WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.480 sinning. This is the Word of God. Well, as many of you know, before my family and I moved to Scotland, 00:00:07.799 --> 00:00:13.280 I lived in the States and practiced law for a number of years. And part of the education 00:00:13.280 --> 00:00:17.960 system in the U.S. is you go to law school for three years after uni. And one of the things that 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:24.000 is common in studying law is that there's a lot of Latin that's involved. These Latin phrases that 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.859 you use that help describe various legal principles. And while they're not used on a day-to-day 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:35.920 basis, they kind of help us understand the origin and the foundation and the nature of these 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:41.259 principles. Not really useful other than maybe just trying to impress someone at a dinner party, 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:45.879 but maybe we can use one of them in a sermon illustration this evening. It's actually a 00:00:45.879 --> 00:00:49.620 phrase that in English probably many of us actually know. In Latin it is, 00:00:50.019 --> 00:00:59.600 ignoratius juris non excusit. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You've probably heard that before. 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:05.760 What is the meaning of that phrase? Meaning you're not excused from keeping the law simply 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:11.460 by claiming that you didn't know the law existed. And so if you're driving and you get pulled over 00:01:11.460 --> 00:01:16.099 for speeding, you can't tell the police officer and get out of a ticket just simply by saying, 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:23.540 I didn't know what the speed limit was. Ignorance from the law is no excuse. And the thing is that 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:29.940 principle comes from the fact that criminal law was based on morality, right? There's a shared 00:01:29.940 --> 00:01:36.920 understanding of wrongfulness in our society. And so although now we have many more civil laws and 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:43.620 criminal laws that are on the books, these foundational laws, another Latin term, malum in se, 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:49.880 they were wrong in their very essence. And this was understood by everyone in society. 00:01:50.800 --> 00:01:55.960 And so it would be, it wouldn't really be a good defense if someone who's on trial for murder goes 00:01:55.960 --> 00:02:00.219 in front of the judge and says, well, judge, I just, I didn't really know that murder was a crime. 00:02:01.500 --> 00:02:05.620 Because we all know that murder is a crime, regardless of whether it's written in a statute 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:12.960 or not, it's written on our hearts. And so we know that things like murder and rape or robbery, 00:02:13.060 --> 00:02:18.840 these are inherent wrongs. And so it's important to understand this as we begin to look at the Ten 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:25.719 Commandments, because especially in our age, when truth is relative, where we're not supposed to 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:32.240 impose our worldview or our beliefs on somebody else, we recognize that there is truth that comes 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:38.439 from God's moral law. And this is something that modern society may hate, to think of the fact 00:02:38.439 --> 00:02:46.320 that there is objective moral truth. Because what does that ultimately do? It limits choice, it restricts 00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:52.320 freedom. So they in society would say, what's right for you is right for you, but what's right for me is 00:02:52.320 --> 00:03:00.200 right for me. That runs contrary to what we see of God's moral law. But the opinion is, the fact is that 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:06.759 our opinion of the law doesn't change its reality. Because what moral law is, is it's a declaration 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:14.979 of God's will to man. God gives us his law that it may show us his perfect character. 00:03:16.439 --> 00:03:22.859 And so that's why the psalmist can say, oh how I love your law, because it's through the law that we 00:03:22.859 --> 00:03:28.799 have a better understanding of the law giver. And so it's important then, before we go in and look 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:32.280 specifically, at least at these first three commandments, that we understand what is their 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:37.120 use today. Because we think of the Ten Commandments and we think, well those are associated with the 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:42.340 Old Testament. Those are associated with the people of Israel. What does that have to do with, for me 00:03:42.340 --> 00:03:48.160 today, in my context, and especially as a believer, as we think of the fact that Christ has come to 00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:54.120 fulfill the law? What is our relation to the law? Does it still have any usefulness? Well in our 00:03:54.120 --> 00:04:00.819 tradition, Reformed theology really gives us three different uses for the law. The first one is that 00:04:00.819 --> 00:04:08.400 the law acts as a mirror. So the law exposes for us, it shows us God's perfect law, and exposes us, 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:15.300 exposes our own sinfulness to us. It shows us how far we have fallen from God's perfect standard. 