Exodus - 10 Commandments
Heavenly Father, Lord, I ask that as we turn to your word this morning, we would behold not the wisdom of man, not compelling words, but we would hear your words. Lord, that we might be confronted by who you are, that we might be have our eyes and our spirits drawn up from this world and up into a gaze of you. Lord, I pray that you would fill Pastor Cameron with your spirit that he would be guided and led by you this morning. Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be helping us as listeners to be receptive and sensitive to the leading and the preaching of your word. In Jesus name we pray, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Good morning, Kadu. How are you this morning? Good. It's good to see you all.
Speaker 2:We're continuing in our, like Pastor Luke said, continuing in our series in the book of Exodus. I've been saying for several weeks, the last several weeks in a row, you know, we just started this series in the book of Exodus because it feels like, you know, being only 19 or 20 chapters in that you've kind of only scratched the surface until you realize that's like four months. We've been like, we've been going through Exodus for about four months now. We don't have actually that much time left in it. I hope you have felt or are feeling now, if you maybe have approached Exodus as a book with, the past, kind of in just taking it in bits and pieces, you know, that's a lot of times that's how we end up reading or studying the Bible is we'll take, we take just bits and pieces of books and maybe read them, have ability to apply them to our lives or gain understanding from them.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that's a wrong way to do it, but there does seem to be something a little bit different in how you interact with the whole narrative of God's working with a people, or the whole story of a people when you kind of start at the beginning and travel through the story. And that's how I kind of feel coming into this morning because probably the most famous passage of Exodus, perhaps the most famous passage in all of scripture is Exodus chapter 20 where Moses delivers on God's behalf the 10 commandments to the people. And even if you have very little familiarity with the Bible or with the Christian faith, or with the Jewish roots of its Christian faith, there is even a somewhat of a cultural understanding of the 10 commandments. You might be able to name even a few of them. You understand some of the maybe the political discussions that have happened around them throughout time.
Speaker 2:And so in a lot of ways, we come into a passage like we are this morning with at least a cursory bit of understanding or information. We're at least aware of it. But it gives a whole different, I think, meaning, context or depth to their presence in the book of Exodus and in the whole story of the people of God. When you spend the previous eighteen weeks studying how we got up to this point where why is God just like up and showing up with these commandments and he's like, Here Moses, these are for you. Gives us a better, maybe a better understanding of what the purpose of the commandments were, what the purpose of the law in general is, and how it is going to function in the life of the Israelites and the people of God moving forward into their life.
Speaker 2:Because that ends up being a conversation or a question that you and I have to answer is how do you and I interact with something like the 10 commandments? Because we were not at the base of Mount Sinai. And as far as I know, most of us here are not Jewish. And there was a context in which God delivered these and there was a people to which God delivered these. And so do they even, should they even matter to us?
Speaker 2:I think you're going to probably guess that my contention is, and my assertion is that yes, they do matter to us and they should matter to us. They mattered to Jesus. So they matter to us. Okay? I'm gonna give you the three main points of my sermon this morning, right now, and then we're going to talk about them.
Speaker 2:Okay? Point number one is that God is the great law giver and has established his authority to give commandments or to give commands. We're going talk a little bit about that. The second point is that the law or the commands were a mark of consecration for the people. Meaning that they were not just meant to be restrictive statements about what not to do, but they identifying marks of the people of God that set them apart from the nations and the people around them.
Speaker 2:Meaning people looked at the nation of Israel who had the law and who had the commands given to them from the Almighty God. And it was like a name badge for them where they were now identified through their obedience to the law as children or the covenant people of the Most High God. The third point is this, is that the laws and commands were not meant to be burdensome or even restrictive in the sense that we typically think that they are, but that the commands or the laws of God were meant to be freeing for the people. So those are the places we're going to go today. If you have a copy of the Bible in front of you, please open it up to Exodus chapter 20.
Speaker 2:We'll read a good portion of the chapter together, verses one through 21. If you don't have a copy of the Bible of your own, there probably is a copy in the seat next to you. And if you would like a copy of the Bible that belongs to you and only you, and you see one sitting next to you, as long as it doesn't have your neighbor's name on it, because that would be a violation of one of the 10 commandments. But you cannot steal what I am freely offering to you this morning. And so if you see a Bible, you know, there's ones that look like this and there's ones that look like this and there's some other different kinds.
