Unfathomable Riches in Christ - Freed from the Law - Part II

We are continuing on this theme of free from the law, and one of the things that I had mentioned, and then talking with Jim, there's a tendency among Christians to think, oh, I'm not under the law, and to just push it all away. Oh, that's for the Jews, and I can just ignore that and set that aside.

And then on the other extreme, oh, no, you can't. You've got this law and that law and this law, and you're still under this and that and the other thing, right? And so, what's wrong with this picture? Yeah, so what happens is, instead of, and so this is a very important principle in looking at the Bible, compare and contrast. At any time, what's the same, what's different? So let's ask this, the Law of Moses, all 613 laws, 365, like the number of days in the year, say don't do this and don't do that. Negative commands. But 613 total, are those good or are they bad?

They're good. And as a matter of fact, here's Romans chapter 7, verse 12 if I recall correctly. The law is holy and righteous and good. And who wrote that? The Apostle Paul who said we're not under it. So if someone badmouths the law, that's not biblical. One other thing, not only is the law holy and righteous and good, but the Apostle Paul himself frequently quoted from and directed people to the law. Why? Because even though we're not under one bit of it, we are to learn from all of it.

Did the Apostle Paul refer to circumcision when he talked to the believers in different churches? Yes. He talked about circumcision. He talked about, in Romans chapter 7, he talked about thou shalt not covet. He says, my heart says that's a good thing.

In 1 Corinthians 5.7, Christ is our Passover. In chapters 9 and 10, he went over different points of the law, things out of the Old Covenant.

And so, the laws to be learned from, bad-mouthing the law, does not please God. So, that's one thing we could get real clear. So, are we under the law? No. But, on the other hand, bad mouthing it is not what God wants. He wants us to look at that. Then we can ask this question. Is the law of Moses inspired by God as Scripture? Yep. All 613 of them, 365 negatives, it is all, every word inspired by God.

So badmouthing the law isn't what God wants, so then do I need to go and embrace it, and yay law, yay law, and get law cheerleaders? Who will offer law? So what's wrong with that picture? We're not under it. And so understanding that, we're not under it, but we are to learn from it. It is inspired by God, it is holy and righteous and good.

But we're not under it, and so one of the things we've looked at, and will continue to look at, one of the reasons for Christ dying on the cross is to separate us from the applicability of the law of Moses, and from any principle of law. People will say, well, what did Christ die on the cross for? And people will say, first, what? Christ died for my sins, and for a lot of people that's as far as it goes. But the reality is there were multiple purposes in the law. There were multiple purposes in Christ dying on the cross. And one of those purposes for us in the body of Christ is that we, in Christ's death on the cross, died in relationship to the law in terms of its applicability directly to us. But there is much in the law to learn from. Right? Much in the law to learn from. So we don't derive righteousness from... Right.

So this is why Paul, here is Paul, he's a Pharisee. He was considered one of the greatest up-and-coming Pharisees in Israel. And that's at an international level. He was one of a thousand disciples of Gamaliel. and probably among the best, they would have said, Gamaliel, the premier rabbi of the first century. Of that whole century, this guy is like the best of the best. That's Gamaliel, the one spoken about and even quoted in the New Testament, the book of Acts in particular. So what we find is, here's Apostle Paul.

He knows the law as well as any in his time. He has all the details worked out. But he'll say Romans 6, 14 and 15 twice. We're not under the law. We're under what? Grace. And not another combination of law and grace. The law itself was already gracious and full of law. The law multiple times says the Lord is gracious. If you look up that in the concordances, you'll find the law multiple times has said to be gracious. It is already a mixture of law and grace. God does not desire for us another edited mixture of law and grace.

Yes. I don't think your mic is on. It's switched on as much as I can make. So hopefully this is picking things up. Should I just speak louder? Yeah. OK, I'll just speak louder and make sure you can hear. And by the way, if one of my voice drops down, I'll say so. They just haven't caught up with me, I guess. So what will happen if I turn it off completely? Then they'll let me know and then they'll turn it on. Anyway, I'm joking.

