Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Pastor Ed with a great summary of the law.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The law says I've shown you your need, now go to the cross. That's the summary. Pastors can take a Bible study and extend it to all these words, but here's the study: the law says you need Jesus, go to the cross. That's it.

That's all you need to know. You come back to the law, "Well, I'm going to keep it," because there are people today you'll hear on the radio, you see them on TV. They say, "You've got to go back to the law. You've got to become a Jew. You've got to go through all the festivals. You've got to keep the Torah." No, you don't. By faith in Jesus Christ, He's kept it all.

And by faith in Jesus, you walk in the power of the newness of life.

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome again to Abounding Grace. Pastor Ed Taylor is midway through his series in Galatians, and we'll be in chapter 3 today.

Maybe like many, you had an older sibling or parent that would take you by the hand and lead you to school every morning. Well, that's exactly what the law of God was intended to do: to take us by the hand to school, leading us to Jesus Christ. When you come to understand that, it makes all the difference in how you relate to the law. Here's Pastor Ed with "The Purpose of the Law."

Pastor Ed Taylor: As we come together, it's a reminder of the closeness and intimacy that God has for us. It's like a Christmas gathering or a Thanksgiving where we're anticipating, and we get to like a family reunion. Even a family reunion has Uncle Harry's going to be there and we know that we're going to have to deal with him. In the church, we all have those men and women that we have to deal with. Sometimes we're the people that we have to deal with, but it doesn't matter. We love them anyway. We're family.

We're going to come together and enjoy the Lord together. We're going to remember we're not alone, that we're not alone in this upside-down, sideways world. There are many believers all around us, and we're reminded when we gather together that we're one family. I think of this little church here where you're coming in from Aurora, from Denver, from Wheat Ridge, wherever you're coming, you're coming together to worship and you're learning about how much God loves you and cares for you.

You're not getting that in the world, are you? The world, social media, think about your job. Can you imagine? The thing that we share today that's probably the closest to unity that we could possibly have is when we're singing. Have you ever thought about that? We're all singing the same thing, almost at the same time, sort of in the same melody and tempo, but we're as close as we can be to unity.

It doesn't matter if you can't sing. It doesn't matter if your voice is off-key. The Bible says make a joyful noise to the Lord. It doesn't matter if you hum it, whistle it, or bring your tambourine. No, don't bring your tambourine. You can do that in the parking lot. But when you're singing, there's unity. Can you imagine at work, your boss coming in: "Okay everybody, it just feels like we're all disconnected. Come into my office, let's sing a song together." And you go, "That's weird."

Then he says, "Let's sing to God this worship song." And you're like, "Yeah, I don't know because I live in the most God-hating place that I've ever seen on earth. I don't ever see that happening." I know. You're not going to get this at work. And you're not going to get this in the world. Now, I know you get glimpses of it, and I know you can put the radio on, that's not what I mean. But you don't get this. This is God's gift to you and to me.

It is closeness and intimacy where your guard against this world, like you're on edge in this world, aren't you? Some of you are. You're just on edge, you're protective, and you feel like you're in war in this world. But you don't have to be in war here. You can let your guard down a little bit. You can cry a little bit. Probably never in a million years would you cry in your cubicle, but you would cry walking into church because you're feeling the presence of God.

It's a place where I was thinking back to a church gathering like this when I got saved. Actually, even before I got saved, it was in a gathering like this where I learned what it was like to be hugged by a stranger. And that was pretty weird. Because they were doing the greeting thing and just greeting some dudes, and they would say, "Come on over." I'm like, "Don't hug me."

I didn't grow up in a home like that. I didn't grow up in a family like that. My home was filled with love, but it wasn't demonstrative like that. There wasn't a lot of "I love you" and "Come on over, son, and let's hug." That's not how my home was. I walk into a church and some dude's hugging me, and then we're singing songs that were very different than what I was used to. The music I was used to was very vile and filled with nastiness and sin.

Then I come into church and I'm singing. This is where I learned how to let my guard down and enjoy relationship and enjoy not only what someone could share with me but then also what I could share with others. I could learn the value of a hug or human touch on the shoulder or the laying on of hands and prayer. I learned a lot about intimacy and closeness. The law couldn't teach me that.

