I invite you to turn in your copy of God's Word to the gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5. Today we'll be looking at verses 17 through 25, 17 through 20. And people of God, when you look throughout the Bible, there's no debate that we will always find in the Bible two things. We will find mention of the law and mention of the gospel. The question has always been, what is the relationship between these two things, law and gospel? Is it law versus the gospel or is it law and gospel? Are these things contradictory or are they complementary? Or to put it another way, what is the relationship between Moses and Jesus? What is the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament? When we look at what Scripture teaches about our salvation, it makes clear that we are saved not by what we do, not by our own merit, but by Jesus Christ and His merit and what He has done. And so our salvation, we say, is all by grace. What is grace? It's unmerited favor. That's the gospel. that it's no longer what we do, but what Jesus does for us. And if that's the case, then we have to ask the question, what role does the law play in the life of the Christian? Christians have wrestled with this throughout the age. Next week, you know, we've been talking about it will be Reformation Sunday when we celebrate how God worked in history to recapture the gospel once again in the church. And one of the concerns that the medieval church had when Luther and Calvin started talking about grace is that they thought, well, if we take away the law as a means of earning merit, then no one will make any effort to keep the law, and that's going to lead to anarchy. And that's one of their concerns. So you see, they misunderstood the role that the law plays. Some of you will be familiar with John Newton, the hymn writer who wrote the most famous hymn probably on the planet, Amazing Grace. John Newton in the 1700s was a slave trader before he became converted. And he once said, ignorance of the nature and design of the law is at the bottom of most our religious mistakes. And you know what? He's right. Our failure to understand the law and its relationship to the gospel is what leads to so many of our religious mistakes, our heresies and heterodoxies and so on. You see, the law was misunderstood in the 1700s just as it was misunderstood in Jesus' day, and it's pretty much misunderstood in our day. So we're going to continue our look at the Sermon on the Mount here in chapter 5. where Jesus is going to address this. Now you remember he began the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes where he described the character of a Christian. And that character is a person who recognizes that he has nothing to offer God, but his salvation is wholly dependent on the grace of God. And then last week, we saw Jesus having described our character, he begins to describe what life is to be like in the kingdom of God, a kingdom which is here now, a kingdom that arrived with his arrival 2,000 years ago. And he says, this is how my kingdom people live. And last week we saw that he calls us to be salt and light as we penetrate throughout society and transform that society. But how exactly do we influence the world as salt and light? And that's what Jesus deals with in the second half of chapter 5. In that remainder of chapter 5, he's going to be laying out the specific ways that we, his followers, ought to behave. In other words, what Jesus is doing is he's laying out the law for His disciples. And because the law was misunderstood in Jesus' day, just as it's misunderstood in ours, before Jesus gets into the specifics and says, do this and do that, He takes a moment here in the verses that we're going to look at, verses 17 through 20, to discuss His attitude toward the law, how He understands the law. And what we're going to see is the law is not to be viewed negatively. In fact, it describes life in the kingdom. In other words, it describes our relationship with God himself. So let's take a look then as Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount, verses 17 through 20. Jesus says, 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, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass in 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 the kingdom of heaven. With us far, the reading of God's Word. May He bless it to our hearing, especially as it's preached to us this morning. So Jesus, before He gets into the specifics of telling us how we are to obey, wants to make sure that we understand what His view of the law is. And as we look at this passage, we're going to see four things. We're going to see the requirement, the reality, the response, and the role. The requirement, are we required to keep the law? The reality, are we truly able to do so? The response, how Jesus responds to our failure to keep the law. And finally, the role. What is the proper role of the law? So requirement, reality, response, and role. That's what we're going to be looking at today. Let's start with the requirement. Clearly, when you look at the whole of the Bible, it teaches both grace and law. Now, some people have said, well, yes, the Old Testament is law and the New Testament is grace, but is that so? No, it's not. There's law all throughout the New Testament. And by law, we mean commands. God telling us, this is how you're to behave. Look at Colossians 3.9, Paul says, do not lie to one another. That's a command. Ephesians 4.29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, that's a command. Ephesians 6.1, children obey your parents, another command. 