The Law as Promise

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 80

Psalm 80 ESV

To the choirmaster: according to Lilies. A Testimony. Of Asaph, a Psalm. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us! Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved! O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves. Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River. Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it. Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your face! But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself! Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name! Restore us, O Lord God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!

Scripture Reading: Advent 3

Advent 3

Sermon:

Good morning Church! I was glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well, this morning marks the third Sunday in Advent as noted by three burning candles, and as also noted by this, being the third sermon, In our Advent Series. This year in our Advent series we've been trying to look at the big huge Promises of God that we find in the Old Testament. And if we look at the Old Testament, the Old Testament is filled with promises. God makes many promises. He is a gracious, good God, who who will promise to care for and love. He does things for his people. But there are some that stick out as bigger. And more important.

By way of example, I've been thinking a lot about weddings as Desiree and I have been doing a lot more premarital counseling recently. There's a couple of weddings coming up soon, one here in like 2 weeks... that I've been getting ready for… and so, I just been thinking a lot about weddings. and one of the most important things in a wedding is, is you come to the vows. so I think it's important you spend time understanding and thinking through what vows you are going to make. I prefer the traditional ones. I think they say a lot of good and wonderful things. And so those of us who are married, we've made some promises: To have and to hold to love and care for for richer or poorer in sickness and in health, we've made some pretty big promises to our spouses. Bigger than other promises. This isn't to minimize other promises that have been given, but to highlight that there are some HUGE ones we might make.

I promised my wife to Take out the trash, maybe. If I break my promise to take out the trash, which I probably do all the time, if we're being honest, That's a much different category than if I break my promise to have and to hold to love and cherish till death do us part. There's a HUGE difference in even the CATEGORY of promise. With God this is different, because big or small he will perfectly keep them all, but with God this is the same: that he makes some that are just Bigger than others.

Some promises carry more weight and in the Old Testament. As we look at the promises of God there are, there are a few that stand out as the biggest ones.

The first week, we looked at the promise of a snake crusher. The seed of the woman who would crush the seat of the serpent, Jesus, our Savior, and deliverer the one who defeats our enemies, we look to that promise. And then last week, we looked to the promise, one of the promises made to Abram. Abraham, we saw where his name got changed, where God promised to grow him into a nation. That would be a blessing to the world. And we saw how this promise was seen in the church. The church became in many ways. The Fulfillment of that because Jesus is the Fulfillment of that.

And as we look now, we're going to move forward a little out of the Book of Genesis to the book of Deuteronomy. And we're gonna see that God made big promises here still. And yet the promises are going to be a little bit different. Not smaller. This isn't a take out the trash wedding sort of comparison. But really a different, even type of Promise is going to be made in the law. Deuteronomy chapter 4, really the heart behind this Deuteronomy chapter 4. All of it is is where we're going to get a lot of this but it's big and it's long. And so we're going to to pull out different threads

More homework. I've been given a lot of homework this series and that's because we are covering huge, huge things that cannot be covered all in one sermon and so your homework today, if you want to go back read Deuteronomy chapter 4, you can read over the parts that we're we're not going to read together, there is a lot of goodness there, and it will make more sense with the framework that we will be covering here this morning.

So we're going to pull out. We're going to start a Deuteronomy, 4 1, get that idea, go to 419 through 4 or 9 through 14. And then a look at verse 31

just so, you know, the heart heart. Behind these verses in particular, we're going to select what I would call the top and the tail of a lot of these arguments, the beginning and the end and then the meat that's sort of right in the middle to get our picture for today. So let's read God's word again I know I'm skipping around a little I'm sure you can follow with me. We're going to read Deuteronomy 4 1 then 9 through 14 and then verse 31 together. Deuteronomy chapter 4 starting in verse 1.

Deuteronomy 4:1 ESV

“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

Deuteronomy 4:9–14 ESV

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.

Deuteronomy 4:31 ESV

For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

These are the words of the Lord for us this morning. Let's open with the word of prayer.

Our Father in Heaven. Our gracious, God who sees fit to condescend down to show us what is required of us — to teach us how we ought to live. But ultimately The God Who saved and delivered Us by providing. To intercede on our behalf. We thank you for the precious gift of Jesus Christ Our Lord. We Ask that you would meet with us this morning, that you would speak to us as we see, even here, that you speak to your people. May our hearts burn as we hear from you. May you use this to convict us conform us into the image of your son? For it's in his name that we pray, the name above all are the names, the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord Amen.

