Presentation Transcript

1. TheGospel Project

   Session 5 – God’s Law for Life
2. Session 4 - Recap Main Idea: In God We Trust? God’s Word is trustworthy, but we question it God’s Word is true, but we belittle it God’s Word is authoritative, but we disobey it
3. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Introduction A story of adoption… And of rules, love-driven rules! Rules and identity – “Rules given to such a child convey the truth that they are no longer orphaned but are part of a family.” (p.47)
4. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Introduction Summary and Goal “Like the people of Israel, we have been rescued from the tyranny of Satan and our slavery to sin. God has shown us amazing grace in adopting us into His family. Today, as we look back to the law given to Israel, we will grow in our understanding of who God is and see His loving purpose in giving the law. We will also see how the law should shape our identity and how the law shows us our need for Jesus.” (p.48)
5. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 1. God has set a moral standard that expresses His character(Ex. 20:1-2) 1And 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.”
6. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 1. God has a set a moral standard that expresses His character(Ex. 20:1-2) God communicates his expectations – Ex. 20 “When it comes to God’s people, God does not just leave right and wrong for us to decide. He has a righteous standard that flows out of who He is. If we are to be in relationship with God, we must come to Him on His terms, not our own.” (p.49)
7. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 1. God has a set a moral standard that expresses His character(Ex. 20:1-2) God communicates his expectations – Ex. 20 What determines God’s law? His character as perfect and holy – God unlike us His character as loving Father – God in relation to us “I am the LORD your God…” “who brought you out of the land of Egypt…”
8. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 1. God has a set a moral standard that expresses His character(Ex. 20:1-2) “Wedding ceremonies form the basis of a commitment intended to shape and protect an ongoing, intimate relationship. Once married, it is right to have expectations of complete fidelity from your spouse.” (p.50)
9. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 1. God has a set a moral standard that expresses His character(Ex. 20:1-2) God communicates his expectations – Ex. 20 What determines God’s law? His character as perfect and holy – God unlike us His character as loving Father – God in relation to us “I am the LORD your God…” “who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” God’s law and his global plan of redemption
10. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 2. God’s law teaches us how to relate to God and others (Ex. 20:3-17) 3You 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. 5You 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, 6but 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.
11. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 2. God’s law teaches us how to relate to God and others (Ex. 20:3-17) 8"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 2. God’s law teaches us how to relate to God and others (Ex. 20:3-17) 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."
13. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 2. God’s law teaches us how to relate to God and others (Ex. 20:3-17) First Four Commandments – Vertical Last Six Commandments – Horizontal Orientation & Consequences Freedom and the Law
14. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 3. God asks for complete obedience, which is why we desperately need His grace Falling Short and God’s Standard “The apostle Paul notes in Romans 3:23 that all of humanity has fallen short of God’s standard set forth in the law. Even partial obedience equals complete disobedience. James 2:10 says, ‘For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all.’” (p.52)
15. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life 3. God asks for complete obedience, which is why we desperately need His grace Falling Short and God’s Standard Law, Obedience, and Christ 17"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.” (Matthew 5:17) 3For 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, 4in 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. (Romans 8:3-4)
16. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Conclusion/Summary “Once upon a time, you were living as an orphan, destitute and impoverished with regard to God’s righteous standard. But God adopted you and gave you a new identity. As He welcomed you into His family, He gave you guidelines to live by. The purpose of these laws is not to constrain you but to set you free to be everything He has created you to be. He requires total obedience, and He has granted all that He requires in Christ.” (p.53)
17. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issues (What?!) & Implications (So What?)
18. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #1 – Uses of the Law It restrains sin and promotes righteousness in the church and society, preventing both from lapsing into chaos. (Curb)
19. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #1 – Uses of the Law It disciplines, educates, and convicts us, driving us out of ourselves to Jesus Christ, the fulfiller and end of the law. The law cannot lead us to a saving knowledge of God in Christ; rather, the Holy Spirit uses it as a mirror to show us our guilt, shuts us off from hope, and brings us to repentance. It drives us to the spiritual need out of which faith in Christ is born. This convicting use of the law is critical for the believer's piety, for it prevents the ungodly self-righteousness that is prone to reassert itself even in the holiest of saints. (Mirror)
20. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #1 – Uses of the Law It becomes the rule of life for the believer. "What is the rule of life which [God] has given us?" Calvin asks in the Genevan Catechism. The answer: "His law." Later, Calvin says the law "shows the mark at which we ought to aim, the goal towards which we ought to press, that each of us, according to the measure of grace bestowed upon him, may endeavor to frame his life according to the highest rectitude, and by constant study, continually advance more and more. (Guide) – Joel Beeke
21. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #2 – The Christian’s View of the Law After Christ Believers have been set free from the Law by means of their union with Christ in his death. The Law has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he is alive (Rom. 7:1; Gal. 2:19). Because we have died with Christ, we are "not under law" (Rom. 6:14-15; 7:4-6; 1 Cor. 9:20; Gal. 3:23-25; 4:4-5, 21; 5:18). This means we are free from its condemnation and from its commanding authority.
22. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #2 – The Christian’s View of the Law After Christ This freedom from the Law does not mean that believers have been set free from all ethical standards. For not only have we been crucified with Christ and made dead to the Law, but we have been raised with Christ and are thus under a new commanding authority - the authority of Christ himself. We are not without law but "under the Law of Christ" (1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2). Having died to the Law, we have been married to another (Rom. 7:4).
23. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #2 – The Christian’s View of the Law After Christ The Law of Christ is not vague or nebulous. It has been revealed in the indicative and the imperative, which is given concrete expression in the ethical teaching of Jesus (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount) and in the apostolic exhortations to live in accordance with our union with Christ (e.g., Eph. 4-6; Col. 3, etc.).
24. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Issue #2 – The Christian’s View of the Law After Christ Although the Law of Christ is not identical with the Law of Moses, it does reach back to the Law of Moses in order to bring over those aspects of its teaching that are rooted in God's righteous nature and man's creation in God's image. However, the content of the Law is not taken over directly but transformed as it is taken up in Christ. The law must not be abandoned, nor must we stop studying it or teaching it. But after the cross it no longer stands as the immediate standard of conduct for God's people. It must always be studied and applied through the lens of Christ's fulfillment (Matt. 5:17-20).
25. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Implication #1 – Legalism, Antinomianism & the Third Way Legalism Antinomianism Gospel What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2) For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (Gal. 5:13)
26. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Implication #2 – Reading & Meditating on God’s Law “The mind must descend into the heart and the whole soul ascend to seek for and gaze upon the majesty of God” - Peter Toon “By solemn or stated meditation I mean the thoughts of some subject, spiritual and divine, with the fixing, forcing and ordering of our thoughts about it, with the design to affect our own hearts and souls with the matter of it, of the things contained in it. By this design it is distinguished from the study of the Word.” – Richard Baxter
27. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Implication #2 – Reading & Meditating on God’s Law Three Questions to Ask (Luther) How can what I’m reading lead me to… Adore God Confess Sin Petition for Grace And…
28. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Implication #2 – Reading & Meditating on God’s Law How is Jesus the ultimate revelation of (Keller) This attribute about God This sin that I’m confessing This grace that I need
29. Session 5 – God’s Law For Life Q&A Time!