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:20.420 And so if we're ever tempted to look at the law, read the Ten Commandments, and think, huh, 00:04:20.420 --> 00:04:27.960 I'm doing pretty good. I think I got these, at least these few checked off here. We've put ourselves 00:04:27.960 --> 00:04:33.920 in a very dangerous situation, because either we're not understanding the depth of our own depravity, 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:38.300 or we're not understanding the breadth and the depth of God's commandments. 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:48.780 And so as we look to this law, it really should, it should burden us. We should be crushed by the weight 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:54.519 of our own sin. We should have this sense of helplessness, because we don't possess the ability, 00:04:54.619 --> 00:04:58.419 we don't possess the righteousness that's essential to meet God's standards. 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:03.799 So the thing is, some people may think, well, the law can be dangerous, because that may 00:05:03.799 --> 00:05:09.000 cause people to run away from God, right? Because we see His high standards, we think He expects this 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:14.379 of us, so we should maybe keep the law at a minimum. But it should actually do the opposite, 00:05:14.379 --> 00:05:20.600 when we recognize the greatness of the law, this perfect law of God, which reveals His character 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:28.040 to us, we should, it should cause us to run to Christ, to cast ourselves upon Him, that we may 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:33.540 beg for His mercy. And so this is how Christianity is so different from other religions, because what 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:40.819 do other religions say? This is the law, so follow the law, and you'll be saved. Recognize that this 00:05:40.819 --> 00:05:47.680 doesn't really bring any sense of security to us. If that's the religion we follow, how do we know 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:54.719 that we've done enough? And so the fact is, you have to try harder and harder and harder, 00:05:54.719 --> 00:06:00.680 because we don't know if we've done enough. How do we know that God will see our actions as pleasing 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:07.560 and approved, unless we continue to try harder and harder and harder? That's not what the God of the 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:12.639 Bible says. That's not what we're going to see tonight. Because He says, God says, look at the 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:19.639 law. Let it reveal your sin to you, that you may understand that you can't save yourself, so let me 00:06:19.639 --> 00:06:28.480 save you. So that's the first use of the law, that it uses, it's used as a mirror for us. Secondly, the law 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:36.860 can be used in a civil sense, meaning that it uses, it's a use to restrain evil or curb evil in our lives 00:06:36.860 --> 00:06:42.000 or in society around us. And so this is helpful not only for us as believers, but for a society as a 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.280 whole, because the law is useful in helping determine right from wrong, good from evil. 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:54.740 It helps protect the righteous from the unrighteous, because it gives us blessing for doing what is 00:06:54.740 --> 00:07:01.740 right and cursing for doing what is wrong. And so one thing that my son Henry likes to do is play 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:08.379 FIFA football on the Switch on his Nintendo. And he invited me to play with him the other day. I'm 00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:13.340 better at the old games that you can still play on the Switch from decades ago. He likes to beat me up 00:07:13.340 --> 00:07:18.259 in FIFA. But he suggested the other week, he said, let's turn the rules off and play. I didn't realize 00:07:18.259 --> 00:07:22.800 you could do this for FIFA. You can turn the rules of the game off, and so you can slide tackle from 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:27.720 behind and there's no whistle. You can push the goalie down and there's no whistle. And it's kind of funny 