If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 10, I'm going to be reading the first four verses of chapter 10, but again, the main focus would be on the last verse, verse 4. Okay, Romans chapter 10, verses 1 through 4. "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Let's pray.

Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for an opportunity for the corporate body to come together to worship, to meet with you, to express our love. We pray, Father God, that your word would truly go forth and that it is your voice that we are able to hear, that you would allow us to bear fruit as we hear, apply, and eager, Lord God, to draw near to you.

So we pray for your blessing this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. As you guys know, we've been studying through the book of Romans. This is I think the third or fourth sermon on just these four verses. The reason why I've been going really slow, every part of scripture is important, but there are certain things that Paul says in these four verses that if you miss what he says or you get a superficial understanding, you might miss the whole backbone or the foundation of Christianity.

It's that important that you can attend church all your life, singing the songs, memorizing scripture, doing Bible study, maybe even serving as a Sunday school teacher, and at the end of the day you completely miss the whole point. That's exactly what the Pharisees were guilty of. They spent all their life paying attention to scripture.

Nobody paid more attention to scripture than the Pharisees. And yet when Christ came, they completely missed him. It wasn't just they missed a certain aspect of him, they completely missed him. So it's important for us that we understand thoroughly what Paul is saying in Romans chapter 10, and in particular this morning, looking at verse four, the emphasis that's there before we move on.

As you guys know, I'm Korean American, as if you didn't know, but I'm a Korean American, and I remember when I first got saved, I got saved in a ministry where they were primarily Korean speakers. And so my Korean is decent enough to get along, but not completely. So they would sing songs and do Bible study in Korean, and I had to learn.

So my Korean actually improved. And in that group, and again, this ministry was in K-town, and in that group I was the banana. And so all my friends would say, "Oh, he's yellow on the outside, but he's white in the inside." At this church, I'm the fop, complete opposite.

But I'm kind of right in the middle. Sometimes people ask me, "Do you think in Korean? Do you think in English?" I would say majority of the time I think in English, but then sometimes I think in Korean. And then when I'm thinking in Korean and speaking in English, that's when it comes up all jumbled up.

Years ago, typically I feel very comfortable in the English setting, because most of my life was raised in the United States. But when I first started as a youth pastor at a Korean church, there was a lot of things about the culture that I just assumed and understood, but I was getting into some issues.

And I remember asking my father at that time, "There's just certain things about the Korean culture that I don't understand." Well, one of the most practical advice that my dad gave me, serving as a youth pastor under a first-generation Korean church, he said, "If an elder in the church asks you to do something and you disagree, or you don't think you can do it, don't tell them no.

Tell them you'll think about it, and then don't get back to him." That was the advice he gave me. So somebody being raised in the Western culture, I said, "That seems kind of disrespectful or dishonest. I should tell them that I can or cannot. Let your yes be yes and no be no." And he said, "Trust me, that's how it works." That's what he told me.

So I just kind of like, "Okay." I just heard it. But a few months down the line, one of the elders came up to me. Again, at that time, I was probably no more than 21 or 22 years old. One of the elders came up to me and said, "He's taking a seminary class, and he's studying First Timothy, and he had to read it in English, but he had a hard time understanding." So he came to me and he said, "Peter, can you translate this in Korean for me?" It was a whole commentary on First Timothy.

I said, "That would take me a whole year to do this." So obviously, my gut reaction is like, "Oh, no, of course I can't do that." And I remember what my dad told me, so I said, "Let me think about this." And then I didn't get back to him, just like my dad told me to.

And then obviously, a few weeks would go by, and then he would come back and he'd say, "Hey, Peter, so what do you think? Do you think you can do it?" It's like, "I'm still thinking about it. Let me get back to you." And I just left it at that.

And then after a while, he would just walk by and look at me. And then I would say nothing. I would never bring it up. And then it just passed. And so I had a hard time understanding that. And I said, "The communication is not very clear." And I remember talking to my dad about that, and he said, "It may not be clear to you, but it's clear to him." He said, "That's a way of saving face." In the Korean culture, instead of disobeying and saying, "No, I'm not going to do it," you kind of have a submissive attitude, and it's a way to save face, and he gets the message.

You've honored him. You didn't embarrass him, but you didn't listen to him either, but just kind of way of just kind of getting by. Again, the reason why I share this is, anytime you try to function or communicate or do something in a different culture, you have to put in that culture's lens.