Speaker 2:There's ones that look like that. And you need a Bible or want a Bible or you have someone that you would like to give that Bible to, you're free to take that with you. Okay. Exodus chapter 20 verses one through 21. And God spoke all these words.
Speaker 2:I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who misuses his name.
Speaker 2:Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, your manservant or maidservant, your animals or the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Speaker 2:Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Verse 13, you shall not murder. Verse 14, you shall not commit adultery. Verse 15, you shall not steal. Shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
Speaker 2:You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or manservant or main servant as ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Verse 18, when the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear and they stayed at a distance and said to Moses, speak to us yourself and we will listen, but please do not have God speak to us or we will die. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.
Speaker 2:The people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. So my my assumption is that most of you have heard at least some of that at some point in time, these 10 commandments. Question is why at this point in the story or why these things? What was significant about the giving of the commandments here at this point in the kind of like the timeline narrative jumping of the story? Was it critical for God to do it now?
Speaker 2:Here is something that we mentioned at the beginning of the sermon. Not necessarily a difficulty but something that we have to be aware of when we are reading or studying scripture is that when we read or study scripture, scripture always existed, has always existed in a original context. Meaning it's not without some background things, people, places, events, environments. It's not without some background things that exist either that we see that exist or that we don't see that exists. Now, if we were to take if someone were to hand you on a sheet of paper, Exodus chapter 20 verses one through 21, and you picked it up and the first thing that you read was, and God spoke all these words.
Speaker 2:I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Here are all these commandments. It would leave us without having kind of a sufficient background or contextual understanding to know why is it that, like, why is God talking to the Israelites like he's talking to them? Why is he giving them the things that he's giving them? And what is the relationship that has been built there or fostered there over time.
Speaker 2:And so that's why we feel like when we can, that it's important for us to study scripture in its context and in its formation or in its linear format, which is why we study typically books of scripture rather than just individual topics, because it helps to lend to our understanding. And when it lends to our When our understanding is increased, it gives us another ingredient to help build the faith of our heart and have the culture of our heart turned from a place of doubt to the fertile ground of faith where the seed of God now, the seed of the gospel can grow and produce fruit. To understand where we are at in Exodus chapter 20, we have to have a keen awareness of where we were last week. Now, many of you were here last week? I'm sure if I asked you to recount all of the salient points from Exodus 19 that I shared in the sermon, it like, because you meditated on that all week, didn't you?
Speaker 2:Like you took notes, you rewatched the YouTube video, you prayed over Exodus 19 all week asking the Lord to apply it to your heart. And so forgive me for re sharing some of the things that you already have been studying all week. But last week, remember that we saw something or we became aware of something as God had freed the people from Egypt. He had delivered them from the hand of the Amalekites. He provided for them in the middle of a desert, food, water, manna, quail, all of that.
Speaker 2:And then he gets to this place and he tells Moses in Exodus chapter 19 verses four through six, He says, You yourselves have seen what I did. This is the Lord speaking to Moses, right? You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Speaker 2:These are the words, Moses, that you are to speak to the Israelites. So it's really difficult to read Exodus chapter 20 without first reading Exodus chapter 19 and understanding that this is simply a continuation of the conversation that God started there. And the way that he started that conversation was to remind the Israelite people just who he was in relation to their freedom from Egypt. He wanted to make sure and establish both out in the open as a proclamation, but also establish in their hearts that they remembered and understood that the God who was speaking to them now was the same God who heard their cries while they were in bondage to the Egyptians, who answered their prayers, who came to their rescue, who delivered them from their slavery, who brought them out of Egypt, who walked them through the Red Sea, who provided for them in their time of need, who miraculously defeated the Amalekites with the power of Joshua's sword and the power of Moses and Aaron and Hur's prayer. And he wanted them to remember, I am the same God who has brought you through all of this.
Speaker 2:See there was a thing in understanding even in God's own mind that people generally have very short memories when it comes to looking back upon the faithfulness and goodness of God in their life. Most people are faced forward. And when they're faced forward, their eyes are fixed on the next problem or the next hurdle or the next whatever it is. And in that forward facing mindset, which is good in some cases, we fairly easily forget the faithfulness and goodness of God that has sustained us through everything back there that we're now fearing out here. Right?
