Losing your dad is hard. It’s especially hard when he’s more than just your dad, but also your friend, and your most trusted advisor.

And so as I began to think about what I would say to you today, I wished, as I’m sure I will many times in the coming months and years, that I could ask dad for some advice.

I have so many memories of my dad that I could share. I’m sure we all do. We’ve been telling stories all week, and we’ll continue to share those memories and stories throughout the day today and in the coming days. They are mostly good memories. As we remember him today and into the future, we’ll think about the good, and we’ll be tempted to call him a good person, and not think about why we can say that.

I think that’s the advice dad would have given me. He would have said, “Don’t talk about me being good, talk about Jesus being good.”

In the Gospel According to Luke, a rich young ruler calls Jesus by the title “Good teacher” and Jesus asks him

“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18.19 ESV)

Of course, Jesus was the Good Teacher, the Good Shepherd, and everything that is good. But, if you don’t believe Jesus to be God, then you can’t call him good.

The point, as John Calvin said, is that

“strictly speaking, men and even angels do not deserve so honorable a title [as good]; because they have not a drop of goodness in themselves, but [that which is] borrowed from God;” ¹

Dad would not want to remembered as a good man. He would want to be remembered as a man who was saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. If there was good there, it was borrowed goodness.

As we three boys think about how blessed we were to be raised by our parents, it’s not that they were good parents, it’s that they were parents who knew the grace of Jesus, and his goodness was worked out in their lives.

Yes, they were good parents, by the grace of God. Dad was a good man, by the grace of God. And he would want us to remember that.

We gather here today and share our grief at being separated from him for a time. It is right and understandable that we should do so. When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, even our Lord wept.

But dad would be the first to remind us that this separation is only for a time. For while Jesus wept at Lazarus’ death, he also told the grieving family:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11.25–26 ESV)

Not only was dad a good father, a good friend, and a good man – by the grace of God, but it is also by the grace of God that he lives on today, in heaven with the Lord of Glory.

The best of our own “goodness”, apart from faith in Jesus, is not enough to secure our place in the presence of the Lord in eternity. It is only by the grace of God that the righteousness of Jesus is given to us in exchange for our selfish, greedy, hate filled, self-exalting, prideful “goodness”. Our pretend goodness would only condemn us apart from Jesus!

And so we stand here today, parted from dad for a time, remembering his life lived full of borrowed goodness, grieving at our separation, but with the hope of the resurrection and eternal life in Christ, by grace.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Then Jesus continues:

“Do you believe this?” (John 11.25–26 ESV)

That was the theme of dad’s final days on earth. He felt the weight of eternity, the urgency of the gospel, and he asked everyone around him this question: Do you believe this? The stories have already been told of the nurses in the hospital warning each other that the question was coming the first time you set foot in dad’s room.

Do you believe?

Dad did, and that is what he would want us to remember and celebrate today. He would want us to think deeply about the question, and our answer to it.

One day, Jesus will demand an answer from each of us when we stand before him. I know what dad’s answer was. What will yours be?

¹ John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries (Complete) (trans. John King; Accordance electronic ed. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847), n.p.

Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. ~ Ronald Reagan

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. ~ Benjamin Franklin

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. ~ John F. Kennedy

Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches. ~ Will Rogers

Freedom is celebrated here in America. And today on July 4th, it is celebrated as it is on no other day.

Freedom is considered a basic right in America. Right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty being synonymous with freedom in this case.

My point is, as American’s we’re hardwired for freedom. We think it as our God given right, and we’re exuberant in exercising that right.

So as we come to our text this morning, I want us to realize that we have a preconceived notion of what it means to be free. We bring that with us, and we need to be careful not to read that into the text of Scripture, but rather to let Scripture shape and inform our understanding of freedom.

That’s my goal for this sermon.

Our text this morning is

“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” (1 Peter 2.16 ESV)

There is a command in this verse. We are commanded to “live as people who are free.” Then we are given first a negative, then a positive, statement of the manner in which we are to do that. Do you see that? He says first to “live as people who are free.” Then he continues and says “not like this, but like this.”

Seems pretty strait forward, and it is! But I want us to think carefully through it this morning and make sure we understand what Peter means? What does he mean by live? What does he mean by people? Is he speaking to individuals? Or to the church as a collective people? And most importantly, what does he mean by free?

The context gives us the answers to all these questions.

1. Let’s start with the immediate context to answer the question of what he means by the command to “live” in this way.

If you look up at verse 11 in our text you’ll read this.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2.11 ESV)

Sojourners and exiles. This will come back into play in a few minutes as we discuss the nature of the freedom Peter calls us to, but for now let us understand what is meant by these two words: sojourners and exiles.

The Bible teaches that

the children of God, wherever they may be, are only guests in this world. ¹

In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter as it is sometimes called, we are given a long list of Old Testament saints who lived by faith, and then we are told in verse 13.

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” (Hebrews 11.13 ESV)

If we are strangers, sojourners, exiles, while here on earth, then where is our citizenship?

According to Philippians 3:20,

Our citizenship is in heaven,

So in our context in 1 Peter, he is talking about first, the span of our physical existence here on planet earth, our exile.

I belabored that point a bit, but the concept will become useful for us shortly.

So during our lives on earth, what part of our existence does Peter have in view when he gives us a command for how we are to live? All of it!

V12

During the time of our exile, our CONDUCT is included in Peter’s use of the word live.

V17-18

Our attitudes are also in view here. Honor and respect toward others. We’ll talk more about this later, but for now, let’s agree that Peter means our CONDUCT and our ATTITUDES, when he says LIVE.

V19-20

Here, our THOUGHTS are included, being “mindful of God.” And our RESPONSE to suffering and injustice.

So when Peter says we are to LIVE in this way, he is including everything about our earthly lives, our: conduct, attitudes, thoughts, and responses.

How then would he have us live?

V16 – as people who are free!

2. Our next question was: What does he mean by people? Is he speaking to individuals? Or to the church as a collective people?

The answer, again taken from our context, is both.

V9-10

Here he talks of God’s people as a whole.

Yet throughout the letter, Peter gives instructions to individuals: servants, wives, husbands, etc.

So our lives as individuals, and our corporate life as a church, are both in view.

3. The third question, the big one which will consume the remainder of our time, is this: what does he mean by free?

A few moments ago we spoke of our citizenship in heaven. The basic idea is that when you become a child of God, you are given citizenship in his eternal kingdom. Our lives here on earth are transitory and fleeting compared to eternity. The United States of America will come to an end one day. God’s kingdom however, is eternal.