So what we have here, we looked at Freed from the Law last week. This is part two. We're going to look at next week the New Covenant. What is the New Covenant about? That's been something, by the way, I've been looking at the New Covenant in the Church for probably four decades, more than four decades. About 45 years looking at that, and probably in the last 20 years particularly, looking at it even more intensely. Okay, so here we go.

So, we look at this passage, we're no longer under a tutor, and by the way, this word translated, tutor, is not a fully adequate word. There is also schoolmaster is another term that's used, and that's not adequate either. It was a slave tutor who basically hung on to the... child for the sake of education from about age six on into their teen years, and you were just constantly with the slave tutor. Went to school, you know, I'd have people go, the dog ate my homework, or I didn't understand. No, the slave tutor will be there and listen to the teacher and make sure that whatever the teacher taught will get drilled into your head. again and again and again, and you will learn it until it's done mechanically and robotically, right? Flashcards. Pardon? Like flashcards. Like flashcards. And here's the slave tutor holding your hand on the way to school and drilling you on yesterday's lesson.

So now, take note of the two passages that follow that we guide to that is in relationship to the principle of law, which includes the law of Moses for the Jews. That happened in our identification with Christ and His death on the cross. But also note that in both passages that death is in relationship to the principle of law that we might live to God.

So did we die in relationship to the law in order to be totally free of all morality and ethics? Not in the least. Not in the least. Yes? Why did he put relationship to in there? Well, that's me. I put relationship to in there. Oh, OK. Right. So what happened, so we ask the question, did the law die? No, the law did not die. We died. We died. Who did the dying? The law didn't do the dying. We did the dying in relationship to the law. Right?

So that's why we looked at Paul's example in Romans 7, 1 through 6. He starts off the first three verses with a comparison of husband and wife. And how, if that husband dies, the wife is now no longer under obligation to the husband. She is free to remarry under both Roman law and the law of the Jews. So that's the example that he gives. So the husband died, he died in relationship to her, and vice versa. The death is between them. And so in this case, we died in relationship to the law. The law didn't die. The law is still there, isn't it? still out there. We died in relationship to it.

That was the basis for co-crucifixion in our co-crucifixion in Christ. So let me read the passages here, and one of these reiterates what we saw last time. So Romans 7, 4-6, realizing that verses 1-3 is the marriage comparison, right? If one spouse dies and he has a particular example, the husband dies. But here, therefore, my brethren, you are made to die to the law, that's why we say in relationship to, to expand that, through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another.

Who's another? Christ. And by the way, that word joined means married. So it's not just some kind of spiritual joining, it's the word for marrying. You were joined to another, to him, so just so you're not wondering who it is, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might lay around and sit in pews and do nothing. Right? Is that right? No. What's it say?

In order that we might bear fruit for God. This death did not occur just in order to get us separated from something, and now it doesn't matter a whole lot. Nothing matters, right? But rather so that we might bear fruit for God. There's a purpose in it. It's not just the end of something, it's the beginning of something. And that's why it's in here. Yes? Okay.

There's actually two bodies in this paragraph. four through six. The first one is Soma, I guess. So you're talking about the body of Christ, the physical body or the dying of Christ, right? Okay, and that kind of the contrast to the comparison is like we were in the flesh, so the flesh is our body, but in a sin nature, so it's a comparison between the two. So Christ's body is the body of righteousness. Ours is the body of flesh, right? Yep. But it's His physical body and our physical body, and particularly we're spiritually joined to Him, right?

But look also at this. While we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law, so did the law help? The sinful passions, what does the law do? It stirred it up, right? And so here's the thing. Is the law holy and righteous and good? Is it inspired by God? Yes. Is the law bad? No. So what's the problem with the law?

