Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Exodus Series, Part 10 | The Ten Commandments | Randy Garcete
Discover the momentous event that forever changed the course of history—the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Ever wondered how a group of former slaves forged a new identity through divine law? Join us as we unpack Exodus 20:1-21, exploring the transformation from bondage in Egypt to becoming a nation under God’s covenant. We also tackle contemporary issues like the recent debates in Louisiana over the Ten Commandments in public schools, weaving ancient wisdom with modern dilemmas.
Moving deeper, we reflect on the unique relationship God offers through His covenant, contrasting it with the burdensome rituals of ancient civilizations. What sets God's laws apart from mere rules? It's all about a relationship that Jesus himself came to fulfill, empowering believers through the Holy Spirit. We break down the Torah’s 613 laws, zeroing in on the foundational Ten Commandments, and discuss how they continue to shape moral societies today.
Finally, we explore the deeper implications of bearing God's name in vain and the essential practice of Sabbath rest. Imagine the weight of generational sin or the relentless grind of a society that never pauses. Through historical examples and modern-day issues, we illustrate the broader impacts of these commandments on personal behavior and societal norms. Reflecting on existential questions, we compare ancient prayers to today’s expressions of faith, emphasizing the timeless relevance of divine guidance. Join us in this thought-provoking journey toward understanding God's purposes and living in righteousness.
Good morning. I invite you all to turn your Bibles to Exodus, chapter 20. For the past several months I've been preaching through the book of Exodus, following the story of God's formation of his people, who started off as slaves in Egypt. We watched God deliver the Israelites out of Egypt, out of bondage, watched God deliver the Israelites out of Egypt out of bondage. We watched them enter into the wilderness and ultimately bring the people of Israel to himself on Mount Sinai as they make their way to the Promised Land. Last time we saw God enter into a covenant with his people, give them a new identity and give them a new vocation in the world.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to look at the moment in the story when God gives his people the law and specifically focusing on the Ten Commandments as a foundation. This is going to be the first part. This is going to be part one of a two-part sermon on the Ten Commandments as a foundation. This is going to be the first part. This is going to be part one of a two-part sermon on the Ten Commandments. There's a lot here and I'm afraid I'm not even going to be able to get through half of it today. So I invite you all to open your Bibles and read with me. I've asked Jaden to come forward and just read our text. Today we're going to be reading verse 1 through verse 21. I've asked Jaden to come forward and just to read our text. Today we're going to be reading verse 1 through verse 21.
Speaker 2:Exodus 20. And God spoke all these words, saying I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves a carbon image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Verse 5, you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Verse 7, you shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Speaker 2:Remember the seventh day and keep it holy. Verse 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates Verse 11,. For in the sixth day the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord, god, has given you.
Speaker 2:Verse 13. Verse 17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servants or his female servants or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors. Now, when all the people saw the thunder and flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, and the people were afraid and trembled and they stood afar off and said to Moses you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die. Moses said to the people do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. The people stood far off while Moses drew near to the, to the thick darkness where God stood. Thank you to the thick darkness where God stood.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Several weeks ago, the state of Louisiana passed a law requiring all state schools, public schools and universities to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, in every library, in every cafeteria. The right rejoiced at this new law and the left freaked out and melted down. Twenty-eight organizations opened a lawsuit against Governor Landry, three of which included the Amalgamated Atheists of America, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Beelzebubians and Liberals for the Prevention of Morality. Right after this lawsuit opened up, the Republican Party opened up an email drive to fundraise for the legal battle. The subject line of the email read Moses, heart emoji, Louisiana parentheses and Trump.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the modern American political and cultural discourse. What does Moses, what do the Ten Commandments have to do with our modern political conversation? The world we live in today is in a tug of war over what is ultimate reality, what is truth? Is there an authority? On the one hand, as Christians, we hold to the belief that there's a personal, loving God, who's our creator, who has revealed himself to us in the scriptures and has an ultimate way of life that he wants us to follow and to live. On the other hand, we have modern secularists who feel we can have, we don't need God to know right from wrong, we can sort of reason our way to morality that we don't need God. So we're in this tug of war between these two different narratives and these two different visions of reality. They're in sharp contrast with each other. Lex Bayer has a quote that says the greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West. It is whether man can bear to live without God. I think that's so true. Apostle Paul says that if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. Our world is seeking to suppress the knowledge of sin in their hearts, and that's why a world that is seeking to live out their own sinful desires does not want to see God's law anywhere, including schools. So today I want to look at what is the law, what is the Old Testament law that God gives to his people? Here and specifically, we're going to hone in on the first four of the Ten Commandments. The first four of the Ten Commandments have to do with our relationship with God, and the last six have to do with our relationship within human relationships. Six have to do with our relationship within human relationships, and so we're going to focus on those four today and hopefully next Sunday or next time we can get through to the next six. A couple of things I think we need to understand and two ways that we can frame this, that we can frame this sermon and how to view the law as Christians. Number one is that the law is rooted in a covenant relationship. The law is rooted in covenant relationship.
