Resist the Resurrection // 613 Ghosts // Read the Sermon

Speaker: Pastor Jacob Young

Well, hey, I'm also excited for this series 613 Ghosts. Yeah, definitely a unique title. What we're going to be talking about I, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I believe this is the most important thing I've preached on since I've taken over. Now, that's not exactly a huge resume I only took over last August. So it's not an extensive resume or anything like that.  

Still, I believe what we're going to be talking about is very, very important. But here's the thing, what we're going to be going over--what we're going to be talking about this week, in the upcoming weeks, it's nothing new. It's nothing new. That's the thing--it's very important. But it's nothing new that we're going to be talking about and looking at. In fact, we're going to be starting today with some scripture here in a moment. And we're going to see the same problem, the same ghosts that are haunting us today. These things were alive and kicking back in the time the disciples. These things were alive and kicking, just years after Jesus walked the earth. These have been a constant area of haunting for Christians and for the church for the last 2,000 years.  

So let me give you just a little bit of background, we're going to be in Galatians chapter 2 today, if you have a Bible and you want to follow along. If not, don't worry, we'll have the scriptures up on the screen.  

In Galatians, chapter 2, what Galatians is it's it's a letter, it's a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to this church in Galicia, the city. He's writing them this letter in in chapter 2, he recounts a specific instance--a fight, a disagreement that him and the Apostle Peter had with each other.  

Now, if you don't read Scripture, you're missing out because there's some interesting things in here. We think these people are perfect. They never have disagreements. They just pray and fast all day long. Like that's all. That's all they do. They just love God worship God, they love each other perfectly. But we see no, there's some areas of disagreement. No, there's some times when people come to a head and they fight and they disagree. And we see that here in Galatians chapter 2, Paul's actually referring to another instance that we can read about in the book of Acts, this this fight between him and Peter, this, this disagreement. And I'm just going to go ahead and jump in and then we'll talk about what we read a little bit.   

But this is from Galatians chapter 2, starting in verse 11. Paul writes this, "When Cephas," which Cephas, that's the Aramaic word for Peter. So he's talking about Peter here whenever you see that name. "11 When Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles." Gentiles being non Jewish people. "But when they arrived, he Peter began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group."  

So essentially, what Paul is saying is, hey, look, Peter, he's this Jewish guy. He's, you know, following Jesus, though, but the second other Jewish people come around who feel like, Gentiles who feel like non-Jews are less than, Peter started to draw back from the Gentiles. He started to treat them differently. He'd started to act like hey, maybe their salvation is a lesser salvation than ours since we're Jews who have followed Jesus, not Gentiles, who follow Jesus. So he starts to withdraw. Verse 13, "The other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy, even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, in front of them all, 'You are a Jew, you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?'"  

Paul’s saying, hey, look, Peter, ever since Jesus changed your life ever since he died, and rose again, you've been acting like a Gentile even though you're a Jew, but suddenly, now that Jews are around and there's Gentiles, you're putting on this front, you're acting like a hypocrite. And you're forcing these non Jewish people to follow our customs. Verse 15, "We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles, 16 know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified."  

I want to know who will be justified by the words the law? Who? Put it in the chat, who will be justified? No one. Yeah, that's right. No one. No one will be justified by the works of the law. We're going to skip ahead to verse 18. Listen to what Paul says, "If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law breaker." Remember that verse. "If I really if I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law breaker. 19 For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"  

If righteousness can be gained to the law, Christ died for nothing. So we're going to focus in and hone in on what Paul said in verse 18. "For if I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a law breaker." If I rebuild what I destroyed. If I resuscitate what died, if I bring back what should have gone away.  Does anyone know about trends that are coming back that died off, but they're back all of a sudden, right? Just this last, this just this last week, our little dog Teddy, he came running in the room. We're trying to, we're trying to coach the biting out of him, like we're trying to get the biting and the gnawing out of him. He's a great little dog. He just wants to buy everything in the world that exists. Everything, not just soft, chewy, things, hard, dense things he wants to chew at all. And so he runs in the room the other day, and it looked like he had a like a blind from like, my curtains like a blind, and I was getting ready to kill him. Like, I was getting ready. Like, are you kidding me? He tore up the blind, alright, it's on, I'm about to punt him across the street.  

