Grace In The Law - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. But think of it now. We still have idols. We still have icons. We still have objects of worship. We still get that.

We still make pilgrimages to places and say, I found God there. That's where He is. You see, I want a place. I want something to wear. I want something to see. I want something on my shelf. I want something to look at. God says, don't do that.

Don't dare do that. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. The grace of God always precedes the laws of God's grace. The grace of God always precedes the laws of God's grace.

I say that twice because it's apparently not easily understood. It didn't seem to be understood by Israel for all those centuries before Christ. It certainly was not understood at the time of Jesus Christ.

And it clearly hasn't been understood by the church since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. The grace of God always precedes the laws of God's grace. About history, and even today, there are many who believe that obedience to God's law results in God's giving of grace. In other words, obedience gets you in and disobedience keeps you out.

And the idea behind it is that there's something you have to do, and you do your best. No one says you can do it perfectly, and then, because you've done your best, God's grace will come in. And that grace then will push you over the top and allow you to spend eternity in heaven.

The results of that kind of thinking have been tragic. Tragic for Israel, tragic for the church. Philip Yancey says, God dispenses gifts, not wages.

None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us even come close to satisfying God's requirements. Robert Capoy said, if the world could have been saved by the good bookkeeping of obedience, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus. You see, we're not only wrong about how law and grace relate, we're wrong about their place in God's program. The best way to see the relationship, I think, between law and grace is to look at the original laws. But first, I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis 15. Genesis 15 and verse 13, just for some context.

We have looked at grace in creation, we have looked at grace in the garden, and we have looked at grace throughout the book of Genesis. But I just want you to see one thing to give us context here in Genesis 15, verse 13. And God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in the land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. And he says, and as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. He says, you shall be buried at a good old age. God gives Abram a prophecy, and basically it's a prophecy for his offspring. It's a prophecy for the nation Israel. It's one we clearly understand.

But I wonder if we ever think about how sobering it really is. Your descendants are going to go through slavery for 400 years. Just imagine that. 400 years of being owned as a possession. 400 years of slavery. No government of your own. No laws. No land. Saturated by the superstitious beliefs of the Egyptians.

And in that 400-year period, they grew to around 2 million strong. Then suddenly, through Moses, they're free. And we know the story. We know the miracles. We know the Passover lamb and the angel of death. We know all of that. And they get delivered through the Red Sea and on their way to the Promised Land. But I wonder if we really think about what the context of that is. Two million people who have been slaves for 400 years. What are you going to do?

How are you going to live? You see, that's where the commandments came into play. That's what became so important in this story of grace. The law, what we call the law, is not outside the grace of God. It is right there in the middle of the grace of God. Turn now to Exodus 20. Exodus chapter 20. And you know the chapter because it's the Ten Commandments.

You've seen them everywhere. You've known them most of your life. Or you think you do.

By the way, most Americans can only name two or three. The people in the church are much better by five. But we all act like we know the Ten Commandments.

But I want you to see something here. When the commandments are given, the people are down below. Moses is on Mount Sinai. God is giving him these commandments. And he's giving these commandments to a specific group of people. He's not giving these commandments to the world. He didn't give them to the Egyptians. He just gave them to a group of people.

And guess what? These people are already redeemed. These people have already been delivered from Egypt. As Paul says, they've already been baptized in the Red Sea. These people are already a people of God's own possession. They're not getting these laws so that they can finally have a relationship with God.

They already have a relationship with God based completely on the grace of God. Well, the preamble is interesting. Then God spoke all these words and he said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. At first we just read that and we understand it.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. But I want to put you in the place of one of the Israelites. What do you know about God? Nothing. You don't know anything about God.

Four hundred years of slavery. You know he's powerful. You saw how he delivered you out of Egypt, but you don't know anything about him.

And the proof of that is once they get in the wilderness, they demonstrate how little they know. They don't know anything about God. And notice what he says. He says, I am the Lord your God. I think they were expecting I am the Lord the God. He says, no, I am the Lord your God.

You see, that's the context of this. I am the Lord your God. They don't know anything about God, but he is our God. It doesn't even make sense in ancient cultures. You weren't people's gods in ancient cultures. Gods in almost all ancient cultures were gods of different entities.

The god of a land, a territory, the god of the Nile, the god of the moon, the god of the sun, a god of birth, a god of death. That's how you saw God. That's how the Egyptians saw God. That's how they would have seen God. But he says, I am the Lord your God.

