The Law-Gospel Relationship

Open up your Bibles to Mark 12. If you're already there, we read that earlier. The title for this sermon will be "The Law-Gospel Relationship." The Law-Gospel Relationship. It'll be divided up into two divisions. You can probably guess the first division will be about the law and the second division will be about the gospel. And so we'll get into specific titles and everything as we go along here. But the aim for this particular sermon will be understanding the relationship between the two — between the law and the gospel.

There are many times, especially today, where we have so many heresies where it's either too much law or too much gospel. It needs to be taught biblically, together, in the same way. When we go into evangelize, you can't just say the good news without the bad news, or without the truth that precedes it. And so we've been teaching that and we know that. And so this sermon will kind of help us get into our minds and our hearts this relationship between the law and the gospel.

And so we'll start out here in Mark 12. Let me read verse 30 again, as we have memorized it over the last couple of months. Mark 12:30. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Let me pray for us. Dear Lord, help us to be able to know what this means and to take it to heart, and to illumine our hearts to be able to know You more — to know You through Your law and to know You through Your gospel. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Oftentimes we see this message being taught in mostly American churches, and then you can see other churches around the world that have been influenced by the American church, to love God and to love others, or to love God, love people — some sort of variation to that. You'll even see it being plastered on their websites. It's like, "This is what we stand for." Well, this is the law. This is when we actually do things to love God and love others, and we find out that we don't measure up to that. This is actually bad news to be reminded of the law. We must say this in our evangelistic message. It is a must. It is a good thing. The law is good. But when we're reminded of the law without the gospel, well, we're sent home without an answer. We're sent home having to deal with our sin. We're sent home having to deal with not having the guilt taken away from us. We're sent home having to always continue to try to love and find ways to love and to measure up, to try to please God in this way, because we know that that's what He commands. And so it's not good news to know that you shall love the Lord your God here in verse 30. But we must say it.

In Matthew 22:40, these two commandments encompass the whole law. When we think about the Ten Commandments, the first four are about loving God and the next six are about loving others and loving people. And so we see that these two statements, these two commandments — to love God and to love others — are the law. And we must understand that.

And then we go a little bit further in this verse and it continues to convict us of guilt. It should. It says, "How much should we love God?" With all — with all of our hearts. And not just the essence of who we are as far as our hearts go, but in our minds, our soul, and our strength. Everything that we do, all of that should be in alignment with loving God and loving others.

And as Pastor Casey mentioned two weeks ago when he talked about "all" in Ephesians 6:18, he talked about "pray at all times in the Spirit," and he rightly said that "all" means to the maximum amount. So you think about to the maximum of your strength, to the maximum of your heart — well, you're doing it all the time. Everything that you do is loving God and loving others. How many of you today have loved God with all your heart, even this morning?

Have loved God with all your heart this morning? Well, that's one day out of your life. I'm talking about with all your heart, at all times, ever since you woke up. That's only been a few hours. What about yesterday or the day before? That's just three days.

And it takes one time to not be all — one thought, one word, one act, one deed to not be all — and to fall short of that law and that commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is not good news. This is the truth that we must embrace. This isn't just a Hallmark verse. This is a commandment by our Lord and by our Commander, by the King, by the Creator of this universe. He has commanded us, "You shall love God with all your heart." And so we must take this as it says. It's even prefaced there in Jesus. He says, "Hear, O Israel." Right? He's exclaiming it. He's proclaiming it and responding to the face of this lawyer and this scribe. And as we read earlier, we see the scribe's response. He says, "Right, teacher," almost like patting Him on the head, and he responds intelligently. But Jesus later says, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." He doesn't say, "Because you know that, you're in the kingdom." No, you're not far from the kingdom, meaning you're not in it with just that particular statement of intelligence. And we continue to read that all the way through those verses on how Jesus argues with the Pharisees and the scribes.

Even Jesus, while He's arguing, He's loving God and loving others as He's arguing with them. We kind of shy away from debating and arguing with others and bringing up truth. Well, you can still love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love others by arguing with them. And we see a prime example of the way that Jesus does this here all throughout the gospels. And so if you and I don't love God with all your heart, you and I have violated the law, and the penalty is death.

