core of your being. Love me. Now I want you to love me with everything that is sort of you, your person. And then, have I given you this thing? This car I gave to you so generously? You're now in this position of considerable influence, like you're the boss at this company. Okay, love God with that. You have this garden that God's given you. Great. Garden to the glory of God. And you can kind of see how this, I think, expands what the commands are here. Yeah. I was thinking that sometimes we misuse the verse, man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. He also looks at all the rest of us. That's right. In that verse, 1 Samuel 16, it's talking about God's choice of the king. He's saying, look, I'm not looking for the guy who's really buff. I'm looking for the guy who loves me. When it comes to our lives, what does God care about? He cares about it all. And just maybe I'll close with this, I'll never forget. as a college student, hearing for the first time that God doesn't just want your Sunday morning. He doesn't just want the religious part of you. He wants your free time. He wants what you do when you're alone, your friendships, how you use technology, what you're doing in class. He wants it all. And I was just like, this is a big view of God. And it's one of those moments, to go back to the previous diagram, where it's like, whoop, the cross now needs to get much bigger to cover the huge iniquity I realize in my life where I have been putting God in a box, compartmentalizing God, which is what secularism tries to get us to do, right? You can't talk about God in the public sphere. Oh, really? You're trying to say there's like a God-free zone? That is autonomy, that is sin. There is no God-free zone. Every part of our lives belongs to him, and that's what this command is getting us to think about. So that's what we'll hopefully get to talk more about next time. So let's close in prayer. Lord, thank you for your law, for how you put it together so well, for how clear it is that it really does boil down to loving you with all that we are, and loving our neighbors, ourselves. And yet, Lord, it's also just so challenging, so demanding that you really want all of us, all that we are. We pray that we would respond to this command not with fear or running the other direction, but rather we would embrace it. That, Lord, we would realize this is the way to truly live well And that, Lord, we would know that part of why Jesus came, really, the reason why he came is so that we could keep this law joyfully for the rest of eternity. Lord, help us to embrace your law and to know it well. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.