Sermon on October 2, 2011

“Saved by the Law?” (Exodus 20:1-20; Phil 3:4a-11)
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Rev. John B. Erthein

Why do we have laws at all? Essentially, because we have to. Human beings have shown that they need laws in order to live with one another. But that does not mean we really welcome the law, even the Law of God! I am going to give you a lengthy quote from the sermon titled “Grace and Law,” given by G. Campbell Morgan, because I think he really understands our attitude towards the Law:

Innately man is an anarchist; experientially, that is as a result of observation, he admits the necessity of law, and he is always anxious that the other man should submit to it. But for himself he desires freedom from it. Restraint is irksome. We would fain go our own way without any reference to law. This attitude of mind colors our thinking of the law of God, and strangely persists even in the life and experience of Christian men and women. Unconsciously to ourselves, we think of the law of God as hard and severe, the opposite of love and of grace … in so doing we prove we understand neither the law which came by Moses nor the grace and truth which came through Jesus Christ. The law of God is the expression of the love of God, and its giving, even in the midst of the old economy, was as certainly an activity of the grace of His heart as was the coming into the world of His Son.

We see the grace of God's law in its inspiration. When God gave the law at Mount Sinai, God's first words were “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” So, the law is not coming from a tyrant. The law is coming from the great liberator of his people. These words would remind the people of the great miracles God had performed on their behalf … his raising up of Moses as their leader; his raining of plagues down upon the Egyptian oppressors; the Passover; the parting of the sea; and the frequent provision of food and water in the desert. Now, when I say that God is a liberator, the first thing that may come to mind is that God liberated the Hebrews, his chosen people, from slavery in Egypt. That is true. But it is not the whole truth. God offers to liberate all of us from the power of sin that has enslaved us since the fall of mankind. His law is a reflection of his perfect will. If we kept every part of God's law, the world would be perfect.

It was an incredible privilege for the Israelites that God had selected them, among all the people of the earth, to be the keepers of the law. Most of the world languished in spiritual and moral chaos. Polytheism was the typical religious practice … hence the prohibition in the law of worshiping other gods. People were not governed by fairness towards one another, but rather by force. Whoever was stronger would rule. God set out a different path for his chosen people … a path of right worship of him, the only true God, and the right relationship of God's people with one another.

Again, the law is a wonderful and beautiful thing, God's perfect handiwork. And again, it was an extraordinary honor that God would choose the Hebrews to preserve his law. But over time, some of God's people began to misunderstand and misuse the law. Fulfilling the law became an end in itself. But the very foundations of the law … the justice, righteousness, grace, mercy and love of God … were often forgotten. Some of the people made an idol out of the law. This was the reputation of the Pharisees … zealous advocates of the law who forgot the character of the God who made the law.

The Apostle Paul had been one of the most zealous Pharisees. As he says, if anyone had the right to boast, it was he! He was the A student. He had the perfect conduct grades on his rabbinical report cards. He burned with a righteous fire to uphold the perfect law of God. You know, when he was still Saul, he, like many other Pharisees, was actually a pretty admirable man. He was serious in personality and purpose. He was energetic. He was honest. He was hard-driving and hard-working. He could probably argue any of us under the table. If Saul lived today, can you imagine him going along with our celebrity-driven culture … with the narcissism, the selfishness, the greed, the materialism, and overall lack of seriousness of our society? No. Saul was a intellectual and moral heavyweight.

And yet … he was wrong. Can you imagine what he went through after his conversion? Imagine that you are totally convinced you are doing what is right and following God's perfect will. And then, one day, without warning, God himself tells you … you were wrong. Grievously wrong. Horribly wrong. Murderously wrong. The cause to which you devoted your entire life actually contradicted God's desires. You are confronted with the shocking, terrifying reality that you have not been advancing the plan and purpose of God, but instead, the plan and purpose of Satan. Can you imagine Saul's self-reproach that threatened to become self-loathing? This formerly proud, righteous and upright man was driven to his knees, and then his face was in the dirt, and he was ashamed.

But it was then, when Saul was in the depth of despair, that salvation drew near to him. Saul became a new man, renamed Paul. Just as Abram was renamed Abraham. Paul was now God's man, and like father Abraham, he would follow God by faith. And so Paul became the great Apostle to the Gentiles. Next to Jesus himself, no man had such an impact on Christ's church. Paul became a truly great man of God out of his brokenness.

What then, does the law mean today? It means what it has always meant. The law reflects the perfection of God. But we cannot perfectly follow the law. The law comes from an infinite, perfect Creator, but we are finite and imperfect. The law is like a massive, mile high fortress of solid gold, with beautiful rubies and sapphires and diamonds encrusting its surface. But we cannot enter that fortress by own strength. We cannot storm the gates; they are impregnable. We cannot even pry a gemstone from the wall … it is fused into the wall. We also cannot replicate that fortress. We could spend our whole lives trying; but next to the beautiful fortress of God's law, the greatest works of our hands are nothing better than mud huts, or even more accurately, huts made out of dung. And when we gaze upon the sublime law of God, and compare that law to the lives we actually lead, we see how pathetic are the works of our hands, and for that matter our hearts.

Because, friends, we violate the law of God every day. We commit idolatry … not that we build statues of wood or stone, but we find other things more important than our walk with God. There are indeed other gods that command our attention … the gods of materialism, of pride, or advancement, of substance abuse, of relationships, of immorality … the list goes on and on. Our thoughts are not pure and righteous. Whenever we covet our neighbor's goods, we commit theft. Whenever we look with lust upon another person, we commit sexual immorality. Whenever we hold hatred in our hearts towards another, we commit murder.

The great mercy of God is that he sends his Holy Spirit upon his elect, and we can truly see our reality. Without the Holy Spirit, we would imagine our huts of dung to be solid homes, maybe even castles. If we were religious, but not saved, we might even think we were building the fortress of God's law, seeing walls of gold reach to the heavens. But the Holy Spirit is like the most accurate mirror held up to our faces. And instead of beauty, we see ugliness. Instead of goodness, we see evil. Instead of righteousness, we see sin. Instead of life, we see death. We realize that we are nothing better than the walking dead. That is a painful reality, like the burning sun shining in our eyes. Is it any wonder that the law can inspire dread? Isn't the darkness better? Who wants to know they are dead and decaying, after all?

But it is at precisely that moment that life draws near. The reflection of the law indicts us. And the righteous judgment of God convicts us. There is nothing left for us but to ask for God's forgiveness. And it is then that we are filled by God's glorious and gracious presence. It is then that Jesus Christ comes to us, when he enters our hearts and walks with us for the remainder of our lives. When we walk with Jesus Christ, we will see our glorious destiny ahead. And if we were to look back at our former lives, we may shudder inwardly at what we had considered to be right and true. And the other side of that abhorrence of sin and wickedness is the blazing gratitude for God's presence with us.

Walking with Jesus Christ means that we approach the great law of God, that great towering fortress of gold, soaring up to the heavens, where rubies and sapphires and diamonds sparkle in the sun. And as we approach the gate, formerly closed to us, Jesus will speak but a word, and the gate will open for us. We will no longer even desire to do those things that offend God. Won't that be amazing? Right now, as I write these words, I cannot bring myself to imagine what it would be like to live a sinless life. Sin is so deeply ingrained in me, it exists at the atomic level. How could I exist without it? And how can I heal myself of it?

Well … I cannot exist without it, and I cannot heal myself. And neither can any of you. Do you understand that? If you do, then salvation is at hand. Are you ready to turn away from sin? Jesus Christ is waiting to walk with you. And you will never need fear the law again. Amen.