SonRise Community Church Morning Sermons

SonRise Communtiy Church

SonRise Communtiy Church

Features the Weekly Sunday Morning Sermon

Oct 25

On gods and Altars

Whether youre brand new to SonRise or have been around SonRise for a while, let me briefly state what we seek to accomplish in this sermon moment each week. During the preaching portion of our Sunday morning gathering we employ and enjoy a style of preaching called expositional preaching. Which means that whoever is preaching does not aim at saying anything new but seeks only to say what God has already said, such that the point of the text in view that week is the point of the sermon. In this sense whichever elder preaches the sermon we make it our aim to be the nothing more than servers, whose task is taking the Chefs meal and bringing it to the table without adding to it, taking away from it, or changing it in any way, shape, or form. We dont to do this randomly but orderly, as we work through books of the Bible. So when we come to specific passages week after week we come to them in their own context, having already examined the verses that come before while also anticipating the verses that come after. Or to put it another way, we seek to sit underneath the authority and illumination of the Scripture, rather than standing over it using the Scripture to support our own message. This is our goal, we dont do it perfectly, but we do aim to be faithful handlers of Gods Word. Why remind you of this today? Because today we come to a passage that might challenge our belief in expository preaching. When we read Exodus 20:22-26, many of you might wonder, Is there really a need to focus on this text? I mean, is there really that much to glean from it? Church, let me remind you that we here at SonRise believe in the inspiration, the infallibility, and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Every word of it comes to us from heaven, given by God to build us up in faith. We believe this, truly. Though, when we come to passages like the one weve arrived at today, we must admitthe applicability of every Word in Scripture is not always an easy thing to see. So today we have a task before us, and we must give attention to the preaching of the Word, for I believe in this text we will see how God often works powerful wonders through obscure texts. Hear it for yourself. Exodus 20:22-26, And theLordsaid to Moses, Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven.You shall not make gods of silver to be with Me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.An altar of earth you shall make for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you andbless you.If you make Me an altar of stone,you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. Before I begin, allow me a moment to orient us to whats happening here. This passage marks a shift in the book of Exodus. The laws found in Exodus 20:22 23:33 have historically been called The Book of the Covenant.[1] Why? Because these laws are different and distinct from the Ten Commandments, covering a variety of situations in life. It is explicitly called The Book of the Covenant in Exodus 24:7. More so, Exodus 24:4 tells us these laws were written down by Moses on parchment, not by God on stone tablets. Lastly, these laws are called rules in Exodus 21:1. The word translated rules there is the Hebrew word mishpawt, which is a word often used when one is applying a divine decree to a specific circumstance. Dont lose me Church, I say all that to say this. As Moses goes into the thick darkness that is the presence of God on Mt. Sinai (20:21), God gives Moses this Covenant Code. As we read the Covenant Code we see its a collection of laws suitable to Israels present situation. Really, its the Ten Commandments applied to specific situations Israel will encounter before they become further established as a nation.[2] Now, dont miss how this Covenant Code begins. See it? Here in v22-26 God gives laws about gods and altars. Whats God after in giving them temporary directions about gods and altars? Church, Gods after their worship! Worship is the first thing God addresses with them. AndHe wants them to worship correctly. Let that sink in. Many people worship God, true. But have you ever thought, not all worship is pleasing or acceptable to God? Its a frightening thought isnt it? God does not accept all forms of worship that are offered to Him. This begs us to ask the question of whether or not God accepts our worship. What if our worship isnt acceptable to Him? Well, theres an easy answer to these questions. If our worship isnt acceptable to God, we ought to change our worship! Dont mishear me. Because of the work of Christ we have access to God, we can come into His presence, anytime we so desire. And more, we can come boldly into His presence! Yes and amen. But, while we can come into Gods presence boldly, we must never come smugly as if it were a small thing, or as if we deserved to be there. If Jesus were to walk into this room right now, not one of you would say Hey buddy! and give Him a high five. No, no! Wed all fall at His feet, astonished that He would show such grace to sinners like us! Church, this shows us the essence and importance of worship! What does God have to tell His people about worship? He will speak to them about gods and altars in v22-26, see first On gods (v22-23) And theLordsaid to Moses, Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven.You shall not make gods of silver to be with Me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. How glorious is the truth declared to us in the beginning of v22? There God says to us, You have seen for yourselves that I havetalked with you from heaven. My oh my! Church, here is a robust reminder of divine revelation, graciously given to us from heaven. Do you need that reminder this morning? Here in our hands is Gods very Word to us. This is no earthly word to us, no man-made word to us, but the heavenly Word to us, where God Himself speaks to us from heaven by His Spirit. This is the God who has spoken to Israel in the Law, the God who met with Moses on the mountain, the God of heaven come down to speak with us. See then what that glorious reminder in v22 leads to in v23? In v23 God reminds His people to not give any room to idols. The connection between v22 and v23 is clear. Because God is who He is, the God far above us and greater than anything we can conceive, the God who dwells in the heavensbecause God is who He is, and because God is their God who has redeemed them from slavery, Israel is not to make idols. But not just any idols, here it is specifically idols made of precious materials, silver and gold. You would be right to think this is a repeat of the first two commandments, but its also more than that. Its more than that because of the mention of gold and silver. This is a polemical statement, meaning, Gods not only instructing Israel, God is also at the same time condemning the practices of the nations around Israel. You see, the nations around Israel made idols out of gold and silver to worship, that was their normal practice, but though thats normal for the nations, thats not to be normal for Israel, not at all. Theyre not to be what the nations are like, theyre to be what God commands them to be. Yet, God knows Israel would be tempted to be like all those around them, and continues to call them to a better way. Church, they needed the reminder. Yes, Israel would worship the Lord, but they were never very far away from idolatry. As they needed the reminder, we too need the reminder. Idolatry is never far away from us. Christians today might be tempted to mock those of old who bowed before statues to worship. But do we not also keep a few idols close by. Idols of comfort, idols of riches, idols of pleasure, idols of identity, and all sorts of other things we think we must have in order to have a full and meaningful life? Of course we do. Israel needed the reminder that God, who has spoken to them, is in the heavens high above them, and He doesnt share His throne. We need the reminder toobecause we must worship Godnot God plus something else. The timing of this reminder against idolatry is worth noticing. v22-23 come after v18-21. Notice it. Israel had just seen God descend onto Mt. Sinai and heard Him speak His Law. After that they saw the storm, the thunder, the lightning, the trumpet blaring, and the mountain itself smoking. They trembled and stood far off. They know how great God is and they were overwhelmed at His greatness. Right now in this moment they are truly aware of how big God is, and that an idol, fashioned with their own hands, could never capture the essence of who God is, and that it would always fall short. But how quickly they forgetonly a few short chapters from now theyll be pressing on Aaron, their priest, to make a god for them with their own gold. Church, as Israel is called once again in this text to a singular devotion to and worship of the Lord, we are too. Having called His people to worship Him alone and cast away their idols, God keeps speaking to them about worship, but now in v24-26 He turns His attention to altars. On Altars (v24-26) An altar of earth you shall make for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.In every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you andbless you.If you make Me an altar of stone,you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it. I think a normal response to these verses isWhat?, What does this mean?, or even What am I supposed to do with that? Well, some of these instructions may seem strange. Why
Oct 18