If you go to China, there are certain things about that culture that if you try to apply what you learned here and then try to apply it in the culture in China, you're going to have a difficult time. Everything over there runs on guanxi, in relationship. Here everything is about contract.

You agree, like how much is your part and how much is my part, and then we based upon contract, we agree, and then we move forward. Over there, those contracts, they're still contract, but it's not as serious as the relationship. As long as you have a great relationship, you can kind of go forward and get things done.

It's the same things in India, that you kind of have to put on the cultural lens there in order to understand what's going on. You can't just take from where I am and then just apply it to over there. That's how a lot of missionaries make mistakes when they go overseas to do mission work.

The reason why I say all of this is because when we study the scripture, if we don't put on the lens of Christ, you can read the Bible and completely miss the whole point. The whole of scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, all that has been written in the scripture, all of it was about Christ.

So if you read the Old Testament and it doesn't lead you to Christ, you've missed the whole point of the Old Testament. If you read the New Testament and you're studying and that doesn't lead you to Christ, then you've missed the whole point of that. If we don't put on the lens of Christ in understanding and interpretation, and again, we're not trying to milk it, we're not trying to find Christ under every rock, but the more you study the word of God, you will see the connection that everything that has been written was about Christ.

The section that we're looking at this morning in verse 4, Paul says, "For Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes." Those of you who were on the Facebook page last night, I usually try to give a couple questions for you to read before you come so that you can understand and know what's going on in the text.

I only had one question yesterday, and that question was, when he says Christ is the end of the law, because the word "end" could mean various things in the English, does it mean that He is the goal of the law? Or does it mean He is the fulfillment of the law?

Or does it mean that He is the termination of the law? Because in English, the word "end" could be interpreted or understood or applied in all of those ways. Well, I don't think we need to dissect and say, well, that's what He means, because based upon the word and the context of what Paul is saying, He actually means all three.

So this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to look at all three different aspects of how Jesus Christ brought an end to the law. So the first thing that we're going to look at, it says, "Christ is the end or intended purpose of the law." So I guess the way that we can understand it is in English when we say, to what end are you attending college?

So when we say that, when I ask that, what do I mean by that? It means, what's your purpose? What's your end goal? Well, I want to become a scientist, or I want to become a doctor or a lawyer. But there's an end goal, right, end purpose. Or maybe I would ask, for what end are you working so hard?

Why are you working on the weekends? And why are you working extra hours? And why are you doing this and that? And the question is, for what purpose? What is your end goal? The word that is translated for end is telos. And again, one of the meanings behind that, it's the end purpose.

It's the whole purpose and goal. So Paul uses that same word in 1 Timothy 1.5, where he says, "The aim of our charge is love." Paul is giving instruction to this young pastor, saying that this is how you ought to pastor the church. You need to focus on the word, how to establish elders and deacons in the church.

And he's giving instructions how to be a good pastor at the Church of Ephesus. But he begins by reminding him that all the commandments that I'm giving you, the end goal of all of the commands and all of your ministry is love. In fact, in NIV, the word is translated goal.

The goal of all my charge is love. And again, that word for goal or aim in that passage is the same word that we're using here when it says, "Christ is the end, telos of the law." Meaning all of it. Everything that you have been studying up to this point was to bring you to Christ.

And that's what it says in John 5.39, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me." Jews studied the Old Testament much more diligently than an average Christian in our generation. They memorized the scripture left and right.

They could quote you certain passages in the Old Testament by the time they were 80 years old. They knew the scriptures and they applied the scriptures. They studied the scriptures. But Jesus says, "You're looking into them thinking that somehow if you study it and apply it that you're going to find life." And Jesus says, "No, all of that was about me." All of that, everything that you studied, you completely missed the point because all of it was about me.

Again, he says in Luke 24.27, "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." When Jesus says scripture here, clearly he's speaking about the Old Testament because the New Testament canon has not been put together yet. He said, "All of it was about me." So you remember last week, Pastor Aaron went through a list of all the different Old Testament books and how all of that relates to and points to Christ because that's exactly what it was for.

