 I'll begin reading at verse one. I'll read the verse six, and we'll look into our study. Second Corinthians chapter three, beginning at verse one, reading to verse six, the apostle Paul writes, do we begin again to commend ourselves, or do we need as some others epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. Not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. And so as I've been mentioning to you here in the book of Second Corinthians, the apostle Paul is basically answering accusations that have been lodged against him. And there are a variety of accusations that we've been looking at. We'll be looking at a couple more as we go through this chapter. But Paul is defending himself against accusations. And he's been defending himself against a charge that he uses the gospel for personal gain, that he's profiting from the preaching of the message. We saw that in chapter two, verse 17, the last verse of chapter two, you might wanna look at it because there Paul said this. He said, for we are not as so many peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. And so again, to know the context of this letter, Paul's teachers said that Paul was giving a false gospel. They said that he was peddling it. The word peddling speaks of a hustler. There's a word we used to use in the old days. I don't know that they use it anymore. You go into a place to play some pool and there's some guy there pretending that he doesn't know how to play. And then he says, well, you know, I wanna play $10 a game and he hustles you. He's a professional, he knows what he's doing, but he pretends as if he doesn't. And so we used to use the term he hustled you. So they're hustlers. So he's speaking concerning that and he's saying that the word peddling doesn't apply to him. It speaks of Paul changing the message in order that he might profit personally. So Paul is speaking here and Paul is making it clear that there are many infiltrators who have crept in, they're influencing the church. And because he loves these people, he clearly identifies them throughout the epistle. In chapter 11, you'll see this at verse 13 when he describes them this way, he says, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. So he identifies them and he makes it clear. He's not one of them, but he also makes it clear that they're numerous because he spoke of so many who are peddling. So many teachers of his day would mix their teachings with current beliefs in order to appeal to people. But Paul is making it very clear that his teachings were inspired by the Holy Spirit and they're not enticing words that are used to entrap the hearer. You see the peddlers, the false apostles were transforming the gospel. They were adding things to it to tickle the ears of the hearer to draw them away after themselves. And Paul said, we're not as that. And there's so many of them, he said, who have crept in so many infiltrators, but we are not one of those. We are the people who have been preaching gospel, he said, with sincerity. In verse 17 of chapter two again, he said, as of sincerity, as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. So he speaks of sincerity, as with sincerity. The word sincerity speaks of that, which is a without mixture of error. Error, sincerity is a virtue of one who communicates and acts in accordance with their feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and desires. So he's saying, I communicated only God's pure word without mixing it with error. And did so knowing that God's eye is upon me, noting his every word. With this he's saying, with this in mind, he only gave the words that were given, approved of, and blessed by Jesus. So we speak with sincerity, without mixture, without error. The word sincerity is a combined word. Sincerely, it comes from the Latin and the way you would pronounce it, I'm assuming in Latin, it would be sincera. Sincera, without wax. That's what that means, sincera, without wax. Now why would he say we preach without wax? Because if I was going to a pottery shop and I was wanting to buy a piece of pottery, a vase of some sort, and I would look at it, it would appear to be beautiful and without a flaw. But if I lifted it and turned over the vase and looked at its base, I would be looking for something that would identify to me its quality. And if it says sincera without wax, I knew it was a genuine article and without any kind of defect, because during that day, if you had a light-colored piece of pottery, it may have a hairline crack in it. And so they would take melted wax and they would put the wax over that and they would buff it out, so that when you were looking at it, it looked like it was perfect. If you took it up and put it against the sun though, you could see the hairline fracture. To save people from having to do that, to show its quality, you would just have it sincera. So sincera spoke of the genuine article and it's where sincera, that's where sincerity comes from without a mixture of error, because that word speaks in that way. We're not defrauding you. We're not taking advantage of you. And that's what Paul is saying. He was saying that he very clearly ministered the word of God, he said, as of sincerity. He said, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. We are speaking to you in such a way that we can, with a clean conscience, share these things. So he's concerned because it only takes a small amount