The Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Good morning my name is Chet I'm one of the pastors excited to get to study the word with y'all this morning go to grab a Bible and go to Exodus chapter 20. if you don't have a Bible with you there should be one stuck under the chair in front of you if you don't own a Bible take one of these blue ones home with you that's our gift to you we want you to own a Bible but we are working our way as a Church through the book of Exodus and we have slowed down over the past 10 weeks to walk through the Ten Commandments and we are on the 10th commandment.

And so we are studying the Ten Commandments together and learning one of the things that we've discussed throughout is that we are predisposed As Americans to have a certain type of morality that makes sense to us primarily we think of things as being wrong or right based off of does it hurt someone so even say things like do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone we also consider things right or wrong based off of fairness but there are other categories that we disregard.

But we need to God's approach to morality is broader than ours it's greater than ours and that we need to adjust and learn and one of the things we've seen is we've studied the Ten Commandments is that God uh promotes human flourishing through these Ten Commandments that if we learned to practice these and follow these life would be better our culture would be better society would be better and that in the Ten Commandments we see God's General design and we'll see the rest of the law kind of grows out of these.

First ten but we're on the tenth one and it's Exodus chapters 20 verse 17. and so it says this you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors now in order for this to be understandable at all we need to know what the word covet means because if you have no definition for that it's like what what did I do to my neighbor's donkey what is coveting coveting is desire wanting.

But it's a specific type of desire a specific type of want craving that is by its very nature sinful there are some desires that are not sinful and so we're going to take our time this morning to try to understand where does desire where does this want become sinful so we're going to pray for our time and then we'll pick right back up there Louie asks that as we study your word together that your Holy Spirit would be at work as we study covetousness which is primarily something that happens inside of us that your Holy Spirit would help us to.

See it so that we might turn from it and turn to you and we ask for your grace and your presence and we ask that all this will be done for your glory in Jesus name amen so there are some desires that are not by their very nature sinful Jesus got hungry Jesus in the garden prays that this cup would pass from him that he wouldn't have to go through with what was about to go through but he submits himself to the Lord's will.

So just wanting a thing isn't necessarily bad there are certain things that we're told in the Bible that are good to want like it's good to want to be a pastor it's good to want a spouse it's fine to want children like there's things that are good things that we should work towards but coveting is a desire that is in its own on its own sinful and and we're going to give a definition to it but let's read this you shall not desire your neighbor's house you shall not want your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors it's this desire.

Of this wanting that is sinful and I think there's two ways that we'll see that it's sinful one is is a desire for something or someone that is not yours to desire your neighbor's spouse is not yours to desire so by having any desire for your neighbor's spouse you are Desiring something that is not yours to desire and therefore it's out of bounds but I think also as we study this together see that it is Desiring something that is good or.

Okay to desire but Desiring it inordinately Desiring it too much and that is where we suddenly have a lot of questions because this commandment is distinct from the other ten the other or the other nine this is the tenth one there's not another ten you can watch someone commit the other ones you can testify to it you can see it happen you can if you practice one of the other ones no yes I stole that you might have some questions about whether or not this was slander or gossip or whatever.

But you you there's something that's physically taking place you're speaking you're there's words being exchanged when you lie about somebody when you steal something when there's a murder the tenth commandment happens inside of you and it changes our understanding of the Ten Commandments drastically God is giving the law to the people of Israel and he's telling them things like You're Going To Worship me you're not going to have Idols there's going to be a day of worship set aside you're going to be you're going to honor your mother.

Father just helping you all out since the kids are in here this morning they're going to honor your mother and father you don't murder don't steal don't commit adultery he's given all these commands we're going right right right and then he says and don't covet and suddenly it's like wait that hmm that happens just in here that's something I do here and here like if we were talking about laws for South Carolina and we were like and this is a law about property and this is all about driving oh and you're not allowed to sink this you'd immediately be like not allowed to think a thing.

First thought might be how they going to catch me I think whatever I want problem when God gives a law like this is that he knows what's going on inside of you this is some ways terrifying he's talking about what's happening in your heart what's happening in your mind and he cares about it and he's prohibiting things that can't take place inside of us not just things that happen outside of us and so this one's different and suddenly I think rightfully we should have a lot of questions how do I know.

If I've done this how do I see this in myself one of the things I said when we were introducing the Ten Commandments was that much of American consumerism is based off of covetousness we see something we want it we go get it and immediately we had a lot of questions and I think good questions I'm going to give you some examples of the type of questions that I was Fielding after that week and I know some of you all have been looking forward to this week to try to.

See how do I discern this someone said Okay I want shoes I need shoes and I just want them I need them mine have worn out I have a certain type of shoe that I want so I do a little research I then see a person I know wearing the kind of shoe I'm looking for I asked them where they got that shoe I go buy that shoe was that covetousness I think that's a good question I'm at my friend's house and he has an air fryer and I learned new information to me that air fryers can reheat fried chicken which is a problem I've had my entire life on the off chance that Fried.

Chicken escapes the first plate I'd like for it to show up on a second but for anyone who's ever microwaved Fried Chicken you know how utterly disappointing that is so I go buy an air fryer I don't wait till my friend's not looking hit him over the head with a vase and take his air fryer I just go get my own have I coveted I think we have questions like nobody asked me this one I've added this one just to try to help us continue to think.

But I think we have questions like okay leaving consumerism leaving how we approach that and how we know about things if I see an advertisement or whatever we're going to talk more about that but I don't want my neighbor's wife I don't want my neighbor's husband I just want my husband to be more like that is that covetousness so what we're going to do is I have eight tests eight questions for us to ask ourselves to try to identify covetousness in our hearts some of them are similar to other ones some of them are different it's just trying to come at this from different angles to try to say hey.

If this matters to God and if it's something that happens internally and I won't always have external evidence of it how do I know if I'm coveting first test are you Desiring something that is not yours to desire this one's pretty straightforward but wherever there is scarcity meaning some limited resources you could actually say no I don't just want my husband to be like that I want Carl I want Tina that's coveting it's clear straightforward I actually don't just want a house like that I want that house and I'm longing.

For that house and I'm trying to work my situation such that I could eventually have that house I want that job so I want to get this person out of the job so I can have that job that's coveting that's specifically what he is talking about very clearly here this happens when on a small scale when one of my children is holding a popsicle and the other kid immediately wants a popsicle as you do and then the one with the popsicle says oh this is the last popsicle.

And so now I I went from new watch a child go from wanting a popsicle to wanting that popsicle and so when that is happening that's covetousness and so it's one of the first questions to ask do I want that specific one that I would take it that I would get it from that person that I'm going to Crave it desire it second test are you willing to sin to obtain your desire I think if you would consider this for a moment you'll.

See that covetousness is actually behind much of the Ten Commandments then it happens first when you commit adultery you have first desired your neighbor's spouse we see in Joshua 7 21 and Micah 2 2 and in the story of Adam and Eve that they first desired a thing and then took it so they coveted something that was not theirs to covet they belonged to someone else and then they took it so that covetousness is behind theft and other types of Disobedience to.

God James 4 2 says you desire and do not have so you murder you covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel so that covetousness shows up in our actions so let's say if we spent this past week realizing that there are things that you lie about you slander people and you need to work on this one of the things you need to do is not just go I shouldn't lie I shouldn't lie about people but actually go why am I doing that in the.

First place and go a level deeper and begin to repent of your covetousness that you wanted this thing so bad you were willing to sin to have it one of the things they look for in a lot of crimes is motive and I honestly think if you're watching those kind of shows one of the things you could replace that with is just what type of covetousness was present prior to this crime being committed was it Financial was it relational was there adultery.

And then murder that sort of thing so are you willing to sin to obtain it and I think it's worth understanding that even in the small ways that we sin maybe you haven't committed murder but in the ways that you walk around angry at your neighbor that you might understand there's something underneath that third do you believe stuff equals The Good Life if you don't welcome to the United States we'll catch you up Luke 12 15. Jesus teaching and someone in Middle from the crowd says.

Jesus tell my brother to share the inheritance with me Jesus responds to the whole crowd he responds to that guy but then he responds to the whole crowd and he said to them take care and be on your guard against all covetousness four which when you're studying your Bible pay attention to words like four and therefore or because it helps you understand four lot one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions I think this one is very helpful.

For our air fryer question is it wrong to own an air fryer I hope not I own one is it wrong for me to buy into the LIE that life is made better by stuff and that life is made up of stuff yes and I should be on guard against that but if we're honest that's what we're trained in if you could just have this new Gadget if you could just have this type of clothes if you could just have this thing life would be better life would be more full.

If you consider how we think about things when we hear that someone wins the lottery we're like ah take it to the good life you hear that someone got a a big promotion they're going to make a lot more money that's the life when you dream about your future is it just you with more stuff what are you what are you working towards it's like well in 10 years I'm on a boat well there's a good chance that you've believed a lie that stuff equals The Good Life that life consists in the abundance of possessions this is what advertising does what it tries to convince you of a lot of products.

If you'll pay attention to the advertising it's not just saying some some of it does some of them says here's the problem and here's how our product fixes that problem but a lot of times the product just sells you on being a type of person or living a type of life this type of man wears this watch if you like skateboards you'll like Mountain Dew or whatever or if you like Mountain Dew you'll be cool enough to like skateboards their professionals are kind of confusing.

But they're selling you on some sort of like car commercials where it's just cool people riding around in the car I don't tell you anything about the car you just know cool people drive that car one of my favorite examples of this that has stuck with me forever I used to work at Sears selling appliances and so I'd be in the mall a good bed and I would take my lunch breaks he had like 20 minutes to walk down get some food go back and I would.

See people carrying Abercrombie and Fitch shopping bags like they went there and they bought stuff now I don't know if Abercrombie and Fitch is still cool but it was when I worked at Sears it's a clothing company that sold expensive cool clothing on their bag was a guy with no clothes on the top half of a naked guy and this is a clothing company if you buy their clothes you will be cool enough to not wear clothes I don't but it proves the point that what we're being sold on is this is a piece of the good life this is a piece of identity this is a piece of who you want to be this.

Is a piece of fulfillment and Jesus says be on guard against that and for us that means 24 7 being on guard against that because we are bombarded with that message so Maybe when you buy an air fryer it was absolutely covetousness maybe when you buy those shoes it was absolutely Covetous maybe when you hear the words come out of your mouth hey where'd you get that shirt it's a hundred percent covetousness and it's worth investigating and trying to figure out what's going on in your heart and what's happening in your belief system as far as where is life found four the next three come from Kevin Dion's book on the Ten Commandments I thought.

He worded them well I thought they were helpful tests and so the next three are from from Kevin to Young and the way he approached us in his book on the Ten Commandments number four are you preoccupied with accumulating more how do you spend your time how do you spend your downtime how do you spend the majority of your time what do you daydream about I think we'll find that there are times when we say I'd love to help I'd love to be able to hang out with our community group I'd love to be there on Sundays.

But too busy I think it's always worth asking too busy with what what does your life look like what are you preoccupied with in the parable of the sower Jesus says there's a sower that goes out and sows the word and there's one where it believes the word and it begins to grow and then it says the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of richers choke the word out so that it is unfruitful and some of you maybe are Christians and you've believed in.

Jesus but you've bought into the lie you're preoccupied with accumulating more and that's what your time goes to it's what your energy goes to what do you what do you spend your time doing what gets the bulk of your energy I understand Bible says that work is good and that we're to pay our own way and that we're to be busy all those things are fine but is that all you care about is that all you work on I think asking the question what do you daydream about is a good question is it just you and the future with more stuff sometimes it gets real specific you just daydream about how cool it would be.

To own a motorcycle and yeah we daydream about some stupid stuff sometimes I have sat around thinking about how great it would be to own a shed and you're like that's a sad little wife yeah that sounds pretty sad just to be like pumped about owning a shed but there are certain things that we'll sit and think man it wouldn't be great if I had this one if I did this if I could and so are we preoccupied with um accumulating more can you not rest can't Sabbath can't take a day off you got.

So much to do because your whole life is built around getting more fifth test do you lack generosity are you unwilling to give up what you already have this is an indication that you may be struggling with covetousness that you believe that life is made up in the abundance of possessions and so therefore anything that takes anything away from you robs you of the point of life robs you of life and therefore any amount of generosity is hard hurtful frustrating you guard your money.

Because your money equates to fullness life Delight Joy I think sometimes we say things like I would I would I'd love to give to that I'd love to get in a place where I could be generous but my budget's just too tight and so I think if that's you take a look at your budget because it'll tell you what you care about we make room for stuff I in general we're taught to make this much money and make your budget here often we make our budget here.

Therefore we actually spend up here but as Christians we should make this much money and make our budget here and if we start making more money our budget can go up some maybe but maybe what we give also grows exponentially that we get to be generous and so if you can't be generous there's a good chance that you believe and I'm not saying if you make very little money and you're fine but I everybody can find ways to be generous in some form or fashion.

And so if that doesn't ever happen for you and you've said this for years if I could just get to there but you've actually gotten a promotion you've actually begun to make a little more money you've actually both of y'all are working now or whatever and it still hasn't happened there's a good chance you struggle with covetousness number six do you Grumble and complain about life do you say must be nice a lot I must be nice this is where I think I don't actually want to marry that guy I just want my guy to be more like that guy I think that shows up here I just wish that my wife cooked like that.

Or would go get a job like that I wish that my husband would treat the kids like that or would fix things instead of breaking things or whatever what we often do when we're doing that is we compare somebody else's best qualities with somebody else's worst qualities but do you find that you complain a lot you Grumble a lot I wish I had that car everybody else gets to have this kind of thing everybody else gets to do one of these like you spend time on Facebook.

And then you're just frustrated everybody else gets to go on vacation everybody else gets to smile in pictures everybody else smile looks good in pictures I wish I had those parents I wish I had that hair as if life not lamenting sin not lamenting the Brokenness in the world but lamenting your lot in life as if you're owed more and that everybody else is succeeding around you and you're the only one as if if you had those things that would fix what what's going on in your heart.

So do you Grumble and complain I think this is where the TV show HGTV comes in or the channel I think you can watch that you can learn things it can be just whatever so I'm but I also think that you can watch HGTV and then hate your own house go to someone else's house ever been to someone else's house and it's nice and you walk around and go this is nice wow and then you go back to your house and you go what a dump have you ever been mad at the amount of bathrooms your house had like more people need to go to the bathroom in my house at one time or your.

Functional perfectly functional bathroom now doesn't have the things that it should have to make it feel like a special fancy like this that's this is this I I now have created a desire a want a frustration and I'm grumbling and complaining and no longer content this next one goes with it number seven does the joy of others make you discontent you ever been just having like a normal day and then someone else comes and has a happy day next to you.

So your day is now worse you ever been enjoying a meal eating with some people but there's that table that won't stop laughing and having more fun than you and so now your meal is worse I my sons showed me this stuff periodically and I can see it clearly in them but it helps me see it more in myself but I know there have been times where one of my sons has to go to school wakes up normal day rocking along going to school.

Then suddenly discovers that his brother does not have to go to school whoa whoa his day is now worse he's going to do the exact same stuff but somewhere out there his brother is not suffering also and now things are worse but we do that something that actually has no effect on our life whatsoever but they have a new car they got to go on a vacation they got a promotion you're hanging out with your community group someone announces something you're like oh that's.

So good you but then you get in your car and you're like why God why is it always them never me and so someone else's Joy rather than you getting to be included in the joy makes life worse that's covetousness that someone else is getting married someone else is having kids someone else got a job someone else gets a vacation and therefore your life is worse but that's not actually how it works and the truth is if we can learn to do what Paul says which is to Rejoice with those who Rejoice you can actually increase your joy by getting to share in the joy of others.

So to tell my sons if you'll learn how to have all your own victories and then share in your brothers you'll get double the victories if you learn how to rejoice when he rejoices in your community group if you learn how to genuinely rejoice when other people rejoice but so often it happens the other way because of covetousness number eight test does what you desire make God-sized promises to you okay there are certain claims promises that only God can deliver on hope true Delight satisfaction salvation fixing what's wrong with you.

But then there are things that promise to do that for us this is idolatry this is this is Paul talking about this he does it in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 Ephesians 5 for you may be sure of this that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is Covetous that is an idolater has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God for Colossians 3 5 put to death therefore what is Earthly in you sexual immorality impurity passion evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry.

So in the Ten Commandments the first one was you will have no other gods before me and the second was you will make no Idols you have no graven images you'll have nothing that you look to and worship and long for and then Paul is saying that's exactly what covetousness is and that makes a lot of sense that's why we'd sin to get it if I if you're willing to sin to get something it's actually because you believe that it will satisfy you in a way that Christ can't.

So it's worth disobeying him it's worth running from him it's worth doing something that you know he says is out of bounds because you really want this thing that's idolatry it'll bring me more joy it'll bring me more hope it will fill me up I'll be satisfied so what in your life do you say if I could just have blank everything would be fixed if I could just get this job I could just make this much money one of the scariest ones.

If I could just get married oh Lord help your future spouse because you need them to be Jesus and they are not if I could just have kids oh Lord help your kids you need them to fix what's wrong with you you need them to satisfy bring you hope and this isn't just struggling in life and saying Lord help provide I'd love to get another job and trusting in Him in the midst of it that's what Jesus prays in the garden he says.

If if this can happen but I trust you but idolatry is I just need this I don't need you and if you won't let me have this then I'll get rid of you so I can have it I'll sin to get it I'll chase after it no matter what you're you're the one who's disposable if you'll serve my real God I'll follow you but if you won't serve my real God I'm out this is why you'll sleep with your boyfriend it's where your real.

God is this is why you'll embezzle or steal or lie or whatever is because this is the real thing I want and as long as God's lined up and helping me have the kids I want to have then great but if God won't give them to me then I'm over here this is why often when we get the thing we don't need God anymore we've got the thing we wanted it's idolatry and it can be seen easily at times sometimes we have little ones actually I love this tweet.

Because it just resonates with me so well this is a tweet in 1998 I begged my mom to buy Me jinko jeans she agreed but only on the condition we do a photo shoot to prove to My Future Self how stupid I looked Look Who's laughing now Mom I love this I'm gonna move out of y'all's way so y'all can appreciate jinkos now some of you are like what on Earth is a jinko gene it could be bell bottoms it could be a perm it could be a type of car it could be a type of jacket we've all done this.

If I could have this thing y'all when I was in Middle School I died just the top of my head White why not your whole head you ask I don't know I was in Middle School and it was awesome for like a week I was like nailed it and then I had to keep looking at myself and I was like this is stupid but your hair doesn't grow that fast you just have to deal with it you know eventually I had those little frosted tips you know this is a clear example of.

