Perfectly Consistent

Jarochos - no breakfast this week

And look at Jesus’ Hands - start packing food for the next school year soon. Elam is involved now and gave a substantial gift - we are at $34,476.55

Isn’t it amazing how the Lord provides

Medical team

The Lord is perfectly consistent in what He requires

Today is the last day of the Summer Olympics in Paris.

I pray the closing ceremony turns out to be a pleasant contrast from the opening ceremonies.

I say that because of the specific intent of this message.

I was taught back in seminary that, before I put one word down on paper for a sermon, I had to answer two questions.

First - what is the proposition?

That is, can you sum the entire sermon up in one sentence.

In other words, know where you are going.

And second - what is the specific intent?

That is, why are you going to preach this sermon.

Two questions - know where you are going and know why you are going there.

The specific intent always begins with the words, “To help this congregation...”

The specific intent for today is: To help this congregation navigate the gray areas of life.”

Life would be easy if everything in life was black or white - but it’s not.

There is a lot of gray - people tried to convince us that the opening ceremony was a gray area.

Art - appreciate the art.

But was it art? And if it was art, did that make it OK for us to watch?

See, we need help with this gray area.

That’s what we are going to get started with today.

Open your Bibles to Exodus 20.

We’ll be looking at verses 1 - 6.

While you are looking, kids.

I want to ask you to do something.

I want you to go home today and ask your parents to help you memorize the ten commandments.

See, here’s the deal.

The 10 commandments reflect God’s personality.

If you know these 10 commandments, you can begin to understand what kind of God He’s going to be for you.

That’s a little hard to understand at your age, but I think you’ll start to catch on pretty quick for one good reason.

The Lord wants you to know Him and love Him and follow Him forever

Because He wants to love you and protect you forever.

This is important so do your best to listen - to help you stay on track a little bit, here are your three words to listen for: Yahweh, Hate, and Treasured.

Now, brothers and sisters, let us hear now the Word of our Lord.

Exodus 20:1–6 ESV

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let’s ask the Lord to help us this morning: Almighty God, many of us have heard your commandments so many times, that our ears may be weary of the words.

Holy Spirit, move in us afresh that we might receive the gift of Your words.

Make our hearts burn with love and gratitude for you our great God.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Chapter 20 doesn’t appear is a vacuum - it falls on the heels of chapter 19 - bet you are glad to find that out.

Chapter 19 gives us the run up to the moment we just read.

God came to Moses and told him that Yahweh Himself was going to address the nation of Israel.

He told them to come to the mountain but put boundaries around it because the mountain is holy.

There would be strong punishment if anyone violated those boundaries.

And God told them all to go wash their clothes.

They needed to come before the Lord as clean as they could possibly be

Because this day was different.

They were going to stand as God’s people and hear Yahweh speak.

After they had done everything they needed to do to get ready, it was finally time.

Exodus 19:16–19 “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.”

There is no mistaking the fact that God Himself spoke to the nation of Israel.

Just like he spoke to Adam and Eve, to Noah and Abraham and Issac and Jacob.

The Lord spoke out loud to the people.

Now maybe this won’t set your soul on fire, but it did kind of wake me up a bit.

All of my life, in every children’s class, in pictures, I’ve always seen Moses carrying those 2 stone tablets down the mountain.

And just assumed that was how the people received the 10 commandments.

But that’s not true.

Exodus 20:1 “And God spoke all these words, saying,”

God spoke - out loud - to the people.

This is important, so let’s think about it.

The Quran was written over a period of 23 years.

Mohammed said he was visited by angels who revealed what he was to write.

The book of Mormon was written by American prophets over 1500 years ago onto golden tablets, so the LDS people say.

Joseph Smith in the 1800’s was visited by an angel and given the golden tablets and some tools to use to translate them.

These two men gave birth to religions - claimed they heard angels - wrote what they heard.

But God spoke - out loud - first to the patriarchs and now, to at least 1/2 a million people.

