In his sermon, 'Six Purposes of the Law of God,' Scott Brown explores the role and significance of God's law through an exegesis of Romans 7:7-14. He emphasizes that the law is not sinful but is an instrument to reveal sin and drive believers to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The law teaches us how to live, love, and recognize our need for Christ. Brown outlines six purposes of the law: it reveals sin, incites self-righteousness, is holy, just, good, and spiritual. He stresses the importance of understanding these purposes, especially in our lawless age, and warns against the misinterpretation and neglect of God's law. Brown also discusses the need for Christians to teach their children the law, use it in evangelism, and understand its application in various aspects of life, including the civil realm. He concludes by affirming the law's role in exposing our need for salvation and the grace offered through Jesus Christ.

And find verse one, or verse seven. That's where we'll begin reading. And we'll be reading up until verse 14. Romans seven, verse seven. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire.

For apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment which was to bring life I found to bring death for sin taking opportunity taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. Therefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not, but sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, I pray you would take these words and make this congregation mighty in the scriptures, mighty in faith, mighty in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, mighty in obedience to all of your laws, which are all laws of love. All of them are good. Lord, I pray that you would instruct us in the way that you have designed the law to operate in our lives and that we would find ourselves loving it like David did.

Amen. Please be seated. We're living in a lawless age. Lawlessness rules in the homes, lawlessness rules in the church, lawlessness rules in our government, in Hollywood, at Apple, at Google, at Facebook. The music industry is catechizing the world in lawlessness.

The film industry is catechizing the world in worldliness. The political industrial complex is catechizing the world in moral compromise. And when you're scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, you're being catechized. When you're listening to Spotify, watching Netflix, or participating at a concert, you're being catechized. But who is catechizing you?

Is it the law of God? Is it by lawfulness or by lawlessness? Is it by the holiness of Jesus Christ or is it of the worldliness of the world? And yet God has given us a way to know whether the catechisms are good or whether they're evil for us. How can you know anything about what to do or who to listen to or whom to follow or what to watch.

How should we use the law of God in everyday life? And in these verses, you find a truth that the law of God was given to us to show us our sin and finally to drive us to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And we find in these verses that the law teaches you how to live, It teaches you how to love, and it teaches you that your only hope is in Jesus Christ. And so how should we view the law? This passage speaks of it, comes to our aid, really to rescue us from various patterns of thinking and patterns of living, of matters of worldliness and compromise, and I wanna give you six purposes of the law from this passage, but we are really gonna camp on the first one.

But I want you to see what the passage teaches about the law. It's very important that the church understand what the Bible says about the law of God because we live in a world that is a lawless world. Evangelicalism has become very lawless as well, all around us. And you find that even evangelicals appreciate the sufficiency of culture over the sufficiency of scripture. They reject the way that God has regulated worship.

And so it's important that we understand what the law of God is really all about. The six purposes of the law, I'll just read them. You have an outline in front of you. You can see them with your own eyes. First of all, the law reveals sin.

That's verse seven. Second, the law incites my self-righteousness. It shows it to me, slap in the face. Third, the law is holy, that's verse 12. Fourth, the law is just, that's verse 12.

Fifth, the law is good, that's verse 12. And then sixth, the law is spiritual. Now in the coming messages we'll be unpacking these various elements of the law. I said at the beginning of our preaching in the book of Romans that we're gonna get an advanced degree on the law of God and the Apostle Paul is here to give it to us. And we're going to be answering very various questions.

You know, questions. What is the law of God? Does the gospel abrogate the law of God? Does the law have use for the new covenant Christian? What is the difference between the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law?

And So we'll be walking through the various answers to these questions in the coming times as we're in Romans chapter seven and in Romans chapter eight. I like what Martin Luther said about the law. He said, the person who's able to distinguish between the law and the gospel is truly a happy man. John Newton said that the the bottom of most religious problems and I would just add problems of lifestyle and discernment are a result of misunderstanding the law and the gospel. And I hope that as we progress in these studies in the law through Romans seven and eight, that our hearts will say what David said.

The law of the Lord is perfect, Converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure. Making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. That we would say the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

And we would say, Lord, I desire them more than gold, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. And he admitted by them, thy servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward." And then he asks the question, who can understand his errors? And then he says, Lord cleanse me from secret faults, which has such a tie to our text, our verses here this morning. Secret faults. So that we would have the same heart as David when he said, oh how I love thy law, it's my meditation all the day.