of error to infect the church. And it's always, this message is always one that appeals to the hearer. It promises to produce great results, but the problem is this add a mixture of truth and error deceives the believer, the one who believes in it and it undermines the work of God. So whenever somebody mixes error with the truth that always dilutes and it can actually lead to some bad things. We had an invasion of ants in my house. All my ants showed up at one time. No, we had an invasion and there's a lot of them, I promise you. When my grandmother went home to be with the Lord in 1992, I was looking at the information on our family, how many children she had, she had 12 children, how many grandchildren she had. And when I saw the amount of great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren, now this is 28 years ago, I had 118 great, great, they were great, great grandchildren. We had in my family over 200 blood relatives, straight from my grandma who had 12 children. So I got a lot of ants. But anyway, I was talking about ants. When we had an invasion of ants in my house, not my church, in my house. So what did I do? I got some poison, because I'm not a member of PETA and I got some poison and you put the poison down and it's sweet. And what happens is the ants will take it and it has a sweet taste to it. They don't ingest it though. They take it to the queen and they give that poison to the queen and the queen takes of it and dies and there goes your problem with the ants. And that's how deception also works. There's a sweetness to it that makes you think it's pleasant. It makes sense to you, it draws you, it entices you, but the end is destruction. And the enemies creeping into the church bringing in poison. And Paul is concerned about that. And he says, look, I preached the gospel to you with sincerity, without wax. I spoke to you as it truly should be. I told you the truth, but these others are entering in and they're being in a problem. And so he's saying, I want you to know that my ministry is one of integrity before God as well as before man. You see, Paul ministered to the Corinthians out of a clean conscience. And he did so with the purest of motives. We saw in chapter one of 2 Corinthians verse 12 how he already had said, our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. Not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you. So as a minister, Paul served the Lord in integrity of heart and he wanted them to know it. You see, without God's strength and without a hard exercise towards God, he wouldn't have been able to do it. And that's why he asked in chapter two verse 16 who is sufficient for these things? You see, this question was intended to set him apart from the false teachers because Paul's ministry was sincere. It was from God. It was performed in the sight of God. Paul was a man who guarded his own heart and Paul was a man who ministered with a clean conscience. When he was writing to the Thessalonians, for example, in 1 Thessalonians two verses three and four, he said this, he said, the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God who tests our hearts. So he says, we're not putting anything on for you. We are basically just, we're real, we're sincere. We've been appointed by God. And that's what he's dealing with as he begins chapter three. So in chapter three, he begins at verse one by addressing a ninth charge that has been leveled against him. The ninth charge is that he has no proper ministry credential, he has no letter of commendation. So he begins in verse one by saying, do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? So that's what he's dealing with right now. They're saying, these infiltrators are saying, he has no proper ministry credential, he has no letter of recommendation. The question they're actually saying or asking is, who gave him the authority to speak in the way that he does? The question of authority is a common question. It's something that Jesus himself had to deal with. In Mark chapter 11, 27 and 28, it says they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priest describes and the elders came to him and they said to him, I want authority, are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority to do these things? Jesus himself was questioned concerning his authority. Look at all the way back into the Old Testament. Moses was questioned concerning his authority. His own sister and brother rebelled against his authority. The children of Israel rebelled against his authority. Authority is something people rebelled against. They rebelled against Moses. They rebelled against Jesus Christ. They're rebelling against Paul. You see, Paul was teaching many things and the false teachers were rejecting what God had to say through him. And that led them to question his right to teach the things he's teaching. It may be that the infiltrators had come with an impressive letter of recommendation. Now, if they needed letters of recommendation, they would say, why doesn't Paul have one? Why doesn't he have a letter of recommendation? Now, letters of recommendation are something that we're in the early church. Let me share something with you. It falls into the context of this as an explanation for those who may not know. In the early church, there were many people who would go from place to place and they would want to bring their message. John in third John had to tell the