All the prophets ultimately was to bring us to Christ. Israel's history was to bring us to Christ. All of the poetry was to point us to Christ. Well how did it do that? In Galatians 3.24, Paul says, "So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith." The word for guardian in Greek literally means a teacher of children.

Someone who guides and leads children for a particular purpose. So if you're an elementary school teacher, maybe you're teaching them to pass the standardized test. If you're a junior high school student, your end goal is to prepare them for college maybe. If you're a college professor, your end goal is to help them find a job or maybe get to the next level.

But there's a clear end goal. And as a teacher, he said that the law was given to teach and to guide, to take you to a certain point. And that point, Paul clearly says, was Christ. In Romans 7.7, again he iterates, "What then shall we say? That the law is sin?

By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" Charles Spurgeon, speaking of this particular passage and on this subject of the law being a guide, he says this.

And I think the quote is going to be up here. "The law is a sheriff's officer to shut men up in prison for their sin, concluding them all under condemnation, in order that they may look to the free grace of God alone for deliverance. This is the object of the law.

It empties that grace may fill and wounds that mercy may heal." Everything that we have been studying, all of it was to bring us closer to Christ. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1, he says all of the Old Testament was simply a shadow of the good things to come and the reality is found in Christ.

Everything that we know of the Old Testament, all of Israel's history, the sacrificial system, the kings, the prophets, poetry, all of them, narratives, wisdom literature, he says all of it was simply a shadow of what was to come. It was to prepare us to cause this longing for this person to come.

And that's why it says in 1 Peter that when the angels, or 2 Peter, when the angels were prophesying about these things, they longed to look into it to see who is going to fulfill this. You know, I remember years ago in college, they used to play this game where they would take a picture of a student and they would just show the outline or the shadow.

And the game was to try to guess who this person is. So they would put it up and then they would say, "Oh, I think it's this person," or, "I think it's that person." But that's the nature of the shadow. A shadow is whenever you see it, you don't look at that and say, "Oh, I met that person." The shadow, immediately you see it, the first question that you have is, "Who is this a shadow of?" So if you're standing somewhere in the middle of nowhere and you see a shadow of somebody behind you, your first instinct is to turn around to see who it is.

And you look at the shadow and the shadow is massive, right? Has a strange hair. And so depending on the kind of shadow you have, you say, "Wow, who is this person?" And you want to turn around. See, that was the whole purpose of the law, is to cast a shadow so that when we looked upon the shadow, it would cause us to say, "Who is this?

Who's going to come and take away our sins? Who's going to be the king of kings, an everlasting king, where his throne is going to last forever and ever? Who's going to restore the remnant of Israel for eternity? Who's going to be the king above all kings?" All of that was a shadow to cause us to long for the coming of Christ.

For Christ to be the end of the law means that sacrifices ultimately was to bring us to Christ. In and of itself, there is no forgiveness of sins. It was an act of obedience to prepare them, to teach them that there was a need for blood sacrifice which ultimately Christ was going to fulfill.

The sacrifices were given to them as a shadow to cause them to long for the coming of Christ. The cities of refuge in the Old Testament. God creates six cities, not a building, not an altar, whole cities. Simply so that somebody who killed somebody by accident and their family members would be angry and then they would chafe acid and kill them just to give them a place to go and hide for safety.

Six whole cities. And they call this the city of refuge. And he created this city of refuge as a shadow to point that Christ ultimately is our refuge. He went through all of that drama so that there would be a longing to see who's going to fulfill this. The promise of the promised land ultimately was about Christ.

In Hebrews chapter 11 it says, "If the promised land was a physical land, all these people who suffered to get there could have easily just turned around and gone home. But the promise that God made to them was not about here. And that's why these people by faith were able to reach the promised land and that promised land was Christ." Even the idea of rewards and inheritances that we see in the book of Numbers.

That all of this was to be fulfilled in Christ. That Christ is our reward. He is our inheritance. Imagine how significant the Sabbath is in the Old Testament. That keeping the Sabbath was so significant. What they could do, what they could not do. I think there's a reason why the Pharisees took this law so seriously.

Because it is so emphasized in the Old Testament. But remember what Jesus says to the Pharisees when they accuse him, "Why are you breaking the Sabbath?" He says, "I'm not breaking the Sabbath. Jesus never broke the Sabbath. He broke their tradition. You think that the Sabbath was made for us to obey." He says, "The Sabbath?