People have a very bad attitude often toward the law of God but it's the sweetest and most helpful thing that you can have if you use it rightly, which is why Paul said to Timothy, the law's good if one uses it rightly. Let's be a church that uses the law of God rightly. So that's what this is all about. And what you find here in verse seven, particularly, is the fundamental principle out of which much of what's written in Romans seven is all about and that is that the law of God was given to us for a very specific reason, and that is to expose lawlessness. We need our lawlessness exposed, and so the law is here.

And we find that those who love the law and keep the law are blessed. The Bible says that, but you can see that all around. Isaiah said that God will exalt the law, God will make it honorable. In other words, you'll be able to look around and you'll see what happens to the lawbreakers and it'll tell you what's going on. And you can look around and see those who love the law and what happens.

What happens in their life. What happens in their heart and their relationships and their work and their church and their family. You can see it when there's love for the law of God. You know, I just, this morning I was reading in Nehemiah chapter nine, where Nehemiah's diagnosing the problems of the nation, and he said, they threw the law behind their back. They put it behind them.

And that was such a means of of their destruction. And so believers should not throw the law behind their back. They should love it as David did. So just I want to bring us back to the context of what we've been dealing with in Romans. In Romans chapter 6, the previous chapter, the Apostle Paul has been defending the grace of God.

In chapter seven, he's defending the law of God. It's very clear that he's doing both of these things. Chapter six, Of course, it affirms everything that the apostle has been teaching about justification. And he's saying here that God justifies the ungodly by faith apart from the works of the law. The keeping of the law is not a means of salvation.

In verse 20 in chapter three, therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. For by the law is knowledge of sin." And he's, Paul's going to talk about that in chapter seven, verse seven right here in this verse. And that we, sin for the believer, sin does not have dominion over you because you're under grace, not under law. In other words, you're under the cascading grace of God through the Holy Spirit. You're under grace, you live under grace, a constant cascade of cleansing and help from heaven, the filling of the Holy Spirit, all of these wonderful things.

And so now when we turn to chapter seven, the Apostle Paul is answering questions that almost anyone would raise. So does the law not mean anything? Do we just set aside the law of God since we're not under law but under grace? What do we do with the law? Does that mean that I should ignore the law of God?

Does that mean that I should think poorly of the law of God. And so he now turns to chapter seven to defend the law of God. And the word law appears 20 times in this chapter. The word commandment appears six times just in the verses that are in front of us now. But God has given laws.

It's very interesting. Our government seems to think that we need a lot more laws than God does. Congress, I read the other day that Congress generates 758 new laws every year. In the Old Testament, there's 613. And I understand that the Lord Jesus Christ issued about a thousand different commandments.

All of them are good. But God seems to think that the government of man needs fewer laws than our federal government It's very interesting But in chapter 7 we see something and I want us to get this very clearly in our minds that the Bible will not let you separate salvation from obedience. Man is not saved by obedience, but the Bible doesn't let you separate salvation from obedience. The whole New Testament and Old Testament books of the Bible are actually dedicated to speaking this message. Ernest Reisinger writing on the law, he says the laws of God, each the law and the gospel, each is meant to serve and establish the other.

And of course, that idea is supported in the great confessions of the faith, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Baptist Confession of 1689, the Heidelberg Catechism, all embrace that idea. You know, by the way, if you wanna read something really concise about the law of God and some of the difficulties in using the law of God. Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon called the perpetuity of the law of God. Just Google that. The perpetuity of the law of God, Charles Spurgeon, and one of his sermons will come up, and it's just a very clear declaration.

Now, I want to say that the believer is always happiest when he's under the consultation of the law and he is also happiest when he is out from under the condemnation of the law. Because the law is designed to be a consultant And the gospel is designed to give relief from the condemnation of the law, for no one ever kept the law perfectly. And when we think about the law, we should be very careful to understand that Jesus Christ kept every law. Jesus Christ kept every law because he loved every law. The most perfect man delighted in the law of God, such that he kept every one of them.

And all of his disciples ought to be the same, to delight in the law of God. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus Christ kept every law that we could not keep. He is the law keeper and he is also the law giver. So With that being said, there's another matter of introduction of this chapter, and I don't know if you've noticed it yet, but Paul is actually giving his own personal testimony. He's telling us his experience with the law of God, what the law of God has done with him in his life.