Our true identity and citizenship is in the eternal kingdom of God, and this word “free” suggests that. Quite literally, it means “as a citizen, not a slave.” A slave is bound, a citizen is unrestrained. That is the meaning of this word, free.

Peter is telling us we are free, unrestrained, not slaves but citizens. Citizens of heaven.

Peter goes on, in the second and third propositions of verse 16 to give us first a negative, and then a positive, explanation of the manner in which we to live as citizens, as people who are free.

V16

These two propositions are negative and positive restatements of the same idea. The idea is that, while we are ultimately citizens of heaven and as such free, we are not free to do whatever we want, we are free only to do what God wants!

A society in which the citizens are free to do whatever they want, with no restraints is nothing but anarchy. We live in the USA where we have much freedom, but within restraints that keep us from infringing on the freedom of other citizens. No one has complete and absolute freedom to do anything.

God would be the only one with the power to do whatever he wants, but he is still bound by his nature. He is not free to sin, because he is holy and sinless. So even God does not have absolute freedom to do anything…but he does have the freedom to do anything he wants. Thankfully he is a good God who only desires what is just and good.

In giving us citizenship in his kingdom, God does not free us to do whatever we desire. He frees us to do the things he desires! His kingdom is not anarchy. It is not even a democracy or a republic. God’s kingdom is an absolute monarchy. God is the king, and we are his subjects.

That’s the meaning of the last phrase of our text.

V16c

The word servants here could rightly be translated as slave, or bondservant. In fact, Paul uses this exact word in

ROMANS 6:20, 22

Here Paul says we used to be slaves to sin, but now we are slaves to God. Our freedom, was freedom from sin, but we must think of it as a transfer of ownership, not from sin to our own self, but from sin to God.

V1:18-19

We were ransomed with the blood of Jesus.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20

And then, speaking about the real world issue of slavery, Paul writes:

1 CORINTHIANS 7:21-23

We are citizens of God’s kingdom, which means we are under his authority.

It is sometimes helpful in understanding a word to understand it’s opposite. One might be tempted to think that the opposite of a servant is a master, but I don’t think that is necessarily so.

A servant is someone who seeks to please another, asking “what can I do for you?” The opposite of asking that question is asking “what can you do for me?” which is essentially a selfish question. So the opposite of servant is selfish, which is what we were before God rescued us.

Now that we’ve been rescued, we are free from the slavery and tyranny of sin. We are free to live as God would have us live.

The difficulty in this for us, is that we are not immediately free from some aspects of this world from which we might desire freedom.

V13 – we are not free from earthly governmental authority

V18 – we are not free from unjust masters or employers

V19 – we are not free from sorrow & suffering

V3:9 – we are not free from evil & reviling

V3:16 – we are not free from slander

Our citizenship is in the heavenly kingdom. We are free from the tyranny of this world – it does not hold ultimate authority over us – but we are still in it, temporarily, as “sojourners and exiles.”

And so the negative statement in clause two, explains how we are not to use our freedom.

V16b

If you engage in a cover-up, you are attempting to prevent others from discovering the truth about a serious mistake or crime. You’re hiding something by putting up a false front, or camouflaging something. So Peter is saying that some people might try to use their freedom in Christ as a pretext, a false front or disguise for evil.

How is that possible? How is it possible to commit evil, and throw people off with your freedom in Christ? What kind of evil might be covered up with freedom?

It will help if we understand a bit of the historical context in which Peter is writing. This letter is written to mostly gentile believers scattered throughout several Roman provinces in what is now the nation of Turkey, during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero. This letter was most likely written in AD 62-63, which places it before the Great Fire in Rome which is the historical starting point for Nero’s persecution of Christians. Nonetheless, it seems at the time of this letter, that Christianity was already falling out of favor, in the public opinion.

V2:12 – gentiles speak against Christians as evildoers

V3:9 – Christians reviled (contemptuous, abusive, angrily insulting criticism)

V3:15 – questioning of beliefs in the public arena

V3:16 – slandered and reviled (false & defamatory statements meant to harm reputation)

V4:4 – maligned (speak about someone in a spitefully critical manner)

V4:14 – insulted

In other words, the culture of the day was openly hostile and spitefully critical of the Christian religion, not unlike certain segments of our own culture in which Biblical Christianity is mocked and maligned, in favor of relativism, which says “if it works for you, that’s fine, but keep it to yourself and don’t try to claim it’s true for everyone.”

And so, in our culture, as well as theirs, it would be easy for a Christian who knows his true identity as a citizen of the kingdom of God, to use that knowledge as an excuse to not show proper respect and honor to those in earthly authority.

One can imagine how the first century Christians might have spoken disrespectfully of Emperor Nero. Much the same way we are tempted to speak of a president with whose policies and agenda we disagree.

Our circumstances do differ from theirs in that we live in a republic in which we are free to express opinions and even political opposition to the government. The highest expression of that opposition takes the form of voting to elect different officials. As Christians, we can, and should, exercise these rights and responsibilities, while also realizing that we are bound to honor those in earthly authority, just as the first century Christians were.

Let us now consider the surrounding context of verse 16, to observe some specific applications Peter gives us for how we are to live, in the world, as God’s servant citizens, who are free.

V13-14 – subject for the Lord’s sake

First, we are to live as subject to the government. Even such a government as an emperor who reigns supreme, as Nero did. How much more then should we be subject then to a government elected by the people!

You may remember that the Jews asked Jesus at one point if it was lawful, according to the Law of God, to pay taxes to the emperor (Matthew 22:17-21). Jesus answer was a resounding “Yes!”

The Bible clearly teaches that the earthly authorities which exist, exist by the pleasure of God. They are his instruments. It may be a mystery to us how an unjust and evil ruler can reign by God’s design, but Scripture teaches that it is so. We are therefore to submit to these authorities, “for the Lord’s sake.”

God reigns both in his eternal kingdom, but also over all the kingdoms of this world. Our submitting to the governments of this world is not for their sake, because of their authority, but because of God’s authority. We don’t pay our taxes because of the consequences of not paying them, or because of the worthiness of the government to whom we are paying them, but instead, we pay our taxes as an act of worship to the supreme ruler, the king of kings, who put the government in place and exercises ultimate authority over it.

V15

If we live by the values of the kingdom, who’s citizen’s we are, our good conduct will stand in opposition to the slander of the world against the Christian religion, ultimately silencing it as foolishness. In this way, actions do speak louder than words.