Fear Before the Mountain

October is a fun month in America, with Halloween at the center of it. Some people decorate their yards with 16-foot skeletons and blow-up creatures. Others, admittedly, dont see the appeal at all. But our culture loves Halloween, and it loves the idea of being afraid. That is why we have entire horror genres, and why theme parks now start their Halloween Horror Nights in early September. People want to feel fear. I think part of the reason is that most of us rarely experience real fear. I tried to think of the last time I was genuinely afraid, and the closest I could come was Hurricane Irma. Nine years ago, our community watched the forecast and was told the storm was locked in, that it was the size of the state, and that it was coming straight for the coast. I was pastoring a church in downtown New Port Richey at the time, and I had the anxiety of knowing what the storm might do to the people I cared for, while also knowing there was very little I could do about it. Then, at the last minute, the storm curved and Polk County took the brunt of it. We woke up to a few tree branches down and a giant tree that had fallen into a parking lot. We cut it up with chainsaws and moved on with life the next week. That was a real fear, but it still doesnt capture what the people at Sinai experienced. Some of you have served in the military, and you know what it is to face the reality that you may die in a given moment. Most of us dont live with that reality. Our text this morning is Exodus 20:1821, but first we need to set the context. For the last 10 or 11 weeks, we have worked verse by verse through the Ten Commandments. Each week we unpacked what each command says, and what it implies for us. Somewhere along the way, its easy to forget what was happening at the mountain. I know I did. We get so caught up in the dos and donts that we lose the scene. Back in May, we arrived at Mount Sinai. After God brought Israel through the plagues, through the Red Sea, through battles and victories, He led them to this mountain and gave them specific instructions. Then, in Exodus 19:1625, God showed up: On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. Picture standing at the base of that mountain. The ground is shaking. Thunder is booming. Trumpets are blaring louder and louder. Smoke is pouring off the peak like a volcano. Think of how a hurricanes wind sounds as it slams against your house, then multiply that by thousands. That is the experience before the mountain. And into the middle of that, God speaks. The Ten Commandments are not handed down quietly. They are spoken in the midst of an awe-inspiring, earth-shaking display of God revealing Himself. That changes how we read them. This was not a passive moment. As we look at the text, there are two kinds of fear at play. The first is the peoples fear. It is an emotional fear that seizes them and causes them to draw back. The second is Moses fear. It is a righteous fear that motivates him to draw near. The people shrink back from God, while Moses pushes forward toward God. Lets look at each. The Peoples Emotional Fear Verses 18 and 19 say: Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. Notice the progression. Just a chapter earlier, in Exodus 19:8, the people answered together, All that the Lord has spoken we will do. They were excited. They were ready to meet God. They reminded themselves of everything He had already done for them: He brought them out of Egypt, He destroyed Egypts armies, He parted the sea, He gave them manna while they complained the whole way. They were on board. Then God actually showed up, and their tone changed. Ah, this is terrifying. They had imagined a cuddly old man who would give them a hug and say, Ive got you. Instead they encountered the majesty of God. This was still only a glimpse of who He is, but it was enough to overwhelm them. Fear froze them, and then it sent them backward. They stood far off. They were walking away from the mountain. The fear that seized them was not entirely baseless, and God had in fact set limits around the mountain. But the people took those limits and turned them into something larger. They concluded that God was so dangerous they needed to back even farther away. He is too terrifying for us to be in His presence. We cant be anywhere near Him. He will just strike us all dead. Here is the heart of it: a false fear is one that makes false assumptions about God as He displays Himself. There is a real truth here. God is a God of wrath. He is a God of judgment. He is a consuming fire. Those things are not wrong. What the people made of those truths was wrong. They concluded that because God is holy, He must be waiting to destroy them. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. Sometimes a correct understanding of God leads to a wrong conclusion. Think of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. One servant is given five talents, another two, and a third one. The first two invest what they are given and multiply it. The third buries his in the ground. When the master returns and asks why, the servant says, I knew you to be a hard man. His view of his master is partly true, but he responds with fear rather than faithfulness. The masters reply is essentially, If you knew who I was, you should have done something with what I gave you, not run and hide. The Israelites are doing the same thing. Their conclusion is, God must be angry, because this sight is terrifying. We must shrink back. We cant be in the presence of this God. Notice something else. Up to this point, God had not told them to stay away. He had given them a boundary, but the text assumes that God expected they would want to draw near to Him. Chapter 19 pictures a people eager to meet God. Their actual response is to say, We need to get as far from Him as possible. That is worth sitting with in your small groups this week. There is also a deeper fear underneath this. It is the fear that if we are not close to God, we cannot anger Him. Over the centuries, this kind of thinking produced a whole system of extra rules. The Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament built layers of additional laws around the commandments, so that they would never come close to breaking the original law. The logic goes: as long as I avoid everything that is close to sin, I will never actually sin, and God will always be satisfied with me. That is a picture of God as a capricious deity, waiting for the second you cross the line so He can strike you down. Many of us have joked, when someone says something heretical, Im going to step over here, so when lightning strikes, Im out of the way. God doesnt have good aim anyway. But even as a joke, it reveals a view of God as fickle and quick to anger. That is not who He is. Their false fear does something else. It causes them not only to shrink back, but to ask Moses to stand in the gap for them. We cannot talk to God. We do not want God to talk to us. You deal with Him. You talk to God, and whatever you say, well do it. We just dont want to hear it directly. Its an odd, almost arrogant way to approach God. We dont want what God says, but well accept what someone else tells us He said. Well see how that plays out as the text continues. But notice that their false fear has separated them from God, and then they put someone else in front of them: You deal with it. We do this too. God has given us His Word so we can know Him. He has given us prayer and the church and every tool we need to know Him better and grow in Him. Yet sometimes its much easier to switch off our minds and say, Whatever the pastor or podcaster says, that is what is right. After about 15 years in ministry, Ive had many conversations that started like this: My pastor once told me this, and it became the authority of truth for me. So thats what the Bible must say. Or: My grandmother always said cleanliness is next to godliness. (There is a whole list of things people think are in the Bible that simply arent, and you can find memes about them online.) People take things as truth because they were handed down by authority figures they trust, or by well-meaning people who read Scripture and assumed what they were taught. A common example: you may have heard that the eye of the needle that a camel couldnt pass through was a real gate in Jerusalem, a narrow passage that a camel could squeeze through if it was unloaded. Thats not what Jesus was talking about. Its literally an eye of a needle. People are repeating what others told them. They are appealing to someone elses authority rather than going to Scripture, and in doing so they assume the other person is right. So let me say this clearly. You should not assume that I am always right. You should not assume that we as a church are always right either. We have good motives. We pray, and we read, and we try. But we can get things wrong. We have 2,000 years of church history showing that Christians can get things wrong. God is consistent and never changing, but we are fallible humans. When we put our ultimate trust in fallible human beings to be the source of our faith, we have put them in the wrong place. A lot of life today is shaped by this. We put our faith in false authorities because we are afraid. Its hard work to dive into Scripture and make a choice for yourself. Its much easier when someone just tells you what to believe. You point out how it all fits together, and I say, Yep, done. But knowin
Oct 11

