Year 2 Day 315

Year 2 Day 315


Pray (ACts)


Read - Romans 3:12


Message - Alan Burke


Most people think that they are good, moral, law abiding citizens. I like to think I’m one and this week I think I’m doing pretty well, I haven’t broken the speed limit once and I’m cutting down my carbon footprint because I haven’t driven the car all week (only because I have to self isolate), once more the recycling bin is full and the black bin won’t have to go out likely for another 4 weeks. These things thou, they may be good, moral in the worlds eyes, they may mark me as law abiding they are but what is known as acts of civil righteousness. Many people think that this is enough to merit them salvation but the scriptures are clear, there is not one good before God (Rom 3:12), there is nothing that we can do that God considers good, moral or law abiding. 


Working through the Ten Commandments in the evening service, the extent of our sinfulness for all there has bee clear. If we thought that in some way we had been doing a pretty good job before we come to them we were soon confronted with how we each one of us, have left the commandments of God in shatters. We all try to belittle our failings but none of us are able to say or claim that we have kept even one of them, none of us. Maybe if we took the the Ten Commandments and we reduced their demands to simply what we do we would have a chance. But then let me ask you the following and let your yes be yes and your no be no instead of trying to sugar coat the truth. Have you ever taken a pen that didn’t belong to you whether by intent or by accident? Yes or no? Have you ever told a lie about another, to save face, to help another, or embellished a story? Yes or no? Thieves and Liars, all of you!


Even if we reduced their demands of the Ten Commandments to simply what we do, we still fail miserably. As Romans 3:12 makes clear, “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin”. The Moral Law of God summarised in the Ten Commandments was given by God, not in order that we might think that we could some how keep it, that we could merit our own salvation. No, the law was given that we would become conscious of our sin. That we would know or God requires, know his very character and nature and ultimately to show us our need for a redeemer. 


For the law is not there to save us but it is there to act like a mirror that reveals our sinfulness, it acts as a spotlight that shines upon our sin. As it does this it points us to how we need God to do something and that something is bring us salvation, the salvation that is freely offered through the Lord Jesus Christ. As the moral law in the Ten Commandments was given it was to help his people and all people see that what they needed was someone outside themselves, they needed the new and better Adam, they needed the promised seed of Eve, the serpent crusher, the one through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed, the one who would fulfil the law perfectly, the one who paid the penalty that is due for our sin and it is through faith in Christ alone that we have salvation nothing else, for the righteous shall live by faith. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q72 What is forbidden in the seventh commandment?
The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
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