So I go over, and I lovingly get it out of his mouth. And I realize it's not part of a blind. It's a slap bracelet. Yeah, a slap bracelet. To which I was like where did Teddy, get a DeLorean and hop back to 1993 and get a slap bracelet? Like what? What is this? And Jessica was like, oh, yeah, the girls pick them out, like Dollar General or something like that. We went there and they just picked out a few little things. I'm like, I didn't even know they were making these things again. They're making slap bracelets again, but I should not be surprised by anything because they're also making fanny packs again. Yeah, certain trends just need to die. Die a horrible death and stay dead. They are making fanny packs again. I saw them in a store and no, I'm not talking like Goodwill. Like, oh, they're old fanny packs. No brand new. There's factories today, making fanny packs, people. 

It's crazy. Saw them for sale the other day. I'm like, This is nuts, like all of these old trends coming back.. Another one. Like flip phones. Like stupid phones, non smartphones are making a comeback. Have you seen this? I see the ads on Instagram. Like, because they're, you know, everyone's getting so overwhelmed by this. And it's minimalism. And we're going back to you know, just flip phones and all that this phone can do is make phone calls and send text messages. And that's it. It does nothing else. You're like wow, this is crazy. Like we are really coming full circle on is all these trends that you thought--you thought the days of flip phones were over like they're just dead. The only place you see them is in like, you know, like just people remembering the olden days. We're not actually still using these things, but they are they're still using these. 

TV shows. Man, we're bringing them all back. Like Fuller House was out on Netflix, Saved by the Bell like the new new class evidently because they already had a new class but they have an even newer one on Peacock. Like they're just bringing all of these things back full circle, these things that you thought were over thought were dead. And sometimes these things should have stayed dead. Like sometimes these things would have just--like we don't need a part two, we don't need this thing brought back. 

Don’t think any less of my mom or of me. Growing up there's probably no movie I watched more the Dumb and Dumber. There's a lot of knowing looks where people are like "That explains so much. Okay, yeah, we get it." But I loved it. Like I love that movie. I could recite it from start to finish like just such a funny, funny movie. And so whenever I found out they're making a second one, I was like, oh, this is crazy. And they like posted a picture from the set and you're seeing Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels looking just like Harry and Lloyd again. Like This is nuts like all that nostalgic feeling. You're like this is crazy. It's gonna be so good. Then I watched it. And by watched it I mean like the first 15 minutes. Because I had turned it off and like this is awful. And it's ruining the way that I liked the first one and like it's that bad that it was like ruining the first one for me. I'm like, man, they just they shouldn't have done it. Like just don't. Some things don't need brought back. Like some things just need to stay dead. Just stay in the past.  

It makes me think this pastor's story. I can't remember what pastor I heard tell this, but it's true. It's a true story. It's not a fake pastor. It is a true one. The pastor, one of his first jobs was working for an animal cemetery, which is pretty pretty interesting as it goes for first jobs. So we're at an animal cemetery and here is the thing. They would go to houses they would you know, pick up the dead pet and take them or, you know, cremate them if they needed to. Just a very, very unique set of circumstances.  

Well, one of these days, he got a call, him and his boss got a call from an older woman whose pet cat had just passed away. She'd had the cat for like 14 years. And she said, hey, my, my cat, so and so just passed. Would you guys be able to come and get her.. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We'll send people over. We'll be over there. No time. So they start getting ready to leave. About 10 minutes passes. And before they leave, they get another call is from the exact same number. So pick up it's that lady again. She says, hey, I just called in about my cat. You guys don't need to come tonight. Is there any way you can just come tomorrow morning? Like, cats still alive? Was it feigning death? Like what's going on? They're like, Yeah, no, we can. We can come in the morning. Do you mind is asking Why? What's going on? She said, Well, I'm just, I'm gonna take this pretty hard. I'd had the cat for 14 years. And I really would like one more night with the cat in the bed. Before, you know before before we say goodbye for the final time. 

If you're tracking with me, that is a dead cat that she wants to sleep with one more time. It's heartbreaking. Like we all have pets. And you know, like all that is really difficult. But the fact remains the same that is a dead cat. That is a dead cat still in the woman's bed. 

