Does A Christian Have To Obey God's Law?

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added ONE paragraph break - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

do you obey god's law or are you free from that because of grace welcome to jon's voice notes where i jon wander around sharing whatever it is i am thinking about today stream of consciousness style i had to force myself to jump right into this before i thought about it too much because i want to think about it out loud and see what happens

So welcome to the adventure with me. If I say anything crazy, it's just a thought. Might not be the core of what I believe, but we'll see. Excuse me. Sitting in my office, looking out the window. It's a cloudy day, almost no wind, but it's nice and cool and kind of refreshing here in Northern Illinois.

But do you obey the law of God? I was in a Bible study this morning and we were talking about the 10 commandments amongst other things. And you know, the 10 commandments are kind of the only place, or there might be a couple more, but they're the main place or the biggest time where God actually wrote, like physically wrote something.

You know, I don't know, the whole mean, mean tickle Parson thing in ancient Persia, whatever that was. Maybe there's some others, but, you know, Moses went up with the stone tablets. And I don't think he was up there with a chisel and a hammer. God literally wrote the Ten Commandments on that stone table.

So there must be kind of a big deal. When I read my Bible, I'm often wondering, this is a question that is always in the back of my mind, who is God and what is he like? I know there are so many things you can focus on when studying the Bible, all the technicals of doctrine or what does this mean to my life today? Those are all good, but I'm always wondering, who is this God that we worship? What is he like? What is important to him?

Well, we know that one of the things that's important to him are the Ten Commandments. Excuse me. Those eggs. But in those, you basically, you know, according to Jesus, who is actually still quoting the Old Testament.

It's like a summary of love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's what's basically in there. No idols, no worshiping other gods, honor the Sabbath, honor your mother and father, don't steal, don't kill, don't covet, don't commit adultery. I'm sure I'm forgetting something because I'm going from the top of my head.

But these things are good and beautiful, and they're still good and beautiful today in the era of the new covenant. One of the things we talked about this morning is the old man versus the new man. If you're a born-again Christian, you are a new creation in Christ. You have a new reborn person inside you, or more accurately, you are a new reborn person. But you're living in this kind of shell.

of the old person, which is highly associated with our physical bodies. I don't know if I can explain exactly what it is, but the old man, the flesh, the sinful nature, these ideas. While we're in this world on this side of eternity, we carry this around. It's still there and we contend with it. In fact, one of the things that I think has helped me in my walk with God is finally getting a little bit, a trace bit of understanding

about the whole idea that it's not I that sinned, but sin living in me. That's kind of hard. It's easy to understand the concept, but it's hard to really understand because I feel like I did that. I wanted to do that, and I did it. But the new you, the born-again you, doesn't want to.

And you can read the law, starting with the Ten Commandments, you can read that in the spirit or in the flesh. In the flesh, it's either death or it leads you to repentance, you know, drives you to Christ. And that's the initial repentance, you know, getting born again. But I believe it still has that effect later on, too. You're reading through the law and you see something there. This is why I think it's a mistake to just kind of dismiss the whole law because we're not under the law.

The Bible says things about the application of the law today. It's just where it's filtered through this new covenant. But it's still a description of God's love. The law is a description of what love looks like. Some of it's hard to understand, but don't focus too much on that. Some of it is kind of crystal clear, what's going on. And it would totally fit

love so when someone says you know jesus and christianity is just about love not about all this judgment you'll hear people say things like that but the truth is it's got to be god's standards of love how do you know what those are well you've got the holy spirit in you but also the holy spirit is like an illumination a light on god's law

So if I read the Ten Commandments in the Spirit, so to speak, where I'm more, I don't even know how to describe this, but you're more in your new man. You're more focused on the Lord. You're in a time where you're thinking clearly and walking in the newness of what God has made you.

It's kind of like, you know, you read through it. It's kind of like, you know, well, duh. Why would I want an idol? Why would I want another God? Why would I want to commit adultery? Why would I want to murder or lie? That's the one that I missed earlier. Why would I want to, you know, go into court and lie about my neighbor and get them to be punished? That's not who I am. This is all like contrary to who I am. You know, the spirit and the flesh warring at each other. But if you're in the flesh...

And I know there's a sense that we're always in both, but if you're more on that side, you're going to be reading along and maybe you'll get convicted about some idolatry you've brought up in your life. Or maybe you lied about someone in a harmful way. Maybe you thought adulterous thoughts. Jesus said that you're guilty in your heart of committing adultery.

Maybe you hated someone with violent hatred and you're basically have a murderous heart and you get convicted and you run to Jesus. That's one thing that would happen. Another thing that would happen is it just kind of kills you, especially if you're not really a believer at all. You know, you just kind of, it's just death because you can't do it. Your old man is selfish and just wants what I want and wants it now. I don't want to honor God as God. I want to be God myself.

And I want to hate who I want to hate and have adultery with who I want to have adultery and harm who I want to harm, take what I want to take, etc. So the law is useful. The law is useful for a correction, training in righteousness. How does the verse go in one of the Timothys?

um you know basically says that it's it's useful in these ways that i'm describing but the ten commandments are life like this like if you want to know what love looks like do not worship any other gods at all zero not as old only the one true god

Not literally like idols or whatever, um, not in your heart, not making things on the level with God, not false religions.

It's for your own good, by the way, to know who God is and that he's real is for your own good. So it's not just like God just can't handle our worshiping other gods. It just pulls out his hair with frustration and anger. No, we're on the path of built-in destruction if we're not. But do that. Honor the Sabbath, you got to figure out exactly how to apply that. But the principle is,

It's still true. I'm not 100% clear about exactly how to apply it the actual day, especially because we've probably pretty much lost the Hebrew calendar and being able to tell which day is the Sabbath if you wanted to be real strict like the old Hebrew calendar way. But the principle is still true. Respect the property of others.

