The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:00 Okay. Uh before we start, uh I thought it was a great presentation by Sunday school. I want us to put this at the back of our head and the question which will come in the sermon is how are we loving the next generation? All right. I want you to take that up. All right. Uh the next sermons are up. I'm actually taking over Brandon's slot. Uh Brandon will continue next week in embracing our freedom in Christ. Then Dr. Peter, the experience of adoption and then we'll take a break from Galatians and the
00:00:33 enemy next door next door by Ian Bunton our camp speaker. Okay. Um let me just start this morning's sermon. Imagine you took a test, right? And you got 49 out of 100. What's the standard passing mark? 50. 50 m. Correct. So should we pass you or should we fail you? No redoing. Some people will say the law is the law. Don't matter you get 49, you get 10 fail. Correct. Correct. Ma God is a God of law. The other way of saying is 49 only the question very vague. Why? Because God is a God of compassion. Correct or not? Also
00:01:49 correct. So how do you choose? Do you choose the law or do you show compassion? Well, everybody say compassion. So, let me take the compassion thing. Huh? What if the score was 48? You follow me? How about 47? So, why 49? One mark less. How come two marks cannot? Says who? says you you're not God. Ah so today we are going to look at the law and it's quite interesting a lot of you say pasta why show grace ma because Romans 6 says you are not under the law but under grace 49 over 100 must show grace.
00:02:45 Correct. Huh? Correct. However, a few chapter later he says, "Do we nullify the law by this faith?" Not at all. Rather, we uphold the law. Failure. So today we look at this really complex topic and the idea of the tension between law versus grace. And we're going to look at this chapter. And I want just come out and tell you it's a very complicated chapter. The first 15 minutes I'm going to bulldo the theology and if you don't understand the Bible, it's okay. You may not get it because it's actually very heavy. It's a
00:03:24 very very complicated chapter. But those of you who are Bible teachers, you should teach a small group. You need to understand the context of this because the idea of the law has a lot of misunderstandings. So let's come before the Lord in this. And Lord, we pray you grant us um understanding and clarity for both our lives and how we treat others. And we say this in Jesus' name. Amen. Right. Uh let me tell you the law. The screen has disappeared guys. It's gone blank just to let you know. Where do we get the law? The law
00:04:02 comes from Exodus. All right. Exodus 19 3-6. And I'll read it. Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called him to the mountain and says this what you have to say to the descendants of Jacob and what to tell the people of Israel. You yourself have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me, if meaning conditional, yeah, fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole
00:04:39 earth is mine, you'll be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nations. Uh, this has to be brought up to the the text. Just this is still at worship just to let you guys know. It's not it's not matching just side topic. So, what is this? This is called a Mosaic covenant. And a Mosaic covenant is very often considered what we call as a conditional thank you covenant. If you do this, this happens. All right. Now, this is called the Abrahamic covenant. All right. The Lord said to Abraham, "Go from your
00:05:12 country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great. You'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you, I will curse. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. No if and then unconditional. The Abrahamic coven covenant is often seen as the first indication of grace. Let me give you example how people look at this. Imagine Jarius and I tell Jarius after the
00:05:41 service come and see me. I give you 10 ringgit unconditional Jarius but you're not getting 10 ringh. Or I tell Jarius, "Help me do my PowerPoint because Dr. Peter always say the phone is too small and I pay you $10." That's the law. One has no condition. The second is conditional. The first one is whether Jerius believe I will give him $10. I won't give you. So please don't have faith in me. All right? So that's the point. Now I want you to take this up. Now let me take the text from the middle and we'll break
00:06:17 this down as it's quite complex. Galatians 3:15. I'm going in the middle because he he's he's framing it in a certain way. There are two covenants. They the background to this. And the Galatian church know this. And the Judaizers are saying the Mosaic covenant takes precedence. You must obey to be saved. Right there from the Mosaic covenants. And he says this, "Brothers and sisters, let me take an example of everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to human covenant that has been duly established. So at this in
00:06:51 this case the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The seed here is referring to Jesus. Scripture does not say and to seeds meaning many people but and to your seed meaning one person who is Christ. What I mean is this. The law, the Mosaic covenant introduced 430 years later does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. Abrahamic covenant for the inheritance depends on the law. Then it no longer depends on the promise but God in his grace that's
00:07:28 the word grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. He's arguing like a lawyer, you know, really. He's saying God gave the Abrahamic covenant first and it wasn't conditional. There is no contradiction. 430 years later, God gave the Mosaic covenant. You read the Mosaic covenant as a supplement to the Abrahamic covenant. In legal term, they call this an addendum to the contract. It's an expansion of the contract. It's an appendix to the contract. You do not read the Mosaic covenant as supple as contradicting it.
