Ten Commandments
Introduction: Recognize and Worship One God
Today we begin a preaching series on
The Ten Commandments. This is the introduction and it also looks at the first
two:
You shall have other gods before me;
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven
above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
The 2 commands can be expressed
positively in the following way:
Recognize one true God and
Worship
only God.
The letter of the law is often negative, but the spirit of the law is always positive. The Pharisees, the teachers
of the law and the Sadducees at the time Jesus focused only on the letter of
the Law, on the negative, on the ‘You must not’ ‘You may not’ ‘You should not’
and in so doing, they made the Law, in Jesus words, a burden which loaded
people down.
So, for example, they would look at
the story of Adam and Eve and say ‘You must not eat from the tree’ whereas the spirit behind the first command given in Scripture was ‘You may eat from that
tree and that one, and that one, and that one and that one, and that one…’...... do
you get the message?
The letter of the Law brings darkness,
heaviness and judgement, the spirit of the Law brings light, lightness, and
freedom.
The same law can bring 2 opposite
emotions and these emotions determine how we respond to that law.
For example: The law says: 120km/h. I
either respond with: ‘Yay, I’m free to go up to 120km/h’ or ‘Dammit… I cannot
go over 120km/h’.
The one response is gracious, the
other is legalistic.
The one sets free, the other
imprisons.
‘Be back by midnight’… “Yay I can stay
out till midnight” or “Aaaarg – I must be back by midnight”
So how do you respond to laws, to
rules, to regulations – do you feel set free by them or imprisoned by them.
(Perhaps I should stress we are talking about just laws. Unjust laws,
for example, “If your skin is this colour you may only go to that school or
live in that area”......unjust laws set no one free and imprison everybody.)
So how do you respond to just/fair rules, laws, regulations – graciously or legalistically.
Now, our focus is the Ten
Commandments. Let’s see what it means to see them positively.
Perhaps we can start by calling them:
Ten
Ways to Live An Abundant Life
1.
Recognize one true
God called the LORD
2.
Only worship this God
3.
Honour His name
4.
Honour His Sabbath
5.
Honour your parents
6.
Honour human life
7.
Honour marriage
8.
Respect personal
property
9.
Speak the truth
10.
Control your desires
Friends, live this way and you will be
free. Live this way and you will experience abundant life. Live this way and
you will find yourself saying things like: ‘Wow, my cup runneth over’.
The law was never given as a way of
salvation for either Jews or Gentiles. As you can see from the cover of your
leaflet, no one is ever put right with God by keeping laws. We
are not saved by keeping commands.
We are saved by faith in the cleansing
blood of Jesus.
The law reveals Gods righteousness.
The law demands righteousness.
But the law can’t give righteousness.
Keeping laws doesn’t make us
righteous. FAITH makes us righteous.
The law is a mirror that reveals where
we are dirty, but we can’t wash our face in the mirror. Only the blood of Jesus
can cleanse us from sin.
Am I saying we don’t have to keep the
laws of God. God forbid – Jesus said not one little dot or comma of the law is
done away with until heaven and earth disappear.
Just don’t believe that you can earn
any brownie points with God by keeping His laws. His law is not to be followed
so that individuals can show their worth before God, and certainly not so that
we can earn or secure our salvation. No… the law is to be followed so that Gods
people can show the world the kind of God we worship.
The first commandment is God inviting
us to trust Him rather than anything else or anyone else.
The second is saying that when we
trust in something or someone else more than we trust in God, then we have an
idol. If you trust in your spouse or parent of your minister to care for you
more than you trust in your God to care for you, then you have an idol.
God might certainly reveal that His
agent for protecting you or providing for you is your spouse, or parent, or
care giver, but the one you look to and ultimately put your faith in, must only
be God.
If you don’t sleep well at night
unless you have a gun next to you, or a panic button, you have an idol. Sleep
well because you have a God who watches over you.
God says in that command, I am a jealous God and if anything or anyone
gets more attention or trust in your life than me… ooooh…. just don’t go down
that road…. For your good, not
because I am unreasonable and demanding, not because I have a whole lot of laws
and rules to keep you in check, but rather because I have a whole lot of laws
and rules which set you free.
And as Paul will say +- 1400 years
after the law was given on Sinai, if God the Spirit sets you free, you will be
free indeed.
Are you free?
Feel free to leave this place
recognizing the one true God called the Lord.
Feel free to leave this place and to
trust in Him, before anything or anyone else.
Be Free!