The Sin Beneath the Sins

Jesus told a parable that goes like this. Picture it. Its 6AM, and a landowner goes down to the place to gather laborers. He finds some workers and makes a deal: a denarius for the day. That was a fair wage, the going rate. They shake on it and head to the vineyard. The landowner goes back at 9AM and hires more. Then does it again at noon, and 3PM, he does it again. Then at 5PM, with one hour of daylight left, he goes and hires more men one last time saying, Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing? Evening comes, and its time to settle up. The master tells the foreman to start with the last ones hired. Those who worked one hour get a denarius. The ones whove been working there since dawn are looking on curiously. They see it, start doing the math, and thinkIf they got a full days pay for an hour, imagine what were getting. Then its their turn, and theyre stunned that they also get a denarius. These last men worked one hour, and youve made them equal to us. They dont say, You cheated us., because they got exactly what was promised to them. Earlier that day, before all the others got hired, the promise of getting a denarius sounded great. It meant dinner for that day, and they agreed to it gladly. So why are they disappointed now? What changed? The wage didnt change. The master didnt change. The only thing that changed was them. They went from being grateful for what theyd been given to being offended by what others had been given. Church, this is what comparison does. It takes the masters goodness and makes it feel empty. Jesus parable about the laborers in the vineyard highlights the sin beneath all other sins, covetousness. After 11 weeks so far in the Ten Commandments, we come at last to the tenth and final commandment. Two headings to work through today: the negative command, and the positive command. See first The Negative Command Exodus 20:17, You shall not covet your neighbors house; you shall not covet your neighbors wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbors. As much as it is right to handle the tenth commandment on its own, it is good to see how this commandment functions as a fitting summary of the whole.[1] When the tenth commandment says, You shall not covet it exposes more of our sin. The fifth commandment tells us to honor authorities, the tenth commandment goes deeper exposing our desire to be honored over our authorities. The sixth commandment tells us to not murder, the tenth commandment goes deeper exposing our desire to count our own life more valuable than others. The seventh commandment tells us to not commit adultery, the tenth commandment goes deeper exposing our desire to find sexual satisfaction outside Gods established order. The eighth commandment tells us to not steal, the tenth commandment goes deeper exposing our desire to count our gain as more important than our neighbors loss. The ninth commandment tells us to not lie, the tenth commandment goes deeper exposing our desire to twist and deceive others. You see, all the sins forbidden in the Law begin at the level of desire, which is squarely in view in this final commandment. Thus, it functions as a fitting summary of the whole. But lets zero in now and ask a basic question, what is it to covet? Simply put, to covet is to desire wrongfully. Or we could say, to covet is to desire more than enough. Thats a good start, but we can go further and say, to covet is to be discontent with our lot in life, to grieve at our neighbors good, and to foster an excessive affection toward what is theirs.[2] That really gets to the heart of it. Where do we find coveting in the Bible? Well, as weve seen time and time again in the commandments, coveting takes us back to the beginning. After being made by God, given to one another, and placed in the garden, Adam and Eve heard the serpents tempting words to take the forbidden fruit. What did they do? Genesis 3:6 says it, So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,she took of its fruitand ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her,and he ate. Before Eve ever took the fruit and ate it, she saw it and desired it. By doing so our first parents chose to covet and take what did not belong to them.[3] From that point in Scripture we can see that every sin that follows begins in the same way, with seeing, desiring, and taking, or we could say, with disordered desire, with coveting. We already heard one of Jesus parables about this. Later on Paul mentions it many times, including it in a list of the vilest sins more than once (Rom. 1, 7:7-12, 13:9). James speaks of this memorably as he says, But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:14-15). Lets trace this out a bit more specifically for us. How do we covet?[4] Covetousness grows in the heart slowly. A covetous posture begins to rise in us when our thoughts begin to be wholly taken up with the world. When we cannot not think about the things of this life. Once that begins to grow in us, the next sign is that we become more eager to gain the things of this life than we are to gain the things of the life to come. Whether or not we recognize it, a value shift has occurred in us where we have begun to more heavily value and more eagerly pursue earthly possessions than heavenly possessions. Once this shift has occurred in us, well overload ourselves with worldly pursuits, so much so that well scarcely find the time to devote ourselves to God. And once we busy ourselves in this way, our speech begins to reflect it, as most of our conversation becomes about the world and the stuff in it were pursuing. Which reveals where our hearts allegiance has settled into, as Jesus said, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34). At this point, were near a most dangerous place. For if the tongue is speaking much of worldly things, the heart is taken up with worldly things, and if the heart is taken up with worldly things, it reveals that we deeply love worldly things, and if we deeply love worldly things well soon forsake heaven to gain more of earth. This was the tragic error of Demas. Once a dear companion of Paul, mentioned even in a few of his letters, only to abandon Paul in the end. Why? Because he coveted the things of the world, so Paul warned against him later on in 2 Tim. 4:10 saying, Demas, in love with this present world, deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. After all of this slow covetous downward progression occurs in us, what will become of us? Well do what Demas did. Well be so caught up in the pursuit of worldliness that we wont care what we do or what we leave behind to gain more. Church, what is it for you? Possessions or lifestyle, money or status, people or relationships, body image, leisure and ease? Beware the sin of covetousness. Its a subtle sin. Its a dangerous sin. Its a mother sin, leading to all manner of corruption.[5] The tenth commandment is personal because unless acted upon, the only one who knows of these desires is you. But the tenth commandment is also communal because it has everything to do how we interact with the stuff of our neighbor. We see the stuff of neighbor and get disgruntled because deep down we believe we deserve those possessions more than them. Which leads us to one vile place: discontentment. A heart that is discontent is frantic, constantly searching for something to grab hold of, for something to restore happiness and joy, for something to give meaning. You look at your neighbors house, marriage, family, lifestyle, vacations, careers, Facebook photos, etc. and think Oh that such a life were mine! We are never satisfied arent we? Do you remember what John D. Rockefeller said when asked How much is enough? He said, Just a little bit more. Ultimately this discontent shows a lack of faith in Gods love and care for us. James 4:1-2 says What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Church, a covetous heart is hard to see, but you can be sure of this. A covetous heart will eventually show itself publicly by breaking one of the other commandments. How kind of the Lord to warn us against it in this tenth commandment? Hes warned against much in the previous commandments but now in the tenth commandment He takes us deeper, from actions to attitudes, from motions to motives, from forbidden deeds to forbidden desires.[6] This is the negative command. The Positive Command I said it last week and Ill say it again. Every commandment is two sided. Every commandment has a thou shall not and a thou shall. Soif coveting is the vice to avoid, the virtue to pursue is, what? Contentment. We know what the covetous heart looks like, weve examined it already. What does a content heart look like? Contentment looks like many things, but I would argue that it mainly looks like rest. A content heart rests in God. Lets trace this out in three ways. Contentment is Rest in Gods Sovereignty That God is sovereign means many things. It means there are no accidents, that God is never surprised, that God never says oops, that all things work according to the counsel of His will. Because God is sovereign nothing enters or leaves our life without Gods permission and design, thus no event in the universe should be considered insignificant. Job 1:21 Naked I came from my mothers womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Daniel 4:35 God does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; none can stay His han
Oct 4

Can You Handle the Truth?