Speaker 2:That God has been good, God has been faithful, God has weaved together like a tapestry, has weaved together the threads of our lives, experiences, and relationships to create something beautiful. And we can look back and see his sustaining good, kind, faithful presence in our life for those things. But looking forward to the big scary thing that is here, that is in front of us, that is coming next, that we don't know how to deal with, that we don't know what it's going to produce or do, or how we're going to deal with it, or if it's going to be good, or if it's going to destroy us, or what is next, we sometimes have a hard time applying the past faithfulness of God to our future situations. And this is is really the task of or the teaching of Jesus in the building of the faith of the disciples even in the New Testament. Can't I do any more miracles here in this town?
Speaker 2:Jesus said. Well, because of the lack of faith. There's been, there is a, people have forgotten that I've done miracles for the last two or three years here. If they've only seen the sickness, the death, the infirmity now, forgetting the faithfulness that has happened in the past. And this is what God does for the Israelites over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:Remember my faithfulness. Remember my faithfulness. Remember my faithfulness. Remember my power. Remember my goodness.
Speaker 2:Remember my, remember how I showed up. I show remember, remember, remember, remember. Hey, create a festival so you don't forget. Write it down in a scroll and tell it to your children. Write it on the tablets of your heart, right?
Speaker 2:Tell them about Tell your children about the things that I have done. Why? Because you're prone to forget and I never want you to forget how I've shown up in your life. God wants to establish in the heart of the Israelites and in our own hearts as well, the consistency of his goodness and presence and power in our lives so that we do not lose hope about moving forward through the difficulty of human experience. Our God is a God that rescues.
Speaker 2:Our God is a God that saves, that provides, that protects. Our God is a God that shows up on our behalf. And we see in Exodus 19, God, like, I am the one who brought you out of Egypt. I lifted you up on eagles' wings. Now obey my commands.
Speaker 2:You are my treasure possession. You are my holy nation. You will be for me a kingdom of priests. Now obey my covenants. Now, God just burst on the scene with no sense of history with the people, just like forget everything that we read in Exodus one through seventeen and eighteen.
Speaker 2:And then in Exodus 19, big thick cloud falls on Mount Sinai, booming voice from the smoke and the fire, as Moses, as we have recounted here, And a voice and a presence that the Israelite people had no experience with, no history with whatsoever. Be like, I want you to do these things. Stay away from these things. Do these things that don't do these things. Then there would be, I think naturally a sense of like, who are you?
Speaker 2:What authority do you have? What type of God are you? Do you love us? Are you good? The questioning of the character of a God that just brings commands outside of the context of longstanding relationship to save, rescue, redeem, provide, protect, love.
Speaker 2:So before God utters a single command to the people, He reestablishes, Do you remember who I am? Do you remember what I have done on your behalf? And he says it in Exodus chapter 19, but notice he also says it in the beginning of the 10 commandments. He doesn't even start the commandments again. Less than a chapter later, He is already saying in verse one, And God spoke these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Speaker 2:This is who I am. This is what I have done. It's almost like a qualifying statement of trust. Do you trust me? You've seen what I've done.
Speaker 2:You have seen how I have shown up. We have been through it together. Do you trust me? Okay. I got some things for you.
Speaker 2:But this wasn't only, it wasn't like the commands, they also had a purpose in the life of the people. And this is often where, it becomes, this is often where we begin to grapple with the commandments ourselves or the law of God ourselves. Really any commandment from God or any law from God is like, what is the purpose of this? We want to understand, right? We believe that we have to have intellectual understanding before we can have heart faithfulness and obedience.
Speaker 2:But God really offers no qualifications to these things, nor does he go into long, real diatribes anywhere in scripture about the, this is why I am adding this command other than, these kind of general purposes. Okay? And the first thing is what we saw in Exodus chapter 19. The commands, they really do have a, really purpose. And one of the purposes of the commands or the covenant to obey the commands between God and between the people is that it would be a mark or an identification of the people who were consecrated to him.
Speaker 2:We talked briefly last week about what consecration means. For sake of review, consecration is when something is set aside from its normal use for special purposes unto God. I mean, like you set us like your life is now consecrated unto the Lord. My life no longer belongs to me in maybe the goals I had or the purposes or vision that I had or what I wanted to accomplish or what is preferential to me or what my opinions have led me to believe about the world or that I want to do. No, my life is consecrated, meaning it is set aside and set apart from its normal use that I have given to it.
Speaker 2:To say, Lord, my life is consecrated to your use and your purpose and your design. Lord, what do you, what is it that you are calling me to? Who are you calling, who are you calling me to be? Where are you calling me to go? What, how do you want me to serve?
