Understanding the Law: Sin, Repentance, and Grace

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "There was a time when we were hopeless. There was a time when we would have been helpless were it not for Christ. Amen. Amen. But what he provided for us. Is an opportunity to be forgiven. An opportunity to have new life. And an opportunity to have a hope that transcends anything that you're going through today. And beloved, I hope that you've experienced that forgiveness." [21:09] (19 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Listen, you can't even be saved if you don't confront your sin. If you don't acknowledge it. Because, listen to me, it's easy to say that the law's the problem. It's easy to say, well, look at all these rules. People sat in my office before and tell me, God expects too much of me. God thinks I can do things that I can't do. And the law, they don't call it the law, they call it the rules and the regulations that God gives us. That's just too much, I can't do it. Listen to me, what they're trying to do is to make the law the culprit. What I always have to point them back is the law's not the culprit, it's your sin! That's the problem. And it's got to be dealt with." [44:11] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The law is not the problem, beloved. The commandment of God is not the issue. It's when sin perverts the law of God. This is what the serpent did to Eve. Look at verse 4. The serpent's response he said to the woman you will surely not die. For God knows that in the day that you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. If you listen to me wave at me. What the serpent did was he set the contrast. Here's the command. The command is good. Adam knew it was good. He didn't question it. Eve didn't question it to begin with. In fact when the serpent first asked her Eve told the serpent point blank this is why we don't do it. But Satan didn't stop. He introduced another option." [01:03:50] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Beloved, listen to me. The problem is not the law which shows you your sin. The problem is your sin in the first place. It must be dealt with. It is the culprit and it must be dealt with. And so Paul begins to build that out in verses 9-11 of Romans chapter 7. Read this with me. He says, I too was once alive apart from the law but when the commandment came sin became alive and I died. It's the same principle. It's the very same principle. When the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment which was to result in life proved to result in death for me. For sin taking an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it, it killed me." [59:16] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Beloved, there's some of you here today that you need to take those three things right there and you need to apply it to your life. The law is not your problem. The law is not your culprit. Sin is the culprit. Sin has always been the culprit. Sin will always be the culprit. What are you doing to put it to death? What are you doing to walk with Him faithfully? If you're here in just a moment, we're going to stop. Carol's going to come over here to the piano. Eric's going to come up here and get ready to sing our song of response. And there's some of you who are Christians that though you may be right with God with regards to your position, you're not walking with Him faithfully. You're letting sin take advantage of you just a little bit too much. You know what you need to do? You need to beg God to forgive you. He'll do it. Amen? Praise God. He'll do it. But you need to surrender that sin to Him. You need to give it up. Not just say, I'm sorry, and go out and do it again. You need to let it go. Amen? Christ has come to set you free indeed. You need to let Him do it. You need to quit letting sin control you. The presence will be there. The power of sin is not. Repent and return to God's expectations for you." [01:15:37] (68 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "Listen, there's no other book of the Bible, in my opinion, that shows us God's love in such rich depth. There's no other book of the Bible that will show us God's redemption plan for those whom he will save quite like the book of Romans. There's no other book that will go into depth about God's design and God's desire for us to grow and mature in the faith that he's given us than the book of Romans. It's important that we do our due diligence in going through it." [34:20] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "The law is meant to make us aware of our personal sin. That's the primary purpose of the law. It's like a mirror. I told a couple of guys, I can't stand props on the pulpit. It just sort of takes away from the message. But I also almost pulled a mirror up here because I could look in the mirror and I could illustrate for you guys that when I look in the mirror, not only do I see everything about myself, I can't ignore the imperfections. I can turn sideways and here's a big imperfection. It shows me my imperfections. Well beloved, that's what the law does. The law will illustrate for you where you are doing good. The law will illustrate for you but it will equally illustrate for you where your imperfections are. Where your disobedience is. Where your self-righteousness shows up. That's the purpose of the law." [46:15] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Sin takes advantage of the law to bring sin alive to us. Now we're going to have to walk through the text to see this because it's a little bit confusing. But sort of begin to think of it this way. The law is like oxygen to sin. It's like oxygen to sin. Without it and without the awareness the law brings, sin is dead. If you don't know the law then how can you be held accountable to your sin? Sin is dormant. Sin is suppressed. You don't know it until all of a sudden there is a standard that is introduced to you and all of a sudden a light goes on and you realize that what you are doing is wrong and is contrary to God's will and all of a sudden sin is brought to life. That's why sin is always the culprit because sin is the problem. The law is not the problem. The law turns the flashlight on. That's the problem." [47:45] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "The law was always meant to bring people closer to God. Amen? It was always meant to bring you closer to God. Listen. You're either following God's expectations well. You're doing what God expects you to. Either you're doing it well or the law was meant to illustrate and point out to you what you're not doing well so that you can repent get right and start doing it well. That's the purpose of the law. But sin twists that and contorts that and sin perverts the law and instead of allowing the law to bring life sin causes the law to bring death." [49:13] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Sinclair Ferguson had this comment I came across this week. I love it. He said while the presence of sin can never be abolished in this life. We agree with that right? Even though we're Christians we continue to wander. Prone to wander. Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. We still continue to do that right? While the presence of sin can never be abolished in this life the influence of sin can be altered and the dominion of sin must be destroyed if a man is to be a Christian. Amen. It means we've got some work to do beloved. It means when we look at the law we don't see the law as a hindrance or a stumbling block we see it as something that is beautiful and listen to me we don't follow it looking for salvation because salvation can never come from the law but listen to me we follow it after salvation because it leads us to holiness and righteousness. God's expectations aren't an enemy they're our friend when it comes to diminishing the influence of sin and destroying the dominion of sin and we can't keep it perfectly therefore we can't depend on it to save us but beloved we can allow it to guide us. Are you allowing the law of God to guide you?" [01:09:30] (65 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)