If I could have this thing be all we hadn't stopped since middle school some of us have just picked a bigger one if you'd actually think back through your life there's 10 things you've already gotten and they just didn't do it so you quit daydreaming about them you quit putting your hope in them and you just picked a new thing to put your hope in and that's covetousness and that's idolatry those are our eight tests and I think if you take the time to consider them they will help you figure out what is going on what it is that you truly are chasing after and whether or not you were walking in covetousness.

But here's the wonderful thing this commandment I said at the beginning it's kind of terrifying because God's looking inside of you and saying this is a problem too but y'all that's wonderful if the Ten Commandments were all only things that we did rules about things that you're not supposed to do that mess up society that would be good and helpful but when he puts this one in here he does something in the tenth and in the first that tie together and the.

First he says you'll have no other gods before me and when he talks about idolatry in the second one he says he's a jealous God meaning that he desires our affection and when he gets to this one he says I care about your heart you should look at the Ten Commandments tenth commandment and no that Jesus loves you that God loves you you that he cares about what is happening inside of you you know I care about my children's Behavior that they don't make my house a terrible place to live.

But yeah I care about what's going on inside of them I care about their heart I care about their relating to me to their mom to each other and when God puts this in here the Ten Commandments go from don't mess up the nation I'm building to oh no no no no no it's so much more than that because we would look at this as Americans and go okay I understand why covetousness is bad down the line I understand how it can tear things up later.

If I steal or I murder or whatever but just what's going on inside of me is my own business this is a victimless crime and God says no you're the victim of your own sin and your own Brokenness and you're robbing yourself of joy and delight and you're robbing yourself of me and I won't have it and we know he won't have it we know he cares this much about our hearts not just because he gives us the tenth commandment.

Because Jesus comes to Earth to die to claim us pay for our sins certainly but because he loves us and wants us to belong to him forever he doesn't just come and say I'm going to pay for your sin so that you won't be sinful and you'll quit annoying me and you'll quit messing things up he comes and says I'm going to pay for your sins so that you can belong to me forever so you can be adopted in so you can be my cherished possession.

So that as Paul says who loved me and gave himself up for me this is wonderful and in Christ we have hope that he redeems sinful broken Wicked Ten Commandment breaking Rebels and he does it because he loves us and cherishes us and is unwilling that we would love something else but that we would know fully who he is and how wonderful he is so the hope of finding out are we Covetous is not so that we'll quit being bad.

So that we might Delight in Jesus who is the only one in whom we will ever find satisfaction salvation and Delight that we might clear out the Clutter so we can have more of Christ it's worth it because he's worth it and because he loves us enough to take our hearts and claim them let's pray Lord we pray that we would not covet they would help us to see it in ourselves that we would repent of it that we would cherish you above all else that you would be our highest affection.

Because only in you what we find satisfaction and Delight we ask that your Holy Spirit would be at work in us right now to help us to begin to see this that you'd help us to grow and fight against be on guard against all covetousness so that we might know that life is found in you in Jesus name amen the band's going to come back up in a moment we're going to sing and we're going to take communion communion is a celebration a practice of the Church to.

Remember physically remind ourselves and physically Proclaim that Jesus died to save Sinners to Proclaim his death until he comes and so if you are a Christian communion is for you to partake in in Repentance and faith so that you would take a moment to consider what Christ has done for you the cost of your faith and that you might repent that you might come to him once again saying I need you I need you to work in my heart I need you to claim my heart I need you to keep me you.

But I have you but I get to par take in your salvation so we partake and it's a physical thing that reminds you that you feel the reality of what he's accomplished for us if you are not a Christian communion is not for you but Christ is Christians to celebrate what Christ has done just as baptism is and we would invite you to come to him and say I need you to save me I need you to change my heart because I'm on I want you could follow all the Ten Commandments to the best of your ability you would still fall short and you would still not fix what is going on in you.

You would still miss the point which is that Christ is good and he redeems sinners so may you come to him and ask for forgiveness and ask for Grace and trust in him today so take a moment where you are to consider ask the Lord to help you see where you are Covetous repent and then Delight in the sacrifice made on your behalf.

The Ninth Commandment (Exodus 20:16)

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The Eighth Commandment (Exodus 20:15)

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The Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:14)

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Unfortunately, we had technical difficulties with this week’s sermon and none of the audio was recorded. If you questions about the content of the seventh commandment as you prepare for group meeting time this week, email spencer@millcitycayce.com.

The Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

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The Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

My name is Chet I'm one of the pastors here grab a bobble and go to Exodus chapter 20. if you have one of these blue baubles in the seat in front of you it'll be page 35 we are back in the book of Exodus we took a few weeks off around Easter but we are working our way through Exodus and we've slowed down some as we've hit the lawn we've been working our way through the Ten Commandments and we have covered the.

First four and the first four Commandments to deal with our relationship to God who he is who we are how we're to relate to him how we're to worship him and that the last six Commandments deal with our relationship with each other so it's there's a vertical aspect of the Ten Commandments and there's this horizontal relational aspect of the Ten Commandments and we are in the fifth commandment today when Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment he says love the.

Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength and he says in the second is like it that you would love your neighbor as yourself on these two hang all the law and the law grows out of the Ten Commandments and the Ten Commandments is structured in that way the first four to love the Lord our God and the last six are to love our neighbor and how to do that so let's read it's the Exodus chapter 20.

Verse 12. honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you I'm gonna read that one more time honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you uh Lord uh let's pray together um Lord we we're thankful for the way you designed the world to work we're thankful for the way you designed families to work I know as we read this that there's much difficulty um in how did we apply this how do we live this out there's much pain in these relationships there's a lot of joy in.

These relationships and so Lord we just pray that you would help us to listen well to your word this morning grow together as we seek to submit to you and to have the blessing that comes with honoring our fathers and mothers in Jesus name amen um so we said when we first started off looking at the Ten Commandments that there are different moral foundations for uh how are we to understand what is right and what is wrong and we said that there was a book called The Righteous Mind whereas a guy who's doing clinical psychologist who was just studying this he was studying the psychology of morality and he came up with categories and we.

Said that those categories were helpful and that you see them in the Bible although they're not listed out that way in the Bible and that in general God has all the categories and then cultures focus on highlight different ones and so we showed you this chart this is Western cultures the cultures that we're in right now the categories are at the bottom care and harm fairness loyalty Authority and sanctity but we're primarily versed in trained in we know all the lyrics to care and harm and fairness we we are concerned with Justice with Equity we're concerned with does everybody get a fair shake these are things that we discuss does everybody have an equal opportunity.

These are things that we are worried about and we are worried about harming someone we know that that's immoral to harm someone we say do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone like we we're practiced in this but this commandment rests in authority which in general we're pretty low in if I was actually to to ask you or ask the average American to list off what are the dangers that come along with authority what are the things that are immoral and wrong that go along with authority most of us would turn this direction and talk about the abuse of authority that those who are in authority lorded over others those who are.

In Authority abuse their Authority that people are oppressed because of authority you would not have many people who would turn this direction and go the rejection of good authority is harmful we need more Authority and we need more submission to Authority imagine for a moment that you are at a child's birthday party for some of you this is not difficult to imagine you've been to four this month you raise your children and then you hang out with their friends on the weekend.

But imagine you're at a child's birthday party and you see a mother and she's wearing a shirt that says raise them kind yeah that's good that's a good way to raise your children uh uh no problem with that that's a general good concept like raise some kind you might think that's a little bold to think you need to wear that like you got to coach up all the other parents let's see how kind your kid's being but then that's just because you're a little aggressive and have some problems that's fine.

But in general it's a good statement nothing wrong with that t-shirt it's a good idea we should raise your children kind but imagine you're at the party and and that's not what her shirt says her shirt says raise them obedient now immediately we're like hmm I know that's not a mass-produced shirt so you went out of your way to make it um obedient how obedient to whom obedient why obedient all the time like we have honestly the shirt could say overthrow the government and we would give that less thought than raise them obedient and that tells you something about our culture and about our approach to understanding respecting and valuing good authority.

Because the Bible is not anti-authority it's anti-bat Authority but it's pro-good Authority it just bad things are bad and good things are good which isn't super insightful so we need to understand what what is good authority and why has God designed it this way so as we study this I think the first thing we need to see it says honor your father and your mother I think the first thing we have to ask is what does the word honor mean what is that word.

Well the word is coved and it means heavy or weighty there are a few times where it's used that way like in Genesis somebody's eyes are conveyed with age which means heavy with age they can't see well there's in Sodom gomor their sin is described as conveyed and it's translated Grievous but mostly this word is used to mean Glory honor it's mostly used the way we're supposed to treat God that we're supposed to honor God we're supposed to respect God we're supposed to approach him that he holds the weight I don't know.

If you've ever been in situations where you could tell that the room tilted to one person they were the weighty person at the table they were the weighty person in decision making people would discuss things but then they would all look to one person to like you're the person who's actually going to decide this and that's what's meant to happen with parents that they're to have weight that they're to have Glory and if that's the word that's primarily used for how we're to treat.

God you have to understand that this is learned in your relationship with your parents that they're the they set the framework they're the first people you know they're your primary relationship they set the framework for how is this ultimately going to translate into the rest of life and how's this ultimately going to translate into worshiping the Lord the second part of this that's what honor means that weightiness would shift to them I think we do need to acknowledge that in much of our culture and much of our relationships we flip this and that our children hold a lot of weight a lot of families are built around what did the kids want what do they.

Want to watch what do they want to eat what do they want to do with their time what are the kids doing our whole culture has shifted towards youth culture we are not a culture that reveres elderly people when we ought to and the Bible calls us to that but we're not a culture that does that we argue that they you know got to move out of the way make room for the next big thing we in our consumeristic culture we aim everything at like 15 to 25 year olds.

And so we have some work to do to try to learn how to apply this but the second part of this is that there's a promise it says honor your father and your mother that the days that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you and that's not just the I brought you into this world I'll snatch you out of it God's saying something more here Ephesians 6 when Paul was writing about this he says children obey your parents in the.

Lord meaning this is a Godly thing to do even as Christians we anchor it in Christ for this is right honor your father and your mother this is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land there's a promise attached to this commandment and it's not simply a one-to-one promise it is generally true for each child if they learn how to do this it blesses them it helps them live long in the land it helps life go.

Well with them but it's not a specific one-to-one promise it's not like if you meet someone who's a hundred that means definitively they were excellent at obeying or if someone's life Is tragically cut short that we can be like well I guess you didn't eat all your peas at home when you're it's not how that works it's not a direct one-to-one thing it's a promise to the nation that's why he says in the land that the Lord your God is giving you that this is a blessing to the people and that makes a lot of sense your initial primary relationship is to your parents it is where you learn what relationships are like.

And so it's a Proving Ground a practice ground for what this should look like and it's bad for society when children do not learn how to respect the authority of their parents Augustine is an African Church father says if anyone fails to honor his parents is there anyone he will spare this is why it has a capital offense execution is applied in cases of rejection of authority of parents in Exodus in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy for cursing your parents striking your parents and long lifetime rejection and Rebellion against your parents all of those are capital offenses one of them actually says bring them together Stone them and let the community.

See and fear but it's not a far jump to understand that if we raise Sons who don't learn to respect authority if we raise sons who don't learn how to understand where boundaries are specifically mothers if you raise sons that don't have to listen to you and they never learn to follow a boundary set by another lady it's not a far jump to understand how that translates into society and so this is the place where we are to learn to live in relationships and there's a promise of blessing.

When we do this well that the the nation is blessed Kevin De Young Who out quite a few times because he wrote he's a pastor and wrote a book on the Ten Commandments and I thought some of his Insight was helpful he said is it not too much to say that loving your neighbor begins with Mom and Dad I think that's helpful to understand why this matters so we're going to ask three questions today we're gonna try to answer three questions.

Today how do we honor our parents how do we raise children to honor us and what do we do when our parents are dishonorable how do we honor our parents how do we raise our children to honor us and what do we do when our parents are dishonorable okay first question how do we honor our parents John Calvin says that this word honor includes three things and I think they're helpful for trying to break it out a little bit reverence obedience and gratitude.

So good handles on what should honor look like reverence obedience and gratitude reverence you show them respect you show them deference he treats them the way you would treat think of someone that like if you met the president how would you act that's the weight that's supposed to shift towards your parents some some sincere genuine honor glory weightiness reverence it means that we should watch how you speak to your parents there should be yes sirs and yes ma'ams there should be uh you shouldn't cut them off.

When they're talking you shouldn't disregard what they say you shouldn't roll your eyes you should stop and let them speak you should hear them out it should be genuine respect in how we speak to and interact with our parents you should watch how you speak not only to your parents but about your parents some of us are in a habit of dissecting our parents belittling our parents speaking ill of our parents and it's dishonoring and we need to be careful that we honor our parents there to be treated with reverence my granddad was a missionary in Nigeria and he I was at his house.

For Christmas and somebody came by and he said when did they get here I was like I think they've been here as one of my cousins and he said I miss Nigeria and I was like why he said you didn't go to a house without first presenting yourself to the Baba and you didn't leave a house without presenting yourself to the Baba and he's like I don't like people just being in my house they need to come present themselves to me and culturally we don't have a lot of that.

But we need to figure out as Christians how to how to build in respect and deference to our parents so reverence obedience do what they tell you to do this is specifically most clear for the children that live at home with your parents right now when they ask you questions like will you sweep it's not really a question you just say yes not no thank you when they say go do this you go do it it shouldn't be a labored discussion you should obey and you should obey.

When you're asked to do something yes ma'am yes sir you should um no huffing no stomping no eye rolling no groaning it shouldn't be hey I need you to go do this and you go foreign that's irreverent dishonoring you are to obey now immediate American question is what are the limits on obedience what if I'm getting older what are the like how much do I obey that's great for I'm glad you said that to my kids but me obey I'm older how do I do that in relation to my parents I will say I think Kevin young has a helpful Point here.

So I'm going to read his quote he said parents should not expect the same obedience from grown children as they did when their children were young so for those of you who have grown children you can't call them up and say hey my pastor said obey your parents clean your room quit that job I hate break up with that person I dislike and come back here like you can't it's not going to be exactly that he says we see a Divine Design in Genesis that.

Jesus later reiterates in Matthew 19. a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh there is a making of your own household that loosens the obedience but you still have to operate in the honor category and I will submit to you that because that is often our first question it is not something we are in drastic danger of what I mean is I don't think there's many people in this room who have become adults and think I just got to learn how to not immediately directly obey everything my parents tell me to do that's the thing I have a problem with I would submit.

To you that you actually need to begin heading in the other direction and start showing more honor and obedience to your adult parents in a gracious way because we don't celebrate that culturally but there is a need for some of that even as you are older in a way to show deference and honor to your parents it's difficult should be carried out with wisdom but it is a way to honor our parents even as we grow older and as they grow older.

Third one gratitude be thankful y'all I have two sons and I'm not exaggerating that I have literally not figuratively saved their lives thousands of times sometimes multiple times in the same day should I wear a cape probably but this is parenting you are here because your parents literally not figuratively saved your lives thousands of times mostly what your parents did we're going to talk about some mistakes and some sins we'll talk about that in a little while but for most of us mostly what your parents did just try their best feed you clothe you help you go to school sought to help you succeed in life gave you counsel that you disliked.

Because they like you told you things you did not want to hear because they love you mostly what your parents did was lose their hair give up their waistline give up their money give up their time so that you could exist as a real person in the world and they need to be told thank you they need to be treated with some appreciation and gratitude and for those of you who live at home with your parents everybody can make a phone call.

Today everybody can set up a meal everybody can just say how I want to talk a little bit I want to check in and see how things are going everybody can do that potentially but for those of you who live at home with your parents you will have multiple opportunities this very day to say thank you because I'm willing to bet that your parents go out of their way quite often to help your life be better it's quite possible when you get home there will be food there will be some clothes there will be parents they're genuinely trying to help you enjoy life and succeed in life and there will be many opportunities.

For you to just say thank you they fix a meal that you don't like well guess what they still fed you so you don't have to say I don't like this meal you can say thank you for cooking yeah you can show gratitude for the care that has offered you and we ought to so how do we honor our parents reverence obedience and gratitude next question how do we raise our children to honor us if your children are going to obey their parents.

If they're going to honor their parents they're going to be taught to do this by their parents because you teach them everything you do this all the time and so you have to understand that this is a thing that you ought to be teaching them for their good the reason you do this is not because they will annoy you if you don't that's just a perk it's not the reason the reason you do this is because you want them to to live.

Well and long in the land you want them to have joy you want them to have life that's the whole thing that you're doing all the time with your children is you're working for their good and so this has to be added as a category of a thing that you're going to help them do and we're not set up well as Americans to do this because the wielding of authority makes you feel uncomfortable potentially there's a potential for you to feel like I just feel.

So bossy I feel so demanding I feel like I'm just in my child's way we've been trained by our culture that what your job as a parent to do is to help your child blossom into the person they're going to be help them find themselves almost in some ways they're perfect on their own you just kind of get out of their way we're taught that your parents mess you up they don't help you y'all we're Christians we know that's nonsense if your child figures out who they are on their own we know what that is a sinner.

Look at little Timmy he's blossomed into a real jerk well I'm glad God gave him some parents somebody needs to help him out because on their own they're not just going to find every good and perfect way that God has designed for them to be some good authority in their life and so you need to understand that this is one of the roles that you occupy and you do this naturally with other things you're you're doing this all the time with your children you're helping them know what is right and what is wrong what is good and what is not and you need to understand that part of that is that they would honor.

Respect you and that's not prideful it's good for them so this is how we oh I want there's four C's we're gonna talk about I'm going to say them to you quickly and then we'll get into running through them fairly quickly as well you need consistency this is four keys to helpfully trying to train your children to honor and to respect to obey consistency correction consequences and celebration the last one could be reward but then it wouldn't be four C's so you're welcome four C's all right here's what we often do in parenting this is what parenting should.

Look like sorry Freedom should increase with age when your children are little when they're first born they have no choices whatsoever the older they get they should have more choices but two and three and four-year-olds should have very limited choices do you want to go to bed now or do you want to read a book first and then go to bed do you want to eat green beans or corn these are do you want this haircut or this haircut you want me to tighten it up or shave it all off those are the choices I give my sons like what you got some limited choices sometimes they have no choices at all eat this I.

Don't like this no that's incorrect you're supposed to say thank you sometimes they have no choices I give this choice to my children quite a lot when we went out to restaurants I would say you can calm down and eat your food with a good attitude or we can go outside I will spank you and then we will come back inside and you will calm down and eat your food with a good attitude which would you like to do and I had someone tell me one time we left and they said that was really manipulative and I said no it was not those were his actual choices he had no.