V17

All men, good or evil, are created in the image of God and deserving of honor as his image bearers. This is called the imago dei, the image of God. It means we are to prize and place value on all human life.

Then there is a special love we are to have for the brotherhood of believers, which goes beyond the honoring of the imago dei. We are to love each other as a family.

Above that there is a fear suitable for God alone. We do not fear men, we fear God. We honor the imago dei and love the brotherhood of believers, but we bow to the Almighty God as to no other.

Finally, we are back to the initial honoring of the imago dei, and there are no exceptions. We are to honor the emperor. He is not to be feared as is God. He need not be loved as we love other Christians. But he must be honored as we honor all men. And especially as an authority put in place by God.

The same is true for us as we think about presidents and congress men. They are not God, and should not be feared. Assuming they are not believers, we need not love them as brothers. But we cannot escape the fact that they are image bearers, and must be honored accordingly. And we must recognize that all authority is from God, and they are in office because it is his will. We must therefore find a way to honor them as men, and to honor their office, while at the same time expressing our dismay at some of their policies and laws which run afoul of God’s holy law.

V18

While our circumstances are different and none of us are indentured to a master. We can apply this principle perhaps to our employment. Those who are employed are to respect and be subject to their employers, as far as their authority goes, regardless of the employers’s disposition, “not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.”

V3:1

Further, we see that wives are instructed to be under their husband’s authority, and later husbands are instructed to love their wives, even if that spouse is an unbeliever!

V3:9

Finally, as God’s servant-citizens, we are to respond with blessing and grace to those who would do evil against us. We are not to act like citizens of this world, but rather as citizens of the kingdom. We are not to respond in evil, or even verbally with disdain or angry criticism, but rather, we are to respond with love and grace, blessing those who curse us.

Our text then is telling us that our job as God’s servant-citizens, sojourning in this world, is to live “for the Lord’s sake” in all areas of our lives: political, economical, social, and familial, so that others may see our lives, turn to God, be saved, and “glorify God on the day of visitation.”

In that process we will honor human life, show respect for authorities, purge public discourse of slander, angry criticism, and abusive speech, honor God’s design for the family, and be agents of God’s grace, love, and reconciliation in the world.

This will reveal, to those willing to see, that living “for the Lord’s sake,” is good for the world.

Listen Now

Mother’s Day became an official holiday in the US in 1914, but it wasn’t until 1972, almost 60 years later, that Father’s Day became official. I’m not sure what that says about how we honor our fathers here in the US. 1972 . . . good year! My birth year, but I’m sure the two aren’t related . . .

So what exactly is Father’s Day? There are all sorts of serious variations of a definition for the holiday, but the most accurate one I’ve found comes from an unnamed young boy who described it this way.

Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much.

I’m certain that is true, as are all the fathers in the room.

Usually on Father’s Day, you’ll get a sermon about fatherhood, or about honoring your father. This morning though I thought we’d do something a little different.

For this Father’s Day I thought we’d take a closer look at our relationship to God as our Father, and us as his adopted children.

This requires that we tackle the biblical doctrine of adoption. So if you would, please take your Bibles and turn to the end of the third chapter of Galatians.

Now, the last couple of times I’ve spoken with you, we’ve looked at different sections of Galatians. The last time I preached on a Sunday morning we looked at Galatians 5 and our relationship to the Law.

A few weeks ago, on a Wednesday evening, we looked together at Galatians 2, where Paul, to steal a phrase from Martin Luther, beats Peter over the head with the gospel, and we talked about what it looks like to bring our “conduct…in step with the truth of the gospel.”

Based on what I’ve told you during these two times, you should be familiar with the issue Paul is dealing with in his letter to the churches in Galatia. The main issue, the problem he wrote the letter to address, was the issue of legalism. As we discussed when we looked at Galatians 5, it was the issue of Jewish teachers attempting to convince the Galatians, who were gentiles, that they must conform to Jewish culture in order to be Christian.

This morning we’re backing up a little bit to chapters 3 and 4. Here Paul is building his case that the gentile believers in Galatia need not conform to Jewish culture, by explaining to them their relationship with God. He explains it as their being adopted children.

GALATIANS 3:23 – 4:9

I want to focus on just a couple verses in the center of this passage we just read, but the context is helpful. The verses we’re going to look at in detail are

GALATIANS 4:4-7

There are several key words in these verses that I’d like to point out.

V5 – redeem, adoption
V7 – slave, son, heir

These words give us some clues. Paul is describing a changing relationship. You see, when Lauren and I got pregnant with Haddie, she was our daughter from the beginning. But when someone adopts a child, the child isn’t their’s from the beginning. So the relationship starts as one thing, and changes to something else.

These verses depict for us the three stages of our relationship to God.

Our relationship to God goes through these stages

1. Alienated = slave/hostile/enemy
2. Reconciled = redeemed/regenerated/born again/justified
3. Adopted = children/heirs

Let’s unpack this and take a look at this changing relationship.

1. Alienated

Our relationship to God starts off on rocky ground. We begin as slaves. Not slaves to God, slaves to sin. Look at verse 8 of chapter 4.

V4.8

We are enslaved by sin, by idolatry. God created man to worship, so if you don’t worship God, you end up worshiping something else. Some people worship nature. In other cultures that expresses itself as what we think of as primitive religion, sun or moon worship, etc. In our ‘modern’ culture, it looks like environmentalism, or science.

Now I want you to hear me correctly. I’m NOT saying that faith and science are opposed. They absolutely are not opposed. God created nature, so the study of natural sciences, whether that’s botany or particle physics, is the study of God’s good creation. Christians are not to disengage their brains, quite the opposite.

So I’m not saying that science is bad, I’m saying that science is good…but it’s not god. If you take a good thing and elevate it to supreme, it has become a god to you. Many people in our society view science as supreme. They are idolaters.

We all start that way. We all worship something. The most common idol is SELF. People love to worship themselves. When you think of yourself above everything else, you are elevating yourself to the position of a god.

This worshiping of anything other than the creator God, is idolatry, and it’s the root of all our other sins. Sin is simply our disobedience to God’s good law. All our disobedience has its roots in our not worshiping God as supreme.

Scripture says we are all sinners

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

As sinners, disobedient and refusing to worship him as God, we are separated from God and hostile towards him

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. (Romans 8:7)

This is our native state since Adam and Eve sinned. We inherit our sin nature from our first parents (Romans 5:19) and are therefore “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3) deserving of God’s just punishment (Romans 6:23).