Speaker 1:There's a prayer that was discovered from the 7th century, maybe BC, by somebody in the Assyrian Empire, and it's a tragic prayer because this person is clearly going through something really really tragic and he knows he's done something wrong but he doesn't know what he's done wrong to deserve the wrath of the gods and he's trying to find peace in his heart but he doesn't know which god is angry at him and he doesn't know what he's done wrong to deserve the punishment that he's going through. And I'm going to read that here. It's called the Prayer to Any God. May the wrath of the heart of my God be pacified. May the God who is unknown to me be pacified. May the goddess who is unknown to me be pacified. May the known and unknown God be pacified. May the known and unknown goddess be pacified, the sin which I have committed. I know not the in the sin which I have committed. I know not the iniquity which I have done. I know not the offense which I have committed. I know not the transgression which I have done, I know not.
Speaker 1:Then he ends with this Although I am constantly looking for help, no one takes me by the hand when I weep, they do not come to my side. I utter laments but no one hears me. I am troubled, I am overwhelmed. I cannot see. Man is dumb. He knows nothing. Mankind, everyone that exists, what does he know, whether he is? This line sums it up so well. He says whether he is committing sin or doing good. He does not even know.
Speaker 1:That was the culture of ancient civilization Everyone had. There was multiple gods that you could worship and you were never sure which god would be angry at you if you broke or if you somehow offended them. So there's a tragic sort of sad prayer there and it's in that context that we see God meet, come down on Mount Sinai, call his people, call a separated people out of their culture, and say I want to be in a relationship with you. You are my treasured possession and I to be in a relationship with you. You are my treasured possession and I'm making you a kingdom of priests. This is who you are and I'm entering into this relationship with you. No other God had that claim before. No other God was able to do that before. So the law is rooted in covenant. God doesn't give them the law in Egypt. He delivers them out of Egypt, he brings them to himself and then he says, now that you're my people, now that you're, we're in this relationship, now I'm giving you the law. He didn't give them the law and say okay, here's the law, follow this, and if you keep it, we can finally have something. He's saying no, this is how I want you to live, now that you're in a relationship with me.
Speaker 1:I think the second way that we should frame this, even how we view the law as believers, is that Jesus fulfills the law. Ultimately fulfills the law and this is sort of jumping ahead. You know, we know the story of let me see, I got my notes mixed up here a little bit. Okay, jesus says I have not come to destroy the law, and he's talking about the Old Testament law. I have not come to destroy it. He didn't come to replace it or to do away with it. He came to fulfill it.
