The Old Testament law is hard to keep, actually impossible... but the New Covenant blessing of the Holy Spirit working a new heart enables us to fulfill the requirements of the law.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Galatians 5:13-26
John 1:17
Hebrews 8:13
Romans 7:12,7:14,8:3-4,6:14
Ezekiel 26:25-27
2 Corinthians 3:3,3:5

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What is the difference between the Old and New Covenants?

• What place does the Holy Spirit have in our lives, in light of the law of God?

• What does it mean to be led by the Spirit?

• What practically does it mean to walk in the Spirit?

• Why should we be all in?

As we continue to explore evidence of the gospel in the Old Testament, we find the second tablet of the Ten Commandments gives our duty to our fellow humans. Jesus deepens our understanding and summarizes it by loving your neighbor as yourself. This is hard to do and it shows us our need for Christ and He helps us make real progress!!

Deuteronomy 5:1-21
Romans 13:8-10,12:17-21
Matthew 5:17-22,5:27-28,5:38-45

• The Purpose of the Law:

  1. To reveal God’s holiness: special, pure, supreme

  2. To reveal what it means to have a relationship with the holy God:

     1. What a holy life looks like

     2. As a pathway to life: human flourishing and blessing

  3. To reveal how sinful we are

  4. To reveal our need for Christ:

     1. For the forgiveness of sins

     2. For a new heart to overcome sins

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What are the commandments on the second tablet?

• How did Jesus summarize these laws?

• How did He help us to understand their true meaning?

• What does it mean to love our neighbor?

• What are some practical ways we can do this better?

• How do these commandments show us our need for Christ?

In the Old Testament, God gave the first tablet of the Ten Commandments outlining our duties to Him. Jesus summarized this as loving God with everything we have!! What does it mean to love God supremely and how do we do that?

Exodus 20:1-17
Mark 12:28-34
Matthew 5:17-20
Ephesians 5:5

• The Purpose of the Law:

  1. To reveal God’s holiness: special, pure, supreme

  2. To reveal what it means to have a relationship with the holy God:

     1. What a holy life looks like

     2. As a pathway to life: human flourishing and blessing

  3. To reveal how sinful we are

  4. To reveal our need for Christ:

     1. For the forgiveness of sins

     2. For a new heart to overcome sins

• What a privilege to have God as our God! What a happy condition when nothing can hurt you! If one loses his name, it is written in the Lamb’s book of Life. If he loses his liberty, his conscience is free. If he loses his estate, he owns the pearl of great price. If he meets a storm, he has a harbor; God is his God, and heaven is his heaven. If God is our God, our soul is safe. It is hidden in the promises, in the wounds of Christ, and in the decrees of God. If God is our God, then all that is in God is ours. How happy is who not only inherits the gifts of God, but inherits God Himself! If God is our God, then all that is in God is ours. How happy is he who does not only inherits the gifts of God, but inherits God himself! In his wisdom, he is ours to teach us, his power shall support us, and his mercy shall save us. God is an infinite ocean of blessedness, and there is enough in him to fill us. He gives us peace in trouble, and when there is a storm without, he will make music within. The world gives trouble in peace, but God gives peace in trouble. He loves us, and we are the 'beloved of his soul' (Jeremiah 12:7). Thomas Watson Voices from the Past – Puritan Devotional Readings/Banner of Truth

• Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough... Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out... Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is... they are unconscious. They are default-settings. David Foster Wallace This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How did Jesus summarize the Law?

• What is an idol?

• What are the idols we have to resist?

• What will an idol do to you?

• What does it mean to love God with all we have?

• What should we do when we fail?

• How can we get to where Jesus calls us to be in all this?

If you are the infinite, holy, great, immense, loving God... how do you reveal this to mere mortals. The answer is progressively, over time, and dramatically at times. In the Old Testament, Mount Sinai is one of those pivotal, powerful revelations of who God is. And it is important for us to grasp His message.

Exodus 19:1-20:21,14:11-12,16:2-3,17:3
1 Thessalonians 4:16
1 Corinthians 15:52
Proverbs 9:10
Job 28:28

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How does God answer the question: What are You like? In this text?

• Why did God reveal Himself in such scary ways on Mount Sinai?

• What were some of the reasons God gave the Ten Commandments?