If I'm being Frank and honest, this passage, this sermon is in many ways. The one that makes me step back and think, why would you do this for Advent this year? These Advent sermons have been wonderful, I have enjoyed preparing them and working on them. But these are big, big things. And to try to come and Tackle. “The law”. That's really, really, really big.

The first five books of the the Old Testament they go by a few names. The books of Moses because Moses wrote them. The pentateuch That's the five books or the Torah, which would mean the law.

Truly the first five books there is one message which in many ways is the law. Genesis lays the foundation. We get God's promises that lays a foundation for all of scripture. And then immediately in Exodus, the people are in slavery. God calls, Moses, Moses goes to Pharaoh says, let my people go. Pharaoh says, “no”, God says you're going to after I just teach people, just how strong I am and how weak you are… God hardens, Pharaoh's heart, we have the plagues God's people are set free, God. Delivers his people over and over again. And in Exodus 20, we get the beginning of the law.

Exodus is 20 is famous. That's where we first. Read the Ten Commandments. Which that's not the only place we read it. By the way Deuteronomy chapter 5 immediately after this will be a retelling of the same Ten Commandments.... but anyway, from then, All the way through the book of Deuteronomy. So Exodus Leviticus Numbers, Deuteronomy the larger portion of the Old Testament here. We're dealing with the law. And so, Instead of trying to dive into the law and all that's there, because there's definitely not enough time. What I want you to see is the law was, in fact. A promise. all of it. And it's and this is why again I say it's different than sort of the Covenant with Abraham the Covenant of David will look at next week. And yet it still is a wonderful promise to us and a way that we can see our savior more clearly. This year.

And so knowing this is a little different, we're going to handle a little differently. And we need to start. Then by defining the promise,

DEFINING the promise

my goal here is to have you see That the law though it was and we can talk about this… though it was a burden though It was a guideline for how the Israelites have to live, though. It was all of these things. At its heart it was a beautiful and wonderful promise of God. This is really why I selected -- if I'm being honest… Just this idea is why I selected this passage and why I selected these verses in this passage.

If you look with me, Deuteronomy, chapter 4 verse 1 and now o Israel listen to the okay rules and statutes... rules and Commandments. Another translation of the word for statues would be just decrees… These are God's statements from on high— his Royal kingly statements to his people. His rules and statutes — his law. Listen to them.

That I am teaching you here... The "I” is Moses. So God's saying through moses… or more to the point… Moses is saying listen to the rules and statutes that God gave us that I am teaching you.... Listen And do them. That you may live and go and take possession of the land that the Lord, the god of your fathers is giving you.

Here we see the start of the promise. Moses is saying. Go and follow this law. Because God has said, if we follow this law, if we follow this command, God will. Do this, God has implied here in verse 1 promises to do this for us. And so there's already here a tie God has promised. If we do what he has said, then he will do this. That's a promise. But it's a particular type of Promise: verse 13.

And he we have to listen here: “he declared to you, his Covenant” All right, so now Moses saying, right, he declared to you, not just a promise, not just a, if you do this then I will not like a contract he declared to you. His Covenant verse 13, which he commanded you to perform and God said, here is my Covenant. It tells you what you must do.

And we could ask Moses. Okay. Does that Covenant have a name? He declared to you his Covenant, which he commanded you to perform. That is The 10 Commandments. Moses here says explicitly. The Covenant. Is the Ten Commandments and the Ten Commandments are the Covenant.

The promise here. Is, if you follow these, Then. God will bless and keep and give you the land. But it's said here. This isn't just a promise, this isn't just advice. This is a covenant. A holy sacred promise given by God, to his people, defining the relationship between God and his people, what God will do, how God will deliver.

When Moses says hey this is the Covenant, he's reminding the people hey God said he would do this. This is a legally binding document. And somehow, by some incredible miracle, God enters into it with Humanity. And just like God promised Abraham, this is part of why this becomes a different sort of Promise as a bit of a side note that we have to understand...