If you don't take my word for it, I'll say a few verses in the Bible that talk about that. In John 3:17–18, remember this is right after the famous John 3:16 — it talks about how Jesus did not come to judge the world because the world was already condemned. So the world has fallen, the world is condemned. We are headed to death. This world is temporary. Romans 6:23: "The wages of sin is death." And then at the end of Romans, Romans 7:24 all the way through chapter 8:1, it says where the apostle Paul acknowledges, all throughout Romans, he leads himself to: "Oh, how wretched man I am." And he acknowledged himself as a prisoner of sin. And then we kind of skip all that, don't we? And we just go right to verse 1 in chapter 8. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ." Well, we must preach about those who are out of Christ as well. We're all born out of Christ. We're all born in Adam and the seed of Adam. So we're all born condemned. We're all born outside of Christ. And so when we are in Christ, we can rejoice and we can sing the songs that we sang, based on God's Word and what He said, based on His promises all throughout Scripture, that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

And then in John 14:6, we see the exclusivity of Jesus Himself, where He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and then, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." There is a universal negative at the end of that. There's in Christ and then there's out of Christ. That's a universal negative by Jesus Himself.

And then we get into this: violation of the law is death. We go back to Genesis 2:16–17, where God Himself gave the law to the man, Adam. And He said, "You shall not eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil." And He said, "You shall surely die." And we have the words of Satan in our minds, don't we? When he talked to Eve, he says, "You surely shall not die" — a direct contradiction to the penalty of sin. That's what Satan gives to Eve. And we believe that today, without Christ, without His revelation, without the Spirit that indwells within us. We believe, "Hey, I'm walking. I can choose what I want." But you and I, before Christ, don't even have any comprehension of our own sin and that we're headed to death — spiritual death.

And then in Leviticus chapter 10, we get into a direct confrontation that Aaron, the high priest, has with Moses. Aaron's sons directly challenge the holiness of God by offering strange fire before the Lord. And this is Leviticus 10:1–4. After they offer up this strange fire, the Lord strikes them down with His fire and kills them. And then Aaron approaches Moses — basically, what's going on here? And Moses' response is in verse 3 of Leviticus 10. "So then Moses said to Aaron, it is what the Lord spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me, I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.'"

And it's the same thing. I don't think we even grasp and realize what we're going to be facing with a holy God after we lose this biological life that we're in right now. And I don't want to be standing there on the merit of how many times I, on my own merit and my own opinions, loved God and loved others. I'm not going to come up there with a list because I've got nothing. Nobody has anything to bring before a holy God. These are nightmarish words to hear when you apply them, when you know that you're going to be confronting the Holy after you die. That's for sure. "By those who come near Me, I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored."

And then another time, in 2 Samuel chapter 6, God killed Uzzah on the spot as he touched the Ark of the Covenant. And we see there in 2 Samuel 6:7 that the reason why He killed him was for his irreverence. And that's how God handles those who try to approach the Holy in our fallen state.

Well, you may say, "That's not fair," or, "God's going to understand where I'm at. He understands my circumstances. He knows I've been through a lot. He knows this and that. So He's going to give me grace and mercy." Well, where do you see that in Scripture? Where do you see that, apart from Christ, God is just going to transact grace upon you?

Or we could say, "How could a good God do that?" Right? When we're suffering, these are questions we ask sometimes when we're struggling. How can a good God do this? Well, it's because He is good. And so everything that's not Him will fall. We should be expecting this. We should be able to acknowledge that everything that is not God is going to be temporary. That's why it's so crucial to know that Christ was God in human flesh, because it is only God who will remain eternal — from eternity past to eternity future.

This is explored more in Hebrews, when you talk about Jesus being a unique High Priest — very important to explore, which we can do another time. But there is a line between God and man. There is a separation between God and the nicest person that you know. You can think about someone who led you to Christ. It can be your grandmother. It can be a baby whose wonder just led you to a sense of wholeness. Well, that baby is separated from God. That grandma, or that nicest person who helped you cross the street, they are separated from God without Christ. And that is the truth.

In Isaiah 55:8–9, God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways your ways." We do not even comprehend the Holy. We get glimpses of some sacred things that God has called sacred. We went through that when we talked about Isaiah 6:3 — on what is holy and that the whole earth is full of His glory. We talked about what that looks like. So we get glimpses of that in marriage and life and property, keeping your word. These are sacred things, but only God is holy. Right? "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." Our flesh, our desires, everything about the world wants to bring Him down and lift us up. That teeter-totter effect is what we want to do — we want to lower the bar, to level our understanding of who God is.