Speaker 1:And he sums up the entire law in this way. He says, basically, to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. We say every I think it's every Sunday, the Shema, I think it's included there Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself and his life. By his life, he was an example of that. His life was perfectly lived that out. How do I love God and love my neighbor, and not only his example for us? But his death was a penalty. It paid the price for the law that was broken by Israel in the world over and over and over and over, in rebellion to his covenant with us. And after his death, the Holy Spirit, after his death, the Holy Spirit, god himself, came in and dwelt in our as believers, dwelt in our hearts. And the law, his spirit, empowered us, empowers us to live out the law perfectly, like we heard this morning. It's like we're perfect, but oh man, we're just so not perfect either, and if you've been a Christian long enough you'll understand we're not perfect, but we are. We are perfect because of the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus' blood.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what is the law? This should be like a whole sermon series in of itself, but the Hebrew word for some of this is not. Much of this is not new to you all. You've heard a lot of this before, but I think it's a good reminder. The Hebrew word for law is Torah, and Torah is basically comprises the first five books of the Old Testament, and the Torah includes a story of God making a people, and within the Torah, god institutes a total of 613 laws. These 613 laws have sort of I guess you can categorize them maybe in this way you have the civil laws that have to do with the temporal nation statestate of Israel, the civil governmental laws. You have the ceremonial laws, which include all the food requirements, the purity laws, the sacrificial laws, circumcision and all of these things. And then you have, thirdly, you have the Ten Commandments or sort of the moral foundation, the moral foundation from which all of these things. And then you have, thirdly, you have the Ten Commandments, or sort of the moral foundation from which all of these other laws sort of find their roots in.
Speaker 1:So what are the Ten Commandments? That's what we're going to be looking at today, and I actually brought some along. God meets Moses on Mount Sinai. I'm going to scratch something, but it'll be okay. God met Moses on Mount Sinai and God himself writes the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. Now, I don't know how many of you watched the Charlton Heston like Ten Commandments movie Okay, I haven't either. So it's okay. But I hear at least all the images that we see, paintings that we see of Moses bringing the law, the Ten Commandments, down from the mountain. It's got like this big, like McDonald's arches sort of one thing with two arches, but it says two tablets of stone and I want to pass these out, just pass them out all the way to the back. The point of this is these are not just some abstract set of laws. This was a real God who met a real people and gave us a real way to live. This isn't just like myth. So I think somehow touching these things sort of helps, maybe a little bit dirty, which is okay. Okay, they did not come from Sinai, they were from the local greenhouse, all right, so we're just going to work our way through the first four Ten Commandments.
Speaker 1:Commandment number one you shall have no other gods before me. So, as I was saying, the civilizations around. The Israelites, the Egyptians and then the Canaanites were polytheistic. They had multiple gods for every need. They had a god for safe travel, for their crops, for fertility, for different aspects of government, and the Israelites would constantly be tempted to worship and follow these gods and they would constantly rebel against God and against his command later on and worship, follow these gods and they would constantly rebel against God and against his command later on and worship these different gods. And we can be harsh, we can be hard on them when we read the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:But imagine you're an Israelite farmer. I'm just gonna pick on Myron, because when I think farmer I just think Myron. Imagine you're an Israelite farmer, myron, and you have a barley field. That is like you've poured your sweat and tears and blood into this field. It's coming up nicely, but all of a sudden it gets hit with some sort of a fungus or a disease. And you look over at your Canaanite neighbor's field, who is a Baal-worshipping neighbor. He's got the same field and his crops are doing just fine, and I can imagine that you'd pretty soon be tempted to start thinking okay, what's up with this? I'm worshiping Yahweh. My crops are failing. He's worshiping Baal. Yahweh, my crops are failing. He's worshiping Baal. His crops are doing just fine. I wonder if I should try what he's got. This would happen a lot in the course of the Israelite history.
Speaker 1:Today we don't have, maybe, these modern or these. We're not surrounded by the worship of these other deities, at least obviously. But everyone worships something. God created his people. God created humans to be worshipers. We all give our devotion to something or someone. We're all devout worshipers of something or someone. Today we don't have worshipers of Baal and of Marduk and of Asherah, maybe in this area but we do have worshipers of money, power, comfort. We worship our political leaders. We worship. There's the worship of sexual promiscuity. We all worship something, and I think that I want to point out the counter narrative to these commandments.
Speaker 1:What is the counter-narrative or the lie that we believe when we break this commandment? And I think it's this God is not able to care for me, so I will look for someone or something that will. God is not able to care for me, so I need to look for somebody or something else that's going to meet my needs. This is what Adam and Eve did in the garden. That's what drove them to break this commandment. They said they, yeah.
