05-09-10 Apart From The Law!

I have only experienced a few incidents

of what I would consider to be sheer terror in my life.

One of those incidents was in the late fall of 1992.

Sandee, Joni, and I were driving to Anchorage in our new-to-us little blue Subaru.

We’d bought it used just a few weeks earlier.

It was in great shape when we bought it,

just over a year old,

but the tires were a little smooth - no studs at all and not much tread.

We were driving around Turnagain Arm,

doing about 60

when we came around a corner

and hit a long stretch of black ice.

There was a rock wall of mountain on our right,

a steep drop into the water on our left,

a car coming straight at us from the other direction,

and I had absolutely no control of the car whatsoever.

I can remember watching all of this happening around me

and thinking to myself,

“I have just killed my wife and my daughter.”

Sheer emotional terror...

Obviously we lived through it,

thanks solely to the kindness of our good God,

but the memory of that moment

continues to influence my driving to this day.

Terror is not always a bad emotion

if it serves to bring about changes that urgently need to be made within us.

Last week we ended our study in the book of Romans

with a statement from Romans 3:19-20

that would generate a similar type of terror within us

if we accepted the truth of what Paul was saying

and had no knowledge of what was coming afterwards.

Paul concluded his first section of his letter to the Romans

in which he presents his picture of the human race apart from Christ

by saying:

Rom. 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Through the first two and a half chapters of Romans

Paul uses flawless logic

to bring the human race to the point

where we are forced to recognize

that on the basis of our performance

every one of us stands guilty

and justifiably condemned

in the presence of an absolutely righteous God.

Helplessness,

hopelessness,

and eternal despair...

But then, just before we ended last week,

we saw Paul open up a door in our dungeon,

a door we had not seen before.

It came in the form of those six words,

‟But now, apart from the law...”

Today we’re going to walk through that door,

out of our prison of judgement under the law of God,

and into a world of life and freedom

that only God Himself could have created.

The next 11 verses,

like so much of the book of Romans,

is a highly concentrated passage,

so we’ll walk through it carefully

because what we have in these final verses of chapter 11

provides us with the foundation for everything else that happens in the book.

OK, Paul begins by saying,

Rom. 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets...

...But now apart from the Law...

In those 6 words

Paul does something

that had never been done before

in the world of human religious thought and communication.

He separates two concepts

that had never been separated before,

two concepts that, to the human mind,

were absolutely inseparable.

And I want us to listen carefully

to what Paul is doing here,

because everything else that follows

hinges upon our understanding

the separation of these two concepts.

Paul says, But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested...

In that single statement

Paul separates ‟righteousness”

from ‟the Law”.

Prior to this

the entire history of human religious thought and understanding

had been based upon the inseparable union of those two ideas.

Righteousness IS keeping the moral law of God.

That’s what it means.

The LAW reveals to us how to achieve righteousness.

Who is a righteous man?

He is one who keeps the Law.

How is righteousness measured?

It is measured on the basis of the moral law of God.

To separate righteousness and the Law

is unthinkable on the basis of human logic.

For Paul to say, But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested...

makes about as much sense to the human mind

as for me to say,

‟But now, apart from water

the Pacific Ocean has been revealed...”,

to which you would respond,

‟Right, Larry - now why don’t you go get a brain.”

The Pacific Ocean IS water,

and righteousness IS keeping the Law of God.

And before we go any farther with this

I need to do something

to help bring this back to where we live.

You see, I think I know some of what has been happening in some of your minds during the past few minutes.

You’re “in church”,

listening to me talk about “righteousness”

which makes perfect sense to you because...well, because that’s the type of things

that preachers talk about in church.

But so far what you’ve been hearing

hasn’t touched anything real inside you.

The truth is,

right now you feel as if what you’re hearing

has almost nothing to do with the real issues in your life.

And unless we find some way of bringing what Paul is saying

home to our own lives

we miss the most crucial piece of truth

that has ever been given to the human race.

You see, even though Paul is talking about righteousness in these verses,

that isn’t the heart of what Paul is really talking about.

What he’s really talking about

and what he’s been talking about throughout these first 3 chapters

is this horrible situation that exists between each of us and our Creator God

from the instant of our conception.

Our spirits, our lives are utterly separated from the God who created us,

the God who loves us.

Which means that we have huge problems

both in this life here and now

and in the eternity to follow.

Right now we are forced into an existence

in which the only hope, the only resource we have is ourselves.

We have to somehow attempt to control all of life in some way

that protects us from all evil,

and provides us with a true sense of identity and security,

and allows us to handle every relationship in our lives with skill and wisdom,

and provides us with everything we need to meet every physical, emotional, mental, and psychological need in our life.

And we’re way over our heads.

Having been designed by God

to live our lives with Him as our God,

we are utterly unqualified to go it alone.

Right now you’re churning over some relationship issue,

or some financial issue,

or some security issue for which you have no solution.