And he states the relationship that he has with them. How did he become their god? What did they do for that? Nothing.

Well, except trust. That was all they did. Remember, they were just told, like, hey, there's going to be this angel of death that's going to come by. There's only one way to protect your household. And you're going to have to put a pass of a lamb, and you're going to have to slate, and you're going to have to put blood on the doorpost. And that'll protect you. Now, by the way, that doesn't even sound like a really good idea, does it? Like, oh, yeah, that'll protect us.

What does it take in order to do that? Just trust. That's all we ever bring to grace, faith, trust, or interest.

And they did it. And because of that, he says, you have entered into a relationship with me. You are my people.

I am your God. We already have the relationship. Now I want to tell you about some rules. You see, the relationship implies rules. Just imagine relationship without rules. Any rules.

Almost always would lead into some form of rebellion. And so consequently, God says, I want to give you some rules. And here they go. The first one is, you shall have no other gods before me. Now, remember, there are people that have been exposed to lots of gods. And he says, only be me. I am the one and the only. In fact, literally in Hebrew it says, you shall have no other gods in my sight.

There'll be nothing else. That's one thing about God. He's pretty jealous that way. You're in a relationship with God. He goes, I'm the only god in this relationship. I don't really tolerate any other gods.

And that makes some sense to us. Then he says, you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness, now don't miss this, of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the sea. No idols.

Now, to the typical person alive at that time, especially coming from Egypt, it had to be what? You can't worship without an idol. That's the whole point. Everything we've seen is, you build idols.

But there's even more to it than this. God, notice he says, you shall not make an idol for yourself of any likeness of what is in heaven above. There'll be no idols of me. Don't you make an idol of me. Don't you carve something out and then say, there's our God. Why does he say that? He says, because I cannot be represented by anything. There is nothing you could build, nothing you could sculpt, nothing you could draw that would ever be a representation of me.

So don't you do it. Also, I think he wants them attached to the living God. That's his whole point. You respond to the living God, not some idol. Remember, that's what he told Moses before he sent him in. Who am I going to say sent me? And he said, tell them I am, that I am sent you. Yahweh. Now, what's interesting about this is you say, well, that's kind of understood to us.

Is that really a big problem? Well, hold your place here and look at chapter 32. And I'll call this little excerpt, Meanwhile, Down at the Ranch. While God is talking to them, here's what's going on down there. He's talking to Moses. Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron, they said to him, come, make us a God who will go before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And Aaron said to them, tear off your gold rings, he says, which are in your ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. And then all the people tore off the gold rings, he says, which were in their ears, and they brought them to Aaron. And he took this from their hand and he fashioned it with a graving tool and he made it into a molten calf.

So what do you think? You think that commandment's justified? God says there's no idols. Meanwhile, Moses, they're building one right now. Man has a propensity for this.

It's a terrible thing. Remember, God is spirit. He can't be represented by anything. But think of it now. We still have idols. We still have icons. We still have objects of worship. We still get that.

We still make pilgrimages to places and say, I found God there. That's where he is. You see, I want a place. I want something to wear. I want something to see. I want something on my shelf.

I want something to look at. God says, don't do that. Don't dare do that. You can't capture me with something you're going to make or fashion.

See, that's the whole point. Then he says, the third one, you shall not make yourself for an idol or any likeness of what is heaven or in the earth, beneath the water or under the earth, and you shall not, he says, worship them or serve them. I am the Lord your God.

I am jealous God. Visited iniquity on the fathers and the children and the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing loving kindness, he says to thousands, he says, to those who love me and keep my commandments, he said, I'm dead serious about this. Then he says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. So we have the third commandment. Now, what's that mean? It means a lot more, by the way, than saying when you're hammering something, nail and hit your hand, and then you yell out something.

You say, oh, you shouldn't do that. That's taking the Lord your God's name in vain. Well, it is, but that's not what God's talking about. He's talking about something else. You see, what he's talking about here is that he's saying that you cannot attach God's name to something that he hasn't attached himself to.

You see, the idea of placing a name in their culture meant to give it authenticity. When we say we pray in the name of Jesus, what that means is we pray in the stead of Jesus. What we're praying for is what Jesus would pray for. We're praying under the authority of Jesus. You see, in the name of, he said, don't you take my name and make it vain.