Mosquitoes are awful. Growing up in Georgia I never had to worry about them, I never wore bug spray, and could go outside at any time, day or night, and not be bothered at all. But thats not the story here. Here when I go outside for any prolonged amount of time after about 5pm its a feeding frenzy! And the crazy thing is that not just mosquitoes bite me! Its mosquitoes, no-see-ums, gnats, and their whole extended family; it seems like everything that flies wants a piece of me! Now, I think you and I are just like mosquitoes. How so? As they swarm around us, you and I swarm around lies, deceit, and dishonesty. Why? Theres something about lies, deceit, dishonesty, and gossip that sinners just cant resist. We have to know the dirt on other people, we have to know the latest gossip, and then go tell others about it. Rather than being people who are concerned about truth we seem to be people who soak up falsehood like a sponge. John Calvin said it best, Too many of us delight in a certain poisoned sweetness. Before we hear dig into the ninth commandment, remember how the Law begins, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Church, God did not say keep these commandments and Ill rescue you. He said, I have rescued you, so now live as I command. Every commandment, including this one, is spoken to a people who have already been rescued. Keep that in mind, as we enter the ninth commandment, because it does have much rebuke for us. But praise God it also gives us much help and direction. As has been the case for a few weeks now, there are two headings to work through today: the negative command, and the positive command. See first The Negative Command Exodus 20:16 says, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The first image that comes to my mind when I read this verse is a courtroom. All those that bear witness in such a setting are under a sacred obligation to be truthful in all thats said. Thats clear. But its also clear, that this command does not end when we leave the courtroom, but goes with us into all of life.[1] What is it to bear false witness, what is it to lie? Generally, we could say to lie is to make an untrue statement. To lie is to speak differently from what you think, and to speak differently from what the thing itself is.[2] Thats good, but lying is more than that isnt it? Of course it is. To lie is to make an untrue statement in order to mislead or deceive. So not only is lying a false word about something, but a false word in order to misrepresent and twist that something, for our own deceptive purposes. History is as full of liars as the ocean is full of water. In the beginning, the serpent spoke opposite of what he knew to be true.[3] His first words uttered in the Bible, are in fact the first words about God from someone other than God, and they are lies. Lies made in order to cast doubt on Gods Word. Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The serpents words simply werent true. God wasnt worried about competitors, not at all.[4] He gave that command for mans good. Yet the Devil cast doubt in Adam and Eve by lying to them, and they took the bait. Which in turn caused them to not be truthful about one another with God when He came asking questions. These first lies began a long chain of deception. Cain continued the family legacy by lying to God about his part in Abels death. Abraham lied to Pharaoh about Sarah being his wife. Isaac followed suit and lied to Abimelech about Rebekah being his wife. Jacob lied to Isaac and stole the blessing by pretending to be Esau. The sons of Jacob deceived Shechem and Hamor in order to kill them and all their men after the defiling of their sister Dinah. Tamar deceived Judah in order to obtain children. Josephs brothers lied to Jacob about what really happened to Joseph. Those are only some of the lies in the rest of the book of Genesis. Many more follow throughout the rest of Scripture. Bearing false witness might just be humanitys favorite pastime. So naturally we find God writing it into Law in His commandments here in Exodus 20:16. Leviticus 19:16 affirms this, You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. According to that, why are we not to do lie? The answer given is multifaceted. First, to lie is to slander neighbor. Second, to slander neighbor is to stand up against the life of neighbor. Third, were not to do this, because God says, I am the Lord. You may not think that is an answer, but it is. Were not to lie, why? Because God is the God of Truth, meaning He is truthful, and is Himself the standard of all that is true. Numbers 23:19 agrees saying, God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it? So Church, to lie is to go directly against Gods nature, to stand up against the life of your neighbor, to join yourself with falsehood, and to link arms with the Devil. That sounds strong, I know. But listen to Jesus in John 8:44. There Hes speaking to those who are plotting to kill Him, and He says, You are of your father the devilWhen he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus is not saying every person who ever lies becomes a child of the devil. Hes showing us where lying comes from, and who it resembles. Truth-telling is godly because God is truth. Lying is satanic because Satan is the father of lies. Paul often takes up this theme and calls us to put off lies and put on the truth. For example, in Colossians 3:9-10 he says, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. We were rescued out of the Devils family, so when a Christian lies, its as if theyre willingly going back into the old house and picking up the old family habits. This grieves our Father, because it is not who we are anymore. I dont think any of this surprises us. Yet we lie. Lets give examples of the many ways we lie. Heres a few: -We lie to others because sometimeswe dont like the truth, so we dont want to tell the truth. -We lie about ourselves. About what weve done and not done, about what were doing and not doing, and about what well do or wont do. -We lie about others. Rather than being truthful about others in conversation we naturally find ourselves talking about others in such a manner to bring them down and lift ourselves up. Maybe we dont tell the whole truth about another person, but only speak of the bad theyve done. Maybe we hold onto secrets we learn about others to use them later in a time that suits us. -We lie by twisting words. Someone asks us, What did they say? and we give our own version of what they said rather than what they actually said. Or we re-tell events to make ourselves out to be the good guys and others the bad guys. -We lie by gossip or slander. This occurs when we pass along information about another that they probably wouldnt like us to share. We do this also when we hear another gossiping without stopping it. Silence is seen as acceptance and approval in this regard. I think this is where some prayer requests go bad. In a real effort to pray for someone we can easily spend more time sharing about their struggle than actually praying for them. And sometimes when we pray for them we dont really pray for them, but give those around us a long list of the sins this person has committed. -We also lie by beginning a statement with the phrase, Hes a great guy, but or Shes fantastic, but But what? Do you really think this guy or lady is great and fantastic if you have to add qualifiers onto the ends of our sentences and putting their shortcomings on display? This also brings those ridiculous sentimental statements into view when people say, God bless him or Bless her heart meaning anything but positive things. Our Mothers advice rings true here. If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all. Dont say it out loud, or in your heart. By remaining silent, we not only protect ourselves from becoming a liar and slanderer, we also protect the reputation of another by not airing out their dirty laundry before others.[5] This is precisely what the ninth commandment has in view. It doesnt merely say, You shall not bear false witness. It says, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You see, so much here is about neighbor. God intends for us to not harm our neighbors name or reputation in how we speak to them or about them. Were to uphold, protect, and do what we can to ensure our neighbor keeps their good name. Do you do this? If you speak down of another (even if you think your reasons are righteously justifiable), or allow another to be spoken ill of in your presence without correcting them we break the ninth commandment, we reject God who is Truth and truthful, and we join ourselves to Satan the father or lies. But pastor, What about Rahab and the Hebrew midwives? Didnt they lie and receive great blessing from God? Good question. Scripture commends their fear of God, their mercy to Gods people, and their faith (Heb 11:31). Scholars differ on how to read those accounts. But let me just say this. We shouldnt build a whole theology of exceptions out of the hardest cases and then use it to excuse our own lying. 99,9% of our lies arent about hiding refugees. Theyre about protecting ourselves. Bottom line? Our words carry great weight. They can build up, and they can destroy. Lying is no small offense. The Positive Command I said it last week and Ill say it again. Every commandment is two sided. Every commandment has a t
Sep 27