All men are therefore not to be considered children of God. Jesus said those who do not love him are children of Satan (John 8:42-47). In our natural state as sinners, we are enemies of God who belong to a different family. We are “alienated” as Paul puts it in Colossians 1:21. To be alienated means to be isolated from someone. In legal terms it means a “transfer of ownership to another person or group.” The “alienation of affections” is the transfer of our affections from one person to another. This results in broken relationships.

The point is, our initial relationship with God is hostile. We hate him, refuse to worship him, and deliberately disobey him.

2. Redeemed

This condition is in need of repair. As slaves (of sin) we had to be redeemed. The doctrine of redemption is woven throughout the Bible. Redemption is the act of regaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt. The price paid is referred to as the “ransom.” In the ancient world, if someone got themselves into large debt, they could sell their children into bondage to settle the debt. If they wanted their children back, they would have to redeem them by paying a ransom.

Since the price to be paid for sin is death, the ransom had to be a perfect sacrifice to atone (pay) for our sin. Jesus was that sacrifice.

For even the Son of Man came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

Now I want to be clear on this point. Jesus redeemed us by paying the ransom of his own life, in exchange for ours. What I want to be clear about is this. He redeemed us, rescued us, from the holy justice, judgment, and wrath of God.

Some people hear that a ransom had to be paid and assume that God was paying that ransom to someone else, most likely the devil. But that is simply not the case. As a holy, and perfect God of justice, God himself must judge and punish all sin.

It is because he is also perfectly merciful and loving, that he chose to sacrifice his own son in our place, to satisfy his own justice, so he could redeem us, show us mercy, without simply ignoring our sin. To do that, would not have been perfectly just. And so Christ died.

His death purchased our freedom from slavery to sin and death, and provides new life (Romans 8:2). This new life is called regeneration. Sometimes this is called “being born again.” It is an act of God to change our hearts, from hearts of rebellion and hostility toward him, to hearts of humility, willing to admit our need for a savior and look to him as Lord.

This regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit within us and occurs before saving faith. Because we are dead spiritually, we must be made alive spiritually so that we may respond to God’s call. That is why Paul writes

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved… (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Wayne Grudem puts it this way.

…we have defined regeneration to be the act of God awakening spiritual life within us, bringing us from spiritual death to spiritual life. On this definition, it is natural to understand that regeneration comes before saving faith. It is in fact this work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith. ¹

Once our sinful, rebellious heart is regenerated, we respond in faith. This simply means that we believe God. Not that we believe in God, but that we believe God. We believe him when he tells us that he loves us, and then we love him in response.

This act of faith is seen as the moment of salvation. But it is only the first step in our salvation. It is the moment of Justification, in which we are forgiven our sins and given right legal standing before God. This takes place at the moment of saving faith.

If you’ll remember from our study of Galations 5, we said that our justification is by faith alone, not by our work in trying to keep the law, but simply by believing Jesus. That is the big issue with legalism. Legalism says Jesus isn’t enough, you also have to become Jewish, or you also have to be baptized, or you also have to speak in tongues, or you also have to…

NO! Scripture says that won’t work. You can’t earn it yourself, by some action or behavior. Jesus earned it for you. All you have to do is believe God when he said that Jesus was his Son, sent into the world to live a perfect life and die a perfect death, to pay the penalty for your disobedience, that he was buried, that he was resurrected…and if you believe that, if you have faith in Jesus’ work for you, then you are justified. You are forgiven. You have right legal standing before God. He no longer sees your sins. He sees Jesus’ righteousness instead.

V4.4-5a

But it doesn’t stop there. That’s only just the beginning. It could have stopped there. But if it had…so what!? We talked about this a couple weeks ago on Wednesday night. We said that if the gospel stops with our forgiveness…so what? I’m forgiven. Great. Now what?

Thankfully, it doesn’t stop there.

…Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God… (1 Peter 3.18 ESV)

God’s rescue plan doesn’t stop with forgiveness and justification. He intends for us to be in relationship with him.

V4.5b

3. Adoption

Adoption is something bigger than regeneration and justification. Both of these are needed for adoption to be complete.

Regeneration has to do with our spiritual life within. Justification has to do with our standing before God’s law. But adoption has to do with our relationship with God as our Father, and in adoption we are given many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all eternity. ²

Adoption encompasses both regeneration and justification.

What does it mean then to be the adopted children of God? Let’s look back at our text.

GALATIANS 4:5b-7

Privileges of adoption

As adopted children, God is our father. This means we can approach him as a good and loving father who loves us, cares about us, and wants the best for us. The amazing thing is this. God adopted us when we were not the desirable children in the orphanage. We were the problem children, “sons of disobedience” Paul calls us. If we were God and went looking for a child to adopt, we wouldn’t adopt us. Praise be that God is more gracious and loving than we are!

God adopted us! He didn’t just rescue us. He made us part of his family. If you are a Christians, then God is your Father!

This means that our relationship to God is that of children to a father. We can learn then, from the example of how our Heavenly Father acts toward us, how we, as earthly fathers, ought to act toward our own children. The inverse also serves to instruct us. That is, we can learn about our relationship to God as a father, based on what we know from our relationships to our own earthly fathers, understanding, of course, that God is perfect and good, while our earthly fathers are flawed. Nonetheless, our earthly relationships are to be a picture of our heavenly relationship.

Here are five implications of this idea, that I would like us to look at.

1. God, as our father, will provide for his family
2. God, as our father, will protect his family
3. God, as our father, will discipline his children
4. God, as our father, knows what kind of adults he wants his children to grow up to become
5. God, as our father, gives us an inheritance

Now let’s briefly look at each of these five points, the last one being the one I want to spend the most time on.

1. God, as our father, will provide for his family

We see this in the words of both Jesus and Paul. Perhaps one of the most well known Scripture verses is one in which Paul reminds us of God’s gracious provision.

Phil 4.19

Jesus takes more time to develop the idea.

Matt 6.25-33

This is not license to be lazy. In Proverbs we are told to consider the ant, who does gather and save for the winter (Prov 6:6-8). Paul tells us elsewhere that we are to work or we won’t eat. (2 Thes 3:10-12)

As earthly fathers, we should take a cue from our heavenly father, and provide for the needs of our family. But we are to understand that even while we work to provide for our family, it is God who provides for us, that

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1.17 ESV)

2. God, as our father, will protect his family

We see clearly in the Psalms that God’s children look to him for protection.

Ps. 31.1-5

What exactly is it, that he protects us from? We know that God’s people have often suffered horrible persecution from his foes. They have been imprisoned, fed to lions, burned at the stake, beheaded, beaten, and worse.