Speaker 2:Where do I get involved in the building of your kingdom? You are the king, I am not. Or what do you have for me? To consecrate your life is to set it apart for God. And just like you and I can take steps to consecrate our individual lives, God was desiring not just an individual person, but God was desiring that there would be a whole people consecrated unto him that through them they would be the conduit of blessing from him to the world.
Speaker 2:This was established back in the first of the patriarchs, Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, verse one and two, right? I will make you a great nation. I will number your descendants more than the stars in the sky. I will bless you. I will protect you so that you will go and be a blessing to the world.
Speaker 2:He was calling a people out of the, like he was saying, Abraham, this is my promise to you, but it's really my promise to your descendants to be a consecrated people. Now here we find ourself in Exodus and the same people from the lineage of Abraham are now, the Lord is like, I am going to give you one more, there are many, circumcision being one as an example, a consecrating mark of people. But I am going to give you one more mark of consecration where it's going to be very, very obvious that you are set apart from the nations of the world around you to be my special possession. That's what he says in Exodus 19. You will be for me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a treasured possession.
Speaker 2:Interesting well, not interesting. He says this, if you obey me fully and my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Listen, although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and holy nation. God's like, I have the whole world at my disposal. All of creation is mine.
Speaker 2:Everything that has been created has been created through the words of my mouth or the breath of my lungs. But it is you, you keepers of covenant, you obeyers of this law and these commandments. It is you that I desire to make my special consecrated, set apart type of people. Now this is not different from this is not we are not exempt from this. You know, we could trace the whole lineage of Judaism and then jump into the New Testament into the life of Jesus, and then Paul's work to take the gospel that was meant for the Jewish people to the Gentile people, of which now you and I have benefited from.
Speaker 2:And and in Ephesians chapter two, Paul is writing about how the the the Jews who were the covenant keepers and and recipients of the promises of God, who were close to God, who were his holy nation, who were his consecrated people, and the Gentiles who were far away from God, and without the law, and without circumcision, and without the commands and grace of God have now been brought together and made one, one people through the grace of Jesus Christ. So that you and I now sit here under the same umbrella of covenant promise and the same umbrella of covenant responsibility that those who were ethnically Jewish people are under because of our faith in Jesus Christ. The reason I say all that is to say that you and I, as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, have the same calling and responsibility upon our lives to be a consecrated people in the world that we live in. To be a people set apart from normal use and identified purely and solely for the purposes of God and his kingdom. This is the age old question that was asked rhetorically in the gospels itself.
Speaker 2:How will the world know that you are a disciple of Jesus? How will the world know? Will it be Will the world know that you are a disciple of Jesus because you're in church this morning? No. Will the world know that you are a disciple of Jesus by how much, how generous you are?
Speaker 2:Will the world know that you are a disciple of Jesus by how much you serve charitable organizations that you're a part of, the time that you give in volunteering for other organizations. How will the world know that you have been consecrated apart from it for the special purposes of the Lord? Well, Jesus answers this very question in John chapter 13, verse 35, right? By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if what? If you love one another.
Speaker 2:The world will know who we are because of our, not our church attendance or our generosity or our charitable giving or the time we spend volunteering or I don't drink, smoke or chew, right? Or anything like that. So that's how the world's going to know that I'm a follower of Jesus. No, Jesus himself is clear that the world knows that we are his disciples when we love one another. And this is not an isolated incident in the gospel of Jesus.
Speaker 2:It's not like the only time that he mentions anything like this. In the sermon on the mount, one of the first things that Jesus says after the beatitudes is he encourages those who would follow him and to live in, like to live into their kingdom citizenship to be salt and light. Salt, I mean you know salt is the most kind of like the most universal seasoning in all of the world and it makes every single thing that you put on it better. I mean, it's just better. Right?
Speaker 2:It makes everything better. We're listening to a message from John Maxwell this past week at a leadership conference. And he was talking about John Maxwell, a pastor and leadership, kind of a leadership legend says, Salt makes everything better and light makes everything brighter. And as followers of Jesus Christ, as disciples of Jesus Christ, our presence in every place we go should make it better and brighter. Meaning that our life should be so different from the life of those around us that are not following Jesus That it is impossible to ignore the presence of a life or a person who has been set apart for the purposes of God.