Third option and I'm trying to help him learn how to choose well but over time we increase the freedom The Hope being that when it's time to leave our house they're ready they know how to make choices we've helped get them there we've helped them think through that but here's what happens quite often is this chart we start off no rules let them just figure it out because a defiant three-year-old is cute they're a rascal a defiant little mischievous four-year-old in some way.

So many ways is precious because they can't they can't really harm you they can't really harm the people around them they can be aggravating and frustrating but you love them and so often as a parent you're just like oh well you know but the problem is at 10 11 12 13 14 those cute behaviors of rebellion and Defiance and disrespect are not cute they are dangerous and you freak out and you clamp down well then no phone no no you bring the hammer down and it doesn't go.

Well and your problem is not a new problem you say what is going on with them it's like this has been going on for 12 years so we don't want this chart if you're there by God's grace you can labor well but the Hope being that we would have the other chart so let's go through really quickly consistency all that means is do the same thing all the time all the time all the time isn't that tiring yes it is exhausting that you have to have the same rules all the time whether you are tired or they are tired whether you have eaten and whether they have eaten like these are these have to be.

The same all the time otherwise they don't know where the boundaries are it's a good way to make somebody psychotic you've got to have some good structure on this is what this looks like all the all the all the time I uh my when my oldest son was three and four I'd wake up in the morning stretch lace my shoes up because I was about to fight a three-year-old for 12 hours he was not easy there's a there's a quote from Jurassic Park.

When they're talking to the game warden and they ask are the Velociraptors smart and he goes oh they're smart and he looks at him and he says they were testing the fences for weaknesses systematically and they remember that was my four-year-old so the fence had to be there every day all the time and I would just look at him and go it hadn't moved like we're gonna you want to keep running into it it's the same thing but it has to stay.

So you need consistent correction you correct your children all the time you say things like no that's not green that's blue no that no that's not a cat that's a dog you you already all the time correcting your children one of the things you have to put in there is that you correct them on disrespect you say to them I have my oldest son at times will just come in hot with a question he'll start off with okay but why did I say stop I'll say try again I'm your daddy you want to talk to Ellis like that go.

For it or I'll say oh boy who are you talking to he'll say mama and I'll go okay no you ain't not like that sometimes I say who are you talking to and he'll go Ellis I'm gonna carry on but you're just correct you just said that's not no no that's not how you respond like I'm telling you I give my boys food and they'll say I don't like this and I'll say no that's incorrect that's not how you respond when someone gives you food.

Because you want people to feed you and you're dependent on other people to feed you what do you say when people give you food thank you there you go you nailed it and it's just correction because you expect that they're going to have to operate in a way because you're working towards their joy that you're going to train them up to understand how to live a life where there's Authority because I y'all your world is a fake little world where you have to mimic some of the real world things.

Because you're going to send them out into the real world if you don't train your children how to interact with people all the people in their life who do not love them will teach them and they will teach them by not being their friend they will teach them by being really mean to them every teacher they have will stare at them with this angry look every face they meet people won't want to watch I've explained to my boys before if you don't learn how to.

Listen to me your granddad won't take you fishing and he won't tell you he's not taking you fishing but he'll think Hmm should I take them fishing and then he'll think no because they're the most aggravating children in the world and he won't call you up and say this to you you just won't get invited and he loves you and I love you and I want you to get to go fishing so do what I'm telling you to you coach them up that's the whole point.

Okay consequences should be consistent consequences and celebration this is very simple good behavior should get good results and bad behavior should get bad results that's it and you just need to think through was this a good behavior how does it get a good result was this a bad behavior has a bad result and you have to do that all the time so the thing that I said about the restaurants that's true I've done that with both of my sons because I want us to be able to go eat at restaurants it's one of my wife and I favorite things.

If we get more disposable income we just eat more y'all but that's it and so I want to be able to eat at the restaurant and they'll terrorize me so if they throw a fit at a restaurant and I pick him up and take him outside and let him play in the grass guess who's going to throw a fit at the restaurant again because he got a reward if you've ever watched me taking a child out of a restaurant who was screaming they're already screaming I'm pinching their leg.

So that you can't see you just think he's throwing a fit on his own he is not enjoying the walk outside because I don't want him to think that this is a good thing to have happen I'll pinch his leg real hard but just enough to like us uncomfortable I'm not trying to harm him it's just got to be a negative consequence we get outside we talk often they get popped we bring them back I've done this I've ruined whole meals like this.

Because I don't want every meal ruined and I want them to learn this isn't a good behavior there's a there's a better one so there should be consequences and you should have them and know what they are you should have set ones your children should know what they are I was hanging out uh was one of the first times I ever met this guy who ends up he ended up joining our community group and his daughters were there and they were doing something he told them to stop and they said they kept on he looked at him and said do you want a consequence and they both went like this one no sir I didn't.

Know what the consequence was but they knew what the consequence was I asked him later he said sometimes he just uses the word consequence so it gives him time to make up what it's going to be which I thought was brilliant he doesn't like signing himself up for something he's going to have to stick to in the moment so he just says consequence and he'll figure it out later but they knew there was going to be one and that's all I'm saying is you've got to figure out real consequences that actually translate help them understand that's the whole point.

Because there are real life consequences to all the things they're going to do for example if I tell you to sit down and you don't sit down or if I tell you to come to me and you don't come to me there's going to be a consequence and I try to explain to my sons one day we're going to be in a parking lot and I'm going to say stop and if we haven't practiced this a thousand times in our house you're going to get hit by a truck and I don't want you to get hit by a truck.

So you're going to get hit a little bit at my house with my hand popped just a little so that there's a deterrent so that we don't ever get there and that's that's what I'm talking about and for you it may be time out for you it's just got to be real to them that's all right greater consequences for defiance and Rebellion if you saw your son I came in the other day I saw my younger son holding some of the sharpest tweezers I've ever seen in my entire life and he was near his brother's face I have no clue what they were doing.

But on the off chance it was eye surgery I walked in I saw that I went hey no you know sometimes you just make noises at your children because you don't have words or the words you have aren't good ones to shout foreign hands up put the tweezers down and to do that because the risk levels through the roof well I at one point had to explain to my wife I said hey I've realized something I'm going to have to crank up the intensity on some of the things with our children it's not.

Because I've lost my cool or I'm enraged it's because what they're doing needs to be met in their mind with the same amount of intensity because it's got the same amount of problems coming down the line one of my sons turns and yells at his mother no I am up out of my chair boy if you lost your mind because I want him to understand this same level of this is not okay I need them to do like this for just a.

Second and then we get to the next part which is celebration your house if it's going to have consistent correction and consequences it needs consistent celebration it needs to be a place of Joy that's what you want so good things need good results you need to celebrate I often after disciplining my children well then I'll hold them I say look I love you I want good things for you I'm not out to get you I want our home to be a happy place I'll tell them all the time after they get disciplined I say.

Look we're going back out there and we're reset this isn't going to hang over our head all day this is a fun place this is Joy here y'all if I I learned I used to look at my little babies and I'd be like you're gonna eat that food because they fight you over every little thing and then they would eat it and I would just stare at them like you turn right you're gonna eat the food and I realized that was.

So messed up it just did what I asked so they eat it and then I go good yeah yeah multiple occasions with my son I've said do you want to leave the restaurant go get spanked you want to calm down and eat your own food and they go calm down and eat my own food and I go that's how would it be I'm proud of you that's brilliant do that because it's the truth there ought to be times where you brag on your children make it a rule don't speak negatively about your children in front of your children speak positively about your children in front of your children brag on them to your spouse do.

You know what he did do you know how good he is you can watch them swell up when you're going to rehearse something with them rehearse what they're going to do that's good I'll put them in bed at night instead of just saying if you get out of bed again and run down the hall you're going to get popped what I'll say is hey you're going to do a really good job tonight you're going to lay in bed you're gonna calm down you're going to go to sleep we're gonna have an enjoyable night this is the moment that's going to end our night this hug you're not going to have to get bopped we're going.

To build in that direction but there should be celebration sometimes it's a high five sometimes it's a smile sometimes it's ice cream you pick sometimes it's an extra book at night or whatever sometimes it's uh they get to go on a trip if they're older kids you get to do I know most of my illustrations are I got all illustrations up to eight I'll get them more as I go over time but you think about it what's a real celebration what's a real way to honor this what's a real way.

Because y'all it's not bribery it's how the world works bad behavior gets bad results good behavior gets good results and you want to train that one last one I know we got a lot of parents with smaller children one of the rules at my house is if you pout or cry or throw a fit you don't get whatever you were pouting crying or throwing a fit for that's just simply that I don't want to train you that in order to be happy you have to be miserable it's a weird psychological thing.

So we just learned you can be okay without getting the thing you want and if you throw a fit for it you won't get it but those sort of rules you design your own they're your children they just should have consistent things because we love them and God has designed for them to have a family we have Isaac and Spencer worked really hard to get a road map for parenting that is designed off of the age of your children things you should be talking to them about things they should know about.

Jesus it's on our website you should use that you need all the help you can get we all do and you should help train your children to love you to respect and honor you both mother and father specifically to dads don't get in a situation where you may get a point of Pride that your children listen to you and they don't listen to their mother don't do that you help design a household where they listen to their mother as well because they're supposed to honor both their.

Father and mother and their needs training in them okay yeah what do we do when our parents are dishonorable God by Design on purpose made it to where your parents have great weight in your life and parents that's a that's a heavy weight you need to understand for your children he by design made it to where what you do and say matters and that's good when it's good and that's bad when it's bad it's like when you go to take a test and this one's 50 of your grade.

For the whole semester that's kind of how parenting works it's parents have a lot of impact on their children and so for some of us that means that there were things that our parents did for most of us there are things that our parents did that were hurtful stuck with us changed how we thought about ourselves changed how we understood our place in the world some in this room had truly genuinely horrific parents then when I was saying earlier that mostly what they did was care.

For you that that wasn't even true and I'm sorry because that was not God's good design but we live in a fallen world if that's on this end even as you come back this way all of us have things that our parents did that they said that they did and they responded our parents are sinners who made mistakes who had lapses of judgment for for many of you your parents might have had you when they were quite young and just figuring it out some of you might have had parents that weren't Christians or became Christians later in life some of us had parents who had addiction issues anxiety issues problems with how they treated.

Spoke to people like did we grew up in difficult situations so what do we do for those who are currently at home with parents like this or for when you're thinking through how you to understand obedience in those sort of situations I want to read as we first start looking at this I want to read a quote from Kevin De Young he says are there limits to honoring parents in a word yes Authority can be abused in Acts chapter 5 we.

See a principle that has to do with governments but also parents Church leadership and any other authority over us if the choice is between obeying God or obeying Men We obey God if you're com if your parents command you to do what God forbids or forbid what God commands you cannot and must not obey your parents I'm going to read that again if your parents command you to do what God forbids or forbid what God commands you cannot and must not obey your parents.

But even in those hopefully rare cases there's still a way to be respectful and honor your parents even if they are asking something of you that they don't have the authority to ask yes there is a limit to obedience but as we follow this command we are all called to honor to show respect which is extremely painful to consider in some cases and what I would like to submit to you is that you cannot do this outside of Christ but in Christ we can do something that is radically counter-cultural we can honor parents who do not deserve it which does not translate it is not a conclusion you will come to in our culture.

But it is a conclusion that we can come to and something that we can operate in as Christians in a way that is counter-culturally brings great glory to Christ displays the love of the father and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit you see often we are trained culturally to dissect our parents to play up their weaknesses and the things they did to harm us and to understand that those have changed us in an immutable way that we are forever marked by what they did.

But as Christians we understand that Christ changes us that he renews us that he covers not only the things that we've done but the things that have been done to us and that we get to be made new in light of his goodness and we do not have to be forever marked forever stained forever held captive to what has happened to us and that is a glorious reality in Christ and from that position of being renewed from the position of being adopted with a good.

Father who loves us the way a father ought to we get to do something that only can be done in Christ we get to prayerfully by the empowerment of the spirit extend forgiveness and Grace and honor and the reason that can only be done in Christ is because it can't be done in you can say all the time I just don't have the ability to do this and that's right I can't forgive them that's right not on your own not in your power and it can't be done in them.

Because they don't deserve it so if it's about you or if it's about them it won't work there's no way to do it but if it gets to be anchored in Christ the love of the Father the empowerment of the spirit then there gets to be Grace and forgiveness and by God's grace Lord willing some of us will get to lead our parents who deserve great condemnation we'll get to lead them to Christ Who Bore great condemnation so that Sinners could be justified and the only way to do that is in his goodness and in his grace.

And so by God's will and by his empowerment we can be people who honor our parents and raise children to honor us through the Gospel let's pray God we thank you for our parents we thank you for the role that you designed for them to play we thank you for all the moms and the dads in this room who have so often failed and so often succeeded we thank you for the role that you've given them we pray that they would take it seriously that they would walk in the grace that you provide we pray specifically.

Lord for those this morning who do not have a good relationship with their parents that you would help them to First have a good relationship with you that they would know the grace provided them in Christ that they would know the love of the father that they would know the comfort of the spirit and that they then then by the empowerment of the spirit might begin to work to learn how to walk this out in a difficult situation we love you and we praise you in.

Jesus name amen the band's going to come back up and we are going to sing together I know that some of you are in a difficult spot with your parents I know that some of you are in a difficult spot with your children and we would be happy as your pastors to help you think and help you pray and help you process so I would invite you to go on to our website to the care forum and fill it out and we can get something set up with you love y'all.

The Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Due to a technical error the last minute of the sermon was not recorded. What was recorded is posted below.

Transcript

My name is Spencer I'm one of the pastors here so we are in Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 11. uh we are in the fourth Commandment as we continue to walk through Exodus and we're walking week by week through the Ten Commandments so you can go ahead and follow along the text we'll also be on the screen uh have you ever approached something that should have been fairly simple but the more you got into it it was incredibly complicated like you got the mechanics and the details of it it was just super super complex and complicated I read this story from back in the fall that the city of San Francisco as a homeless.

Crisis and they one of the problems with the homeless crisis in downtown San Francisco is that there are a lot of homeless people that are using the bathroom and the streets this kind of created an unsanitary situation so someone had a very good idea they said let's build a bathroom specifically let's build one toilet all right this this can it's not going to solve the problem but let's it'll it'll help we're gonna build one toilet so the reason this became national news is.

Because the cost came back on building the one toilet 1.7 million dollars for one toilet and people went what what why how does it cost 1.7 million dollars to build one toilet and it's because there's a crazy amount of red tape and regulations that made something that was so good and so simple so complex there's like a 300 000 architectural uh and Engineering fee there was a hundred and fifty thousand dollar construction management fee for someone to oversee the building of one toilet and you add up all these fees and it's 1.7 million dollars and more to the point that was in 2022 the fall the construction completion date would be 2025.

Because of all of the Committees it would have to go through to build one toilet because of all of the red tape something such a good thing and yet became so complicated and that is how it feels when I approached the fourth Commandment that's how it feels when you get into the fourth Commandment and the call to Sabbath rest out of all of The Commandments this is by far the most difficult to understand as a Christian I just want to read it and say do it the band's going to come up that's just that's just.

But you can't it's not it's not that simple and we're going to see some of the complexities that is built into this and it gets added on to this that makes this not as simple and straightforward as just reading the fourth command and doing it and it's not going to be as practical today we we're not going to give a lot of practical application on how to rest we did that in a series called the hammer and the hammock I would encourage you to go back.

Listen to that but we're also Sabbath is going to come back up and Exodus 31. so we're going to spend some more time on the Practical uh parts of rest but today we need to get into the why so I want to walk through this and some of the complicated parts of this and then at the end as much as possible I want to simplify why and help us see why the Sabbath was made why it is good and why we should engage in Sabbath rest.

So why this sabbath was made why it's good and why we should engage in Sabbath rest so let me read it we'll pray and we'll want this together verse 8 remember the Sabbath day to keep 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 you or your son or your daughter your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the Sojourner who is within your Gates.

For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy let me pray heavenly father I pray that you would help us understand your word that we would be able to listen that we'll be able to work through this and see something that is so good that you have given us and then live out your word in faith and live it out in Repentance and live it out and delighting in you through the rest that you provide we ask this in.

Jesus name amen all right so if I tasked you to take the Bible let's just say you've never read the Bible before start in Genesis read all the way through okay and I gave you the task of I want you to take note of when the word Sabbath is mentioned this idea of Sabbath rest I want you to take note of it I'm going to give you the quick kind of run through the Bible of what you would see you would.

See in Genesis 1 and 2 out right out the gate that God made the world in six days and he rested on the seventh the seventh and he gave us the Sabbath now that's not because God needed to rest God was not tired he didn't work make the universe in six days and went oh man I need this like our God is inexhaustible he is all powerful he did not need rest but he gave us the gift of Sabbath he modeled it and he invites us into it as you can.

See throughout the rest of the Scriptures so that's when Sabbath was made that you get two the fourth Commandment that's the next time that you see it and you see remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Sabbath day is literally just day of rest a day of rest and keep it holy means don't work on the Sabbath not just you but the whole nation not you not your son not your daughter not your male servant not your female servant now your livestock not the Sojourner who is within your Gates the whole nation is going to cease from work and rest.

And then you keep reading and you get to Exodus 31 when this shows back up again in the book of Exodus and then you'd hear this you shall keep the Sabbath because it is Holy for you everyone who profanes it shall be put to death whoever does any work on it that Soul shall be cut off from among his people and then you see how serious the Sabbath is that that if you don't do this the command is you put to death that shows up again in Exodus 35.

This capital punishment linked to the Sabbath and then you read The Book of Leviticus and Leviticus is going to have more things to say about the Sabbath and some of the nuances of different Sabbath days and that you get to the book of numbers and the Book of Numbers you hear a story about a man who went out on the Sabbath to gather sticks he's working by gathering sticks he is caught they take counsel together and then they obey Exodus 31 and 35 and they put him to death.

Then you read and the Book of Deuteronomy where this is taught and reinforced yet again and then you watch the nation of Israel as they throughout the rest of their history in Seasons where they are uh not loving the Lord their God with all their heart with other Souls other might when they're chasing after other Idols they one of the key markers of disobedience is they give up the Sabbath and they work and you'd see in the book of Nehemiah a call to repentance to Sabbath you'd.

