A Law for God’s People

God had delivered His people out of bondage in Egypt. In this session, we will see another act of God’s grace that was easy for the Israelites to miss and easy for us to miss today as well: the giving of the law. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, following their masters and their masters’ laws. But now they were free, and the people needed to know how to live as a people to bring God glory and get along with one another. This was God’s intention with the law, evidenced in the Ten Commandments.

God had a purpose for giving the law, yet mankind is unable to keep the law, not even when there is only a single commandment. However, that is not the only plan God had for our lives, He provided a solution for our obedience.

Session Outline

1. God’s law reveals His love for His people (Ex. 19:3-6; 20:1-2).

++2. God’s law reveals how to worship and honor Him (Ex. 20:3-8).

++3. God’s law reveals how to love one another (Ex. 20:12-17).

The Big Idea:

God gave the law to reveal how we are to live rightly with Him and others.

Christ Connection

But there is another part to this big idea since God knew that we could not live up to the Law. The law reveals how we are to live properly in relationship with God and others, but because of sin, it is impossible to keep. Jesus, the sinless Savior, is the only One who has kept the law of God perfectly, and we are credited with His righteousness when we trust in Him.

So, there is a secondary Big Idea for this passage.

Big Idea (pt 2):

God gave the law to reveal how we are to live rightly with Him and others. However, the law throughout history clearly reveals the futility of all mankind to keep it and points to dependency on the Lawgiver for reconciliation.

Missional Application

Because Jesus has fulfilled the law in our place and offers salvation to us, we are now free to please God and display His redemptive purpose in our relationships with others.

Have you ever seen a “Do Not Touch” sign?

When many of us see a sign like this, we have the same reaction: We want to do the very thing the sign forbids. We want to reach out and touch this forbidden object! If the sign were not there, we probably would feel no draw to do so, but when we read the sign, something deep within us stirs and we almost cannot help ourselves.

page 93 in the DDG.

What are some signs or rules that are difficult to follow? Why?

(be prepared to give answers of your own to jump-start the conversation)

DDG (p. 93)

Why do we struggle with something as simple as a “Do Not Touch” sign? What does this reveal about us? It means that our free will is wired to want to do what is forbidden. It is part of the human condition.

Since the introduction of sin, we are now all geared toward disobedience because we are all sinners. Our inclination to break rules doesn’t reveal a flaw with the rules, although some may indeed be flawed. Rather, our inclination to break rules reveals the flaw within each of us because of the sinful nature we inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve.

The Bad News!

· Our inherited sinful nature is the very reason we need the law of God. The law is a standard set before us that reveals how to live in a way that pleases God. But at the same time, it reveals our inability to keep the law in our own strength. That’s the bad news.

The Good News!

When we repent of our sin and trust in Christ, the law goes from being our enemy to being our friend. The gospel helps us see the law for what it truly is—a constant reminder showing our need for Jesus and a guidebook for how we can please God and live at peace with others.

Let’s take a look at God’s purpose for giving the law and our inability to keep the law, even a single commandment, while we see that God had a different plan—a better plan—for our obedience.

Point 1: God’s law reveals His love for His people (Ex. 19:3-6; 20:1-2).

Read: Exodus 19:3-6; 20:1-2 (DDG p. 94).

3 while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: 4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

................................................

1 And God spoke all these words, saying,

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

· It can be difficult for children to see how their parents’ rules are for their good. Children lack the ability to understand that eating vegetables, going to bed early, and doing homework are all good for them. Sure, they aren’t nearly as fun as the alternatives, but neither are being sick, tired, and doing poorly in school. As we entered into adulthood, we begin to understand the bigger picture of our parents’ rules. We begin to see how their rules were for our good.

· God’s law is the same way.

God gave the law to Israel as a gift of grace.

It was for their own good, whether or not they realized that. God stepped in to show His people how they were to live. He gave them the law so they would understand how to operate as His people with one another and so that they would be set apart from the pagan nations around them.

The sacrificial system laid out in Leviticus shows one way that they are set apart, the substitutionary sacrifice. The other nations had gods who extracted from their worshippers, but God provides a substitute for His people. Also, God was not a distant god, as the Egyptian gods were. Instead, God was in relationship with His people.

DDG (p. 94).

As we read through the law of Moses—the Ten Commandments and the other hundreds of commands given in the first few books of the Old Testament—we see how exhaustive it is. God’s law can be overwhelming. This is why God was careful to establish the context for His law: His love in action (Ex. 19:4; 20:2). The law was part of the gracious provision He had been showering upon them.

Interact: Ask your group the following question.

What are some ways that God’s law is for our good?

· The nations around the Israelites had access to God’s general revelation—God revealing Himself to all people through His creation. Everyone, even the Egyptians behind them, could see God’s fingerprints all around them. You can know of God from general revelation, but you cannot know Him. As such, general revelation provides us with enough knowledge to be condemned for rebelling against our Creator (Rom. 1:20) but not enough to save us, to know how we can be in relationship with Him.