So how is it that God protects us? Who/what is he protecting us from?

1 John 5.18

He protects us from the enemy of our souls. Often God does protect his children from physical danger, but he is chiefly concerned with the safety of our souls.

We learn from this that while we, as earthly fathers, should do what we can to protect our families from physical harm, our main concern should be with the safety of their souls. We are to concern ourselves with making sure that our wives and children know and believe God. We are to protect them spiritually from unbiblical teaching. We are to look for those things in their lives that would alienate their affections from God, and then remove those things, shepherd them away from sin, and see that their affections are firmly fixed on Christ.

3. God, as our father, will discipline his children

A father who truly loves his children disciplines them. This isn’t something that we humans came up with. We didn’t invent loving discipline. God did.

Revelation 3.19

Because God loves us, he corrects and disciplines us, just like we correct and discipline our own children. Scripture contains many examples of this, but perhaps the definitive passage on this subject is

Hebrews 12.5-11

God loves us enough to discipline us, because that discipline will result in our becoming like him,

…that we may share his holiness…it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

This leads directly to our next point.

4. God, as our father, knows the kind of adults he wants his children to grow up to be

All healthy, living things grow. If you’re not “growing up” spiritually, then you’re either very sick, or your not living, which means you’re still dead in your sins and not one of God’s children.

But if you are God’s child, then he corrects and disciplines you, and causes you to grow. His desire is that we grow up into Christ. That is why he has provided us with pastors and teachers.

Ephesians 4:11-15

Elsewhere Paul says his aim is to produce mature Christians.

Colossians 1:28

What this means, is that we are to become like Jesus. This is God’s plan for us.

Romans 8:29

…conformed to the image of his Son…

We are to act like, and look like, our older brother, Jesus. Ultimately he did only those things he saw the Father doing.

John 5:19

This means we are to act like our Father. Isn’t this what kids do? Haddie does. She imitates Lauren and I. Sometimes it’s scary. It’s a real reminder to us to be careful what we say, and how we act, because she’s listening and watching, and she’s going to do and say the things she hears us doing and saying.

Consider this passage from 1 Peter.

1 Peter 1:14-22

This process of becoming more Christ-like, becoming holy as God is holy, is the process we often call sanctification. It is God training his children to be like him. It’s what all parents do, whether they know it or not.

Strive to be like your heavenly father, and to set a good example to your earthly children, even to your younger brothers and sisters in Christ. New Christians often look to more mature Christians to learn what it looks like to behave like Christ. We’re not always the best example. Much better to go to the Scripture and imitate Jesus. But Paul was brave enough tell the Corinthians to

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)

Are any of you that confident in your own imitation of Christ, that you would encourage other believers to follow your example? Your own children, fathers?

5. God, as our father, gives us an inheritance

Finally, as God’s children, we are treated to the full privileges of the household. Our text tells us we have become heirs.

GALATIANS 4:7

We have an inheritance with Christ. So the question is this, what are we inheriting? Jesus tells us.

Matt 25.34

We inherit the kingdom! But what does that mean?

First, it means the glorification of our physical bodies.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

Part of our inheritance is our being resurrected and glorified physically. Our bodies will be glorified in the sense of being imperishable, everlasting. We won’t just be spirits or ghosts floating around for eternity, we will have glorified physical bodies, even as Jesus does.

Second, it means we share in the administration of the kingdom.

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)

Once we depart this world, our work is not done. We will have work for eternity. Work in the kingdom of God. Work that will bring us joy, and show the glory of our Father.

Third, it means our sharing in Christ’s inheritance of all things

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

…all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

Fourth, it means our inhabiting the new heaven and new earth, in the presence of God for eternity.

Revelation 21:1-7

Such joy does not belong to those who are not God’s children. Look at the next verse.

Revelation 21:8

Those who are not God’s children do not inherit. They do not enjoy an everlasting relationship with God.

…because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

God didn’t just rescue you, he adopted you. Because you are sons, you have a real relationship with God, as your Father.

So on this Father’s Day, give honor to your earthly father. But more importantly I ask you, who’s son are you really? If you do not know God as your heavenly Father, then plead with him for mercy, beg him to regenerate your heart so you may behold his glory and come to him as an adopted child.

If you then know God as your Heavenly Father, then honor him, who in his unmerited love, adopted you into his household and gave you full rights as heirs with his only eternal son, Jesus Christ.

Honor your Father in heaven by living holy lives as he has commanded us to (Leviticus 20:7), in preparation for the time when he will complete our adoption by redeeming and glorifying our bodies and giving to us our eternal inheritance.

1. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan 1994), p. 702
2. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan 1994), p. 739

This morning we’re going to look at the Law, the two predominant errors Christians are prone to concerning the Law, why we, as Christians, should love it, and how it should inform our worship. I’ve titled this sermon, LEARNING TO LOVE THE LAW.

We’re going to dive into Galatians here in a minute, but first I want to do a quick review.

God is a being of perfect holiness, flawless nature, infinite power. God is eternally existent, knowing no beginning and no end. God creates the world, the universe as we know it. He creates mankind to inhabit this earth. The first humans, Adam and Eve, enjoy a close relationship with God for a time. But then they decide to rebel, to disobey their creator. This disobedience is known as sin, and it separates them from God. Their children, their children’s children, all of their descendants are born corrupted by that original disobedience. We are all born with disobedience to our creator as part of who we are. We typically refer to this as our sin nature. Scripture refers to mankind in that state as “sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2.2)

But God made a promise to Adam and Eve. He promised to fix it. He said he would send a savior as one of their offspring, who would restore men to right relationship with God.

Skip forward a handful of generations, and God speaks to a man named Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and promises that the savior will be born to his family. Abraham has a son named Isaac, Isaac has a son named Jacob, and a nation is born. Ethnic Israel comes into being in the family and descendants of Jacob.

Jacob’s 12 sons end up in Egypt. Their families grow, but they become slaves. After 400 years of slavery, God calls a man named Moses to lead this, now quite large, nation of people out of slavery and back to the land inhabited by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the way, God gives to this people further revelation of himself in the Law.

Moses is called the great lawgiver. Under the direct guidance of the Lord, Moses gives the people three sets of Law.

1. The Moral Law, or Ten Commandments – for how an individual should live
2. The Civil Law for how the nation should live
3. The Ceremonial Law for how people should relate to God

Now, as these people learn to live under these Laws, time goes by, they disobey in various ways, God sends them into captivity, returns them to the land after they repent, sets foreign powers over them, etc. And they develop a system of religion built around these laws, they develop their own laws about the laws, and beyond the laws of God.