church not to welcome these false teachers in. There needed to be a way to know whether or not the people were bringing the truth or not. And one of the ways that the church could be safeguarded was through letters of commendation or letters of recommendation. Notice how in verse one it says, do we need some other's epistles of commendation? Now, you read the word epistle and you may think, well, wait, the word epistle, isn't that usually used to speak of the letters of Paul? The epistles of Paul? Well, that's the whole thing. The word epistle simply means letter. And the word commendation is simply the word recommendation. So what he's talking about are letters of recommendation. And so the question is, do we need some other's letters of recommendation? Now, the answer to that question obviously is no. You see, letters of recommendation were issued during that day to safeguard the early church against deceivers. And Paul was well aware of that. As a matter of fact, he actually wrote them himself. He wrote a letter of commendation in Romans, for example, chapter 16, verses one through three. He said, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister. That's a recommendation. I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who's a servant of the church in St. Crea that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of you. For indeed, she has been a helper of many and of myself also. That's called a letter of recommendation. In 1 Corinthians 16, verse three, he writes, when I come, whomever you approve by your letters, again, letter of recommendation, I will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem. So again, letters of recommendation were intended to safeguard the church from predators. Paul had already gone through the proving process. He was already commended. It happened at the beginning of his coming to faith in Christ. If you look in the book of Acts in chapter nine, you see this in verses 26 and 27. It says, when Saul or Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to meet with the believers, but they were all afraid of him. They did not believe he had truly become a believer. Some of you have gone through things like that too, haven't you? He says, you kidding me? He's a believer. No, I don't believe that. Well, that's how they felt about Paul. They did not believe he had truly become a believer. Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul. He also told them that Saul had preached boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus. That was a commendation. So Paul made it clear that he was a commended individual. In Galatians chapter two, in verse nine, it reads, in fact, James, Peter and John who were known as pillars of the church, recognize the gift God had given me. They accepted Barnabas and me as their coworkers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles while they continued their work with the Jews. The pillars of the church have commended me, is what he's saying. He's already received his commendation, but they're asking, why doesn't Paul carry a letter of recommendation? And now he gives the answer, verse two and three. You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. Here's his answer. You are our epistle written in our hearts, read by all men. You are our letters of commendation, and they're written in our hearts. My accusers are asking for proof of my calling and my ministry. The fact that you've been saved and that a church exists should be proof enough. Your changed lives reveals the power of God's word and your changed lives establishes our credibility. He says in verse three, clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us and written not with ink. You are clearly believers in Jesus. Now that's something he said in his first letter. In 1 Corinthians one, five through eight, this is what he said to the church. He said, you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your changed lives, your changed lives should be clear evidence of your true faith. And this genuine faith occurred through my ministry to you. That should be evidence of my being a genuine minister of the gospel. The fact that as I have taught you and you have embraced the teaching, your lives have changed. That should be all the evidence that we need because that would prove that I'm a genuine minister. Notice how he says in verse three, the spirit has engraved God's message of grace on tablets of your heart. The Ten Commandments, when you look in the Old Testament, were written on stone, but grace is engraved on the heart. In Ezekiel in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 36 verses 26 and 27, God said this, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. I will write on the tablet of your heart. The law is on stone, but God's grace is on my heart. There are a lot of laws that we are familiar with. You know, you come up to this place that has STOP on it, you're supposed to stop. I'll let that sink for a minute. Then the yellow light when you're driving, that isn't some kind of contest to see how many people can get through before it turns red. Those things are laws that are written, if you will, on stone. They're outside of you. They're not internalized within you because sometimes people think that they're suggestions and those are the small things. It says 55, it says 65. That's a suggestion. I don't see a black and white. It's just me, it's four