Fill in the blanks: DDG (p. 94)

General Revelation: Refers to God revealing Himself through His creation and through the human conscience. It provides enough knowledge about God for us to be held accountable for suppressing God’s truth in unrighteousness.

Essential Doctrine “General Revelation”: General revelation refers to God revealing Himself through His creation (Ps. 19) and through the human conscience (Rom. 2). Knowledge about God through general revelation is limited because it only communicates general knowledge about God and His character. We can look at the vastness and fine-tuning of the universe and recognize that God is all-powerful and wise, or look inward to our innate sense of right and wrong and know there is a moral lawgiver in the universe. General revelation is not sufficient for understanding how to know God or be saved, but it provides enough knowledge about God for us to be held accountable for suppressing God’s truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1–2).

· God’s law was an example of special revelation—God revealing Himself directly to people through His Word. God’s law was given for our good, telling us how to live, but we also need to understand that it tells us more: It tells us about the lawgiver Himself and how we can be in a right relationship with Him. God chose to reveal Himself in this special way to His people because He loved them (Deut. 7:7-8).

Fill in the blanks 2: DDG (p. 94)

Special Revelation: Refers to God revealing Himself to humanity through historical events, His Word, and through Jesus Christ. Because God has revealed Himself in this way, we can know Him—through a saving relationship with Him in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Essential Doctrine “Special Revelation”: Special revelation refers to God revealing Himself to humanity through historical events, His Word, and through Jesus Christ. Through special revelation, human beings learn about God’s character, His will, His purpose for creation, and His plan of redemption. Special revelation shows us the nature and character of God, and because God has revealed Himself in this way, we can know Him—through a saving relationship with Him in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Point 2: God’s law reveals how to worship and honor Him (Ex. 20:3-8).

During their time in Egypt, the Israelites learned about worship from the wrong people—the Egyptians. If God was going to have a special people for Himself, they had to learn how to worship Him. This is why the first four of the Ten Commandments concern the worship of the one true God.

Read Exodus 20:3-8 (DDG p. 95).

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

The Ten Commandments:The first four commandments were meant for the worship of God’s people.

· First Commandment: God wanted to make clear to His people that He wasn’t going to share His glory with a host of other deities, as the Egyptian gods did. The Israelites needed to understand that God was to be the exclusive recipient of their worship.

· Second Commandment: God was not going to be portrayed by any image the people could make, as the Egyptian gods were. God is higher than anything humans can create and mold. Instead, He is to be worshiped as He is, not as an image of what people can create.

· Third Commandment: God’s name was to be revered, not used flippantly. The very name of God revealed in Exodus 3 was to strike the people with a deep sense of reverence and awe.

· Fourth Commandment:Following the pattern of God in the creation, the people were to set aside one day of the week—the Sabbath—as an act of devotion and worship to God.

DDG (p. 95).

The people of Israel needed God to reveal to them His expectations for worship because they would not have known them any other way. In fact, the human instinct is to do the opposite of what God commanded. We are idolaters; it is our nature to worship other gods—pretty much everything except God Himself. But God is a unique God deserving of worship unique to Him.

Voices from Church History “Now once a man has thus been humbled by the Law and brought to the knowledge of himself, then he becomes truly repentant; for true repentance begins with fear and with the judgment of God. He sees that he is such a great sinner that he cannot find any means to be delivered from his sin by his own strength, effort, or works.” 1

–Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Interact: Ask your group the following question.

What are some of the wrong ways we can worship God today?

(worship in ways that please us and seem right to us without consideration of God’s expressed will; neglecting the gathering of the church; trying to worship with unconfessed sin; worshiping a god who resembles us instead of the God of the Bible)

DDG (p. 95) Worship goes beyond what we do in corporate gatherings. We need to consider our worship of God in every moment of our lives.

When we think of worship, we most often think of our worship gatherings, and that is good, but worship is not just something we choose to participate in. We are, at our core, worshipers, for that is who God created us to be—His worshipers. The problem is that far too often we find ourselves worshiping the wrong things with our lives instead of worshiping God. With the first four commandments He gave, God wanted Israel, and us, to understand that He is our good God deserving of our worship and honor as our Creator and as our Savior, ultimately because of His provision of His Son.

Commentary: We are not to make any idols, even if those objects are intended to aid in the worship of God; this means we must put to death our own need to understand God fully. We create idols because we want to grasp God, both literally and figuratively. We want to understand Him. We want to know all of who He is and what He does. Having unanswered questions troubles and frustrates us. But God is infinite. He is beyond our understanding. We will never be able to put Him in a box and close the lid. Instead, we must sacrifice our need to know all we want to know, all we feel we need to know, and instead live by faith as we follow and worship the one true God.

Point 3: God’s law reveals how to love one another (Ex. 20:12-17).