• Why is the fear of God the beginning of wisdom?

• What are the advantages to those who understand how great God is?

Redemption is a key word in the Gospel of Christ, but the concept was first fixed in the mind's of God's people in the Old Testament by the powerful work of God in freeing the captives from Egypt. Their response was profound worship... as ours should also be!!

Exodus 14:1-15:18
Matthew 20:28
1 Corinthians 10:1-4,10:11
John 8:34,14:30,8:36
Ephesians 2:2
Galatians 3:13

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What would it have been like to flee from Egypt?

• What did they feel when the Red Sea closed back in?

• What was the response to this great redemption?

• What are the three things holding us in captivity?

• How has Jesus redeemed us from all three?

• What should our response be?

Do you have Hope? Do you live in the daily joy and boldness of a confident Hope? Where can one get a sure Hope? How the world today needs the good news of the sure Hope God gives!

Matthew 27:57-28:20,12:38-40
1 Corinthians 15:1-24,15:54-59
Acts 4:10,4:19-25

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What is a hope that is built on evidence and how is that different than a vague hope?

• What are the alternatives today for a hope for the future?

• Why do they offer no hope and no evidence?

• How is Christianity so gloriously different?

• What is, or rather Who is our hope?

• What is the evidence that makes this hope so sure?

As we continue to look at the gospel through the words of the Old Testament we arrive at Passover. How scary, yet how safe, to be indoors and behind the blood during that first Passover. How wonderfully God points to the true passing over we experience through the blood of Jesus... the Lamb of God... who is also Son of God!

Exodus 11:4-12:30,3:13-15,5:1-2,9:13-17,9:27-35,10:27-29
Genesis 49:8-12
Revelation 5:5
John 1:29,19:35-36
1 Thessalonians 1:10
Galatians 2:20
1 Corinthians 5:6-8

• I AM THAT I AM. — It is generally assumed that this is given to Moses as the full name of God. But perhaps it is rather a deep and mysterious statement of His nature. "I am that which I am." My nature, cannot be declared in words, cannot be conceived of by human thought. I exist in such a way that my whole inscrutable nature is implied in my existence. I exist, as nothing else does — necessarily, eternally, really. If I am to give myself a name expressive of my nature, so far as language can be, let me be called "I AM." Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Who hardened Pharaoh's heart and why?

• What would it be like to experience that first Passover night?

• What purpose did the blood have that night?

• How did this prepare the people for the coming of Jesus?

• Why is it important that God sees the blood and also that we know we are behind the blood?

• How can this make us bold for the future?

This simple prayer reveals a lot about God and our relationship with Him.

Hebrews 13,2:3,3:12,4:7,6:1,12:24
Philippians 4:7,3:12
Acts 11:36,4:28
Romans 5:1
John 10:11
Titus 2:13
Jeremiah 13:31
Ephesians 2:10

• Yes, blood is always a ghastly and a terrible thing. It is so, I suppose, because we recognize in it the destruction of life. Is it not so, also, - though we may not be able to define the emotion, - because we are compelled, in our consciences, to admit the effect of sin, and we are staggered as we see what our sin has done. All through the great school of the Jewish law, blood was constantly used to instruct the Israelite in the guilt of sin, and in the greatness of the atonement necessary for putting it away. Charles Spurgeon The Blood of the Testament

• This is an "everlasting one"; it commenced from everlasting, as appears from the everlasting love of God, which is the rise and foundation of it; from the counsels of God of old, which issued in it; from Christ's being set up from everlasting, as the Mediator of it; from the promises of it which were made before the world began; and from the spiritual blessings of grace in it, which were given to God's elect in Christ before the foundation of it: moreover, it will endure for ever; nor will it be succeeded by any other covenant: and the blood of Christ may be called the blood of it, because the shedding of it is a principal article in it; by it the covenant is ratified and confirmed; and all the blessings of it come through it, as redemption, peace, pardon, justification, and even admission into heaven itself; and Christ, through it, was brought again from the dead, because by it he fulfilled his covenant engagements, satisfied divine justice, and abolished sin, yea, death itself. John Gill John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Why does the author offer this prayer?

• How do we obtain God's peace?

• How powerful is God?

• Why was it necessary for the shedding of blood?

• Why is God considered a covenantal God?

• What heart aches have you experienced that drew you closer to God?