Man was not made for Sabbath." He says, "The Sabbath was made for man." The whole purpose of the Sabbath was to teach about rest that was going to be fulfilled in Christ. That only in Christ that we will ultimately find Sabbath. That's why Jesus says, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy and laden and I will give you rest." I will give you Sabbath.

All of the Old Testament was to bring us to Christ. And all of the New Testament is to keep us in Christ. That's why out of the seven "I am" statements, the last "I am" statement in the book of John where Jesus says, "I am the vine." If you want to bear fruit, if you want to live, you have to remain in me.

That's why all of the Old Testament is preparation for the coming of Christ. And all of the New Testament is to teach us and point us so that we do not drift away from Christ. If you remember when Jesus was going to the cross, Satan did everything in his power to keep Jesus from the cross.

Whether it was through the leaders of Israel or people rejecting him. And then he used Peter by influencing him saying, "You can't go." Jesus said, "Get behind me." And he actually enters into Judas and betrays him. And yet now on this side of the cross, the primary work of Satan is to keep us from drifting away from him.

Is to make sure that we don't remain in him. That we keep drifting. Satan is not afraid of large churches. You can have people gather together in large numbers with all the resources and commitment. That's not where the power lies. The reason why the gathering of the church, there's power, is because Christ is in the midst.

When we are fixated on Christ, when people who are in love with Christ are gathered together, whether it's two or three, there's power. You can have a church, a mega church, and yet busy doing God's work. Fellowship. We attach the word fellowship to anything that Christians gather to do.

Christians play basketball, it's basketball fellowship. We play softball, it's softball fellowship. We go rock climbing, it's rock climbing fellowship. We watch MMA together, it's MMA fellowship. We just attach fellowship to anything that the Christians gather to do. All that we have been called to do is to point to Christ.

So if our fellowship doesn't point to Christ, that's not fellowship. If our Bible study doesn't point to Christ, then that's not Bible study. If our prayer meeting doesn't push us toward Christ, then that's not a prayer meeting. That's meditation. Everything that we are to do, everything that God has done and everything we are to do is to bring us to Christ because the end goal is Christ.

The end goal of worship is to love Christ. The end goal of our gathering is to stimulate us toward Christ. That's what he means when he says Christ is the end of the law. All that striving and working and sacrificing, the end goal is Christ. Second thing that he says, that Christ is the fulfillment of the law.

Matthew 5.17 says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." The word for fulfill is the same word that we find in Ephesians, the word pleru, to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

It means to fill up in something. Not just partially, but to its maximum end, to fulfill. And that's why in Matthew 3.15, when Jesus comes to get baptized by John the Baptist, obviously John's whole purpose was to prepare the way for Christ. So here's his master coming who says, "Sandals, I'm unworthy to even tie." He says, "Why would you be baptized by me?

I should baptize you." Remember what Jesus says? He says, "I need to be baptized now to fulfill all righteousness." In other words, even Christ, he submitted himself to obey all of God's commands. God did not break any of its commands. He fulfilled all of it. Why did he do that?

In Romans 8.3-4, it says, "For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh." Why? "In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." We could not fulfill the law, to its fullest.

Again, we have a tendency that if we're righteous about some area, we tend to highlight our righteousness and we minimize our unrighteousness. You might be a compassionate person who's feeding the homeless, but you don't pray enough. You might have great friends and you're very hospitable, but you can't tolerate anybody who has different opinions.

Every single one of us has unrighteousness. We have unrighteousness in some areas and unrighteousness in some areas, but it is not full. And as Jesus says, if you break one commandment, you're a breaker of commandment of all of them. Only Christ completely filled the law. And the reason why he filled the law, the scripture says, "In order that the righteous requirement of the law that needed to be filled, he filled, so that we may gain his righteousness." That's why in John chapter 19, 30, the last words of Jesus on the cross where he says, "It is finished." And that word for finished is teleo.

That's the same word where he says, "The end," telos. The same root word. He says, "It is finished. It is fulfilled. Everything that the law required of me, I have fulfilled. And everything that is required in order to atone for your sins," he says, "It is fulfilled." That's what he meant when he says, "It is finished." He wasn't simply saying that his life is done and that it's over.

He said, "Everything that was required for salvation has been done." That's why he says in Hebrews 10, 14, "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." The word perfected here is also teleo. The same root word. The finished, fulfilled work of Christ.