Speaker 1:So my question for us this morning is what are you giving your devotion to? Who are you giving your devotion to? You might not call it worship, but worship can mean devotion. God is a jealous God, he said. You shall have no other gods before me. All right, number two, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commands. And this has to do with the creating and worshiping idols. And this is in the first commandment that the Israelites break. Right after they leave Mount Sinai or before they leave, they break this command. Moses comes down. The Israelites have made a golden calf and they're worshiping this golden calf. God is a jealous God and he's almost more like a husband who has a jealous love for his wife and wants a wife that is faithful to him, israel. They would prostitute themselves with the different idols and gods around them.
Speaker 1:And I think the thing about it is how many of you guys have seen, um, people bow down or worship a statue or an idol? Okay, I know some of you have raise your hand actually above your ears. Okay, great, okay it's. There's something really disconcerting about it and sort of it was just sad and a little bit shocking, because you know that these statues and these idols are they? Someone imagined them. They were created first in someone's imagination. The way they, the color that they are, the shape that they are, whether they're out of stone or wood. They started as somebody's imagination. God is a God who is. He didn't have to be imagined by someone.
Speaker 1:I think the counter-narrative here is that we're tempted as humans to believe is that I can create a God that matches my own imagination. While I don't think Jenna or Sean or Nevin are going to go out and like hack out a little idol out of oak in their backyard, the thing they might be tempted with is making God something other than he is, and we hear this sometimes. It's like my God wouldn't do that, or I can't imagine a God who would say that or ask that of me. We change the God of the Old Testament well, the God of the Bible to fit our own imagination. I think that's the temptation there for us today.
Speaker 1:He goes on to say, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation. I'm not going to get into that for the sake of time. But if you have a history of alcoholism in your family's history, you know how that can damage generations. If you have a great-grandfather who was an alcoholic, you see the effects of that sin on the next generations. Sin doesn't just damage myself, it damages the people around me and future generations. Okay, number three you shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Speaker 1:I work on a lot of construction sites and if you're in the trades you know just how much cursing and swearing and foul language you'll hear, like it's just part of the business. I guess Often when we hear don't take God's name in vain, this is what we think of is don't say, oh, my, and then God's name. I think it does mean that and I think there's something there. But I think it's much deeper than that. The word take.
Speaker 1:In Hebrew it can also be translated as carry or bear, and this same word was used of the high priest when he would wear the breast piece with the 12 tribes of Israel and he would bear the tribes of Israel on himself when he went into God's presence. He would bear and carry the people into the Holy of Holies. In God's presence, he would bear the people before God. I think that idea here is there's something here that Israel was supposed to be a nation of priests and they were to carry God's name and represent and bear God's name to all of the nations around them. Later, when they committed evil acts while claiming to be God's people, god would say you've profaned my name among the nations. Paul would say. He would say in Romans he says for, as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
Speaker 1:Something happens when you say you're a Christian and someone finds out that you're a Christian, there's something happens in that person's mind and the thing that happens is they will instantly start filtering everything you say and everything you do through the lens of is that what Jesus would do or is that what the Bible teaches. And when we, as Christians, mistreat other people, cheat them in business, speak disrespectfully or take advantage of someone, we're carrying God's name, the name of Jesus, and this person doesn't say that's a bad Christian. They're more apt to say I don't want anything to do with that God. I don't want anything to do with that person's God. Gandhi said I love Christ, I just don't like Christians. That's this idea here carrying God's name in vain. Even deeper than that, I think there's examples throughout history where we see this the Crusades, the sort of the classic example also of the Nazis with their belt buckle that read Gott mit uns or God with us. There's something so jarring about that Carrying God's name in vain.
Speaker 1:George Custer I was listening to a podcast about George Custer and his sort of conquering the West and right before the Battle of Little Bighorn, where they go in and attempt to wipe out a village. That's like an Indian village, largest Indian village that was ever put together. George Custer and the 7th Cavalry they sit on their horses, they take off their hats, they bow their heads, they pray and they sing the doxology that we sing every day, every Sunday, at the end of our service, and then they ride out and go massacre a bunch of Indians, native Americans. Thomas Watson says when we profess God's name but do not live answerably to it, we take it in vain. A pagan sins less than a baptized renegade.
