To God

1. Intro: "What are these commands to us - to me?"

a. How we view ourselves will determine how we see these commands

b. Three kinds of people

i. Kierkegaard: aesthetic, ethical, spiritual

ii. Keller: antinomian, religious, faithful

iii. Jesus: younger brother, older brother, father

c. We all have a mix and often a predominance

d. Elements of each that are necessary to this world

2. Aesthete

a. Value

i. Love of beauty and appreciation of the world around

1. There's a sensitivity and responsiveness to our surroundings

2. That can feel a glorious sunset or a sad story

3. It knows what's going on around us and is affected by it

4. That's the positive

ii. But, typically, we try and take this sensitivity and make sure that the stuff that we're feeling is good stuff

1. And it becomes about feeling secure, comfortable, good, safe,

2. And in our culture, we pursue that rush of anything that will give us good feelings

b. Look at list of commands (any command) and resent as encumbrances

i. Necessary or unnecessary

ii. Encumbrances on our pursuing pleasure, beauty and happiness

iii. Fulfill the minimum - Fundamentally ask how little we can get away with doing, and how much we can get away with not doing -

1. Students who ask what we need to know for the test

2. Younger brother who asks for the inheritance early so that he doesn't have to carry out the duties of being a son to get to the good stuff

3. Rich young ruler who asks Jesus how little he needs to do

a. Jesus says, "give everything"

c. This is the bulk of our culture

i. The easiest pursuit is to simply throw off restriction for the unhindered pursuit of pleasure

ii. And, more and moreso, we claim that anything resembling "commandments" are just controlling impediments to our happiness and freedom

d. Of course, it does not work

i. Ends in self-destructiveness like that of the younger brother

ii. See it in our consumerism, materialism, relativism, narcissism, and entitlement of our age

iii. People in the church - and whole movements within the church - are no less susceptible to be living this way than the rest of the world

iv. And, let me be clear, this is irrespective of political viewpoints

1. Both sides of our current political spectrum have their aesthetes and those in this next group…

v. All of these are simply leading to devastation in the name of freedom

3. ethical person

a. These are the people of principle

i. Everything is in categories of right and wrong

ii. Have sunglasses on that see everything in black and white

b. The positive is that these are the backbone of society and order

i. It's not merely responsive to what feels right in the moment

ii. These people are not going to be swayed by the winds and the waves of trends and cultures

iii. But they'll judge everything by a measure of the philosophy and religion they follow

c. The problem is, they miss the moment

i. They don't see the beauty, the need, the hurt and pain and the story

ii. That's not how things are measured

1. If you know the story of Les Misérables

a. This is the character of the lawman, Javert, who hunts down Jean Valjean through the years because he broke his parole so long ago

b. And though Valjean had been transformed by an experience of God and lived a beautiful life

c. It was all black and white for Javert

iii. And, in the measuring according to principles, they seek to guide the outcome of everything

iv. Look at the commands as guides for getting what we want

1. "if we do this, God will owe us our desires."

d. Examples

i. Pharisees build huge systems to codify each action - whether it contributes to one's righteousness or takes away from it. ---everything is done to bolster our own righteousness

ii. Characteristic

1. Compare ourselves to others in whatever way will make us look better

a. Leads to competitiveness, ethno-centrism, racism, judgmentalism, entitlement

2. Resentment - when we don't receive our expected reward, we turn resentful and ugly

a. Put those together, and get the older brother

i. Resents those who get what we deserve when they deserve it less than us

3. Hypocrisy and double-life

a. The preacher or politician who also lives a secret life of sin

4. Anxiety and Depression - because we can't possibly keep up

e. This doesn't work either

i. Jesus points out, these aren't just standards of behavior, they are standards of the heart and mind

1. We've been seeing that as we've worked through the Sermon on the Mount

2. The standards are a picture of a transformed heart

3. They are beyond our own efforts at every turn

4. And trying to pursue them in our own effort will either leave us

a. deluded about our own righteousness and entitlement

b. Or utterly defeated

c. And usually jumping back and forth between the two

ii. This is the older brother who resents the fathers love and grace for the dissolute younger brother who didn't deserve it - didn't deserve the celebration with the fatted calf and the father's love the way he does.