Today, the bar is lowered to worldly unity. The way this happens — you can see it a mile away — is that when things get more common, there is more worldly unity. You can see it in comedy sketches: when the sacred is profaned, you're supposed to laugh, and there's unity in that laughter. But it is worldly unity at the sacrifice of the holy. And that's something that we as Christians must be aware of — to be able to keep the name of God at a high standing, the law of God at a high standing, everything that He is in proper perspective of what the Bible teaches about who God is. I'm very thankful for our church, as we were saying earlier, for Pastor Casey and for the elders of this church, that we strive to accomplish this. We strive to highlight God's Word, to do this in a way where it is formal, it is elegant, it is majestic — with the songs and the piano and everything within our power to lift up the name of God from our hearts, from the inside out. We want to be able to keep God as He truly is, to be able to honor Him in His way.

So this leads us to our first truth, which is a convicting truth and will later become encouraging. The first truth is: you and I cannot measure up to the law. You and I cannot measure up to the law. I hope that has become clear as we have gone through the last few minutes, but you and I cannot measure up to the law. Isaiah 64:6: "Your righteous deeds are like filthy rags." That's Isaiah 64:6, pronounced by the prophet Isaiah, who got direct revelation from God Himself, who says, "Your righteous acts are as filthy rags." I just need one verse to tell me that, but there are a plethora of verses that say the same thing.

What you may think is obedience on your own terms does not produce the gospel. It is the gospel that produces obedience in your life, and we're going to hit on the gospel in a few minutes. The Spirit comes and indwells within us on the inside, and then we must live in such a way — as we talked about in Ephesians 6:10–17 — to stand firm. And it talked about earlier in Ephesians: walking in the Spirit, walking in the light. Jesus Himself did this example. Wherever He went, He went into homes of sinners, and He was the light. He was able to do that. He came in with full authority to do that. What a tremendous feat that our Lord accomplished as He walked in the Spirit. He stood firm.

So, Christian, remember who we once were. Remember who you once were, and most of all, remember who you are now in Christ. Rest in Him, and we're going to explore Him in a few minutes. If you're not a Christ follower, let this hearing of the truth of God's law be a mirror. Be a mirror. It is a mirror of love. I would not show love to you if I just said, "Hey, you're going to go out and do great things. God's going to love you no matter what." That's not love. Love is to be able to tell you the truth and to give grace at the same time.

And so I want you, if you're not a Christ follower, to see your flaws in this mirror, from this commandment that we have read this morning in Mark 12:30 and some other supporting verses, and compare yourself to the risen Christ. Compare yourself to the Holy One. Know that you are not welcome into the presence of the Holy without Christ. If you're offended, be convicted and turn from your sin and trust Christ.

And then for us Christians, to be able to share the gospel, we must begin with this. We must begin with the truth of God. We talk about the truth of His holiness, right? There are four truths that we can look at when we're sharing the gospel: the truth about God, the truth about sin, the truth about Jesus Christ — which we're going to get into in a few minutes — and the truth of man's necessary response to that truth. And so in this first truth — the truth about God, where He is holy and has absolute authority — and the second truth — that all men of Adam's seed have violated God's law — we go back to the truth: you cannot measure up to the law. That is the truth.

And when we're communicating the truth about sin, we're not communicating it in a way where it's this darkness of a cloud that kind of invaded, and this external force came in and just kind of messed everything up, and God's got a plan. Well, that takes me out of the whole situation. I'm telling you that in the truth about sin, when we're talking and sharing the gospel, it's got to be personalized. It is your sin. It is my sin that has caused this separation from God. And so we must understand that it is our sin and we have violated God's law. We are not in a pretty spot at this moment. This puts all men in a universal status of debt to God. And then we're going to get into how it also does not put us in a positive status of righteousness. Even if you're sinless, it only gets you to zero. What's required to get into heaven is 100% righteousness.

I challenge you today to compare anyone to Christ and to say, based on their own merit, even if they're sinless, even if they're the nicest person in the world — by God's Word, can you tell me that they're going to heaven?

No. And we're going to get into that here in a moment. So the truth about God and the truth about sin is what we have covered here in this first section.

The second division, which we'll get into here — the second division is: Jesus Christ is the gospel. Jesus Christ is the gospel. This is where I want to spend the rest of our time together. I think getting through the first division is very hard. It is very hard for us to think about the law. But when we look at who Jesus Christ is and what the gospel is with Him, we will be able to find that we can rest in Him.

So when we look at Jesus Christ, why didn't He just go straight to the cross? Why didn't He just go straight to the cross, die, get buried, and be resurrected — and there's the payment of sin? Well, a little hint, like I said earlier, is that He needed to live a life of righteousness. He needed to live a life that would apply credit to His account, so that He would own this credit of righteousness. Now it is His and His alone to give to those He wants to give this credit of righteousness to. And we know by God's Word that it is credited to those who believe. And we're going to get into some Scripture there.