Respect justice and fairness and don't slander your neighbor. I'm not sure that that verse is really about, you know, do I look fat? No, you look fine. I'm not sure that that's the kind of lie it's talking about. It's more like, you know, you're in court and you're like, I saw this man do this, but you didn't see it. You're lying. Or you're publicly saying lies about your rival because you're angry and you hate them. You know, those kinds of things.

You know, murder and all the violence on the way to murder. Don't do these things out of love, out of joy, because that's not who you are if you're a Christian. So there's a sense in which we still obey the law of God today. I know one phrase I've heard, I don't come from like a Reformed background where all those...

Confessions, you know, the long confessions. I've been influenced by them. I grew up in a more generic evangelical-y background. But I heard them quoted, and I looked through them when I was younger. But no, I didn't come from that background. But one of the phrases, which I haven't studied, so if you're Reformed, you can set me straight. The bit that just kind of struck me was the respect for the general equity of the law.

And I'm suspecting that they said that because they know that we're not about kind of meticulously following line by line these laws in order to be saved. But the general equity, the principles are still true today. They were true when God revealed them that he was revealing reality. He wasn't only making like specific commands for Israel. There are things that are specific commands for ancient Israel.

But there's a lot of things that are just, this is the right way to relate to me, God talking there, and this is the right way to relate to your fellow humans. There's a lot of that in there, and we can learn from it.

So basically, there's no way to obey the law so much that you have no need of Christ for your salvation. It's not possible. You can't obey the law into the kingdom or into heaven. Primarily, because of your sinful nature, you just won't do it. But also, it's too late. You've already blown it too many times. As far as God's laws are concerned, you already have condemned yourself.

by something you've done in your life. And you can't just kind of even the scales by doing a bunch of good things. It does not work that way. All of us, one of the functions of the law is it chases us to Jesus because it's our only hope. We see the law, both the Ten Commandments and the things that flow from it, and we realize we're in trouble.

And at some point, hopefully you hear that gospel and you run to Jesus and you accept his forgiveness. You accept his restoration. And what he actually restores you to when you're born again and filled with the Holy Spirit is a person who will want to obey the law. This is why the Old Testament believers, all of ancient Israel, failed. Because they weren't born again and filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered.

So the law was exposing their wickedness more than it was helping them. So the law in and of itself cannot help you do good.

Because, you know, as the Apostle Paul said, it's just going to make you want to do bad. It's going to just stir up the evil in you. However, and I remember reading Charles Finney saying this a long time ago, and at the time I didn't get it. I wasn't sure I agreed. But he said for the, you know, for the believer, the law is a delight. You know, reading the law is a delight. Now, I'm not going to lie to you. It's not always a delight for me because sometimes I'm being convicted, but not in the same way as being utterly lost.

But still, I will read it and see there's still areas God needs to work on in my life. I read the whole Old Testament over and over and the New Testament. Sometimes I need to mix in the New Testament because the law of God does seem unforgiving. And without Jesus, it is. Without Jesus to pay for all the ways that you breached the law, it is deadly sin.

bring you under a curse. But when you're forgiven by Jesus, now it's like, oh, that's how, this is the practical way I can love my neighbor. It's kind of a beautiful thing. I feel like I had one more thing, a fleeting thought. So I'm just talking to fill time to see if that fleeting thought will come back to me.

And it's not, so maybe in another episode. But basically, I just want to encourage you that there is something in Christianity about obeying the law. So when we're not under the law, it doesn't mean the general equity of the law, the Old Testament law, is no longer relevant to our lives.

It just means, well, one, the sacrificial system is completely fulfilled. You know, the sacrificial, you know, kind of the religious, what we would call the religious side or whatever, completely fulfilled in Christ. And then all the rest of it is fulfilled, too, by providing forgiveness for us. But it still tells us who God is and how he wants us to live. And I'm not really talking about like foods and ceremonies. I'm talking about the ethics, you know, the general description of

of love that's available to us. And it's a lot of the New Testament is just kind of interpreting it or reading it through the good news about Jesus. But it's still there, you know, honor your parents, children, children, honor your parents, husbands, love your wives, wives, respect your husbands, you know, all this stuff.

Pay your workers a fair wage. All these things, they come from the law. The apostles were teaching the law. Did you know that? They're basically teaching the ancient Jewish law. They're just teaching it to sometimes Gentiles who don't have the full background. And they're teaching, I guess you could call it a simplified version of how to love your neighbor. So start there.

And don't get bound up. Don't go look at the law and say, now I'm going to be like an ancient Jew and live by all this strict rules. That isn't the point. But learn who God is, what he likes, what pleases him, what displeases him. Wonder why. When you can't figure it out, just keep moving.

It's all right. I can't always figure it out either. And sometimes when I hear the people who say they can figure it out and I hear what they say, I'm like, I'm not sure I believe you really know what you just said. You're pretending or you feel like you need an explanation.

But the law of God is good. Read Psalm 119, and it's all about how the law of God is good and perfect and beautiful. And it still is. It's just we have further revelation now about how to get forgiven when we can't do it. And also to be supernaturally changed into someone who wants to do it. And now we live in this tension where our old flesh is saying no and our spirit is saying yes. Thank you for listening to Jon's Voice Notes today.

I appreciate you, all one of you, or however many there are now. So God bless you, and 

Jon Davis and Jon's Voice Notes signing off.