1. I see it in people in all the churches I've been in who so try to please and appease God

2. And demand the highest standards of everyone around them and of the surrounding culture and country

3. Often with the fear that if we don’t live up to God’s standards, we’ll lose his blessing or love as a church, a society or a nation

4. And it's an exercise in frustration at every level

5. And that frustration marks their lives as they try and be religious

f. Yet this is haw many see the purpose of the Old Testament, the commandments and the church.

i. But even in this passage, that is not how they are meant to be taken

g. Together, the aesthetic person and the ethical person have something in common - In both these forms of understanding, the law and commands are seen as a means of getting what we really want.

i. Either as a hurdle to be overcome

ii. Or as an achievement to be performed

iii. But they both fail in the very first commandment - One Lord and God

1. One means of creation, purpose, meaning and real satisfaction.

2. God gives these things. We don't decide it or achieve it for ourselves from him

4. Spiritual Person

a. This passage begins by identifying God, our God. Who saved us from Egypt

i. He created all things and established a relationship with us - "our God"

ii. He saved us from slavery in Egypt - "our savior"

iii. This simple little statement provides us with all we need to know about who God is and what he's done for us

1. It says everything about how he feels about us and his relationship with us

2. And it's already done

b. We don't do these things - these following commandments - to achieve salvation or to appease God or get him to love us and establish relationship on our terms - he already has done that for us

i. We are saved. We are delivered. We are free.

ii. Not free from these commands, but from Egypt - from slavery, from sin and from death.

iii. The problem that the Israelites were facing at Sinai was not that they were not free and on their way to the promised land

iv. Their problem was they did not know what freedom looked like. They had never seen it

v. They thought it would be not having to rely on God any more

1. They'd have some sort of control over the wilderness to be assured by their own hand food for every day - all sorts of foods and regular water.

2. They wouldn't have to face conflict with giants who lived in the promised land

3. They would quit facing threats

c. But freedom, real freedom, is knowing that you can rely on God

i. He is God, your God, and he has saved you and given you your freedom

ii. He loves you

iii. And he will take you to the promised land

d. These commands are what living free in trusting God looks like

i. It doesn't earn or achieve it

ii. It lives freely in response to it

e. A few weeks ago when I was talking about the Lord's Prayer

i. And what it means to address God, "our father"

ii. I talked about my own Dad, and I thought of this passage when I described my sisters and my relationship with our Dad

1. We had not one ounce ever of doubt in how much he loved us

2. Yet we all desperately wanted to please him and were terrified of disappointing him

a. Not because we were scared of him or that we would lose his love

b. But because we knew he would always love us and nothing would take that away.

3. That's what is going on at the beginning of the commandments

a. Our God loves us and has saved us

b. And if we want to know how to please him and not disappoint him, start with these ten things

f. Here's what the commands do:

i. They begin with having just the one God

1. There is no one else

2. Trying to worship someone else or make up some other god is like going back into slavery.

a. They aren't trustworthy like the one God.

b. Other gods don't save

c. They are not God

d. And they cannot save from slavery

ii. Don’t take God for granted. Honor him and his name

1. Worship him. That's what you are free now to do

2. And trust enough to take the time to do it - every week. That is freedom

a. America knows that - Freedom it tied specifically and particularly to the opportunity to worship

b. That was what the slaves got out of Egypt for

3. And as you grow up as a child and begin to honor someone beside your own desires, this begins in life by honoring our father and mother

a. You are free to do that

i. Then it gets to the freedom we have with each other. This is how we live free together - honoring each other as persons - not killing or dishonoring our relationships of marriage, property or truth. And don't be jealous or resentful.

ii. These commands are all about living free in relationships - this is what free relationships look like

g. Moses later Re-iterates the commands to a new generation (Dt. 5)

i. After those who were delivered from slavery in Egypt just couldn't get it,

1. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years as a new generation came of age

2. And Moses re-iterates these commands to them in Dt 5 just before they go to the Promised Land

ii. Summarizes them in Deuteronomy 6

1. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Dt. 6:4-5)

h. Jesus takes these commands to their fulfillment

i. No more clearly than in the Sermon on the Mount

1. Where he takes these very commands

2. And takes them to their logical conclusion

3. And paints a picture of life that can only ultimately happen in the Kingdom of Heaven

ii. Love god and love each other

iii. Love not just your friends, but everyone - even your enemies

iv. Not just do good to each other, but even think good of each other

1. If you murder them in your heart, it is the same as doing it

2. It is a picture of real freedom

5. Jesus and why this is important to me

a. So many voices

i. “forget it – these laws only restrict you from happiness and fulfillment”

ii. Or, “you’re doing it wrong. This is what you have to do to be good and get into heaven”

iii. Or, see what Moses says at the beginning of this

1. He is God

2. And he loves you and saved you

Or look at Jesus

And see the heights and depths and width – the comprehensiveness of his love for you

And just want to please him because his love is everything and all that matters

And you love him too

And love everyone else because his love is enough