Us. The problem is us, not the law. So we don't bad mouth the law. If you want to do any bad mouthing, bad mouth us before we were before we believed and before we were made to be in Christ. But you can't badmouth the law and stay biblical. So you look at it, but the law stirred up the sin nature, and that lesson you see later on in chapter 7. So is the law going to make you better? No, it doesn't. Yes? and we died to it. Are we assuming that we were under the law before we died to it? Okay, so let's look at this. One of the reasons we say on the top there, the principle of law. So the Jews, how many laws are they under, and which ones? 613 laws, individual laws of the law of Moses. Plus, we've got this Romans elect. In chapter 2, one of the things it brings out is, for the Gentiles, are they under the law of Moses?

No. And as a matter of fact, they never were. But the principle of law is still there. And the principle of law is carried out and used as a matter of judgment for the unbelieving Gentile on the basis of conscience. So when we died, we died to our conscience? We died to principle of law. Principle of law. And so the principle of law for the Jews is 613. For the Gentile, it's the principle of law under conscience. Romans chapter 2. See? So that's one of the reasons we have principle of law there. I don't have law of Moses, because if you are not a Jew, you were not given the law of Moses and were never under it.

But both the Jew and the Gentile who come to believe in Christ die in relationship to that principle of law. So then, verse 6, now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were found, so that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not the oldness of the letter. How does righteousness get lived out? How does righteousness get lived out? Now we don't have the law.

Yes, so here what we have is, we see here the power of the Holy Spirit. So now let's turn to the next page. And the power of the Spirit is explained in Romans chapter 8 and also Galatians chapter 5. Galatians 2, 19-21, for through the law I died to So that I might lay around in a pew and not do anything at all. So that I might be totally free to be absolutely, you know, escape from any moral or ethical constraints. No. So that I might live to God. So, verse 20, I have been crucified.

That's perfect tense. What does perfect tense mean, besides making this perfectly tense? What perfect tense? So this is a completed past action, ongoing results into the present and on into the future, implying permanence unless the context says otherwise.

In this case, what we find is you've been crucified with Christ. Does there come an end to that effect? I've been crucified with Christ, but it's done at the end of time. in terms of the Tibet, is that right? We're through at... see, the buzzer's going to ring, I know Brian's going to ring it, and when that's it, then the crucified with Christ thing no longer applies. Is that right?

No, it has ongoing results. No, so it has ongoing results, and so he personalized it. This is something interesting, I was talking to guys in Africa and they're saying, Paul's talking about himself here. So what he's doing is personalizing it, so that we can personalize it, and also for the sake of emphasis.

I have been crucified with Christ. Can I say that? This isn't just Paul. I can actually say that. I've been crucified with Christ, and I can put my name in it. I personally have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who, and I'm going to expand the Greek just a little bit, it's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me.

Does Christ have any problem living out righteousness? None whatsoever. Does he need the law to know what's right and wrong? He does not. He made the law. Huh? He made the law. Yeah, well, was he involved in the writing of the law? Yeah. And so what does the law do? The law reflects God's moral character.

And so what we're doing is saying, rather than looking to the law and me trying my best to live by it, whether by trying to live up to some part of the law of Moses, good luck living up to all of it, or by some other list that I cooked up. I'm going to make sure I do this and don't do that. I've got all my rules. None of that's going to help. I don't need it. I don't need it.

Why? Because, first of all, God didn't just say, you know, I have been co-sickened with Christ. I have been made a paraplegic with Christ. I've got neuropathy in my lower extremities with Christ. Is that what it did? I have fainted with Christ. Is that what happened? No. I have been what?

Crucified. Crucified. And guess what? Those Roman soldiers, what happened if they let somebody who was crucified actually continue to live? They were killed. It was death penalty. Yeah, it was death penalty. So if I've been crucified in Christ, I die with him. That's the way it's going to happen. That's what it means. I die with him on purpose.

