God’s Law for the Christian

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Psalm 119; Lord's Day 34
Psalters: 127, 325, 178, 40
Preparatory to the Lord's Supper
  1. “The law is good, if a man use it lawfully” (I Timothy 1:8), i.e., we must use it according to God’s purpose.
    1. The law remains lawful, valid and good because it reveals God and reflects the righteous standard of His holiness.
    2. As Creator, God has the right to demand obedience of His creatures (cf. Rom. 2:14,15).
    3. As Savior, God gives the law to believers.
  2. What the law does NOT do and was never intended to justify us by our obeying it.
    1. The Judaizers spoke of the grace of justification but added the works of the law (as does Federal Vision) (cf. Rom. 10:3).
    2. The Christian is free in the sense that the law can never be a way of salvation to us.
    3. And those in Jesus are free from the curse of the law (because Jesus became that curse for us, Gal. 3:13,14).
  3. What the law is to do.
    1. Being free from the law to be saved does not mean that we are free from the law to love the Lord and our neighbor.
      1. Never are we free to do as we please.
      2. Love for God and our neighbor sets all kinds of boundaries on our freedoms.
    2. The law teaches us how to express our returning love to God.
    3. And the law is a good daily companion in two ways.
    4. The law has an effect and a fruit on the sanctified, believing heart.
      1. It continually helps us to see the horror of our own sin.
      2. Two, we grow in the knowledge of the preciousness of Jesus Christ.
      3. Three, we grow in the knowledge of God’s will, to which we want to comply as an expression of gratitude.