00:08:03 All right? Then you say, "Hang on, it doesn't make sense because Mosaic covenant has a condition." Abrahamic says, "No condition." And the first thing he's saying is, "Actually, you got it wrong. They are the same." So you got to pack that up. Why? Abrahamic covenant is the basis. That's one. So let's break up the Abrahamic covenant. He goes back to verse seven. Understand then those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture for so that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance of
00:08:33 Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you. Those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith. So now he shifts it to faith. Number one, contractually Abrahamic covenant cames first. That host is a legal argument. Argument number two, because the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional and the Abrahamic covenant speaks about the Gentiles, therefore the Gentiles are bound by this covenant which is unconditional. Therefore, Gentiles do not need to be circumcised. This guy is a very good lawyer. The
00:09:10 argument is very tight because the Abrahamic covenant is about Gentiles. Why? All nations. If Abraham was justified by faith and not by works of the law, he didn't earn his salvation by following the ten commandments. Therefore, the Gentiles, you and I, do not earn our salvation by following the ten commandments. It's a brilliant argument. Argument number two, all right, argument number three, he breaks it down on how this is done and is true Jesus. All right, and it starts verse 10. for all who rely on the works of the
00:09:49 law. And William brought it up last week. There's a difference in obeying the law and relying on the law for salvation. You rely on the works of the law, meaning I must follow the ten commandments to be saved are under a curse. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of law. 49 out of 100 fail. Doesn't matter whether he's 10 or one or 49 is more than that. Huh? Clearly, no one who relies on the law justified before God because the righteous will live by faith. You notice
00:10:27 the argument is shifting very heavily on faith. The word faith is used again and again. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, it says the person who does these things might live by them. meaning you follow the law to be saved, you are cursed. And then he goes into the idea of what we call substitary atonement. Big word. The word means Jesus took that lawb breakaking. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by being a curse for us. Is written cursed is everyone who's hung on the pole. This
00:11:01 is classic reformed theology, right? What we call justification by faith. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus. I want you to hear this. So that by faith we might receive the promise of the spirit. Now if you know the chapter he starts off Galatians one by saying how do you receive the Holy Spirit? By faith or by earning it. Earning it by the law. By being obedient by faith. So we know the trajectory of the discussion is about
00:11:35 the Holy Spirit. I want you to take this up and this takes us to chapter five. So 49 out of 100 fail. Then you ask what is minimum pass rate? We talk about KPI ma. You see you meet a non-Christian. A non-Christian will tell you this. I don't believe in your Christian God. I believe all people are essentially good. When I get to heaven, God will judge me on my good, he will look at my bad, he will weigh the two and my good will be more than my bad. Classic non-Christian argument. You speak to nine or 10 non-Christians, nine will
00:12:19 give you that answer. We we sort of have this bell curve. You know, the bell curve is like that. On one side are the Hitlers, Jack the Ripper and all the terrible people. Oh, they're going to go to hell, man. Then the bell curve on the other side here is Pope Francis. All the really Hallelujah guys, man. They they they will get the luxury condo in heaven. But the bell curve, we are here banana. We come to ABC. We go to church. We do some good things. We're not bad people. So I don't know what the passing rate is, but
00:12:53 I will get to heaven. Do you know what the passing rate is? The passing rate is this and you say how can not fair then you say okay well what is a fair number God must have KPI ma correct then you will find out do you know what a KPI is my own score that's why I decide what is right it doesn't make sense and why because God is holy so the only way to get it is not 49 9 or 99 is 100 and the only person who gives you 100 is Christ. He redeemed us, took the failure from us and gave us that pass. That is what Paul is
00:13:39 saying. It's a simple argument. You think about it. Then we break down on the function of the law and there are two. First, why was the law given at all? He was added because of transgressions. Meaning it was added. Meaning you were deciding was right or wrong. But until the law came, you didn't know. And Paul picked this up very heavily in Romans 7. Why do non-Christians say when I go to heaven, my good will outweigh the bad? Because they decide what's right and what's wrong. Now over this weekend I'm at uh