And so they told her like, ma'am, we're sorry, we need to come we need to come. So they came and kind of like, talked her through it talked through the fact that hey, this isn't like sanitary or healthy or anything, right? So she, she ended up going up the cat.  

But I was thinking about that story as I was preparing for the sermon. Because I feel like as a church, not just Cornerstone is like the big C Worldwide Church. I feel like we've got a dead cat in our bed. I feel like we've got a dead cat. In fact, I feel like we have 613 dead cats in our bed.   

If you're taking notes, today's title is "Resist the Resurrection." "Resist the Resurrection," which is kind of ironic, considering we're going to be celebrating the resurrection in just about two weeks, right? But there is another resurrection that's happening. There's a resurrection that we do constantly. It's the resurrection I've had happen a lot in my life that I willingly enter into, and it needs to stop. We need to resist the resurrection, we are resurrecting the wrong type of things. 

What things? Well specifically, what we're going to be talking about throughout this series is we are resurrecting the law. We're resurrecting the law. Now I want to let you know, this is going to be a pretty heady series. At moments it's going to be a good need to put on your thinking cap and a little bit. Even with the first set of verses that we read today. You might have been like the what? The Cephas and Gentiles and circumcision? And what are we talking about? It's gonna be pretty heady.  

But I'll tell you this, this is important. What we are talking about today in the next two weeks to follow. This is vital for our faith. It is vital for our faith. It's something we need to discuss, Pastor Brenda had posted about it. I've shared my notes with her. And she's helped me out a little bit. As she said, this is something you may not have heard, but it's something you need to hear. It's something you need to hear. It's something that all of us need to focus on.  

So if you would, Let's bow our heads and let's pray together real quick before we continue. Father God. I don't want to screw this up. I know how important this sermon series is, this teaching that we're going to be focusing on and I really don't want to get in the way. So God, please help my words. be Your words. Please help me to speak clearly and articulately today as we go through your Word. And as we see the truth of your Word. Again, like we sang earlier, God you are what we seek. And as we seek you help us to see things for as they really are. Help us to see your Word, as it really is. Help it to speak to us, so that we can see transformation occur in our life, and we will give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise, and it's in your name we pray, amen. Amen.  

So the resurrection that we are performing, we are resurrecting what I'm talking about whenever I say the law, we are resurrecting the law of Moses. The Mosaic Law. What we see in the book of Exodus starting in chapter 20. What we see in Leviticus, what we see in Deuteronomy, all these Old Testament books, the works of the law, we have resurrected the law of Moses. You may see it called the Mosaic law. And the Mosaic Law contains 613 commandments. 613. So there is our title. 

Now, I know people may get real like nit-picky, like, well, actually, there's 610. Well, actually, there's a little bit less than that. Sometimes the commandments repeat themselves with just a little bit different wording, but most theologians concur. There are 613 commands in the law of Moses. Now these commands and the nation of Israel, if you've been with us the last weeks, you know that we've we've talked about a few of these people. We've talked about Abraham, we talked about Moses last week. We've talked about Elijah, we've talked about people in the history of the Old Testament. But I'm just gonna give you real quick history lesson on the nation of Israel. 

So the nation of Israel starts with this man, Abraham. Abraham is a man that God selects, he calls him out of the land that he's been living, tells him, Hey, look, I'm going to make a covenant with you. If you are faithful to me, if you trust in me, I am going to make a great nation out of you. And it's going to be a nation that not only will I bless, but I will bless the entire world through this nation that I will start through you and through your descendants. 

And so Abraham starts following God, starts following his way, puts his faith in the Lord. And then Abraham has a son, Isaac. And that promise continues through Isaac. And then Isaac has a son, Jacob. And that promise continues through Jacob and Jacob actually ends up having 12 - yes, 12 kids - 12 they become the 12 tribes of Israel.  And so God continues this promise, this covenant with Abraham, all the way up through Jacob, until the days of Moses. And Moses is kind of this like, this climax in the Old Testament, where we see God saying, okay, the nation that I promised to Abraham, and the nation that's been kind of in waiting through Isaac and Jacob, it's about to come to fruition. I'm about to make this thing real. I'm about to make it tangible. It's like our commitments, right, the commitments we've made. And today, we're making them tangible. That's what God's saying, like that covenant I've made, it's going to start to become reality. 

