What does the law of God require?
Law of God • Sermon • Submitted
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And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
You shall delight yourself in the Lord your God.
You shall delight yourself in the Lord your God.
Seek and find all happiness in Him.
You shall hear and fulfill His word, “My son, give me your heart.”
And having given Him your inmost soul to reign there without a rival, you may well cry out in the fulness of your heart, “I will love You, O my Lord, my strength. The Lord is my strong rock; my Savior, my God, in whom l trust.”
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
psalms 37
Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.
Love—embrace with the most tender goodwill, the most earnest and cordial affection, the most desire to prevent or remove all evil and bring every possible good.
Your neighbor—not only your friends, relatives, or acquaintances; not only the ones who respect you, who extend or return your kindness, but every person, not excluding those you have never seen or know by name; not excluding those you know to be evil and unthankful, those who despitefully use you.
“What does the law of God require?” the short answer is perfect obedience.
“What does the law of God require?” the short answer is perfect obedience.
Now, that sounds daunting, but we have to understand the context in which the law was given. It was given in the context of grace, God’s saving initiative. When God rescued Israel from Egypt and brought them to Sinai and declared, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant,” he essentially then said, “I will be your God and you will be my children.” So the context of the law is God’s saving initiative. The perfect obedience that the law demands is a response to God’s saving initiative, and it is a wholehearted devotion. The way that the Old Testament puts it is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (). The context of grace motivates a response of wholehearted devotion to the God who saves. It is a response of faith that is called love. And that love flows to love of neighbor as well. There is only one problem. We cannot obey perfectly.
What is the bad news?
What is the bad news?
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
We cannot obey perfectly.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
What is the good news?
What is the good news?
Christ did obey perfectly.
“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 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.
Matthew 5:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Philippians 3
2 Corinthians 5:27
God enables us through His Grace in the person of Jesus Christ to live out our faith in obedience.
In God says that he will write the law on his people’s hearts. In God further explains: “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (vv. 26–27).
These promises are linked to a new covenant that God would initiate through a promised king from David’s line. The New Testament reveals that the promised King who inaugurates this new covenant is Jesus.
Jesus came to do what we ourselves could not do.
Jesus came to do what we ourselves could not do.
While remaining fully God, Jesus came from heaven and took on our humanity in order to save us (). As our human representative, Jesus fulfilled the law of God by perfectly obeying God’s commands and by paying the penalty of death that all lawbreakers owe. The gospel is an announcement that all who confess that they are guilty of breaking God’s law and turn away from their sins and trust in Jesus have their sins forgiven and Jesus’s perfect obedience accounted to them. Through his life, death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus inaugurated the new covenant with its promises of a new heart () and the indwelling of God’s empowering Spirit (). Our only hope of fulfilling what the law requires is the new birth that was promised in the new covenant. Those who are born again to new life in Christ have been granted a new heart and God’s indwelling Spirit, which empowers obedience. The good news is that under the new covenant, God’s people are empowered to obey God’s law. Once again, we see that the commands of God don’t establish a relationship with God. Obedience is our response to God’s saving work. It is a loving response of faith. God has saved us in Jesus Christ, and we respond by trusting him in loving obedience.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below—you shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not covet.
To quote John Bunyon
“The danger doth not lie in the breaking of one or two of these ten only, but it doth lie even in the transgression of any one of them.”
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
As you know, if a king should give forth ten particular commands, to be obeyed by his subjects upon pain of death; now, if any man doth transgress against any one of these ten, he doth commit treason, as if he had broke them all, and lieth liable to have the sentence of the law as certainly passed on him, as if he had broken every particular of them. . . . These things are clear as touching the law of God, as it is a covenant of works: If a man do fulfill nine of the commandments, and yet breaketh but one, that being broken will as surely destroy him, and shut him out from the joys of heaven, as if he had actually transgressed against them all. . . . Though thou shouldst fulfill this covenant or law, even all of it, for a long time, ten, twenty, forty, fifty, or threescore years; yet if thou do chance to slip, and break one of them but once before thou die, thou art also gone and lost by that covenant. . . . As they that are under the covenant of grace shall surely be saved by it, so, even so, they that are under the covenants of works and the law, they shall surely be damned by it, if continuing therein.9
John Yates
Because God created and loves us and knows what’s best for us, he gives us moral and spiritual direction about how to live life in the best way. The Ten Commandments are a love gift to us from God.
life in the best way. The Ten Commandments are a love gift to us from God.
Jesus taught and clarified the deeper meaning of the Ten Commandments for us.
Jesus taught and clarified the deeper meaning of the Ten Commandments for us.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
As he explained the Ten Commandments in the Gospels, he raised the bar on our understanding of what God expects of us. For instance, in , Jesus explained the meaning of the commandment not to murder. He said that actually anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God, and Jesus summarized them as: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The last six commandments address our relationship with our fellow man, and Jesus summarized them as: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (, ). The commandments are our treasure. We cherish them. They’re a great gift, a love gift from God. They guide us. They warn us. They protect us. When we keep them, we show others what God is like. When we fail to live them, we bring great harm to ourselves and we dishonor our Maker.
We have a problem keeping the Ten Commandments because man is born in bondage to sin and selfishness.
We have a problem keeping the Ten Commandments because man is born in bondage to sin and selfishness.
And in the end we cannot help but break God’s holy law. But when we become a new creature by faith in Christ, we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit. We’re freed from having to sin, and we’re given the grace to keep God’s law. Keeping God’s commandments is not onerous but helps us live at peace with God, with ourselves, and with our neighbors. We can learn to live out the Ten Commandments as we realize that they’re God’s gift to us. It’s like learning to tell the truth. When you’re young, you sometimes feel that you must protect yourself by deceiving others and not telling the truth. You learn as time goes not to deceive others. We learn to speak the truth. We learn to practice honesty.
That’s why the prophets loved God’s law and why we should, too. Keeping the Ten Commandments protects us. It protects society. These principles are at the heart of how God created us to live.
Thank the Lord that my righteousness is not based on my obedience but instead, relies on Christ and His obedience!
Thank the Lord that my righteousness is not based on my obedience but instead, relies on Christ and His obedience!
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 15:
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
Luke 1:
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.
The New City Catechism Devotional (Gospel Coalition) . Crossway. Kindle Edition.