Nobody could have handed me a list when I walked in the door and said, "This is how you get close." That doesn't work. It's something you learn through relationship. Legalism, listen, legalism and trying to do good works keeps you and me away from closeness. You have to understand this. When you choose to live in such a legalistic way, you walk in and somebody says, "Hey, why are you wearing that? We're in church."

Bro, why am I wearing it? It's the only thing clean in my closet. What do you mean why am I wearing it? It's all I own. What does that even mean? All of a sudden, that's the guy you want to avoid, the guy that's asking you why you're wearing it. Listen, just wear something when you come to church. That's it. Just wear something, please. But you can see if I approach you, "Why are you doing that? Why are you saying that? Why are you wearing that?" That does not foster relationship.

Can I get an "Amen" on that? That is separating us. Sometimes you relate like God's doing that to you. No. What God will do is He'll give you a conviction in your heart about what to wear. He'll give you a greater love for others. Let's say you're wearing something that might be a stumbling block to someone. Then the Lord says, "I'm just going to show My message and I'm going to put it on My t-shirt." Okay, it's your t-shirt.

But as you're walking with the Lord, you find out that t-shirt's super offensive to people. It's not helping with the Gospel. You don't even actually need anybody to tell you that. The Lord told you that. Before you know it, you don't want to wear it anymore. It's like wearing a New York Yankees hat. That's a problem. Legalism separates us.

God didn't give leaders in the church, He didn't give us pastors, so that we go around sniffing out every sin and trying to figure out what sin you're in. That's not why God gave leaders to His church. He gave leaders to His church to shepherd the flock of God and to help you get back on track. Do leadership deal with sin? Of course we do. We have to. When it's revealed, it needs to be dealt with biblically and honestly and righteously, for sure.

Serving in the church and enjoying a church family is not about sniffing out everyone's sin. It's about helping people get their eyes back on the Lord. When your eyes are on the Lord, you have such a sweet life. It's so good to enjoy Him. As leaders, we're here to help you grow, to help you understand the Word, to teach it to you, to edify you, and to help create an environment where you can learn what it's like to know closeness.

Especially so many of us, we just didn't have that kind of upbringing. We just didn't live in that kind of family. But it's a whole new thing in the Lord. Are the law and the promises of God now in conflict? Paul says no. Because if the law could have made someone righteous, God would have given the law to make people righteous. But it's impossible to make you righteous. It has no power.

It can only tell you the standard. It doesn't have the power. You have to agree with it. You have to follow it. He says that we're all equal. Notice? We're all equal. We are all under the penalty of sin. All of us are. There is no law that could make us righteous. That's why the law is so important, as it reveals to us our sin. That's why I believe it's important to use the law when you're sharing the Gospel.

Now, you use it in such a way where it's a revelation to someone about their sinfulness. You don't have to take it and just lay it all out: your sin, your sin, your sin. You can do it very nicely and carefully and kindly as you're talking to someone about the love of God. That's beautiful. You're talking about the love that Jesus showed in dying for your sins. It's awesome. You take them to the empty tomb and remind them that Jesus rose again from the dead.

Then you work backwards. You go, "Well, but we've all sinned. So why did He die? And why?" "Well, I'm not a sinner." Okay, let's just talk about that for a second. I respect your view of your life, but the Bible says, if we can just agree for a moment what the Bible says, you could just take them to the Ten Commandments. You could just take them to one commandment. You don't even have to use the whole thing. You say, "Well, in the Bible it says that you shouldn't lie. Have you ever lied in your life?"

"Well, absolutely not. Never." And you're like, "You're lying right now." So you can just have that conversation, but they'll have to admit, if it's not lying, it's stealing. They'll have to admit in their life, at least one time, they've crossed God's perfect, righteous law and requirement. In that moment, they recognize it.

And you may be planting the seed, you may be watering it, or you may be the one that gets to bring them to a place of saving faith. But it's important you use the law because the law confines us all under sin. The law reveals to us our own failures. And when you turn your life over to Jesus, what a change takes place. Notice now in verse 23: "But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law."

It was protective for us, kept for faith, which would afterward be revealed. "Therefore," verse 24, "the law was our tutor." Mark that phrase: "The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." So we first of all realize that the law was temporary and it had a temporary purpose. Actually, two purposes mentioned here.

Number one, it was to guard us. It was to keep us on guard. We've used the illustration of a bowling alley. When your kids are bowling, what do they do? They put those guardrails up so that when your kids are throwing their ball, the ball doesn't go in the gutter. Those guardrails are the whole intent and purpose of getting the ball down the lane. That's the whole point.