See a celebration of Sabbath keeping in the book of Isaiah you'd see a call to repentance in the book of Jeremiah for Sabbath profaning you'd see a call of condemnation for Sabbath profaning and Sabbath breaking in the Book of Ezekiel and you see throughout the Old Testament a consistent call to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy do not profane this this is bad it's clear when you read the Old Testament the people of God were not practicing the Sabbath they didn't know how once they learned they strayed and they did not practice the Sabbath it's very clear.

When you're in the Old Testament that is what happens and then you'd read through the Old Testament and you'd get to the New Testament and the first time you'd see the Sabbath is in the Gospel of Matthew and you would start to notice a tone change in the Gospel of Matthew and everything that follows in Matthew 12 Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grain field and the disciples begin to pluck the heads of grain and the Pharisees who are watching these are the religious leaders they say you're breaking the Sabbath you're profaning the Sabbath I mean in The Book of Numbers the man was stoned.

For collecting sticks you're breaking the Sabbath by collecting grain and Jesus says wrong and then he starts to combat them from the Scriptures and then he says this in verse six I tell you something greater than the temple is here and if you had known what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice you would not have condemned the Guiltless for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath and if you just read that the Old Testament and you read that story you might think uh was that.

Okay I mean the Sunday School answer is Jesus did it yes but is that okay like it I I don't know I just read a lot of things in the Old Testament like this is a really big deal but all of a sudden it's and then he doubles down on this and he starts healing people on the Sabbath intentionally in Luke 4 Luke 13 Luke 14 John 5 John 9 he starts intentionally healing people on the Sabbath to make a point about the Sabbath.

And then he fulfills the law perfectly and he dies on the cross for our sins and then he rises on Resurrection Sunday and ascends into heaven and the Church is left with okay what do we do with the fourth Commandment we just saw Jesus we we saw these teachings that he's done what do we do and if you read the rest of the New Testament there's only three really places that deal with this and the Book of Romans The Book of Romans is a letter that was written to a Church in Rome where there is clear Gentile and Jewish division and it shows up in a lot of different ways.

But one of them when you get to chapter 14 is you can see it's the Sabbath because Gentile Christians this would be Romans and Greeks and whomevers in the city who's not Jewish but they have no background in practicing the Sabbath that's the one thing that made Israel unique amongst all the nations everyone else worked every day that was that was normative the Sabbath was way different wait they take a whole day off and they don't work and then there's Jewish Christians in the Church of Rome who have Sabbath background and this is what Paul writes in Romans 14.

Verse 5 he says one person esteems one day and day there is Sabbath as better than another or another esteems all days alike each one should be fully convinced in his own mind the one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord and he says it's you should be convinced in your own mind is that a matter of conscience and then verse 10 you see some of the context here why do you pass judgment on your brother or you why do you despise your brother and it's clear from there that he's pushing on don't make this a matter of judgment or division amongst you don't do that.

And then in Colossians 2 he's writing to the Church Paul is writing a letter to the Church at colossae and he says therefore let no one pass judgment on you and questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon those are all Old Testament practices or a Sabbath huh and then he says these are a shadow of the things to come but the substance belongs to Christ and everything in the front end of that list makes a lot of sense we don't practice festivals anymore like these things that we don't those are part of the Old Testament law that was fulfilled.

But Sabbath too it's part of the Ten Commandments but is that that's a shadow of Christ who is to come and a shadow of the future rest that he offers and then you get what we read uh in our liturgy earlier you get Hebrews 3 and 4. and in Hebrews three and four the author of Hebrews is commenting and Expo and expositing psalm 95. and then as he's doing that he's pointing back to the nation of Israel of how they wandered in the wilderness.

For those 40 years after Exodus and that they are ultimately seeking to have rest in the promised land and that is a picture of the people of God that that are sojourners in this land waiting for the future rest that Jesus provides and that's it and if you look at the holy New Testament it's like if you're honest it feels a bit like whiplash that real seriously the Old Testament about this in the New Testament is a bit of a curve both and the question is why why does it feel like that that is the million dollar question in approaching the fourth Commandment as a new testament Christian why and are we still supposed to.

Do this as Christians I know we're not supposed to murder that's clear but are we still supposed to do this now there is a missing puzzle piece that we need and that missing puzzle piece is the period of time between when the Old Testament was written and when the New Testament is written and that is an essential puzzle piece that will help help us see why it feels a bit like Whiplash and it's during that period there are a lot of abuses that happened to the fourth Commandment.

So if you're going to understand why a single toilet took 1.7 million dollars to build like if you're going to understand and figure that out you got to go back through all everything that led to that all the red tape and regulations and everything that went into that that made such a good thing a headache and in the same way if you understand the fourth Commandment you got to see during this period of time between the old and the New Testament all of the red tape and regulations that got added on to the fourth Commandment that abused the fourth Commandment.

So that's what we need to see all right so where did all this red tape come from in this period this period is often called the inter-testamental period between the Old and New Testament it's also called second temple Judaism okay so the last of the Old Testament was written in the 6th Century BC and then you've got centuries that lead up to the coming of Christ and then uh when they receive when they in the sixth century as the temple is being rebuilt the people of.

God are realizing we we have made so many mistakes that led to the Judgment that God brought on the nation of Israel where the temple was destroyed and their centuries removed from when the law was given which when this when when Exodus is being written somewhere around 14th 13th BC Century BC so there's centuries that have passed and now they're looking at the law and they're they're seeing the the Old Testament now it says remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy six days you shall work.

But in the seventh you shall rest they look at Exodus 31 and it says you shall keep the Sabbath everyone who profanes it shall be put to death and they react and listen I little bit understand their reaction I want to be a little bit cheered about the reaction like what we we uh my wife and I we've LED groups for years we've been in uh groups for years and the past seven years our groups have had lots of children like upwards of 22 children at one point.

If everyone came that's a lot of children and you try to lead discussion with a lot of children like we in our in our uh downstairs is where we'd have discussion right above us was the playroom where all the kids were and you'd hear I mean just think this uh every now and then I just have to go up there guys open the door just about y'all are being too loud you need to quiet down and shut the door now imagine.

If I opened the door back up and said you are being too loud and that this continues you're gonna die and then close the door I went back downstairs I just if I was a seven-year-old I'd have some questions I'm sorry what Define loud what activities are considered too loud like what is quiet can you can we have a hall monitor outside that can determine like what the the level of loudness were being too loud also they'll serve as the sacrifice.

When you come up to kill someone like I just I'd have some questions and I understand a little bit when they open up the law again and they see how serious it is to where they want to go Define rest Define work what activities are considered work can we have a whole monitor to determine what is work and what is rest I understand that reaction of what the religious leaders were doing but man oh man they took that and ran with it and the most legalistic and burdensome Direction they developed an entire set of extra laws called the melacon laws 39 different categories of work that would profane the Sabbath and those categories had subcategories.

Like you'd have the category of planting and then within that category you'd have planting and harvesting and all the things that went into that and those subcategories you'd have all these different rules so much so that like during that time period climbing a tree was considered profaning the Sabbath why because if you accidentally broke a branch off and that Branch had fruit on that Branch you just harvested and you profane the Sabbath and they had hundreds of those extra laws I mean someone said that this the the melkat laws that were established during this period of time between the sixth century and the coming of.

Jesus like that it's still God's Orthodox Jews today I mean you cannot in Orthodox Judaism you cannot open an umbrella you cannot tear off a piece of toilet paper apply lotion blow up a balloon on the Sabbath when I went to Jerusalem years ago we were staying at a hotel we were up on one of the higher floors you could not push a button on the elevator because that was considered preventing the Sabbath which meant that you got on the elevator and every floor opened and it closed opened and closed open and closed which was super annoying.

If you had to be somewhere and any like that still exists that right there is the context of the coming of Christ all these different rules and red tape that you had to follow you had to make sure that you had to do everything perfectly and the Pharisees and the Sadducees these religious leaders were the hall monitors and they're looking and they're saying are you are you preventing the Sabbath are you preventing the Sabbath and made everyone paranoid about the fourth Commandment to where it was not restful it was a burden.

Now here's where they went wrong when they opened up the law and they started taking the Sabbath seriously again they misunderstood the context of how the Sabbath was given they misunderstood it misunderstood the fact that God created the Sabbath as a gift Genesis 1 2 makes that so clear this sabbath is good it is a gift for the people of God so that we might not just continue to work and work and work and then the people of God for centuries were slaves and they did not Sabbath.

For hundreds of years they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked for Pharaoh and they did not rest all they did was work and then God redeems them as we saw earlier in Exodus and he is aggressively trying to get their attention you are not a Slave you are not the sum of your production you matter more than that you will not work anymore you will not endlessly work anymore this will not be the pattern you will work six days and on the seventh you will rest.

Because you are not a slave and you belong to me and you will rest in me they miss them they missed the the aggressiveness and the severity was help it was it was meant to call them back into not being slaves but being the people of God but unfortunately the religious leaders took that out of context and ran with it and added all types of red tape and burdensome regulations and centuries leading out to the coming of Christ the people were burdened by the Sabbath they were burdened by it.

So it's clear when you look at the Old Testament the Old Testament is written to a people that do not practice the Sabbath the New Testament is written to a people they were forced to practice the Sabbath and do it in very Unholy ways and for centuries leading up to Jesus the people were feeling the weight of this burden and then Jesus does the most punk rock thing ever I mean he just Kicks Down the door and says I am the.

Lord of the Sabbath I'm the captain now I am the Lord of this you know why because I wrote the Sabbath loss that's Jesus wrote the Sabbath laws he gave them to Moses because he is God he knows what they what the intended meaning was is some people call authorial intent the intent of the author because he wrote it like right now we in the Southern Baptist convention we're Southern Baptist uh and then the Southern Baptist convention there's a bit of a controversy right.

Now which I know will shock you um based on our history but there is and I'm not going to get the details of it but what's happening a little bit right now is we have something called the Baptist faith and message Baptist Faith Message in the 2000 version it's kind of a guiding bit of a confession for us a binding set of beliefs that we have as Baptist and there are some Churches and some pastors who are looking at one part of that bad mistake the message they're saying ah just I don't I don't know about that I don't think that's what that I don't think that was what was intended.

When it was written and they're starting to stray from the Baptist Faith the message you know what's great the man who wrote the Baptist Faith Message is still alive that's my former president my Seminary Al Mohler he wrote it on behalf of Baptist and he's saying y'all I wrote this for y'all like I I I'm the author I know what was intended when I wrote it because I wrote it for you like at the last year's annual meeting he walked up the mic and went hey guys I'm here and he started to say I know what I meant like he started to explain you're taking this in the wrong direction.

Jesus walks up to the mic and the New Testament and goes I'm the lord of the Sabbath I wrote all of this I know the heart of the Sabbath and what you are practicing is not the heart of the Sabbath at all and that is the missing puzzle piece that we need to understand why the Old Testament feels very different than the New Testament Jesus was reclaiming the Sabbath from the religious Hall monitors and also he's taking a spear and just like right at the heart of the Pharisees and their self-righteous religiosity like they just the Sabbath was their way of being holy and holier than thou and he's just destroying it with every teaching.

And when you understand that you understand what the Old Testament New Testament feel different but still The Logical question that follows is okay but are we still supposed to obey the fourth Commandment that's helpful I can understand now while the old New Testament feel a little bit different but are we still called to obey the fourth Commandment and boy oh boy is that not is that not the question I mean I I have wrestled with this for years and then Monday I got reacquainted with all the arguments again and I just I Monday was not fun I just was like oh my goodness I forgot how unbelievably difficult this is to understand.

Because y'all and listen there are different approaches to the fourth Commandment now and we're shaped by different traditions and those approaches like some of y'all some of you all love the fact that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday God's chicken they honor the Lord they do not work on Sunday because Sunday is the Sabbath it's the Lord's Day and it is the new Sabbath whereas the Jews had Friday to Saturday night we now have Sunday and that is the Sabbath where we don't work some of y'all have that background that understanding of the Sabbath and you understand that's shaped by a tradition called sabbatarianism lots of different donations to practice that bad this Presbyterians Methodist.

But the idea is is that Sunday is the new Sabbath and one day a week the people of God worship and we rest and we obey the fourth Commandment still because the fourth Commandment still has moral Force just as the other non have moral Force so does this one and then there are others that go well I'm actually a little annoyed that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday because I really love Chick-fil-A and I miss some Chick-fil-A sauce I I like for it to be open on Sunday and the reason why is.

Because I think sabbatarians are wrong I think that God calls us to rest one day of week but that I mean the New Testament kind of pushes on the legalism of this like we don't have to have it on Sunday you just need to rest obey the Sabbath principle still there's some moral Force there but we don't have to be so dogmatic or legalistic about which day it is you just need to make sure that you're resting sure Sunday is a good day to do it.

But any day will work and therefore Chick-fil-A could be open and then there are others to go no no Jesus fulfilled the law and and Romans and Colossians 2 in Hebrews and Jesus is teaching on the Sabbath show that the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ it was a shadow of Christ that is to come in the future rest that he offers and I mean we need to rest still that's still something we need to do but it is not bound by a calendar at all and you do not have to do it one day a week and how you practice a Sabbath is a matter of conscience all three of those views all three.

Of them have scriptural support all three of them you can make arguments from the Bible it is incredibly complicated to understand the fourth Commandment so I'm not going to resolve a theological dispute where thousands millions of brothers and sisters who deeply love Jesus and know their Bibles well have disagreed on this for centuries I'm not going to resolve that for us and to be honest with you even within our eldership there's differing opinion on this but I do believe that we can arrive at the same set of functional beliefs I do believe we need sun guard rails I do believe that on one side you need guardrails to keep you from the pitfall of legalism.

Pharisaisms of being a Pharisee and all the problems that they were bringing into the Sabbath I think you need guard rails to keep you from that Pitfall and I think you also need guard rails to keep you from the pitfall of never resting at all so I have a statement that I think will be a helpful kind of guardrails that keep us on the center line together and that is this the Sabbath is a good gift that God has given us it is not meant to be a measuring stick.

For righteousness nor a wedge for division amongst his people a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing let me read that again the Sabbath is a good gift that God has given us it is not meant to be a measuring stick for righteousness nor a wedge for division amongst his people a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing so let me work through that in some in a few different chunks the Sabbath is a good gift that.

God has given us I think we can all can agree on that it is so clear from Genesis 1 and 2 that the Sabbath is a gift it is good to rest with the Lord and to rest in him it is a good gift that God has given us I mean Jesus in his rebuke of the Pharisees in mark 2. as he said to them the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath and that not man for the Sabbath is what we focus a lot on.

Because he's taken a shot at the Pharisees and the religious leadership and he said Don't You Realize by all of your regulations by all of your red tape by all of everything that you've added on to this that we're serving the Sabbath you misunderstand this but don't miss the part where he says the Sabbath was made for men the Sabbath was made for man it is a good gift that God has given us and that is why Jesus rests over and over and over again.

Jesus is fully God and fully man and in his Humanity he needs rest you see this all over we have a few examples but you see it all over the gospels in Mark 1 verse 35 isn't Rising very early in the morning while it was still dark he Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed that Jesus regularly rests and gets away from the crowds in the midst of his ministry and praise you see in Mark 6 it says the apostles.

Verse 30 the apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught this is after their missionary journey their side I want to tell Jesus everything that we've done then Jesus pause and says hey verse 31 and he said to them come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while I want to hear all about it but y'all are tired and you need to rest he's teaching them to rest in Mark 6 46 he says and after uh it says and after he had taken leave of them he went on the mountain to pray this happens over and over and over and over and over again.

Jesus gets away to rest the God man gets away to rest so whether you believe that the Sabbath still has moral force and it should be on Sunday every Sunday or you believe that it has some moral Force but you kind of there's some some freedom in choosing wind to rest or whether you think it's a more matter of conscience it has been fulfilled it lacks moral Force but we still should rest in general we can all get in the same page it is a good gift that.

God has given us and we should take it we forget that sometimes like last Saturday we we had a baseball son had a baseball game and it got canceled because of the rain and my wife and I like we just had the whole morning and afternoon off we just we're just we're so happy we needed it it's like oh man we need this rest is a good gift that God has given us next part of the statement says it's not meant to be a measuring stick.

For righteousness it is abundantly clear when you look at the New Testament that it is not a measuring stick for righteousness and that the Pharisees the religious leaders they were doing that they were using it as a measuring stick and they were dogmatic that it had to be down like this you had to perfectly make sure you check all the boxes and make sure that it's done exactly right and some of you may be the kind of person that is dogmatic about your Sabbath rest and wants to make sure that you check all the boxes got to make sure that everything got to make sure that that obey this fourth Commandment.

Well and that I rest well and if that's you you're in danger of being just like the Pharisees you're like a like you're like a bride who was planned every single part of her wedding every single detail has to be just like this and then the wedding day comes and she doesn't enjoy it at all because everything had to be so perfect that she misses the most important part of the wedding the person the man that she is marrying and the moment that she has with him.

And if you get dogmatic and legalistic about your Sabbath you'll miss the moment that you have with Christ don't do that don't do that the Sabbath was made for man do not make it a measuring stick for your own righteousness nor the next part of the statement a wedge for division amongst his people it is not meant to be a wedge of division at all but it's so clear from the New Testament go back to Romans 14 it says one person that seems one day as better than the other.

While another esteems all days alike each one should be convinced in his own mind that it goes on to say why do you pass judgment on your brother it was clearly not meant to be a wedge a division and the people of God they were clearly of different approaches and they don't don't do that do not make this a wedge of division amongst the people of God so all of us should look at that on whatever wherever you land on your understanding of the fourth Commandment and you should come to that conclusion I will not make this a wedge of division I will not be a hall monitor to make sure that people are doing.

This right there will be differences of opinions in our own Church and we will not make that an issue of disunity lastly a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing you may be a sabbatarian and didn't know it and then you think no every every Sunday is the Lord's day and that is the day in which we will rest and you may see the moral Force the fourth Commandment still so I don't need to convince you of that statement right there the group I need to convince of that statement right there are those that view it more as a matter of conscience that the.

Sabbath has been fulfilled by Christ you're the one that's more in danger of never resting so let me talk directly to you if that is where you land if that's you I've got some questions do you believe that the design of God was for you to endlessly work it never rests so much so that in a calendar month you could work every single day of the month do you believe that was the design of God for you does your body show that how's your body holding up over working and working and working and working and working are you getting sick are you getting muscle pains and spasms stomach aches headaches how's your body holding up.

If you're rarely resting and always always always working like you've got a career that you are working so hard for that you work every single day what makes you any different than the the Israelite slaves who served Pharaoh and never rested that you are serving and living for a career and working and working and never resting and if Jesus needed rest if Jesus the God-man needed rest why don't you at a minimum the idea that you can work and work and work and work and work and never rest is a prideful view of self and a rejection of.