00:14:23 you know I'm at a conference all right I just want to just show you some of the photos right just to give you some update and I think marketplace is something we really need to talk about and it was very interesting so I updated my sermon slides so uh we had a lot of startups there uh listed course group CEO small big everybody was there for example foundation of business that was by the founder of job street and he were talking about ecosystem which was bas based on scripture and and and the essence of the marketplace talk was the
00:14:55 top one. Uh basically true success is this Jesus has to be the center. It means nothing without Jesus Christ. Now along the discussion there was a startup I'm going to change some of the facts uh just to be safe and this startup was tendering for a job. The word is called they give you an RFP a request for proposal. And so when you give a request for proposal because I get this, I understand this. You submit a bid. You submit a bid with two parts. One is your technical proposal and number two your
00:15:29 CV, right? And the technical proposal goes in there. They go vetted. They say it's a good proposal. You go to second stage. You put in a financial bid, you get the job. This is standard SOP. So the client called up this startup to say, "Hey, we found out one of your competitors was a shell company. Guess who was the name registered to the Shell company? And when they dug up, they found out that it was somebody inside her company. Her number two person started a shell company to bid against her. Actually, it was quite ingenious
00:16:10 because they didn't expect the client to do a deep search, you They mean they really search, do a background search and go to company secretary, pull out the thing and find out, hey, this is the same guy who's writing out your proposal. Her number two person was basically stabbing her in the back. I write a proposal for you, but I'm going to write another one for myself and I'm going to get a job. When she confronted this guy, you know what he told her? What's wrong? You decide what's wrong. I decide
00:16:41 what's wrong. And so this light came up. There is a way that appears to be right but in the end it leads to death. Why was the law given? Because either you decide what's right or wrong or God. And a lot of the seminar came out about integrity. You try to follow God's law. The Judaizers are telling you you get blessed. Guess what? You're going to lose jobs. There was another speaker who said, you know, uh the client told him, we know you're very righteous. Can you keep your righteousness to Saturday and
00:17:24 Sunday, Monday to Friday, be practical? And the speaker said, "No." What happened? Lost the job. It was a fascinating session. I remember this this this speaker for Indonesia came up. He says better than good. And then you say what was the good news? I lost the tender today. You see in God's kingdom success isn't that God's kingdom obedience has a price. The Judaizers are saying if you obey you get blessed. I want you to pick this up. Huh? Here's the second thing it goes. It was added because of
00:18:14 transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. Meaning the law was what's the word? Temporary. Now here's the opposite extreme. And this one happens in what you call reformed theology. You ask people why was the law given? They will say this. The law was given because no one can follow the law. If you follow the law, you will go to hell because you break one, you break all. And like John Piper says in reformed theology, you know what we are saying? We are saying God gave the law to damn you. You
00:18:52 know, to damn you to the point where you're so miserable, you come crawling your feet to Jesus. And here's the problem. What happened to the Israelites? They didn't know Jesus. And Deuteronomy tells her the law was given for your good. You're saying God gave you a law knowing that you will never keep it. Make you so depressed you come crawling to Jesus. Jesus wasn't around at the time. Hello. So there's a problem on the opposite side of reformed theology. That's taken it completely off. So let us pick this up. What Paul
00:19:30 is saying is the Israelites knew the law was what? Temporary until the Messiah comes. And to enforce this, the law was in two sections. The moral code, the ten commandments, and what we call the ceremonial laws. And the function of the ceremonial laws is to give atonement for sins. is to have the tabernacle to say God is in your midst and you come and offer yourself as sacrifice and your sins will be forgiven until the Messiah comes and he'll reveal all. And we in reformed theology have completely missed
00:20:15 this. We have given God a bad name. When you say the law was given so that you would fail, number one, you make Moses to be a Pharisee, you know. Number two, you make God to be his worst enemy. God gave you a law so that intentionally you will fail. That's a terrible indictment on his character. I want you to pick this up now. It is not wrong that the law you cannot follow, but there's a purpose and a trajectory here. So this is the key verse. Is the law, the Mosaic law opposed to the promises of God, the Abrahamic covenant?