Finally, the promised savior comes. God himself born in human flesh, as a man. His name is Jesus. He is the Christ. He lives a life of perfect obedience to God’s laws, but that didn’t look like what they thought it would look like. The laws Israel had manufactured on their own weren’t in accord with the Laws of God. So while Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the laws of God, he didn’t follow all the silly laws the Jewish people had invented.

At the end of his short life, men killed him for not obeying their laws. But they didn’t really have the authority to do that. In truth, it was God who killed him. He voluntarily died in our place because we didn’t obey God’s laws, and God’s perfect justice had to be satisfied. That was why he came. He died for us, traded his perfect life for our wretched one, and gave us what we don’t deserve, restored relationship with God for eternity. That is grace!

Now many of the Jews, the people of ethnic Israel understood what had happened and joyfully trusted in Jesus as their savior. Many did not though. They stayed bound in their system of law which leads only to death.

The ones who trusted in Jesus began to tell others, even those outside of ethnic Israel. That was God’s plan all along. Anyone, anywhere who trusted in Jesus became a child of the promise made to Abraham. The promise that God would bless all nations through Abraham’s offspring.

This new group of people who had faith in Jesus as their savior and God, were called Christians. As a whole, as a people, they were called the church. But even very early in the life of the church, God’s chosen people again began to do what the Jews had done generations before. They began to add their own regulations to God’s commands. We call this legalism, which simply means they were relying on their adherence to a set of laws rather than faith in Jesus for their right standing before God.

So God appoints a man named Paul to be an Apostle, a leader in the church, to explain to his people how they are supposed to relate to him.

Galatians was written by Paul to the churches in the provence of Galatia to address some issues in the church, primarily the issue of legalism. Earlier in the letter, Paul addresses the issue of faith and justification, namely that men are justified, declared to be and viewed as righteous in the sight of God, only by faith in the finished work of Christ. You cannot EARN God’s favor. You cannot, by your own effort, please God. You cannot, by your adherence to some set of laws and regulations, establish your own righteousness so that you have right standing before God. To do that you would have to live a perfectly obedient life the way Jesus did. Paul tells the Christians in Galatia, that’s impossible.

Galatians 2:15-16, 21

Our right standing before God, our salvation from the due punishment for our sins, is found only through faith in Jesus Christ.

The apostle goes on to say that those who have faith are the true children of Abraham. That faith is what makes us children of the promises given to Abraham, not our ethnicity.

Galatians 3:7-9

After dealing with this issue of justification by faith alone, which by the way was the major issue of the reformation. This was, and still is, the largest difference between protestants and catholics. After dealing with that, Paul moves on to address the specific practice that was occurring in the churches in Galatia, the specific legalism they were engaging in. Which brings us to our text for today, Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5

Simply put here’s the situation. The churches in the region of Galatia are largely gentile. The members of these churches are not ethnically Jewish. They are gentiles, like we are. But … there were some Jews there. These Jews came into the churches in the region and began insisting that the new Christians must be circumcised. Now, Paul had Timothy circumcised for missional/contextual reasons. He wanted Timothy to be accepted by the Jewish community who weren’t Christians, so he could effectively witness to them about Christ.

What these men in Galatia were doing was completely different. They were teaching that you couldn’t be accepted by God unless you had obeyed this law. We call this sort of behavior legalism. Paul says to them

Galatians 5:2-4

Paul says that this Jesus + thing isn’t going to work. You can’t have Jesus plus your own righteousness (by keeping certain rules). Jesus is useless to you if you’re going to try and keep a set of rules to be seen as righteous by God. If you’re going to do it that way, you’re going to have to do it without Jesus.

Here’s the point I want us to see. We think that we’re beyond this today, but we’re not. We may not be insisting on circumcision, but we maintain our own version of Jesus +. Let me explain.

What these Jews were saying was that in order to become a Christian, you first had to become Jewish. They wanted these new gentile converts to Christianity to convert to the Jewish culture as well. As if the two were somehow equal. In their minds to be Christian meant you had become Jewish. They didn’t realize that in Christ you gain a whole new culture, a whole new ethnicity.

Ethnicity includes factors such as: language, nationality, culture, and religion. Once a person becomes a Christian, most of that changes.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Col 3.11)

Unity with Christ breaks every barrier between men except that of language. Our citizenship is now in the heavenly Kingdom, our culture is now that of Christ, and our religion consists of the worship of the one true God. Only language separates us…and languages can be learned!

Christianity is its own unique, heavenly ethnicity. It’s not bound up with an earthly one. These Jews thought it was. They thought it was bound up with being Jewish, to the point that you had to be Jewish to be Christian. To be Christian meant you were Jewish.

Fast forward 250 years to the time of Constantine. The Roman Empire has expanded to include most of the known world. It goes from Africa to England, from Spain to the far east. At this time there were three kinds of people in the world: Romans, inner barbarians, and outer barbarians. The distinction between inner and outer barbarians was exactly what it sounds like. An outer barbarian was a non-Roman, living outside the lands controlled by the empire. An inner barbarian was someone who wasn’t actually “Roman” in cultural heritage, but who lived within the territorial boundaries of the Roman Empire.

You see, the problem was, the Roman army moved much quicker and accomplished conquest much faster, than did the Roman culture. Many lands came under Roman military control, but didn’t adopt the culture of Rome. The citizens of these lands were inner barbarians. Constantine himself was one of these. He was from an area we know today as Serbia.

As emperor, he looked for a way to galvanize the people of his empire, to forge them into one coherent people group, and he found his solution in Christianity. By making Christianity the official state religion, he could unify various people groups who had previously been segregated from one another on the basis of religious belief. And so it came to be over time, that to become Roman…you had to become Christian. This meant you shared the religion of Rome, and as the religion was central to, and bound up with the culture, this meant you, in some large degree, shared the culture of Rome.

What happened over time though, was that people began to believe the equation worked in reverse as well. That is, to become Christian, you had to become Roman.

And so, in the early fifth century, that is around 400 AD, roughly one … maybe two generations after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, along comes a young man determined to take Christianity to a people group living outside the control of the Roman Empire, and it was a scandal.

St. Patrick (100 years after Constantine)

Before Patrick, Christianity had never spread in any significant way outside the Roman Empire. Ireland was the first country ever to submit to the teachings of Christ without first submitting to the sword of Rome.