And so he's using personal pronouns. Notice he's using I in me. He's actually giving us his personal testimony in chapter seven. And he's actually giving us the backdrop of how the law of God was his tutor to lead him to salvation. How the law of God came in and instructed him what was going on in the depths of his heart, not just in the outward life that he had as a law keeper, but what was going on underneath, and we'll get to that in a minute.

So we're beginning this journey through the various purposes of the law. We'll be camping on verse 7. And the first purpose of the law is to reveal sin. Verse 7. What shall we say then?

Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. Is the law sin?

He says, certainly not. It's the strongest, most emphatic no in the Bible. S. Lewis Johnson says it should be translated, are you crazy? No.

No, it's not sin. Rather, the law is an instrument to reveal sin. And let me just tell you something. You think about the Ten Commandments. Every single one of the Ten commandments is the general principle, the summary principle of every sin that you'll ever commit.

All ten of them describe the various sins. Now those are said in summary form. The book of Deuteronomy unpacks those and gives various case laws to explain what all of those mean in real life. But every single commandment is there to inform us for every single thing we do in life. Every conversation, every engagement with a person, everything we look at, everything we hear, the Ten Commandments are our tutor.

And you can run through them in your own mind. You should teach your children the Ten Commandments. It'd be very good to help them recite it. Not just so that they'll become these little wooden, you know, tape recorders, you know. But so that they really understand the foundation of their life.

Because every law of God speaks to every part of life. And we'll see that the language makes that very clear. That's why, and we'll get to this later, the law is spiritual. It's not wood and it goes into the deepest parts of your heart. So the law is not sin.

It rather exposes sin. It's an instrument to reveal it to us so that we would turn away from it. And The law is an instructor. It shows us where we are ignorant. It's very common that a new Christian will do things out of ignorance, where after 10 or 15 years of walking with the Lord, they would never do that.

So the law comes and it exposes your ignorance. And This is why you should saturate your mind with the word of God so that your ignorance begins to drop away. It's actually good for you to know what your sin is. It's, Have you noticed this? Paul says, I would not have known sin.

You know, so there are two things. Paul is giving his personal experiential knowledge. He wouldn't have known, but as a result, he now knows, I would not have known. And it was known sin. He had a personal encounter with his own sin.

The law gave him that personal encounter. And of course the law discloses God's righteousness. The law discloses God's standards for his creatures. And that's why the Apostle Paul, way back in chapter 3 verse 20, he said, through the law comes the knowledge of sin. We're being taught here that it's good for us to know our sin, to know what I'm doing, whether it's right or wrong.

And so the law comes to us to show us how we're thinking or what we're doing. That's the purpose of the law. Now on the road to Damascus the Apostle Paul met the law of God. He met the accuser of his soul. And he was kicking against the goats.

He was outwardly keeping the law. But the law kept poking at him and revealing to him that he never really kept the law the way that he should. And that's why the apostle says, I saw my covetousness. Isn't it interesting that he uses the tenth commandment to explain to us what exposed him? The tenth commandment is thou shalt not covet.

The tenth commandment is a secret sin. No one knows whether you're coveting or not. It's something of the heart. It's something that you know. It's something deeper than your outward manifestations of your behavior.

Coveting, like two people can do the same thing. One could be out of love, and the other could be out of coveting. People could say the same thing, use the same words. One could be out of coveting and the other could be out of love. So the apostle Paul, I believe, I think and so many people think this is not new with me, think that when he says I knew, I understood coveting.

I understood the 10th commandment. I think he's saying it occurred to me that the law was spiritual, and that it unraveled every part of me, that the law touched every part of my life, everything. And he realized on the Damascus road that he never really kept the law of God in his heart. He did keep the outward manifestations of the law. He celebrated the Sabbath.

He didn't kill anybody except for a few people. Christians. Charles Spurgeon says, if men do not understand the law, they will not feel they are sinners. And if they're not consciously sinners, they will never value the sin offering. He said there's no healing for a man till the law has wounded him.

No making him alive until the law has slain him. And this is one of the purposes of the law, to make known our sin. And yet, what we want to do is to silence the law. You know, most of you have smoke alarms in your house. And it's one o'clock in the morning, and it starts beeping.

It's not going off, It's not detecting smoke, but it needs a battery. So you go and you get out of bed, you stagger over there, you get up on a ladder, you're still half asleep, and you take that thing out. And you just silence it. You just want to silence that thing. And then you go back to bed.