And so God, as we talked about last week, God delivers his people from the land of Egypt through Moses. Moses is kind of his lead man, that God delivers them through. They leave the land of Egypt, they start going towards the promised land that God has in mind for them. But before they get there, God wants to start to set his people apart. He wants them to have rules and regulations and ideas for what it means for them to be their own people and their own nation. And so he institute's a new covenant, which was new to them to. Our old covenant, but institute's this covenant and covenant what that word means it's an oath. It's an oath between two parties agreeing to something. 

And so on God's part, he's saying, hey, look, you're my people. I've called you out, I've set you aside, you're to be a special people among all the peoples of Earth. Your part of the covenant is keep my commands. Follow me as the Lord as your only God, follow me keep my commands. And in return, I will bless you, I will bless your people, and I will bless the entire world through you. 

So that's the oath, right? You follow me, and I will bless you and all the peoples of the world through you. Now, whenever we look at the actual commands, there's, again 613, there's no real division in Scripture, like we don't see, here are these kinds of commands. And then here are these kind. And then here are these kind - like it doesn't split it up that neatly. But theologians and scholars as they have studied, see that there tend to be three categories of the type of laws that are in the Mosaic Law. 

First is civil, these are laws that help the nation be a nation, these are just civil laws for how to function as their own society, how to function as their own nation as their own, independent ruling body. So we have civil laws, we have ceremonial laws, which have a lot to do with the temple and with offering sacrifices and purity and holiness. That's what the ceremonial laws are, and then we have the moral laws. These are laws that kind of reflect God's nature, just the absolute rights and wrongs in the world. Like, don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't lie, honor your father and mother. These kinds of things that are moral law. So they're, they're split up like that. 

And here's what I want you to know, as we talk about the law of Moses, I want this to just be known not just today, but in the weeks to come. When we talk about the law of Moses, when we talk about the Mosaic Law, these 613 commands, I want you to know, these things were amazing. The law was fantastic. It was it was super progressive for the time that it was given -  super progressive. Whenever you look at the law of Moses, you look at mosaic commandments, and you compare and contrast it with other law codes and legal codes of its day. Man, the way it treated women. The way it treated, the vulnerable was like light-years ahead of any other culture. There was just light-years, it was so wildly different. It was great. The law was ahead of its time and the law was purposive. It was purposive. That word means "it was given with a purpose." The law has a purpose and it had a purpose. It was specifically given to a specific people at a specific time in a specific place. 

All you have to do is start reading Exodus 20, you see the very first words that God says, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt." God is clearly talking to the Israelite people. That's who he's talking to, to the people that he brought out of Egypt. He's not talking to us. And we're like, oh, yeah, we kind of have lived in a metaphorical Egypt and a hypothetical Egypt. No, he's talking about a literal Egypt, that he has called his people out of. This is a very specific thing that God's talking about. He's saying, I'm giving this law to a specific people at a specific time, in a specific place. And that's what he gave the Mosaic law And it was great. And it was awesome. And it was progressive, and it was ahead of its time, and it was purposive. It was for a specific group of people. 

And here's the thing, when Jesus died and rose again, on Easter Sunday, the law in effect had become null and void for anyone who calls on the name of Jesus. At that moment, it was replaced by a new covenant - by something better.  

You see, this is this is my cell phone. This is an iPhone 10 i think i think it's an iPhone 10. I love it. It's great. Any iPhone people in here? Android people? All right, we all have a healing service after this one to pray for you. Lay hands on you. You are the people who ruin all of our group chats, you turn them green, they should be blue. You jack them up, but it's alright, we forgive you.

But see, I love I love my iPhone 10. It's great. It's awesome. Whenever I upgraded my old phone was actually - it worked really good. Like I take good care of my phones, which is saying something for having three kids. Just gotta say, that's saying something. No cracks in my old phone. No, like weird leaks that got spilled on my phone that blew out the speakers or anything like that. It still worked good. It's just I had had it way over the two years of my two year contract. Some of the apps were starting to like load slower. My camera was pretty outdated, just that kind of stuff. But the phone, there was nothing wrong with it when I upgraded. There's nothing wrong with it. But you know where my phone is right now? My old phone? 