…even as he brought the gospel of Christ to bear on the Irish, Patrick left their Irishness intact. The Irish didn’t have to become Roman in order to become Christian; that may seem obvious from where we sit, but it wasn’t at all obvious in Patrick’s time. His was a renewed vision of what it means to be a follower of Christ: just as the apostle Paul brought Christianity out from under the umbrella of Jewish culture, Patrick demonstrated that Christianity was bigger than the Roman Empire.

And that was no easy task. ¹

Patrick was an outcast from the Roman church of his day. He was constantly at odds with his fellow churchmen back in the “civilized” world, who criticized him and accused him of all kinds of things. In fact, most of what we know for sure about Patrick comes from two letters he wrote, one defending himself from these accusations, and the second making some accusations of his own against “Roman Christians.”

You see, the situation was the same as that the Apostle Paul faced in the churches of Galatia. In Galatia they thought you had to become Jewish, to become Christian. In Patrick’s day they thought you had to become Roman, to become Christian.

Fast forward about 1,400 years and the Roman Empire is no more. The dominant empire of the day was the British Empire, and again Christianity had been adopted as the official state religion, and again people had come to equate Christianity with Englishness.

A young man, a doctor by training and profession, a missionary by calling, leaves his native England and goes to China with the good news of Jesus. There he finds the Chinese people resistant to his efforts … until he adopts their native dress and culture, as much as a Christian could adopt it that is.

Hudson Taylor saw incredible success for the gospel in China, more so than any missionary effort before or since outside the efforts of the Apostle Paul himself. Yet he was opposed by those in England who criticized him for not requiring the Chinese to adopt English culture, for indeed adopting theirs instead.

Again, they thought you had to become English to be a Christian.

My point is, and I want us to see this. It is quite common for those who are brought up inside the faith, and also inside a very strong culture, to assume that the two are necessarily bound together.

Do we make this same mistake? I think maybe we do. Not so much with the culture of America, at least not now … maybe at one time, but now with the culture of American Christianity. Yes, there is a Christian culture in this country that listens to a particular type of music, to certain radio stations, that reads certain books, that has a particular dress code, and even its own language … Christianese. Often times we end up just like the Jews in Paul’s day, the Romans in Patrick’s day, or the English in Hudson Taylor’s day, trying to convert people to our culture rather than to our savior! Insisting that to be Christian, they must conform to our cultural standards, when in reality, they must conform only to Christ!

This is the first error we must avoid. The error of legalism, of cultural conformity, of viewing the Law as something we dictate and enforce on others and ourselves.

Remember, I said earlier that legalism is relying on adherence to a set of laws and regulations (mostly man made), rather than faith in Jesus for right standing before God.

Listen to what Paul says here in verses 4-5.

Galatians 5:4-5

If you accept legalism, you’ve lost grace. You’re trying to justify yourself apart from Christ. But Paul says that we await the HOPE of righteousness. We aren’t righteous in and of ourselves, we can’t be. Our hope for righteousness is found only by having faith in the righteousness of Christ being given to us in exchange for our sinfulness.

We sometimes view legalism as hyper obedience to the law, but that’s not what it is.

Galatians 5:7

Paul says that legalism is disobedience. It is disobedience to the truth, the truth of the gospel. That’s why he says

Galatians 5:11

Preaching legalism removes the offensive nature of the cross, which says “You’re so wicked you can’t save yourself.” That’s why it’s so attractive. It appeals to our pride. But it is offensive to God, it’s disobedience to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Legalism is the first error we must avoid in our relationship with the Law.

The second error is the opposite of the first. That’s what the second half of Galatians 5 is about.

Galatians 5:13

Some Christians disobey the truth of the gospel by engaging in legalism. Others do the opposite. They take their freedom in Christ to mean they can get away with disobeying God’s law, living anyway they please, and being forgiven for it.

They say, “I don’t have to do anything. Jesus paid it all. I’m not under the law, I’m under grace. When Jesus was on the cross, he said, ‘It is finished.’”

Galatians 5:16-21

Paul is saying you can’t just live like this. You can’t be a Christian and engage in these things in an unrepentant way, as a lifestyle. He says if you do that you won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Think about that a minute. Who inherits? The children. Paul is saying that if a person claims to be a Christian, but lives a continuously unrepentant lifestyle in any of these areas, he’s not a child of the king! And if he’s not a child of the king, then he’s still in disobedience to Christ. You see, legalism is disobedience to the truth of the gospel, but so is license.

Legalism is disobedience to the truth that you are so wicked you can’t save yourself.

License is disobedience to the truth that you have been bought with a price, you are no longer your own. You can no longer be enslaved to sin.

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6.16-18)

In other passages we’re told that we are now slaves of God (Rom 6.22), that we are to take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 oCr 10.5), that we are to obey the gospel (2 Thess 1.8), that we are to obey God’s commandments (1 John 5.2).

That doesn’t sound like we are free to ignore the Law.

License is not a person who struggles with sin. It is a person who claims a right to sin as freedom from the law. The trouble is, that person has become obedient to sin, disobedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and therefore severed from Christ the same as the legalist.

Legalism and license end up in the same place, disobedient to the gospel and under the law for judgment.

So someone who says, “I’m free to do this because I’m not under the law, I’m under grace.” Is quite probably placing themselves back under the Law!

So what are we to do? What is our relationship to the Law, as Christians? We aren’t to try to keep it as a means of earning favor with God, that’s just disobedience. Yet we can’t ignore it, we’re commanded to obey it!

Here’s the solution. Learn to LOVE the Law.

Consider this, from Psalm 1

Psalm 1:1-2

Blessed is the man who delights in, and meditates on, the Law!

Or what about

Psalm 19:7-11

And so it continues throughout the Psalms. Any time the writers mention the law, it is in this way. And eventually you come to what may be the least read Psalm, mostly due to the daunting length of it, Psalm 119. It is a unique Psalm because of it’s length, but also because of it’s single-minded focus on the law. Consider these verses.

1, 18, 20, 29, 35, 40, 47-48, 60, 69-70, 72, 77, 92, 97, 113, 127, 136, 143, 163-164, 174

So I want to ask you this morning, do you have the mind and heart of David? Do you love the law? Are you heartbroken when you see people not keeping the law? Do you delight in the commandments?

And lest you think this is something that is restricted to the Old Testament. Consider these words of the Apostle Paul himself.

Paul says in Romans 7.12 that

…the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

And then a few verses later he says this

…I delight in the law of God, in my inner being. (Romans 7.22)

So it seems it would be right, and correct, for us as God’s people, saved by Grace, to delight in and love the Law of God.