o'clock in the morning. Nobody notices. And that's how we think. I remember when I was a kid, we went to the movies. I was 12 years old, 13 years old, and two friends and I went to the movies. My parents let us go out to see a movie. Shouldn't have, it was Psycho, a movie called Psycho. So we went and saw Psycho in a theater in Downey and we were on our way home walking down Firestone Boulevard. And there was no traffic because we went to a late show. It was like 11 o'clock at night. And then at that time, the traffic was already, there was no traffic at 11 o'clock. And so we decided we were gonna be cars and we were running in the lanes, in traffic lanes, and we'd pass each other up and we were stupid kids playing and a cop pulls over. And he pulled me over, he sided me, he put his red light and I had to pull over to the curb. But anyway, and he gets, I'll never forget this. He gets out of the squad car. He says, what are you guys doing? We said, nothing, we're just playing. And he says, you're playing in the street. And I spoke up and I said, there's no cars. There's no cars. It's like I was talking to my mom. There's no cars and I'll never forget this cop looking at me. What's cars got to do with the law? And he lectured me and I thought, man, are you kidding me? What's wrong with you? He was right. Law has nothing to do with anybody's watching you or not. The law doesn't, but guess what? The law's on the outside of you. What keeps you from breaking the law? It's what's inside of you. See, there's no law that can be passed. I don't care how many laws you pass that says you're supposed to love and not discriminate this and that. You can put it down on a tablet of stone, but unless the Holy Spirit writes it on my heart, I'll discriminate and I'll do everything else I want to do. I may not do it in front of other people. I might not even say it, but my heart is still rotten because my heart hasn't been changed. The law doesn't change your heart. And that's why God said, I'm gonna take my law and write it on the tablets of your flesh. I'm gonna change it from the inside because those commandments that God gave the 10 commandments, you break every one of them because that's your nature to do. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put in you my law. I will write it on the tablet of your heart and it boils down to do basic things. Love God with all of your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do that, you'll keep all the laws in the commandment. Why? Because the greatest law is the law of love. And that comes through the grace of God. It doesn't come through tablets of stone. It comes through God's mighty finger writing on your heart saying, love your neighbor. Love them for Jesus' sake. And that's how it works. And that's what Paul is saying. Paul is simply saying that to us. It's something to know and to understand. He's saying, you exist as a church because God led me to teach you about Jesus Christ. And these false teachers that are entering in, questioning my authority, all they need to do is look at you and see that in Corinth the church exists and people who love God are present in that church. That's how it's demonstrated. You are an evidence. In 1 Corinthians 9, verse two, Paul said it like this to the church. He said, even though I may not be an apostle there's surely I am to you for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. You are a letter of God's love and grace and you are engraved on my heart. Notice verse two, you are our epistle written in our heart, known and read by all men. But he goes on and he says, clearly you are an epistle of Christ ministered by us. Written not with ink, but by the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh that is of the heart. And we have such trust through Christ toward God. And we have such trust. You are very dear to us. I am confident that your love for Jesus proves my ministry's real. I have a strong confidence that you are truly believers in Jesus. That's what he means in verse four. We have such trust through Christ toward God. I trust that Christ has done his work in you who truly believe in him. Now of course there are some of you who have been seduced by the false apostles. And this is something you need to examine your own hearts about whether or not you have been. You see later on in 2 Corinthians in chapter 13 verse five he says this, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the flesh. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you? Unless of course you fail the test. Have you been influenced by the false teachers? Has your heart been taken to a false message? Test your own hearts. Clearly he says, you are an epistle. And then in verse four, and we have such trust through Christ toward God. God has done this work. He moves on into verse five. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God. Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. Not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills. But the spirit gives life. And so in verse five, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being of ourselves. That brings us to the 10th accusation. The 10th accusation they've made against him is that Paul is self-righteous and Paul is self-sufficient. That he labors in the energy of his flesh. Now Paul knew that he was not adequate in and of himself. He did not forget what he was before he came to faith in Jesus Christ. Have you forgotten what you were before Jesus came into your life? Have you forgotten? You know what, if you remember where you came in, it saves you from becoming proud and arrogant. Sometimes people forget what they were before Jesus saved them. Sometimes because we've been walking maybe with the Lord for maybe a few years, five years, 10 years, 15 years. And we look at our old life and we look at the past and the things that we did and things that took pleasure in. And then we see somebody who's entrapped by those same things, we at one time were entrapped by. And we think to ourselves, I don't know how they could be like that. Why don't you just, and we forget, that's what we were until Christ's grace broke through. I've never forgotten where I came from. I don't wanna ever go back to it, but I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten what I was. Listen, every one of us has what is called a testimony and we bear witness of what God has done. You have your real testimony and you have the one that is open to others. The one that's open to others is usually crafted. If you've said it more than once, you know how to fill it in, you know how to say certain things. If people respond, especially if you're an open speaker, a public speaker, you learn that some things will cause people to really cheer. I've given my testimony in other places and I'll say certain things and then certain places somebody may respond and I realize that must have impacted them and I'll remember that if I give it again some place that's what your flesh does. You remember these things. You have a testimony and the testimony you have over the years sometimes eliminates some of the things that you did or perhaps you don't remember anymore and then you have your real testimony and that is the one that you and God know. That's the one that you don't tell anybody. You don't tell anybody what you really did. You don't tell anybody what you really thought. You don't tell anybody what your life really was about. Why? Because that's private and embarrassing. It's humiliating and you don't want people to know these things. There are things about me that I tell nobody. Marie knows nothing about and never will. It's between me and God. Not that I'm ashamed of it. To tell my wife, I'll tell my wife anything she needs to know but there are some things in my life that is just God and me and that's what causes humility in my heart because I know what I was. I know what he did. I know the depth of his forgiveness and that's what's created in me a heart of humility for God's sake because God, I know what I was. Thank you for what you've done to change me and that's your testimony. That's the real deal. That's who you really are because you know there are things if you said you did this or thought this or wanted to and you told somebody else, they would think, man, you're some kind of monster. What's wrong with you? You're a sicko. The answer is yeah, you probably are. All of us are to some degree. Who's better than the next person, right? Paul never forgot, please never forget. Never forget. Did you need God's grace? Yes, you did. Would you be saved without God's grace? No, you wouldn't. Has God been good to you? Yes, he has. Did he forgive all of your sins? Indeed, he did. Why do you know that? Because he said, if I confess my sin, he is faithful and just to forgive me my sin and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness is my God a truth telling God? Absolutely. Am I forgiven? Yes, by what? By his grace. How do I know that through faith? That's called Christianity. And Paul never forgot where he came from. My sufficiency is from God. He knew that. My sufficiency is from God. When he gave his testimony to Timothy in 1st Timothy chapter one, verses 12 through 15, he said, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent man. I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Apostle Paul. I've met people say I'm the worst of sinners. Paul would differ with you. He'd say no, Paul would say I am chief of sinners and God used Paul as an example of how far God's grace will go. Never forget that. You see every believer in Jesus has a personal responsibility to grow and to mature. We know that we've been made adequate to serve God by God himself, but I have a responsibility to pray, to read my Bible, to attend fellowship, to fellowship with our believers, to serve, to give. I have these. These are responsibilities. These are called basic disciplines and they serve to strengthen it and develop us as believers. But in the end, it's God who strengthens. It's God who gifts. It's God who encourages us in our service to him and Paul makes it clear. He says our sufficiency is from God. He's saying my abilities are not natural ones. They're imparted to me by Jesus. The work of converting people and equipping them, well, that doesn't originate with Paul. You see, whatever qualifications I have, whatever success I enjoy, Paul is saying, are all from God. In John 15, verse five, Jesus said it like this. He said I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. In Zechariah chapter four, verse six, this is the word of the Lord is irrebable, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, sayeth the Lord of hosts. You see, that all comes from God. God converts, God equips, God directs and God provides the resources. You shall receive power. After