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:32.760 at first because it's, you're playing outside the rules. You can just, people like sprawling on the 00:07:32.760 --> 00:07:39.220 field. But it actually is, the longer you play, you realize this isn't actually as fun because it's 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:45.080 wrecking the game. We need structure in the game of football for it to actually make sense, to be 00:07:45.080 --> 00:07:51.340 worthwhile to play. And so the same for us when we think about society. Law creates boundaries which 00:07:51.340 --> 00:07:57.580 we need to live by. And so that's why we are discouraged from doing what is wrong, because there's 00:07:57.579 --> 00:08:01.759 going to be penalty for it. And we're encouraged to do what is right, because we know that there is 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:06.159 blessing that can come. That's what the whole criminal justice system is based on, right? 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:11.079 That there's going to be penalty if you do something wrong. So that's a deterrent for us not to do it. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:21.180 And so a curb, it curbs the use, or it curbs evil in our lives, in our society. Thirdly, the law, 00:08:21.180 --> 00:08:29.259 and this is particular for believers, it serves as a rule of life for us. It's God's perfect guide 00:08:29.259 --> 00:08:36.320 that he has given us that we may live as Christ followers. And so if we're saved by grace through 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:42.700 faith, the law, it no longer threatens us with judgment. Calvin says that the law then is our kind 00:08:42.700 --> 00:08:51.139 advisor. It's our schoolmaster that pushes us closer and closer to Jesus. And so in this 00:08:51.139 --> 00:08:56.240 sense, we see a connection between the uses of the law, this first use of the law, and this third use 00:08:56.240 --> 00:09:01.620 of the law, because if we use the law as believers as a rule of life, we still recognize that we can't 00:09:01.620 --> 00:09:08.939 keep it perfectly. This is what Luther said. He says the law always accuses. Another Latin phrase, 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:18.679 lex semper accusit. Latin in law and in theology. But because of this, we recognize when we try to follow 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:25.779 the law as a rule of life, we fail to do so, which causes us to run to Jesus for his grace and forgiveness, 00:09:25.779 --> 00:09:32.859 that we receive his mercy, and out of a heart of gratitude, come back with his heart desiring to 00:09:32.859 --> 00:09:40.319 follow and obey the Lord. And so we want to recognize that these are very particular uses of 00:09:40.319 --> 00:09:45.099 the law that are beneficial for us as believers. This is what we read from Galatians, that we're not 00:09:45.100 --> 00:09:50.180 under the curse of the law anymore, but there's great usefulness in the law for God's people. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:55.019 And so that's why it's important for us to be able to study the Ten Commandments. 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:59.700 And so if there's anyone that may think, well, the Ten Commandments, again, doesn't really apply 00:09:59.700 --> 00:10:04.720 anymore because that's talking about the law and one of the gospel, there can be this false distinction 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:11.100 between law and gospel. There could be this tendency to think, well, the Old Testament is all about the 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:16.159 law. The New Testament is all about the gospel. So we don't need to worry about the Old Testament, 00:10:16.259 --> 00:10:20.180 right? We don't have to worry about these Ten Commandments. But anyone who makes that claim 00:10:20.180 --> 00:10:25.600 probably really doesn't understand the New Testament very well, probably hasn't spent much 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:31.080 time listening to the words of Jesus himself. Because Jesus actually talks a lot about the law, 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:35.820 and he doesn't do so in a way which lowers the bar in saying, hey, look, I know these rules are 00:10:35.820 --> 00:10:43.500 kind of harsh, so just do the best you can. No, God, Jesus gives us the law and gives us the law 00:10:43.500 --> 00:10:50.760 on steroids, right? Think about the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, what Jesus says to the crowd. 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:56.060 He says, you've heard it said you shall not murder, but I say whoever is angry at his brother is subject 00:10:56.060 --> 00:11:01.440 to judgment. You've heard it said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you if anyone looks 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:08.280 at a woman lustfully, he has committed adultery in his heart. And so we see the law is present in the 00:11:08.280 --> 00:11:13.260 Old Testament and in the New Testament, but we also see as present is God's grace in the Old Testament 00:11:13.260 --> 00:11:17.980 and the New Testament. And so as we look at these Ten Commandments, it's important to understand what 00:11:17.980 --> 00:11:25.500 is, where it's placed in God's redemptive history. Because we need to remember the people of Israel. 