Law & Grace
Series: The God Who Rescues
November 08, 2020
Frank Foreman
To know the story of Exodus and God’s people is to recognize it as our own: He hears us and reaches out to rescue us. Through this series, we hope to learn the story of Exodus, grow in our awe and worship of God and celebrate the One who draws us out of our sin and draws us into relationship with Him. ------------- The Israelites were not a new nation, but they certainly had a new national identity. It was God's intent that they find their identity in being His people. Thus, He gave Moses the Law to safeguard and protect their identity as His people. ------------- They were called to live by this covenant, to be different than the world around them. He calls for us to do the same, but He calls for us to find our identity not through merely keeping the Law (which none of us could possibly accomplish) but through the gift of His grace, safeguarded by the forgiving blood of Jesus Christ.
Episode Notes
Exodus 19:7-8, So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD
Pause to Consider: Under what circumstances can you imagine cutting corners or not following God’s exact instructions?
BIG IDEA:
The purpose of the Law is to bring us to Christ...
Through Him we experience the grace missing from the Law.
1. THE LAW SEPARATED ISRAEL FROM SURROUNDING NATIONS.
Matthew 22:37-40, 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.”
Ezra 10:11, Now then make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers and do His will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.
Pause to Consider: How are we called to be separate from those around us?
2. THE LAW DEFINED SIN IN A WAY ANYONE COULD UNDERSTAND.
Romans 7:7, What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. THE LAW REVEALED OUR DESPERATE NEED FOR A SAVIOR.
Galatians 2:16, ...yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Romans 7:4-6, Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
NEXT STEP:
Do good, not in an attempt to earn salvation, but to glorify God.
Memory Verse: Exodus 31:18, And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
Content Copyright Belongs to New Horizons Christian Church
6607