And so when we look at Jesus Himself, He needed to live a life as a man, building up righteousness in His account as a man. And Jesus' death was only a payment for the sins of His people. So when we get into this, I like to compare Adam and Jesus. And when we do this, it really lifts up the name of Jesus and you really start to understand what Jesus has accomplished.

Adam had one tree — stay away from that one tree. Jesus came into a fallen world, you could say, full of trees not to touch. Think about the trees that Jesus had. He came into this fallen world. There was the tree of God's law being perverted. He had the big tree of Satan himself, being tempted in the wilderness after not eating for 40 days. He was resisted and betrayed by His closest friends. He actively obeyed every jot and tittle of the law. The whole time — with all His heart, all His soul, mind, and strength — He was loving God and loving others. And as He was doing that, He was building credit into His account. If you think about an accounting — like you need to get up to this point in order to get into heaven — well, for 33 years, He was faced with temptation after temptation after temptation. Adam, just one tree. Jesus, many trees — and conquered it, conquered it, conquered it, conquered it. Righteousness, righteousness, righteousness. This is our Savior. This is our champion, where He lived a righteous life.

When we read the gospels, I am amazed that He remained righteous when there was a prostitute at His feet, washing His feet with her hair. And yet He remained sinless — and not only sinless, but righteous in that act, where He continued to love God and love others rightly, in a holy way. What a wonderful God that we serve, that He was able to do that all throughout His life.

And so we acknowledge that He was testified to by God the Father and God the Spirit at baptism. What a tremendous sight that is accounted for in God's Word. You remember, right? What did the Father and the Holy Spirit testify about Jesus as the Son of God there at baptism? There was a voice from heaven — and we know it was God the Father because of what He said. He says, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And right after that is when He was tempted most by Satan himself, where the Spirit drove Him out. And I believe we have covered this in a sermon before. But what an amazing thing — God the Father testified.

And so we see here that Jesus did measure up to the law. We presented a case where the law is almost unattainable. Well, Jesus being a man accomplished that. He accomplished the law. Not only did He avoid sin, but He accrued righteousness in that. And so why would God the Father say that about Jesus? God the Father loved the Son. Not only was Jesus without sin, but all the righteousness that He accrued — God the Father loved Him. He loved God the Son as a man. And when we come around to these truths, we can start to understand God a little bit more. We see how we must understand the law. We must understand what Jesus has done and who Jesus is and that He was a man. And yet God did love Him. He was pleased with His Son.

And so in Romans 5:8, one of our memory verses — "God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God demonstrates this love toward His redeemed. He demonstrates this love toward His regenerated bride. Because when He looks at His bride, He sees His Son.

Over the last 11 years, almost 12 — Hannah is almost turning 12, in about 10 days or so — and I've been a father for almost 12 years. I have held each one of my precious children in my arms every single time they're born. And as they're little and they're growing older, just the blessings of being a father. I have been encouraged and convicted by what God has shown me in Genesis 22. I think through the role of being a father, Genesis 22 just kind of hits home.

Because God stopped the hand of Abraham from killing his son. And if you mark that or make a note, read Genesis 22. God told Abraham to take your son. He said, "Your only son." He said, "The son whom you love." And He asked Abraham to kill him. So up to this point, we understand the law, don't we? We understand how we're falling. But we don't understand grace.

When we think about the sparing of Isaac, we don't think about the ram. Think about that for a second.

Abraham's eyes looked up and he saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns.

At this point, everybody sighs a breath of relief when they see the ram, but nobody really thinks about the ram.

Our flesh wants to ignore the ram. But Abraham took the ram and he laid it on the offering and he took a knife and he put it into the ram and slit its throat, and blood went everywhere onto the altar.

I can't imagine him seeing the ram and seeing the life of his son.

The ram is the gospel. He's the shadow of the gospel. Jesus Christ — the person and work of Christ — is the gospel.

This is what we preach. We preach Christ crucified. And we lift it up. We sing about it. We're rejoicing because the ram's blood is spilled. But we see it doesn't make sense, does it?

Ladies and gentlemen, Christ died for us. He really died. God put Him on the cross in all His sovereignty, and it pleased the Father to crush His Son. There was no one to say, "Hey, stop. I've got someone else."

No. God provided Himself — the Son of God, who took on flesh. He was a man. He lived a life of righteousness and He sacrificed it for others, for the many, for the regenerated bride.

And so the second truth for this division is: the work of salvation is done by God. The work of salvation is done by God. There is no mixture where you think that you are part of this particular sacrifice.