At home in a drawer. At home in a drawer. Because that phone was amazing. And it was awesome - for a specific time, a specific place and a specific setting. Back when I had that phone a couple years ago, man thing was cutting edge. It was amazing. It was light-years ahead of other phones on the market. It was so wonderful. But where I'm at now, the setting I'm at now, the place I'm in now. It's outdated. I don't need it anymore. So it sits at home. I don't carry it with me. 

Do you see what I'm talking about here? I know, it's not a perfect analogy. But there is an old covenant that we do not need anymore. In the sense that it does not apply. It's not applicable in our daily Christian walk anymore. And I know you might be thinking if you know your scripture, well, you know, Pastor Jacob, Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, Hey, I didn't come to abolish the law or to cancel out the letter of the law. No, I came to fulfill it. So doesn't that mean the law still applies? Does that mean the law is still good? I mean, not even the smallest letter of it will fade away between now and the end of time. Like, doesn't that mean that we're still under the law?  

No, what Jesus is saying, Jesus is saying, hey, look, I'm not coming here to tell you the law was bad. And so I'm canceling it. I'm not coming here to tell you oh, the law was just so oppressive and was so awful. And I'm going to get rid of it. I'm going to just usher in grace now. I'm getting rid of it cause it was so bad. Jesus say the saying no, the law was wonderful. The law was good. And I am the fulfillment of it. I'm ending it. I'm ending it. I'm the perfect fulfillment of this law.  

Essentially what Jesus is doing, and it's so, it's so crazy when we look at the life of Jesus because He essentially has his feet in two covenants. He is living still in light of the Old Covenant while getting ready to usher in the new one. And so Jesus in His ministry, we see he is literally landing the plane of the Old Covenant, bringing it to its fulfillment, bringing it to its logical conclusion as he's getting ready to usher off and take off in a new plane. As he's ushering in this new covenant style of living. He's landing one plane and taking off and another The thing is, we as Christians we as the church and me as your lead pastor in my life, I have been way too guilty of trying to get that old plane to take off again. I've been way too guilty of trying to resurrect things that God has put down. Time and time again.  

And we see this I mean, we saw it in the early church, we saw in Galatians chapter 2, Peter trying to still bring in this Jewish customs. Yeah, yeah, the new Jesus way, but also you still need to be circumcised. Yes, the Jesus way, but also you have to eat kosher. Yes, the Jesus way but also these purity rights and this cleanliness and and the 10 commandments and you still need to follow all these things as well. Trying to resurrect what God has put down.  

Now why is this so dangerous? Why are we even spending time talking about this? Because you may be thinking like, I'm not Jewish, I've never been Jewish. Why are we even discussing it? This is why this is so dangerous. This is why it's so dangerous and why it's so important and vital for us to talk about this. This idea of having our feet in both covenants of following Jesus in the New Covenant, but also holding onto things from the old and trying to bring them in with us. It leads to a whole messed up theology, a whole messed up way of living our life. You know, what it leads to? It leads to legalism. It leads to legalism. To following the letter of law. Well, that's a sin, let me find the verse for you. Yeah, this is what you should be doing. And it leads to proof texts,  and just grabbing things from scripture out of context and trying to apply it to your situation. 

It leads - you want to know the prosperity gospel? The prosperity gospel finds its heart, in mixing the old with the new. Well, if you do this for God, God's gonna come through for you. It's what he promised the King David. It's what he promised to Solomon, it's what he promise to Abraham. If you're faithful to me, I'll bless you. And I'll bless the whole world through you. That's where we get it. We get this idea of the prosperity gospel, do this, get that from the old. And we try to drag that into the new and we shouldn't, it's been put down. That is not the way things work anymore.  

You want to know why we have so many pastoral failures. Why so many pastors and leaders and churches end up getting into affairs, they end up misusing money, and they end up abusing volunteers and doing god awful things?  Because we have mixed and matched the old. We have brought this idea of don't touch God's anointed. No, don't question the anointed, don't question the person God has put in charge, don't ever question them, even if things seem off. Even if it looks like something wrong is happening. Hold no one accountable because hey, there's the Lord's anointed says in Scripture. Says in Scripture. And so then we're shocked. We're shocked when these people who have zero accountability have been abusing it.  