1 Corinthians 6.18, flee from sexual immorality, and so on. And you might say, well that's Paul, maybe Paul was hung up on the law, but how about the Apostle James? James 4.11, do not speak evil against one another, there's a command. How about Peter? 1 Peter 2.13, Submit yourselves for the sake of the Lord to every human authority. There's a command. And the apostle John, the apostle of love. You would think, oh, he has no commands. 1 John 4.7, Beloved, love one another. It's a command to love. So you see, if there is no law in the New Testament, someone forgot to tell the apostles because they have it all throughout. Unfortunately, all throughout the history of the church, Christians have repeatedly confused the rule of the law. They've not really understood it, and it tends to land into two different approaches. There are those who say, look, because we're saved by grace, then the law no longer matters, the law no longer applies, so we can set it aside. And that's what you saw in the early church, the church in Corinth had to deal with that, and Paul had to step in and write to them. But the other approach that people take is, oh no, no, no, the law very much applies, and it's very much like the scribes and Pharisees, we have to literally observe every last thing in the law, there's been no change with the coming of Christ, the law still is exactly what you and I need to keep, and that was, the problem that the legalistic Galatians had. And Paul had to deal with those guys as well. And in fact, what we realize is all throughout church history, we tend to go back and forth between those two errors. Between no law because we're saved by grace, all law, you can't let it go, you have to keep it in order to be right with God. And what you really find interesting is even within individual Christians, you can see us swinging back and forth between those two different positions. So, what does Jesus have to say? You'll often hear people thinking or teaching that Jesus set aside the law, but actually he had a very high view of the law. He quotes it all throughout his ministry. In fact, when we looked at his temptation in the wilderness, he literally lived by it for 40 days in the wilderness. So, when he comes here to verses 17 through 20, he's going to set the record straight for us. And what he tells us is that the law continues to be valid for the Christian today. He says 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. Very, very clear, Jesus is saying, no, no, no, I'm not here to do away with the law. I'm here to fulfill it. It's still valid. Now, some of our brothers and sisters in other segments of the church have taught, okay, we get that Jesus was saying that before the cross. Because before the cross, that's the old covenant. And in the old covenant, law reigned. That's not actually a true assertion, but that's what they say. Law reigned before the cross. There was no grace. After the cross, Then grace nullifies the law in the new covenant. There's no more need for the law. So that's why we can look at this. He's saying this before he went to the cross. That's why he's saying that it's still valid. But that doesn't fly when you look at the very next verse. Look at verse 18. Jesus makes clear the law is valid not just up to the cross, but until the end of history. He says, until heaven and earth pass away, not a nyota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. He makes clear it's not until the end of all created things in this age, the heavens and the earth, then the law will be ruled out. And he says it's not until everything is accomplished. That's the end of history when God's eternal decree is finally fulfilled. Until then, the law still applies, he says. Now, we are right to note that the cross is the most significant event in all of history. It is a turning point in history. But it is not the end of history. So Jesus tells us that the law is still valid after the cross. Not an iota, which was the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet of the New Testament. Not a dot, which was the smallest marking in the Hebrew alphabet of the Old Testament. Not the smallest portion of the law will be invalidated, he says. The law is as permanent as heaven and earth. It is as enduring as the universe, is what he's saying. As long as the universe is around, the law will apply. So why would Jesus have such a high view of the law? And this is where we now begin to say, why is he saying these things? And here's where the rubber meets the road. Once we understand this, the law begins to fall into its proper place in our thinking. The reason that Jesus has such a high view of the law is because the law, which we sometimes view simply as a bunch of commands that, oh, we got to obey, we need to look at the law differently. The law, Jesus tells us, reveals the holy character of God. You see, that's the law's true purpose. It reveals the character of God. God created us to be in a