The Hinge Pin in Seesaw of Life

The Hinge pin in All Relationships

-How many of you remember going to the park and riding a seesaw? ---- I have 3 kids, soon to be four, and every time we go to the park one of the first things they want to do is ride the seesaw. Now, thinking about that seesaw, how is it made, and what makes a seesaw work? ---- A seesaw is pretty simple, right, it’s what you might call a simple machine, it’s a lever. You’ve got one piece in the middle that’s vertical, then you’ve got a long bar that centered on the vertical piece that moves back and forth on that pivot point in the center. So, when everything is perfectly balanced that seesaw will actually form a T shape. Now, if I take the three main points of that seesaw, the outside points that form the T shape, and connect them I get a triangle, which, by the way, is the strongest geometric shape (I have a background in engineering). Now, let’s imagine that our seesaw is messed up, it’s all jacked up, it’s not working right, so we’ve got to pull it up out of the ground, and turn it upside down to do a little work on it. *That said, I want you to keep three things in mind as I read a passage of Scripture, one most of you have probably at some point heard, Exodus 20:1-17 (The Ten Commandments). I want you to keep these things in the back of your mind 1) that upside down seesaw we pulled out of the ground to work on, and how with its fixed and working right, how it will perfectly balance itself; 2) The letter T; and 3) a triangle with its three connected sides, making it the strongest geometric shape.

Read Exo. 20:1-17 (CSB)

1Then God spoke all these words: 2I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. 3Do not have other gods besides me. 4Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 5Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.

7Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name. 8Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. 11For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. 12Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13Do not murder. 14Do not commit adultery. 15Do not steal. 16Do not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Now, I want to point out something to you. The first three commands are vertical; they relate directly to our relationship with our creator, God. Then, comes the fourth command, the one to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. It’s kind of just sitting there by itself, but it still comes at the end of the first three. After that, the last six commands (commandments 5-10) are concerned with how we interact with other human beings. You could say that they are related to the horizontal part of life where we’re all on a level playing field, so to speak. So, when I put all of this together, here’s where I’m at. I have an upside-down T shape that looks just like that seesaw we pulled up out of the ground to work on. ---- So, we’re trying to diagnose what’s wrong with our seesaw because we’ve got a lot a really mad kids that are waiting to use it. Now, let me ask you a question, what would most likely keep a seesaw from working correctly? Well, chances are, it’s probably one of two things 1) a bad hinge pin, maybe it’s rusty, or broken, or 2) the hinge pin is located in the wrong place. If the hinge pin is located too far to one side the seesaw will simply come crashing to the ground. So, how do we fix it? ---- We’ve got to get the hinge pin located in the right spot.

Now, take a look at my picture, and let me ask you, does anyone remember what commandment 4 what all about? (Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy …) Commandment four is about the priority we’ve got to give to worshipping God. Guys, the fourth command is like that hinge pin on a seesaw, because if we don’t have it fixed and in the right location in reference to worshipping God, well then, this seesaw we call life doesn’t work. Appeal: And my question to you is this, do you have the hinge pin in the right spot, are you worshipping God the way you should? ---- Now, I know some of you are wondering, “Why did he mention connecting the points of the seesaw together?”, and here’s why, if you’ve got the hinge point in the right location, smack in the middle, and you connect the outside points, everything fits together perfectly and you’ve got a triangle, the strongest geometric shape. The point is that if you’ve got your worship of God (the fourth commandment) in the right place, no matter how bad things might look, God is going to see you through. And that brings us to the T shape. ---- The only, and I mean only, way you can have the hinge pin (the fourth commandment) in the right spot and worship God correctly is by giving your life to his Son, Jesus Christ, and that’s what the T shape points you to, the cross that he died on for you. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, please, speak to me, Nathan, or somebody about it this evening or at some point soon.

Prayer