No wonder. We're mixing and matching the old with the new. Generational sins. Have you guys heard that term before? We talked about that all the time in church. Generational sins, generational curses. Well, you know, the infidelity that my mom cheated on my dad and her grandma, and it just keeps going back? I mean, it's like a curse in my family. There's no more curses. That completely invalidates it. Romans specifically talks about "There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," these things don't follow us and harness because they're a curse of someone sin. There's generational habits, right? There's generational tendencies, but there's no more generational curses.  

But we brought this in from the old and we act like well, you know, there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do. This is just who I'm supposed to be. This is what's supposed to happen in my life, because it's a generational curse, because someone way before me made this decision. And now I have to live with it. So I guess it's just where I'm at. 

Mixing the old with the new it leads to the mindset of God, we'll get them. God will get them. Vengeance, we need vengeance, we need to get revenge. God's gonna get them for you. It leads to all kinds of messed up thinking and probably the worst out of all of it, whenever we mix the old with the new is we get this messed up idea that we work for our salvation. That we please ourselves into God's good graces. That we just, we keep doing what he says, we keep the letter of the law, and that's what make God happy with us. That's what gives us salvation.  

Works don't work. Works do not work. It will lead us to an awful place. And typically, what ends up happening too, especially whenever it comes to works, is we start to apply part of the covenant to us, and part of the covenant to other people. So whenever it comes to us, man, we love that New Covenant lifestyle. We love that man, God has grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy and man, he sees me in my weakness, and he forgives me and forgives me. And then once I'm in a good place, once I've taken up all the grace I can get, I look back and go, oh, yeah, see those people. Those people need to clean themselves up a little bit. Those people, man before you become a part of the family, you need to do X, Y and Z. Before we let you serve, you need to do X, Y and Z, before you get to be a member of our church family, you need to do all this. Clean yourself up first. So we shove people into this old covenant, while we live in the riches of the New Covenant. While we live in the riches of God's grace, and God's mercy, it is messed up to say the least. 

It's dangerous, the mixing of the covenants. And why do we do this? Why? Why do we run back to the law? Like why we run back to this thing that, that we hear other people in Scripture talking about this burden that we couldn't even live under. Why do we run back to that? Honestly, I don't have tons of time to go into this. I think it's because we've become People of the Book. You even hear people describe Christians this way, well people of the Book, people of Book, people the Good Book.  

Don't get me wrong. I love scripture. I read it every day, I do a Bible reading plan every day. I love scripture. I love the Old Testament. Like I said, the last couple of weeks we've we've been focusing and preaching on Moses, Elijah, Abraham. Like my scriptures have specifically come from the Old Testament. I love the Old Testament, I love the Word of God. But what we do is we say we're People of the Book, we say this is God's inspired Word. And what we end up doing is we treat all of this the exact same and throw out any contexts, throw out any setting, throw out any direction about what God's talking about, and act as if literally every single word has the exact same context as before. And it doesn't. It doesn't. We're going to get more into that next week. Do not miss it. Do not miss it.  

But we become People of the Book. And I just want to ask you, how does that differentiate us at all from Muslims, from Jews, from Hindus? How does that differentiate us if we are just people have a book. Everybody's got a book? Everybody's got a book. We are not people have a book we are people have an event. We are people have an actual historical event that really took place. And we have extra Biblical sources to backup what we read Biblically. We know this was an actual event that really took place. That's what differentiates us.  

When you see the early Christians talking about Jesus, they're not constantly saying, well, let me just show you our Old Testament the whole time. They're saying, look, we saw a guy come back from the grave. Like, I don't know how to explain it to you. We saw someone who was dead come back to life again. We are people have an event. And yes, we love the Word of God. Yes, it's the inspired, infallible Word of God. But we have got to take into account context, we have got to take into account different settings, because what we end up doing, and this is this is where we get so messed up, what we end up doing is we take the book, we completely ignore any context, any setting any historical backgrounds, we ignore all of it and say, nope, it's just all the inspired, infallible Word of God. It's all equally applicable to our lives. We do that. And then you know what we do, we take Jesus's commands, and we just throw them in with all the other commands. We take the commands of our risen Savior, our Lord and King and we just toss him in with the other ones. 

And so tell me if you've ever heard a sentence like this. Pastor, I know. Jesus says, Love your enemies. I know he does. I know Jesus says, to love others as he is loved us, I get that, I totally get that. But David was a man of war. King David killed his 10,000s, Pastor. I know Jesus has turned the other cheek, but Moses, he commanded war. So I mean, I get what you're saying. But it's all about balance.  