There is nothing more that needs to be done to be declared righteous. There is nothing more that needs to be done for salvation of mankind. And all the requirement that was needed to reconcile mankind to God was fulfilled in Christ. There is nothing more that's going to happen in history.

There's nothing more that we need today. Everything that we need for life of Godliness has been fulfilled in Christ. That's what that means when he says, "Christ is the end of the law." And third and finally, "Christ is the termination of the law." Termination of the law. Before we jump into what does that mean?

What was terminated? Let me explain what it does not mean. Because whenever we talk about justification by faith and Christ is the end of the law, a lot of people take that and then misapply it to mean that therefore there is no law. We can do whatever we want.

And any law that says, "Hey, you should do this and you should come to church and you should do this," and all of a sudden you're all legalists because Christ is the end of the law. It's been terminated. That is not what that means. And Romans 3.31 says, "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?" By no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law. Salvation by faith and justification by faith alone does not mean, therefore, what God commands, the imperatives have been nullified. Jesus was constantly being accused. Why do you disobey the law? Why do you break the commandments? Again, Jesus never broke the commandments. He broke their tradition, but they were accusing him of breaking the commandments.

And Jesus answered in Matthew 5.17.19, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." There is a temptation that when we talk about justification by faith alone, for whatever the reason, people begin to embrace antinomianism, meaning like, "Okay, you know, we want to minimize the imperatives in the Bible, the commands in the Bible, because it's all been fulfilled in Christ." J.I.

Packer actually writes a concise theology about this particular issue. Antinomianism is basically antinomos, meaning no law or against the law. That's a false heresy or heresy in the Christian community where there is no commandment. As long as I love Jesus, as long as I have this belief in Jesus, all this stuff doesn't matter.

He lists five different ways that people embrace antinomianism. So I think it's up there. So number one, dualistic antinomianism is associated with a Gnosticism which treats the body and its actions as insignificant. Now we've been talking about how the Christian Gnostics and how they perverted the gospel and the whole book of 1 John is written about this.

If you think that because we're saved by grace and what we do in the flesh doesn't matter and he says he who is not living in light, you fool yourself because God is light and there is no fellowship with darkness and in light. So whole 1 John is written to combat this Gnostic antinomianism.

And a lot of people, again, in our generation embrace this because it justifies an antinomian life. It frees us to do whatever we want and anybody who says you shouldn't do this or you should do this, you say, oh, that's against the gospel. Second thing he mentions is spirit-centered antinomianism which views the inner promptings of the spirit as sufficient apart from external word.

Spirit-centered antinomianism, again, according to J.I. Packer, is where, again, this typically happens in some of the charismatic circles, not all, but some of the charismatic circles where the inward impression of God has a higher value than the word. I remember years ago I was doing Bible study and we were talking about how God calls us to the great commission and disciple making and sharing the gospel and she just flat out told me, I don't think that's what God wants from me.

I said, what? She said, yeah, I know, but the scripture says, it's like I know what the scripture says but God understands where I am, who I am, and I don't think God really wants that from me. How do you know this? It's because I just know. The spirit is telling me.

What he means by a spirit-centered antinomianism is we nullify all the commandments of God based upon whatever impression. So we can just kind of live our life willy-nilly based upon however we feel at that moment. We can nullify any kind of commandment, because I feel different toward that. Third, and I'm not going to linger too long on it, but third one is the most deceptive.

J. I. Packer says there's a Christ-centered antinomianism which argues that God sees no sin in believers because they are in Christ who kept the law for them and therefore what they actually do makes no difference provided that they keep believing. This is the most confusing of them because it is Christ-centered.

It leads us to Christ. As long as I believe Christ in my heart that we emphasize what he has done and what we do really doesn't matter. No one could become righteous by their own merit so our righteousness doesn't matter. And in essence it leads to antinomianism because it doesn't matter.

Well if it doesn't matter how do we choose elders? How do we disciple people? How do we determine if somebody is righteous or not? How do we even practice church discipline if it doesn't matter as long as somebody says I believe? Christ-centered antinomianism is embraced because it justifies our sins.