That's how we often operate with the law. Yes, we hear it, it's a little annoyance in the background, but we just twist it and take the smoke alarm off and take it down and then maybe six months later we might replace the battery. But we often act like that with the law. It's beeping, but we just keep doing our own thing. And the apostle, he says, I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you should, shall not covet.

Coveting is something that's different than the other laws. The other Ten Commandments are very different. You can actually see them, but coveting you can't see. I once heard a man tell a story of two husbands. I think it illustrates this.

Both husbands on their anniversary brought beautiful bouquets of flowers to their wives. Oh, they were beautiful. So luxurious, both of them just astonishing. Would make any wife feel so thankful to have such a husband. And yet one of the wives knew that her husband was cheating on him.

And so she despised the flowers. Two actions, the very same two actions, both brought beautiful flowers but there was a secret sin. And that's what the Apostle Paul is driving at, that that the law gets into your secret sins. The law is spiritual, it goes deep. It's not wooden, it's not as simple enough to say, well I didn't kill anybody today.

No, Jesus says if you hate your brother, it's murder, If you look on a woman to lust after her, it's like committing adultery. The law is spiritual, it goes deep. It's meant to actually go deeper than just the outward manifestation of the law and that's what the apostle Paul discovered And I think most likely on the Damascus road. So, the apostle was shocked at the depth of the law at that moment. God revealed it to him that while he kept the law outwardly, he did not love the law inwardly.

The law showed him his sin. The law of coveting showed him his sin. Here's another illustration. It's a very contemporary kind of situation. Let's talk about the matter of same-sex attraction, okay?

We've been hearing evangelicals, many evangelicals, saying that you can have homosexual desires, but it's not sin unless you act on it. That's what they're saying. And they're saying that there's a difference between attraction and the act. And they're saying it's not sinful to be attracted. It's only sinful to engage in the act.

That's what they're saying. Many mainstream evangelicals are saying this. But the Bible says that lust is a desire within. And that's why you have in the Garden of Eden in Genesis three, what was it that tripped up Eve? It was her desire.

And what was the Lord Jesus speaking about in Matthew chapter seven? If you look at a woman to lust after her, if you're angry with your brother, if there's lustful intent, if there's anger in the heart, that's where the sin is. It isn't just in the outward act, it's in the inward desire. And that's why I read the other day that like one third of people who don't, who look at pornography, they don't feel guilty about it. They don't feel guilty about it because they haven't come to the realization that it's sinful to do that.

And the people who say, well, it's okay to have same-sex attraction as long as you don't do it. It's the same thing as saying, you know, I have desires for little children, I'm okay if I don't do it. I have desires for to be a pedophile but just because I don't do it it's not sin. No. No.

Sin goes deeper than that. Sin goes to the level of desires. Sin goes to the thoughts and the meditations of the heart. And all of those things are created by everything that we see and hear and do. And that's why William Perkins said that Jesus forbade the motion and inward inclination of the heart.

It's the inward inclination. And the law of God exposes that. That's exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying that what happened to him is that it was the command thou shalt not covet, which made him realize that the law was spiritual, that it went to every part of his life, nothing was untouched by it. Charles Hodge said it this way, just by summary, that the law, it cannot secure justification or sanctification of men, but it performs an essential part in the economy of salvation. Listen to this, it enlightens conscience and secures its verdict against a multitude of evils which we should not otherwise have recognized as sin.

And he says, before the gospel can be embraced as a means of deliverance from sin, we must feel we are involved in corruption and misery. That's the purpose of the law. John MacArthur says it this way. He says, counseling, therapy, and even strong willpower can modify a person's behavior. People may stop drinking by faithfully following the plan of Alcoholics Anonymous or stop lying and cheating by submitting a psychotherapy.

But only the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can take a sinful heart and make it pure and acceptable before God, and then he says this, the law's part in that transformation is to make a person aware of his sin and of his need for divine forgiveness and redemption and set the standard of moral, set the standard of acceptable morality. So the law was given to expose sin. Well that's the main point, and that really is sort of the one point I wanted to make this morning, particularly in a world that really despises the law of God. Now I wanna make some applications in the time that remains. First of all, the first application is that the law of God exposes sin in the civil realm.