relationship with Him. He created us in His image, which means that we are to reflect God. We are to reflect His holiness. And if you're going to reflect His holiness, if you're going to reflect His character, then you can't do whatever you want. You can't do whatever you please. The law is given to us as a guide to show us how it is that we reflect the holiness of God. The law shows us how to be holy. And once we begin to see that, we see the law in a positive light. We begin to see that the law then really is about our relationship with God. You see, a person who is in perfect obedience to the law is a person who is in perfect relationship with God because that person perfectly reflects who God is. The reverse then is true. A person who is in a perfect relationship with God is going to be a person who is in perfect obedience to the law. And once we begin to see that wonder, you can understand why the psalmist in Psalm 119 writes not just the longest psalm, but the longest chapter in the whole of the Bible. And it's all about the law. And you might think, oh, that's so boring. He's just going on for all those verses. But what he's doing all throughout Psalm 119 is he's always tying it to the character of God. And he's saying, look at God and all his wonder and all his glory and all his splendor and all his majesty. And it's reflected in the law. That's why the law is precious to me. And you see, that's what we begin to see. Once we really understand what the law is, a reflection of the character of this holy and wonderful God, then we begin to see that our attitude to the law of God really reflects our attitude to God himself. And if we have a low view of God, we'll have a low view of the law. But if we have a high view of God, we'll have a high view of the law. That's why Jesus has such a high view. And that's what he's talking about there in verses 17 through 18. But having described his own attitude toward the law, he now turns to our attitude in verse 19. And he condemns the practice of taking the law and setting it aside as being invalid. He says, 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. Notice, he's not condemning mere disobedience. You can disobey it and still recognize the importance of the law. He's condemning those who set it aside, who make it easy, who relax it. And he's saying, no, no, no. Even the least of these commandments, he says in verse 19, is to be kept because the very holiness of God requires it. God's holiness is one piece. You can't take one part out. It's like a little Jenga puzzle, right? Once you pull that one piece, the whole thing collapses. God is a unity and the law is a unity because it reflects His character. So when we say, what is the requirement? Are we required to keep the law? Jesus has made it very clear. The law is still binding. The law is something that we must still pay attention to. And He ends with this in verse 20, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, who are these scribes and Pharisees? We tend to know because we've read the gospel ahead of where Jesus is with His disciples, and we know that they are opponents of Jesus who consistently try to entrap Him and get Him into trouble and ultimately will arrest Him and have Him killed. And so, it's very easy to knock the Pharisees. as simply the opponents of Jesus, but there's more to them than that. A Pharisee in and of himself was not necessarily an evil person. Pharisees were just simply those who generally sought to obey the law. For them, every detail of the law was precious. They were staunch advocates of the law. They saw the law as a practical guide to holy living day by day. So, the people respected them for this. The surprise then, see the people, they see the Pharisees around them every day. These are the people who are held up as being the exemplars of obedience. And Jesus surprises them and tells them, your righteousness has to exceed their righteousness. Well, Jesus' disciples hearing that would have said the idea of surpassing the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, surpassing their scrupulous obedience, well, that's ridiculous because no one was more rigorous or consistent in keeping the law than the Pharisees. The Old Testament law consists of 248 regulations and 365 prohibitions, one for every day of the year. Salvation certainly needed to be left to the professionals because they had the time to pay attention to all those details. And yet Jesus makes clear in verse 20, unless your righteousness exceeds theirs, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So how can that be? How can your righteousness, how can my righteousness exceed that of these scribes and Pharisees? Well, it's certainly not by keeping more of the laws than they did because they already kept them all. That's not what Jesus means. What He means by exceeding their righteousness is that you and I are to keep the law in a different way than they kept it. That we're to keep the law in a superior way than the way they kept it. You see, what Jesus was condemning about the Pharisees, was not their desire to keep the law. But what he condemned about them was that they only kept the law externally, on the surface. And what they didn't do is they didn't keep the law in their heart. As we're going