There is no balance, there is no balance. There's no blended covenant, there is an old covenant and a new covenant. We cannot take the commands of Jesus and put them on the same footing as commands that were given with a purpose to a particular people, place, time, and setting. We can't do it. We can't do it, essentially, then what we're doing is taking - someone got a prescription to take certain medication because of their illness, and we're saying, okay, yep. Everybody, take it. Everybody take it. We'll get those prescriptions set out to everybody. No, it was purposive. It was for a certain purpose, first specific place in time and setting. And it's the same thing with Scripture. We cannot mix and match. We can't do it. Whenever we whenever we mix and match the old with the new, what we get is the worst of both and the best of neither. It happens every single time we try to mix these commandments up.  

Have you ever back in the day, I remember going to Taco Bell, and I would always make my own cocktail of soft drinks. I don't know, it was fun making it terrible to drink, though, right? Like you go up and you get a little Coke, get a little Sunkist a little lemonade, right? Like I'm just gonna be bombed because I love all three of them. And then you take a sip, and you're instantly regretting the decision. This is bad. And it's bad because you get the worst of all of those flavors. You get the like oober carbonation from the Pepsi, you get the like tartness from the Sunkist. And you get the sour from the lemonade, like, oh, this is awful. You get the worst of all of it. 

You don't actually get the best of any of it whenever you mix and match. And the same is true with the old and new covenant. When we mix these things, we screw up. And like I said, typically what we do is we mix ourselves into the grace covenant into the hey God understands me covenant, and we put other people under the law covenant, of well they need to they need to work on themselves.  

Think about it, we will have sins in our own life that we have time and time and time again. And we'll say it's just, it's a sin that I'm struggling with is just a one time thing that I'm struggling with. Other people have that in their life. What do we start saying, oh, they're living a lifestyle of sin? Well, there's a different that's habitual, my sin isn't like that. It's like once or twice, or 17 times or 18 times, right? It's amazing how we do that, we mix and match. We mix and match. And we get the worst of both when we do it. Listen to this is what the Apostle Paul says again, so we just read him in Galatians. We're about to read him in Romans. I'm not kidding. If you read Paul's letters, you will see time and time and time and time and time and time and time again. In his letters, he is so over-stressing the point, look, you are not bound to the law anymore. You're not. It comes up in almost every letter he writes, the law does not apply anymore to followers of Christ. He just says it time and time and time again.  

Listen, this is what he writes in Romans chapter 7, starting in verse 1. "Do you not know brothers and sisters - for I'm speaking to those who know the law - the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives?" And Paul is about to give us a fantastic analogy here, verse 2, "For example, by law, a married woman is bound to her her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man, while her husband is still alive, she's called an adulterous. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law. It is not an adulterous if she marries another man. 4 So my brothers and sisters, you also die to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.  5 For when we were in the realm of flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not the old way of the written code."  

You see what Paul saying, It's such a such a wonderful analogy. He's saying, hey, look, as long as a married couple, as long both of them are alive, it's a binding covenant. The second one of them dies, the covenant comes to an end, and the person is free to enter a new covenant. And what Paul's saying is that when Jesus died on the cross, and when we put our faith and our trust in Him, we in in effect, have died under the law. And we come back to life under a new covenant, the covenant of Christ. We are not under the old covenant anymore, we have been released from the law. Released from the law through Christ. And the result of that is that in effect, to us, to those of us who put our faith in Jesus Christ, the 613 commandments or law have become 613 ghosts. They do not, they do not have power over us the way that they used to. And this is what it means. And again, you got to be back here, because all of these are tied together. Don't think about clipping this part out and being like, listen to what the pastor said. 

That means there is not a single commandment given under the old covenant that Christians follow, because it's in the Old Covenant, there's not a single one. We have died to the law. Not we've, you know, kind of been beat up under the law. Not we're, you know, it's still kind of waiting around, we have died to it. We are not under the law anymore.  

Honestly, whenever I read verses like this is, the thing is, this is actually a very controversial topic that we're talking about. If you go online and look this up are Christians, still under the Old Testament law, man, you'll see people throwing heresy back and forth and blasphemy. And I can't believe you're saying that, of course, we still are, of course, this still applies to us. Then you read Paul, and you read Jesus, and you're going, where are you getting this? Like, where? I just I just don't see it.  