He told them back in Exodus 19:5–6 “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples....””

He established a covenant with them that said, if you will trust Me and do what I tell you to do by My Own voice, you will be My treasured possession.

What is the world does it mean to be a treasured possession?

He delivered them from slavery when they could not escape.

He delivered them from the bondage of a foreign nation when they could not fight.

He provided them with food when there was no food to be bought or sold.

He provided them with water when there was no water to be found.

Being a treasured possession means, “I will be your perfect Father who will provide for your every need.”

But this is not a one way street - it’s a covenant with terms and conditions.

Here are the terms and conditions.

First, He identified who was initiating the covenant

He came to them as God, the One Who is in charge and has the authority to establish a covenant.

Look at verse 2 Exodus 20:2 ““I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

Now, follow me here.

He says, “I am the LORD...”

The word ‘the’ is there to make it sound right in English - it’s not in the Hebrew.

God says, “I am Yahweh...”

This is my personal name.

“I am Yahweh your God....”

It might sound like I’m splitting hairs a bit, but I’m not.

You see, the term God is a generic word.

We’re going to see it a lot - it’s typically the translation of the word “elohim.”

The term God means, “The supreme being and creator of the universe.

I know that when we use it we are referring to our God, it’s still a generic term.

It’s like calling the president, “Mr. President.”

But our Lord won’t allow Himself to be only known generically.

He is Yahweh our God.

We have His name.

We know who He is.

He’s called us to use His name.

This matters to me especially in prayer.

Nothing wrong with saying, “Dear God,” nothing at all.

I’m saying it adds something when we call His name: “Yahweh,” or “Father” or “Jesus” or even, “Holy Spirit.”

It makes God - more real to us - if you will.

When we call on His name, He becomes more personal.

Listen to what the Lord says in Zephaniah 3:9

Zephaniah 3:9 (ESV)

“For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name the LORD and serve him with one accord.

“That all of them may call upon the name of Yahweh”, is what it says.

I would encourage you in your prayers to use His name.

“O Lord,” “Yahweh,” “Jesus,” “Holy Spirit.”

See if that doesn’t change YOU just a little bit.

So Yahweh, the God who delivered them from slavery and from the authority of Egypt

Who has provided for them and kept them safe and even allowed them a victory over an enemy already

This Yahweh says, “I love you and want us to have an eternal relationship.

“I will treat you as my treasured possession, but - here are the terms of the covenant -

This is what is required of you.

And then the Lord lists 10 things.

The first four tell us how to deal with Him.

The last six tell us how to deal with each other.

But all of them tell us who God is and by extension, who we are supposed to be.

Remember this Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

If the ten commandments reflect the very personality of God and we are created in His image

These should reflect our personality too.

As we’ve said, the commands aren’t rules that we follow that make us like God.

These are things we do because they are a part of our new nature - the nature He put into us at our new birth.

Since we bear His image, we should look like Him.

These ten commandments are what Yahweh looks like.

They are how Yahweh looks like, we should look like Him.

So Number 1.

Number 1 - Exodus 20:3 ““You shall have no other gods before me.”

Very simply, Yahweh is perfectly loyal.

He’s not going to break up with us for someone smarter, prettier, more pleasant or who can do more for Him.

He bought us with a price.

We are His treasured possession.

He is loyal.

We are to be loyal to Him.

He is a one people God and we are a one God people.

Number 2 - Exodus 20:4–6 ““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 the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

The words “carved image” literally mean “divine image.”

Don’t make anything that will look like a god to you.

I know we don’t think modern people do this much anymore, but consider

People used to carry a lucky rabbit’s foot

Don’t know why they chose a rabbit’s foot

I’m certain the rabbit wasn’t a fan.

But people thought if they carried the rabbit’s foot, they’d have good luck.

And they’d laugh and say it didn’t mean anything.

But they always had the rabbits foot in their pocket.

That’s a silly illustration.

