Word of Salvation – Vol.25 No.48 – August 1979
The Law Of Liberty
Sermon by Rev. J. de Kievit on Jeremiah 31:33
Scripture Reading: James 1: 6-27; Psalm 119: 89–112
Beloved congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ,
It is quite possible that some of us might feel rather uncomfortable about having the Law; the Ten Commandments, as the subject of our sermon.
For ‘Law’ reminds us ONLY TOO EASILY of what we have done wrong; or of what we haven’t done. And that is indeed one of the functions of the Law to make us realize our SIN, so that we keep casting ourselves on the mercy of God. ‘Law’ reminds us of rules and regulations which we HAVE to observe but which perhaps we would like to IGNORE as much as possible. Because WE LOVE FREEDOM!!
When you are a pupil at school, for example you HAVE to behave a certain way. You HAVE to follow the school’s programme of learning. So that often you CAN’T WAIT for the bell to ring because THEN you can RUN OUT and DO WHAT YOU LIKE again!
You’ve shaken off that ‘shut-in’ feeling. You can be REALLY JOYFUL – because you’re REALLY FREE!
And – boy – can YOU HEAR it whenever the kids come out for playtime, if – you live anywhere near a school!
Now, there are lots of grown-ups who are MUCH THE SAME when it comes to the Law of GOD. They just CAN’T WAIT to shake off the ‘You shall’s and the ‘You shall not’s of the Ten Commandments.
Because they feel as if they CAN’T MOVE in the atmosphere of regulations, even if they are GOD’S regulations. They feel in a STRAIGHT-JACKET! And they cannot imagine that anyone could ever WANT to keep God’s commandments and STILL BE FREE at the same time!
And so there are lots of people who perhaps give it a try keeping them because they WANT to so much, BUT because God REQUIRES it of them; NOT because they FEAR they might get punished if they don’t. They mightn’t keep God’s law AT ALL if they thought they might GET AWAY with it! Just like many people break the road-rules whenever there is no policeman on their tail. Now is THAT a WORTHY WAY for anyone to try to live the Christian Life? Do YOU think that it PLEASES God if you painstakingly try to live according to His will but feel it a TERRIBLE BURDEN? IS THAT what God has given His Law FOR? Is that what HE WANTS for you and me?
– And be sure that there are still LOTS of people – perhaps they are even members of Reformed churches – who GO THROUGH LIFE like that! Longing for the fresh air of freedom but NOT FINDING it BECAUSE of these commandments, or THEIR VIEW of them at least! –
But no, brothers and sisters, God wouldn’t be SO CRUEL in the first place, as to put such a burden on any of His people. And secondly, such a life rests on a TERRIBLE MISUNDERSTANDING of His commandments.
For let’s LOOK at those beautiful words of God which came through His prophet Jeremiah. Look at the great and beautiful GUARANTEES which the Lord gives there to those who were His people, and to those who WERE TO BE His people- in what Jeremiah foreshadows as God’s NEW covenant with His people, “I will be their God”, He says there, “and they shall be my people.”
“I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more.’ What more could anyone WANT in the way of freedom and salvation? And TO WHOM did those promises come? To people who had been goody- goodies? To those who had kept the GREAT SCHOOLMASTER happy, by keeping His Law to the very letter?
NO! This great prophecy came – and STILL COMES – to the people who had proved time and again how ROTTEN they were! To people whose sin HAD TO BE forgiven if they were to get anywhere AT ALL with God! It was God Himself, in other words, who would take the initiative in His love, as Jeremiah says. In His New Covenant. It would be GOD HIMSELF who would SNATCH His people from the tyranny of their sins; of the death they had deserved. It was GOD HIMSELF who would SET them, in His FREEDOM!
And in THIS regard, the New Covenant would be no different from the OLD.
But it is in the midst of THESE great; these free, SOVEREIGN PROMISES, brothers and sisters which make us glad by their overwhelming GREATNESS (that God should have mercy ON ME, a SINNER AGAINST HIM!) — it’s in THAT SETTING that we see God’s law mentioned by Jeremiah, “I will put my law WITHIN them, and I will write it ON THEIR HEARTS..!”