Speaker 1:Okay, lastly, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Speaker 1:Some of you have been really excited for me to get to this one here. This deserves a whole sermon in and of itself. There's a lot here. I'll try to summarize as best I can. This rhythm of working six days and resting on the seventh day goes all the way back to creation, when God created the world. He created it in six days and rested on the seventh, and he's designed the world to run that way and he wanted his people to live that way, even the animals, the Israelites, their slaves, their workers, everything their fields. Everything came to a stop on the seventh day, on the Sabbath day. The world we live in today never stops working or playing. If we're not working hard, we're playing hard. There's never a stopping and enjoying God's creation for what it is.
Speaker 1:I saw an NBC article last week that said this was the headline the construction industry has one of the highest suicide rates among professions, with an estimated 6,000 construction workers dying by suicide in 2022. That compares with only 1,000 deaths by accident on a job site. That's tragic, and they attribute a lot of this to the long work weeks that people are putting in, especially at the new Intel site, intel construction site and some of these places. God has not designed our world to work like that, john Mark Comer says. That's why Sabbath is an expression of faith, faith that there is a creator and he is good. We are his creation, this is his world. We live under his roof, drink his water, eat his food, breathe his oxygen. So on the Sabbath, we don't take a day off from work, we take a day off from toil. We give him all our fear and anxiety and stress and worry. We let go. We stop ruling and subduing and we just be. We remember our place in the universe so that we never forget there is a God and I'm not him.
Speaker 1:I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon that our world is in a tug of war over reality. World is in a tug of war over reality. What is truth? Who's in charge? Do we need God to be moral and to be good people? And it's left our world in more confusion and chaos than ever before. Young people especially are going off to college. They're giving up their religion. Going off to college, they're giving up their religion and then they're asking okay, so I've given God up. Now what? And I think this? I came across a song I want to read the lyrics to that I think sort of sums this up a little bit, maybe the cry of people's hearts in this whole question of do we need God in his ways or not.
Speaker 1:This song is called the Architect by Casey Musgraves. Even something as small as an apple, it's simple and somehow complex, sweet and divine, the perfect design, design. Can I speak to the architect? And there's a canyon that runs through the desert. Did it get there because of a flood? Was it devised? Or were you surprised when you saw how grand it was? Was it thought out at all or just paint on a wall? Is there anything that that you regret? I don't understand. Are there blueprints or plans? Can I speak to the architect? Does it happen by chance? Is it all happenstance? Do we have any say in this mess? Is it too late to make some more space? Can I speak to the architect? This life that we make, is it random or fate? Can I speak to the architect? And she ends the song with this sort of this haunting cry is there an architect?
Speaker 1:Some of you have wondered that. Is God real? Is this a myth? Is this just a story? Or is there an actual God who has designed, who has created me with a purpose and who has designed the world to run according to his laws and his ways? This song, I think, is a modern echo of that Assyrian prayer that I read off earlier. How do I make sense of reality? There is an architect, and we've been reading about him revealing himself to the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, and the first four laws that we read this morning on the Ten Commandments are part of the foundation that shows us how he wants us to live. Ultimately, we find our fulfillment of these in Jesus, like we've been studying in Hebrews as well. He wraps all of this up and helps us and empowers us to live out his plans.
Speaker 1:Next time I preach, I'm going to be covering the last six commandments and I also want to bring to you a copy or a secular version of the Ten Commandments, and I think it's really insightful. I didn't have time to do it this morning, but there was a. Yeah, I'll get into that, but we're going to compare. What is this tug of war that we're in between our modern cultural narrative? How does it stack up to what God has asked of us, the God of the Bible?
Speaker 1:Let's stand and I'm going to have a word of prayer and turn it back to Sean Father. We come before you in Jesus' name. We are grateful for your law. We thank you for your law. We thank you that you've laid out for us in clear ways your wishes and your desires for the world. God, we know we are not able to attain righteousness by attempting to keep this perfectly, but that it is your perfection, through Christ and his finished work on Calvary, and your spirit that empowers us and declares us righteous, but that we can come back here and study us righteous, but that we can come back here and study, be instructed, see wisdom here and strive to become more like you. All this, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.