The 10 Words. (10 Commandments)

Intro

If you could write the rules life, so that if you obey them, you go to heaven, what would they be?

Today, Series: Journey Through The Bible, we are looking at this moment, this terrifying moment where God speaks to the nation. . . AND what he spoke, 3500 years ago, was so significant, people are fighting to this day have them posted in every classroom in America.

This is the moment God gives what became known in the ancient world as “The 10 Words” what we call THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Image of commandments]

Let’s back up 40 years to this same spot, “The Mountain of God” Moses looks and sees a burning bush. God says: you will bring the people back to this mountain to worship. God begins to reveal himself in powerful ways. . .

He reveals his NAME: YHWH so they can call on him. . ..

Exodus 3:15 NASB 2020

God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘The Lord [YHWH], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the name for all generations to use to call upon Me.

He shows his PLAN: Matt talked about 7 “I Will” statements last week. PROMISES!! Burdens/Slavery/Redeem “buy back”/choose you/be your God/ bring you to PL/give you your inheritance

God demonstrates MIGHTY POWER: Full Display! 10 Plagues and the Red Sea Crossing

God PROVIDES: manna, quail, water at the rock at Horeb. Where they are standing. . .

The Problem: They don’t know HOW to live as God’s people.

Exodus 18:15–16 NASB 2020

“. . . the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, it comes to me, and I judge between someone and his neighbor and make known the statutes of God and His laws.”

Moses is a bottle neck. . . There’s like a million people, and to hear from God, they come to Moses, their PREIST. They don’t hear God’s voice. They don’t understand for themselves how to be His people. . . And so. . .

God makes a PROPOSAL: If they will obey his voice and keep his covenant , then He will keep his promise with them. Make them a kingdom of priests. . . not just Moses. They’ll know. . .

The people say, Hey whatever God says, we will do it.

God SPEAKS and reveals the divine, 10 Commandments.

ILLUST: playing a game, don’t know the rules. Dominos. Mex Train/Chikin Foot. Chikin Train. Making up as we went. Hard to play. Hard to win

RULES are a GIFT because. . . They define how to play the game. And here, with the 10 Commandments, were the rules to the game of life.

These 10 sayings, I believe, show us the heart of God.

So let’s get to know the rules. . .

The 10 Commandments: Let’s Stand.

Read Exodus 20:1-17 from bible. . .

Today: look at each command and try to get some understanding of the underlying principles.

1. I am the Lord your God. Have no other gods. Exodus 20:1-3

I love how this he starts with the declaration of his name. His name says it all. He says I am the Lord (Yahweh) your God. Yahweh, meaning “to be” or existent and God: (Elohim) “deity” majestic power. His name, LORD GOD, declares that he is THE Existent Majestic Power. That’s his name. That’s who he is. The principle here is to Acknowledge and Accept Him for who He is.

There will always be something fighting for that place in your life. . . “False Gods”. . . For some: MOTHER NATURE , SCIENCE (people say I don’t believe in God, I believe in science) MONEY Jesus said you can’t serve God and money. LORD GOD WANTS US TO Acknowledge and Accept Him For Who He Is. In reality. . . ?

2. Never make an idol or image. Exodus 20:4-6

Never take a created thing and lift it up to a God status. In Genesis God says “let us make man in our own image, and let them rule over the earth”. The reality is, God already MADE his image and it’s all over the world. We are his image! We don’t make an idol or image and bow down to it. . .

“Another way of putting that is if we’re made in the image of God, to elevate anyone or anything in his place, is to demean ourselves.”

Jonathan Pageau (Pa-zjo)

I think it’s amazing that God made us in his image. The command to never make an idol or image is a call to Acknowledge and Accept Who He Is, AND Who We Are, His image. 

3. Never take his name in vain. Exodus 20:7

“Take” here literally means “carry” like “It’s cold outside, take a jacket.” His image was over the earth, but his Name was not. It’s important to God how his name is represented. . . what his people DO as they carry his name to through Earth.

I think there’s more to this command than just respecting his name To break this commandment means to do evil in the name of God.

ILLUSTRATION. Frederick Douglas. Freed slave. Abolitionist. A brilliant writer.

“Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master, the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I’ve ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.”

Frederick Douglass - Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

He witnessed the quoting bible verses to justify whipping. I looked up those verses, and they are terribly out of context and maliciously misused.

The principle here is, as we carry HIS name, we Represent His Nature, Not Ours.

4. Remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy. Exodus 20:8-11

Illust: Creatures of habit Where you sat this morning.

We ritualize things to make life easy. It seems like it’s important to God that his people ritualize worship. Make it routine. But it was more than just worship.

Keeping sabbath meant there is a day to stop working and instead and keep it holy (set apart). Not to be lazy. . . Do things to remind you of God and give praise to him. Keeping Sabbath tells the world about the creation story: It proclaims WHO God is. . .

Keeping Sabbath is obedience, but it’s also a faith builder. . .

The principle: Have A Routine of Rest and Worship That Reflects God.

5. Honor Your Parents. Exodus 20:12

This principle is really straightforward. Honor Your Parents. Plain and simple. (burden yourselves with the well-being of your parents)

Even though God planned you, created you to do good works. made you his workmanship, and knew you before the foundations the world, He chose your parents to put you here. I know, sometimes our parents make it hard to do this commandment, but it doesn’t change God’s will. . .

ILLUST: Frank McCourt. Angela’s Ashes. Terrible alcoholic. Drank them into poverty. Conceptualized his father into: Morning father/Evening father. Evening father was abusive drunk, Morning father he honored.

JP said this about Frank. . . Because he found a way to do this, not only did it allow him to avoid resentment, it made it possible for him to obey God. . .