One of those many purposes, several purposes at least, one of those purposes is that I'm no longer under the law, even though it's inspired by God, it's written by Moses, even though Christ himself was behind the righteousness of it. I've been crucified with Christ to completely by His life. And that's exactly what God had in mind. It's not what would Jesus do, it's what is Jesus doing and not doing through me.

Right? So it's not what would Jesus do, and here's a list of good things to do, and here's a list of things not to do. And so, you know, you do your best. No, it's not that. God did not delegate anything to you just to make sure you got crucified with Christ. Right? It's not your job. You're fired. Why? Because you're dead. Right? And not my either.

So should we teach our kids to take commandments anymore? So here's the thing, as kids are growing up, certainly we have things to teach them, you need to do this and not do that, but in the end they need to come to a place of dependence upon Christ. So if we teach them the Ten Commandments, but simply leave it there, we're under it, then that's not where they need to grow and where they need to go. So I always thought it was bad when schools took down the King Commandments of all schools.

Is that bad or good? Well, so here's, I think, the thing. The kids don't need the law except as unbelievers. There's a place for saying, you know, this is right and wrong. But in the end, unless they have the message of Christ, It's not going to work. Let's say you're going to apply the Ten Commandments and post those things there in school.

What does the sin nature do with that? Yeah, the sin nature is going to do two things. It's going to say, I can do it, I can do it, pick me, pick me. And so the sin nature will go that route. And then the other thing that the sin nature is going to do is what? Oh no, you don't. Yeah, so the nature of this, you know, bipolar, schizophrenic, you know, thing where you've got this problem, you know, it's trying to go both ways. Why?

Free the knowledge of good and evil. It says, I can do good and I can do evil. I can do both of them, right? It might even say, hey, the law is really good. So the difficulty is, first of all, that those Ten Commandments were not written to us, but to Israel. Secondly, they aren't ultimately the answer to morality and ethics anyway. So it does put a standard out there, and we can say, yeah, that standard is from God.

I don't know about you, but look at it, and how about the Sabbath? that you really, really want them to say, I'm not working starting Friday afternoon. I'm not working starting Friday afternoon. I won't even pick up the firewood. And then, I'm sorry, I'm not working again until late Saturday afternoon. So from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, I'm not doing it. But you need to do your chores. Oh no. I'm going to be holy. So you're saying the Sabbath isn't applicable to us? It is not. As a matter of fact, it never was. So we should work seven days a week? No, that's not the point either.

The point being, because, say, Friday afternoon, when the sun goes down, that's the Saturday afternoon, when the sun goes down, that's the end of the Sabbath for Jewish folks. And so what would they do if you broke the Sabbath? I picked up the firewood a half hour too late. What would they do? Stone to death. And as a matter of fact, that is exactly what they did. They caught a guy out in the wilderness. Here's Moses. They said, what should we do, Moses? Stone him. Do we do that?

No. We actually, among Gentiles, we find absolutely no observance of the Sabbath whatsoever. And it isn't a matter of just shifting the days to Sunday. So, as to whether someone should just keep working around the clock and all that, that's a different thing, I think, as a matter of principle. We have to have times of rest and slow down and recuperation and all that. I think it's wrong to, like all this torture, open a sentence. Well, and that's become a problem, is we have no recognition of any day as special at all.

What was the first day of the week to the Christians? That was the day when Christ was resurrected, and so what did they do? The Christians made sure they gathered that day. By the way, did the Roman culture go along with taking the first day of the week off? Yeah, they did. So it would be something that Christians would do, and sometimes they have to get up real early in order to have that time together.

Well, keeping the law only brought blessing, it never brought salvation. Yes, so that's one thing, is Deuteronomy 28, and that's not the only place, but Deuteronomy 28 is the focal point passage that says, verse 14 verses, here are the blessings from keeping the law, and the blessings are every single one of them physical, earthly blessings, if you keep it.

And by the way, twice that's in the land, in the land. The curse would start in verse 15 and go all the way to the end of the chapter, and they are much longer than the blessedness. And, twice, again, what do you find? The land, the land, right? It's relevant, so it's specific to Jesus.