Not just in the heart, not just in the home, not just in the church, not just in business, not just in Spotify, not just on Netflix, not just at the conference, at the concert. It exposes sin in the civil realm. And that's actually meaningful to all of us. Now, we have men in our church who are really concerned that there's gonna be a gay pride event in downtown Wake Forest this fall. And the reason that they are exercised about it is because of the law of God.

That's the only reason. Because the law of God exposes sin in the civil realm. And we should always get that straight. John, in 1 John 3, 4 says sin is lawlessness. And you have lawlessness in the civil realm.

And thankfully you have believers who use their voices and their positions of authority to wage war against the lawlessness. And it can be very, very costly to do such a thing. The second application is really sort of an interpretive application and I don't know if you have a if you have something to write with but there are a number of questions that you should ask about any law of God. I'm gonna give you nine questions. Nine questions to ask about any law of God to understand it.

First of all, what does this law reveal about the heart and the character and the nature of God? What does, because every law of God reveals the nature of God. Every law is good because God is good. The second question is what kind of law is it? Is it moral law?

Is it ceremonial law? Or is it judicial law? Because you find those three different kinds of laws. As we progress in our study, I'm going to walk through what all of that means. Our confession, the Westminster Confession and the Great Reform Catechisms, they all speak of this, how to understand which law you're dealing with.

And then the third question is, who is given the responsibility to carry it out? Because some laws are given the responsibility for the individual to carry out. Some are exercised in the family, and some are exercised in the state. Who's given the responsibility to carry out that law? The fourth question is how is it fulfilled in Christ?

How is it fulfilled in Christ? Later on, I'm expecting that we'll talk in some detail what it means that Christ is the end of the law. And How is it fulfilled in Christ? Later on, I'm expecting that we'll talk in some detail what it means that Christ is the end of the law. And how is it fulfilled in Christ?

We Don't have time to do that now, but we'll perhaps, we'll have time later. The fifth question, how does that law explain love? The Bible makes it really clear that every law of God is a law of love, every one of them. And if you don't love that law, it means that you don't know enough about love yet. Number six, how does it reveal sin in mankind?

Well, that's the point that we're dealing with in Romans 7-7. How does it reveal sin? And the seventh question is what is the applicability of the law in different situations? Because remember the law is spiritual. It goes to the heart in the same way that the word of God pierces the heart and it separates things, it makes things distinct.

And then the eighth question is what happens when this law is ignored? What happens when it's ignored in the family? What happens when this is ignored in the church? What happens when this law is ignored? What happens when it's ignored in the family?

What happens when this is ignored in the church? What happens when this law is ignored in the government? What happens when this law is ignored in the whole society of mankind? What happens when you ignore this law? And think of the Ten Commandments, every one of them.

What happens? What happens to people? And then the ninth question, the last question is how will this law be used by the Lord to transform me into the image of Jesus Christ? How will this make me more like Christ? The Lord Jesus Christ, who loved the law, who kept every law.

And as a result, he was the happiest of all the disciples. In Hebrews 1,9 we read of Jesus Christ, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. Jesus Christ was the happiest man because he hated lawlessness, which is so opposite of what the world thinks. Love lawlessness and you'll have a lot of fun.

Not so, love lawlessness and your life will be unraveled. Love the law and you'll be the happiest of all the disciples. So in this application, what questions should you ask about the law to understand what it means. And then the next application is related to the use of the law when you're witnessing to people. It's very important that we use the law of God to witness to people because the most important thing that they must realize is that they are hopelessly lost in condemnation, that the wrath of God rests upon them, that the wrath of God is against the wicked.

They need to understand that they are sinners. If they don't understand that they are sinners, they cannot be saved. And the problem we always run into is that everybody wants to divert us into what about evolution? Is God really sovereign? What about the climate?

What about creation? But the most important and the most fundamental thing that a person must understand is that they are sinners under the wrath of God. They have to know that they are sinners and the law of God reveals their sin. So it's very important that we cut to the chase and make it very clear who they really are before a holy God. The greatest problem in the world is that God is holy and man is not.

And what will God do and what can man do in order to be acceptable to God. And it's only the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's because there's only one who kept the whole law. And a person needs to know whether they are in Adam or are they in Christ. Are they a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness?

Are they of the light or of their darkness? Are they sheep or are they goats? That's what they need to understand. That's the most important thing. So The use of the law is critical because you are either married to Jesus Christ or you are married to the devil, as we've already seen in Romans.