00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:32.059 They've come out of Egypt. They're in the wilderness now when God gives them these commands. But what's 00:11:32.059 --> 00:11:38.340 brought them to this point? We recognize that the people of Israel were made a nation through 00:11:38.340 --> 00:11:46.039 God choosing a pagan man named Abram to love. And he came to Abram and he made a promise to him. And 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:51.019 it's not because Abraham deserved God's favor. It's not because he had done anything good in God's sight. 00:11:51.019 --> 00:11:58.059 But God has set his affection on Abraham and he made a promise to him. He promises to be his God 00:11:58.059 --> 00:12:05.319 and that he will be his people. He promises to make him into a great nation that all nations through 00:12:05.319 --> 00:12:13.319 him would be blessed. And so as we continue on this in the book of Genesis, Abraham had Isaac. Isaac had 00:12:13.319 --> 00:12:19.559 Jacob. Jacob had Joseph. We know that Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers through God's 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:25.279 sovereignty and providence. He was made second in command in Egypt. And it's in that position that 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:31.119 he's reconciled to his family. He brings them to Egypt to escape famine. And that's where the book of 00:12:31.119 --> 00:12:38.119 Genesis ends, right? God's people rescued from famine, brought into Egypt, and now beginning to multiply. 00:12:39.139 --> 00:12:43.479 And as the book of Exodus begins, we see that they have multiplied into a great nation, 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:50.700 but yet they are held in captivity for 400 years, made slaves in Egypt. And so it is God who has raised 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:58.039 up Moses to deliver them. And so these commandments, we must understand, are given in the context of God's 00:12:58.039 --> 00:13:04.639 covenant of grace. The Bible says that Abraham believed in God and it was counted to him as 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:10.039 righteousness. He was saved by grace through faith, anticipating the coming of this Messiah. In the same 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:16.679 way, we are saved by grace through faith in the completed work of Jesus. And so God, having made 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:21.240 that covenant promise with Abraham, isn't coming generations later to Moses and say, hey, look, 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:26.719 I'm kind of going to wipe this clean and start over again. Forget about the grace. Here's some laws I 00:13:26.719 --> 00:13:33.419 need you to keep so that you can have my love. No, we don't see that. Of course, in the very prologue of 00:13:33.419 --> 00:13:38.639 these Ten Commandments, in verse 2, it says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:46.460 out of the land of slavery. God is reminding them, I am in personal relationship with you. 00:13:47.019 --> 00:13:54.319 I am keeping my covenant promise to you. I have loved you. I have rescued you. I have provided for 00:13:54.319 --> 00:14:02.460 you. I have kept my word to you and I'm continuing to do so. And so isn't it wonderful that we get this 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:08.399 at the very beginning of the commandments, rather than God tagging this on at the end of the commandments, 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:16.519 to say, keep these laws and then I will be your God. He says the exact opposite. He says, I am your 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:25.179 God, therefore keep my commandments. And so God's grace is the foundation of our duty in keeping the 00:14:25.179 --> 00:14:30.679 commandments. So for the people of Israel and for us today, these commandments are not given to us that 00:14:30.679 --> 00:14:36.480 we can earn God's favor or win his affection, but they are the form and substance of our grateful and 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:43.639 personal response to his love. And so that's what we understand now as we turn to the first commandment, 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:49.920 the first in order, the first of importance. You shall have no other gods before me. 00:14:49.919 --> 00:14:58.879 This is the commandment where true religion begins. It echoes what the people of Israel 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:09.099 would have said. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's a claim of God's singularity that 00:15:09.099 --> 00:15:14.419 separates the people of Israel, that separates God from all the gods of all the other nations. Because 00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:20.819 remember, they've just been delivered from Egypt, this pagan nation with their multiple gods and idols, 00:15:20.979 --> 00:15:26.279 gods for government, gods for entertainment, gods for agriculture, gods for sex, gods for war. 00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:34.399 But God of Israel is not some compartmentalized little God with a limited sphere of influence. 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:42.919 He's saying, I'm the all-powerful, all-knowing creator, sovereign over all. He's a God who says, 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:51.120 the world is mine and everything in it. And so yet we see man fight this commandment. 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:58.539 Right? We fight it in our own lives. This commandment says our lives are to be God-centered. So often we want 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:05.779 our lives to be me-centered. This commandment is meant that we may glorify God, yet so often we are 00:16:05.779 --> 00:16:13.719 seeking our own glory. And so often we create idols that meet our own desires. And it's not that we have 00:16:13.719 --> 00:16:19.059 idols and altars that are kind of out on public display like they would in kind of the Greco-Roman 00:16:19.059 --> 00:16:25.120 world. But our hearts, this is what Calvin says, our hearts are perpetual idol factories. 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:31.960 And so even in our current day and age, we bow down to idols of success and money and wealth and 00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:40.919 power and sex and comfort. Tim Keller wrote that an idol is anything more important to you than God. 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:48.940 Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God. Anything you seek to give yourself 00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:57.780 what only God can give. And so we have to ask ourselves, what idols do we have in our own life? 00:16:58.660 --> 00:17:05.400 We may not kneel before any statue, but what have we given ultimate importance or significance in our 00:17:05.400 --> 00:17:14.820 lives? What do we value above all else? Is it our family? Is it our career? Is it our comfort? 00:17:14.819 --> 00:17:21.559 Our financial security? The thing is that most times when we make things idols in our lives, 00:17:21.619 --> 00:17:26.960 these aren't necessarily bad things in and of themselves. But the problem is that we take these 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:31.879 good things in our lives and we elevate them to ultimate things in our lives. And as a result, 00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:36.460 these things that were created in order to serve us, we begin to serve. 00:17:36.460 --> 00:17:43.720 And so when we break the first commandment, it's not simply a failure to obey God, 00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:47.940 but it's the setting of our whole heart on something other than God. 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:55.319 And so this commandment obviously exposes our tendency in our heart to do this, but it doesn't 00:17:55.319 --> 00:18:02.220 necessarily fix the situation. That's why these commands, like you said, are a mirror, but they 00:18:02.220 --> 00:18:08.900 aren't a solution. The solution only comes through the gospel. And so this one God that we serve, 00:18:09.019 --> 00:18:15.460 this one God that we are to worship is a triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. One essence in three 00:18:15.460 --> 00:18:22.000 persons. And so it's Jesus who came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. And so this is what 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.839 we read throughout the New Testament. The writer of Hebrews says, God has spoken to us through his Son, 00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:34.419 whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance 00:18:34.419 --> 00:18:40.399 of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of 00:18:40.399 --> 00:18:50.439 his power. We see that Jesus is this one God. He is the God who saves. He is the God who we serve. 00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:57.519 And so it is only Jesus by his blood that gives us his righteousness, that we are seen by the Father 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:04.160 as having kept the law. It is Jesus who roots out these evil desires in our lives. It is Jesus who 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:10.240 continues to work in us that we may set our minds on things above, that we may have and experience his 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:18.140 eternal joy and satisfaction that comes from knowing him. And so apart from this one true God, there is 00:19:18.140 --> 00:19:25.720 no salvation. Moving to the second commandment then, you shall have, you shall not make for 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:31.100 yourselves an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the 00:19:31.100 --> 00:19:38.340 waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. Now, you may listen to this commandment 00:19:38.340 --> 00:19:43.240 being read and think that really sounds very similar to the first thing. It almost sounds like that God is 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:47.420 saying the same thing in a different way. Don't have idols and now don't have graven images. 