• How may God be working in you through your difficulties to fit you perfectly together to do His will?

God sometimes takes dramatic action to get us to have face time with Him and to learn to lean on Him and not on our own strength. But it doesn't have to be this way as his lesson from the Old Testament reveals.

Genesis 25:21-23,25:27-28,27:27-29,29:20,31:49,32,33:14
Hebrews 12:16
Matthew 6:6

• First, 'Pray to thy Father which is in secret.' God is a God who hides Himself to the carnal eye. As long as in our worship of God we are chiefly occupied with our own thoughts and exercises, we shall not meet Him who is a Spirit, the unseen One. But to the man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man, and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal Himself. As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life of the world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of God's presence, the light of the Father’s love will rise upon him. The secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation from all around us, is an image of, and so a help to that inner spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God's tabernacle, within the veil, where our spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible One. And so we are taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret of effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray aright. Andrew Murray With Christ in the School of Prayer

• Child of God! listen to your Teacher. He tells you that when you go to private prayer your first thought must be: The Father is in secret, the Father waits me there. Just because your heart is cold and prayerless, get you into the presence of the loving Father. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth you. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring God, but of how much He wants to give you. Just place yourself before, and look up into, His face; think of His love, His wonderful, tender, pitying love. Just tell Him how sinful and cold and dark all is: it is the Father's loving heart will give light and warmth to yours. O do what Jesus says: Just shut the door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret. Is it not wonderful? to be able to go alone with God, the infinite God. And then to look up and say: My Father! Andrew Murray With Christ in the School of Prayer

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How would you describe Jacob as a person?

• How did his approach to life work for him?

• Why did God not answer his prayer initially?

• Why did He make him wrestle?

• Why did He dislocate his hip?

• How was Jacob changed?

• Why is it important to get alone with God often?

Sometimes God's ways are confusing or even appear cruel, especially if we only look at the Old Testament. But then the cross gloriously clears up the confusion and reveals who He really is with such clarity and power.

Genesis 22:1-19
Hebrews 11:17-19
Romans 8:31-32,8:35
John 1:1,12:27-28,8:56

• Later writers, reflecting on the incident, make much of the turmoil in Abraham’s heart, although the biblical narrative has little enough to say on this score. Indeed, the impression we get from the biblical narrative is that Abraham treated it as God’s problem: it was for God, and not for Abraham, to reconcile His promise and His command. So, when the command was given, Abraham promptly set about obeying it; his own duty was clear, and God could safely be trusted to discharge His responsibility in this matter. F.F. Bruce Epistle to the Hebrews

• Earlier, Abraham had been tested as to whether he would believe that God could do the seemingly impossible task of giving Abraham and Sarah a son. That was a test, but it was not as hard as this one. This test involved a conflict apparently within the words of God Himself. God has promised posterity through Isaac. But God had now also commanded Abraham to kill him.
  How could this problem be resolved? There were only two ways. Abraham could have concluded that God was erratic, wavering from one plan to another because He did not know His own mind. This had not been Abraham’s experience of God. The long wait for the son had taught him better than that. Or Abraham could have concluded that, although he – being finite and sinful - was unable to see the resolution of the difficulty, God could nevertheless be trusted to have a resolution, which He Himself would certainly disclose in due time. This was the harder of the two options to accept, but Abraham’s experience of God led in this direction.
  Abraham acted in a manner consistent with his knowledge of God. That is, he trusted Him, concluding that whatever God’s purposes may or may not have been in this situation, God had at least shown that He could not be his enemy. God was his friend. When the command to sacrifice Isaac was first given, Abraham did not understand how, if the command were carried out the promise could be fulfilled. But that was alright. Abraham left the difficulty with God, which is the essence of true faith. What is faith? Faith is believing God and acting upon it. That is what Abraham did. God had shown He could be trusted, so Abraham believed God and acted, even though he could not understand the solution to the difficulty. James BoiceGenesis 12-36

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Why did God's command to Abraham both trouble and confuse him?

• Why was Isaac so central in God's plan of redemption?

• What did Abraham conclude was going to happen?

• Why is Abraham's faith and obedience commended?

• Why is God not considered cruel in this request and all suffering?

• Why is the cross central in understanding God and His heart?