Speaker 2:Because I don't see my life as making The only reason I see my life is to make it better and brighter to the grace of God for the glory of God. My life has been consecrated. Every place I go will be better for the glory of God. Every place I go will be brighter for the glory of God. Everything I do will be for the glory of God.
Speaker 2:And when people look at me, they will be like, Oh yeah, he follows Jesus. Very clear to see. He follows Jesus. He follows Jesus. Consecrated, right?
Speaker 2:The Lord, all the way back in Exodus was like, this is going to be a consecrating mark for you. Treasure possession, holy nation, kingdom of priests, you're going to follow my commandments. And that's how people around you are going to know that you belong to me and I belong to you. Wait a second pastor. Jesus is saying that it's, they will know, the world will know that I'm a follower of Jesus because of my love.
Speaker 2:Like Exodus is saying here that like, okay, God's like, you're going to be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation, my treasure possession. If you obey the laws, the commands, the covenant that I give you, where is like love over here and the commands over here? Like, I don't, they seem like two different things. Am I obeying the commands or am I loving one another? And the answer is yes, you are.
Speaker 2:You absolutely are. Because very clearly there was this religious spirit in the time of Jesus who wanted to hold these two things in tension in order to trap Jesus. And so the Pharisees and the Sadducees came up to Jesus in sort of a like trapping type of way. Well, okay, Rabbi, if you know all, if you're so close to the Father, what then is the most important of all the what? Commands.
Speaker 2:And what does Jesus answer? He's like, well, there I will tell you exactly the most important commandment. Matthew chapter 22 verse 36 through 40. We should have it up here for you. This is the first and greatest commandment.
Speaker 2:And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the prophets hang on these two things. So like Jesus himself has said, like, listen, is it about love or is it about obedience to the commands? And Jesus answers the question by saying, yes, it is.
Speaker 2:We're going go a little bit further in this, but the question that I want to leave for us, listen, is do you as now not Jewish, but as followers of Jesus Christ, disciples of Jesus Christ, under the same covenant promise and responsibility of being a consecrated people, do you love others in such a deep and radical way that you stand out from those around you that aren't following Jesus? Can your love for others be distinguished from an unbelieving world? Can it be identified as a marker that indicates that person right there is following Jesus clearly? Because the depth of their love, the breadth of their love, the uncharacteristic nature of their love, their love is so radically on display for God and for other people that it is so clear they are not like everyone else. That is the mark of consecration.
Speaker 2:And that is the mark of the disciple who seeks to follow Jesus. Now chapter 20 really is just all of these commands. These 10 commandments really is just the continuation of the conversation that happened early in chapter 19 that we just read, where God was like, You know who I am. You know what I've done. Follow my commands and covenants, and you will be consecrated.
Speaker 2:Obedience to my commands is a consecrating act. And then he starts out verse 20 in the same way. Okay, here come the commands that I was talking about. But before we get started, I want you to remember, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt, who rescued you from the hands of your captors. And then he gives the commands just like we are maybe used to reading them.
Speaker 2:You shall know other gods before me. Do not create, make for yourself any idols. Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath day, honor your father and mother. Do not murder.
Speaker 2:Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false testimony against your neighbor. Do not covet. Now we could, and it's not I'm not saying it would be like would be a good task to go through each of these commandments this morning.
Speaker 2:We would not get very far if we were to kind of discuss them in totality. So I've chosen instead to take a kind of a broader wide picture of them for us this morning. And trying to understand what the purpose of them are rather than understanding what it means to not lie. Because I think in many ways, God has pretty unambiguously made these clear. Right?
Speaker 2:If you're asking me or asking anyone, well what does it mean to steal? I mean, you might just come up and be like, hey, I'm stealing things, and, I wanna know if there's kind of like some spiritual work around my theft. Maybe I don't really understand stealing in the Hebrew. No, stealing in the Hebrew means stealing in the English as well. So there's some level of like, God kind of made these things unambiguously clear.
Speaker 2:There's some intricacies to them, but that's maybe a little bit beyond our scope for this warning. But our third point, the third main point is salient here, and that's what I want to move forward on for the rest of our time this morning, is that the laws and commands of God were not and are not meant to be burdensome for our lives, but rather free us into the life that God has designed and, and designed for us, desired and designed for us. We often look at them as things that God is saying, don't do. And they obviously are saying, God is saying, don't do them. Many people in here just love being told what not to do?