00:20:54 Absolutely not. For the law have been given that could impart life. Righteousness will certainly come under law. And here are the complex verses. Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin. What the law does is show you, you and I are much more sinful than we think. So when in that case of that that startup you tell the number two person you cannot open up a shell company and beat against me the fellow will say I didn't break any law m is there anything in the Malaysian law that says I can't do it
00:21:29 you follow what it is but heart is wrong the law reveals your tendencies scripture locked everything under the control of sin he uses the word locked up a prison metaphor there are two metaphors he's used So that what was promised and here's the word again being given true faith again the word faith is coming in might be given to those who believe and then he doubles down before the coming of this faith the Messiah we were held in custody under the law locked up under the faith that was come to be revealed
00:22:05 what does the law does it reveals your heart you would try to beat the system why do We have e invoicing because all the hawkers are under declaring so they can make more money. The law shows you the heart. If I can cheat I will cheat. I will tell you you sell 100 eoicing come you think invoicing they won't beat the system they will beat the system I had a client who runs a car you know boom those boom gates you know how they make money they make money by cut one, you know. So, you enter the mall, pum pom pom, 100 people,
00:23:08 you pay $5, they make money. You know how these guys do? They hack into the system. But they hack into 15 malls and they skim 3%. Every month you look at it, wow, still making money because it's undetected. If I can hack into 50 malls and take 3% and my turnover every day is say $15,000 one month you time 30 days 3% you know how much that is and he told me it was all the way down from the upper management to the guy at the front to master everybody was on it because they all took a cut invoicing is the
00:23:48 law I bet you they're going to break the law correct the law shows you your heart, you are locked up. Point two, the law was our guardian until Christ came by faith. And what does Christ do? We'll pick up. So here's the big picture. The law pointed towards Christ, but until Christ came, it functioned to show the hopelessness of salvation by law where in prison due to sin. However, the law also functioned positively as a guardian until Christ came. I'm going to break this down. This is what we are all brought up to
00:24:25 believe. I was conditioned to believe this in my early days as a Christian. I suggest to you this is not biblical. The law is grace. Have you ever thought about that? The law points you to Jesus. The law shows you the true nature of a heart. The Lord leads you by faith and he will lead you through the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to show you how. And this is what Romans says about the Israelites. What then shall we say that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtain it or righteousness by faith? But the
00:25:03 people of Israel who pursued the law as the way of righteousness have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but that is by work. They were trying to earn merit by God. The law teaches us to learn more about who God is. You see, if if you think religion is this doesn't matter whether you're Christian or Buddhist or whatever that religion is a set of rules. You follow those rules, you get blessed. You don't follow those rules, you get cursed. This is default what anyone believes. You
00:25:43 know that's why people go to temples and churches and all of that. They come and they Why do you think Easter services are food? It is conditional to fallen men to believe this. Now you think about this. You are trying to say this. If I do this series of things, I go to heaven. No, I do this things I go to hell. So you live a life that says I better do more of this. I better stock my my assets into here and then this one maybe I can't help I still want to sin but I do more here and then in the end
00:26:17 when they do the KPI oh you've been really bad you really cheat all your tax and you you're really naughty boy but you do so much charity or I think this higher okay 49 51 m heaven you see that's the way we think you know what you're reducing God to you're reducing God to this picture and this picture is an app description of a wrong image of God. Gaba class, you are to blame for this. It's true. I see what you do. You sin. Zap. Go to hell. Huh? I saw what you do, Raymond. You didn't care for that person, pastor. Two month marks
00:27:01 down. Zap. No blessings for you. But that's not what it is. God is a God of grace who wants us to trust him. The law was given to reveal our real heart that by nature we're very manipulative and it reveals the depth of his love. Both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenant involves obedent from faith. Let me restructure again the story with Jarius. If I WhatsApp Jarius, say Jarius, after service come and give me $10, you know, he'll tell me or not. Sure not. He doesn't believe me. He has no faith in me. But if I get to know Jarius well and
00:27:49 I think he's a good friend and I say, "Jerious, come after service to get $10." He'll say, "Sure, bro. I come." Why? Because he knows me. Is by faith. Now, why don't we extend the story about Jerry? I said, "Jerry, I want you to go and walk around the whole of Sububang, come back and then I give you $10." Now, he will say, "Sure, not I say please do that for me." If he does that, it is faith. That's exactly what God said to Abraham. Go from your country. Go where? Don't don't bother. Just trust