So, now as a country, so what has happened is we just have all days are the same, and now you get mail delivered on Sunday even, you know, certain things. It used to be if you run out of gas towards Sunday, you're in trouble. But, you know, within a couple generations, that's now all the race, you can get a gas any time you want, and liquor, right? So the thing is, we've gone in a race so all the days are the same.

But the principle and the recognition and the respect for what is this day about, and what do we do with it, and the idea that people don't have some kind of a rest and a break and all that, that's a tough one. And it has become, along with many other things, a problem in our culture. So let's take a look here.

It is no longer I who live, no longer I who do the living, but Christ lives in me, Christ does the living in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. That loved and gave sequence, that's in John 3.16, it's in here, it's twice. in Ephesians 5, love and gave, love and gave.

Ephesians 5.2 and 5.20 also have, say, four times in the New Testament, love and gave, exact same words, exact same sequence. Love and gave, Christ loved and gave, and because I was such a nice guy, he loved and gave because he said, oh, they're so cute.

Is that what he did? Is that what you see? No. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why would he do that? What's the motivation? Love brought him to the cross as a motivation. For the joy set before him, Hebrews 12.2, that brought him beyond the cross as a motivation. What was the joy set before him? Eternal fellowship with you and with me. For the joy set before him hindered the cross. So I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. Can you have righteousness through the law? And by the way, this is a part of the difficulty. The law sets out a moral standard, like you post the Ten Commandments, right? And of course, nobody keeps a Sabbath. Just nobody. Nobody keeps a Sabbath. But the law itself posts moral standards. It even gets to the heart of the matter.

I'll start with my covenant, about one's Putting God first and foremost, and only Him, not Him as the chief among gods. Yes. Okay, in Colossians 2, 19, 21, it says, I now live in the flesh. So, we've talked about this before, and this flesh has a sin nature, and the sin nature is to not die, right? That's right. So let's talk about, the word flesh has several different definitions in the New Testament, right?

Sometimes when we talk about, you know, all flesh, what does that mean? So that word means all humanity. This one does? No, I'm just saying that where it's used in that sense, it's all humanity, right? All flesh in Galatians, or flesh in Galatians 5 is referring specifically to the way the sin nature operates through the body. So there's the Galatians 5 use of it. Here, what is he saying? He says, I now live in the flesh. Which flesh is it? Is that the sin nature operating through the body? same source in every case, but in the context, the life I live now in this physical body.

So this is the definition. So we look at, it's the same word source. S-A-R-X is the transliteration. But it would still have sin nature, right? Yes, except what is the use of the word in context? And sometimes it's, okay, God caused the flood, and what died?

All flesh. Everybody who is not on that ark. Right? Right. But I think what Paul's saying, even though he's in the flesh and it has a sin nature, he is living by faith. Right. So it's beyond So here is this flesh, which has sin nature attached to it, he says, I live by faith in the Son of God, is he operating out of the sin nature? No. So that's a key thing, a reason for understanding, this flesh means, in this context, my physical body, which does have the sin nature attached, but the sin nature is not hardwired into how I operate.

I, one time years ago, had this great experience of borrowing, for a short period of time, my friend's go-kart. There were a few bugs to work out with this go-kart. And one of those bugs was that they put the transmission in backwards. It had three speeds in reverse, and one in forward. Right? Yeah, you could fly backwards. But going forwards, well, you're stuck with one gear, you know, and you can't go very fast, because that was really the reverse. And so it was completely mechanically attached in that way. Without doing major work on this thing, they put things connected in backwards. You had three speeds in reverse and just one going forward and it wasn't very fast.

So the problem with the unbeliever is, just like the transmission that's stuck in the wrong direction, it's stuck with the sin nature that's going to call the shots. The unbeliever can do nice things, they can do bad things, but the sin nature is calling the shots all the time.