Speaker 2:I know, I know virtually no one who loves being like, Oh man, I could really use someone to clamp down on all the freedom that I want to have for my life and tell me no to a bunch of things. Really jonesing for that this Sunday morning. But that often is the attitude that we approach the commands with. Okay, understand that. Maybe you'll have a little bit better of a response on this one.
Speaker 2:How many people love or appreciate even when someone who loves them warns them, warns you not to make a decision that they know will destroy your life. Yeah. Like someone who's maybe been in a situation that you've been in before, or has seen the direction that you're traveling before in their own life or in the life of others, and with a heart of love and a spirit of love come to you and say, I need you to hear this with love and You know that I love you. You know that I'm for you. You have seen me.
Speaker 2:You have seen my presence in your life, right? We have built relationship. You have seen me over the long haul. I need you to hear me say, please don't do that. It will not turn out well.
Speaker 2:Almost no one likes to be told, hey, don't do that. You're not allowed to do that. Big no. But most of us will receive from someone who has proved themselves in our lives and that we know loves us. We will receive from them wisdom to not do something that will destroy our life with a lot of gratefulness and appreciation and humility.
Speaker 2:See, this is so helpful and beneficial and grace filled when people do that. I've had people do that for me before, lots of times. When we're about to make a decision to do something and we're warned by someone that loves us of the danger of doing so. And some of the most painful experiences that we have in life are when someone who loves us warns us not to do something and what? We do it anyway.
Speaker 2:Because now we're not just living under the pain of the consequences that we had, we're living under the pain of the missed opportunity that God gave us to avoid it. But we said, No, I'm still the God of my life. I want you to hear this really clearly. The heart and mind and attitude, who here wants to be wise? Yeah, I want to be wise.
Speaker 2:I want wisdom. Wisdom heeds the warnings from those that love us. Hear it again? Wisdom, it's even on the screen for you, a picture of it. Wisdom heeds the warnings from those who love us.
Speaker 2:It is unwise to receive a warning from someone who has demonstrated their faithfulness and love in our life. It is unwise to like not listen to that. It is unwise to be like, ah, but I'm going to do it anyway. It stands in a place of foolishness is the way that Proverbs primarily speaks as the opposite of wisdom is foolishness. We become a fool when someone who loves us and has who has displayed faithfulness on the in our life tells us not to do something and we do it anyway, we show ourselves to be a fool.
Speaker 2:Listen, God's commands, God's laws, God's covenant keeping promises are given to us by someone who has proved his faithfulness, has proved his presence, has proved his love, and come from him with the heart of wanting you to avoid death and destruction in your life. The heart of God's commands are not that he would clamp down on all the fun you wanted to have. The heart of God's commands are a, don't do these things because it will destroy you if you do. It will destroy your life. It will kill your relationships.
Speaker 2:It will empty your character. Now listen, this goes back this this goes back all the way to the very beginning of sin in Genesis chapter two. Is that is that God's God's prohibition against eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was what? So that they would avoid what? Death.
Speaker 2:Genesis chapter two verses sixteen and seventeen. And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good of evil. For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. That from the very beginning, God's command or prohibition or restriction against something was in an effort to help the ones he loved avoid death and destruction in their life. Don't do this, it will hurt you.
Speaker 2:When God says no, God says, Don't hurt yourself. Idolatry will ruin your life. Adultery will ruin your life. Not ever resting will ruin your life. Murdering tends to be a life ruiner.
Speaker 2:Stealing, lying, coveting ruins your life. And in this way, when we approach the commands of God as a gift of his grace to prevent us from destruction, the scales from our eyes can begin to be lifted and taken apart and we can begin to see why Jesus even himself would say things, like he said in the gospels, or his disciples would say things like they said in their, in their epistles. For instance, in John, in first John chapter five verse three, we read this last week. When we begin to see that that God's when God gives commands, he's saying, I love you. Please don't hurt yourself.
Speaker 2:Now it becomes, Oh, God desires to protect me. In fact, this is love for God to keep his commands and his commands are not burdensome. Jesus said in John chapter 14 verse 15, If you love me you will obey my commands. Important here to see that even in Jesus' words that obedience can't that there is a right reason to obey. And the right reason to obey Jesus is or to obey the commands is a relationship of love that has been developed between the God who gives commands those who receive and the people who receive them.