00:28:23 me. Just go and I will bless you. In the Mosaic covenant, he says that you yourself have seen what I did. Have I not earned your trust, Israelites? Have I not shown you? Do you not have faith in me? Now obey. They are the same. They are obedience springing from faith. Here's the second one. The law leads us to walk in faith. I want to give another example. This is the last one from the conference because it really struck me. You see the the the conference was run heavy by Indonesians. It it was basically
00:29:04 Indonesian business people that came over and one of the largest group in Indonesia is a conglomerate called the Astra group. I'll tell you something about [Music] Indonesians Malaysia is very big. So he was talking about the turnover. He was numbers I cannot understand. You know they are running in millions and millions and do this. And when he was talking you could tell he was a CEO who understood scale you know managing thousands of people. He was talking about KPI succession financial planning. They went into all
00:29:46 the details you know how to he he said about how to build your staff to manage a company as opposed to manage your stuff to build your company. All of it came out. And this was a man who also was very much into serving the Lord. And so he said one thing which I really respected. Okay. And he gave up his policies on how to build a company. That was his framework. And he says a Christian you say no to corruption. Why? It is the law of God. Even though it cost you. That is walking by faith. That's Abrahamic
00:30:21 covenant. That's Mosaic covenant. I want to tell you where this story runs. So he was telling us how he lost many contracts because he said no Indonesia he says you must have ammo to get it because it's such a corrupted country. He said no and he's telling us you make it known very early. Now at one point he got a project for infrastructure project because their company they they're going to billions right I saw photos of private helicopter he was traveling all of that and if you something about
00:31:10 roads he got a project and they really worked out the tender and it was a very large road and he walked on the road you know they really made money because you pit bit for it you understand anything about ashfog to all you guys were engineers you know how you make money roads is ashalt you make money on compaction. The less I dig for fuel, the more solid I the more less compaction I make, I make more money. He looked at road and I remember this yesterday. He set a shudder up me because this is not
00:31:41 like a crazy one of those fly by night pastors. I'm not saying you know but you know to tell you all strange things. He said he stood on the road and the tractors were building it for kilometers. And he said this, you know, he says, you know what, Jesus could turn water into wine. I will pray that the Lord to be hard ground. I told myself, this is a CEO of multi-lister company, not some wacko pastor. And he went to pray for 40 days. And he told us as they did more so investigation, the salt was harder.
00:32:18 Where is this coming from? One, obedience in faith. The law leads you in faith. Two, the power of the Holy Spirit because he believed. He believed if Jesus could do this, he could do. And so people started to put out their heads. Hey, I failed my business. You know, one guy said, I lost $5 million. He just told you God is bigger. You just trust God. That is what following the law in faith leads to. Let me tell you the final version of it. At the end of the Galatian text, Paul describes humanity. Neither Jew nor Gentile slave.
00:33:15 Brandon's going to pick it up. If you go to Colossians 3, you have the same understanding again. You ask yourself, why in this long talk about the law and faith would you end about talking about people? Because this is the key reason for the law. The key function of the law is only one. The law is fulfilled when we love our neighbors as ourselves. What did Jesus says to the Pharisees? What are the greatest commandments? To love your Lord God yourself and to what? Love your neighbor as yourself. And by doing so, you will
00:33:59 fulfill what? the law and the prophets. Now, let me explain why this is so central and I think we miss this and I'll give a few examples. I I thought about this. I said, "Hang on." Firstly, Galatians doubles down the end of Galatians after entire section on the Holy Spirit, right? He says, "Love your neighbor yourself." Now, you know what he's saying? What is the first fruit of the Holy Spirit? Love. Correct. How do you get the Holy Spirit? By works of the law or by faith? Faith. What does the law do? Lead you to walk
00:34:42 in faith. You see how is the trajectory is going? Walk in faith. Obey the law. Love people. You have power the Holy Spirit. Have you ever considered that? Because I didn't. You think about that. is a paradigm shift. Now, this is so front and center is doubled down in many parts of scripture. Romans 13 says exactly the same thing. You have Jesus saying it, you have Paul saying it in Galatia, Paul saying Rome and you have James saying it. It means this is front and center theology in understanding the law. Let
00:35:27 me give you a few examples. Let's just say I come and preach next week in jeans. We got lubanga. Actually, today I wanted to wear a t-shirt. No, because today is 4th of May. A lot of you don't know what the date is unless you are some of the younger people. May the fourth be with you. Today is Star Wars day. So, I wanted So, Jim gave me a t-shirt. May the Lord be with you. If I come up with a t-shirt that says may the Lord be with you. Some of you say how can speaker come in t-shirt and thorn jeans. No respect. Correct. Huh? Fair.
