Law's Inability

How does God introduce himself before he gave Israel the law? This is important for God's people to consider.

Main Point: God makes a new covenant with His people and He provides the necessity, the blessings, and the guarantee of this covenant. Fallen Condition Focus: Our sinful hearts continually break God's Law and fail to uphold our end of God's covenant. God, in His great mercy and grace, promises a renewal of our hearts so that we can take hold of His covenant promises. God also guarantees His covenant to be eternal and everlasting.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

God did not redeem His people merely to forgive them—He brought them near so they could worship Him and enjoy fellowship with Him. In Leviticus 2–3, the grain and peace offerings show us what life in God's presence looks like: grateful worship for all He has provided and joyful fellowship with the God who welcomes us near. Together, these sacrifices challenge us not merely to enjoy God's gifts, but to treasure the Giver Himself. Through Christ, our peace with God has been secured and we have been welcomed into His presence. How should such grace shape the way we worship, trust, and delight in Him?

This sermon argues that the Christian Sabbath is a binding moral obligation for New Covenant believers, rooted in the creation ordinance and the Fourth Commandment. It distinguishes between the unchangeable moral principle of one day in seven and the changeable positive law regarding which specific day is observed, asserting that the resurrection of Christ transferred the holy day from Saturday to Sunday. The text refutes the notion that the Sabbath is merely ceremonial by citing Jesus' teachings, Hebrews 4, and early church history, while addressing objections from Romans 14 and Colossians 2 as pertaining to Old Covenant dietary and festival laws rather than the weekly Sabbath. The preacher emphasizes that Sunday is a day of unique blessing and rest, serving as a foretaste of heavenly joy and a dedicated time for corporate worship and spiritual renewal.

The sermon examines the theological implications of the serpent's initial question in Genesis 3, arguing that Satan's primary tactic was to introduce doubt regarding the authority and reliability of God's command. By shifting the burden of proof from the believer to God, the temptation replaces settled confidence in divine truth with individual judgment and pragmatic reasoning. This dynamic is contrasted with the eternal nature of God's moral law, which reflects His unchanging character, unlike ceremonial laws that serve specific historical purposes. The preacher warns that this foundational shift toward skepticism mirrors the modern cultural hostility toward biblical authority, where the default position often denies the truth of Scripture. Ultimately, the message calls for humility and unwavering trust in God's word, contrasting the rationalizing pride of King Saul with the repentant humility of King David.

On Reformation Sunday, Charles Sebold steps back from Luther's biography to ask what the church looked like before him, in "Do Your Best, and God Will Do the Rest." Luther did not stand outside a corrupt system throwing stones; he was the most faithful man inside a sincere system that could never tell him he was forgiven. Beginning with the 1505 thunderstorm that drove the young law student into the Augustinian monastery, the lesson surveys the medieval church: one Latin liturgy and Bible few could read, a papacy claiming submission to Rome was necessary for salvation even as Avignon and the Great Schism left Christians guessing which pope to obey, and a Council of Constance that burned Jan Hus despite his safe conduct. Grace had become an economy of sacraments, penance, purgatory, the treasury of merit, and indulgences, with Wittenberg's 17,443 relics promising nearly two million years of remission, yet no one could ever know whether he had done enough. Underneath it all lay Gabriel Biel's teaching that God does not deny grace to those who do what is in them, the medieval form of "Do your best, and God will do the rest." For an honest man examining his own heart, that offered no assurance. Assigned to lecture on the Bible, Luther found in Romans 1:16-17 and Habakkuk 2:4 that the righteousness of God is not the standard that condemns us but the gift God gives, for God justifies the ungodly. The gospel is not a better version of "do your best"; it is an entirely different message. The Reformation did not invent grace but set a burning lamp back on its lampstand, and every believer must root out "do your best" from his own heart.