6. Thou shalt not kill. . . Never Murder. Exodus 20:13

Truth is. . . . Life is a gift from God. How we Honor Life matters to Him. He created life… It’s his to manage. We don’t get to play God and take life away.

The principle: Honor life. See it as sacred, untouchable, off limits, never to harm. . .

7. Never Commit Adultery. Exodus 20:14

From the very beginning of time in the creation story God created marriage . It’s his idea, and He determines what it looks like. It should be important to us. It’s sacred!. This command is all about Protecting Marriage. If you protect marriage, you protect family, culture, and civilization. But if you destroy marriage. . .

ILLUST: J.D. Unwin. Social Anthropologist at Oxford. 600 pg. Book Sex and Culture which is the “summary” of 7 volumes of research of sexual freedom within the 86 societies and civilizations from all recorded history. This is what he discovered. . .

When you increase sexual constraints, either before or after marriage, it always led to increased flourishing of a culture. However, increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later. 

8. Never Steal. Exodus 20:15

Not only is it important to God to Honor Life to Protect Marriage, but to also Respect Property. The way I see it, all the earth is the Lord’s and all that’s in it. He is just letting me hold some of it. House? Truck?

Each person‘s property should be considered provision and blessing from the Lord.

Theft is rooted the dissatisfaction of one’s portion in life; with what Lord has given you. rooted in a lack of faith that God will provide what you need, when you need it.

You could say it this way, stealing is hating your blessings, so you go and take someone else’s.

I know you want people to respect your property, God wants them to respect it too!

9. Never Give False Witness. Exodus 20:16

More than just rumoring or gossip, it had real implications.

Certain offenses had you cut off from from his people. Like cancel culture. . . on steroids.

Other offenses had you killed. Murder, Rape, Adultery, Homosexuality, Being a false prophet. . .

False testimony, as God went on to explain in Deuteronomy was serious. If you were caught giving false testimony, you were given the punishment that the other person would’ve gotten. The principle of this command is Be Honest.

10. Never Covet. Exodus 20:17

ILLUST: DIY tree fails. A tree always falls where it’s leaning.

Covet: to desire or take pleasure in another person’s property. Why not covet? Because if that is where you are leaning in your desire, guess where you’re gonna fall? You always fall where you’re leaning!

Jesus pointed this out in the sermon on the mount. . .

You’ve heard it said “Never Commit Adultery” but I say don’t look lustfully…Don’t covet! Because, you fall where you are leaning.

The command is not saying it’s bad to have desires . . . Saying it’s wrong to desire what would be wrong to have.

The principle is Have Purity In Desire.

Summary

Here’s the thing: I love the 10 Commandments because it shows me the heart of God: what he Values. They’re like a hierarchy of values [FIRE SLIDE]. . . Him 1st. My desires last. You can pray through these. . . Let them guide you.

Hierarchy of Values:

Acknowledge and Accept Him For Who He is .

Acknowledge and Accept Who We Are.

Represent His Nature, Not Ours.

Have A Routine of Rest and Worship That Reflects Him.

Honor Your Parents.

Honor Life.

Protect Marriage.

Respect Property 

Be Honest

Have Purity In Desire

Or, use it as a mirror to see if your values are aligning with the Lord’s. . .Spirit vs Flesh.

Just a thought. . . .

Conclusion: Finish the Story

The people accepted the proposal, Moses shed blood, and they made covenant with God.

But, there’s a pattern of tragedy ahead. The nation broke the covenant, and abandoned God. SO, God in his endless kindness and mercy, promised a new covenant. Jeremiah 31:33-34 (Put up slide as this is read)

New Covenant: God’s Terms (Put this slide up as I read the verses)

1. He promises to write his laws on your hearts.

2. He promises to be your God and make you His people

3. He promises to reveal himself to the whole world, from the least to the greatest. 

4. He promises to forgive your sins and remember them no more.

So, using God’s name and God’s law, they stoned Jeremiah and killed the messenger.

600 years later Jesus comes. Great news! His name: Emmanuel (God with us) came to make the covenant and to make good on His promise

But another tragedy happened. . . 

 John 1:10-13 NLT (All these verses one slide. Keep up till next passage)

10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 

-It is entirely possible to look at the law, keep it pretty well, be an expert, and miss the God behind it all. God was right in front of their faces. . . and they couldn’t see it. And the law couldn’t save them. . . .

-And SO, again, in God’s name, and with God’s law, they killed The Savior of the world. The Lord Jesus. But he rose on the 3rd day and extends his blood, the blood of the new covenant, and his grace to those who would receive him. God has a new proposal. . .

12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth . . . but a birth that comes from God. John 1:10-13 NLT

Romans 10 describes what it means to BELIEVE and RECEIVE Jesus. . .

Romans 10:9–10 NASB 2020

. . . if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

When we receive Jesus, we get the promises of the New Covenant, made in his blood. We mark that by baptism. . .

New Covenant: God’s PROMISES (Put this slide up as I read the verses)

1. He promises to write his laws on your hearts.

Aligning your heart and nature with HIS. Ezekiel “new heart/spirit; remove your heart of stone”

2. He promises to be your God and make you His people

3. He promises to reveal himself to the whole world, from the least to the greatest. 

4. He promises to forgive your sins and remember them no more.

Going to close sharing what the Apostle Paul wrote about the law and the grace of Christ.

Galatians 2:19-21 NLT

19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

No one could keep the law, THEY COULD ONLY EVER BREAK IT. So Jesus had to come. Thank God he came to set us free!!

Prayer:

Breath. Tell God, you’re willing to respond in any way he shows you. . . .

'I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need.’- Charles Spurgeon

Do you need Christ?

Call to Christ.