The Law

You know I think if we were to go around the room, and ask are you happy there are rules and guidelines in our society I think most of us would say “yeah, I think thats a good thing”

I mean there might be a few things that we would say it would be nice to raise the speed limit to 80 or get rid of taxes

But overall, we would say if we diden’t have structure in our society it would be a mess.

And if you have been with us we have been in this series called “The Story”

And we have seen God pursuing us since creation, even when we are disobedient or intentionally go against Him.

And if you were with us last week we see God bring the people out of Egypt

And they get out and almost have this “now what moment”

Whats going to happen next?

And one of the first things God does is He gives Mosses something called 10 commandments, which are meant to guide and direct the Israelites in their relationship with God and each other.

in fact if you were to look at the first 4 commandments these are how God is calling us to relate to Him, but then the remaining 6 are how we relate to each other.

And lets just read them because these commandments are relevant for us today. We are in Exodus 20:2-17 It says this:

Exodus 20:2–17 NIV

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Did you notice how much time was spent on the first four commandments and then how little was spent on the raimaning six.

That probably means something right?

Because all of these commandments are important but if we get the commandments on how we relate to God wrong, then most likely we are going to get wrong how we relate to others.

And I want you to catch this because how we relate to God directly impacts how we relate to others.

In fact its the foundation.

Its almost like golf. Any golfers here? (not disc golf, but real golf)

Because if you go to hit the golf ball and you are even off by the smallest angle you might not be able to tell when you hit the ball

But you will sure no you were off, when you see where the ball ends up.

And you know when we step out of these guidline’s with God, it ends up directly impacting our relationship with others.

For example the very first commandment: “Have no other god’s before me”

Basically make me the most important thing in your life.

Because the most important thing in our life becomes our God.

And so say you swap out our God, and make money your (lowercase “g”) god then you prioritize your life for money

Meaning relationships do not matter nearly as much, because when push comes to shove you will trade a friendship for a few dollars.

But our God is relational, and calls us to be in relationships with others where these “lower case g gods” often times do not

And this story starts out so up beat because multiple times the people say “this is great! We are doing this!”

I mean they are happy about these guidelines, but an issue comes up, because shortly after these commandments are given Moses goes away to be with God for 40 days.

But while he is gone things begin to go wrong

Look at Exodus 32:1-4 because look what happens

Exodus 32:1–4 NIV

1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” 2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

So look what happens because the people come to Aaron (Mosses right hand man) and they say “look Aaron we do not kn ow what has happened to this Mosses fellow”

But he has either abandon us or died on the mountain,

And so they tell him lets make our own gods and you get to the end of this section and you go whats going on?!

Not to far back the people are excited about these guidelines, and Mosses is gone for just a short period and they have decided to abandon the one true God and replace him for an idol they have made

And you get to the end and they say this is the god that has delivered us from the Egyptians

Not the true God, but this golden calf we made

And I just find myself asking how did this happen?

In fact a little later Mosses comes down the mountain and is angry and Aaron is explaining himself and he is telling what has happened and in the second half of verse 24 he says:

Exodus 32:24 (NIV)

.... they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

It just appeared! I don’t know how it happened Moses!

But its so easy for us to be hard on the Isralites and Aaron for letting this happen (and maybe it is justified) but I think if we were to sit and reflect on this story long enough, we would see that alot of times we are doing the same things as them.

And your probably thinking I have never made a golden calf.

But we often have idols in our life and its easy to sit in judgement

You know if you wear sunglasses or glasses you can probably see others flaws, but have you ever taken off those sunglasses and looked at them they get dirty and its funny because I do not consider myself a dirty person, but its because I am looking at everyone else instead of myself.

And can I just say it is so important to look at ourselves rather than others because the truth is we are people that make our own gods, rather than following the God that made us.

And when we do this we arn’t just worshiping another god, but often times we are effectively making ourselves god.

Because we are the ones who decide right and wrong

and we create our own guidelines on how we should live.

And if I am honest that does not sound to bad does it? I mean we get to decide whats good and bad

If I were to preach this outside the church people would say that sounds great.

But if you look throughout history, whenever we make ourselves our god, it ends poorly, because what ends up happening is we try to find satisfaction in things that will not satisfy

We chase things that are toxic.

And we get hurt,

Its kinda like how a parent tells you not to touch a hot grill, well kids love to touch things that they are not allowed to

and what happens?

they get burnt.

And thats what happens when we make our own guidelines

And some of you might be thinking, “wow, I am so glad that we are not that way as Christians”

But this is somthing we do.

I heard a story while ago of a young man who went to church every Sunday and he considered himself a strong Christian

In fact every morning he had a tradition where he would kneel an the guest room bed and pray.

Well there was one day that he ran into a friend who was down on his luck and his friend was homeless so he decided to do the good Christian thing and said you can stay with us for a night.

And so his friend heads to the guestroom, but this man says what are you doing?! thats where I pray in the morning!

You need to sleep on the floor so when I wake up in the morning I can pray there.

But you know when you listen to this story there is an issue there, because instead of loving this man and caring for this man, he said I have a tradition where I pray there and the tradition of where he prayed became his idol over loving how Christ called him too.

And this sounds extreame but we do the exact same thing.

Because we like to place things that we are comfortable in church and in worship above where God is leading us

We say I like this music and I get angry when we do not play enough contemporary songs or enough hymns! (Notice its both sides)

We say I liked this in the church and then it got changed!

I mean I have heard of churches that have split over the color of the carpet.

But you while our opinions matter, its a really good thing that when we worship God the focus and server Him (when we come to church) its not about us,

We are not worshiping ourselves, but we are worshiping God.

And I want you to notice what happens in the passage because God punishes them and there is actually a lot that happens but this is where I want to land because God tells Mosses something powerful and Mosses has an amazing response.

Look at Exodus 33:14-15

Exodus 33:14–15 NIV

14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.

You know it is so important not to have idols in our walk with God and even as a church.

And when we do this we can move forward without God.

But my prayer is that we will be a church and a people that say if God is leading us somewhere I will go.

I want our hearts to be the same as Mosses where we say God if you do not go with us, keep us where we are, shut us down.

This morning are we serving another god?

Are we our own god?

are there areas that we are placing things above God?

How can we reorient ourselves to placing God first?

Because we can only do it through His grace changing us.

And this morning that Grace can free you.

Will you pray with me?