that, the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in Judea, Siberia, unto the uttermost parts of the earth. God supplies the power. In Isaiah 40, 29, he gives power to the weak and to those who have no might, he increases strength. It comes from him. So as a minister, Paul knew that he had a high calling. He wasn't driven by a desire for fame. He wasn't driven for a desire to advance in influential circles or to grow rich. His was a life marked by repentance and a pursuit of greater personal purity. The task was beyond his ability to succeed. He acknowledged it. He made it clear that it takes God to make him adequate to serve faithfully. You see, each one of us, each believer must grow, must mature, but the resources are completely available to us. Isaiah 41, 10 says, fear not, for I'm with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. You went on to say in Isaiah 41, 13, for I, the Lord, your God will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, I will help you. Take that to the bank. God will be with you. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. You have a story. It's a book, and each one of your days of your life make up a portion of the chapters. You have chapters of joys and chapters of sorrow in your book of life that you have. Adventures that you've had that you succeeded in and failures, you have bright lights and dark nights. And one of the things that I've told people over the years that I've grown to understand is this. My book has not ended yet. It contains all these chapters of all these various things, but my book has not been concluded yet. Because at the very end of the book, I'm gonna look at the last page, and it's gonna say, and he lived happily forever after. Because God is the author of that book, working in my life. It's a love book, and it's gonna end with victory. Because in Jesus Christ, I can do all things. I am more than a conqueror. I have my name in his book of life, and I am victorious because of him. Even if I walk through the valleys, even though you go through pain and disappointments and sorrows, God is able to make you adequate. God is able to work in you. God will have his way in you. You just yield to him and watch what God can do through a yielded vessel. Don't forget that. And Paul said it, my sufficiency is of God. My abilities are not natural ones. They have been given to me. Notice in verse six how he says it, who has, who also made us efficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life, made us efficient. And Jesus saved him, and Jesus equipped him to serve. In 1 Peter 411, the apostle said, if anyone speaks, let them speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let them do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever, amen. Again, in 1 Timothy 1 12, Paul said, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. You see, verse six says we're ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. So he contrasts what has been called the old covenant with the new. The Old Testament, the old covenant was lifeless. It was a written code. It required perfect obedience. In Exodus 24-7, it says he took the book of the covenant, read it to the people, and they responded, we'll do everything the Lord has said. We will obey, but they didn't. In Deuteronomy 27-26, cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out. You see, it's through the law of Moses that people became aware of their own sinfulness. God's law identified sin, made people realize that what they were doing was wrong. Paul speaks of that in Romans seven, when he says in verses seven through 10. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you shall not covet. But sin taken opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived. I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. The things that I was feeling with, that I was feeling like covetousness is what Paul says. I didn't realize that I coveted until I read the law and it defined what I was experiencing. So the law awakens you, it opens your eyes to what you are. It says, thou shalt not. And then you realize those are the things you want to do. And so the law reveals sinfulness. It awakens us to a need for help. It was used by God to reveal the need for a savior. In Galatians 3, 23, 326, Paul said it like this. He said, before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So Jesus Christ was our tutor, our headmaster. He brought us, the law brought us to Jesus Christ rather. The law was our tutor. It brought us to Christ. It didn't teach us, it awakened us. Jesus taught us through his grace what it means to be free. So the law says, thou shalt not. But it's written on stone. But when Jesus Christ comes into your life, that law is now written in your heart. And the things that you do now are not because you're gonna get caught. It's because God has restricted you. He's restrained you, he's instructed you and he's empowered you and he's given to you the ability to see that this is something wrong. When you've got a little kid, those of you who are parents or those of you who take care of small children, you know this. When you've got a small child, two years old, three years old, they will obey you, not necessarily from the heart. You know, how many three-year-olds have you ever seen at a church service coming forward and just kneeling crying, oh God, I'm a miserable sinner. You just don't really see that because they