Swiper No Swiping

We live in a day where truth is treated as relative. For something to be true, someone just has to believe its true, and that can change from person to person. Whats true for you is true for you; whats true for me is true for me. Sounds nice, doesnt it? Here's a test. Think about the Ten Commandments in light of relative truth, specifically the eighth commandment in view for us today where God forbids theft. Picture a conversation with someone who insists truth is relative from person to person, that were all free to write our own rules about right and wrong. You know how to change their mind in a few seconds? Steal their wallet and watch what happens. The same person who just told you truth is relative will suddenly believe, with great conviction, that its very wrong for you to steal from them. At that point you could say, If truth is relative, theft may not be virtuous for you, but it is for me. So who are you to tell me Im wrong? Probably not the best way to go about it, but you see what I mean. Whatever our mouths say we believe about truth, whats actually true always remains true. Gods law is written on our hearts, because were made in His image. So we all know, instinctively, that stealing is wrong. Or as the popular childrens TV show Dora the Explorer so often said to the character Swiper, Swiper no swiping! Today were going to see theft firsthand. Two headings to work through together today. See first The Negative Command Exodus 20:15 says, You shall not steal. As weve seen in the past, we see again today. Two Hebrew words makeup the entirety of the 8th commandment. No theft. Short and to the point. Standing alongside the past few commandments we see more of what it means to love our neighbor. Love to neighbor requires: that giving to honor to our authorities is sacred (fifth commandment), that we hold our neighbors very life as sacred (sixth commandment), that we hold their marriage as sacred (seventh commandment), and where were arrived today, in the eighth commandment, that we hold their property as sacred. What is thievery? What is it to steal? Most of us immediately think of something like Harry and Marv from Home Alone, right? As humorous as those two are, theft is far from funny, it is a vile sin. Theft can be defined simply as taking something from another without permission. That definition works, but we must also say that theft can take many forms, and the root of any form it takes lies the wicked desire to take away from our neighbor what rightly belongs to him.[1] Sometimes theft occurs because someone desires something they dont possess, and so they take it from another who does. Other times, theft occurs, not so much because someone desires something they dont have, but because they desire to have more than their neighbor has. Perhaps more sinister, sometimes theft occurs because someone desires, not to have something, but desires that their neighbor does not have something. Enter the 8th commandmentwhere we learn it is not Gods will for us to have anything that we obtain by dishonorable means. But rather, that it is Gods will for us to respect the property of others.[2] Lets trace this out in the Bible. We first see theft in the Garden. There in Genesis 3 the woman saw, desired, took, and ate. This fruit did not belong to our first parents, it was forbidden fruit, belonging to God alone. He had not given permission to eat from that tree, He had commanded and warned against it. Then the Devil slithered in and promised blessing if they took and ate the forbidden fruit, that they would be like God if they did, and that God was cruel to withhold such a blessing. They were convinced. But when they took the fruit, disobeying God and taking the Devil at his word, sin and death entered in; and in so doing Adam and Eve committed the first act of thievery, and became historys first thieves. Later on in Genesis 31 Rachel took Labans idols while fleeing Labans household with Jacob. Not far after we see Joseph stolen away by his brothers and sold into slavery. Soon after that we see it here in the 8th commandment, put into law for Israel. And shortly after we see the consequence of theft stated. One example is Exodus 22:1-4 where the principle of restitution is laid out, that thieves must repay a certain amount based on how much they stole. Fast forward to Joshua 7 where we see Achans theft. After the victory at Jericho, Achan stole some of the plunder for himself and buried it in his tent, bringing ruin on himself and his family. Of course we could speak of David not merely committing adultery with Bathsheba but stealing her from her husband Uriah in 2 Sam. 11. But we could also then speak of Davids son Absalom, stealing the hearts of the people away from David in 2 Sam. 15. When Jesus comes He spoke about the sinfulness of thievery in many places, the traveler on the road was beaten and robbed in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the narrative surrounding Zaccheaus, and lets not forget the horrid example of Judas, who despite being with Jesus and hearing all His teaching, remained a thief among the disciples. Church, there is much in the Bible about theft. But I suspect, more than a few of you are still feeling pretty good about yourselves, thinking the eighth commandment might just be one youve not broken. I mean, you don't break into houses. You don't shoplift. You dont commit armed robbery. Lets go deeper. The heart behind theft is present in us all. Truly theft is present in us whenever we think, my gain matters more than your loss. In general, here are three ways we break this commandment. Common Theft This is the obvious one, robbery, pickpocketing, shoplifting, of course those are theft. This is common theft, I think we understand this category. But theres also Transactional Theft Whats in view in transactional theft is the stealing away of something from another that is usually built into some kind od exchange with another for something done. Slacking off on the clock instead of doing the work you're being paid for, fudging an expense report, borrowing something you never intend to return, treating a rental like dirt because its not your responsibility to care for. This theft is all transactional. Leviticus 19:13 forbids withholding a workers pay overnight. So if you hire someone for a job at a certain wage, you owe them exactly what you promised, on time, in full. To underpay honest work is to steal, whatever the contract says. Deuteronomy 25 and Proverbs 11 forbid the same thing on the other side of the counter, giving a customer less than they paid for, whether thats watering down a product, structuring a loan to trap someone who doesnt understand it, or any deception like that in any sale. This is exactly what turned Jesus over the tables in the Temple, the house of prayer had become a place where the vulnerable were quietly abused. This same principle of transactional theft goes all the way up to the top. Stealing isnt only something individuals do to each other, its often legislated into law.[3] Long ago the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said fences are capricious things. Karl Marx once said the whole idea of property is a bourgeois privilege. Yet without the reality of personal property the 8th commandment would be unintelligible. Many governments have legislated giving away the personal property of others, but ironically and rarely do they ever legislate the redistribution of their own belongings. Whatever name it goes under, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, etc., any economic system that steals from some to give to others breaks the 8th commandment. At its darkest, transactional theft also brings into view the theft of personhood. Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 24 speaks to this calling the one who steals and sells a human being will face the penalty of death. Seems to be low hanging fruit to say, these Israelites who were former slaves, should realize how wicked stealing other people is.[4] Yet fast forward into more modern history, slavery has been alive and well in far too many cultures. From ancient Rome, to the Aztecs, to Islamic cultures, the Vikings, the Koreans, and we ourselves justified the practice of slavery in various ways. Whether it goes by the name slavery, human trafficking, or kidnapping, or whatever, when a vulnerable person is controlled and exploited for someone elses gain we must call it what it is, sin. There is common theft, transactional theft, and now see Hidden Theft There are a few forms of theft most of us never think to call by that name. There is theft of reputation, where we slander someone behind their back, and robbing their good name to inflate your own. There is theft of honor, where we refuse to honor those in our lives to whom honor is due. There is theft by plagiarism, using someone elses work, in the classroom, the office, or the pulpit, without giving credit. And there is theft thats spiritual in nature, meaning, every time we sing a song promising to live a certain way on Sunday and walk out those doors and live however we want the rest of the week, or when we keep for ourselves what God has asked us to give cheerfully and sacrificially. All of this is theft, whether or not its ever discovered by others. A few more forms worth naming plainly, because none of us are past them: pirating a movie or a piece of software instead of paying for it, quietly padding your hours on a timesheet, not reporting income you know you owe taxes on. None of it feels like stealing in the moment. But thats exactly the danger. As Martin Luther put it in his larger catechism, a person steals not only when he robs a mans safe or his pocket, but also when he takes advantage of his neighbor in the market, in a grocery shop, butcher stall, wine-and-beer cellar, work-shop, and, in short, wherever business is transacted and money is exchanged for goods or labor. This commandment leaves almost nothing of daily life untouchedfrom a toddler swiping a toy
Sep 20