So the law is used to identify what man needs to do to be saved. So use the law in evangelism. It's a really important application because it reveals sin. Here's another application. Teach the law to your children.

Well, you are teaching them laws. You're saying, do this, don't do that. You know, you'll get a spanking, you know. You are teaching your children laws. You should be, but kids need the law of God.

You are raising eternal souls that need to know the law of God. They need to understand what sin looks like from one to ten in the Ten Commandments. They need a tutor to bring them to Christ. They need to know what is holy, what is just, and what is good. They need to be convicted of sin.

They need to learn how to live. They need to learn how to govern their emotions and their outward behavior by the law of God. They need to know that, and you are, as parents, charged by God to teach them, and Teach them diligently as you sit in the house as you walk by the way as you lie down and when you rise up To teach them the law of God the statutes and the judgments. That's Deuteronomy 6 Their behavior needs to be modified by the law of God. I just saw this the other day.

A father said, don't touch that fence, it's hot. And I saw that little boy turn toward the fence, and then he turned away. Most regular boys would have just touched the fence right and gotten a lesson but all of your child raising challenges really really devolved down to the Ten Commandments, every one of them. Every behavior problem is found in the Ten Commandments. And that's why it's really important that you teach your children the Ten Commandments.

Not that they can be justified by it, but that they're shown their sin and they're shown how to walk and when they're talking back to you and dishonoring you if they're hitting you if they're rolling their eyes if they're stealing if they're hating their siblings, they need the law of God. It cannot save them. And then the next application is that all of us will stand before God to give an account of our violations of the law of God. You know, it's very common that we think of ourselves as broken people, that somehow we were victims of Satan's schemes. But the truth is, we have violated the law of God.

These were deeds that we did. We weren't victims, and we often wanna shift responsibility and say I'm not guilty, I'm not culpable. But the truth is all mankind stands culpable before the law of God. All mankind stands before the condemnation and the wrath of God for breaking the law of God. And the problem, the whole problem with it is that sin has two sides to it.

One is original sin, and then there are sins. And so our problem with God is not just our sins, but it's our very nature. And our secret motives, our secret thoughts, our covetousness, our lust, all of these things that the law of God penetrates to. And what many people try to do is they try to want to settle for something less than conversion. They want to settle for something less.

I just need to get back into church. I need to start reading my Bible more. You know, I need to be a better dad, right? These are, these are, these are, this is settling for something less than the transformation of the heart. And all of this leads us really to one place, and that is that Jesus Christ came to seek and save those who are lost.

That Jesus Christ bore our sins on the tree. That he received the condemnation that we deserved on the cross of Jesus Christ to bear the penalty. And he bore the weight of the condemnation as we believe in him and this is the free offer of the gospel that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved that he will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. There's nothing that you need to do to turn to Jesus Christ. There really is a free offer.

You don't need to become a better person to be to become saved. Whoever believes in him will have remission of sins. That's what the apostle said in Acts chapter 10. And you know, whenever you're speaking in a church, there's always somebody who's not really saved. Some have deceived themselves.

Some have taken on methods to deal with their sin that are not effectual. And I think you know the question is what is keeping you from receiving Him and believing? There really are no hurdles, There really is a free offer of the gospel to come as you are. That is the free offer of the gospel. And there are no roadblocks, and there's nothing that you can do to prepare.

And Jesus Christ says, come, come to me. And if you say, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'm gonna go home and think about it, you're just disobeying the command of God to come. That's all that is. Because God commands his people to turn away from their listlessness toward him and to serve him with all their hearts. God is commanding all sinners to come to him.

So all of this to say, the law is good if one uses it lawfully. And God has given us the law to teach us where we've gone wrong and how to live but it teaches us also of our hopelessness without Jesus Christ And as we go through all of this, I hope that we will raise our hearts and say, oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies or my meditation.

I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep your word. I have not departed from your judgments for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts I get understanding.

Therefore I hate every false way." May that be embedded deeply within all of our hearts as a local church, that we would love the law and that we would use it rightly, that we would be properly informed, that we would understand the purpose of the law to go so much deeper than just our outward actions, but penetrate the thoughts and the intentions of our heart that we might walk with God, that we might be like lights in a dark world because we love the law of God. Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word, which is very convicting, very penetrating. None of us can stand righteous before your law without Jesus Christ, for whom we are so thankful. But Lord, I pray that You would give us such a heart within us that we would love your law with all of our hearts and be an obedient people.

Amen.