to see over the next several weeks, as Jesus continues in chapter 5, he's going to tell us, look, it's not simply okay that you've never taken a knife, for example, and plunged it into someone and killed them. If you simply hate your brother, That's enough to condemn you and break the commandment, you shall not murder. It's not enough to go around saying, well, I've never physically slept with anyone outside of my marriage. Just the fact that we lust in our hearts is enough to condemn us and break the commandment, you shall not commit adultery. What Jesus is saying is that his problem with the Pharisees and with us is that our law-keeping is so often external, and what he's looking for is a heart righteousness. And this is when we come to one of the greatest ironies all throughout Scripture. The scribes and Pharisees were being held up as the ones who were so strict in the keeping of the law, and Jesus is saying, no, they're not more strict, they're less strict. because they have relaxed the law. They have made it easier to keep because they've reduced the law to only external obedience. And in one of the great reversals of Scripture, Jesus is the one who says, I'm going to restore the integrity of the law. You must keep it, not just externally, but in your heart with the right motives and that right purity. And what he's actually done is he's made it considerably more difficult to keep because we have to obey from the heart. And that's the requirement. That's the requirement. Unless you obey to that level, unless you and I can obey to that depth, then he says in verse 20, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus has a very high view of the law. In fact, so high that as he ends this chapter, chapter 5, we're going to see in verse 48 that he says you have to be perfect. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. That's what he requires. That's the requirement. But that leads us to our second point, reality. You see, once we understand the requirement that we're to keep the law to that extent, a heart righteousness, then the reality sets in. And that reality is that you and I are really unable to keep the law in this way. One of the things is you cannot fool God. You can fool people with your external righteousness, but we cannot fool him because he's able to know what our motives really are. 1 Samuel 16, 7 says, the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. He can see inside. He can know what our real motives are, and those lusts, and those hatreds, and so on. Jesus Himself said in Luke 16, 15, He knows the truth. We can't fool Him. That puts us in a seriously, seriously bad position. And like we said, your obedience has to be perfect as he says in chapter 5 verse 48. James 2 also says in James 2 10, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. So this is the requirement, this is the reality that you and I can't get there. You might say, well, maybe I can't. You're talking for yourself. But look at what Paul says in Romans chapter 3. In fact, you might want to have a finger in chapter 3 of Romans. We're going to turn to it three times. Romans chapter 3 in verse 9, Paul lays out what the theologian Robert Raymond used to call the 14-point indictment of the human race. And it's literally damning. He says in verse 9, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." The 14-point condemnation. And he finishes by saying, now we know. that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." People of God, when we read that, we see the bad news, real trouble for the human race. Jesus is telling us, you will never, going back to our passage in verse 20, you will never enter into the kingdom of God because we cannot keep the law. We're literally unable to. Sin has so affected us that we'll never be able to do so. And when He says, you will never enter, in the original language that's emphatic, most certainly, most certainly you will not enter. That's the bad news. We're unable to keep the law to this level. And that means we're out of the kingdom. There's not a single person who can say, I can do it. That's the raw reality. But the good news is that Jesus has a response to our negative reality that we can't keep it. And that's our third point. Jesus' response. to the reality that you and I are unable to keep the law. Because the bad news says we can't keep the law, but the good news says Jesus does so in our place. He says in verse 17, I have come. Look at that language, I have come. He's now injected himself into the whole idea of law and he's telling us, I have come to do what? I have come to fulfill both the law and the prophets. That's an amazing statement. What Jesus is telling us is that all those requirements that we just read in Romans 3 that no one can keep, James has says, you've got to keep the whole thing if you're going to keep any law. And Jesus says, I've come to do that very thing. The prophets testify to it because the prophets say that there is one who's going to come who's going to save the people from the consequences of their sin. And Jesus is saying, I'm that guy. I'm the one who has come to fulfill it. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, that wonderful Welsh preacher from the mid-20th century who preached for so many years at Westminster Chapel in London once said, everything that is in the law and the prophets culminates in Christ, and he is the fulfillment of them. It is the most stupendous claim that he ever made. Everything in the Old Testament was pointing to him. He's the one who fulfills the law. How? How does Jesus fulfill the law? Well, at the very least, he fulfilled it in his teaching. And his teaching, he's going to go on to say, as we said in the following verses, he's going to explain the full meaning of the law. He's going to remove it from just a surface obedience to get into the heart of the matter. He's going to tell us, what does it really mean to commit murder? What does it really mean to commit adultery? He's going to teach us the fullness of the law. In that regard, you might say he fulfilled the law, but it's so much more than that. Jesus ultimately fulfilled the law in His life. He fulfilled the law in how He behaved and what He did. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that faithful German Lutheran pastor who stood up to Adolf Hitler and paid for it with his life, once wrote, Jesus has in fact nothing to add to the commandments of God except this, that He keeps them. So Jesus did not come to abolish them, He did not come to change them, He did not come to do anything, but to do them, to keep them in the way that you and I cannot. And He did so again because of that relationship that He has with God. In Hebrews 10, 7, Jesus says, I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart. There He's quoting from Psalm 40. See, for Jesus, it was the very center and core of who he is. Here is the one man who was in perfect relationship with God, and that was expressed by perfect obedience to the law. And the good news, the gospel, is that Jesus didn't just live that perfect life for His sake, but He lived that perfect life in our place. That He did so as our substitute so that His merit now becomes our merit. His keeping of the law, which we were unable to do, becomes our keeping of the law, which He did for us. So He fulfilled the law in His life. And He also fulfilled the law in His death on the cross. The law is a very serious thing, and the penalty for breaching the law is nothing less than death. And since we are lawbreakers because of our sin, we deserve death, not just physical death, but spiritual death, separation from God forever. But the good news is that Jesus did not just live the perfect life that we can't live. He did that. But He also went to the cross and died the death that you and I deserve. He took upon Himself the full penalty that you and I deserve for having broken the law. He did so in our place. That's the two sides of the gospel. You need both. He lived the perfect life that we cannot live, and He died the death that we deserve. And that's how Jesus fulfilled the law. So when we get back to verse 20 and we see that we need a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus is talking about what He's come to do. He's challenging us and telling us, you need to live at this level, but you can't, so I'm coming to do it for you. And that's our only hope, is that Jesus has fulfilled the law perfectly in our place. It's His righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, which we so desperately need. And the good news, let's go back to Romans 3, the good news is that God takes that righteousness and He gives it to us. In Romans 3 verse 21, he says, now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. Notice what he's saying, there is a righteousness, but it's not a righteousness that you get from keeping the law, even though the whole of the law points to it. No, it's a righteousness that God himself has. And then he explains in verse 22, it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. That's the righteousness that you need. It's one that you grab a hold of in faith. All those who believe in Jesus can be theirs. And he explains why we need it. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, that is declared righteous, by his grace as a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. You see, people of God, this is the good news. This is the gospel. That Jesus has done it in our place. And when we grab a hold of it by faith, then we are saved. And you might say, we're saved by grace, unmerited favor that God has shown us because we don't deserve it. And yet, it is appropriate to say that we're saved by the keeping of the law, but not by our keeping the law, but by Jesus keeping the law. And that's the good news. He's the one who fulfilled it. And therefore, our salvation is of grace and not of merit. And you might say, okay, that's all true. And if that's the case, that's the importance of the law, it has to be kept and Jesus kept it in our place, then what role does the law play today? And that's the last thing we're going to look at today. What is the role of the law? Because Jesus makes clear in verses 18 through 19, That the law is not going to pass away until the universe passes away. It's going to still be around and it's still valid until the end of the age. So we're still to keep it. If you go again in Romans 3 where Paul has just said, you're not saved by your keeping law, you're saved by grace. What does he say in verse 31 of Romans 3? Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? Does that mean then there's no need for the law because we're saved by grace? By no means, he says, on the contrary, we uphold the law. Wait, what? How can you uphold the law after you finish saying the law doesn't save you? And that's what Paul goes on to explain in Romans 4 through 6, which we'll be studying today till about 2 p.m. No, I'm going to give you the short version of that. Let's remember what Jesus is doing here. Jesus has come into our midst. And like we've said from the very beginning, the Sermon on the Mount is making clear that the King has come and he's brought the kingdom. And with the coming of the kingdom, he's brought a new age, which is a new way of living under Jesus, different from the way that the world lives. That's why he's calling us to be salt and light, because we are to be distinct from the world. There's a new way of behaving, a new way of living, a new way of being human. And that's why the keeping of the law is so important. It is true that we are saved from the consequences of our failure to keep the law. We always talk about what we're being saved from. But we need to remember what we are being saved to and we are being saved to be in a relationship with God, which means that we are being saved to be able to keep the law because it is by keeping the law that you express that holy character that God is giving you so that you can reflect him the way he always intended. That was always the intent that God had for the human race, that we be like Him. Little reflection, little mini-me's, some of you will get that reference. And we're to be like Him in every way, right? How many of you have seen this in your kids? And scarily, they begin to do the things that we do, right? And that's what we see here. God wants us to reflect Him. But do you know how to reflect Him? He tells us how to reflect Him. Here's my law. The law explains to us how we're to do it. And God has called us then, saving us from our failure to keep it, yes, but saving us to be able to keep it so that we can be in a perfect relationship with Him. And He actually enables us to keep the law through His Holy Spirit. Jeremiah 31 33 says this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel and here Jeremiah had just finished saying that I will make a new covenant. So he's looking forward to the new covenant of Christ. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God that they shall be my people. That's how much the law becomes a part of our relationship with God. He will be our God and we will be his people and the law will be the way that we express that. Ezekiel 36, 27 says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. God has not given up on the law. He's simply saying, I'm going to have to fulfill in your place and then enable you to be able to do it. And that's what he's doing. So what role does the law play in our lives? Perhaps this will help you to systematize that. Throughout the ages, the church has looked at three uses of the law. If you've gone through our officer training class, I know you've heard this many, many times. But for the rest of you, this might be new and it might help you to think through. Three uses. The first use of the law is what we call the convicting use. Like in the law convicts you. In that it shows us who we are. It is like a mirror held up to our face and it shows us our sin. It shows us, oh you're falling far short of what God requires. And so doing, it also shows us that we're unable to keep it. That convicting use of the law is the primary use of the law for nonbelievers, for unbelievers, because we want them to be able to see this is your need. You're not going to be able to meet God's requirement. You will never enter the kingdom of God, right? It's still a useful use for the believers because we need to be reminded when we fall short, but its primary use is for unbelievers. There's a second use of the law, which we simply call the civil use of the law, having to do with the civil society in which we live. Right? The civil magistrate, our politicians, our rulers, and so on, they have to put laws together. And so, the law of God serves as a guide. When they sit there and say, what laws do we need to put in place? They are able to look at God's law and say, oh, God's law says we should not steal. So we'll put in some laws saying don't steal and, you know, if your car hits my car and I'm at fault, right, then I owe you. your new car, but if I don't give you that, then I'm stealing from you, right? So the law of God serves as a guide to help the civil magistrate, our rulers and our politicians, to be able to come up with appropriate laws. So that's the civil use of the law. But the third use of the law is the one that's the most important to believers. And we call that the normative use, in the sense that the law serves to give us a norm. It's a guide, it's a standard that it sets. Basically, the law explains to us how we're to please God. It shows us how we're to live in a relationship with Him. And so, this is the primary use for us as believers. When we read the law, sometimes it'll have the convicting use. We'll read it and we'll say, oh, wow, I really fall short. But as believers who have been redeemed, we