Fire in the Fireplace

I really like fire. Whether at a campsite or on the couch, to me fire is a thing of wonder. I like building it, I like staring at it, being warmed by it, even jumping over it when its relatively safe to do so. Anyone with me? Let me ask you a question about fire: in a home where is fire good? A fireplace. In the fireplace, fire isnt just good, its very good. It warms the whole house. It gathers and draws others in. It pushes back the cold. Fire in the fireplace is a gift. Next question, in a home where is fire bad? Anywhere else. Fire out of the fireplace doesnt warm a home, it burns a home down. This morning I start with fire because the root of adultery is exactly thata flame, a flicker, a spark that leads to a great blazing fire. When this fire is kept in the fireplace of marriage, it warms a whole life. But let that fire loose outside marriage, it only does one thing very well: it destroys. This commandment begs some hard questions. Are any of you in these fires right now? Maybe youre already involved in or planning to begin an adulterous affair? Making youre planning a secret meet up sometime soon, even loosely, just to be somewhere alone with someone you shouldnt? Or, maybe youre enjoying those extended glances where you lingering in a coworkers eyes, or maybe youve gone back and reread their texts a few times too many? Or, maybe youre indulging in explicit images online, or chatting with someone you shouldnt? I dont ask these questions to shame anyone here. But to prepare you for to hear the seventh commandment today. So if you answered yes to any of the questions just nowstay with me, and keep listening. There is a deep rebuke here to hear and heed, but theres more grace here than you think. Weve got two headings to work through today. See first The Negative Command In the original Hebrew the seventh commandment is stated just like the sixth commandment, with a brief and brutal simplicity. These commandments only contain two words, No murder. and No adultery. Lets begin simply, and just ask the question, what is adultery? Sadly, it can take many forms. I think a broad definition is helpful, perhaps we could put it like this: adultery is giving that which belongs to your spouse alone to someone else. This could be romantic affection, desire, and devotion, whether or not it ever becomes physical. Or we could say, adultery is relating to another person in a way that dishonors the marriage covenant, whether physically or emotionally, inwardly or outwardly. All in all, adultery and adulterous actions dont always require a bed. The key ingredient in view is one giving away what belongs to spouse alone. This is the pattern. God defined marriage. We don't get to redefine itnot to two women, not two men, not one man and his neighbors wife, and not one women and her neighbors husband. By crossing these lines, the adulterer isnt just breaking a rule, theyre bowing to the altar of self instead of God. Thats clear. There was a time when this was not clear. In 1631, the royal printers in London ran a new edition of the King James Bible. Somewhere in the printing process, one word got left out from Exodus 20:14. Just one, the word not. So, the final version of the seventh commandment as it stood in the text was, Thou shall commit adultery. Once this was discovered the printers were fined and stripped of their license. The King hired and sent out groups of book hunters to track down and destroy as many copies as they could find. History remembers it as The Wicked Bible. Today only fourteen copies survive in museums.[1] Our Bibles dont make this mistake, so this commandment ought to be clear to us as well. Lets trace how this was dealt with in Scripture. Adultery existed before the giving of the Law, perhaps most notably were the adulterous attempts made by Potiphars wife toward Joseph near the end of Genesis. Like this situation, wherever adultery occurs, dreadful things follow. We find it next in the seventh commandment. Its included elsewhere too. Leviticus 20:10, If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Deuteronomy 22:22 repeats the sentence almost word for word. That the death penalty is present as a consequence shows us how far back this transgression goes, it goes all the way back to creation. Before the fall, in Genesis 1-2, God joined male and female into one flesh, and what God joined together, no one is to separate. One man, one woman, becoming one flesh. Israel broke this commandment many times physically. In Numbers 25, Israelite men joined themselves to pagan prostitutes, who lured them out of the camp to join in pagan worship. More famous is Davids adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. In this moment David stays home when he should be at war. He gets lazy when he should be diligent. He let his eyes wander when he should have guarded them. These adulterous thoughts led to actions that produced a physical affair. He called for a woman he shouldve left alone, took her for himself, only to try and cover it up by deceiving her husband, ultimately leading to the death of her husband, the death of their child, and the disruption of the Kingdom. We could also speak of Proverbs 5-7 where the wise father repeatedly warns his son of going near the adulteress house. She is portrayed as alluring, enticing, seductive, and deadly. The father clearly warns his son, that all who go down to her house will only find death. Thats some of how Israel broke this commandment physically. But they also broke it spiritually. What do I mean? God uses the imagery of adultery to rebuke His people for being idolatrous in heart. So while not committing physical adultery, Israel often committed spiritual adultery. The golden calf is such a moment, when they made their own image and worshipped it instead of God. In Jeremiah 3 God asks Israel, throughout all the land, on what hill have you not been ravished? you have the forehead of a whore, yet you refuse to be ashamed. In Ezekiel 16 God says something similar, rebuking Israel for their adulterous hearts which had repeatedly turned away from Him to idols. And the whole book of Hosea puts this on display as God likens Israel to the prostitute Gomer, and rebukes His people for having hearts that continually run after other gods, as Gomer continually ran after other lovers. And when Jesus comes He raises the bar. In Matthew 5:27-30 He says, You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away... And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Jesus isnt contradicting the seventh commandment here, Hes raising the bar by pointing out its true meaning. Lust in the heart is far more than a mere thought, its adulterous at root. Paul continues to expand on this by giving a number of warnings against adulterous living, saying at one point that those who indulge in such sin live as if theyre pagans who dont know God (1 Thess. 4:1-9). Bottom line Church? Whether its physical adultery or spiritual adultery in view, theres no small version of this sin. Its all dishonoring to God and deeply hurtful to others. Thus, hear and heed the command. Hear God love you by warning you against that which will destroy you. Adultery is a fire that destroys. Know it. Embrace it. Flee from it. But pastor, I have such strong desires and temptations. It doesnt matter, are you not more than your feelings? Are you not more than your temptations? Are you more than an animal in heat? Of course you are! Youre an image bearer, remember it and act like it. Though desires might be great, sexual desire is not a craving were free to satisfy in any manner that pleases us. Sometimes obeying this command will mean we must change something. It might look like finding a new group of friends, or forgoing certain forms of entertainment for a time, or indefinitely.[2] Sometimes obeying this command means you unlearn bad habits and learn some new ones. There is no excuse. Self-denial is a real discipline we must pursue until it become our habitual practice, and self-control is a real fruit of the Spirit God has given all His children. Church, obedience to this command is right. Hear and heed the negative command. But dont only do that. Hear and heed the The Positive Command Heres something important about how Gods commandments work. When He tells us not to do something, Hes also telling us to pursue something in its place. Yes there is the Thou shall not but there is also the Thou shall to each commandment. Weve seen what the seventh commandment calls us away from, now ask a different question. What is God commanding us to pursue in the seventh commandment? The answer to that question is simple I think. The Heidelberg Catechism we recited earlier told us plainly, we must not only detest adultery but must also live chaste and disciplined lives, inside and outside of holy marriage. Or in other words, since the sin of adultery is what is to be avoided, the virtue of faithfulness is what we must pursue. Faithfulness to God in singleness and faithfulness to God and spouse in marriage. Or as H.B. Charles Jr. puts it, the seventh commandment doesnt just restrict pleasure, it relocates it.[3] God isnt anti-pleasure. Hes the one who invented it, and in this commandment Hes telling us where pleasure is safe to run wild. So how do we actually pursue the virtue of faithfulness? Three ways. 1) Keep Christ as Your Highest Satisfaction Married or single, your first desire must be Christ. You were made for the glory of God before you were made for marriage, which means no person on the planet was ever built to satisfy you completely
Sep 13

MURDER!!!!!!