God to think that you can endlessly strive without resting it is a it is a prideful view of self and a rejection of God I've seen people physically burn out because they they work and they work and they work and they work and their body is breaking down and they're getting sick and then I've seen spiritual sickness arise to where they just get numb to God they don't spend time with him they don't rest in him and a lifestyle that works too much and does not rest is a sinful rejection of God's good design.

Listen I don't need the fourth Commandment to prove that I'll I need the first two I can point out the different Idols that you are serving and working the shows you need to rest in God you have elevated yourself too highly if that is you and you believe to yourself to be adequate and I want to say very clearly you are not you are not unexhaustible but I also want to tell you who is and that is the Lord the God is inexhaustible.

God is all-powerful God never sleeps and he never slumbers God is the only one who can do all things uphold all things God is the only one who is strong enough to Bear it all and that same.

The Third Commandment (Exodus 20:7)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Is here we are in Exodus chapter 20. we are working our way through the book of Exodus if you don't have a Bible there should be a blue one in the little Rack in front of you it'll be on page 35 if you don't own a Bible take that one home with you we want you to have a Bible and so that's our gift to you we are working our way through the book of Exodus and we've made it to the Ten Commandments and we are slowing down and going through the Ten Commandments looking at each one in turn and trying to wrap our heads around as.

God has rescued this people out of Egypt he's making them into his people and he's saying this is what it's going to look like to follow me we're trying to understand what that is and what he commands them to do and how that applies to us so Exodus chapter 20 verse 7 the third commandment you shall not in vain that is the verse we're looking at today that is the Commandment we're looking at today I'm going to read it one more time you shall not take the name of the.

Lord your God in vain Lord we pray that you would help us this morning to understand what is being taught to understand what you are calling us to and calling us away from and then we ask Lord by the empowerment of your spirit for us to to walk in Repentance and obedience to this command and to um enjoy praise and glorify Christ as we do them in Jesus name amen now as we started the Ten Commandments one of the things we said was that it was we thought it was helpful I'd been reading some books on morality and how cultures think about morality and we had we mentioned two books The Righteous Mind.

For our good always and we said that the psychologist Jonathan height had come up with uh some Concepts as he studied morality in different cultures he had come up with some Concepts that we thought were helpful he's not a Christian and so he's not talking about God's version of morality but he is looking at culture and talking about morality and he gave us five categories that we mentioned a few weeks ago when we started he called these moral foundations Authority loyalty sanctity fairness and care that these are moral foundations.

For how people understand what is right and what is wrong and that different cultures value or appreciate different versions of these different ones of these with to a greater or lesser degree and so the first two Commandments deal primarily with authority and loyalty you shall have no other gods before me and you will make no graven images you'll have no carved Idols with which to worship me or to worship other gods that's mostly in the Loyalty Authority category of Jonathan Heights categories not a Bible category as far as like a moral Foundation.

But it's trying to help us understand how we approach this culturally to what we're looking at today is sanctity and so we showed this chart a couple of weeks ago which is this is in general how Americans westerners decide whether or not something is right or wrong and we're going to talk more about this at our upcoming training weekend so if this is interesting to you we're going to spend a little more time diving into that but basically care and harm is our highest one does it hurt somebody.

Then we know it's wrong if it doesn't hurt somebody it's probably not wrong but then we have fairness some sort of of Liberty justice for all those kind of ideas we also care about and so we ask questions about is it fair is it just and if it doesn't break one of those zones if it's not sideways with one of those then it's probably not bad we don't really care and you'll notice that sanctity is way down on the list we aren't a people culturally that holds much as sacred.

Therefore not to be tread upon as I was looking at this and thinking about this I was reminded of there's a a little science experiment you can do where you have three bowls of water the bowl in the middle is just regular room temperature water you put one ball on one side that you put ice in you put one bow on the other side that you put hot water in and you place your hands in the ice water and the hot water.

And when you do this this feels very hot this feels very cold I mean you just stand there I feel like a minute and what happens is this hand gets used to the Heat and this hand starts getting used to the cold water and then after a minute two minutes something like that you take your hands out you place both hands in the room temperature water and then a very weird things happens to you one is your brain knows this is room temperature water.

But your right hand thinks it's cold and your left hand thinks it's hot and you can see both hands sitting next to each other in what you know to be room temperature water doesn't mess with your head if you're bored this afternoon go for it and what what I want us to understand is we approach God's law is assume God's law is the room temperature it's the right temperature let's just assume that that's the right temperature that God says this is how the world ought to work.

But our cultures are like the hot water or the cold water that as Americans we've been soaking in the icy cold water of secularism and so as Christians when we move our hand over here when we show up on Sundays and we open our Bibles and we're going I'm going to learn this I'm going to follow this and we read a command like this that God cares about the use of his name we can mentally say that matters that's important but it's like telling this hand you're in room temperature water there's no way to change how it feels not easily not quickly we actually have to soak here.

For a while before it'll change on us and so I want us to understand as we approach this that we are not culturally well set up to understand or appreciate sanctity because we don't hold much sacred and we think if you do you're wrong and you should just deal with it as I was reading through Jonathan Height's book he has this quote and I want to read through the quotes and talk to you how I was processing it as I read.

Because I think it's helpful he says when an artist submerges a crucifix in a jar of his own urine or smears elephant dung on an image of the Virgin Mary do these Works belong in art museums can the artist simply tell religious Christians if you don't want to see it don't go to the museum now as I was reading this um I don't know if you picked up on this so far but I'm not Catholic and so I'm not especially attached to crucifixes or the Virgin Mary.

But not the same way that a Catholic would be but still this is a representation of Christ a representation of Mary and they're being Dishonored but as I'm reading this I'm kind of used to it I don't think my heart rate went up and when it says if you don't like it don't show up I feel like I've heard that a lot that's a general if you don't go to the museum you don't have to like all art and then he says this or does the mere existence of such Works make the world dirtier more profane and more degraded he's pressing on this idea of where is your line.

For what is sacred where's your sanctity line that's what he's trying to do in the book he's not a Christian he's just trying to press on this and so then he says this it's the next paragraph if you can't see anything wrong here try reversing the politics imagine that a conservative artist had created these Works using images of Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela instead of Jesus and Mary could such Works be displayed in museums in New York and Paris without triggering angry demonstrations and might some on the left feel that the museum itself had been polluted by racism even after the paintings were removed I read that paragraph and I felt that I.

Thought oh don't don't do that now I'm a Christian and I'm supposed to respond that way specifically to the name of Christ to the representation of Christ to how he's treated but I read this one and I thought okay yeah no that would be a problem and I was really stuck on the line where he says might some feel that the museum itself had been polluted by racism even after the paintings were removed and I thought yeah there would be a call.

For a cleansing a removal of certain people that worked there would be call for some sort of something some sort of a sacrifice some sort of a a a ceremony where you redid and re-made this a place where people could be I could feel that now maybe that's still for you politically you're like which I think we should care that people are represented well and treated well but maybe for you it would be if uh in London and Paris that there are museums they submerged an American flag in urine and put dung on George Washington maybe that's the thing that would make you think this is unacceptable.

But the reality is we do have some things that we hold sacred we do have some lines of sanctity we do have some understanding of pollution and what God is saying is that his name his glory matters and the way we speak of him matters and the way we think of him matters and that we are not to Sully or dishonor his name so as we look at this you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

For the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain I think there's three things three things three words that we need to Define and we're going to spend our time doing that this morning we're going to Define name vain and take and we're going to Define name and vain quickly and then we're going to spend the rest of our time looking at the word take but in order to understand make this coherent we need to know what he means by name we need to know what he means by Vain and we need to know what he means about take.

And then we can apply this name when he says name what is he talking about do you not take the name of the Lord your God in vain what is the name of the Lord God well in Exodus chapter 3 Moses asks what is your name and God said to Moses this is Exodus chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. I am who I am and he said say this to the people of Israel I am has sent me to you now that I am who I am and that I am is four letters in Hebrew no vowels yhwh or j h v h depending on how you translate it into English this is where we.

Get the name Yahweh or Jehovah because they go in later and add how you would pronounce it but it means I am I exist I'm the ever existing all sufficient one that's what he's saying I am what I am I will be what I will be that he is he stands on his own and he is the only being that stands on his own that is not derived from something else that is not in need of something else pre-existent ever existing sufficient that's what he's saying.

But then he says this and we need to look at this real quick says the Lord so he says go tell them say this to the people of Israel the Lord the God she lured there where it's all caps that's the way that that yhwh is going to be treated in most Bibles English Bibles from then on so if you see all caps Lord It's the Divine name of the Lord there but it's keeping in a tradition where the Jewish people would not pronounce the Divine name as they try to keep the.

Third commandment and so they actually at times wouldn't even write the Divine name they would write out some sort of shorthand version of it and our English translations instead of putting the Divine name put this in keeping with the same idea of how do we keep the third commandment but it's not just that Divine name there that if as long as I don't say Jehovah or Yahweh I'm okay then I can say whatever I want because when he describes himself he says things like the.

Lord the God of your father is the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob has sent me to you this is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations when he shows back up in Exodus 34 as he's declaring his name he does the same thing he says the Lord the Lord but then he gives descriptions of him and so his name is whatever we invoke to bring him to mind call him to our mind or the minds of others.

So that you can't say well as long as I don't say this or do this about this one particular name but I can refer to the God of Abraham however I want it's not how it works it's whatever would bring him to mind whatever would invoke him whatever would call him to our minds to the minds of others and so it's any version of speaking about him you've got him wonderful counselor if you called him Mighty God if you called him.

Jesus if you called him Christ all of these would be under the umbrella of his name so that's defining name it's anything you would use to bring God to mind to invoke God as you prayed or as you spoke about him or that other people don't understand what you're talking about that's name what does vain mean nothing nailed it that's it vain means empty it means nothing means wasted he tried in vain to get a date and then hung out at the house by himself like that's that's the idea it means nothing it means it was wasted.

And so what he's saying is you won't do anything that takes my name and treats it like it's nothing you won't take my name and treat it like it's nothing like it's empty like it's worthless like it has no value like it is not precious like I am not precious and valuable and holy and Worthy you won't speak about me treat me take me so this that's what vain means and it matters to him Ezekiel 20 verse 9 and he says this repeatedly in Ezekiel I just took one to try to help us.

See this he says I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned in the sight of the Nations among whom they lived in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt he's talking about this The Exodus where he brings his people out and he says that he worked for the sake of his name that God cares how his name is perceived because it is through that that we perceive who he is it's his name that calls him to mind that invokes him.

So is he powerful is he good is he just is he righteous so he cares about his name he cares about his glory it matters because he matters in humans caring too much about your name can be Petty or sinful but God is Worthy is Holy and that to belittle his name is to not just get sideways with God but it's to get sideways with reality and it's ultimately very bad for us and you need to hear that because the thing that we care most about as Americans is care and harm and you need to know that it is harmful to disregard the name of.

God because it puts us sideways with reality and it puts us sideways with a glorious God who is very good but that will not be mocked so what does take mean if he says you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain what does take mean and I think after studying and looking at this and looking how the Scripture is treated take means to there's two primary ways to take his name one is to speak it we can take his name in vain with words we can also take his name in vain with actions and again.

If you'll think about invoke or this idea of bear or carry the name that we can do this with words or with actions we're talking about words first within in general this is how we often think about taking the lord's name in vain that's what Jesus says when he says as he's teaching his disciples how to pray to pray Hallowed be thy name or may your name be honored as holy that we would treat your name with honor and respect so certainly it means we don't use God's name as a swear word we ought not to say oh my.

God if you would pray if you would come in here and sing my God my God and you would mean my God and you would be calling that God and you would be talking to that God you shouldn't say oh my God when you hear that Justin Bieber has released a new album you shouldn't say oh my God when your favorite pizza place runs out of a topping or is closed on Mondays now because they can't get people to work we shouldn't say.

Jesus in some sort of a way like it's an expletive like we're calling him in because we stubbed our toe we we should certainly not do that but it's beyond just that we should speak in a way that honors him that glorifies him that treats him with respect and dignity as if he's precious to us as if he's glorious because he is Psalm 139 verse 20. it says they speak against you with malicious intent your enemies take your name in vain they the enemies of.

God speak about him as if he isn't holy as if he isn't good as if he isn't glorious but the people of God shouldn't they speak about him in a way that's flippant so this means we should consider how we joke I was talking to um Jamie Kern who's currently she's doing Mission work in uh Lebanon and she's learning Arabic she said one of the first things she did in Arabic she was hanging out with the people in the Kurdish Church and they were talking and they talked about Pastor Ben which is Ben Johnson who she works.

For and they were talking about Pastor Ben Pastor Ben and she said in Arabic one of her first phrases she'd learned she said oh Ben Ben's crazy which if you know Ben but that's a normal thing we'd say he's crazy she said the whole room it was like someone just sucked the air out of the room everybody went and then the lady went we don't say that about pastors and she told me I was talking on the phone she said they've drawn a line and anything that has to do with the.

Lord anything that has to do with Scripture anything that has to do with the Church anything that has to do with anything in that zone they treat with a lot of reverence to try to honor the Lord and not dishonor the things that matter to him now if you hang out with us long enough you will know that we don't take our pastors too seriously and we have said before that we don't want to take ourselves too seriously we want to take the.

Lord seriously but one of the things that is a danger for us we're most of us are not in danger of of honoring our pastors too much or taking this all too seriously but we can be in danger of dishonoring the Lord with the way that we speak I'm not talking about how you talk about me or Spencer especially Spencer we will joke about things that that aren't funny that aren't light that aren't jokes we will read cartoons about people meeting at the Pearly Gates and Peter's talking to them we'll we'll have little cartoons or little jokes about how.

God created the world we'll tell jokes about Jesus playing golf we'll joke about things that are precious and worthy and dear and we'll hold them like they're a joke we ought not to joke about the spirit we ought not let familiar familiarity with something wonderful and holy make it less valuable to us and we ought to be very mindful and this isn't just how we joke but it seeps into how we think y'all we just gathered in here as the people of.

God those Redeemed by Christ and we sang about Jesus and how about how beautiful this name is but were we paying attention were we really worshiping yeah I'm back there I know I'm gonna say this my phone buzzed in my pocket and I had it in my hand before I have his reflex and I'm still singing the words but I'm not worshiping we come in here and we sing there are times where you're singing to the Lord about how glorious his name is and you're thinking I wish the bass guitar was louder you're singing to the.

Lord and you're thinking I don't really like this song you're singing to the Lord and then you stop and just whisper to someone about what you want to eat for lunch and then you go right back into it you don't even notice that we so devalue his name and his glory when we treat him with no respect so it matters it matters how we think about the Lord and how we approach the Lord I was trying to think about how to help us wrap our mind around this.

Because we we just don't have this things are sacred Things Are Holy so let's talk about babies for a second we all agree babies are precious and it's a nice thing to say if you see an ugly baby say what a precious baby because not all babies are cute but they are all precious they're all valuable they are all love they are all dear and one of the reasons they're precious is that they're delicate God is Not delicate but he is Holy.

So don't put delicate in there but but keep the word precious valuable deer if someone says you want to hold my baby and you're doing something you don't keep doing something with one hand and go yeah toss it here you prepare yourself to hold a baby you clean your hands you get ready I because of the preciousness of baby babies have both rejected holding a baby or letting someone else hold my baby I've had people be like you want to hold my baby and I've said no no I do not and it's not.

Because I don't like your baby I'm sure he's fine it's that he's precious and I don't know you that well I don't need to hold you like just and I've also had people go can I hold him and I've gone no but you can look at him back up a few feet because he's precious we prepare our minds for it we think about it we we hold in a specific way you've never been like oh can I hold your baby and grabbed its foot and just picked it up like it was a catfish good one we're mindful and y'all our culture doesn't care about.

Jesus but we ought to we ought to be mindful of how he's spoken about and how he's treated and how he's how we speak and treat we ought to be mindful of that I was at my grandmother's house and she had a doormat and I was talking to her I like the design on and she said well you can have it as you're sitting in a garage this was when I was in high school I took it home stuck it in my room I had it I think at the door to my room my dad came he opened the door and he just stopped he looked at the doormat and he said that belonged to.

My sister Cindy and she had passed away when he was 18 in a car accident and he said I want that because I don't want anything to happen to it and he took it now last time I was at his house I was in one of his his like work rooms and he had a doormat high up on the wall well cared for he was afraid I was going to treat it like a doormat it's not a doormat to him it was precious and how how dare we not care about the preciousness of Christ and the glory of our.

God who not only is he really Worthy but he is personally good to us that he would rescue and redeem us and make us his we ought to watch how we speak we ought to care about how other people treat the name of our Lord we can do that in a gracious way we can do that in a way that exempts us from certain movies and shows and interactions with people but we ought to care way that we can do this that we can take his name is through actions that we carry his name we read this a.

Second ago it's Ezekiel chapter 20 verse 9 but I want you to see something there's something assumed here that we need to wrap our head around God says but I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned in the sight of the Nations among whom they lift they being the people of Israel in whose sight I made myself known to them that's being the Nations and bringing them out of the land of Egypt what he's saying is I put my name on the people of Israel.

When I rescued him out of Egypt they carry my name they bear my name that's what we read in chapter 19 where he says you're going to be a kingdom of priests you're a holy nation that you're going to carry my name that in some ways it's like they have a banner that has the Lord on it and they March under his Banner so that there is a way to carry the name to take the name of the Lord that has nothing to do with how we speak.

But has everything to do with how we behave and Daniel that we're going to read through a handful of passages because they understood this Daniel says and and Daniel chapter 9 he says oh Lord hear O Lord forgive oh Lord pay attention and act delay not for your own sake oh my God because your city and your people are called by your name so he says work on our behalf for your own sake because we're marked by your name Isaiah 43 6-7.

Because I will say to the north this is God speaking give up and to the South do not withhold bring my sons from afar and my daughter's from the end of the Earth everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory whom I formed and made that God marks people with his name and they represent his name and they're called by his name and somehow his name is attached to him this is what the writer in proverbs 30 understands he says remove far from me falsehood and lying give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with the food that is needful.

For me lest I be full and deny you and say who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of the Lord the name of my God sorry as he's speaking when he profanes the name of the Lord no he's stealing when he profanes the name because he's marked by the name he's waving that flag but then acting that's what Jeremiah 34 God speaking to the people of Israel he says but then you turned around and profaned my name.