00:36:06 Where do you draw a line? Maybe I come in singlet. I come in shorts. I mean true right? It's like the 49 out of 100 it goes to 43 20. Now you can do a few things. What? You can do like what this fella says. This guy very famous. I don't know where he is today. I wish he was can't see him. He's very famous. This guy so you could come after me after survey. Hey Anna, better don't wear torn jeans. You cannot wear t-shirt or what kind of elder are you? You talk like that to me. What do you think I do? Oh
00:36:48 yes, thank you brother. I love you. Tomorrow I won't wear jeans. I'll pick a fight with you. Now we could we could translate that down to anything. What Paul is saying is you and I have a moral code. You know, all of us have a moral code. And when we see someone that doesn't follow our moral code, we get indignant. We get self-righteous. That's what the Judaizers have done. They have taken the law and turn it into a job description. But if you come up to me and say, "Anna, I appreciate it's Star Wars
00:37:25 day, but I'm not so sure you should wear a t-shirt." I will give you a hug. You see the difference? The difference is that's coming from place of love because you're loving me as your neighbor. Do you know where I think this is the least practice? Parenting. Have you considered your children are your neighbor? You go home, you tell your kid like that, like that, like that, like like that. You think he listen to you, he just say, "Yeah." He size you up, you say, "Don't bother talking." They're not
00:38:02 going to listen. The neighbor is everyone. And what Paul is saying, all of us have our own ethics and there are people who don't agree with you. You go to a gay person and he says you're a sinner and morally despicable. All you're telling him is that Christians are self-righteous bigots. But you are right. Homosexuality is a sin. But you get to know him beyond his homosexuality. He's a person with feelings and love. And he knows you don't agree with his sexual ethics, but you love him as a neighbor.
00:38:45 He sees Christ. I want you to just continue on this. So today we look at Sunday school and we saw how we teaching Sunday school about God's creation. You look at the video, correct? This earth is the Lord. We tell our Sunday school kids, God created the universe. God created the animals. God created the heavens and the earth and then we do this. Have you considered creation care is part of lawkeeping to love your neighbor? Because loving your neighbor is this is to ensuring your grandchildren don't have to suffer
00:39:38 sudden storms, potholes that appear, unpredictable weather. The problem with climate change is been so politicized. Christians forget you are not loving your neighbor by doing this. And I want to say something very controversial about love me. Love me. Do you know who's the largest single group that is guilty of doing this? They've done the statistics. The group that does it the least is Gen Z and millennials. Ah, now you see. Huh? Do you know who's the single largest group guilty of this? Older
00:40:21 people, baby boomers. Please don't throw stones at me. I love you. You know why? Because I hate to say this. You have got to beat the Lord before this world climate change kids you. You don't care. Very ma eat out there. got plastic troller bring tapware. Ah, you're very troublesome. Learn from the Japanese are correct or idiot. They bring the tapware. Kairo ministry you asked our sister in was here. We all shifted from plastics to bringing our own steel bowls and washing. Now I'm not trying to be
00:41:00 legalistic about it, but it's little little things like this that shows our heart for the neighbor, you know. And I think in creation care the church fails. So I want you to think about it. Let me give however the last and the most important point. We go back to the 49 100. Now here's the point. Both truths are important. God has to uphold the law. 50 is 50. If you say I let you in but give you chance at 49, how about 48, 47, 46. But compassion is a virtue of God. So 49 I should also let you in. But
00:41:40 49 I should also fail you. You see the tension? They are both virtues of God. And I want you to pick it up to the Mosaic covenant. And at the end of the Mosaic covenant, Moses tells God, "Show me your glory." And God shows him his goodness. Basically, Moses is telling God, "Show me everything." When he says, "Show me your glory. Show me who you are." And look at what he says. The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to
00:42:18 thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. That's your pass mark for 49 out of 100. But look at the other part. That's the tension. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. That's your failing the 49 out of 100. And the two are held together. You know what God is saying? God is saying when you do this you look at it through the eyes of love. If the question was difficult by spiritual wisdom you pass the guy. But you look at the fellow he's an opportunist and you know if you do that
00:42:56 the other guy at 48 will also ask because his friend behind him just waiting. Hey you try 49 C can get past after he come and say I 48 you must also pass me you fail the guy you know you follow me the two are hell intention let me tell you the main way we love our neighbor climate change helpful being nice to people helpful is this is the tension uh between justice and compassion I want you to hear this the main way is this and nothing Nothing reflects it more than this. Nothing. I want to share because I
00:43:35 I'm I'm I I get to know the daughter u Esther and the husband Dway quite well. We we we tried to spend time together and there was a there was a gathering a few weeks ago. Do you know it's been 8 years? Eight years. And if you follow the press, you see what certain quarters are doing. They are basically trying to silence the family. The lawyers were given two bullets in envelopes. Dr. Gerard was given a a bullet. And you know how you do when you want to fight somebody and you have the entire government on your side. I wear
00:44:19 you down. That's what they do in law. I get a battery of lawyers. I whack you 101 thing. I find everything to go against you so that you give up. Eight years no closure. Guess what it does to a person. Now at that uh talk right that that gathering they produced a book his silent presence and there was a lot of anger in the room. There was a lot of call for justice. We talking about this 49 100. Yeah. that is not fair. And you read the media, the cops did it. It's dried out already. Yet, no one's being punished.
