The Ten Commandments (1)

Opener

Story: $10 for anyone who can name the ten commandments.

I went street witness at a conference in Kansas City one time. I broke off with two other guys. We were a team of three and we decided we would give people $10 if they could name all ten of the ten commandments. It was this fun little ice breaker that slide right into the Gospel. It was actually a lot of fun. They would start laughing as they struggled to do so. And at the end of it we would fill them in and share the Gospel. Pretty much everyone we asked thought it would be easy and had fun trying to do it. Do you know how much money we gave away that night. $0. It is a little harder than you think. So go ahead and get your fingers out. Ten commandments. And just try and do it right now in your head.

No other gods before me

No graven images

Don’t take the Lord’s name in vein

Keep the Sabbath Holy

Honor Father and Mother

Do not murder

Do not commit adultery

Do not steal

Do not bear false witness

Do not covet....

Point: God says to the Priests in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge. Because they have rejected knowledge I will reject you...”

I am going to start a series with you today on the ten commandments. It may sound simplistic. Don’t we all already know that stuff. Probably not like we should, but we are going to see they are foundational, they are inspirational, and they are more than mere commandments. We will be teaching it from Deut 5. Deuteronomy means “second law”. The Law is given in Exodus but we have this great “reminder” if you will at the end of Moses life. We as Christians, as the people of God, need reminders. furthermore as we look at them in light of the person of Jesus Christ we will find them profound. We will also be doing it from Deuteronomy 5 because we will include the what Jesus calls the “greatest commandment” in Deuteronomy 6 which we will see inferred even in the ten commandments.

Point 1: The Ten Commandments are all about Relationship!

Deuteronomy 5:1-21 “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. 2 “The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 “The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. 4“The Lord spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire,

5 while I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,

6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

7 ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.

8 ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

9 ‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

10 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

11 ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

12 ‘Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

13 ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

14 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

15 ‘You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

17 ‘You shall not murder.

18 ‘You shall not commit adultery.

19 ‘You shall not steal.

20 ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

21 ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Dt 5:4–21). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

The first thing I want you to see is that this is about Covenant not merely commandments. Commandments are nestled inside a larger emphases. At the core of Covenant is Relationship!

Relationship!

Contain 4 commands about our relationship to God:

“No other gods before me”

no idols

Don’t use The Lord’s name in vein

Observe the Sabbath

The Last 6 are about relationship to your neighbor starting with honoring your parents (your most God appointed relationship)!

Honor your father and your mother

You shall not murder

You shall not commit adultery

You shall not steal

You shall not bear false witness

You shall not covet

The whole law is concerned with how you treat God and how we treat one another. Relationship is at the center of the ten commandments. Jesus’ emphases on the greatest commandment (Love God) and the second (Love Neighbor) makes a lot of sense when you look at it this way doesn’t it? All the commandments are about Israel’s covenant with God. You can’t claim to love and worship God and dishonor your parents. All ten concern the covenant with God!

Covenant

Notice Verse 2 and 3 the use of the word “Covenant”: “The LORD our God made a covenant with us.”

Covenant not a Contract

This is a covenant not a contract. A business contract is always about what do I get out of it. That is where the emphasis is. It is not concerend with people it is concerned with product. It is not concerned with who some one is but what someone produces. When I owned a shipping franchise I had a contractual obligation to give the corporate group in Utah a certain percentage of what I made. Trust me it was not something rooted in love. It was all business. A marriage covenant though isn’t really about what you get as much as about what you give. You do get, but it something more. It is something only love can produce. And it is committed regardless of the circumstances. It is for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health, for better or worse. Something only infidelity or death can separate. A covenant is binding.

Deuteronomy 5:9–10 NASB959 ‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Notice the connection between loving God and keeping His commandments. It is not rules without relationship and it is not relationship without rules.

Jesus | Relationship | Obedience

What I want you to see is the commandments are more than just commandments… they are covenant. They are about right relationship with God. And if you go yeah but Jesus got rid of all that. Listen to Jesus in John 14:

John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Jesus repeats Himself several more times in verses 21-24. Then says something similar again in chapter 15.

Friends I want you to see the consistency here between the old and the new. Jesus isn’t lowering the bar on righteousness and raising the bar on relationship. He is raising the bar on both, but I want you to see that it was always God’s prerogative to do things this way. There is no context for rules without relationship.

Think about how important rules are to some of our earthly relationships. If parents don’t provide for a child it can devestate them. If a marriage partner doesn’t remain faithful it can destroy the relationship. Rules and relationship go together quite well. They serve eachother quite well. You can’t have one with out the other. The Ten commandments are the covenant rules for Israel’s relationship with God.

Relationship is one aspect we see highlighted in the ten commandments. Another very important aspect is the Fear of God.

Point 2: The Ten Commandments are all about God!