For the believer, The sin nature, until we go home, is still attached to this body. So this word flesh, however, that he's talking about, is this human physical body, in the context. Because the sin nature is not what's driving things. The sin nature, instead, is offline, and what he's talking about is the very life of Christ, as a work of the Holy Spirit, is doing a living image in this physical body, which is, in that context, the flesh.

Yes. And not to belabor this point, but Paul a lot of times talks about this being in the members of the body. Yes. Is there a reason that he always talks about it? I mean, why doesn't he just say it's in the body, per se, instead of in the members of the body? Is that because we serve in the members of our body? Yeah, well, look, our body is not just one thing.

Suppose you said, okay, here's a wax bird. You're standing next to me. Of course, you go to some of these places where they have a bunch of wax figures. They've done a pretty good job of making it look like the person. Is that wax person the person? No. And so what's the problem is that you have in this wax person, you fail to have all the articulation and the distinguishing of different organs and functions and different things like that. Classically, we have five senses, right? Our bodies will have vision, and smell, and hearing, and taste, and touch. And so we'll have those five senses.

Does the wax figure have any of those? No, the wax figure doesn't have it. So you have all the different functions and articulation that comes with the different parts of a real body, and so that's why he'll use members as a summary statement of talking about all the parts and components. What the wax figure lacks is a nervous system, among other things.

We have four different kinds of nerves in our body. So there's different categories. So a neurologist is working with all these four different kinds of nerves that are doing different things. So on one hand, I'll get the sensation of touching the pupil. I'm touching the cue, so I sense the cue. I'm also grabbing it, which means I've got something delivering a message to move my body. So you've got all these different categories of nerves.

So he's working at all the different things that make for differentiation, different parts of the body, different functions. parts of anatomy, a wax figure that looks a lot like any one of us, does not have the same thing. It has all the external appearance, but the members in terms of all the different parts and functions, whether visible or invisible, are not there in a wax figure. That's part of the problem with the idols. They're all man-made, and they're typically, when you look at them, it sort of looks like deity is, but it doesn't do anything. The idol is actually stupid.

Okay, so, we see from both of these passages that, one, we die having been identified with Christ and his death in relationship to the law, and by that we mean the principle of law which covers both the Jews under the Law of Moses, all 613 laws, and the Gentiles, who were not under and were never given the Law of Moses, and that would be one reason for not putting out the Ten Commandments, as this is the final and actual thing. There is a point in it, but it's not the last and final answer.

So then we have, in the next one, that death was for a present and ongoing purpose. That is, that we might serve in the newness of the Spirit, and that we might live to God. Even if you go to Romans 6, reckon yourselves dead to the sin nature, and is that what God wants us to do? And, reckon yourselves dead to the sin nature and alive to God. If you don't do the second half, You're just dead. You're just dead. We are dead to the same nature for a purpose that we are alive to God. So this here, I died to the law so that I might live in relationship to God. Third point, in living out of righteousness for the believer, serving and living, who has died in relationship to the principle of laws done by the Spirit and by the life of Christ.

If you look at all of scripture in the New Testament, you will find out, are you in Christ? Yes. Is Christ in you? Are you in the Spirit? Yes. Romans chapter 8. If you're in the Spirit, positional, is the Spirit in you? Yes. So Romans and Galatians post-date that. Yes.

Okay, so by the Spirit, by the life of Christ, and then in Galatians, by faith. So all those by's connect and go together. If you do this by faith or through faith... And you bring up a good question. Suppose I just said, it's by the Spirit and by the life of Christ that it's not by faith. What if I just said that? That'd work. But what's the problem with that? How can you have that without faith?

Yeah, but by faith means implementation. It's not real unless it's real by faith. So faith isn't just some sort of foggy, wispy, you know, hey, I'm a person of faith. It's not this foggy, wispy kind of mystical thing. It is instead, this is the means of practical implementation. This is the truth, I believe it, I live by faith in the truth as it's revealed. It's not just faith in some vague sense, but it's specific faith. Faith in the truth as it's laid out, and faith in the person of Christ, who he is and what he's done.