The, the promise to Abraham is very sort of particular, and local to Abraham. And and there's a direct line. We can trace where Abraham will have a descendant, a descendant, descendant. You trace that line. This is what Matthew 1 is all about and you get to the Fulfillment of that promise. And so it's given to Abraham and we sort of see that growing to the whole nation.... It's not every Israelite does not hold tight to that promise the same way Abraham does. Does that make sense? Not every not every Israelite will have a descendant, who will be Jesus. There's a very particular line. We trace for that covenant…

This Covenant, on the other hand, the Covenant of the law. Is applicable to every Israelite. If you follow this, if you do what you're called to do, if you follow this law, God will bless you. God will keep you. And so we're commanded to teach it, right? We read this earlier to teach your children. And your children's children. And so still the idea is still God, working throughout generations, and with seeds, and descendants is still even here. You teach it to your children and your children's children, and this shall be a boon to you and a boon to them. And if they hold tight to these promises to this Covenant… that is the Ten Commandments.

You must do them. That was verse 14. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you that you may do them. You will see God's goodness

Deuteronomy 4:31 ESV

For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Again, we need to note this very carefully. There's a particular Covenant in mind here and it is I submit to you the Covenant of the law. When God says, he will not forget the Covenant with your fathers. It's important that that that there's an “S” there. That its fatherS. If it said he will not forget the Covenant, your father, Abraham. We'd be talking about the abrahamic Covenant, which we looked at last week. He says your fatherS which he swore to them. This is the promise in the desert. This is also looking back to the Ten Commandments.

What's beautiful here, what we skipped over in verse 15-30 was this idea of Idolatry in the land. So Starting in verse 15. Through verse 31 is sort of Moses is saying, don't have Idols, do not have Idols, whatever you do. Don't have Idols. Don't make them look like fish, don't make them look like beasts, don't make them look like people don't make them look like anything. Don't look at the Sun and the Moon and call those God. Don't do those things. If you do that, bad things will happen.

But, Verse 30, in the later days, you will return to the Lord Because he's a merciful god! “even” Moses is saying “Even when this Covenant is broken. When you have Idols, when you can't do this return to the Lord, he is a merciful God. And he will not forge the promise.”

So as we work on defining the promises, I want to see a few things.

ONE: It is a promise to bless those who keep it. The promise is Here focused on the Ten Commandments, then by extension becomes the rest of the law, right? If you ever get into the weeds of studying Exodus Through Deuteronomy, what you see, is the Ten Commandments are the framework for all of the law. Everything else that's law becomes explaining or giving details as to how to follow these ten.

So the Ten Commandments are the law. It's like, it's like the Constitution. Then we have all these other laws that help us, uphold the Constitution… theoretically… So too, you have the Ten Commandments. Every other law we find in the Old Testament explains and helps us understand and live out the Ten Commandments. So if you follow the law, God will bless you in the land.

POINT TOW: the law is, I'm being explicit here The Ten Commandments.

And then point three of the promise: Even when they are broken. God is merciful and he will not forget His Covenant.

That's the point. That’s how and WHY we Define this as a promise. The law was a promise of God to bless and keep to be merciful to love and cherish to guide and correct his people.

So, if that's the promise, I want to ask a question. How you doing? How are they doing? How am I doing? At following this Promise.

FOLLOWING the Promise

Well what is the promise? Lets dive in

Exodus chapter 20. Let's just flip back.

Exodus chapter 20, verse 1 and God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. Many of you may have memorized these at some point in your life, The Ten Commandments… in quick summary:

First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me"

Second Commandment: "You shall not make idols"

Third Commandment: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain"

Fourth Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy"

Fifth Commandment: "Honor your father and your mother"

Sixth Commandment: "You shall not murder"

Seventh Commandment: "You shall not commit adultery"

Eighth Commandment: "You shall not steal"

Ninth Commandment: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"

Tenth Commandment: "You shall not covet"

These are. The commands. And the Covenant. Of the Lord.

So, how you do it? Some of these, we think. Put a pin in that... we think are pretty easy. I'm not going to ask anyone in any of these to raise your hand. I just want you to think. Lets start easy…

Have you murdered anyone recently if not congratulations.

Have you been convicted of perjury recently bearing? False witness? If not congratulations.

Have you ever stolen? … Maybe when I was a kid… Well. God doesn’t Give qualifications. He said, you shall not steal.

How about this one? This one's a hard one because we even debate. Do we have to do this, if so HOW do we do this? what about the whole Saturday Sunday question… But we need to ask, this is the covenant, we should look at it… How good at you, are you? At remembering the Sabbath? You following that one?