A rabbits foot is an innocuous little trinket - but what is God’s responsibility towards you as His treasured possession?

He’s responsible for your needs - Give us our daily bread, forgive our sins, keep us out of trouble.

That innocuous rabbit’s foot was there to keep you out of trouble.

How many rabbit’s feet do we have in our lives?

Things that have some control or power to provide something for us

Something God is responsible for.

See, it’s easy to take a shot at the Catholics for their iconography.

But maybe our statues are little bit more low key - but just as much a problem.

Now there are several in what we are studying that really meant something big to me.

First was remembering to address the Lord by name in my prayers.

The next thing is remembering that the Lord is my provider and I need to give up making anything else my provider.

And then there is the word hate.

See at the end of verse 5: Exodus 20:5 “…for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,”

In Hebrew, hate is a three letter word spelled seen, noon, aleph.

Seen is the S sound, noon is the N sound and aleph is rendered as A but it’s mostly silent.

When you transliterate that into English, it’s rendered SN.

SN.

Give me three letter words for things God hates, Alex.

SIN.

Now, let me say, that’s a whole lot of gyrations that I haven’t seen anyone else make

I simply saw the transliteration and I stopped cold.

Let’s just take a second here and ponder.

I saw I sin, but I don’t hate God.

But what is my sin a revelation of?

It’s surely not me saying I love God - I’m contradicting him.

I’m going against Him - I’m rebelling.

So your 15 year old daughter comes in wearing an outfit not unlike what some girls wear

Only, you don’t allow your daughter to dress like some girls.

You have words - “Young lady, you are NOT going out wearing that.”

“Why not, everybody else is.”

You may have had similar conversations, you know where it’s going.

Things get heated and then you hear, “I hate you.”

Does she really hate you?

No, not really.

But what are her actions saying?

Her rebellion against your better knowledge and judgement are saying she does hate you.

She is your treasured possession and she’s telling you that you have no clue what is best for her.

She is smarter, better able to provide for her health and well being than you are.

Isn’t that what she’s saying?

Her actions are saying, I hate you.

Isn’t that what we are saying when we look at the Lord and then do exactly what He says not to do?

In the last little while I’ve had a very unexpected response when we sing, “It is well with my soul.”

I get a catch in my throat at the third verse.

“My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

“My sin, not in part but the whole

“Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

“Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.”

My actions sometimes - more often than I want to admit - say, “I hate you Lord!”

But Yahweh says, “You are my treasured possession.”

And I melt at the grace that requires.

We’ve yelled in the Lord’s face so many times

Our actions saying, “I hear you, but I ain’t doin’ what you said.

Essentially, “I hate you.”

And yet, our heavenly Father, while we were yelling at Him sent Jesus to die.

And as we screamed our rebellion, Jesus said, come to me.

And God willing, like the child that realizes her sin, and falls into her daddy’s arms with tears, we fall into Jesus’ arms - and we are saved.

Look at verse 5 again Exodus 20:5 “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God...

See the word jealous - that word has a bad connotation to us, but here is what it means.

It’s not like you look at another person and your spouse gets all riled up.

In this context, it’s that you went out with another person

And Yahweh demands an exclusive relationship

He will never leave you or forsake you

You are His treasured possession.

He will indeed provide for you for eternity.

His jealousy is transgressed loyalty.

You said you were mine, but you are yelling in my face you hate me.

That’s not the relationship we are going to have.

I wanted to finish the third and fourth commandments but we need to stop here.

I really, really want you to associate that word hate with the word sin.

And then I want you to remember, that while were we spoiled, petulant children, deserving of eternal punishment.

The Father sent the Son to give up His life so He could raise you from the dead and save you forever.

“My hate, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

“My hate, not in part but the whole

“Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

“Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.”

Will you reflect on your recent sin?

Will you remember what it says to the Lord?

Will you, right now, stand before the Lord with a breaking heart and say

Thank you Lord for saving me.

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul.

Let us pray.