00:19:48.140 --> 00:19:51.800 But there is a very clear distinction that I want us to see here because the first commandment 00:19:51.800 --> 00:19:59.560 instructs us who to worship. The second commandment instructs us how to worship. We must worship the 00:19:59.560 --> 00:20:06.020 correct God in the correct way. And so think about the people of Israel again, about this time that 00:20:06.020 --> 00:20:11.860 Moses is receiving the law up on Mount Sinai. The people of God are becoming impatient by his absence 00:20:11.860 --> 00:20:17.060 and they go to Aaron and say, make some other gods for us. And so they collect all this gold and what do 00:20:17.059 --> 00:20:24.440 they do? They make this golden calf. And so we read about this in Exodus 32. It says, Aaron says to 00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:30.079 the people of Israel, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. And when Aaron saw 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:34.039 this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, tomorrow there will be a festival to 00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:40.240 the Lord. The next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:46.720 offerings. And afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in every revelry. 00:20:48.140 --> 00:20:52.259 Now it's important to understand, we may think, okay, it sounds like they're worshiping other gods, 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:56.259 that they're inventing gods and they're worshiping them. What it says here is that they're worshiping 00:20:56.259 --> 00:21:01.900 Yahweh. They're attempting to worship Yahweh. Aaron says tomorrow there will be a feast to Yahweh. 00:21:01.900 --> 00:21:07.040 But the problem is that they're attempting to worship God in the same way that the pagan nations 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:11.340 worship their pagan gods, based on their own inventions, based on their own preferences. 00:21:13.040 --> 00:21:19.740 And so you may have heard of the book, The Five Love Languages. It's several, probably 20 plus years 00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:27.340 old now. But the concept in the book is that we each receive and feel love in different ways because 00:21:27.340 --> 00:21:31.880 we all have different personalities and different backgrounds. So we need to learn how to love people. 00:21:31.900 --> 00:21:38.560 according to ways that meet their preferences. And so it's talking about more, most of the time in 00:21:38.560 --> 00:21:43.720 marriage relationships, what this looks like. So it may be quality time with one another. It may be 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:51.060 touch. It may be gifts. It may be words of affirmation. And so for my wife, Rachel, time together 00:21:51.060 --> 00:21:57.160 is really valuable for her. Quality time is a way that she experiences love. And so if I decide, well, 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:02.700 I really like giving gifts. And so I'm just going to shower her with gifts and I'm going to expect that 00:22:02.700 --> 00:22:09.100 she really, really experiences my love. Is that going to happen? No. She doesn't care about my gifts. 00:22:09.220 --> 00:22:15.040 She wants to experience my love through time together. And so the same is true here. We do not worship God 00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:20.440 based on our preferences, based on the way that we want to worship, based on our own imagination and 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:27.680 thinking what God may want. Jesus says in John 4, God is a spirit and those who worship him must worship 00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:34.900 him in spirit and in truth. And so our worship is to be limited to his revealed will. It's not based 00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:41.539 on our own imaginations. We worship based on the prescription of the Bible. And so if you've been 00:22:41.539 --> 00:22:45.680 with us this past term on Wednesday nights when we've been meeting here and Zach's been leading the 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:51.140 engine room, we've been thinking about what it means, what happens when we worship. And we've 00:22:51.140 --> 00:22:55.480 learned that when we worship, it's the Holy Spirit who descends in order to raise us up. 00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:02.960 So we give God our minds and our hearts when we worship. We put aside our own preferences that we may 00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:08.680 worship God in true reverence. And this is a problem that the people of Israel had over and over again 00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:12.720 that's repeated in the Old Testament, where God is angry with his people because they are not 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:18.720 worshiping him in spirit and in truth. In Jeremiah 7, it talks about this. He says, 00:23:19.500 --> 00:23:25.200 will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:31.620 you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house which bears my name and say we are 00:23:31.620 --> 00:23:39.660 safe, safe to do these detestable things? Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you? 00:23:39.660 --> 00:23:46.540 That phrase may be familiar because it's one that Jesus repeats. In the New Testament, 00:23:47.420 --> 00:23:56.620 when Jesus clears out the vendors from the temple, he says, my house is to be called a house of prayer 00:23:56.620 --> 00:24:03.560 and you are making it a den of robbers. See, God is a jealous God. That's what it says in this 00:24:03.559 --> 00:24:10.919 commandment. He wants to be worshiped according to his will. And so how do we abuse worship today? 00:24:12.679 --> 00:24:17.980 Do we come to church flippantly or casually just thinking, oh, this is what I do. It's a Sunday 00:24:17.980 --> 00:24:25.019 morning. Better go to church and check that box. Do we only participate in singing when we really like 00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:32.779 the tune or the words? Do we just view a sermon kind of just like a TED talk or just trying to get 00:24:32.779 --> 00:24:40.180 some motivation that may be encouraging to us for the week ahead? Or do we realize that worship isn't 00:24:40.180 --> 00:24:49.519 about us? It is about God working in us to bring himself glory. And to remember that worship doesn't 00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:56.960 begin and end here on a Sunday. We sing and we pray and we listen to the preaching of God's word, but we can 00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:03.599 only do that in sincerity when the rest of the week is in keeping with God's word also. And so think about 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:08.960 that husband-wife scenario again. A husband can't show love to his wife by cheating on his wife throughout 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:16.960 the week, but remaining faithful to her on the weekends. Likewise, we must remember that God has chosen us 00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:24.579 for himself. He has set us aside for his own pleasure. He has given us what is necessary that we may have 00:25:24.579 --> 00:25:33.100 an intimate, personal relationship with him through his word. And so this is what this command instructs us, 00:25:33.620 --> 00:25:39.559 that we may come before God with reverence and sincerity using his word as our guide, that we may 00:25:39.559 --> 00:25:48.599 worship him, the correct God, in the correct manner. That brings us to our third command that we'll look 00:25:48.599 --> 00:25:54.559 at this evening. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone 00:25:54.559 --> 00:26:00.440 guiltless who misuses his name. Now, if you're anything like me growing up, basically the interpretation of 00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:09.019 this passage was, don't say bad words. And while this command, it certainly gives, addresses the need 00:26:09.019 --> 00:26:16.880 for purity in speech, it has a much greater and deeper meaning that encompasses not only our words, 00:26:16.980 --> 00:26:25.500 but our lives and our actions as well. Because we remember when we recognize the significance really of 00:26:25.500 --> 00:26:31.079 Jesus' name when we go back again to when God comes to Moses in the burning bush, 00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:37.619 when he appoints him for this task of leading the people of Israel. And he's telling them he needs to 00:26:37.619 --> 00:26:42.859 go to the leaders of Israel and says, well, Moses says, he asks, how am I, what am I supposed to say to 00:26:42.859 --> 00:26:49.420 them, these leaders of Israel? Who am I supposed to say you are? What's your name? And God says to Moses, 00:26:49.420 --> 00:26:58.620 I am who I am. And he said to them, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to 00:26:58.620 --> 00:27:05.640 you. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and 00:27:05.640 --> 00:27:12.779 Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. And this is my memorial to all generations. 00:27:12.779 --> 00:27:20.019 And so there's great significance in the name of Yahweh. The people of Israel wouldn't have even 00:27:20.019 --> 00:27:24.879 mentioned his name. They wouldn't have spoken the name of Yahweh. They recognize that it referred to 00:27:24.879 --> 00:27:31.680 this eternal, unchanging God, a God who is in need of nothing. This name, it's a summary of his holy 00:27:31.680 --> 00:27:38.500 character, that he is all powerful and yet he's intimate with his people. He's a loving and gracious 00:27:38.500 --> 00:27:45.819 God who keeps his covenant promises. And so the thing about the name of Jesus or the name of God, 00:27:45.880 --> 00:27:52.900 the name of Yahweh, is that he shares this name with his people. Think about the instruction that 00:27:52.900 --> 00:27:57.259 God gives Aaron's. How are you to bless your people? We use this often as a benediction. 