When each of you took back his male and female slaves whom you had set free according to their desire and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves so he told them to set him free they'd set him free and then they changed their mind and took him back and he says you've Dishonored my name y'all carry my name but you don't care Leviticus 22. so you shall keep my Commandments and do them I am the Lord and you shall not profane my Holy Name that I may be Sanctified among the people of Israel I'm the.

Lord who sanctifies you who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God I am the Lord she says you'll obey me and he says you won't profane my name and certainly that has to do with how they speak and how they worship but it also has to do with how they obey that they won't dishonor His Name by being his people and running after sin and acting in ways that dishonor him the same way that you might have had a parent.

Look at you and use your last name to remind you how to act you might have had a friend over and he said my friend does that and the parent looked and said yeah there are Williams Phillips says don't act like that you belong to a different name you belong to a different people and that's what he's saying and this applies to the Church second Corinthians 5. all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ.

God was reconciling the world to himself reconciling means making things good again bringing us back into relationship not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation therefore we are ambassadors for Christ God making his appeal through us and we implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled for God so Paul's writing and says we're ambassadors for Christ and as Christians I think that it generally applies to us as well we've been given the name of Christ we are ambassadors meaning we represent Christ to the world.

And so it matters that we don't carry his name in vain we don't take his name in vain so this is you getting a job and saying hey I can't work on Sundays and I can't work on Tuesday nights because that's when my community group meets and I can't work on Sundays because I'm a host team or I serve in Kid City um and then being the laziest person at the job having other people clock you in or out lying to get sales you're bearing the name in vain it's showing up to work and looking like all your other co-workers and caring nothing about whether they know Christ it's carrying the name in vain is.

Being a boss and making a big deal about how you're a Christian and being unfair unkind unhelpful it's a dating somebody and it's not going well so you sit them down you say I think the Lord's leading me into a season of singleness you make God co-sign the fact that you don't want to deal with the uncomfortableness of breaking up with somebody and you've prayed how much about this it's not the lord it's just easier to have them be mad at the.

Lord or for you to sound holy as you walk through this process it's getting into a relationship and I'm so thankful for God he's finally answered all my prayers as you and your new boyfriend or your new girlfriend are actively involved in sexual sin when the people in your community group point that out say I don't think this is a good relationship for you you say things like well I prayed about it and I don't feel bad and God wants me to be happy you made.

God cosign things that he doesn't co-sign and you carry his name in vain this is Instagram posts of being blessed and highly favored but really you just want to brag about your shoes or your job or your car and you don't want to say looking at my great shoes job in car without you just say you make it look like you're praising the Lord but you actually aren't really all that thankful and you've never actually submitted your finances to him so you're just carrying your name in his name in vain we can do this all the time in.

So many ways this is actually the other half of the Church discipline process Church discipline when we think about it so often we think of it as just the last step in the process which is the the one that I think maybe most sticks out in our mind but when we talk about Church discipline it's actually just the Church caring about the Church and so it happens all the time if you've ever had someone in your group say you probably shouldn't talk to your wife like that hey you need to repent here hey I'm going to hold you accountable here hey that's Church discipline and it's good and we.

So often because culturally how we think about things we so often think about it in relation to it's good for you to have people care about you because sin is harmful but also we care about Church discipline because we don't want to solely the name of Christ by co-signing unrepentant sin that we care about the name of Christ we care about our witness as Christians who say we belong to Jesus and if someone's an unrepentant sin it matters this is what Paul says in.

First Corinthians 5 11 now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who Bears the name of brother if he's guilty of guilty of sexual immorality or greed or as an idolater reviler drunkard or swindler not to even eat with such a one that someone who would carry the name but walk in sin and not care unrepentant Paul says that's a problem because carrying the name matters um I like documentaries and I especially like Ken Burns documentaries because they are better than all other documentaries and I don't want I'm not trying to make you think that my wife and I are cool.

But we did specifically pay for a PBS subscription just so we could watch Ken Burns documentaries but in Ken Burns the war is this this quote this this interview that really stood out to me there's a Japanese American his name was Daniel inoue he ended up becoming a he ended up getting a medal of honor and becoming a Congressman this is World War II and at the beginning of World War II when Pearl Harbor happens they rounded up the Japanese Americans and they put them in basically concentration camps and would not let him join the military would not let him they took away their freedoms.

Because they were just like on the east on the west coast it was like we don't know how this is about to play out and Japanese have attacked us and they reverse course on this and this is a Japanese American whose dad worked now for the government and who was signing up to go be in the military and he says that his dad took leave from work I had to get permission from the government to take three hours off to to take his son.

So that he could enlist so he could leave he was he's leaving and he said his dad they get on the streetcar and they're going he said his dad's quiet he's not on a man who talks much he's just riding with him until they get close to where he's going to be dropping him off he said my dad cleared his throat and I knew something was coming and he said I know he's not a man of words so this was hard.

For him but he said his dad looked at him is he was taking him to drop him off for him to go be in the military in World War II he said my dad looked at me and said this country has been good to us and it's given me two jobs it has given you and your brothers and your sister education we owe a lot to this country do not dishonor this country he looked at his son and said you're about to put on a uniform that carries the name and don't dishonor it how much more should we care.

If we've been purchased by the blood of Christ that we carry his name in a way that honors him how much more should we care and how we sing and how we speak and what we watch and how we treat him and how we teach others to treat him how much more precious and valuable and good is he that if we would look at someone and say you've Dishonored the badge you've Dishonored the uniform and think that means something which it does how much more should we carry care about dishonoring the name of Christ the band's going to come back up in a moment we're going to sing in a moment we're going to take.

Communion and I want us to reckon with something for a second Exodus 20 verse 7. the third commandment you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain we're guilty we're guilty of disregarding the glory and worth and preciousness of God so what do we do well second Corinthians 5 we got right to it and we stopped he says therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

God making his appeal through us we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God now here's the message for our sake he made him that's God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God Jesus saves us up from our sin and he saves us from the law which holds us accountable for our sin that's what he says it was for our sake that Jesus did this the message that we Proclaim is not I'm really good.

Because I'm a Christian yes we care about honoring the name but the message we Proclaim is that he's really good that he who knew no sin became sin so that I might be made righteous that my hope is in him so in the midst of us realizing that we ought to love and care about the glory of God Way Beyond the bounds of where we are right now yes we repent and we praise God that he became sin so that we could be made righteous.

Because our hope is not in our good actions but in his his work on our behalf and the cross and that's what we celebrate at Communion so if you are a Christian in the room we would invite you to repent to spend some time with the Lord and then take communion which is where we celebrate that his body was broken for us that his blood was shed for us and there's a new covenant for us for Covenant of forgiveness of sins.

If you are not a Christian communion is not for you to not partake but we would invite you to trust in Jesus because he became sins and we could be made righteous the message of the Gospel is not come be good the message of the Gospel is that you are in sin and you need forgiveness and there is hope in Christ and that's offered to you today by faith Jesus let's pray Lord forgive us forgive us for valuing you so little forgive us.

For being the people who should worship and glorify with focus and energy in our hearts who should care about how we treat your name and carry your name who should represent you well in the world and we fail and the Lord we ask you to save us for the sake of your name for the sake of the name of Jesus who will not fail to rescue any who trust in you we ask you to forgive us for the sake of the glory of Christ who has come to redeem Sinners and will not fail we pray these things in.

Jesus name all around the room right now take a moment to sit with the Lord ask him to help you see your own heart here to repent and to confess and then to celebrate by taking communion.

The Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-6)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

The First Commandment (Exodus 20:1-3)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Good morning my name is Spencer I am one of the pastors here we're going to be in Exodus chapter 20 Verses 4 through 6 today we are walking through the Ten Commandments we're going to one by one we're in the second commandments uh today that'll be on page 35 in your blue Bibles uh you can follow along also on the screen so my family and I have owned owned two homes over the last seven years and both of those homes were complete remodels they required a lot of work and I've learned a couple things in completely redoing houses the.

First is is that I never want to move again and I never would do another remodel uh that was that's an important lesson we are staying until I die the second uh is I've I've actually learned quite a bit in the process of doing some of these these remodels I've learned on the fly a little bit how to do these different projects in the house uh which you know I didn't I learned a lot of things growing up but there's a lot of things that I just rejected like my stepdad tried to show me how to do quite a few things and I just said no I appreciate what you're offering.

But one day I'm going to be an attorney and I'll make lots of money I'll pay people to do this and that was a poor life choice based on the profession that I chose uh because I can barely pay anyone to do anything so I've had to learn on the Fly which has been helpful like I've had to learn these different things but there's been some there's been some successes and there's been some failures and the greatest failure was the back porch at my last house.

So we converted a screened porch into a sunroom which raised the flooring about a foot off the ground which meant when you stepped into the backyard you stepped about a foot down which is dangerous and I said we need to make this kind of a back patio area so I said uh you know what let's do a concrete pad that'll be the patio that we do and I never poured concrete before but uh but I said you know what I think I think this is doable I got on YouTube and I was like oh yeah I got this and I kind of just scanned through the process of looking at how to pour a concrete.

Pad and just said I got this so I went to Lowe's and collected concrete materials came back and then started and about halfway through I realized that this was a huge mistake that one is not simply just stumble upon the art of poor concrete there's a lot that goes into it I think it's one point my wife came out it was kind of looking and it's like oh no this is this is a disaster when it was done I looked at it and I was like this this is awful this is this is terrible like this looks horrible I don't know.

If you know this about concrete but once you do it like it's done you know you don't just fix that like it just it's over and uh so I just was like the only option how I'm not about to get a jackhammer and rip this thing up so I just decked right over the top of it and to this day whoever owns that house right now one day they're gonna change those deck boards and they're gonna pull them up and go what is that monstrosity who did this I did that I guess I had the right idea like I need that that back porch was necessary right it was dangerous to not have that it.

Was going to look good I had the right idea but I did it poorly I did it wrongly and I've heard pastors and theologians describe the first and second commandment like this at the first commandment is worshiping the right God and that truth gets pulled down to the second commandment and the second commandment is worshiping the right God rightly so worshiping the right God but not doing it wrongly and that's what we're going to see as we walk through this today we're going to be in the.

Second commandment we're going to see how the people are designed to worship God and God alone like we talked through last week in the first commandment but also to worship the one true God rightly I'm going to read it and then we'll pray and they'll want this together verse 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth you shall not bow down to them or serve them.

For I the Lord your God and may jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth the fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments let's pray and we'll want this together heavenly father I pray that you would continue to expose the Scriptures and these Commandments to our hearts I pray that we would have hearts to receive your word so that we might.

See your truth and your Commandments as good and that we might walk this out in faith and obedience and a repentance and ultimately delighting in who you are as our one true God we ask this in Jesus name amen Okay so let me start at the beginning of this he says in verse 4 You shall not you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

So let's pause this we're going to spend quite a bit of time this phrasing is a broad condemnation of idolatry okay it's a broad condemnation of idolatry but as we're going to see as we walk through this it's a little more complicated than initially appears there are two different main ways to violate this commandment there's two types of idolatry condemnation that is happening here the first is the one that we're most familiar with and that is worshiping other gods through idols as a violation of this commandment.

So it's building off the first commandment that you shall have no other gods before me in my presence amongst my people in this land you will have no other gods before me it's pulling down that truth and the second commandment to say you want worship foreign idols my people will not do this this condemns all idolatry in the ancient near East now it's important to understand the nature of idolatry and the these worship and practices in the ancient near East okay.

So one commentator he describes it this way he says since the ancient near Eastern gods were viewed as being present in Idols that represented them bowing down before such an image was considered an appropriate way of showing respect to the relevant God so what he is saying is ancient near Eastern worship viewed these Idols as containing somewhat of the essence of that foreign deity of that foreign God in the idol itself and in a lot of ways that Idol contains some of the essence of that.

God and it correct it created kind of a pathway a portal a telephone line it gave you access to that God while the idol itself contained some of its Essence in the idol so ancient near easterners they needed Idols that they could touch they could having their home that they could visibly physically bring wherever they wanted to go it was a tangible way to have access to that God now if you were here last week as we walked the first commandment.

God doesn't want anything before him he wants our wholehearted worship and devotion and we don't run to foreign idols and anything those things may promise you don't run to those don't do that and then we kind of wanted this last week I don't think that any of you are the type of people who are going to go home today and you're going to have a little wooden Idol in your office or in your kitchen that you bow down to that's not what we do.

But what we do is we worship other things in the place of God that we create Idols out of created things in this life like you can have a career which is a good thing that God has given us but you can make it God by giving that career all of your attention all of your devotion all of your time all of your energy that you ride the highs and lows of that career that your happiness is banked on what happens in that career and that's idolatry that's worshiping something in the place of.

God that is elevating something created to the stage of Creator and worshiping it so the second commandment includes this broad condemnation of worshiping anything and for us anything that we think gives us ultimately the good life but that's not the only idea that's being conveyed here that's not the only type of idol worship that's happening here it's not merely addressing the worship of foreign idols but it is taking that practice this ancient near Eastern practice of believing that the essence of your.

God is bound up in that Graven image bound up in that created Idol and applying that Worship in practice too the Lord believing that you can worship the one true God through Idols that is the second type of idolatry that's being condemned in this second commandment and it's where we're going to spend the most of our time today is believing that any creative thing can represent God and that we can bow down to it and worship it and the place of.

God so remember the surrounding Nations believed that that false God that its Essence was in the idol itself and the people of God have been surrounded by the Egyptians and surrounding Nations for centuries this is commonplace practice to believe that your God could be represented that you could make a grave in a created image but you could carve an idol and it could contain your God you could have access to your God and God is saying don't take that practice and apply it to me that you're to worship me and me alone and you were to worship me rightly not wrongly The Great I Am who we've seen throughout the Book of Exodus Yahweh this.

Wonderful glorious slow to anger abounding and stuff I love steadfast love and faithfulness this wonderful glorious God whose attributes are unsearchable his Beauty and his Holiness and his goodness and his mercy and his love and his grace and everything that we try to describe or Indescribable God do not reduce Our God down to a created substance do not believe that you can make anything in His image and bow down to it don't bring that practice into this land that I'm going to give to you don't do it that is blasphemous that is a Blasphemous form of worship irreverently corrupting the name and the character of.

God by reducing him down to something that is not holy as he is Holy it is Blasphemous now that type of idol worship makes a whole lot more sense when you get down to Exodus 32 which we will get to when you get to the story of how they worshiped a golden calf so we get to Exodus 32 Moses we're going to see over the coming chapters he's going to spend a lot of time receiving the law on Mount Sinai from.

God and he's away for quite some time so long that so long that the people are like where is he where's Moses who brought us out and they start panicking and I started this is the man who's been telling us what we need to do this is the man who's been representing God as the mediator this is the man who's been like what what are we going to do and they go to Aaron second command and they're like Aaron you got to do something we need to be able to worship.

God and they come to Aaron and Aaron fails and they they've already had the second commandment they already they already have the second commandment and Aaron says all right bring me gold so he takes and collects they're gold they're very y'all the very gold that God secured for them in the victory over Egypt the goal that they took and I mean this they took that goal that God gave them and they melt it down into a golden calf and into an idol and in Exodus 32 it says that he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf and they said these are the are your.

Gods of Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt you might read that and think okay but they just think it's foreign gods that brought them out but it gets more complicated because this is how Aaron responds verse five when Aaron saw this he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord this wasn't just worshiping foreign Idols no no this will be this golden calf will be what represents our.

God taking the four and ancient near Eastern practices and bringing it amongst and into the people of God and then this makes even more sense later when you get to Deuteronomy which is the second ring of the law this is when right before they're going to enter into the promised land they're looking back at this event and Moses says this and Deuteronomy 4 he says therefore watch yourselves very carefully since you saw no form on the day the Lord spoke to you out of of out of the midst of the fire you couldn't.

See our God and you panicked but where lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves they needed a God that they could see that they could touch that they could bow down to just like the surrounding Nations and they thought they were worshiping the one true God but they were worshiping him wrongly they worshiped them wrongly and that is a heinous evil corrupted practice you may think of it they were trying they're trying to worship God they're figuring this out.

But we don't understand how heinous and how evil and how Wicked it is to do what they did I mean a small version of of that that I it doesn't even come close would be like if you if you had a family where the parents were like Elite and Rich and had power and influence and they somehow got access to a private viewing of the Mona Lisa and they got a private viewing the Mona Lisa and their child was with them and their child loved the Mona Lisa and they said I I want to paint the Mona Lisa and they let their child their child take paint and finger paint all over the Mona Lisa.

Just completely defacing it the most priceless piece of Western Art in history can you imagine the backlash can you imagine the stories across the world when people found out that a child defaced the Mona Lisa I mean it would be swift it would be severe and no matter how Earnest that child was trying to honor that piece of Priceless artwork they've corrupted it and degraded it and that comes nowhere even close to the attempt to reduce the glory of our God down to a created substance to mimic or try to reduce him down to a created thing reveals that you have a degraded and diminished view of who.

God is that you don't truly understand who God is and if you have a diminished and degraded view a corrupted view of God then ultimately what follows that is all the other corrupt practices and that's the nation of Israel that they would bow down to idols some of which they believe represented the one true God and there were all types of rebellious practices that followed all the way up into sacrificing your own children by burning them alive which happened in the history of Israel.

Because they believe they could reduce God down to something created and bow down to it and what this shows is because of this diminished worship of God it reveals they have a diminished corrupted view of God and ultimately if you have a corrupted view of who God is then you'll have corrupted obedience another way of saying that is how we worship reveals whom we worship that how we worship ultimately reveals whom we worship you may believe that you were earnestly worshiping.

God by bowing down to this Graven image but don't confuse earnestness with having the right heart and understanding of who God is it has diminished view of God and it reveals that you don't understand who God is in the first place that you could reduce the glory of God down to a career thing means that you don't actually truly know them the people don't truly actually know who their God is and there's the second commandment that is meant to so strictly guard that that not only are you do not have no you're to have no other gods before the one true.

God and you to worship him alone you were to worship Him rightly because how we worship Alton reveals whom he worships now the people of God needed to receive this they needed to walk in this they need to be corrected by this this gets a little complicated for us as Christians how do Christians obey the second commandment when the invisible God took on flesh and dwelt Among Us so that created uniquely a unique problem for Christians what do we do with the.

Second commandment now that the the God Came In the Flesh and walked Among Us that we he was an embodied person and now sits at the right hand of God the Father and it's resurrected body that created a problem for Christians for the last two thousand years as we've sought to still obey the second commandment when it comes to specifically images of Jesus around the fourth and fifth century they began to incorporate pictures of Jesus as a part of worship which ended up in a very big debate around the 7th Century between the eastern western churches of like what do we do with this is it.