Not Christ, but this false sense of security. Fourth, dispensational antinomianism which denies that in the church age believers are obligated to, or not obligated to the moral law. I'm not going to get too deep into that because it requires too much explanation. Fifthly, situationist antinomianism which teaches that love is the only rule that duties, not just their application, will therefore vary according to circumstance.

And again, it's about love. So all this other stuff really doesn't matter. Again I'm not going to go too deep into that. But each one of these things are false ways that we embrace a life that chases after the world and says, you know what, all these imperatives don't matter.

But in the end, it's antinomian. When there is a guilt in the life of a Christian, the purpose of that guilt is to bring us to Christ. Because the only resolution to that guilt is repentance and receive mercy and forgiveness from this faithful God who sent his only begotten son.

So that guilt is placed there. But if we don't deal with that guilt in repentance, the only other way to deal with that guilt is to change our theology so that we no longer feel guilty. And we have various ways, again, I don't think it's limited to these five, but we have various ways to change our theology so that it is acceptable to live a life that does not look anything according to scripture.

And yet we have absolute confidence. That is not what he means when he says Christ is the end of the law. First Timothy 1.8, it says, now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. The unlawful use of the law is to use it to justify your sins or justify yourself before God.

The lawful use of the law is an individual who uses it for profit, for training in righteousness, for reproof, for correction, for teaching that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. I just quoted 2 Timothy 3.16-17 where Paul tells Timothy to stick to his word, to preach his word in season and out of season, whether people want to listen or don't listen, because I've ordained my word.

And when he says all scripture, is he talking about the New Testament or Old Testament? The New Testament canon hasn't been written yet when he was writing 2 Timothy. He's talking about Old Testament scripture, that all of it is profitable. He's talking as a man on this side of the covenant with Christ crucified and resurrected.

So when he says that all scripture is profitable for teaching, for training, for reproof, he's not saying that the law has ended. There's no need for us to worry about pursuing Christ and pursuing holiness. That is not what that means. But let me tell you what it does mean.

The law, as it pertains to our need to be justified for our sins, has been made complete in Christ. In the Old Testament, God commanded these sacrifices. And they were absolutely necessary to approach God. There was burnt offering, whole offering, grain offering. They had sin offering, guilt offering. They had these major offerings and every single individual who wanted to come to God had to make these sacrifices in order to atone for their sins.

So they were mandatory sacrifices in the Old Testament to get to God. Well that mandatory sacrifice has been complete, has been terminated in Christ because he fulfilled it. There is no more thing that needs to be done in order for us to get to God. It has been made complete.

Romans 7, 6, "But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we serve not under the old written code, but in the new life of the Spirit. Sin no longer," in Romans 6, 14, "has dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace." There is no barrier between us and God.

And the reason why there is no barrier between us and God is because that mediation that we needed, the sacrifice and the priesthood and the temple, all of that has been terminated in Christ. And that's why he invites us to enter the throne of grace with confidence. Not because you prayed, not because you read the Bible, not because you're serving or giving, but because Christ has completed what is necessary for us to come to him.

Even when you are deep in sin, there is no barrier between you and God. Even when you are filled with guilt, there is no barrier, there is no other mediator but in Christ. And all of that that was necessary before has been terminated in Christ. And that's why Christ can call us to come to him.

Come to him. Those of you who were righteous this week, come to him. Those of you who are struggling in purity, come to him. Those of you who are lost, come to him. There is no barrier between you and God. There is no mediator necessary. Everything that we are doing, everything that we are studying, every song that we sing is to constantly remind us, it is finished.

It is finished. It has been made complete. We often evaluate the church and we say, in order for missions to happen, we need more training. We need more men of God who are equipped. We need more funding. We don't have enough funding. We need people who have money in the church who are going to fund these mission work.

We need a better strategy because the strategy of the past generation did not work. I don't see any of that in Scripture. Anything that I see that Christ reminds us over and over again, that if you want to bear fruit, if you want to live, he says, remain in me.

Remain in me. If you want to evangelize, remain in me. If you want to be effective in fellowship, remain in me. If you want to understand Scripture, remain in me. If you want to bear fruit, it says, remain in me. All of the Old Testament pointed us to Christ.

All of the New Testament is to keep us in Christ. You know, oftentimes the burden that I have, I've been a pastor at this church 20 years, and some of you I've known longer than that. And sometimes I think, they must be sick of me by now. There's nothing I can say that they haven't heard.