don't realize that they are. They're just doing things that are expedient. I mean, if you've got a four-year-old and he's picking on a three-year-old and you talk to the four-year-old and you say, why are you doing that? They'll look at you and say, duh, because they're smaller than me. It just makes sense to pick on a small person. I wouldn't pick on a six-year-old. I'm only four. So I'll beat up three-year-olds and they see the reasonableness of that. Why did you steal that? Steal? I don't even know what that word means. I wanted, I took, it was sitting there. What's wrong with that? That's how they think. But you say, but that's belonging to somebody else. The concept of belonging to somebody else and violating that kind of social contract is not in their mind. I saw it, I wanted it, I took it, get off my back. That's kind of a three-year-old. So try and reason with one. Those of you who have them, three-year-old, four-year-olds, you'll see what I mean. So what do you do? You say, I'm gonna have to put you in a timeout. Oh yeah, that's real effective. I'm gonna put you in a timeout or whatever you do and you need to think about it. They already think it was okay. So I don't have a problem sitting here in the corner, thinking about how I'm gonna go, I'll get away with it next time because this is what, and that's what they do, they sit in the corner figuring out how to do it and get away with it. But when you're older, when you're nine, 10, 11, when you're 12 and 13, you start developing what is called a moral conscience. You begin to know there's something right, there's something wrong. But it doesn't form at three and four. It's still, we're just still basically growing. We're just learning. And so ultimately what you have are stages of moral growth. And there have been studies on this. I'm not gonna take you through, but there are seven stages that one guy came up with. And basically there's a reward and punishment. That's basically the beginning. But ultimately they call it altruism where they do things because it's the right thing to do regardless of the cost for me. They say that is a highly morally developed individual, the one who does right for its own sake even if it costs me for doing it. And this one author said, and that is what the Christians, and he wasn't a Christian, but that is what the Christians call a copy of love, to do the right thing even when it isn't the easy thing because that's the best thing, right? And so it's easy for someone to, oh, I'll, is a cop behind me? It says 45, I'm going 44, you know? There's a cop behind me, he says, stop, I'll stop, one, two, three, then I'll go. You know, 10 o'clock, two o'clock, all of those things we learned, right? And the cop's not there because we haven't developed the internal, the internal watch, and that's again what Paul was speaking about earlier and that's what he's reiterating here, reminding us the letter kills, but the spirit brings life. The letter says, thou shalt not on the pain of penalty, whereas grace says, no, I'll do it because I'm alive through Jesus Christ and I do it because of His grace. You see, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. In Romans 7, 24, Paul said, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? But in John 6, 63, Jesus said, the spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing, the words I've spoken to you are spirit and they are life. So the riches of the grace of God are revealed to us in Christ and that's intended to cause us to have joy. You see, his law is written on the tablets of our flesh, of our heart and we obey him from the heart. Again, Hebrews 8, 10 says, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, sayeth the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind, write them on their hearts, I will be their God, they shall be my people. You see, verse 6 says, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. The law awakened people to sin, but it also served to condemn them to judgment. But the spirit of God gives life to the spiritually dead person through grace and by faith and that is why we need to be born again because the will is present, the ability to perform that which I desire is not and that's why you've fallen your face before God and you say, God, be merciful to me, I'm a sinner in need of your help, forgive me, cleanse me, Lord, may I have a new life, write your law on the tablet of my heart that I may do those things that please you. I've hurt too many people, I've broken too many things, I just need you. I still remember one prayer that I used to pray when I was a young, young man before I got saved and it was simple, I still remember the prayer. Just before I got saved, I started praying. I hadn't been praying, I hadn't prayed for years, but I prayed this, I would say, God help me, there's something wrong with me. That's what I would say, that was my prayer. God help me, there's something wrong with me. I don't know what it is, but something's wrong. Help me, help me, help me. And then one day my friends started sharing the gospel and that's when I realized that's what's wrong with me. I don't know the Lord. I'm rebellious, I'm filled with hate and selfishness. God help me and that's how I got saved. But I realized that my heart was broken and messed up, but that Jesus said, I've come to heal the broken hearted and he healed me and he can heal you too if you open your heart to heal.