We’ll come back to what that means, but this is THE ONLY WAY that we MAY EVER understand; we may EVER LIVE, according to the commandments of God in the setting OF GOD’S COVENANT!
God – you see – is our GREAT FATHER who UNDESERVEDLY pulled us IN from the cold and darkness of sin, and adopted us into His own family; His household, sharing with us ALL the eternal light and warmth that we are capable of receiving.
THAT’S what that word ‘Covenant’ means. And that’s what God achieved in Jesus Christ whose blood was shed for sinners like you and me as the blood of the eternal covenant. “And now”, says our Father, “AS MY CHILDREN whom I have DEARLY BOUGHT with the precious blood of Christ, I want YOUR LOVE IN RETURN.”
“And you can show that by walking IN MY WAYS!”
“Because you ARE so glad that I have forgiven your sins.”
“Because you are SO THANKFUL that I AM your Father in Jesus.”
“Because… you LOVE me!!”
It’s IN THIS WAY ALONE… and it’s so important to repeat it and to REMEMBER it – that the Bible EVER MENTIONS the keeping of God’s Law in regard to His children. In the setting of the FREEDOM; of the LOVE; of the JOY, of the HOUSEHOLD OF THE FATHER who has MADE us His children… NOT because any of us DESERVED it IN ANY WAY, least of all by keeping His Law, BUT simply because He loved US; for NO good reason in ourselves!
That’s WHY Jeremiah speaks the way he does.
That’s why the Ten Commandments THEMSELVES BEGIN with these beautiful words, “I am the Lord your God who HAS BROUGHT YOU OUT –
…out of the land of Egypt – out of the land of BONDAGE.”
You see, brothers and sisters? They’re words of LIBERATION. And it’s ONLY people who know they ARE free who can begin TO RESPOND in glad and thankful obedience!
And it’s no different TODAY – under the New Covenant. Only people who are free from sin and condemnation – in Jesus Christ – are NOW FREE – TO begin responding to the Father’s great love; by walking in His ways.
And the question that we all have to ask ourselves first of all, brothers and sisters, is NOT, “Am I keeping the Law of God – let alone perfectly?” Of course, we have to ask that question, too, but NOT first of all. No…! THE first question MUST BE, “Do I RELY for my freedom; for my salvation, on Jesus Christ ALONE?”
ONCE we forget THAT – as Israel so often forgot – we MAY keep God’s Law EVER SO PRECISELY, but then we finish up like the Pharisees AT BEST!
No, obedience FROM THE HEART can only BEGIN from hearts which know and BELIEVE the great love of Jesus Christ
And WHEN we DO know Him through faith – THEN God EXPECTS us to show that, by our response of obedience to His commandments. That is what our Lord Jesus tells His people in these words, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
That means INDEED keeping ourselves to the principles – yes, RULES TOO, laid down in God’s Law. It certainly means Christian self-discipline.
But if we TRULY LOVE our Father, will we ever WANT to REFUSE Him? When He asks us to live according to the ‘rules’ of His HOUSEHOLD? And let’s not forget that God’s Law is the rule of LIFE; of ETERNAL Life! By way of illustration, if Mum or Dad asks you to do the dishes, young people, won’t you DO that then – if you REALLY LOVE them? Even if that doesn’t always SUIT you? For THEIR SAKES? And for the smooth running of the household?
HOW MUCH MORE, then, should we be ready to walk in God’s “Law of LIBERTY” – as the apostle James calls it? When He has set us free? For HIS sake, even if that sometimes MAY bring rules which the world of unbelief regards as restrictions?
And that brings us lastly to perhaps the MOST IMPORTANT question in this regard, “IS God’s Law FOREIGN to us? IS it something which is pushed ON to us, against our will? Is it something to which WE ARE NOT SUITED?” NO; for God had CREATED us for walking in His ways; for keeping His Law. That is the ONLY WAY we can show that we are different from the rest of creation that WE are made IN THE IMAGE of God! Think of THAT – THAT’S what is involved in keeping God’s Law. That’s how we can reflect the great wisdom and love of God. That’s how WE can reflect HIS CHARACTER!
And even though all that was destroyed by sin, God has now again RESTORED that image by ‘writing His-Law-ON-OUR-HEARTS’, as Jeremiah says.