Speaker 2:If you love me, you will obey my commands. Listen, I want you to hear this. The commands of God seem burdensome and restrictive when we are living with a heart that still sees us as Lord of our lives. The commands become burdensome and restrictive when we have not surrendered Lordship of our heart to him. When we submit and surrender our life, our will, our heart, when we consecrate fully our being to the Lord, it's no longer the law of myself that I live by.
Speaker 2:It is now his law and his command and his desire that rules and reigns in my heart and in my mind and in my life. The commands become burdensome when our when they encounter the hardness of a heart that will not submit to God. And the words, I mean, the words of the apostle John are really, really big words where it's a really, really big pill to swallow if we are kind of sitting under this burden of, or we're sitting under this weight of feeling the burdensomeness of the commands of God. Listen, to live lives of truth for me, just to allow the word of God through the Holy Spirit of God to call out the hardness of your heart or to call out the deception of your mind that is keeping you in a place of relationship with God that feels restrictive and unloving and judgmental and shameful. Listen, we trust the word of God here.
Speaker 2:One John two:three-five. We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, I know him, but does not do what he commands, is a liar and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. The goal ultimately when it comes to the commands of God, the law of God, I think is really, not the personified goal, but like the biblical description of the goal is laid out really perfectly.
Speaker 2:In fact, we're going to make this our prayer this morning as we close this portion of our service. Comes from Psalm one, Where, Oh man, the commands of God, the laws of God, they're burdensome. And I feel so restricted. Like I just can't live my own life. And like, I want to believe and I want to feel set free from the command from like that commands and the laws of the Lord are something that set me free to live the life that He has designed and desires for me and frees me and protects me from destructive things that I would pick up and do.
Speaker 2:Psalm chapter one is the prayer of the person who it says delights in the law of the Lord. I'm gonna read it over you and then pray for us this morning. Psalm chapter one. Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, they meditate day and night.
Speaker 2:That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they prosper whatever they do prospers. But not so the wicked, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. If you are sitting in a place this morning a feeling like the commands of the Lord, the law of the Lord, the conviction of the Lord is simply a burdensome list of things that you simply do not want to do.
Speaker 2:I'm asking you to come to a place this morning of surrender of yourself, Recognizing that it is that John himself or the scriptures call the one who says, I know him, but does not do what he commands a liar and the truth is not in him. But if we are to have if we are to have a heart and an attitude and a lifestyle that obeys the word of God, then John says that it is then that God's love is truly made complete in us. So if you've been striving in your life to be your own law giver, your own commander in chief, and have experienced yourself the way in which spurning the commands of God creates destruction and death and pain in your life. Calling you to come to the Lord in repentance of that this morning. To surrender over and turn over your role as commander in chief, as your own law giver, as the captain of your own ship, as the ruler of your own soul.
Speaker 2:And instead, in
Speaker 1:response to God's great love shed abroad in our hearts
Speaker 2:of through Jesus Christ. To lay down soul the worship of yourself and and to pick up instead a life consecrated to Jesus, surrendered to him, eager to obey his law and his love. It is in you when you do that that Psalm one becomes not just the goal but becomes the reality. When you delight in the law of the Lord, you meditate on it day and night, you become like a tree planted by streams of water that will yield its fruit in season and season. We pray a prayer written based off of Psalm one this morning as we invite our worship team back forward this morning.
Speaker 2:Heavenly father, we thank you for the gift of your word, which is our delight and our guide. Keep us from walking in the counsel of the wicked, from standing in the way of sinners and from sitting, Lord, in the seat of scoffers. Plant our hearts deep in the truth of scripture like a tree firmly rooted by streams of living water. Let us drink daily from your wisdom so that in every season our life may bear fruit that honors you. Lord, guard us from dryness of soul.
Speaker 2:Keep us from being blown about by every wind of temptation or fear. Help us to remember that the way of the wicked will perish with the way of the righteous is known and kept by you. Lord, make us steadfast, fruitful, and faithful so that our lives would be a testimony of your grace and a reflection of your son, Jesus Christ, whose name we pray. Amen. Lord, you rule and you reign over all of the earth.
Speaker 2:Lord, all of over all of creation is your name that is sung. Glory, glory, glory, glory to your name, Lord. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. We sing that over all of creation, Lord, and we sing it now over our own hearts. Lord, that our hearts would live in a perpetual state of surrender to you, Lord, your Lordship, for your glory in our lives.
Speaker 2:We love your law, Lord. We obey it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Kind of it.
Speaker 2:Have a great week. You are loved. See you next time.