How about this one? This one might be easy. I don't think any of us have little shrines and altars with Idols in our house where we open up our closet and pray to them. So yeah. You shall not make for yourself any carved image. I'm doing okay, maybe

But then we get back to number one, the one that starts them all, and begin to realize… Im not doing as good as I thought! You shall have no other gods. Before God. So were we can name: The god of comfort. The god of material possessions and goods wealth, and success. It's god of entertainment. The god of family. When we get to this one in particular, we start to see, maybe it'll be much harder. For us to follow these than we thought.

So, how good are you at following the promise? Even as we just read in Exodus, right? This is what makes this so hard. Even if we just had this, if we were honest with ourselves and didn't start to like qualify, like, well, I've never been to a temple of another God. So, yeah, I don't have any other gods. Yeah, but my we start to see the issue with the heart. It's not even that easy, in fact, It's already impossibly hard, I submit to you. It is already impossibly hard. Just, if we're honest with ourselves from Exodus. But let me make it just a bit harder...

Matthew chapter 5, Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount.

He comes to his people. And says this in Matthew chapter 5 verse 19.

Matthew 5:19–20 ESV

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

There's a lot to unpack here. So I'm gonna try and do it the fast fast fast way

notice Moses was talking about. If you follow this, these commands, you'll you'll get to enter into the land, right? That was that was the promise we read in Deuteronomy. Jesus says, here's the promise. And there's, there's even this aspect of entering into the land, but the land here. Jesus gives a particular name. It's Heaven.

So Jesus is saying, hey the promise still applies, but lets say it this way carefully: if you want to get to where you want to go, you got to follow these commands. But Jesus lets you know, it's not even as easy as Exodus 20 was, which we already noted, we are all failing.

You have heard that it was said of old in Matthew, chapter 5 verse 21. Jesus says, you shall not murder. Yep. And that's one of the ones I was able to follow. But I say to you, Matthew 5:22 that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment whoever insults, his brother will be liable to counsel and whoever says, you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

You thought you were okay on the murder one. You've been angry. Has anyone ever cut you off and you called them a fool? An idiot. A jerk, a cotton-headed, ninny muggins. Has anyone ever? Made you so mad. You were seeing red and wished them harm… Well You broke that one and so you have broken the covenant… But jesus continues

You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. Like, yep, I have never once cheated on my wife, but I say to you. Jesus says, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Sure, you may not have physically had an affair. Maybe emotionally. But it is worse… You don't have to get that far. Jesus says, if you look with lustful intent in your eyes, you have already failed. Thge sin dujour of society is pornography and it is a breaking of this commandment of God, and a breaking of the covenant… So how good are you At following. The promise.

You fail. Let me just help you. All have failed. Romans 3, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We CAN’T follow this promise. We were all doomed from the get-go. Because when Adam sinned Genesis 3 sin entered the world and now sin has ruled and reigned. It Dwells in our hearts, we are sinful people. The thoughts and intentions of our hearts are sinful No one is righteous. No, not one. No one seeks. God. We have all failed at following this promise.

Deuteronomy. Chapter 4. Verse 31, the Lord your God is a merciful.

He knew Our heart. He knew Our feelings. Our God is a merciful god. And so our God is the one. Who does the fulfilling Of this promise.

FULFILLING the Promise

This is a verse, many of us know, we've heard it. We've heard it to the point where it sometimes just is a throwaway. But I want us to think through today. I wanted to Think Through in this way, the law, all of the law, Exodus, all of the law was a promise and promise of God to bless and keep and prosper and work in and deliver his people... If you can follow it. Right? I mean, That's how we started. That was four verse one. If you do them, then you will take possession. If you do that, you may live. If you do that, don't add a word to it. Verse two, we didn't read this. Don't take from it, do it. Do what God has said. If you do, you will enter the land. There will be blessings. Don't have Idols be righteous.... And they failed. And we failed. We all fall over and over and over again.

So to paint this picture for you all… So now we have this beautiful Splendid promise of God. And yet the door is shut for any of us to ever access it because we are not good enough. We are not righteous. We have broken his law. Does that mean we are just cut off from every promise of God? No!

Matthew chapter 5 verse 17. Do not think do not think that I have come to abolish the law or prophets. Let's pause here. Many of us here, Jesus didn't come to abolish the law and we think okay well there's still rules, there's still righteous living that's part of it, we should live righteously but when Jesus says I have not come to abolish the law part of the force of what he's saying is and all of the promises given to us in the law, we still have access to them. How can we have access to them?