Deuteronomy 5:6 “I am The LORD your God”

The ten commandments have been the bedrock of human rights laws across the globe for milleniums. With all the conversations that are going on today around murder and Systemic issues in our society there are many worldviews and agendas on display for better and for worse. Now listen to me carefully. If I remove God from the equation for what is good then I become the arbitrator of what is good and evil. That means I get to define what is right and what is wrong.

The late, great Ravi Zacharias said this, “In some cultures people love their neighbor and in others they eat their neighbors and they both (based on their own reason) think they are good.”

We as human beings are not the arbiter of what is good. Popular opinion is not the arbiter of what is good. If my morality is built on my personal preference, To quote Mr Zacharias again , “I must give that same prerogative to every other human individual.” That is lawlessness! It leaves us with no absolute moral standard and with no absolute moral standard we are ships lost at sea.

Hear me clearly then. These are the most important words in the ten commandments:

“I am the LORD you God” (x3)

From God and only from God flow the ten commandments. Remove Him and you remove the commandments. The foundation of human rights are established in the reality of God Himself.

If there is right and wrong then there is a standard by which right and wrong is measured. There is a law.

Where there is a standard there is a standard giver.

William Wilberforce could resist the culture of his day that said slavery was socially acceptable and thought to be economically essential. He was not popular, especially amongst his peers, for standing for truth. But he had a higher standard to go by! There was a higher law that trumped the opinion of man.

“Why is it so hard to get people to study the Scriptures? Common sense tells us what revelation commands: 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'--'Search the Scriptures'--'Be ready to give to every one a reason of the hope that is in you.' These are the words of the inspired writers, and these injunctions are confirmed by praising those who obey the admonition. And yet, for all that we have the Bible in our houses, we are ignorant of its contents. No wonder that so many Christians know so little about what Christ actually taught; no wonder that they are so mistaken about the faith that they profess.” - William Wilberforce

Christian if you want to be catlyst for change then study the Scriptures. Drink of the Word of God deeply.

Martin Luther King Jr gave 10 rules for those participating in the Bermingham Protest. They are all fantastic. But the first one was this:

1. Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus

The Lord must be preeminent in our hearts and in our minds and in our understanding of what is right and what is wrong. In practical terms that must mean we are in The Scriptures. And wether you have read the Bible once or a thousand times you still need to spend time in the Scriptures!

This is also means me don’t get to selectively pick the laws we like and ignore the ones we don’t. We must embrace all of who God is even the pieces our culture deems unpopular. If I embrace the law “though shall not murder” but reject everything He has to say about greed and covetousness what good is that? I am still law breaker. In fact James says the whole Law collapses on me. I have no room to boast.

This brings us to our first real practical application for today. Am I ignoring The Word of God in any area of my life. Ask Him that. Lord is there any area, even if I am excelling in others, that I am lawless!

“I am The Lord your God.”

There are two really basic ideas of what it means to “Be God”. We see them on display here. He is the soverign Creator and He is the soveriegn Judge! He is the Creator, the Author, The beginning, the Source of all this we are discussing today. He is also the Judge, the Finisher, the End, the one to whom we must give an account. He is the beginning and the end. He is the Creator and the Judge. He is God.

Judge

Deuteronomy 5:22–29 NASB9522 “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the thick gloom, with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. 23 “And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. 24 “You said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. 25 ‘Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die. 26 ‘For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? 27 ‘Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says; then speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’ 28 “The Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken. 29 ‘Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!

The fire and smoke. The thunderous voice. Can you imagine being there.

Listen again to what the people say, all that God speaks to you “we will hear and do it.” (x2).

The Lord responds: “I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!”

That they would “fear Me and keep all My commandments always.”

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. The fear of the Lord acknowledges God as both Creator and Judge in a very practical way. It obeys!

The consequence for disobeying was death. They already knew this. As Paul argues in Romans from Genesis 3 onward death reigned in mankind because all had sinned.

But make no mistake about this as well. They had a duty as the covenant people of God, as a society under God’s rule and reign, to enforce justice as well based on these commandments. And everyone one of the the first 9 commandments had a capitol penalty ascribed to it. If you struck your mother or father you could be put to death. He steals a soul shall die. A man was literally put to death for violating the 4th commandment, keep the sabbath. If they did not judge then they would be accountable to THE JUDGE.

Jesus is the Judge

Jesus takes this idea to its absolute fullest. He does it in some ways that might surprise you. He is the ultimate human judge and He is the ultimate divine Judge.

Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge cthe world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

One day the Son of Man, the Son of God will judge every thought, deed, and action.

2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”

Wisdom would say this then. If God is the author of all things, and He is the final judge of all things maybe… just maybe I should live my life in accodance with His ways and not my own.

Do you see how life giving worshiping God as God is. He doesn’t tell us these things to destroy us. But to establish us.

