Text: Matthew 26:17–30
Topic: The difference between living under the Law and understanding the big picture of God's love for us.

• Illustration: Hiett tells of trying to explain to his son when it was okay to use certain words and when those words were inappropriate. His son wanted a rule, but Hiett wanted him to understand the reason for the rule.

• Sometimes we use the law to avoid the picture, the meaning.
• If your boss asks you to try something, you can turn it into a law and avoid the demands of creativity imposed by getting the picture.
• It's human nature to want the law, not the picture.
• We want to know, Can I fornicate? Can I kill if it's the first trimester or if it's a just war? Can I get by on ten minutes of prayer? Can I give five percent of net income and still be okay?
• We want numbers. We want law.
• And Jesus asks us, "Do you love me? Do you want me?"
• We want law to avoid the picture, cover our tails, and justify ourselves.

• The old covenant is the covenant of law.
• The Old Testament has gobs of laws, lines, and numbers.
• The Old Testament starts, "In the beginning God created. …"
• When Adam and Eve stole the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, mankind fell, and God made some covenants.
• In the ancient covenants God made with Noah and Abraham there were no terms, for God kept both sides.
• But in Moses' covenant, the terms were law, and there was a ton of law.
• He gave them the Ten Commandments, which he made them carry in the Ark of the Covenant.
• The Law includes what we call the moral law and the ceremonial law—priests, tabernacles, sacrifices, ointments, fragrances.
• So there are laws on the laws, and laws on what to do when laws are violated, laws on sacrifices and atonement, and laws regarding those laws.
• The covenant of law is like this elaborate paint-by-numbers picture.
• The Law was incredibly intricate and hard, and it seems no one could actually do it.
• The Pharisees tried by adding even more numbers and even more lines, and it got ugly.
• Paint-by-numbers paintings look pretty good from a distance, but if you get close, you find they're imitations—not the good but a copy of the good.
• Another problem with painting by numbers is that it's not really art, so you're not really an artist, a creator in the image of the Creator.
  • Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher said, "Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures."
• When you paint by numbers and live by the law, you don't paint your own nature.
• Yet where there is no law things can get pretty ugly.
  • Illustration: Hiett tells of treasuring his children's original artwork, because it came from their hearts. 

• Paint-by-numbers help us understand the old covenant, the Law, and how God could get so angry in such strange places.
• In 2 Samuel 6 (and 1 Chronicles 13), the Ark of the Covenant slipped, and Uzzah stretched out his hand to catch the Ark so it would not fall. 2 Samuel 6:7 says, "And God smote him."
• Uzzah colored outside the lines just a little it seems, and God "smote him."
• King David danced nearly naked in front of the same Ark.
• When you read David's life story, you see he didn't color outside the lines a little, but a lot: adultery, deception, murder.
• Yet David was the "man after God's own heart."
• Both men colored outside the lines: Uzzah a little, David a lot. But David got the picture.
• Uzzah tried to save the Ark of the Covenant—catch it, control it.
• David surrendered before the Ark of the Covenant and lost control.
• So it isn't that God is uptight about the details of law as much as he wants us to get the picture.

• Our text is Matthew 26. It's the first place in the New Testament that we read the word covenant.
• At the start of Matthew 26, the strange woman dumps a fortune of perfumed oil on Jesus' head. It appears to be scandalous and way out of line.
• With Judas, the disciples grow indignant, and Jesus says, "Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me" (a kalos ergon, a "good deed").
• Kalos means "beautiful," gracious.
• Grace, or mercy, translates to the Hebrew word khesed, which also translates into English as "love, loving kindness, faithful love, and love that never quits."
• Jeremiah prophesied that the Lord would make a new covenant, write his law on our hearts, forgive our sins, put his law in his people like they put the Law in the Ark.
• In Matthew 26 Jesus says he's going to be crucified. The strange woman does the beautiful, good, kind, merciful thing, and Judas goes to betray Jesus.
• Judas is like Uzzah. He tries to control the Ark, maybe even save the Ark from falling.
• The woman is like David. She gets the picture and comes unglued with praise.
• The covenant of the law is a foreshadowing of the covenant of grace.
• All of creation was ready to become new.
• Jesus said, "This is my blood of the covenant."
  • Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:20; Revelation 21:5
• Everything gets its meaning at the table of the new covenant.
  • Romans 11:36; Ephesians 1:23
• This is everything: the good, the light, the life, the truth, the way. It's a person, not a number.
• He's the Beautiful One, and here his beauty is revealed in covenant love and mercy.

• Once you see him, you'll ingest him and paint his beauty—not by numbers but by nature, a creator in the image of the Creator.
• And once you see him, he gives you a blank canvas, It's called freedom.
  • Galatians 5:1
• Paul writes, "The love of Christ constrains us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). And Christ said, "Feed on me" (John 6:57).
• If the Word of God is only a paint-by-numbers set, it would be easy to judge who's crossed the line, but none of the paintings would be beautiful.
• If the Word of God is the essence of himself, it would be hard to judge who's crossed the line, but all the paintings would be uniquely beautiful.
  • Illustration: Robert Benson quote.
  • Ephesians 2:10
• We are God's masterpiece, and while we paint, he's painting us.
• We don't paint by number, we paint by mercy. We don't paint by law, but by Christ's body and blood that has become our body and blood.
• You may ask, "Why all the lines and numbers in the first place? Why the law?"
• Numbers and lines can't make you beautiful, but they can help you long for beauty and mercy.
• "Well, why all that painting by numbers for 1,500 years?" you might ask.
• For thousands of years God had his people paint the Beautiful One by numbers so when the Beautiful One appeared they might see him.
  • Matthew 26:27–30
• The hymn traditionally sung at the end of the Passover meal was the Hillel, Psalm 118.
• It ends with, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!"
• For thousands of years they'd sung that song. Now they got the picture.

• Do you get the picture? It's the love of God for you. He's given everything for you.
• Get the picture, and he hands you an empty canvas.
• It's called freedom. It's an invitation to create in his image.
• It's good, but it's scary, because you have to walk by faith.
  • Illustration: Madeleine L'Engle wrote, "An artist at work is in a condition of complete and total faith."
• Without faith in mercy we'll hide from the picture, covering our tails and justifying ourselves with law.
• We'll take our freedom and start drawing lines and numbers on it.
• Without faith in God's mercy, we'll come to the table and try to reduce it and comprehend it rather than surrender to it, ingest it, and dance before it.
• We'll be like Uzzah rather than David, like Judas rather than the strange woman.

• Without faith in God's mercy, we'll take grace and turn it into law and betray mercy.
• We tell our pastors, "Draw some numbers and lines. How long do I have to pray? How much do I have to write on that giving card?"
• You have a brain. You have a heart. Get the picture, and paint what comes natural.
• You may be thinking, "This doesn't sound safe."
• It isn't safe. It cost God everything to make you in his image, to let you paint with his flesh and blood.
• It's not safe, but it's absolutely beautiful.