Faith in the Holy Spirit as He works in you. Yes? Well, that's as vague as saying, I'm a believer, but not identifying... I'm a believer of what? Yeah, but not identifying what you believed in. Yeah, so one of the ways it's been put, faith has an object, right?

To simply have faith is like useless. I have blood, okay? So it's a corpse. So they bleed them out, right? So just having faith by itself doesn't do any good at all, right? It's empty. It must have an object in order for there to be implementation of what the faith is in and who the faith is in. So righteousness for the believer, serving and living, who have died in relationship to the principle of laws, done by the Spirit and by the life of Christ. Four, having died in relationship to the law, righteousness is not achieved by the law in any way.

You know, one of the questions you asked earlier is about posting the Ten Commandments, and for the unbeliever, posting the Ten Commandments does lay out, here's a moral code, and that there is a moral code, and the hope is at least that people will recognize, oh, here's a moral code, And that moral code is out there.

It's objective. We can all see it. And the hope is that that gets internalized in people in some way. But for those who believe, believers in Christ, the law is inspired. It's holy and righteous and good. I'm to learn from the law. It's there for a reason. God himself is 100% behind it. But God himself had Christ die on the cross, for several purposes of which included that I might die to the Lord.

And the only reason that makes any sense at all is that I might live to God that Christ's life would be living truth, that Christ's truth is of righteousness by definition. and he's the very definition of righteousness, that his life lived out through me is how righteousness happens. It doesn't work by instituting the law, by my effort, or by somebody else trying to force it into the body. That's not what God has in mind. Righteousness is not achieved by the law in any way for the believer. So, here's the Apostle Paul, he walks into Ephesus. What kind of place is Ephesus?

Raunchy, right? Raunchy! Yeah, it's like Chicago, San Francisco, right? or final, the little town that I grew up in. So anyway, here's Ephesus, this horrible, rotten, raunchy place. I was once describing, in a home Bible study, I was describing life in Ephesus, and one of the people in the group said, oh, please stop. It's kind of gross. It's rather disgusting. All right, so he went in and he said, OK, we're going to clean up Ephesus, right?

So you imagine going into this city, and there's four different kinds of prostitutes, and that's just the females. And when you exit the theater, there's a group of little boys you can rent. A terrible, gross place. It does not go in and say, OK, we're going to have protest signs, and we're going to stop the little boy rental, and we're going to...

Here you go to this library. Some pictures of the library. Right off to the left of the library was a brothel, and they had footsteps carved into the stones toward the brothel. A gross and terrible place, and I'm keeping it clean. It's a horrible, awful place, and so when he goes in and tells those people he gives them the Gospel, and he writes to these people, some of whom have horrible backgrounds, and he says he's been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He chose us in him. Yeah, you, the brothel owner. Yeah, you, dollars. So as long as she remembers, she's been a prostitute. That's the only thing she knows from before she remembers. That's what she's been for. From a little boy that's been corrected.

Can you imagine coming from that and learning? You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing that God blesses. been chosen in him for the foundation of the world. Imagine talking about the riches of his grace. You have the adoption of sons, which implies you have been chosen and appointed to the highest honor in the entire empire. That's the word for adoption that he used. And all of your past sins and all of your debts are now completely expunged as if they never happened.

So that's why he spends four and a half chapters telling them about who they are in Christ and who Christ is in him. And he waits until the four and a half chapter point to start saying, OK, now let's talk about your stealing and lying problem. They need to hear who they are oppressing. They need to hear it a lot.

Lord, thank you. As we look at this, your grace is indeed amazing. And it's not just rich in grace, it's rich as plural. Multiple magnitudes of wealth in grace. Grace so amazing that it will take eternity for us to be shown it all. Thank you for that. We just pray as we look here at this freed from the law, Yes, but established and our feet planted firmly and permanently in grace, this grace in which we stand. Thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.