Now back at the beginning, I mentioned that there were three categories of Law given by Moses to the people.

1. The Moral Law, or Ten Commandments – for how an individual should live
2. The Civil Law for how the nation should live
3. The Ceremonial Law for how people should relate to God

Most of us would probably be quick to say that if we’re going to love the law, it should be the moral law, the Ten Commandments, that we love. That we can’t enforce the Civil Law on people because we don’t live in a theistic society, and that the Ceremonial Law is no longer valid because of Christ.

I want to propose this morning that may be too easy of an answer. We would need to ask and answer the question, “When Paul says Law, is he referring to the whole law, or only to one of these categories?”

That would be a lengthy and involved study on it’s own, and the answer might not be uniformly the same from one passage to the next. I want to suggest that we take it as the whole of the Law. Remember that Jesus said,

“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 from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5.17–18 ESV)

By “the Law” and “the Prophets” Jesus means the entirety of Old Testament scripture. He’s saying that they have not passed away, or been abolished, but simply fulfilled in him. We’re going to talk more about that in a minute, but for now just remember that when I say we should love the Law, I mean all of it.

I’m going to give you three reasons why we should love the Law.

1. In the law we have divine revelation

Scripture itself tells us that the very creation testifies to us of the Creator, so that we are without excuse, even in the absence of the written Law. However, we should love the Law because it is God’s specific written revelation of himself to us. In the Law we learn about the nature of God himself. The Law is a reflection of his character, his personality, who he is, and who he would have us to be.

In the Law we learn that God is just. This is why sin must be judged. We also learn that God is loving. This is why there are provisions made for our reconciliation. Above all we learn that God is holy. His justice is holy, his love is holy. God is unlike any other being, he is separate from creation. He is holy.

We also learn through the Law who God would have us be. What kind of people he wants to be. How we should live. And not just generally, but specifically. He tells us what kind of lives and behavior he wants from us, in very specific ways.

We learn from the Moral Law, how we are to relate to God, worshipping only him, making no idols, not taking his name in vain, and setting aside one day a week for the special purpose of worshipping him and resting from our work.

We also learn from the Moral Law how we are to relate to others, honoring our parents, respecting life, being faithful to our spouse, not stealing another’s property, not lying, and not coveting what doesn’t belong to us.

Jesus expounded and explained these, raising the bar, and eliminating our sinful tendency to attempt to get away with as little as possible.

From the Civil Law, we learn more specifically how God expects us to behave toward our fellow man. We aren’t left to wonder, what should happen if we fail to keep the Moral Law toward one another, he tells us. Many of the original laws of this country were derived from the Civil Law found in the Old Testament. Most importantly, these laws continue to teach us about the character of God. We learn about his compassionate heart for the downtrodden, his sense of justice and restoration.

The Ceremonial Law is the same. It reveals God to us. It shows us his holiness, his righteousness, his holy justice, and his holy love, which can pardon our sin by an acceptable sacrifice.

We should love the Law, in all its forms, because it reveals to us who God is.

2. Through the law we uncover our sin

This is the second reason we should love the Law. It exposes and reveals our sinfulness. The law doesn’t just reveal the nature of God to us. The picture it gives us of God’s holiness, is held up as a mirror, reflecting the disparity between God’s holiness and our own disobedience and failure.

The Moral Law does this by exposing our sinful motives and attitudes. The Civil Law does this by exposing our wrong actions in society, and prescribing appropriate justice. The Ceremonial Law does this by highlighting our inadequacy and sinfulness by giving directives for sacrificial substitutes. The horrors of the bloody sacrificial system, highlight the seriousness of our sin and offense against a holy God.

Joe Thorn, pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Chicago, said this:

As we have broken the law, it breaks us. The law is used by God to afflict our conscience so that we feel the weight of our guiltiness. And this is a reason to love the law, as it can eventually destroy our pride and any confidence we put in our ability to measure up to God’s standards. ²

3. By the law we are led to Christ

The final reason I’ll give you to love the Law, is that it leads us to Christ. First it reveals God to us, along with his desire for us. Then it exposes our failures and disobedience. Together, these two steps should lead us to recognize our utter inability to please God, and our complete dependence on his mercy and grace.

We must first hear, understand, and even be terrified by, this bad news, before the good news of Jesus will mean anything to us.

Yet, without the good news, the Law would not be lovable. Without Christ, we could not love a holy God. Without Christ we could not take joy in the exposure of our disobedience and failures. Instead we would hate God.

Martin Luther is famous for once having responded to the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” by saying, “Love God? Sometimes I hate him!”

Without Christ, that would consistently be our only response to the Law. But thanks to Christ, we can learn to love it. We should love the law because it not only reveals our need for Christ, but also points us to him.

The Moral Law points us to Christ, as the only one to have ever kept it perfectly. In this he is our example, and our benefactor, since he imparts to us his perfect keeping of the Law, to act as our righteousness. He is our perfect Prophet, not only speaking the words of God, but keeping them for us.

The Civil Law points us to Christ as our righteous King. The Law dictated the governance of an imperfect society in a fallen world, but shows us by contrast and example what life will be like when King Jesus finally establishes his perfect and everlasting kingdom.

And the Ceremonial Law, the one we are quickest to ignore as Christians, most clearly points us to Jesus as our High Priest, and God’s sacrificial lamb substituted in our place once and for all. We should love the Ceremonial Law of Leviticus for it’s clarity in pointing us to Christ, the Lamb of God. If you struggle with loving Leviticus, may I suggest you read it in tandem with the book of Hebrews, which, in many ways, serves as a New Testament commentary on Leviticus.

So I ask you, what is your relationship to God’s Law? Do you hate it? Do you fear it? Do you strive to keep it in legalism? Do you ignore it in license? Or do you love it, as one who has seen the law kept and fulfilled by Christ, had your sins forgiven, and been restored to God through the power of the gospel.

Can you say with David and Paul that the Law is your delight?

You can only say that if Jesus is your hope. Only in Christ does the law become a delight and not an agent of condemnation and judgment.

Christian, learn to love the law because it reveals God to you, helps eradicate your sin as a barrier between you and God, and keeps you focused on Christ.

In this way, the Law informs, guides, and impassions our worship.

¹ Saint Patrick, Jonathan Rogers (Introduction, p. xv-xvi)

² The comes from a short article Thorn wrote at theresurgence.com, which also served as the inspiration for much of this sermon.