You and I believe and have faith in Christ, and we live because He died. Let's get that straight. He died and we live. And yet we are able to have faith in Him because He overcame death. What a champion we have. What a Savior. He doesn't just die and that's the end of the movie — oh, what a great, glorious sacrifice to provide freedom for the lives of others, and there's His grave, week in, week out, month after month.

No, Jesus has an empty grave. He died and He was buried for three days and He rose again.

Many false religions, growing in number and evangelical circles, will put an emphasis on performing the law to love God and to love people. Christian, we cannot do this. I hope that's emphasized enough today.

So what does Mark 1:15 say, that we have discussed? It says, "The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand" — meaning everything depends on the gospel, on Him, on the person and work of Christ. If you're not in Him, then you are dead. You are not off the hook. And so we must repent and believe in the gospel. Man has failed. And Jesus says, "Except through Me, because I hold the keys." We read that in Revelation. The work of salvation is done by God.

Deuteronomy 30:6 — in Mark 12:30, it is quoting Deuteronomy 6 verbatim, I believe verse 5. Well, if you read further in Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy 30:6, listen to how God tells us that the work of salvation is done by Him. This is Old Testament, and what God says in Deuteronomy 30 remains for all time. Deuteronomy 30:6: "Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants" — this is talking about Israel — "Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart, so that you may live."

And then we flip over a little bit. We have the blessing of the whole of Scripture — total Scripture. And in Jeremiah 31, we read about the new covenant, where Israel has failed and is getting ready to go into exile. Like all hope is lost. And God gives Jeremiah the prophecy of the new covenant before all that — this is around 600 or 700 BC — where God gives this revelation to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 31:33: "But this is the covenant which I will make" — and remember, He says, "I will make." "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, and I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God and they shall be My people."

Salvation is a work of God's grace to make you holy, consecrated from your fallen state, from my fallen state. Praise God. And we are able to please Him because of the works of Christ. Don't think for one second that because you're doing something you think is righteous, that it is giving you righteousness that pleases God a little bit more. No, we put our faith in Christ and we trust in Him. We throw the crown at His feet. We cast the crown at His feet. We're going to get into our theology on Wednesday, getting into our series on soteriology in a week and a half or so. So I would really want to get you to Wednesday night. If you can't make it, we're going to go through a great series on the doctrine of salvation, and this sermon is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to come at it from all different angles, all throughout what Scripture says about the doctrine of salvation. But the bottom line is that you cannot please God on your own.

Our action today is to rest in Him — He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and so we rest in Him. We walk out today knowing that He has conquered death.

In Galatians 3:22, it says, "But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe."

And this leads us to our next memory verse in Ephesians 6:10. It says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." Right? We hide behind Him. Just like what we sang earlier this morning. Be closer to Him. He is our only hope — to hide in His work.

And so in conclusion, I want to read Psalm 24. This will be our last text for this morning. I'd like for you to turn there if you don't mind, to Psalm 24.

Psalm 24 is divided up just like this sermon. It is divided up with the first half being about who is able to make it into heaven, right? What are the qualifications? And the second half is the gospel. The second half of this Psalm talks about Jesus Christ, where a man shows up. After He ascended from this earth, He walked into heaven as a man. No other time in all of eternity has a man come through those gates.

And so we're going to read this Psalm written by David, in about 1000 BC. What an amazing Psalm this is. And we're going to close with it, and I'll say a few words after. One thing real quick — one of the songs in Handel's Messiah is "Who Is This King of Glory?" What a great, great song. And it does this Psalm so much justice. Let me read it for you — Psalm 24.

"The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face — even Jacob. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory."

And it is He in whom we put our faith and trust. We're going to sing a song — "Only Trust Him. He will save you." I believe we're still singing that hopefully. And thank you to the tech booth. You guys are doing all you can to make it work today. We'll make it work next time. But only trust Him, right? We're going to sing this song here in a second. He will save you, because God is firm. His Word is firm. Lift up your heads. The King of glory ascended from earth as a man. He is strong and mighty.

He was pierced. His blood spilled. And He was raised from that death. And we can announce Him as the King of glory. So put your trust in Him today. Amen.

Let me pray for us. Lord, thank You so much for these truths. We can go full throttle on the truth of the law and by Your whole Word we can receive this and we can understand — we may not quite comprehend why You did this in the first place, because we feel so utterly worthless when we come up against the face of Your law, that we have not loved You with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But we do know Someone who did, in the righteousness that He has accounted for. We are so very thankful that that is applied to those who believe, applied through faith. This wonderful grace is applied to our account through faith. What a wonderful truth this is. Thank You for Your gospel. In Jesus' name. Amen.