Written version of the above audio:
Heads up to put on your earphones or pause this for a moment and turn down your volume if you have little ears around who may not be ready for mature conversations. This
message is kind of a teen and older message today.
One of the most "law abiding" things I've done in my life was obey God in waiting until marriage to have sex. I think I was about high school when I decided I would wait. It was not that difficult at that time. My parents gave me a fairly sheltered life and I wasn’t that hang out everywhere kid. There just wasn’t room for that in my life. I was very preoccupied with extra curricular activities so after school there was always something to do. After "something to do" there was honor classes to study for or lines or choreography to memorize. All of that helped me stay focused as a kid.
By the time I got to college a pattern was already set. I was still very focused on waiting and had a very active academic life. When you’re that way in high school and early college age-I think it’s fairly easy to wait. I didn’t have a lot of loneliness, I was distracted with school. I was too preoccupied to have room for distractions. Eventually that certainly changed. I had a long term relationship in college and because I was waiting the conversation of marriage was always in the air. After 3 years it certainly became intentional but early on it was just kind of there, never the elephant in the room but there.
And even though it was that, being a virgin never felt legalistic. As a dancer I've always felt very comfortable in my skin, with my body and the expression of myself physically. Virginity was not something I HAD to do or else!! Feeling the consequence of the law before you break it can jeopardize freedom. I'm not talking about freedom to do what you want but freedom in keeping the law/keeping sin out of your life.
This is the thing-the BIBLE says
"the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation. "
(Romans 4:15)
So if I'm not feeling the condemnation of potentially violating the law-is the law even there? I'm walking around without feeling the wrath. I haven't been struck dead in the act of a sin, my family is healthy-doing well-I don't see any evidence of the wrath so is there really sin in my life?
Sin is as easy as God said do it and you don't do it-boom-you've broken the law.
'Is this really something I'm supposed to obey and is there some consequence if I don't?' You can cast it off with that attitude, right? 'Sin is not valid if there's no immediate, radical consequence to my behavior.'
Well that's a real antiquated way of thinking about sin. It's an old covenant expectation of how the consequence of sin plays out. In the old arrangement the consequence of sin was legit in front of your face. 'Oh I regret I made man-let me start over:' 40 days and 40 night of rain (Genesis 6-7:12). 'Wait-I told you not to eat of the tree-ok-out the garden you go' (Genesis 3). 'I told you not to look back but you did'-Lot's wife-instant pillar of salt (Genesis 19:15-26).
In the old testament there are these very obvious, hard, defining consequences to sin. There were animal sacrifices that had to be made to honor your commitment in acknowledging God as the one and only God. There was no social environment that deemed sin as "it doesn't matter" because you were emotionally disconnected from the consequences.
We take lessons from these stories now-not living them in the same way.
Fast forward to the new arrangement, Jesus came, and tells us why he came in Matthew 5:17:
"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."
So God came as a man, not only as a friend to pay a price for us that we could not pay, but also to redeem us from the consequence of sin while at the same time himself being the fulfillment of the rules we are to follow. If you have Jesus-you have the rules. There is no bondage or weight or burden of sin to carry when you have accepted Jesus' sacrifice for your sins.
In order to obey God's laws you need the person who will do it himself.
Obeying the law is a matter of surrendering to it.
"Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you
are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of
obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Romans 6:16
If you do not surrender there will always be consequences to the opposite end of what can be gained by following the law. The old and the new are one. It used to matter that the law was written out and sacrifices were made to help follow the law but now Jesus himself is fulfilling the law in your life through your surrender to him. It's the same law. The old covenant is gone and the new covenant is Jesus.
Over time I honestly-did not understand how my virginity was happening. I had been a virgin for so long and had been through so much I had to ask why. There was this evidence in my life of a "thing" but I knew the proof of it was absolutely not evident because of my own strength. It honestly made no sense to me how it was happening. I had made mistakes, was by no means perfect but yet was still a virgin.
The person I was with at the time, I was engaged to and I plainly told him- "I don’t get it." Everyone that I’ve been with has been willing to wait. No one has challenged me or pushed me past my intention. Why are you willing to wait with me?
He told me this: You mean what you say. You’re not a person who will say something and mean something different. What you say is what you actually mean. Your actions match up.
When you give you're life to Christ-sincerity is everything- you have to surrender-and give your whole heart. If you live a life surrendered to Christ you can trust God will obey his own law.
"As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." (Isiah 55:10-11)
We should most definitely surrender our lives to Christ. In doing so we have the privilege of following the law with freedom in Him.
If you want to get all the scriptures used in this message visit me at FromtheDirector.com to view the written form and additional topics. Don't forget to click share for that person who's on your heart.
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