And you have no solution

because you have not yet heard and trusted the mind and heart of your Creator in that area.

Or possibly you’re just lonely -

your spirit is crying out for love

and you’re living in an emotional isolation for which you have no answers.

And the picture gets even more bleak

if we dare look beyond the grave.

Because what we see there

is ourselves standing before our Creator

with this little pile of good deeds in our hands,

desperately hoping that He will somehow overlook a lifetime of daily offenses against Him,

and then we are faced with the terrifying truth

that the only acceptable qualification for eternal life in the presence of our God

is absolute, total moral purity.

You see, this is what Paul was saying to us in these first two and a half chapters of his letter.

This is not obscure religious theology,

this is at the core of where we exist every minute of our lives.

And when Paul gets to this point where he says,

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed...,

what he’s doing is telling us

that for the first time in our lives we don’t have to cower in fear from the truth,

we don’t have to pretend God isn’t there,

or pretend He doesn’t matter

because in the most amazing, unexpected, undeserved way

God has taken this huge barrier that existed between us and the discovery of His love

and He’s simply taken it out of the way and nailed it to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Let me see if this will help introduce us to where we’re going in these next 11 verses.

For the next few minutes

I want you to picture yourself

as a 10 year old child.

You’re in the 5th grade,

at the very bottom of your class

in your school work,

and your conduct,

and your social standing.

You are the product

of the very worst aspects

of the foster care system.

You never knew your father at all,

and early in your life

your mom’s alcohol and drug abuse

and repeated run-ins with the law

resulted in your being permanently removed from her

and dropped into an unending series of foster care situations

in which you knew from day one

that your only value to those taking care of you

was directly linked to the government check they received for your care each month.

In your ten years of life

you’ve been in eight different homes.

Some of them ignored you,

some of them beat you,

some of them abused you terribly,

and the only constant among the lot

was that not one adult

in your ten terrible years of life

gave any evidence that they cared about you as a person.

Then something happens

that alters the course of your life forever.

The house next door to your current foster care residence is sold

and a new family moves into it.

Almost from the day they move in

you find yourself fascinated by them.

They have two children of their own,

a boy a year older than you,

and a girl a year younger.

Never in your life have you ever seen a family like this before.

The first thing you notice about them

is that they laugh,

not the course, ugly laughter you’re use to hearing

when someone tells a dirty story

or gets the best of someone else in the house.

These people laugh with one another,

not at one another.

They enjoy each other in a way you’ve never seen before.

You often see the father out in the yard with his son and daughter

after he comes home from work,

playing tag, or catch,

or dodge-ball.

They laugh,

and run around screaming,

and wrestling,

and just enjoying one another.

And as you watch them

there grows within you an ache,

a longing deep inside you to know that kind of happiness and love.

But of course you know that such a thing could never be,

not for someone like you,

not with someone who has your past,

and seeing their happiness only intensifies your feelings of hopelessness and pain.

OK, that right there is where Paul has brought us when he reaches Romans 2:20-

what our spirits long for, hunger for the most

we can never have.

And then one hot Saturday afternoon

the most amazing thing happens.

The dad is out in the yard washing the car,

his children come out to help him,

and the dad suddenly looks over at you watching them,

calls you by name,

and asks if you want to help too.

You go on over,

not at all sure about how to act in this new world,

pick up a rag and begin to wash a section of the car.

The neighbor’s son has the responsibility

of rinsing off each section

as the others wash it,

but hoses on hot summer days

are very tricky things.

All of the sudden the boy

sort of misses the car

and blasts his dad right in the chest

with the hose wide open.

Your first response is to wait for the blast

of rage and profanity

you’ve come to expect from the adult males in your life,

but instead the father howls with laughter,

charges his son and wrestles the hose from him, soaking both of them in the process.

Then he turns and sees you and his daughter

watching from the other side of the car.

Before you realize what’s happening

the dad suddenly charges around the car

and hits you with a blast of water.

Then he takes off after his daughter

who is squealing with delight

as she tries to avoid the attack.

You’re standing next to the bucket of soapy water,

and while the dad is charging after his daughter

you come up behind him

and dump the whole thing onto him.

The water fight that follows

is the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire life.

And it doesn’t end there.

When everyone is completely soaked

they invite you into the house,

find some dry clothes for you from their children’s wardrobes,

and invite you to stay for dinner.

After dinner

the five of you play games until bed time,

and when you finally head home

you know you’ve just lived the most wonderful eight hours

you’ll ever live in your life.

That day begins a friendship with the family

that continues to grow

until several months later

the dad calls you over to his front yard and says he wants to talk with you

about something very important.

He talks with you about the friendship

that has been growing between you

and each member of his family.

He tells you all four of them

have come to feel as though

the family is just not complete

if you are not with them.

And then he says this -

‟We want you to know

that each of us have grown

to love you very much.