Don't you use it with something that I would never use it for. For example, New Testament, a way of violating this commandment and one other, Korban. The Jews had a system called Korban, and Korban was simply this. Whenever you were to fulfill your responsibility of taking care of your aged parents, the Jews figured out a way that they could take all of their resources and they could call them Korban. And that meant my resources are all pledged to God, so that when I die, God gets all of it and it goes to the temple.

So, Mom, Dad, love to help, can't. See, all my money is tied up in Korban. Now, meanwhile, you're using the money for yourself. And Jesus goes right after this. You see, they're attaching the name of God to something God would never attach his name to. Throughout history, there's been a lot of things like that. The Crusades. Let's go and kill those people.

And they can kill us, so who gets that piece of dirt? That's using God's name in vain. The Inquisition. Let's torture people and kill them in the name of God. God would never do that. Ethnic cleansing. In the name of God. You see what I mean? That's what he means using in vain.

If you're looking for an application today, to me it would be people who are Christians that say, we need to bomb abortion clinics and kill those people. God would never do that. You're attaching his name to something that he would not attach his name to.

That's what the violation is of that particular one. Then, the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. By the way, the fourth one is the final one of our relationship with God, and it's supposed to be a celebrative.

It's said to be a big celebrative. It's a celebrative commandment. Remember the Sabbath.

Keep it set apart. Isn't it interesting, by the time of Christ, they have 39 different classifications of hundreds and hundreds of laws about the Sabbath in order to justify them before God. Just the opposite of what God said. He said, let's celebrate this. He illustrated it to them, by the way, when they were in the wilderness. They ate food. It was called manna, or manna. And the word manna means, what is it? They didn't know. God provided it every morning. They get up, there it is, on the ground.

That's grace, by the way. And then, what would happen is, there was only one day in the week where God didn't provide it. He didn't provide it on Saturday. You get up Saturday morning, there isn't any on the ground. So God said, on Friday, get enough for two days. And if you did it, then on the Sabbath, you didn't even have to pick it up. God provided it.

Now, by the way, if you tried to store it any other time, it rotted. We ought to teach this principle from God. You see, even take the creation week, and it says, and God rested on the Sabbath. He wasn't tired. He was finished. You see, the whole idea is, the key to it isn't, you're tired, you need a day's rest. He was finished.

And so he rested. This is the only commandment, by the way, of these ten that's not in the New Testament for us to abide by, the only one. And the reason is simple. For you and me as believers in Jesus Christ, every day is the Sabbath. Every day. I honor every day. It's the day of rest. You know why? It is finished.

He has finished the work. We honor it every day. It's a celebration.

And, of course, they use it as a ritual of the worst sort. Notice, all four of these commandments are simply commandments about your relationship with God. God says there's going to be some rules, and here are the rules about your relationship with me. And I am the one and only. That you don't try to make idols. You know, that idea.

And the idea, he says, don't take my name in vain, and let's celebrate a day a week together resting in me. And then he moves to others, and these are all common to us, but they weren't to Israel. This is not like the Egyptians lived. This is not common to them, but it's common to us because we grew up in America. And if you look at America or you look at Europe, both of those cultures are founded on these commandments.

And so, consequently, there's things that we understand, but it wouldn't have been understood exactly the same way. What's kind of odd to me is the very first one that he starts with. Honor your father and your mother.

What a place to start. By the way, though, you remember what Jesus said when he was asked what was the greatest commandment? And Jesus said, well, that's, and they thought they tricked him with it because, I mean, they had 600 of them plus. How would he pick one?

We'll get him for that. And he said, yeah, that's an easy answer. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's commandments one through four.

Love your neighbors yourself. That's commandments five through 10. You see, he goes, I got them all right there.

That's all. But here he starts out with this idea of honoring. Honoring. You see, God has something in mind here. He's nation-building. That's what he's doing.

You realize how odd these people are? God told them they're not going to have a king. Now, go back in history and see how many other nations at that time existed without a king or a pharaoh or none. You have to have a leader. God said no leader.

It's called a theocracy. You're actually going to exist as a nation simply by taking these rules that I'm giving you and applying them to your life. You'll build cities. You'll farm land. You'll raise armies. You'll have taxes. You see, you'll do everything that a nation does, but there'll be no king.

There'll just be the relationship you and I have. Why did he do that? He said, I'm doing this to show the whole world how unique the grace of God is. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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