Pack Item 11: Love God, Love Neighbor: The Ten Commandments are often thought of in two sections, or “tables” as they are often called. The first table is composed of four laws on how we are to love God and worship Him. These are also commonly called the vertical commands, addressing our relationship with God. The second table has the horizontal commands, which are concerned with how we relate with one another.

Read Exodus 20:12-17 (DDG p. 96).

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Pack Item 10: The Ten Commandments: Use this handout to explain the horizontal commands. Note that our relationship with God is paramount, but we also need to know how to live with one another.

· Fifth Commandment: If we love our parents, we will give them the honor they are due. This doesn’t mean we will always agree with them, but it means we will always respect and revere them as the ones God appointed as stewards of our souls.

· Sixth Commandment: If we love our neighbor, we will not seek to harm or kill them.

· Seventh Commandment: If we love our neighbor, we will not seek to violate their trust or do harm to their marriage by pursuing an adulterous relationship with their spouse.

· Eighth Commandment: If we love our neighbor, we will respect what God has given them. We will not take the property that God has blessed them with.

· Ninth Commandment: If we love our neighbor, we will not lie about them to get them in trouble or to take advantage of them.

· Tenth Commandment: If we love our neighbor, we will not be envious of their relationships or their property because we love them and are glad to see God provide for them.

DDG (p. 96) Love is the fulfillment of the law.

God has created us not for isolation but to be in a community that reflects His triune nature. This is why God needed to tell Israel, and us, what it looks like to honor Him in our relationships with one another. And because our God is love, both Jesus and Paul told us that the fulfillment of the law is found in love (Matt. 22:37-39; Gal. 5:13-14). If we have a brotherly love for others, the horizontal commands given will not feel like a burden; they will be the natural actions of our hearts.

Interact: Ask group members the following question.

How do we see God’s character in the Ten Commandments?

(God is concerned with holiness in our worship and character; God wants His image bearers to love one another as He is love; God does not want His people to lie because He is a God of truth)

DDG (p. 96)

Obeying the Ten Commandments out of love would be a way for the children of Israel to live counter culturally in their day (Ex. 19:5-6); similarly, we are to be known as followers of Christ by our love for others (John 13:34-35).

· God loves us. As recipients of God’s love in Christ, we are both compelled and empowered to love Him (1 John 4:19).

· Because we love God, we also love those whom He loves. We love the bride of Christ because He loves and accepts us as His own.

· As the church, we are to love the people of the world. We are here for this very purpose—to go into the nations and proclaim the gospel to all who will hear. Just as the works of Christ gave power to the message He proclaimed, our love for others helps to amplify our gospel message so that it might be heard in every last corner of the globe.

Interact: Ask your group the following question.

What are some ways we as the people of God can love our unbelieving friends, family, and neighbors while standing resolute on the gospel?

(we can be explicit about loving others in the name of Jesus; we can help them when they are in need and weep with them when they are in pain, pointing them to the God of all comfort; we can pray for God to open their hearts to His love in Christ; we can love our fellow church members with the sacrificial love of Jesus)

My Mission

When most people hear the word law, their first impression is rarely positive. But the Bible’s view of the law tells a different story.

By giving the law to His people, God showed them how they were to live as His people, but Israel failed to live up to God’s standard, just as we do everyday.

We all stand condemned in our disobedience. But this is where Jesus comes in. Jesus is the perfect law-keeper. He did what we could never do by fulfilling the law. We are justified by faith alone in the perfect law-keeper, Jesus Christ. When we profess faith in Him, all of His obedience becomes credited to our account.

So, understand the purpose and the need for God’s law while putting your faith in Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the law.

DDG (p. 97)

Because Jesus has fulfilled the law in our place, we are now free to please God and display His redemptive purpose in our relationships with others.

· How do you tend to see yourself—as a good person in need of a little help from God or as a sinner in desperate need of Him? How does the gospel inform this view?

· What are some specific ways we can exhibit Christ’s love for one another in light of the Ten Commandments?

· How will you love others in the name of Jesus this week so as to point them to Him as the fulfillment of the law for us?

Close in prayer:

References

1. Martin Luther, in Luther’s Works, vol. 26 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 131.

2. Dorian G. Coover-Cox, “Exodus,” in CSB Study Bible (Nashville: B&H, 2017), 119, n. 19:5.

3. P. G. George and Paul Swarup, “Exodus,” in South Asia Bible Commentary, gen. ed. Brian Wintle (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 102.

4. Tony Merida, Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Exodus (Nashville: B&H, 2014) [WORDsearch].

5. P. G. George and Paul Swarup, “Exodus,” in South Asia Bible Commentary, gen. ed. Brian Wintle, 105.

6. “Exodus,” in Africa Study Bible (Oasis International, 2016), 111.

7. Dorian G. Coover-Cox, “Exodus,” in CSB Study Bible, 122, n. 20:13.

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