I have not come to abolish them. Jesus says, but I have come, To fulfill them.

Jesus is saying, All those promises. All the goodness. The land that he then interprets later In this passage for entering into heaven. All of this goodness. All of these things. Jesus came to fulfill. The law.

And so, Hear my heart in this one Church. The law was good. The law was a promise. We defined the promise. We saw I'm not so good at following the promise. Jesus came to fulfill the promise. And so Paul can write Romans chapter 8, if you have your Bibles flip here to Romans chapter 8,

The law brought with it. a hard thought: If you follow this, you will live. If you break it, there will be judgment.

Jesus came and fulfilled the law. So much. So that Paul could then, in Romans, chapter 8, verse 1, write this there is therefore now, no condemnation for those who are in, Christ, Jesus.

Part of the promise of the law. Is, if you study Covenants at all you, you'll hear people talk about Covenant blessings and Covenant curses. Covenant blessings for those who follow the Covenant Covenant curses for those who break the Covenant. Covenant blessings. And goodness. Covenant curses. Judgment. Exile. Death.

If you're in the Old Testament you hear this command to honor your father and mother, that's one of the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother if you don't do that, Death. You shall not murder. If you murder. What's the consequence? Death. Idolatry in the land. What's the consequence death? It turns out the Ten Commandments are a listing of capital offenses, in some ways you break these Death.

So the law blesses, you get to enter the land and keep it if you follow it. But the law also condemns, if you break the Covenant. Death and condemnation.

And Paul says this. For all who are in Christ, there is therefore now No condemnation.

So, let's look at this, I want to make sure we understand this. The law comes with Covenant blessings and Covenant cursings. Those who follow it, get blessings, those who break it, get curses and Paul says for everyone who is in Christ, there is no condemnation. Therefore there is nothing but Blessing.

For those who are in Christ, hear me clearly don't read over what I'm saying but please don't hear anything less than what I am saying. For those who are in Christ, there is nothing but blessings.

In every moment and every time and every season in every difficulty, in every trial, in every joy, and every goodness in everything in your life, there is only blessing for those who are in Christ. Every situation, you find yourself in how big or small, how terrible or how good is a blessing. I am not saying you will only face good happy times. That is not the promise of scripture. The promise of scripture is better because it says there is therefore now no condemnation. There is blessing and goodness, hope and healing restoration and life abundantly for all, who come to Christ for...

Romans 8:2–4 ESV

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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 for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 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.

don't miss this church.

The law. If we were left to our own strength and might could only ever bring condemnation, that promise would be a difficult one. To give an example: As a parent. Sometimes our kids are acting up. And one of the ways we do this is, is we say, hey, If you behave? I will take you to McDonald's. If you behave? You will get this good thing. It's a good promise. Sometimes, when our kids are acting up, it goes more like this. If you keep doing this. I promise I will make your life miserable. Still a promise. Maybe not as good.

And if we're left to our own strength and might the promise that we have in the law is this difficult one. Keep breaking it. Just see what's gonna happen. Because the law Paul says, in verse 3, was weakened by the flesh Let be a bit careful… Here the law is not weak is still the powerful, strong law of God. So what Paul is getting at here? Is this idea: that we had no access to the good promises of the law? All we had was the condemnation. But God has done what the law couldn't do, because the law had with it, these blessings and these curses, but God in his grace, sent his son, born of the Virgin Mary to save and redeem a people. He came in the flesh. This is why his virgin birth is so important. He came in the flesh. That the law might be fulfilled and now therefore, there is no condemnation. Jesus in his work moves us from people, who look at the law, this is the final thought on this.

You look at the law. And the law has blessings and the law has curses. And Christ is the one who Bridges the Gap in this way: without Christ. All we have access to and all we can ever get are curses. In Christ. There is no condemnation. And so all we get and all we have access to Are the blessings.

That's what this child Did!

Jesus fulfilled The law that we might be made free. We live by the spirit. We are made alive together with Christ.

Our God truly has been. Deuteronomy chapter 4. Verse 31. A merciful God. He will not leave you. Or destroy you. Or forget the Covenant. With your fathers that he swore to them.

He is promising to us that in Christ We will be free.

Let's pray.