So as we gather this morning, the text before us is this idea of murder. Many people have highlighted they love the sermon title name. It's "Murder!!!!!!" With six exclamation points, so we are really diving into the murder theme. Part of it is the fact that, as a society, we have a mild obsession with murder. There's an entire television network dedicated to murder, just murder documentaries. Eighty-three percent of Americans over the age of 13 have consumed murder-related content over the last year, whether that be a book, a podcast, a series on television, a Netflix documentary. But 83%. So if we take the average attendance on a Sunday morning of both services, there's roughly 15 people who have not done so. It's a very small group who has not. I know some people who spend their Sunday evenings just obsessed with murder documentaries. It happens. People love them. Forty-two million Americans listen to a murder true-crime podcast every month. So a little over 10% of the U.S.this is their monthly diet. There are 75 current documentaries that deal with murder or murder-related things on Netflix currently, and iTunes and Spotify list roughly 23,000 murder true-crime podcasts available for your enjoyment today. That is our society's obsession with murder. One of the surveys highlighted why people are so obsessed: the thrill of the chase, the thrill of what's gonna happen. Who is the murderer? It's all about the person. So within this, our society doesn't actually care about the fact that people are murdered. We aren't interested even in the ones who are murdered, but rather the entertainment of finding out what happened. We love a good mystery, a whodunit. But as I've said before, when you get to the end of some of these seriesI will partake in one; I enjoy a good true-crime podcast every now and then, or a documentary on Netflixwhat you often see is if there's a four-part series, by the end of the series you've probably forgotten the victim's name or much about the person at all. But you know everything about the murderer. You know their neighbor, you know their mother, you know their third aunt, second cousin. Somehow you know everyone because they've all been interviewed like 12 different times about how they just did not see it coming. "They're the sweetest per" So you know everything about the murderer, but somehow the victims usually, not always, get lost along the way, because ultimately, we don't really care about that. We're sad murders happen, but really we just want to know why. What's going on? It's a sad state of the world that we live in. We've lost sight of the person. As we dive into our text today, this command ultimately is reflecting on the nature of the image of God and the destruction of that image. Ultimately we begin with this prohibition against taking out the image of God or abusing the image of God in others. As a society, we've become obsessed with these entertainments, or we've become obsessed with watching media about it. Many of you probably over the last month have consumed plenty of news reports on trials and other things, and everyone's got an opinion on what should have happened or what might have happened or why these people are wrong. "I watched two minutes of a trial, but I know everything about a trial." All of these ins and outs. We all have opinions. Part of it's because, as we'll dive into it, we all like to get worked up. It's part of our sinful condition. Our society knows it. That's how our society makes money. We thrive on anger. Anger is popular. Anger is what makes money, and this is part of what we see is also an aspect of murder. So as we unpack all of these things that are in view today, as we get deep into the heart of "Are we murderers? How is murder seen and lived out in our lives?" and ultimately, as we see as a world, "How have we belittled the image of God?"that is what brings us today to the Sixth Commandment. So again, the Sixth Commandmentas we will unpack it here, straight to the point. It's very quick. We see these four: "You shall not murder." That's pretty straightforward, right? We can wrap this thing up in like 10 minutes. But no, there's so much more that we're gonna unpack this morning, because there's so much more behind this text. There's so much more that the whole Old Testament ties into this text, because this is but the beating heart of so many other things that the Scriptures will unpack when it comes to how we treat one another and how we treat image bearers. I. The Commandment So, as we come to the commandment, it begins, as I said, with four simple English words: "You shall not murder." For those with a good modern English translation, that's what is before you. Again, what we've seen over the last few weeks: we spent the last five weeks looking at the first five. If you break them up, the first three are straight verticalman to God. How do we worship God? How do we not worship him wrongly? No carved idols, none of those things, not using His name in vain. Very highhow we worship God. The next two are the transition. They have both a vertical and a horizontal element. Keep the Sabbath day and keep it holy, because it's to the Lord, but also it gives rest to all people. There's a both/and. And then last week we talked about authority: listening to, obeying parents. "Honor your father and your mother," which also has a hierarchical idea of honor not only to your parents; it's also a reflection to honor of God. So there's this dual purpose in those. But now we have this transition to the last five, and the last five are very rapid-fire commandments. They're very short. The last one gets a little long because it lists like 19 different things that you can covet, but pretty much: don't covet. We'll summarize it for you there. It's very straightforward. These are very rapid fire, but there's a lot behind these simple words. Even as we come to our text, "You shall not murder," there's a lot that we will unpack today. Ultimately, as you look at these texts as a whole, we see this in the New Testament: we are called to love Godwhich you see in the first fiveand love our neighborthe second five. It's kind of how this breaks up for us. Part of that is because one reflects a worship of God himself, and the second has an honoring of the image of God found in man. Were honoring God's image found in mankind, because God's image is not destroyed at the Fall. It is marred, but it still remains on his creation. We see that in Genesis 9 when the command is given that anyone who murders someone, their life must be taken because they've destroyed the image of God. So Genesis 9, which is after the Fallwe're six chapters later, many yearsthe image of God is still relevant in the text. And so that plays out forward as how we treat one another reflects how well we think about the image of God in mankind. So again, we come to our text before us: "You shall not murder." In the Hebrew, it's actually two words. This is the shortest of all of the commandments, and it's simply lo tirsha. That's it. I might have butchered the HebrewI'm sorry for those Hebrew scholarsbut it's two simple Hebrew words. "No kill." No kill. It's great. You got it? Now again, as I said, most of you all have modern English translations that say, "You shall not murder." For those good King Jimmy usersyou got some good old King James in this"Thou shalt not kill." That's those who grew up in that world. That's where I grew up. "Thou shalt not kill" is what I memorized as a kid. Kill is close to what it says. Murder is close to what it means. Both. As we unpack this word, it's actually a word used only 46 times in the Old Testament. It's not used often because it has the connotationif we were using a better translationyou shall not unlawfully take another person's life. That is probably a better, more full definition. It does not roll off the tongue as well, though. You shall not unlawfully take another person's life. That is the Hebrew meaning behind the text. So it has this defining characteristic that murder in our text is more than just killing someone out of anger and volitionally taking a life. There's more going on. Our English language unfortunately just doesn't do a good job bearing the weight of what this means. So again, we take the first one: you shall not murder. We're all good with that. You should not, out of anger, spite, jealousy, take another person's life. We can all agree, hopefully. Absolutely that is not what we should do. We should not act in malice. This is different than other uses of this wordother Hebrew uses of the word for killing. There are things such as execution. Again, Genesis 9 highlighted those who kill someonemurdererstherefore are killed. It's a different word the second time, because it's dealing with lawful execution for those who have committed this crime. Different. "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," because God made man in His own image. So that's the Genesis 9 picture. It's a different word. So very simply: don't murder people. Don't willfully plot their death. Don't act in accordance with your sinful hate to lead to someone's murder. It's very straightforward. This is not difficult. We don't murder our children. Don't have abortions. Don't lazily pull the plug on your elderly parents because they're an inconvenience. These things seem obvious, but we still need to say them again. These things are not things that we should be doing. Do not be lazy in your thinking. Do not be flippant in these things either. The image of God is seen in man and should be treated and given dignity as such. Some of this we'll unpack later. It's why we do many of the ministries that we are a part offlows from this love for God and the image found in man. It's why we have Heather Hills, why we serve the seniors in that facility down there. It's why we're encouraged by the work of Hop
Sep 6