Okay to have pictures in worship and they kind of just came to a little bit of a stalemate was like you can have them but don't we don't need to worship them and then this practice started to continue and get corrupted in the western Church in the Catholic Church and they began to use images of Jesus for worship I mean even to this day like I went to the Holy Land years ago and there's certain relics and and pictures and all and and places like where.

Jesus was whereas uh where this cross was that you see some Catholics it's what they're doing is they're worshiping and when it just they're bowing down trying to grab it to gain access to it's it's worship and this corrupted worship continued all the way into the Reformation and the reformers saw this around the 15th and 16th century and were like no they didn't want to see no images of G we don't mean to come anywhere close to violating the second commandment.

And when you get to one of the more foundational teachings and protestantism the Heidelberg Catechism which catechisms are just a teaching style of question and answer ask a question here's the answer we actually have a it's called the new city catechism which is out there by the bookshelf and the spiritual formation bookshelf which you can take and it has all kinds of helpful questions and answers to be able to learn more about our faith but in the Heidelberg Catechism hundreds of years ago they said question what does.

God require in the second commandment answer that we in no way make any image of God nor worship Him in any other way that he has commanded Us in his word and Protestants have largely been very hesitant about having pictures of Jesus historically up until today and what do you do today right there's historic Bibles there's there's film The Jesus film came along in the 70s The Passion of the Christ came along in the 2000 depicted Jesus now we have the chosen which is a TV show which is really.

Well done like there's a lot of Christian film and stuff that's horrible it's just really path but it's actually well done it's well directed it's well written it's well acted what do you do with that and I know that some of y'all might hear that and just go oh my goodness this feels so like tedious and nitpicky and almost Fair cynical like we're just are we splitting hairs here and I would just say don't roll your eyes it's something that the Church has earnestly sought to obey the.

Second commandment for two thousand years and understanding this so what do you do with stuff like that now I think the issue is not with the images of Jesus the second member of the Trinity I don't think that the issue is necessarily with the image of Christ that pushed back a little bit sounds bad but I pushed back a little bit on the Heidelberg Catechism because Jesus was embodied he's still embodied as the resurrected savior so he he imaged the invisible.

God imaged himself so I mean I think there's major problems if you try to represent the father God the Father God the Holy Spirit but the second member of the Trinity Christ because he was embodied he was a person I don't think the pictures of the problem I think how you approach those pictures is ultimately the problem and using any picture of Jesus to worship is highly highly problematic in a violation of this second commandment so I think the chosen is fine as long as you view it as entertainment give a general picture of the Gospel story that's fine.

But the chosen doesn't bring God into your living room Jonathan Rooney who's the actor that plays Jesus he's not Jesus so the chosen doesn't bring God into your living room when you're doing a storybook Bible with your children it's good to be mindful of what you're doing we have soilic Bibles and I love them but I really try to focus especially when it comes to pictures of Jesus try to focus on the story and then help them see that this is this is not literally.

Jesus this is just someone who's drawing Jesus we're certainly not going to have the storybook Bible out look at it and say children let's pray like not doing that and I think it's helpful to think through this I think even when I I've watched The Chosen I think it's actually really well done there have been times where I'll read it's one of the stories from the gospels and then I'm picturing stuff from that show and I'm like no no I'm not not doing that in my worship of.

God am I my quiet time before him I don't want to be picturing things I want the word of God to be what's molding and shaping My Worship so again so I might say that's nitpicky but I think it matters and seeing how to apply the second commandment because how we worship reveals whom we worship that matters I think that's a that's a clearly taught principle it's established here in the second commandment and it's pulled through the rest of the Old Testament like the rest of the Old Testament law is going to be there will be moments where they're teaching this is how you're supposed to worship you don't worship this way and the.

Second commandment but here's how you were to rightfully worship God that gets pulled into the New Testament where we're going to see teachings of how you're a rightfully worship God through hymns and Psalms and spiritual songs and reading Scripture and and teaching that all of that matters and as a principle this is a Down the Line application okay that I'm that I'm taking us to so not the main point here but but how we worship matters because it reveals who we worship that's why.

When we worship on Sundays as the corporate Church together we think about these kind of things that Matt who oversees or or worship Gatherings is thinking through the setting and lighting and songs and what we what we're seeing on some of that that matters because I mean there are I mean just there are some churches that that are so stale and so cold and so lifeless they can sing How Great Thou Art and I can sing when Christ shall come with shout of acclimation take me home and joy shall fill my heart and it's just lifeless and it's like do you realize what you're singing and how wonderful that truth is about Christ coming to.

Take us home and that's highly problematic if your worship is going to show who we're actually worshiping and I know oh farther into the Spectrum you've got churches that is just about the emotional high of worship and it's just emotional manipulation it's just it's hype culture on steroids like I remember when the last Church I was a part of we were hiring a worship pastor and we were interviewing some guys this guy came in from Texas and this guy was currently at the time he was leading Worship in Texas being flown out to a mega Church in Colorado and he wanted to get out of that culture.

Because they were it was so produced and manipulative that they were in his in their monitor telling him when to raise his hand in worship and it's just that so like I said not the main point of the passage but that principle matters and it comes out of the second commandment and flows to the rest of the Scriptures how we worship reveals whom we worship we are to worship the one true God and we are to worship Him rightly as we seek to obey the.

Second commandment just as the Israelites were called to do now they received this second commandment don't call don't incorporate these ancient near Eastern Pagan practices and worship of me and then what's listed are consequences and rewards for doing so so verse 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments they're both consequences and rewards.

For obeying or disobeying this second commandment now the consequences have to do with your children and your grandchildren and their children and a bad reading of this a bad reading of the second commandment is that children are punished for their parents sins and that's not what the second commandment is teaching Ezekiel 18 chapter chapter 18 verse 20. helpfully frames this it says the soul who sends shall die the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father nor the father suffer.

For the iniquity of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself children are not punished for their parents sins that's not what the second commandment is teaching however the parents sins can certainly affect their children I love how John Piper explains this he says that just because you get the flu does not automatically mean that your child is going to get the flu and start showing symptoms but don't be mistaken that.

If you get the flu there's a greater chance that your child will also get the flu so if you have a father who is raising his kids and he shows up to worship every Sunday suit and tie presenting the best this is we're a Christian family but at home he's an alcoholic and he's abusive and he's cruel and he belittles his children just because the father's sins doesn't mean the kids will be punished for it but don't be mistaken but if that's their view of what it means to be a Christian and that's their view of.

God there is a chance they're absolutely going to hate God and they're going to reject him so absolutely parents have an impact on their their children and he's trying to help them see that if you bow down to idols if you do this your children and your grandchildren and their children will continue the same practice of bowing down to Idols don't do it we sometimes forget that the Commandments are not just written to us as individuals they're written to the nation of Israel as.

Well and that is the history of Israel that when they bowed down to idols what happens their children do and their grandchildren do you see that but the Kings of Israel they're kings that they start bowing down to idols and then their son and then their son and then you see Kings who are righteous David and Josiah and when they are worshiping the God of the universe rightly than the thousands and thousands are also worshiping the God universe so that's what's happened there's consequences and the rewards and one more quick this is another implication is teaching and this is.

For kids in the room so if you're a kid perk up for a second listen in the same way that you're not punished for your parents sins you also don't ride the coattails of your parents faith you don't inherit their faith you have to have your own personal faith you have to personally decide to follow Jesus and walk with him for all of your days for some of you've got some Godly faithful parents but you're just not going to pick up on their faith you've got to own this yourself.

So they need to understand this how this generational implications for obeying and disobeying the second commandment but they also needed to understand why why is the second commandment such a big deal why does this matter so much and it's right there embedded in the middle of it verse 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God it's because our God is a jealous God who has jealous love for his people jealousy can sometimes be thought of in negative ways and it certainly can be used in negative ways.

But it also can be used in wonderful ways when I was in college my wife and I we were best friends best friends throughout College but I had a rule about not dating best friends because I dated my best friend in high school and ended poorly we were no longer friends so I had this rule as I don't date best friends so I friendzoned her and then junior year came around and I was like what am I doing she's great I like I it.

Finally like fall like winter winter break it clicked I just was like what am I doing I want to be with her about the time I decided I wanted to be with her I found out that she was going on dates with this other guy and what welled up in me was jealous love oh my God I was jealous for her attention for her affection and for her and she was going on dates with this guy they weren't official yet but she was going on dates with this guy who by the way was nothing like me he played left he's a starting left tackle.

For Coastal Carolina he was six foot four three bills I mean we could not be any different I was like what is happening but I was like The Unofficial yet this is going a few dates so I was making my intentions clear I was I was she saw very quickly that was no longer just friendship that I was interested in her now I don't want to spoil the rest of the story but she found out that I liked her and he's like bye that guy was gone and to this day.

If I saw her walking down the street holding another man's hand what would well up in me is jealous love because I have a jealous love for her I want her attention I want her affection I want her and the God of the universe even more so is jealous for us don't miss that he wants our attention he wants our affection he wants you God is jealous for you that is why the language of idolatry throughout the rest of the Old Testament is a spiritual adultery that's what a language is playing the Harlot after foreign Gods whoring after other gods that language is intentional.

For a reason because God has a Fierce and jealous love for his people and it's wonderful it's wonderful and people misunderstand that they criticize the jealousy of God Oprah said the reason she rejected the God of the Bible is because the Bible says that God is a jealous guy she thought that was petty and small as you missed it you completely misunderstand the jealousy of our God our God isn't jealous for us because he needs us Our God eternally has existed as self-sufficient he doesn't need anybody before creation even exempt.

For time existed which this is bright this breaks the brain but in what's called eternity past God the Father God the son and God the Holy Spirit eternally existed in Perfect Harmony had no need of creation had no need of people but God made the University made people he didn't need us but he desires us he wants us he is jealous for us and his jealousy is so wonderfully displayed that when his creation rejected him and chased after other idols and worshiped other things in the places of.

God that he would not let that stand and he came forth and that he obeyed the he took on flesh and dwelt Among Us and Jesus obeyed the Old Testament law perfectly and then he went to the cross for us to have his blood shed for our idolatrous pursuit of everything else and he died for us and he rose for us so that we could walk and the newness of life that experiences the Wonder and the joy of a God who is jealous.

For his people so that we could experience his jealousy for us now into eternity that is how jealous and how wonderful our God is so the first and second commandment you shall have no other gods before me and you will worship me rightly that is a good gift that is those are wonderful Commandments because it calls us to see the one true God who is completely in love with us completely jealous for us and allows us to see him for who he is.

So that we can love him with all our heart with all our soul and with all our might and we would enjoy him forever the band's going to come up and we get to worship we get to sing to our jealous wonderful God we get to Behold Him for who he is but there are probably some of us they don't see that and don't fully understand that and some of us all we can see is our sin and our Brokenness and we think how in the world could.

God possibly want me we were the first the second commandment we can see all the other things that we worship in the place of God and so how could this God still want me he loves us because of his great love and his great Mercy he loves us because he is jealous for us because of what Jesus did for us and it's based completely on the work of Christ in Christ alone so yeah we are unworthy I don't know we're unworthy to worship Our.

God and to Behold Him but through Christ and what he has done for us we get to worship our God and there may be some of you here that have never truly believed this who have never surrendered to this God who is jealous and I want you to see how wonderful the jealousy of God is I want you to see how wonderful it is to have no other gods before him but to be so deeply in love with him and my hope is that you would surrender this.

God because he's worthy worthy you pray heavenly father I pray that you would help us behold you now in worship we are we are idolaters we do chase after other things and those things leave us empty and unsatisfied and broken and weary and that you get to pick up our heads and help us see the cross in the empty tomb we get to behold you our jealous and wonderful God the Lord help us worship and if there's anyone here that is not understood that has not believed that does not know you.

God may you absolutely bend their hearts to believe and the beholding you as our one true God so that we can worship you and worship you rightly in Jesus name amen.

The Ten Commandments Intro (Exodus 20:1-17)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Transcript

Grab a bomb and go to Exodus chapter 20. that'll be on page 35 if you grab one of the blue baubles that's in the chair on the seat in front of you in that little rack we have been working our way through the book of Exodus and we've made it to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments and we're going to spend the next several weeks in the Ten Commandments um some years ago there was a an Indian food buffet over in West Columbia in the shopping center where Hobby Lobby is and I had never really had Indian food and I thought Buffet is a good place to start.

Because you can see it you can try different things you're not just locked into um and so we went this is the type of stuff this is like street food you get this you dip this and that she'd be like for for you know probably what this is she's like all right don't eat that and she'd be like the filled up plate went and sat down and she's excitedly like watching us about to eat and then I had one of the weirdest experiences of my life I took a bite of the food stuck it in my mouth and my brain knew that it was food.

But my body did not recognize flavor a texture a smell the weird I put it in my mouth and might have ever come to just sticking to my mouth immediately just spitting it back out on the table but she's excitedly like watching so I was like but it was weird because I did not recognize any of it it was so foreign to me that I just wanted to immediately reject it I ended up enjoying my meal we went back a couple of times I did grow my palate a little bit and trying to eat some Indian food um still not my favorite though.

But the reason I tell that illustration the reason I'm telling that story is that we're looking at the law that God gives the people of Israel and what happens to us when we receive the law so often there are parts of this that taste good to us that you read this and you go yes amen thank you Lord praise God you're so wise you're so wonderful and there's other parts of it that are foreign to us odd to us confusing to us as you work through Not Just the Ten Commandments you.

If you will consider them today and you're probably used to them so I'm going to have to press on a little bit of how we kind of Nod along but then disagree but as you read through the books of the Bible as you read the rest of the laws you read how God interacts with man there are times where you're reading stuff and you're just confused as to why he cares about that why does that matter and there are other times where you're probably reading the Bible and it's not just confusion it's disdain being.

For several weeks and we're going to zoom in each one and kind of walk through and take them in turn today we're doing a bigger picture overview and we're really proculture what are the ones that we kind of shy away from or dislike and then what do we do with that that's where we're going to start as we study the Ten Commandments because if we think if we don't do this there's a chance that we'll all nod along boldly important to.

God and and therefore to us through the Ten Commandments this morning God we ask for your help we ask for the work of the Holy Spirit to help us see ourselves one so helpful and so much for our good and Jesus and God spoke all these it calls them the words a lot and it'll even say at times that they're we're to follow his words and his statutes and these are the work and if you haven't sometimes they're called the decalogue God's ten commandments and in some ways.

If you want to try to think about it it's the 10 most important things if God is giving you these are the 10 most important foundational things for following him it's these and the rest of the law is extrapolation from this it's further explanation of these when he says you will have no other God before me the rest of the law is explaining what that looks like when it says you won't steal it's not just how you define stealing he explains it he explains what you're like all right.

Well I didn't really steal but I borrowed something and I broke it does that count it's like yeah he's going to explain some of those things and try to help us understand I didn't steal an item I stole a person yeah that's a problem he's going to explain those things further on but this is where we get kind of the 10 foundational items God's top ten these are wildly important and I think it's helpful for us to understand that because there are things in this list that would not make your top ten there are things in this list that we may be used to hearing.

But they wouldn't if you were setting a code of laws I'm guessing there's some things here that you would think well okay maybe but probably not in your top ten so that's where we need to grow in understanding what is God saying and why does this matter and why are we wrong not him verse 2. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery y'all verse 2 is so wonderful.

Because I think sometimes we think that our approach to God is okay what does he want from me all right God what are your rules what are the things I need to do to be one of the good ones what are the things I need to do to make you love me to make you uh you know to to be saved what are the things I need to do to be a good Christian some of you might even be here this morning and that's why you're here you're you you realize that you got your life sideways and you're like I just got to get back in Church I'm gonna get straightened back out I'm gonna.

Go get it together and no you're not but we're glad you're here that's not how it works the the hope for the Israelites is not he didn't come to them in their slavery and say hey I got 10 rules and if y'all can start following these I'm gonna Circle back around and rescue you what happens first is redemption then Commandments and it's the same way for us in in the cross we need forgiveness then we follow in obedience we follow in obedience.

Because he is gracious and good and he redeems and he rescues we read that together a moment ago that we're by Grace we are saved and then later it says it's nothing that we've done it's not by works but he's prepared good works for us so that we are redeemed and rescued by his good work on our behalf and then we follow in obedience but it's we've got to get that in the right order because if you think I'm going to get it together I'm going to work really hard.

Then God will save me that's not how it works Redemption comes first and that's really good news so that we get to come to Jesus and ask for forgiveness and Rescue and he does through his work not ours and then calls us to follow him in obedience and humility okay rescue before command salvation before obedience but now let's look at the Ten Commandments we're gonna like I said we're gonna move through these fairly quickly and then we're going to discuss some stuff we're going to come back through.

But we're taking all of them together today and we'll spend more time on in the coming weeks you shall have no other gods before me God says I'm it it's not a Pantheon it's not like I'm the top one and you can have some other ones it's me and you worship me and me alone you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth you shall not bow down to them or serve them.

For I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to the thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments first ones you'll have no other gods before me the second one is you will not make a Graven image you won't make an idol you won't have other things that you worship and bow down to you won't approach me that way or worship other gods in that way.

Third one you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain we will not speak blasphemously or flippantly about the name of God and we will not use his name to co-sign our lies that he will be treated with respect and honor verse 8. remember the Sabbath day to keep 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 you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the Sojourner who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed this sabbath day and made it holy so he sets us out a day and says this is a holy day and you will rest and worship and no one will work on this day.

Verse 12 honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you and some of y'all didn't realize that your parents quoted that to you in shorthand periodically you better do what I say or I'm going to snatch you up I brought you in I can take you out you will not live long in the land that God gave you but we will honor and show respect to our parents and our elders 13 you shall not murder you shall not commit adultery you shall not steal you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor you're not lie to harm others you will not.

Lie at all and the last one you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors that we are not to sit and look at those around us and desire what they have to long for it to daydream about it to think must be nice not to do that that's God's Ten Commandments that's the ten words that he gives to the people of Israel and everything else like I said is going to fall out of that is going to be explaining that it's going to help us understand it's almost like these.

Are the laws and the rest of it is like case law it's saying in this situation this in this situation this two of those are positive commands things that you will do eight of them are prohibitions negative commands you will not the word shall is a mixture of Will and should not only will you but you should not only should you but you will shall that's kind of a way to understand we don't use that word that much anymore you're not like actually I'll go to the bank.

Today but that's what he's saying is this is what you will do and it's what you should do and this is what you will not do and what you should not do now some of those we read and they make sense to us we think they're good some of them it's like okay I don't know I I don't I know as Christians if you're in here and you're a Christian you're you're trying to bend your will to the will of God I understand that like I read these and I go I want to obey all of these I understand these I want to follow them as the Holy Spirit is at work in me I.