And so the law now becomes those guardrails to get us moving forward. So we bump up to the left and we bump up to the right, but the whole goal is to get down to the end of the lane. Number one: guarding. But number two: the law is also a teacher or a tutor. We get greater instruction from the law because it's schooling us. And what is it schooling us?

Number one: that we can't earn God's favor through our good works. And you're like, "Well, I don't understand. What do you mean?" Well, if you chose to live under the law in the Old Covenant, you had to watch the animals being sacrificed. You needed to see innocent animals die and their blood shed and offered as a sacrifice to God, which would remind you that there's always a price for sin. And that price is for your sin, not everyone's sin. It's for my sin.

It was teaching me. It was teaching me that there's going to come a Lamb of God who's going to take away the sins of the world. God promised it. He promised a seed through Abraham. It's a promise. So the law even reminds me of the promise. It's teaching me. But more than that, this is one of those illustrations that speaks right to the moment. That word "tutor" is a technical term that the audience would be very familiar with.

The tutor was in the Greek and Roman homes. A child was given over to the full authority of a tutor. This tutor was a slave employed by a Greek or Roman family, and the tutor's duty was to supervise young boys on behalf of their parents. They took their young charges to and from school, made sure they studied their lessons, and trained them in obedience. They were strict disciplinarians, scolding and directing.

The role of the tutor, though, was never permanent because there was always that great day of deliverance when the boy finally gained his adult freedoms. That's the same picture here. The law covered us while we were children, but when faith came, when the promise came, we don't need the tutor anymore. You have freedom. You are now in that place where you have grown up.

For all of us, we were born into the New Covenant because we were saved after Christ. So we look back now with eyes to learn from the law, but we didn't need it because God saved us after Jesus died in the New Covenant. The law says I've shown you your need, now go to the cross. That's the summary. Pastors can take a Bible study and extend it to all these words, but here's the study: the law says you need Jesus, go to the cross. That's it.

That's all you need to know. You come back to the law, "Well, I'm going to keep it," because there are people today you'll hear on the radio, you see them on TV. They say, "You've got to go back to the law. You've got to become a Jew. You've got to go through all the festivals. You've got to keep the Torah." No, you don't. By faith in Jesus Christ, He's kept it all. And by faith in Jesus, you walk in the power of the newness of life.

You look at your life and you go, "Man, I can't believe I live out the Bible. I even live out the parts I don't even know." When you're reading about covetousness now, you're like, "Oh, that's not a problem in my life. I'm glad that I'm not covetous." Or you have this thought of coveting something and the Holy Spirit inside of you says, "No, don't do that." And you go, "Well, why?" And you know what the Bible says. The Bible says that's not My righteous holy standard.

Or as we learn, the Holy Spirit in you says, "We don't do that. That's not good for us. It doesn't reflect God." Notice he says in verse 26 now, where he says in 25, after faith has come, we don't need a tutor, "for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

"And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs to his promise." You get all the blessings of Abraham by faith. You get everything that's given to Abraham and his seed by faith. In Paul's society, there were sharp divisions. And even today, sharp divisions and walls of separation between people. These are some of them. These are some of them that still exist today.

There's national divisions: Jew and Greek and all kinds of countries. There's slave or free: different segments of socio-economic statuses in life that separate us. Male and female: that's a big one that gets capitalized on or even trying to be erased. And then the end says in verse 28 that you are all one in Christ Jesus. These have been wiped away by Christ Jesus. They're all gone.

No more racial lines, no more economic barriers, no more sexual distinctions. He sees us all as spiritual equals. Now stand back for a second because some will take you to this text and use it in such a way where the real distinctions have been done away with. Like there's no such thing as male or female anymore, and they'll take you right here.

Slow your roll here. This is a spiritual statement, not a physical one. You can look around the room right now and you can say a hearty "Amen," there is a difference between men and women. It's very clear. There is no ambiguity about that. So that distinction hasn't gone away. Men are still men, and women are still women. You don't even need the Bible to tell you that. Your eyes can tell you that.

Science can tell you that. DNA can tell you that. So this isn't an erasing of what country you came from or your nationality. It doesn't erase the color of your skin or how you think or what neighborhood you work in. What Christ does erase is all of this divisive nonsense that has us looking up or down at people or judging or criticizing. We are all one in Christ, no matter what our background is. That's what He's saying.

