Weekly Sunday Sermon: God Gives the Law to His Covenant People

Hello!

The topic might sound like one of the topics in September, but there are actually several different points, though it also has some common points.

The Israelite people stopped at Mt Sinai (or Horeb) to receive God's Law. In this occasion, we only covered the acquisition of the Moral Law, such as the Ten Commandments. Firstly, what is this Law for?

Actually, this Law has many purposes. Of course it is a restraint of evil and shows the path God intends for His people, but also shows that God is Holy. John Calvin has answered this question, saying the law serves as (1) a mirror, (2) a restraint of evil and (3) a sign of His grace.

Yes, it is a sign of His grace because we are undeservant of salvation but He saved us and gave us the Holy Spirit to resist temptation so we can obey His Law. This is His grace - He has shown us favor we do not deserve. Obeying God's Law means not violating His commandments and is only through His grace.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says:

13 No temptation[a] has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted[b] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,[c] he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

However we cannot "obey" to "earn" favor form God. After all, His grace we do not deserve, even how obedient to the law we are. Nor are we saved or better than one another, and obedience is only because of God's grace.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BCN 2025 - Kasihilah Tuhan dan Pimpinan Roh Kudus

 Hello! It's been four months since the last blog. When I started a year ago, one of the first blogs was about BCN 2024. It is the next year already, and now we have BCN 2025. This will be a full summary - last time we did it in 3 parts.  Introduction - What is BCN? BCN, or Bible Camp Nasional (Bible Camp National) is a 3-day 2-night event held by Gereja Reformed Injili Indonesia. While most people who attend are from GRII, everyone can join, though it is limited to grades four to seven. Since it is held in June and after the time students typically graduate from a grade, a "seventh grader" means a sixth grader who had recently graduated, and is now considered a seventh grader, for example. BCN is a summer camp, with its main focus on teaching the Bible to children. Before grade four, most people go to Bible Trip , and after grade seven to  NRETC. BCN has seventeen sessions (sermons), this year over a dozen speakers. The event costs 800,000 rupiahs to enter for  earl...
Read more

People like to say "Jesus is coming soon", and it's incorrect: Argument Series #1

 Currently, a lot of people has reacted to the tension between the United States and Iran by saying "The end times are soon". Not only do they say this because of the "war", but also because of technologies such as artificial intelligence and Neuralink. In this post I want to challenge this claim. Of course, we shouldn't even try to say "this is near the end times", this is misleading, none of us know when, and we cannot even say that it is vaguely soon. Nevertheless, I will still bring up other points. I will go one by one for each claim. #1: The Iran-US-Israel controversy conflict is a sign of the End Times Many claim that chapters like Ezekiel 38, which speaks about Israel and surrounding powers at war, point to today's conflict. There are several approaches when it comes to interpreting Biblical verses. One of them is covenant theology, which is the reformed approach in this area. God has an Old Covenant, which is with the nation of Israel, and...
Read more

Chapel SKC Grade 7 #1

Wednesday 23 July Chapel, SKC, Grade VII #1 By Roy Pangemanan Introduksi Katekismus Heidelberg/Introduction of Heidelberg Catechism A catechism is like a theological explanation usually in the format of Question and Answer and is oral teaching. There are many catechisms, one of them is the Heidelberg Catechism. Personally, I already heard about the name Heidelberg Cathechism once but never knew anythung about it until this Wednesday. Heidelberg is a city in Germany, but at the time it was in the Holy Roman Empire. (The speaker did not say that at the time it was under the Holy Roman Empire, but I added that, he only said that the government was different). The church had just undergone the Reformation and many wanted to know about the Bible, but still needed some direction or explanation. Thus, Frederick III, that governed the area, who was Reformed (Reformed = Sola Scriptura), who was an "elector", commissioned Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus to make a catechism. The ...
Read more