Want to be submissive to this but I'm just saying that culturally some of them track with us very clearly in other ones we have a little bit harder time with so I want to take a moment to try to help us understand that get a better vantage point on that as we walk through there are two books that I have found helpful one of them is the Righteous Mind by Jonathan height and I said I was going to look up how to pronounce his name and I didn't.

So height is how you pronounce it and uh the other one is for our good Always by Brandon Clements Jonathan height is a PhD and he does studies in moral psychology he is not a Christian but he was looking into how do people make decisions and how specifically do people make moral decisions and decisions where they're saying this is a moral issue meaning that it is right and wrong whether you think so or not that's morality this is right or wrong whether you think.

So or not but he's approaching it from a psychological standpoint he does a lot of research and it's interesting research that he does Brandon Clements is a Christian he's a pastor at Midtown Lexington I when I did my residency at Midtown um I worked with him a lot he's he's a very wise helpful guy and this is a very good book but he takes a lot of what Jonathan height says and says yeah the Bible talks about that and he pairs it up with the Ten Commandments and helps us.

See kind of how that applies but Jonathan height outlines as he's done studies around the world he realized that uh most of the studies done on how people make moral decisions are done with middle class Americans so he was like well let's go do some studies in other parts of the world and see how they think about things and he outlined what he calls five moral foundations places where you anchor morality he also calls them moral taste buds I was on a plane one time we were headed to New York and I heard someone loudly saying from across the plane and she was.

So excited to go back to New York because biscuits are awful and she missed Bagels and I thought well no wonder she's loud she's from New York and she's wildly wrong she complained that biscuits are crumbly that's wonderful that's part of what makes him good you have to gnaw on a bagel could you imagine eating a bacon egg and cheese bagel that sounds awful it's like if you gave me one of those I'd be like I'm just gonna fast and pray this morning.

For the people for the people in the northern U.S who have to eat this all the time that's a matter of taste there may be some of you in here who are like bagels are awesome and good for you you're wrong but that's okay it's a matter of taste and when Jonathan height talks about morality he's talking about it like it's a matter of taste but it's not a matter of taste it's a matter of divine decree but this is the way he's talking about it what he says is that culturally we have some that we like we have certain moral foundations that make sense to us culture that have been infused into our culture.

And so he lists out five and this is what he says care and harm as a moral Foundation fairness and cheating is a moral Foundation loyalty and betrayal is a moral Foundation Authority and subversion is a moral foundation and sanctity and degradation is a moral Foundation so I'm gonna try to explain these and I'm gonna try to help us understand why this is integral to our approach and understanding of the Ten Commandments Karen harm it's bad to hurt people it's good to care.

For people virtues or gentleness and kindness sins it's anything that hurts somebody this will make sense to us fairness and cheating the virtues are honesty Equity Justice that oppression is sinful and bad that lying and cheating are bad that we ought to be fair and equal and that this is a moral foundation for whether or not you can judge if something is right or wrong loyalty and betrayal it is good for people to be able to join groups and trust one another it's good.

For you to enter into relationships and be able to trust others that together we can make things better so from this we get things like the way you care for your family or your friends or patriotism this is where I can tell one of my brothers he's being an idiot but you better keep that to yourself I'll handle my own Idiot Brother you shut your mouth that's where that comes from this idea that it's wrong to be disloyal it's wrong to betray the trust of others or to commit treason whether you think.

So or not Authority and subversion that we need as humans to flourish to form beneficial relationships inside of hierarchies and that sentence hurts Americans feelings but it's true how much do y'all like the idea of authority and submission you're a big fan of it think about it a lot this insists that not all hierarchies are evil or exploitive we should have respect for legitimate Authority whether that's God the government a parent a teacher a boss if these things are actually integral to human flourishing and that it is good to exist with some respect deference and submission in these hierarchies.

Therefore disrespect disobedience is wrong the fifth one that he outlines is sanctity and degradation that some things are right and wrong simply because God says they are he says there's this understanding that there's a vertical axis and at the top there are things that are holy Sanctified and at the bottom there are things that are degraded defiling and profane so if you think about the idea that humans are made in the image of God and then how can we treat dead bodies.

And if you just base things off of harm it's like well you can't hurt them but no there's there's definitely a way to defile and degrade and to be profane and it's wrong just because it's wrong and because God says it's wrong versus things that are holy and set apart now culturally and Brandon Clements helps outline this we uh we have differing viewpoints depending on where you come from culturally so Asian cultures values loyalty and Authority followed by sanctity and then care harm fairness all that care and harm and fairness show up in every culture in some ways.

But loyalty and Authority matter more this is why Disney can't make good movies about Asian cultures this is why in Moana and Mulan they start off by singing a song about how you're supposed to fit into your role in society and you're supposed to be submissive to your elders and that it ends with the Disney character going but not really do what you want listen to your parents unless you hear a voice inside tell you something else and then do that mulan's like I should submit and figure out how to be a wife and fit into culture and that's a very Asian thought process.

And then she turns American is like but not really give me a sword I'm about to stick it to the Huns and that's the stuff we celebrate but culturally loyalty to your parents to your ancestors submission to Authority this is why when there was a giant I believe it was an earthquake in Japan I just remember seeing the picture of the lines for people to get water it was like a two mile long single foul line and I thought you're not getting Americans to line up like that.

For water but the order and authority and submission to Authority that's how they handled it Middle Eastern cultures sanctity is the highest God says some things are wrong so they're wrong then you have authority and loyalty and then care harm and fairness are lower down this is why a lot of Middle Eastern cultures hate Western cultures because they think that we're promoting a free sexuality a rejection of authority an inverted sense of autonomy and that the world would be better off.

If we weren't running around defiling it and they say that some things are wrong because God says they're wrong and we disagree with some of those things as Christians but they're not wrong about all of that all right let's talk about us Western cultures we have a very inflamed sense of care and harm and fairness this is how we think about it this is why we'll say things like do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt somebody that's care Harmony this is why.

When they were trying to convince people to quit illegally downloading music and movies you remember back in the day some of y'all when you would use Napster or LimeWire like you had like let's say you had an older brother and his name was hypothetically like Logan and he was like hey I was downloading this song but our dad took a phone call so now it's not going to download even though we were seven hours in so we're gonna get it downloading tonight before we go to bed.

And when we wake up we'll probably have this song by Incubus or Third Eye Blind or whatever y'all remember that but when they were trying to convince people not to do that they ran in ad campaigns and what did they say piracy is not a victimless crime because in order to talk to us they needed to convince us that you were hurting somebody what they didn't say is piracy is stealing and stealing is a sin piracy is disloyal to your fellow citizens who have copyrights on this music how much would we care.

But what they said is you have a secret victim and every time you piracy something you've stabbed them and robbed them of a meal and it's like oh wow that matters a little more that we have a victim here this is how we have to communicate to us because that's all we care about now this matters because when we approach The Ten Commandments or we approach the law of God when we're reading how God deals with humans what happens is so often we go why would.

God act like that or we approach in some sort of hubris some sort of Pride that we have a beautiful view on what morality ought to be when actually we have a stunted and disfigured view of morality that has things out of place Karen harm matter fairness matters but they're not the only things that matter and when we read The Ten Commandments there are things that are wildly massively important to God that don't register with our culture at all and there are times that you're reading your Bible and you might be thinking.

Well that's a bit of an overreaction wow God's being really harsh there why would that be such a big thing I don't understand why he would treat those people that way most often it's in a sense it's in a case where someone seems to be harmed by God for a thing that we deem not that important so let's look at our Ten Commandments you see for us to say that we have the best view on morality is like me asking you to paint a sunset or a rainbow.

And then giving you two green crayons you're going to immediately respond with I'm gonna need some more things here to fill this out and that's actually what we need when it comes to morality we need a little bit more of God's understanding of how to approach right and wrong because there's things that we are missing and therefore rather than disagreeing with God and thinking we're right we ought to see every disagreement with God a place that we need to grow be submissive walk in obedience and Trust his wisdom over ours I have a I know how to build some things I've built built some things I'm not the best at it.

But I'm not terrible but there have been times where I've gotten to do a construction project with Brad arneson and Chris Rocky um Brad arneson oversees a steel plant and Chris Rocky's finishing building his own house with his own bare hands and so when I'm in construction projects with them what I don't do is walk over and gosh yeah I got this I don't know if you know this I've built a porch before like I don't do that what I do is I come over like this and I go what do you want me to do boss.

And then I say things like and when they tell me to stop doing a thing I say okay and I stop and then I sometimes I'll ask why was what was I doing that was dumb and they'll explain it to me and if you hung out with us on a job site you would think that was the right way to behave how dare we approach our Bibles with with less respect and deference than we would give to a human who knows some more than us how how dare we approach our Bibles.

Look and go well I don't really like that or I don't know you're going to need to explain yourself a little more to me God foolishness so let's look at our Ten Commandments let's try to grow a little bit I want to show you the ones you like care and fairness ones these are the ones if I said hey pick your favorite Ten Commandments pick the ones that if you were going to choose for your neighbors to follow if I said hey you're going to live in a neighborhood and you get to pick four Commandments that everyone in that City or that neighborhood is going to follow I can guess with great accuracy which ones.

We'd be picking you shall not murder you should not commit adultery you shall not steal you should not bear false witness I want to live in a place like that those are the ones that were like yeah I mean it's a big deal like if you had a child and they started showing homicidal Tendencies you would care you'd be like I don't know he keeps just hurting things this is terrible he's going to grow up to be a murderer but some of us have wildly disrespectful children and we're like.

Well maybe he'll be a cowboy and it's like that's not good for him he shouldn't be acting like that some of us continually teach our children that treating the name the name of the Lord in vain doesn't matter as much these are the ones that we care about these are the ones that make sense to us there are some that are kind of in the middle we understand a little bit we're we're tracking somewhat with you shall have no other gods before me that's primarily loyalty and Authority you should have no other guys before me go to the the here we go that's primarily loyalty and Authority we at least understand this logically that.

If God's going to be the one who rescues then God can tell you he's the only God and you're going to submit to him the problem is culturally and for a lot of us it just is like well okay I mean it makes sense it's like a house rule for God but it's not that important but it's actually massively important for Humanity to know the one true God submit to the one true God and not follow any other God and this command carries the death penalty with it in the law.

So God takes it seriously the next one that we take halfway honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you we yeah that makes sense to be respectful to your parents that's something in general is a good thing like I came in the other day and I asked my younger son he's five I said something about dinner and I was asking him basically what type of bean did he want do you want green beans you want something like that I said you want green beans and he stood up and went nowhere do what he said that's how I say no.

Now and I said not to me it didn't not to your mama not to your teachers you can say it to your brother which is very funny to watch him say that to his older brother you want to play this game but we understand in some sense that respecting your parents is this is important that this matters but again we can only go so far the beginning of the new one of the new Disney movies called turning red starts off like this it's like you know somebody doing narration over the top of some stuff and it says this the number one oh it's about an Asian family.

So you're going to get watch again how how we treat this the number one rule in my family honor your parents they're the Supreme Beings who gave you life who sweated and sacrificed so much to put a roof over your head food on your plate an epic amount of food the least you can do in return is every single thing they ask of course some people are like be careful honoring your parents sounds great but if you take it too far.

Well you might forget to honor yourself the opening of a Disney movie quotes The Ten Commandments and says follow me children and part of us as good Americans thinks she's not wrong can't have your parents telling you what to do all the time but this also carries a capital punishment in Exodus 21 and in Deuteronomy disregard for your parents striking your father or mother or living wildly licentious rebellious lives ends in execution but we have an inflamed sense of harm and we say.

Well that sounds ridiculous that God would act like that but maybe we're wrong and not him there are several that don't make much sense to us at all you shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is heaven above or Earth beneath okay so no idols I guess God can set that rule I guess God can make that but as far as like I mean shouldn't we just let cultures kind of do what they want should we let people do what they want does it really matter that much what we worship or how we worship I mean I don't really want to live in a society that dictates that.

But again as far as the people of Israel goes and how God relates to them this also in Deuteronomy 13 and 17 carries the death penalty to reject God as your one true God and to pursue and worship idols is something that he takes wildly aggressively seriously because it is against human flourishing that it harms us ultimately and eternally when we reject the authority and Leadership and worship of God you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

For the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain there's a man who blasphemes and curses the Lord in Leviticus 24 and he is put to death now we might be understanding that if someone commits murder they received the death penalty but not that we would have to treat God's name this way but that's because we don't have any understanding of Holiness and sanctity the way that we ought to it's not because our vantage point on morality is better it's.

Because it is stunted and disfigured and that we ought to take the things that God says to take seriously seriously and some of us need to begin to pay attention to how we speak about God and his name remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six days you shall labor and do all of your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God that certain days will be set apart as holy for worship and rest and that that wasn't just something that was nice that.

God blessed us with rest but that it was something that was commanded as a thing that needed to be practiced in order to love and Worship the Lord is foreign to us we're likely to want to just spit it out of our mouth because it doesn't taste right now Jesus comes in and Spencer's going to talk us through some of this but Jesus comes in and he adjusts how they were viewing this sabbath and how we get to view this sabbath as a blessing.

But I want us to see that it's one of the ones that we read and just think optional this last one I think is a very good example you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors if I pressed you on this I think you might would be able to say that you could see how coveting a lot could make you unhappy like.

If I spend all my time on Instagram and Facebook I could see how that would like lead to depression if I was just looking at everything that everybody was happy about and always wishing that my life was better and all you'd really be able to articulate is that if you did this to the point of harming yourself then it might be bad but the idea that I'm not supposed to look at something someone else has and want it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us you ever seen someone's shoes and thought those are nice shoes and asked them a question like where'd you get those ever seen someone's jacket and thought that's.

A nice jacket where'd you get that jacket ever seen someone's truck and thought wow what a nice truck where'd you get that bullet antenna you ever seen you ever seen some bodies things and just thought like I like to get that I'd like to figure out where you have that I'd like to be able to to be able to have something like that that's our whole system that's not covetousness that's marketing that's capitalism this is what we operate off of you ever been watching a show and thought oh wow I need to check into seeing about that you've been scrolling through Facebook and thought I'd like to vacation there where is that and you've desired.

Something that someone else had and then you needed it in order for you to be happy that's covetousness you ever had something you were enjoying seeing someone else enjoying something else more and now you weren't enjoying what you were enjoying anymore you ever had a house you liked until you visited someone else's house and now your house is stupid I only have two bathrooms I want to let three or four people go to the bathroom at once this is normal for us we have whole TV shows dedicated to this we don't care and we read this and we nod and we go you're right.

But we walk off and we don't care because he hasn't convinced us that it harms someone he hasn't convinced us that it fits into our approach to morality and we are wrong and we don't need God to convince us we need to repent and submit and see that we have fallen wildly short of God's ideal for what we ought to be and rather than in Pride judging him we need to in submission and humility fall on our face and ask for help this is why Americans have no ability to articulate why you cannot participate in all the sexual activity you want to as long as it doesn't hurt someone this is why we have no.

Words to articulate to someone that you can't do that even though it's your own personal autonomy and even though you aren't actively hurting someone you're not allowed to do that because we don't have any words for sanctity we don't have any words for being able to say to someone that's wrong just because God says it's wrong that's degrading to being a human but that doesn't mean that God's wrong it means that we are I want to read a quote from Brandon Clement's book he says many Americans tend to think God's Wrath isn't fair showing our heightened moral category.

For that concern but part of that reasoning is because we don't think sin is that big of a deal and certainly not sins that don't seem to harm someone we don't care as much that people violently rebel against God's Authority betray his loyalty or degrade and debase the holy so we don't think of those things as deserving of Wrath and God's Vision all those things are serious offenses and sometimes deserving of Swift wrath death and even Eternal separation from him all of which makes the sacrifice of.

Jesus that enables us to approach God's throne with confidence all the more astounding do you know why so often we'll say things like I just don't understand how God could judge people who are good I don't understand why God would send good people to hell it's because we've trimmed the Ten Commandments down to about three or four things and we say it's not because they're murdering people they don't really steal maybe once when they were little they're pretty honest they seem to you know they might have had some sexual sin.

But they're pretty faithful to their spouse seems like they've had a good relationship he's a nice man he's a gentle man she's a good woman and all we mean is by our stunted reduced view of what God would want from us in an Americanized sense and we have cut out all the ways that we have heinously offended God by rejecting his authority by rejecting worship of him by honoring and loving and serving other things by treating his name like dirt and by walking around wildly coveting.

And then even the ones that we agree with still failing at and then excusing because Rebellion against God just isn't that big a deal and it's not that God's wrong it's that we are and what we need is forgiveness and obedience what we need is repentance we need Jesus to save us it makes his sacrifice all the more astounding that he would rescue people who have utterly rejected the authority of God and then walked around strutting in their pride I read a quote the other day that says whenever you feel like you've sinned just.

Remember that God sins far outweigh yours and then a bunch of people saying what a great quote and it's just because we've redone what we think morality is and then we can sit and judge God based off of it rather than in humility submitting to him and saying thank you Lord for correcting me where I am so wildly wrong every place that you disagree with him is not a place where he is wrong it's a place where you are and it's an opportunity.

For trust and obedience Romans 3 23 24 and 24 says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus we need to turn to Jesus and ask for forgiveness because we have failed and we are deserving of Wrath but he offers forgiveness and grace through taking the penalty of our sin on the cross and then after rescue and Redemption comes obedience this is why.

Jesus says things like uh whoever believes in the son has eternal life whoever does not obey the son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him this is why first John says by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his Commandments for this is love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not burdensome that we are rescued first but then we walk in humility and obedience grow our understanding of what.

God will have from us as the band comes back up this morning foreign seriously I want you to look at your Bible at Exodus 20 and I want you to consider the places where you run afoul of God's law or the places where you just kind of think that one doesn't matter I want us to consider before the Lord where we need his grace and then we get to ask him for it we get to say Lord I'm sorry help me change me forgive me.

Because of the work of Christ he will and then we get to say through your Holy Spirit Empower me to walk forward in obedience that I would not walk forward in Pride judging your law but that I would sit under the authority of your law knowing that I am judged by you but that ultimately because of Christ I get to escape that judgment because he was judged in my place for my sin but help me to obey let's bow our heads.

Lord I ask that by your grace that you would help us to see goodness and the wisdom of your law but I pray that by your grace and by your spirit that you would help us to see our sin so that we would not stand condemned or that we would not judge you in our arrogance the Lord May there be repentance this morning in the days to come we thank you for the rescue provided by the work of Christ for without it we are lost.