00:45:00 There was a lot of, you know, this is the 4900 and you need to fail the guy. You need to find justice. Now, inside the book, they quoted a favorite song of pastor Raymond K. I'll just show you the lyrics. And apparently, this was very close to his heart. The martr first who eagle's eye could pierce beyond the grave. Who saw his master in the sky and caught on him to save. Like him with pardon on his tongue in midst of mortal pain. He prayed for those that did the wrong. That's compassion. who follows in this
00:45:47 train and at the closing of it you could hear the many churches there we need justice for Raymond Co's family but we need compassion on those who did it for as Christ said forgive them father they know not what they do and in the final meeting with Jesus and the Pharisees and Jesus rebukes them on not understanding the law and Jesus tells the Pharisees there are three qualities of the law you miss what are they justice mercy faith let me close with this this was the first section that uh William spoke on last yes yes last week
00:46:42 you know reform evangelicals pride themselves on expository Bible study, gospel- centered preaching. We can take this entire chapter and split it, go into the Greek, give you the context. We are so proud that we are gospel- centered. Sometimes, have you realized you have become your worst enemy because you judge everybody else who doesn't meet your standards of gospel centeredness? You become that very Pharisee, you know. And lately I've been thinking about this, you know, in this entire text there's
00:47:20 one two words here. No, four words here. I notice evangelical conservatives will never will skip over. You know what those words are? This one. That was the function of the law. What is the similarity between Paulo's Bambang who willing to lose millions in contracts in obedience to the law and he can pray 40 days that the God who can turn water to wine will also turn soft to hard salt. What is that similarity? and Susanna Cole who says I will never give up even though the entire system is against
00:48:13 me. They have faith. They believe in justice, no compromise. They have compassion, but they believe in miracles. I want to close with this which I think is the biggest indictment on our church. We have forgotten to believe in miracles. Do you not believe God can change your life? Seriously, change it far beyond what you can imagine. And you sit there, you say, "How?" And here's the closing word. Obey in faith. love your neighbor and see what I would do to your life. Let us pray. Lord, this is a complex topic,
00:49:32 Lord, but very often when we look at the law, we think it's transactional. We do this for you, God. You do that. That's not going in faith. But when we know you are a good God who rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians who have earned our trust, then you tell us obey. For some of us that obedience is very difficult because we want to live in sin. If that's you right now, this is the word of the Lord to you and to me. And you sit there, you say, "Lord, it's hard. I've tried to fight sin." And
00:50:19 so, like Susanna Cole, do not give up. And then, why do I fight sin? Why do I obey? So that I don't go to hell? No, no, no. You obey the law because you love your neighbor. And the Lord says, "If you and I pursue in that, watch out. Watch out. Miracles will come into your life because you're walking in love, the power of the Holy Spirit. As we close this song, we remember God is both the lamb who died for our sins and perfectly obeyed, perfectly showed compassion. But Christ is also the lion who will bring justice to Susanna
00:51:35 core, justice to corruption. And we worship both a god, Christ resurrected, crucified, the lamb and the lion. I'm going to let brother Chucha lead us in worship. Thank you, brother, for the uh message. Church, can we all rise and sing our closing songs and give praise to our God of miracles? [Music] You were the rescue plan from the beginning. Our sacrificial lamb who bled for our healing. The scars of your perfect hands, the seal on your covenant through your suffering that has lost its thing. You are well. You always will
00:52:57 be the savior of the world who gave everything for me. The water of heaven goes holy. The lamb, the lion, the [Music] king. Your body inside the grave. Spirit was war. Stormy kisses like a lion roaring to the highest. Kingdom is yours alone. To your [Music] victory. You are always willing. Savior of the world who won everything for me. The world of heaven calls [Music] [Applause] glory that I am. [Music] [Applause] [Music] One day we'll hear your name from every nation. You swallow through the eastern
00:54:43 gates for your coronation. [Music] All he wants you to be the race for eternity. Every living [Music] thing you are. You always will [Music] be [Music] saved for me. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] You always say you are the one who is everything to me. Oh go the king. Jesus the lamb. The lion [Music] king. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Uh can we be seated? Can everyone be seated? We are going to come to the time of holy communion and we've been talking about the law and again uh we could be doing this by following the law. Come
00:56:57 once a Sunday we have to do this. That's called blindly following the law. This is the law. Jesus commanded us to do it. But what we're learning today, if you follow the law to be blessed, you're missing the point. We do this from a grateful heart. I want to ask you to refrain from tearing the paper first. Let us just quieten our hearts down. There's a lot of time to tear the paper. And so Moses tells the Israelites, "If you do this, you would be a nation of priests. You'll be image bearers." But
00:57:38 that came by God saying, "Don't you trust me? I saved you." And so what I want us to do is to take some time and to approach Holy Communion with a grateful heart. I want you to take some moments to think about who Jesus is in your life, your life, for he is both the lion and the lamb. I want you to take some time to look at how he saved you again and [Music] again. Then we will tear open this plastic. Let's take a [Music] moment. So once again, I ask you to refrain from tearing open the plastic.