That's the grace of God. That's the importance that we, as we come to the Scriptures, say, "Yes, Lord, look what You've done." This room is representative of that. You know that. To think of all the differences in this room: all the backgrounds, all the nationalities, all the languages. I just think of one little thing: if we would have given you a piece of paper—and we didn't—but let's just say we gave everybody that walked in the door here a piece of paper.

And said, "Write on that piece of paper the worst thing you've ever done in your past and then turn it in because Ed's going to read every single one of them in your church service." That's all his sermon is: stole, lied, whatever. And there's going to be some bad stuff. If we still lived in that way, we probably wouldn't have met each other. We certainly would have never been in this room singing together and hugging.

We would never be together. But in Christ, look what He has done. Look how far He's brought you. Even those of you today who say, "Well, I didn't really have a bad past, I don't have anything," I'll give you a blank piece of paper. And what God has done in your heart is made you far less judgmental because now you know the grace of God, how much He kept you from.

He kept you from that stuff. For some of us, we didn't listen to God, so He delivered us out of that stuff. It doesn't matter. We're all one in Christ. At the cross, who's better than anyone else? Nobody. None of us. It doesn't matter what we bring to the table. It doesn't matter how much money we have. It doesn't matter. By faith is the great equalizer. And Jesus just says to you today: "Come. Just come to Him."

You can hear the invitation: "Come to Me. Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest." You don't have to pay for your salvation. You don't have to earn it. I think of some of you believers here today: you had a season where you were walking with the Lord, and then you had a season when you weren't walking with the Lord and it really, really hurt. Because you got into really bad things.

But now you're back. So now what do you need to do? You need to keep your eyes on the Lord and keep going forward. You can't look back. "Yeah, but you don't understand, I live with my past every day." I know you do, but you live more by faith than you do by your past. God doesn't define you by your past. Like the prodigal son coming home, what did Dad do? Threw him a party. Welcome home.

I'm sure there were some stories and I'm sure there's some discussions, but I know that the prevailing emotion in that home was: "Glad you're back, son. Glad you're back, missed you. Man, I didn't think you were going to make it, didn't know what was going on, but you're back and I'm glad you made it." That's faith. It was the law, if you look at the parable of the prodigal son, it was the law that was in the other son.

That man had two prodigal sons, not one. One left and one stayed, but they both left the love of their Father. And so it's time to come home. It's time to be home. To come into that place where there's unity and beauty, not by a list of external rules, but rather by faith. You're Abraham's seed, you're an heir of the promises of God. Just come and be a part of the family. God loves you, knows your needs, and today we get to celebrate that through communion. We get to remember all that God has done.

Guest (Male): This is Abounding Grace, and Pastor Ed Taylor is leading a study of Galatians right now. You can hear these radio programs on our website anytime at aboundinggraceradio.com.

Hey, this is Pastor Ed, and it's an honor for me to share with you my brand new book. It's called Letting Go of Your Past. And one of the things I wanted to let you know right away is there's an audio version.

Pastor Ed Taylor: We've never done an audio version before, but there's an audiobook version that you can get and take it with you in your ears. It's kind of cool. But this book God is using: testimony after testimony after testimony. I've been traveling actually with it around the country, teaching at different churches and sharing a Bible study on how to deal with your past biblically and then making this resource available. And the feedback coming back is so encouraging.

I just know it'll bless you. You can look it up and see the different themes that it deals with. I believe it's like eight or nine chapters and maybe 25 different things that will help you. One of them is your identity in Christ. Just knowing who you are will open your heart to receive all that God has for you. The title again is Letting Go of Your Past by Ed Taylor.

You can get it on our store. Our store is at calvarystore.com, calvarystore.com, or wherever you get books. But I appreciate your prayers and your support and just continue, continue to pray for us and continue to pray for this little book because God is using it greatly.

Guest (Male): Request a copy of Letting Go of Your Past today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or order online at calvaryco.store.

And please remember, we are listener-supported. We'd very much appreciate your standing with us. If the Lord is leading you to take an active role in this ministry through either a one-time gift or ongoing support, please visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE.

Well, that'll do it for today. Come back next time when Pastor Ed will pick up where we left off in Galatians here on Abounding Grace.