And those of you who are new don't know what I'm talking about, right? Because you haven't heard my jokes before, so they're new to you. There's a group of people here that has been hearing me speak for the last 15 years, some of you even longer than that. And I think humanly speaking, what could I possibly say?

I've studied through Romans and quoted the passages, studied through the Old Testament, the New Testament. What could I possibly say that's going to sound anything new? So usually when I go to another church to speak, I have 20-some years of sermons I can gather together, and it's like, here it is.

But a church, there's nothing, humanly speaking, that I can say that's going to get you excited about anything. Oh yeah, we're going to do community work. Yeah, we did that before. How about missions? Yeah, yeah, we've been there. We've done that. You know, a prayer meeting. We used to do Friday prayer meeting all the time.

How about morning prayer? We used to do that. And all of that gets old after a while. Human effort, organization, programs, even the stuff coming out of my mouth, you know, how many times? Like, I get sick of it. I've been preaching regularly since I was 19. I shouldn't have been, but I did, since I was 19.

My former youth pastor kind of pushed me into ministry, and I said, "Okay," and then that's what happened. I can say, in all honesty, it's been 30 years that I've been preaching and doing ministry and discipling and doing all this stuff. This is one quality of a person that kind of is an indicator that that person will persevere.

There's one indicator. And that indicator always, to me, was the love for the Word. There's a love for the Word of God. But ultimately, it's not even the love for the Word. It's love for the Word. Like, why does somebody love the Word? Somebody could love the Word for all different reasons.

Somebody could love the Word because they love theology or they're trying to just gain knowledge and show off to people. So it's not just love for the Word. There is a genuine love for the Word because there's an affection for Christ, and they're looking into the Word because they want to connect with Christ.

That's one thing that I have seen in the 30 years, people coming and going. It's not passion for missions or social justice or learning all these theological terms or going to seminary or doing all this stuff. There's one thing that was universally true of every person that I saw that matured and persevered and bore fruit, one season of their life to the next season and to the next season.

I know a lot of people who are passionate when they're in college, and they fizzle out by the time they become young adults. A lot of people are passionate young adults, as soon as they get married, they fizzle out. A lot of people who are passionate when they're newly married, and they fizzle out after they have kids.

Some of them are passionate in their 20s, but not in their 30s, or 30s, and not in their 40s, and it just kind of fizzles out. But there's one quality over and over and over and over again that is consistent. Is there an affection for Christ? There's an affection for Christ that causes them to want to study the Bible.

There's an affection for Christ that causes them to want to serve the church. And it doesn't matter if anybody else loves them or not, because they do. Some of you love Lakers, right? I do. If I want to have a conversation with you that's not going to end, I just say, "Lakers," and boom, we have fellowship.

It's different when we talk about Lakers. It's not like talking about something else. There's passion. There's knowledge. There's hope. There's disappointment. And all of this comes together because we're Lakers fans. Some of you guys like traveling, so we talk about traveling. There's a different tone. There's a different energy about it when we talk about things that you love.

I see this one quality that brings a person through in-season and out-of-season is their connection to Christ. It's not their wealth. It's not their talent. It's not their experience. It's not their knowledge. God broke into our pride. He humbled us. And we came to a point where we realized that we can't make it without Him.

So Christ became our refuge. He became our reward. He became our inheritance. And ultimately, He became our life. So there's a lot of people I can talk about theology, church, mission. But those who love Christ, there's a different tone when we talk about Jesus. There's a different energy when we mention His name.

Because just the mention of His name brings you hope. Just the mention of His name gives you comfort. Because He drew you to Himself. When He says Christ is the end of the law, that's what He means. All of it. Everything about you, everything about me, everything about the Old Testament, everything about the church was about Christ.

So if we can come to church year after year, decade after decade, and your love for Christ is never increasing, then you have missed the whole point. I pray that that would not be the case. I pray whatever distraction there is in our life, that we would be able to say with confidence, and that this is not just some theological statement, but our testimony, Christ is the end of the law for my righteousness, for those who believe.

Before we take some time to pray, let's sing this song in Christ alone. And as we sing this song, look at the lyrics, and make that our confession before God. And after that, our praise team will ask us to take some time to pray. But before we do that, let's take some time to meditate as we sing this song in Christ