00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:03.140 You are to say to the children of Israel, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to 00:28:03.140 --> 00:28:08.000 shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance to you and give you peace. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:15.759 The very next verse. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel and I will bless them. 00:28:17.380 --> 00:28:25.559 God places his name on his people. And so what does that mean for us when we misuse God's name? 00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:34.619 When I was in uni, I played on my school's rugby team and it was a really good program. It had a 00:28:34.619 --> 00:28:39.479 history of success and it was due in large part to our coach who'd been the coach and founded the team 00:28:39.479 --> 00:28:45.859 a long time ago. And he was not only good in giving instruction and preparing us for a game, 00:28:45.939 --> 00:28:50.299 but motivating us before the game began. And oftentimes we'd surround him and he didn't be 00:28:50.299 --> 00:28:58.359 in the middle of the circle. And he'd point to our kits. We had the name of our school on our chest. 00:28:58.359 --> 00:29:06.859 And he said, this name means something. This is a name for excellence. This name means aggression. 00:29:08.559 --> 00:29:15.319 He said, you live up to this name. You don't play for yourself. You're playing for this team. You're 00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:19.119 playing for the school. You're playing for this program. You're playing for the, for every single 00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:27.379 player who has come before you and worn this on their kit. In the same way, we wear the name of God. 00:29:28.359 --> 00:29:36.379 We live and behave in a way that is to uphold his reputation. And so when we misuse his name, 00:29:36.500 --> 00:29:43.039 as, as it's mentioned in this, in this commandment, it's, it means that we abuse all that his name means. 00:29:43.919 --> 00:29:49.459 That we treat his holy nature and character with contempt. That we reject his offer of relationship. 00:29:49.459 --> 00:29:51.959 That we disregard his promise of salvation. 00:29:51.960 --> 00:29:59.480 See, this name of Yahweh, it's not just stuck in the Old Testament. It's a name that finds fulfillment 00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:09.660 in Jesus. Yeshua, the Lord saves. This covenant keeping God sent his only son to bring life 00:30:09.660 --> 00:30:17.340 through his death. He gives us his righteousness by taking on our unrighteousness on the cross. 00:30:17.339 --> 00:30:24.859 And so this is what Peter preached in Acts 4 when he heals a lame beggar. He said, this, this beggar 00:30:24.859 --> 00:30:31.919 was healed by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but who God raised from the dead. 00:30:32.019 --> 00:30:38.779 That is the man. That is why this man stands before you healed. Salvation is found in no one else. 00:30:38.779 --> 00:30:46.240 There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. 00:30:47.539 --> 00:30:52.960 It's the same thing that's repeated by Paul in Romans 12. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord 00:30:52.960 --> 00:31:01.039 will be saved. And so we protect the name of the Lord because it is the name that saves. 00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:10.119 And so think about what this means for us in the sense of evangelism, in the sense of being able to 00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:15.500 share the gospel with those around us. Why do so many believers reject the name of Jesus? 00:31:17.319 --> 00:31:23.019 Why do they ridicule the name of God? Because so often we give them reason to. 00:31:23.019 --> 00:31:31.619 Because we don't represent Christ well. Because we discredit the name of Jesus by the way that we live. 00:31:33.139 --> 00:31:36.960 And so really this brings us back then to that use of the law. 00:31:38.139 --> 00:31:44.400 If we were believers, we recognize that the law is a rule of life for us. We follow this rule of life, 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:50.200 not to obtain God's favor, but in order to give God glory. We follow after Jesus out of a heart of 00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:56.420 gratitude for all he has done for us so that the unbelieving world may see the glory of the one and 00:31:56.420 --> 00:32:03.680 only Savior. This is the reality in which we live, what Paul talks about in Philippians 2. 00:32:04.700 --> 00:32:11.279 That God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:16.960 So that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:22.779 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. 00:32:24.579 --> 00:32:29.500 This is what the law points us to and this is what Christ has fulfilled. 00:32:31.559 --> 00:32:32.960 The law points us to...