Living Under the Law of Liberty

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Those in whom anger or desire or any other passion, or again any insidious vice holds sway, are entirely enslaved, while all those whose life is regulated by law are free.”

~Philo (c. 20 BC- c. AD 50) Jewish philosopher of ancient Alexandria

“The teaching of the law, let it no longer lead you to bondage, but, on the contrary, bring you to liberty; let it no longer be only a schoolmaster, but bring you to perfection: it ought to be received by you with sincere affection, so that you may lead a godly and holy life.”

~John Calvin (1509-1564), French-born theologian

“We need to emphasize more strongly the connection that exists between freedom and truth. On the one hand, freedom exists for the sake of truth; on the other hand, without truth, freedom cannot achieve its own perfection.”

~Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, at the Second Vatican Council

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”

~Voltaire (1694-1778), French Enlightenment philosopher

“Craving human affirmation is a no-win proposition. Those who don’t receive it are miserable. Those who do receive it only want more.”

~Shai Linne, pastor and rap artist

“Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have a something to lay hold of and which, if wrested away without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the natural system.”

~Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

“To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
And hear his pard’ning voice;
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.”

~William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet, one of the most popular poets of his time

SERMON PASSAGE

James 2 and selected passages (ESV)

James 2

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Galatians 5

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

James 1

18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures…. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Jeremiah 31

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Romans 8

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 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 [as an offering] for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 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.