One last thing about Christ as Judge. 2000 years ago . Jesus did not come to judge. He came to be judged so we could be saved. And the church, his bride, is made up 100% entirely of capitol offenders of the kingdom of God. But we have been redeemed. And the churches job is quite simple in this regard. Our job is to seek and save the lost. To seek and to save the murder, the idolater, the thief, the racist, the sinner. But we can only do that if we speak as a prophetic people that put Jesus on center stage and simply say what Paul said, “all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through [Jesus]”

Time of mercy. But we warn of the coming judgement. If we don’t speak truth we are not being loving. A time of grace doesn’t ignore the sin. It calls sinners to repentance and reconciliation with the Son.

I can think of nothing more powerful then walking into the courtroom and knowing that the Judge of all the earth paid the penalty for my sin.

James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

The fear of the Lord helps us draw near to God and as verse 10 of Deuteronomy 5 says “love God and keep” his commandments.

Have you been running from God? Have your actions not aligned with your faith? Do you come to worship and then become a different person at work or school or home? Draw near to God! Cleanse your hands! Purify your hearts!

A man who was living on the street and with a prostitute once asked me after talking with him about the Lord: “Where do I start? I told him this. And it is still true today: God you are right and I am wrong.”

Can we all say that together “God you are right and I am wrong.” He is the Creator. He is the judge. Draw near and acknowledge Him as God.

Point 3: The Ten Commandments are all about Redemption

Deut 5:6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Ravi Zacharias mentions that the ten commandments are born out of redemption.

Redemption in the Old Testament

The ten commandments begin with a reminder of God’s redemption. When they were under the thumb of a super power on the earth. God saw them. God has always been in the business of taking the weak and making them strong in him. He is in the business today of exalting the humble. The truly humble. But you can imagine how this statement would have landed with them. I rescued you so listen to me. In a very serious way the ten commandments are 10 things the people need to do to keep covenant with God and keep out of the bondage of sin (another form of slavery).

You all know the story though. They hear the ten commandments for themselves and send Moses back up to God to draw near for them. Big mistake. They needed to draw near themselves. Nevertheless while Moses is drawing near to God and hearing all that He has to say what do the people do. They violate the first and the second commandment. It is astonishing. While the mountain was on fire they make their own fire to craft a golden calf!

Israel would go through the cycle of sin and redemption again and again. There was something missing wasn’t there. There was something insufficient.

Redemption is foundational to our understanding of morality

on the hand I want you to see God’s redemptive hand at work in all of this. Because it is foundational to our understanding of morality. It was always part of how we were supposed to understand law. The Old Testament is not merely Law and the New Testament Grace. That is more of characture then reality. If we don’t understand the relationship between law and forgiveness and redemption we are not going to live out any of these ethics effectively.

Jesus makes this point perhaps most profoundly. In his story of who is the one who loves much? The answer to that is the one who is forgiven much. The one who is forgiven much loves much. If you start with yourself. You see your own sinffulness. You see that God has saved you from your sin and the sin around you. He is your redeemer. You will be in place to do what this passage says “Love him and keep his commandments.” You will be in a position to show mercy to others. Not seek their condemnation but their redemption!

Redemption in the New Testament!

As Jesus hung on the cross:

Murdered - the 6th commandment

Slandard - the the 9th commandment

The clothes on his back coveted and stolen.

and as the covenant people and the gentile super power rejected The Lord their God a violation of the 1st commandment

What did Jesus say on the cross Father forgive them.

You see he not only endured and showed grace but he bore the sin of the slander who was slandering him. He bore the sin of the murder who was murdering him. And less we think we are categorically different remember all sin is sin against God. Whether you are breaking the 10th commandments or the 1st commandment. Jesus bore your sin against Him on that cross!

Jesus isn’t just the Judge of all the Earth. He was the Judged on behalf of all the earth. He was the atoning sacrifice. He took our place.

But it doesn’t stop there. So while I want you to see the Old Testament is consistent with the new in redemption. The redemption is taken to its fullest in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of Grace and Truth.

The grace goes further still. Christ doesn’t just wipe the sleight clean. He makes us new, puts us in right relationship with Him, and gives us the supernatural empowerment to DO HIS WILL! This is the New and Better Covenant. Not a law written on stone but one supernaturally deposited in us.

Romans 8:2-4 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

3 For what the Law could not do, bweak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 8:2–4). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Listen to that carefully friends. The righteous requirements of the ten commandments can be fullfilled in us through the grace of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He takes us from sinners to doers of The Word!

So as we go through the ten commandments we are going to approach them as Christians, in light of the work of the cross of Christ, supernaturally empowered to do His will.

John Newton, former Captain of a slave ship and the man who lead Wilberforce to the Lord who would go onto abolish the slave trade in Europe, said this:

I am not what I ought to be —

ah, how imperfect and deficient!

I am not what I wish to be —

I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!

I am not what I hope to be —

soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

Yet, though I am not what I ought to be,

nor what I wish to be,

nor what I hope to be,

I can truly say, I am not what I once was;

a slave to sin and Satan;

and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,

“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

– John Newton, as quoted in The Christian Pioneer