already know we fall short and we've been saved by Christ. The law now becomes a standard. Here's how redeemed people behave. Here's how kingdom people respond. That's how we do that. And so what Jesus is doing for us here is he's just laying out a very, very practical way for us to understand that the law is not something to be shunned, but something to be embraced. Jesus himself fulfills the law, but he enables us through grace to obey it. Sinclair Ferguson, some of you know Sinclair Ferguson, one of the top-notch theologians of our day, Scottish theologian. He has this wonderful illustration that explains the relationship of our love for God and the law and how they go hand-in-hand. It has to do with a steam engine. You guys remember those steam engines from the old days that runs on a railroad track? And what he said is, look, a steam engine needs fuel. It has this burner, right, and you have all this coal that you have to put in there. That coal acts as a fuel. It gives it power as it burns to move the engine forward. But it also needs railroad tracks to direct that energy so it will know and get to the right place. And he says that's what it's like for the believer. The fuel that we have in our relationship with God is our love for Jesus that comes through the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. That is what energizes us. That's what gives us the energy to move forward in the Christian life. That love for God, that gratitude for everything that he's done for us in Christ. But how do we direct that energy is the law. The law serves as our tracts. Otherwise, we're going everywhere. But we want to head towards godliness, and so that law directs us on how we ought to walk. You might look and say, well, it's kind of restricting that you have to be on that track, but it's not so because it puts us on the only path to freedom to move in a Godward direction. Everything else gets us into trouble. So the law keeps us in place. So you see, people have got the law, as we wrap this up, goes hand in hand. The Westminster divine Samuel Bolton once put it this way, the law sends us to the gospel, that we may be justified, and then the gospel sends us back to the law again to inquire what is our duty having been justified. And we can see the importance of the law. What's different from the Pharisees is that we have a new way of obeying. We're to obey it from the heart, driven by love for Jesus, driven by gratitude for what he's done, empowered by the Holy Spirit, not in our own strength. John 14, 15, there Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. Love is not divorced from the law. In fact, Paul says in Romans 13, 10, love is the fulfillment of the law. You want to show your love for God? Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey me. That's the way we show it. Imagine, and with this we end, a lifeguard on the beach. And if the lifeguard sees a poor person out there drowning, he doesn't stand on the shore and yell at that person, hey, swim perfectly, and if you can do that, then I'll go rescue you. Of course not, that's ridiculous. The person can swim perfectly, that's why they're drowning. Now what does he do? He dives into the water, pulls that person to safety. And once that person is safely on the shore, he then teaches that person how to properly swim so he can actually go out and enjoy the water the way the water was meant to be enjoyed. Well, that's the gospel, isn't it? God does not tell you, keep my law perfectly and if you do that, then I'll save you. Then I'll bring you into my kingdom. No, he dives into the chaos of our lives. He rescues us through Jesus Christ and then He equips us and empowers us to live the good life that He always intended for us to live. Not in order to earn His love, but precisely because we already have received it in Christ. Let us pray. Father, how thankful we are for the role of the law, the importance of the law, and how it reveals Your wonderful character. When we look at Jesus Christ who is the perfect reflection of who you are, we see the one man in all his wonder and all his splendor and all his glory who reflects your wonder and your splendor and your glory. How thankful we are for Jesus and that he did what we cannot do having kept the law perfectly and having taken upon himself the punishment that we deserve for our law breaking. And so, Father, we pray that you would make us like the psalmist in Psalm 119, that we would indeed love your law, that we would see that it's not a means to righteousness, but it is indeed the expression of the righteousness that Christ has given us. And may we see it as a way of us reflecting our dad, our Abba, in heaven as we, many me's, try to be like him. We pray that You would be with us to be able to avoid those various ways in which we have either denigrated the law or put it in a place that it does not deserve, but instead that we will put Christ at the center and be able to see the importance of the law in relationship to Him and to our relationship with Him. Father, we pray that we would be a nation, a people rather, of Christians in every nation, I should say. who are able to properly show people the grace that you have shown us in Christ, and yet, through our obedience, point to his wonderful character.