00:58:45 Please do not tear the plastic. Do not tear the plastic. I want us to have a moment of silence. Let's not make this a meaningless ritual that you just do because like robots we do it every Sunday. I want to say this in love. If this is something we just do once a month, frankly, I'll tell you don't don't bother to do. meaningless rituals is what made the Israelites driven so far away from God. They turned the law into a job description. Don't do this. You're missing blessings from God. Take a moment, quieten down, and ask
00:59:35 yourself, where is Jesus in your life? The Lord Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly by taking on all our sins and for that we are grateful. The Lord Jesus showed compassion and love by doing it and so both compassion and justice were fulfilled on the cross. 1 Corinthians 13:23, for I received from the Lord what I also pass on to you. The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when had given thanks, he broke it and he said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of of me."
01:00:30 So shall we now open that [Music] plastic. Take out that bread. Look at that bread. Look at that bread. And what do you see? Do you just see something you do every month? Look at that bread. There's nothing magical about the bread. It doesn't transform itself to be something supernatural. But look at that bread. And this is what Paul says. This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Shall we partake of the bread [Music] together? So Lord, right now in this moment, we think of our sins which are
01:01:37 many. We think of your body broken for us and we struggle. Teach us to be thankful for for you took our place. You became a curse on the tree to take away our curse. And so now we our we are no longer 49 our 100 but 100 our 100. Teach us to be grateful people and on that teach us to be more obedient. In the same way after supper he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. Shall we open the plastic for the cup? [Music] [Music]
01:02:30 And again we practice look at it the blood. This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. Shall we drink it? [Music] Forever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. He both the lion and the lamb. The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world in compassion. the lion that will come and bring justice. And we love our neighbor by holding these two in balance. Compassion for people whom we don't agree with. But
01:03:32 justice, corruption, we will say no. And may justice prevail. People do not disappear off the streets. We stand with Susanna Co. and justice, compassion, mercy, and justice. The lamb and the lion. I'm going to ask brother Chuch Chang to finish off with this chorus and we have a closing prayer. So, uh, let me just close with something very quickly. So, you know, yesterday on our table, we were talking about corruption. Can I have some keys? And we were saying wow you know you can sit please sit if you
01:04:09 want to you know let me close and I'll close in prayer you know I'm an architect corruption is the air in this country and we see very hard to be honest in this country you know in short we are saying it's very hard to obey and so one brother to my left who does text was quite interesting he says we actually unwilling to follow the law not in so many words we are unwilling to obey And he told us let us pray that although we are unwilling make us willing. I want that to be our closing prayer. I am by
01:04:56 nature unwilling. Make me willing. And here is a promise of God. That is a prayer of faith. You keep doing that. Here is the promise of God. Miracles and signs and wonders shall follow. We have so forgotten that in conservative evangelical churches. And I pray God will be so big in your life. It will fulfill and exceed all expectations. And it starts with a simple prayer. I am unwilling. Make me willing. Shall we pray this? Lord Jesus, the lion and the lamb. It is very hard to be obedient. And so it's so easy just to do
01:06:07 religion and hope by doing religion, coming to church and doing a few things, you will bless us. But that is not you. The law shows your character and our sinful nature. And you gave us Jesus who died on the cross for our sins. And right now we are unwilling to change. And we close with a simple prayer request and a claiming. We are unwilling Lord. Make us willing. and we claim your promise that signs and wonders will follow in our lives and we will experience your goodness as God's people say. Amen. God
01:07:03 bless you all. Please stay back if you want to talk to any one of us. God bless you. Have a great week ahead. [Music]