What that means, brothers and sisters, is that God HIMSELF has again put the DESIRE in our hearts to DO His will, through His Spirit… to live ACCORDING TO His Law.
THIS was to be THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between the Old and New Covenants!
So now today, we don’t even have to work ourselves up to feel all ‘goody- goody’, or to do all kinds of unearthly things. Instead, for the Christian it has again become THE MOST NATURAL THING IN THE WORLD to joyfully DO God’s Law. Because the Father – through His Spirit has been AND IS at work – RIGHT HERE WITHIN – to MAKE ME WANT TO serve and obey Him. AND He gives me power ALSO to do that.
THAT’S what it means to be a Christian! NOT to make a SUPERHUMAN EFFORT all by YOURSELF. BUT to ask the Lord to work and live IN AND THROUGH you.
ALL YOU READ, therefore, about the fruit of the Spirit in the New Testament IS NOTHING ELSE than the KEEPING OF GOD’S LAW by SPIRIT-FILLED CHRISTIANS!! Yes, EVEN all those special gifts of the Spirit are given FOR NO OTHER PURPOSE than to serve the Lord, and DO HIS WILL, in the march of His Kingdom.
How could anyone STILL SAY, then, that the Ten Commandments TAKE AWAY freedom; that they are a TERRIBLE BURDEN? Except by a great and terrible misunderstanding?
No. the Christian’s DELIGHT – like that of His Master Jesus Christ is exactly TO DO his Father’s will.
And IF WE are Christ’s brothers and sisters then our GREATEST JOY COMES when we KNOW ourselves obedient to His leading! Yes, indeed, as Martin Luther has been reported as saying, “When you are a Christian, you CAN do as you like, for you have new likes and dislikes.” The apostle Paul says it this way, “If you are Christ’s, then you are a NEW CREATION” – beginning to love God in return for HIS love, and our neighbours as ourselves – JUST as God demands in His law.
HOW MUCH of that JOYFUL SERVING of the Lord can be seen in your life and mine? How much can it be seen in the life of the Covenant-community which is the Church of Jesus Christ? As we carry on our congregational life? The way we come for worship… with our giving… and in all the nooks and crannies of our workaday lives?
It reflects how free we really KNOW OURSELVES TO BE in the grace of Jesus Christ. For it’s His grace which PRODUCES obedience!
And by the same token, if you have NO JOY WHATEVER in the Lord’s will; in the Lord’s LAW… NO desire AT ALL to BOW before Him in humility and obedience, then there is little if any knowledge of God’s covenant; little if any SAVING KNOWLEDGE of Jesus Christ – EVEN IF you STRAIN to keep His rules and regulations!
Of course, we often fail; we all know that only TOO WELL! You fail and fail to perfectly meet God’s demand of love. And that gives us MUCH GRIEF if we are His! For that shows that our ‘flesh’ as Paul calls it, is still fighting SO STRONGLY the Spirit of God who is working within. But the CURE then is NOT to TRY HARDER, by MORE straining and effort; NOR BY making God’s law a terrible burden on ourselves again. The harder we try in THAT way the more impossible it BECOMES. For “without Me”, our Lord Jesus said, “You can do NOTHING!” And that is an ABSOLUTE nothing!
NO, the CURE then is to CONFESS our sins and short-comings honestly before the Lord. AND to MEDITATE on WHAT IT MEANS to have Jesus as OUR SAVIOUR. The cross must ALWAYS be the CENTRE OF OUR FOCUS!
And THEN we may plead that God through His Spirit, will let Christ LIVE INCREASINGLY in our hearts by faith, and will give us back again that FIERCE DESIRE to do His will!
In THAT WAY, our Christian life will still be full of falls into sin, but there will be a constant progression of RISING UP again, as we learn to walk in the RESURRECTION POWER of our Lord.
Yes, in that way we learn TO STAND IN THE FREEDOM of God’s covenant, as gladly we keep on keeping His Law – to His glory.
UNTIL on the LAST DAY we will be PERFECTLY LIKE Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, through Whom God has said, “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Let us view AND KEEP the Ten Commandments IN THIS WAY, so that His grace and glory may be increasingly reflected IN OUR LIVES!
Amen.