We’ve been talking a great deal recently

about you and your relationship with us,

and we are all in strong agreement

that we want you to become

a permanent part of our family forever.

If it’s alright with you, we would like to take the legal steps necessary to adopt you as our child.”

He makes it clear that he is not talking about another foster care situation.

They want to legally, permanently adopt you.

You would take their last name

and become their child forever.

When he asks you if you are interested in such an arrangement

all you can do is stand there

with tears streaming down your cheeks,

nodding your head ‟yes”.

As he wraps his arms around you

and gives you a big hug

you hear him saying,

‟From now on you can call me ‛Dad’.”

OK, that’s part of what’s going on in Romans 3:21-24.

But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus...

...being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus...

He’s talking about our God flinging open the entrance into His family

and inviting us in as a gift by His grace poured out on us through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

But that’s only part of it.

Let’s return to our story and I’ll show you what I mean.

The first few weeks following the adoption go great.

You move into the house

and find yourself fitting into the family remarkably well.

But then, toward the end of the school year

something happens that scares you to death.

Your 5th grade teacher

catches you stealing a $5.00 bill

out of the student’s desk next to you.

There is no question about your being guilty.

Stealing stuff has always been part of your life.

It’s one of the things you do best.

You’re hauled down to the principal’s office

and made to wait while the principal calls your dad and asks him to come pick you up.

You’ll be suspended for three days.

That’s no big deal,

but you find yourself terrified

about how your dad will respond.

Probably he’ll beat you

like the others use to do.

Maybe he’ll use a stick or a belt.

Maybe he’ll be so ticked

that he’ll un-adopt you

and kick you out of the family.

When he first arrives at the school

he says nothing at all.

He puts his hand on your shoulder

as the two of you walk together out to the car,

but he doesn’t say a word

until you get home.

In your mind

you keep running through

all the possible things

he might be planning to do to you.

He might beat you,

he might just yell and scream,

he might make you stay in your room for the next three days.

He might even call off the whole adoption thing.

But never in your wildest imagination

could you ever have anticipated

what really takes place.

Once the two of you get home

he takes you to the couch in front of the big picture window in the living room.

He has you sit down on the couch

and then he sits down next to you.

He turns toward you,

places his hands on your shoulders,

and begins to speak.

“You’ve only been my child

for a very short time.

I know that.

I know, too, that before I became your daddy

stealing was a way of life with you.

You took whatever you could get

whenever you had the chance.

But when I adopted you into my family

you became a different person.

You are now

and will forever more be my child.

Your last name and my last name are the same,

and I want more than anything else in the world

for you to know the truth

about who you really are.

My children are people of great integrity.

They are honest,

and trustworthy.

They don’t have to steal

because they have me as their father.

You have not yet seen those qualities in your own life

because you still don’t really believe I’m your daddy forever.

And right now you’re afraid to trust me,

afraid to let me love you.

I want you to know

that I will be your father forever

and I will always meet your needs in abundance.

You did what you did today

most of all because you do not yet know

the truth about who you really are.

Together you and I are going to help you discover that truth.

I love you -

I love you now,

and I always will.”

That is the doorway Paul is flinging open

when he proclaims to the world, But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been realed...

When we become His children,

He not only gave us His name,

he also gave us His holiness at the core of our being.

Everyone of us who have come to Christ

have had times in their lives

when, in our own way,

we too have been caught stealing from the desk next to us.

There are always natural consequences

to our actions,

and sometimes we, too, are kicked out of school for a while.

But the far greater issue,

the one the matters the most,

the one upon which our whole healing and rebuilding process rests

is the question of what happens

between us and our Heavenly Father.

Will He un-adopt us

and kick us out of His family?

Are there limits to this apart-from-the-law thing we’ve entered into?

Will He explode in righteous rage

and pour out His wrath upon us?

Certainly He will work within our lives

to free us from those sin patterns in our lives

that will destroy us if they are allowed to continue unhindered.

But as we study our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans

we are going to see that

His intervention begins

very much as it began

in the life of this child in our story.

It begins with our Heavenly Father

sitting down with us

and talking with us about who we really are.

We are no longer the emotional foster children of the world,

kicked from one house to another,

with our value limited to whatever those around us get out of us.

Whether we realize it or not,

we are now, in truth and reality,

at the deepest level of our being,

sons and daughters of God Himself,

people with tremendous value,

and great integrity.

And the beginning of God’s healing process in our lives

is His fervent commitment and determination

to tell us the truth about ourselves,

and to keep telling us

until that truth becomes the basis upon which we make the daily choices in our lives.

This child in our story

will find freedom from those destructive impulses from the past

when a sure and certain inner voice within says,

‟I know who I am.

I know who my father and mother are.

I know my brother and my sister.

And I know that the people in my family

don’t act that way.

We are people of honesty,

and integrity,

with a family name of honor,

and great purpose in life.”

And it works the same way

for those of us in the family of God.