From Sanai to Calvary

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

We’re continuing our series, the Road to Emmaus, seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. So far we’ve covered from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and now from Abraham to Moses. We’ve seen how all of these great figures and stories associated with them have pointed to Christ. Today we’re not going to focus on a specific person that points to Christ, we’re going to focus on a specific thing, the law of God. How does the law of God point us to Christ. In the Old Testament, the law was at the center of Israel’s communal life. It governed how they worked, how they worshipped, how they ate, their daily life was formed by the law. And ours is too. Not the same exact law as Israel with all the ceremonial and civil laws, but as Christians we strive to obey the commands of God. We work to glorify him, we come to church to worship him, we teach our kids about him, we interact with others based on what is right in God’s eyes, even if that’s not what we want to do sometimes. Our whole lives are to be lived in obedience to the commands of God. So, we need to ask ourselves, how does the law of God shape our life. We’ll be looking at God’s law in Exodus 19 and 20 this morning, if you want to turn there. We have four main points, I’m not usually a points guy, but since we’re talking about God’s law I figured it’d be good to be a little more structured. So 4 main points about God’s law. We’re going to cover the purpose of God’s law, the requirements of his law, the fulfillment of his law, and the delight of his law. Purpose, requirements, fulfillment and delight. First the purpose of God’s law. Let’s go ahead and read our first passage, Exodus 19:1-9. For context, It’s been about three months since God has rescued the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. They’ve been traveling through the desert, and up until this point, they haven’t really been a nation. They’ve been more of a people group. They have traditions, but they don’t have a law yet. They don’t have a strong national identity. But that’s about to change. We see here that God is about to give them this new identity as his people. Look at what God says to Moses in verse 4. You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. 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, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Important thing to note here, the people are at Mt. Sinai, God is about to give them the ten commandments, but f irst, God reminds them of what he has done for them. He says you saw how I saved you from the Egyptians and brought you to himself. God starts with his saving action on their behalf. Why is that important? Because it shows that God’s saving grace is the basis for relationship with him. Think about it, God didn’t give the ten commandments to Israel while they were enslaved in Egypt, then free them once they obeyed the commandments. He saved them first, purely out of his grace, then he brought them to Sinai and gives them the law. The purpose of the law isn’t for them to be chosen and saved by God. He’s already done that. So what is the purpose of the law here? God says if they obey his voice and keep his covenant, they’ll be his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. What’s the purpose of the law? It’s communion with God. It’s covenant relationship based on his grace. It’s a relationship where they are God’s treasured possession. They’re a people set apart by God known by him, called to glorify him to the world. Communion is the purpose of the law. We need to start there when we talk about the law. God’s law in itself is intended to bring us into deep communion with him. God graciously reveals himself in the law, and so when we walk in his ways we truly know him. The purpose of his law is communion. Yet, in order to be in communion with a holy God, one must be holy. This brings us to our second point, the requirements of the law. God says IF you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you will be this holy nation. So this communion with God does come with requirements. Think of this in terms of being a professional athlete. What makes them a professional athlete? It’s that they get drafted by a professional team, or they sign a deal that secures a spot for them on the team. They’re part of the community of that team now. They’re in “communion” with the coach and the other players. But, there are requirements for staying on the team. If you’re a quarterback and you get drafted to a team, then you throw 5 interceptions every game, you’re probably not staying on that team. If you’re a Titans fan you know what I’m talking about. If players aren’t meeting the standards required to be on the team, then things will go bad for them. They won’t play, or they’ll even get cut from the team. The same goes with God, He saves people out of his grace to be part of his covenant community yet are there are requirements for being in community with God. What does this mean for us? First, we need to remember that God saves us purely out his grace. Nothing we do has earned us salvation from him. But second, this means that there are requirements for being in relationship with God. We can’t say, God has delivered us, I’m going to do what I want now. We must say, God has delivered us, I owe everything to him. God deserves my wholehearted obedience. This is how Israel responds to the commands of God. Verse 8 says that the people answered together and said, “all that the Lord has spoken we will do.” This should be our response to God, the one who saves us out of his grace. “all that you command, we will do.” We owe our lives to him. So what does God command, what are the requirements of the law? Let’s go to our second passage, Exodus 20:1-21 and hear what God requires of his people. I talked to my brother last week and his church is doing a series on the ten commandments, preaching a sermon on each commandment. That’s not what we’re doing this morning. I don’t have 10 other sermons prepared. Rather, we’re going look at what Jesus says about the ten commandments. What he says about them is way better than what I could. We’re going to go through a couple different passages here, starting in Matthew 22: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Love God, and love your neighbor. Jesus summarizes the entire law into these two categories. And this is the pattern you see in the ten commandments. The commandments have historically been split into to two categories, called the two tables of the law. If you go through the commandments, you’ll see that the first four are instructions for how we love God. The last six commandments instruct us how to love one another. So, Jesus summarizes the law as love God, love your neighbor. Which seems simple enough, but we also need to look at how Jesus applies the law, specifically the ten commandments. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And finally, at the end of Matthew 5, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What is Jesus doing? He’s showing us that the commands of God require far more holiness than we think, and that we are far more sinful than we know. You shall not murder, but if you’re angry with your brother your liable to judgment. You shall not commit adultery, but if you even look at a woman lustfully you’ve committed adultery. This should be convicting for us. God’s law requires perfection, and it demonstrates how far we are from perfection. So we have a problem here: the purpose of God’s law is for us to be in communion with him. But the requirements of the law prevent us from being in communion with him, because we are sinful and he is holy. So how do we handle this? We need to realize that the law functions as a diagnosis of our sinful condition, not as the cure for it. This is like when you go to the mechanic expecting an easy fix for your car, to just pay like $100 and he’ll fix it. But then he tells you that its going to be $10,000 to fix everything. And you’re like well guess I’m not getting my car fixed today. What did the mechanic do? He diagnosed the problem, and technically he gave the solution, but it was a solution you weren’t able to pay for. That’s what the law does, it shows us how bad our problem of sin really is, it shows us the solution to the problem is perfect obedience to God, but it’s a solution we can’t provide. So if you’re here this morning and any part of you believes that you are right with God because of your obedience to him, examine yourself under his law. Ask yourself, have you really loved God perfectly, with all your heart, soul, and mind, have you perfectly loved your neighbor as yourself? If you’re a Christian, are you living as if you’re obedience to God is what makes you right with him? When we’re honest with ourselves, we see how desperately short we’ve fallen of his standard. And because we’ve fallen short, the law doesn’t bring us communion, it brings condemnation. This is why the Israelites are terrified after God gives the law. The people are afraid of God, they tell Moses you speak to us, and we will listen, do not let God speak to us, lest we die. They know they can’t be in the presence of God, because they’ll be destroyed. They stand far off, and Moses goes up to the mountain. They need someone to relate to God for them. And this is what we need as well. Which brings us to our third point, the fulfillment of the law. We need the fulfillment of the law. We can’t fulfill it, We need someone to obey the law perfectly on our behalf, so that we can relate to God. Only in Jesus do we find this fulfillment. Going back to Matthew 5, Jesus says “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.” Jesus fulfills the requirements of the law on our behalf. What does the law require? Perfect love for God, perfect love for others. We see Jesus walk in a perfect obedience to God his entire life. Worshipping him alone, obeying him to the point of death. We see Jesus love others perfectly his whole life, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, serving the lowly, and ultimately laying down his life for us. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. On the cross, Jesus fulfills the law once and for all. Perfect love for God, perfect love for us. Christ bore the condemnation we deserve for breaking the law, and he gives us the perfect communion with God that he has earned. This is the good news this morning. If you came here feeling the weight of your sin, Feeling a sense of guilt. Feeling the shame of your sin. Feeling unclean. Feeling fearful. Come to Christ, and he will give you rest. Repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus as your only hope of righteousness. He has promised that those who come to him he will never turn away. When we trust in Christ as the fulfillment of the law, something amazing happens, We no longer live in fear under law, we actually delight in it. If you read psalm 119, the psalmist basically just repeats that he loves the law of the Lord. He delights in it, he cherishes it. How do we do this? How do we walk in a delight and joy in the commandments of God? This is hard for me, maybe it’s hard for you too. There’s a pattern I live in, where I hear the gospel, that Christ has fulfilled the law on my behalf and paid for my sins on the cross. Then I go right back to living as if I’m under the condemnation of the law. I beat myself up when I sin. I feel like God’s angry with me and disappointed, I feel ashamed. Why does this happen to us? Why do we fall back into this sense of condemnation? It’s because we take our eyes off Christ, and we look to ourselves. We look at how we’re fulfilling the law, rather than how Christ has fulfilled it for us! Any time we do that, the law brings condemnation rather than delight. So how do we change this? 1. We don’t become more independent in our Christian walk, we dive into a deeper dependance on Christ. When you feel that condemnation, when you feel that guilt and shame, cast your eyes upon Christ and rejoice that he has given you his righteousness, he has made you holy and acceptable before God. 2. We obey out of gratitude instead fear. When we truly grasp and trust in the salvation Christ has accomplished for us, we can’t help but respond in worship and obedience. Not in order to be accepted by God, but in order to love God, because he has first loved us. One of the best ways to understand the joy of the gospel is to see it through the lens of marriage, speaking from my many years of marriage experience. Because when you’re dating, even if it’s a great relationship, there’s always a possibility that one person bails. And if it’s a great relationship, you date them with the hope of marrying them. To some degree, you’re trying to show them, hey, life would be pretty great if we got married. You’re trying to prove yourself a little bit. But that changes when you get married. In a biblical marriage, you’re not trying to impress that person so that they stay married to you. You’re loving that person because they’ve committed to you no matter what. You can love them completely, without fear of rejection. You can love them imperfectly, and know that they’ll extend grace to you. You can love them out of pure joy and delight, simply because of who they are. As the bride of Christ, this is the relationship we have with him. We love him without fear of rejection, we love him imperfectly, trusting in his grace, and we love him because he is worthy of all love and all worship. The same applies to our love for each other, as people living in the covenant community of God. We don’t love each other out of self-ambition, we don’t love each other conditionally, we love one another because Christ has first loved us. This is how we delight in the law of God. We place our faith in Christ, who has fulfilled the law for us, so that we may be saved. We respond in a joyful love for God and love for another. I want to finish with the words of Paul from Romans 8, which perfectly describe this freedom we have in Christ. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Let us go forward in this freedom that we have in Christ. Let’s pray.