The Weight of Honor

If you were to name some of the most wicked sins a person could commit, what would make your list? Listen to Paul's own list in Romans 1:29-30, They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malicefull of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousnessgossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Some of you are thinking,I dont think disobeying your parents belongs in that lineup.Yet sandwiched between haters of God and inventors of evil we find disobedient to parents. And Paul says it again in 2 Timothy 3:1-2, Understand this, in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents. Twice, in two different letters, Paul puts disobedience to parents in the list describing how wrong the world has gone. Church, the fifth commandment reveals a general principle, that respect and honor are owed to every authority God has placed over us. And God, in His wisdom, so ordered it that the very first classroom for learning this principle would be our homes, with the very first authorities we ever meet, our parents. Before we go further, I need to correct two assumptions most people bring to this fifth commandment. First, many hear honor your father and mother and think only of children. They picture a child, sitting before their parents, who are telling them to clean their room. Is that what the fifth commandment is all about? Now, children need this text, more than they know, no doubt. But if children isallyou think this command speaks to, youve missed it. The fifth commandment is not the children's sermon of the Ten Commandments. No, you never graduate from this commandment. Youll always be under authorities in this life. Yes, we begin with our parents, but then we along with our parents we encounter other authorities in life: teachers, bosses, pastors, police, government, ultimately ending with God Himself. Second, many have a negative attitude towards authority, some even go as far as to say the very first time we hear of authority in the Bible is after our fall into sin in Gen. 3:16 when God says Adam shall rule over his wife. So, like the physical consequences of childbirth and wearisome labor in a world of thorns and thistles, many believe the authority of one human over another is a curse of the fall.[1] I can understand such a view, but it simply isnt correct. Authority of one over another wasnt a consequence of the fall, no way. Before the fall we see Adams headship over Eve as she is made from him and then given to him as a gift to have and hold, to love and lead, not as dictator but as her own husband. Can authority between husband and wife, or any authority in this world grow corrupt and be manipulated in the wrong direction? Of course it can. But the mere exercise of authority is not the same as the abuse of it. All in all, nobody in this room this morning is exempt from the fifth commandment. We find the commandment in Exodus 20:12, which says, Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. Two headings this morning to see and embrace: The Command, and The Promise. See first The Command The very first thing we must say about the fifth commandment is that its a transition point, or a hinge point. The first four commandments are called the first table of the law, which teaches us how to love God: no other gods, no idols, no blasphemy, keeping sabbath. The final six commandments are called the second table of the Law, which teaches us how to love our neighbor: no murder, no adultery, no theft, no lying, no coveting. Yet notice what begins the second table, the commandment to honor your father and mother. This teaches us much. All our love towards our neighbor is founded on the parent-child relationship because its the first relationship any of us have, and because it shapes every relationship that comes after it. Clearly here we see the significance of the family. In v12 there is one father, one mother, and children who are to honor them. Thats the design. Why does this matter so much? Because obedience to parental authority is, fundamentally, obedience to God Himself. You cannot call yourself a follower of Christ and treat your parents authority as optional. Obedience to parents was so serious in the OT that God prescribed the death penalty for children who cursed their parents (Ex. 21:17, Lev. 20:9). In the NT Jesus rebukes the Pharisees who arranged a system where one could think theyre obeying the fifth commandment while leaving their parents uncared for (Matt. 15:3-9). Why such severity? Because in dishonoring our parents, we dishonoring God, which is no small thing. Think about the authorities in your life right now. Theres God, who deserves your worship above all else. Theres the government, who have been placed over us to bear the sword of steel. Refusing to submit to them, whether or not we like whos currently in office, is refusing to submit to the Lord put them there (Rom. 13:1-7). Theres the churchs pastors and elders, who God has placed over us to bear the sword of the Spirit. Refusing to submit to them is, refusing to submit to the Lord who put them there (Heb. 13:17). Theres teachers, who ought to be shown a great deal of respect while youre in the classroom. Theres employers and bosses of all kinds, who arent to be mocked but listened to and obeyed as well. And theres the elderly, who arent to be warehoused and forgotten in an institution, but honored and cared for till the end. Where does all the honor were to show to these authorities begin? The fifth commandment says, at home. Thus, the home is to be the proving ground where we learn the art of honoring for the first time.[2] And how important it is to learn it there. Because if a child doesnt honor authority at home, we should not be surprised if that child doesnt honor authority anywhere else. Show me an employee who is lazy, dishonest, and impossible to correct, and nine times out of ten, youre looking at a how that person related to authority as a child. Clearly this commandment, while beginning at home, extends far beyond it. How kind of the Lord, then, to build this into our lives here in the fifth commandment. And how urgent it is for us, then, to relearn the ways godly family life.[3] The Hebrew word for honor in v12 iskabod. It literally means weight, or heaviness. Its the same word the authors of Scripture use to describe Gods glory. You hear that? Gods very glory, beauty, reputation, the sheer gravity of who He is. Thats this word. And here in the fifth commandment its applied to our parents. What does this do to the command? It brings a weightiness to it, a gravity to it, a high importance to it. This is one of the Ten Commandments after all, which remember, is not a suggestion. I think we get the weight of honor commanded here. But lets ask a different question now. What does living this out look like? What does carrying this weight look like? In his Bible commentary Matthew Henry, lists many ways to carry out this commandment. Here are a few of them.[4] Respect What is this? To respect is to have and maintain an inward esteem for our parents that shows up outwardly in how we relate to them. This looks like speaking kindly of your parents in public and private instead of mocking them behind their backs. It looks like listening when they talk instead of checking your phone, or rolling your eyes at them. This takes work to maintain and the work usually gets harder, not easier, as we get older because the older we get the more we think we know and the less we think our parents know. Proverbs 30:17 says we disobey the fifth commandment to our peril, The eye that mocks a father, and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures. Honoring our mother and father looks like respect. Obedience This is so often seen as a bad word by Christians, left only for things like dog training. Obedience is not resentful or forced coercion, or a bare compliance without love which is its own kind of dishonor. Obedience is cheerful, willing, and immediate compliance. Ephesians 6:1 affirms this saying, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Matthew Henry says it like this to kids, Come when they call, go where they send you, do what they ask you to do, and refrain from what they forbid.[5] Proverbs 6:20-22 puts it beautifully, My son, keep your fathers commandment, and forsake not your mothers teaching. Bind them on your heart always, tie them around your neck. When you walk they will lead you, when you lie down they will watch over you, when you awake they will talk with you. Perhaps we have forgotten, or havent ever thought of it, but our parents have usually walked through terrain we havent. Theyve made mistakes theyd love to spare us from. To drown out their voice with the noise of your own opinions is to dishonor them and ensure your own folly. Honoring our mother and father looks like obedience. Submission This word is also usually seen as a negatively, as a strong word where one party forces their will onto another. Is that what this means for the parent child relationship? No. Rather, this word speaks to what will leads ought to lead children. In themselves they want this or that, to go here or there, yet in it all they are to submit to their parents will. The hardest arena this occurs in is discipline. Hebrews 12 makes the case: no discipline feels pleasant in the moment, but it trains us, it teaches us, and one of the greatest lessons we learn in it is how God Himself disciplines those He loves. If parents love their children, theyll discipline themif children love their parents, theyll submit to them. If youre a parent who refuses to discipline your children,

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