This is a huge issue in the church. It's a huge issue of the church. But the fact is, we do not follow laws because they're in the Old Testament. Whenever and again, I know some people might think this is semantics, but it's not. When people say well, this is my authority. This is my authority. Read Matthew 28. Read Matthew 28. Jesus says, "All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me." 

All authority, all authority, Jesus is king. He is King in every single way and we are living in the kingdom of God that he has established. There is a new covenant the old does not apply to us any more. Do not resurrect. Do Not resuscitate. Don't try to mix and match. Don't do it. Let me put this way, don't you dare pick up what God put down. Don't do it. That's what Paul was referencing whenever we started off today in verse 18, of Galatians 2, when he says, "If I try to rebuild what's been destroyed, then I become a law breaker.” You want to talk about violating the law violating what God has done for us? If I tried to build back all these restrictions, if I tried to build back this, this yoke that used to be upon me, that's when I get in trouble. Because chances are, I'm not just going to put it on myself, I'm going to start putting it on other people.  

Resist the resurrection, resist it, fight back against it. That's how we got the prosperity gospel. That's how we got the idea of generational curses and sins. That's how we got the idea of works based salvation. And that's not God's intent for us. The cat is dead, the cat is dead. Get it out of the bed, get it out of the bed. It has no place in our bed, none. It's dead. 

Don't pick up what God has put down. And again, don't take my word for it. This is the Apostle Paul Galatians, 2:18 "If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I would really be a law breaker.” Romans 7:6 "But now by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law," it does not get any more clear than that. "So that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code."  

So if you're even remotely tracking today, like I said, I know this is kind of heady, this is more teaching than preaching today. If you're even remotely tracking, you've got to be wondering, okay. So there's just no law. Is that what you're trying to say? There's just no law. And it's all love, man. And we're all just like hanging out. And God just understands everything. And it's okay, we can just do whatever we want. We can live whatever way we want. Is that what you're trying to say today? That is not at all what I'm saying?  

No, we are not bound to the law anymore. The Mosaic law, the old law, we are not bound to that anymore. And that's because we have something better. We have something better. We have a new covenant. Which, again, this this might be new to you, maybe you don't know this, did you know this just kind of a tease for next week? We're not getting into it today? Did you know that in the Bible in your Bible, there are certain pieces of Scripture that call other pieces of Scripture obsolete? Did you know that in your Bible, they specifically mentioned that there are better promises, then what there used to be under the old law? That part of the Bible was lesser compared to what is now better? That's not me. That's not your pastor that is straight from the words of Scripture. And this is what it says referring to the old way of doing things, "It is obsolete, and what is obsolete will soon fade away and disappear." 

That's the Bible, talking about other laws contained in the Bible. We have something better than the law. We live in a better time and we have something better. So we have got to resist the resurrection. Don't pick up what God has put down. Because we have something better, we can say goodbye to the ghosts, because God has given us something better.  

I want to pray with you real quick. Let's bow our heads, alright. Father, God, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for what you spoke through the Apostle Paul, that we are released from the law. So that we can now serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code, that written code that stood in opposition to us. That written code that kept a record of every wrong we did, of every thought we had, that has been nailed to your cross and we bear it no more. It holds no power over us, over anyone who calls upon your name, over anyone who follows Jesus, thank you for that. God help us to resist the resurrection, help us to resist this temptation that we have to try to resuscitate the law.  

God, we are not people of the book where people of the event. We're people of you, of what you did, in the new law that you established, the law of Christ God, help us to remember that every time we have a momentary temptation to start to fall back into works-based-faith, whenever we have that temptation to not just put that on ourselves. But to put that on other people. That is not what you intended. And that's, in fact, what you set us free from. That's why it's the gospel. That's why it's the good news, not because you just fulfilled some ceremonial law and some civil law. No, you fulfilled all of the law, the law that we could not fulfill on our own the law that stood in opposition against us, the law that showed us just how much we need a savior, you fulfilled it, and you've given us new life. Thank you for that. Father. Help us to remember that as we continue our walk with you. We love you so much. Pray all this in your name, amen.