Grace & Law (5)

continued from previous post... 

The law can only produce condemnation, transgression and sin. We try to produce righteous behavior by the law and we can’t do it – in fact the law is designed to show us that we can’t do it. The Law produces transgression – when we use law to try to produce righteous behavior we produce the opposite.

            If we are law-focused we work at producing a façade. If we are grace-focused our security is in Christ and we have nothing to defend.

            ‘I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go,” is a chant of those who live under the law.

            Grace is, among other things, God’s empowering life within us.

And let me say something for the first of many times, there are two statements which, when taken together, give us perfect freedom in Christ. The first is:

“I’m guilty. Whatever you wish to accuse me of, I’m guilty…for I know that outside of Christ that I am capable of anything and everything – so it really would be ridiculous for me to put on a façade, for outside of Christ I am guilty.”

The second is, “In Christ I am perfect and complete, I am justified and glorified, and what I already am in Him…is being worked out by the Holy Spirit in me.”

So you see, my behavior doesn’t define me – only Christ and Christ alone defines me. Now that that is settled I can get on with a life lived for Christ and others.

When I realize this, then I can risk, I can love, I can lose, I can serve, I can do all these things in Christ Who strengthens me. My entire perspective on life changes, the way I look at other people changes…and the way I view God changes. And when a people, when a church, realize this – they have the bread of life to give to their surrounding communities.

The movie, The Hunt for Red October, is about the captain and officers of a Soviet submarine, named Red October, who want to defect to America. Once the Soviet government realizes that Red October plans to defect they send another submarine to destroy Red October.

            The captain of the pursuing Soviet sub is an arrogant man, bent on destroying the captain and officers of Red October at all cost. As both submarines execute a series of maneuvers in a high-speed cat and mouse game, the Red October seeking to avoid destruction and the pursuer doing all it can to torpedo its dreams of freedom, the pursuing submarine fires a torpedo which, after a series of evasive maneuvers on the part of the Red October, turns around and heads back to the submarine which had fired it – and it destroys the very submarine which fired it. It turned on its own sub and destroyed it.

            When the church fires the torpedo of the Law that torpedo destroys the church. Law destroys the church. In our text Paul uses the language of sorcery to describe the effect of the Law – it makes slaves of all of us. 

            And knowing this, Paul declares to the Galatians and to us in 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty, within Christ has made you free…and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.”

            Bait & switch Christianity? Not for us. Not for New Hope Church in Shenandoah County, Virginia.

            The car wash was free. The coffee at Liberty Gas in Mt. Jackson was free. The salvation in my brother-in-law’s life was free – and God’s grace and His love in New Hope Church are free.

            And dear reader, God’s grace and His love for you are also free, in Jesus Christ.

           

 AMEN.