The Law

Mt. Sinai part 1

SONGS:

Angels we have heard on HIgh

Joy to the World

Face of God

How many of you wish you could live at home without any rules?

Would you be more free or less free without rules in your home?

Why do your parents give you rules?

We could all sit here today and nit pick and say we like this rule and hate that rule.

But at the end of the day most rules in your home are set in place for one reason.

To Help shape and develop you into the person your parents are loving you to be.

In other words, your parents desire is hopefully for you to:

love Jesus.

Be healthy (emotionally, physically, and spiritually)

Be men and women of integrity, who do the right thing when no one is looking.

There’s probably more, but that’s a good healthy list to start.

Now how do you go from little baby in your arms in the hospital, to 20 year old men and women of integrity?

You invest in your kids and one way you do that is by setting healthy boundaries or rules.

Think about this another way.

What are some of the foundational questions of any sport?

What’s the game? How do I play? How do I win? What are the rules?

Without rules, you can’t play basketball, volleyball, baseball, soccer, you can’t even run.

Rules clarify.

They illuminate.

Like words on a page, black and white, rules are like those highlighted sentences you see on the page.

They highlight or clarify everything else around them.

God’s rules are the same way.

God’s law was given for a specific reason we will discuss today.

Before we talk about that, I want to show you on a map how we got from the Passover to the Law.

*Show map from page 2*

Israel flees Egypt after Pharaoh lets them go.

They go to the red sea, they cross the red sea.

They worship on the other side and set up an altar where they sacrifice to God.

then they travel down to Mt. Sinai where God gives them the law.

Someone read Hosea 11:1 “1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

Important note here…

Before God gives the law, we need to understand how God views humans.

To God, He is creator and we are created. Yes…

However, humans are also set apart from all else in creation.

Genesis 1:27 “27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Then as Hosea 11 said, Israel was God’s child and our of Egypt he called his son…

In other words, the right way to view God’s relationship with Israel is like a father raising a son.

And for any good father to raise a son, you must give him rules!

But don’t get those things backwards.

God gave rules because he’s a good father loving his son.

God doesn’t give rules and then act like a parent.

He’s a parent first.

He’s calling humans to know what being made His image means.

So God gives 613 laws through Exodus-Deuteronomy.

These cover so many things from national holidays, calendar items, instructions for worship, and then of course the moral law.

The best known are the 10 commandments.

Let’s look at these for a moment from Exodus 20.

*Put 10 commandments on the screen*

Ask, what do you notice about these commandments.

If you could divide them into 2 categories what would those two categories be?

What’s the difference between commandment 4 and 5?

4 has to do with God.

5 has to do with man’s relationship with one another.

There’s another way to look at this that I like to discuss.

God made us for relationships.

There are two main relationships that matter in our lives.

Our vertical relationship with God.

Our horizontal relationships with one another.

These relationships are important and the importance we place on them is important as well.

If we consider our horizontal relationships more important than our vertical, then both our horizontal and vertical relationships will suffer.

However, if we prioritize our vertical relationship with God above all else, both our relationship with God and our relationships with others will improve.

Now when we go back to the 10 commandments we will see this same principle.

This is not just Ben’s idea this morning, this is God’s idea.

The first 4 commandments all deal with our relationship with who?

GOD

The last 6 deal with our relationship with who?

One Another.

With the giving of these laws, God made another covenant with His people.

We’ve had the covenant with Noah

Covenant with Abraham

And now we have the Covenant with Moses.

There is a key difference between the 3 covenants we’ve seen so far in Scripture though.

Let’s examine those for a moment.

*Show picture page 4*

A. Who was involved in the covenant?

Covenant with Noah involved all of creation. Mankind and nature.

Covenant with Abraham involved Abraham’s Descendants

The covenant with Moses narrowed it down further to the 12 tribes of Israel.

Really that was the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob.

There were some excluded from the Abraham covenant which included Esau, Jacob’s brother.

*Show picture from bottom of page 4*

B. What were the promises of the covenants?

To Noah and Abraham the promises were all focused on God.

In other words, God promised and essentially makes no demands back from man.

God promised never to destroy the earth by flood again.

However, God doesn’t demand anything back from man.

That all changes with the Covenant with Moses.

2. In the Mosaic Covenant, God now reveals his expectations on us.

God’s covenant with Moses helps clarify:

What does it mean to be God’s son?

What are the responsibilities I have as God’s son?

How do I relate to God as my father?

How do we relate to one another as siblings in Christ?

That’s the key difference between these 3 covenants, Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

With Abraham and Noah, it was all about what God would do for mankind, with Moses, it was all about what God expects of His people.

And let me tell you, this gets overwhelming quick.

It’s why the second half of Exodus, and all of Leviticus, Numbers, and most of Deuteronomy is so boring.

It’s laws man.

But it’s important because it’s what God expects of us!

And God made it clear.

If you obey my law, you will be blessed.

It you disobey my law, you will be cursed.

Read Leviticus 18:1–4 “1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God.”

This guys is the foundation of the law.

But there is another side to the law I want us to begin to see this morning even now.

It’s a bit of a spoiler, but it’s so important.

Romans 3:20 NIV

20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

You see I think sometimes we get the wrong idea about the law.

That somehow if a person could live perfectly according to the law, that they would be fine.

This is not the case.

Because that was never the purpose of the law.

The law was not given by God with God hoping one day someone would live perfectly according to the law.

why?

Because no human CAN!

THAT IS THE POINT!

The point is of the law is to show us our brokenness.

Show our sin

Our failures

Our inability to be God.

Only God himself could fulfill the law and live up to its standards and guess what guys.

We aren’t God!

Not even close.

And that’s what Romans 3:20 makes clear for us.

Through the law we become conscious of our sin.

That’s why God gave the law.

Not so that we could see how good we are or how close we can get to measuring up to God’s standards

No

That’s the opposite of the point of the law.

Nobody can ever live up to God’s standard except for God Himself.

God wants you to know that!

That’s what makes Jesus so wonderful.

The fact that God gave himself, He set the standard and He also gave Himself to bridge the gap.

What a good God we have.

What a kind, gracious, compassionate, merciful God we can serve.

Do we see that gift this Christmas?

Do we see how condemning the law is?

Do we see how free we are because Jesus has fulfilled the law?

I hope we do.

If not, man we will talk more about that, but walk out today with your head held high.

The law was given to illuminate for us our need for God.

Psalm 86:1–2 “1 Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God;”

Is He your God today?

May your vertical relationship with Jesus be the most important thing in your life today, this season, and every day forward.

Let’s pray.