Sermon Tone Analysis

Brainstorming:

The one who loves, fulfills the law.

The one who loves, fulfills the law.

The law is holy, just and good.

Law of liberty.

“The law defines the basis for maintaining love between us and God and among ourselves.”

(God’s Finger Wrote Freedom, James J Londis) It’s the relational code that defines where a loving trust can flourish and at what point it will deteriorate.

“Bowing down before any god but the true living God of Scripture is like hugging a mannequin.

it can’t respond.

It can’t produce.

It can’t offer anything to anyone.”

Laws of the Heart, Bill Hybels

The NonCommandment Commandments, crowdsourced by Lex Bayer, an executive at AirBnB.

Be open-minded and willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.

The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.

Every person has the right to control of their body.

God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.

Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.

Treat others as you would want them to to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated.

Think about their perspectives.

We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.

There is no right way to live.

Leave the world a better place than you found it.

“It’s not hard to se why idolatry was so attractive and why Israel was constantly tempted to adopt the same practices.

The religion of the world was guaranteed, selfish, easy, convenient, normal, logical, pleasing, indulgent, and erotic.

It was a religious system made by men, for me.”

The Ten Commandments, Kevin DeYoung

No Other God

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Last week (Jan 8, 2019) the Christian Post published an article with the title: “Andy Stanley says the Ten Commandments don't apply to Christians.” Andy Stanley is a pastor that preaches to an audience of about 33,000 people every Sunday on the five campuses of North Point Community Church.

He’s a popular leadership guru and a best-selling author.

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In a column published in Relevant Magazine, Stanley argued that “[I]f we’re going to create a monument to stand as a testament to our faith, shouldn’t it at least be a monument of something that actually applies to us?”

He suggested that instead of trying to put up copies of the Ten Commandments everywhere, Christians should be putting up monuments to the Sermon on the Mount.

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“Participants in the new covenant (that’s Christians) are not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their Bibles.

Participants in the new covenant are expected to obey the single command Jesus issued as part of his new covenant: as I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

I appreciate Andy’s desire for the church to focus on Love, but I disagree with how he got there.

Though I think I understand why he got to the point of rejecting the ten commandments.

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“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

(, ESV)

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In preparing for this sermon I looked at a dozen books expounding the value and morals and spiritual virtue and cultural forming the ten commandments offer.

They tell how its the morals of the Ten Commandments that has given us the relative peace of our day.

They describe the authority of God to give commands.

They tell how the commands are good for our personal health and well-being.

They describe the horrible things that would happen if there were no objective morality such as is given in the Ten Commandments.

All these books love the law.

They talk about its beauty and sufficiency in the same glowing terms that David did when he wrote

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9  How can a young man keep his way pure?

By guarding it according to your word.

10  With my whole heart I seek you;

let me not wander from your commandments!

11  I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you.

12  Blessed are you, O Lord;

teach me your statutes!

13  With my lips I declare

all the rules of your mouth.

14  In the way of your testimonies I delight

as much as in all riches.

is the longest psalm in the Bible with 176 verses and the vast majority of it is either praising God for His law, or sharing how He delights in it, or illustrating its goodness.

Not me, not Andy, not anyone can contradict David’s conclusions or refute the magnificent moral nature of the Ten Commandments.

They are quite literally the most significant document in all of human history.

They are the foundation behind any moral government and the only guide that will create a free and noble society.

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And yet glorifying the commandments is a lot like glorifying a fence that protects a beautiful landscape from harm.

It’s like getting out a magnifying glass to examine the chain-links and the “Danger: do not enter” sign.

We often focus on the nitty gritty details of obedience to the law like what does it mean to take God’s name in vain?

What must we do to ensure that we don’t break the Sabbath?

What exactly is the definition of a lie?

Examining the law will demonstrate the masterpiece of a fence that it is, but there’s a whole landscape behind us if we turn our attention around from examining the prohibitions to look at the possibilities.

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Some people attempt to demonstrate the freedom the law allows by describing a fence around a small park.

As long as the kids stay in the fence they’ll be safe from the dangers of the road and the unsavory neighborhood beyond.

The good stuff is that small area inside the fence, the bad stuff is the rest of the world outside it.

The law is the fence that provides safety for the kids who play inside.

That sounds nice, but it’s not what I find in the Bible.

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In the beginning God set Adam and Even in a beautiful garden, kind of like that park.

But this garden didn’t have a fence around it, it had an imaginary fence with a “Danger: Do Not Enter” sign around one solitary tree.

The “Inside” of the fence where Adam and Eve lived was the entire world, while the “outside” of the fence place was a small area with limited possibilities.

What if we are thinking of the law all wrong.

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Instead of examining the fence and trying to explore all the possibilities of the sin and evil it holds back, how about we turn ourselves around, put our backs to the law, and explore the world of possibilities it protects.

Let’s not worry about whether we’re under the law, as if it’s a crushing weight.

Or about whether we’re judged by the law, as if the focus of our Christian experience is a legal trial.

Or about whether the law is moral or ceremonial or whatever else.

Stop worrying about whether it’s been done away with or if it’s only one small part of many hundreds of other laws that we should be keeping.

Those are all great subjects to study, but let’s just ignore all that for a moment and instead explore a world of possibility and wonder and excitement and awe.

Skeptical yet?

Have I got you wondering about my theological moorings?

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What do you think?

Shall we turn around from staring at the fence and see the possibilities it enables?