If the commandments come down from above, you see that changes the rules for how we evaluate them. Because if they come down from above, then you and I have no business offering our perspective on whether or not they resonate with us or they work for us. Welcome back to the Summit Life podcast with Pastor J.D. Greer. I'm Molly Vitovich.
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To explore these resources or learn more about the mission, visit jdgreer.com. Today on the podcast, we'll see that true freedom isn't found in throwing out God's law, but in embracing it and discovering the life that God intended all along. We're back to the book of Exodus, so let's not waste any more time. Here's Pastor JV. Exodus 19, if you got your Bibles with you this weekend, Exodus 19.
A few years ago, Stephen. Colbert interviewed a congressman who was co-sponsoring a bill to get a display of the Ten Commandments placed in the chambers of both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. On the show, Colbert asked this congressman, since he was co-sponsoring this bill, he said, would you please name all Ten Commandments? And it was kind of embarrassing because the congressman sputtered for a few seconds and then could really only list out a few of the big ones: thou shalt not murder and thou shalt not steal and that kind of stuff.
Now, we tend to hear stories like that. We shake our heads and we say, man, what a hypocrite! What a hypocrite. But let me just ask. What about you?
What about you? How nervous would you be if I randomly called you up here on stage, put a microphone right in your face? And asked you not to hold your hands up for 10 minutes, but I just said I want you to list out all 10 commandments. Should we find out? You want to do it?
No, I won't do that to you, okay? But get this, y'all. A study done a few years ago in our country by the Kelton Research Group found that more Americans could accurately name the ingredients in a Big Mac and The members of the Brady Bunch family. then could correctly come up with the majority of the Ten Commandments. I want to talk to you this weekend about the importance of the Ten Commandments in our lives, not as a monument on our walls, but as a central part of who we are in our walk with God.
You see, in many ways, the giving of the Ten Commandments was the climatic moment in the Exodus journey. All their journeys led them here to Mount Sinai. to receive this law. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of these commandments. Martin Luther, the great reformer, was once asked what he personally used to instruct his kids in the Christian faith at home.
At that point, I think his oldest child was a middle schooler, and Martin Luther said he had not yet progressed beyond discipling them in the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. He said, I still learn and pray these things with them every day with my Hans and my little Lana. Most of us don't feel that way about the Ten Commandments, but today I want us to see why we should. And why they are incredibly relevant, even in a secularized post-Christian age, such as ours, where you would think that they would be antithetical to Christian witness.
So, I want to ask you to do something unusual this weekend. At least it's unusual for me when I preach. Can I get you to stand for the reading of this passage at all of our campuses? I want you to stand to your feet, if you will.
Now listen, when we get to the actual commandments... I'm going to have you read them with me out loud, okay? When we get there. But first. But first, let me take you through the setup.
I'll just read this by myself. Chapter 19, verse 4. You yourselves. have seen what I did to the Egyptians. How I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
Now therefore If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant. You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. And the Lord said to Moses, Tell the people to wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, Take care not to go up into the mountain, or even to touch the edge of it.
Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. Whether beast or man, he shall not live. I want you to try to imagine this scene. In fact, if you would... Would you just bow your head and close your eyes?
And would you simply try to imagine this scene, okay? Put yourself into the scene and imagine it as I read it to you. Verse 16: 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. Imagine.
A blast of a trumpet that just keeps getting louder and louder, like a freight train that is getting closer and closer to you. It is terrifying. And all the people in the camp began to tremble. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. And 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 furnace, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke. And God answered him in thunder. And the LORD said to Moses, Go down and warn the people. lest they break through.
to the Lord. To look. and many of them perish.
Now keep your eyes closed for a minute and just imagine this, okay? Won't you imagine you're a parent? And your kids are standing there beside you looking at this mountain, they're scared. And you want to comfort him. But you can't.
Because you're terrified too. There's no way to protect yourself from the power that is radiating from that mountain.
So, you're holding really tightly to their hands because if one of those kids of yours gets loose and just runs up past that barrier, they will be killed. The message is clear. God's majesty, His holiness is an awesome and terrifying reality. It is nothing to be trifled with.
Okay, open your eyes. Then verse 25.
So Moses went. down to the people. God sent Moses down and he gave them these. Commandments. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
And now, if you would, would you just please read these aloud with me? You shall have no other gods before me. 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. 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. 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.
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. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not cover your neighbor's house. You shall not cover your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's.
Before you're seated. Let me just read the final few verses to you, if I could, verse 18. When all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of the lightning, and they heard the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. The people were afraid and they trembled and they stood far off. And they said to Moses, You speak to us.
We will listen to you. But do not let God speak to us, lest we Die.
Okay, you may be See then. I am going to make four observations about these commandments that. I believe make them particularly relevant in our progressive post-Christian culture. And then I'm going to offer to you a couple of reflections about how we should use them in our lives and our families and our church. Here's the first of the four observations.
Observation number one. The commandments come. as authority from above. Not as wisdom from below. The imagery is clear, right?
Chapter 19, verse 25. Moses comes down from the mountain with the commandments. This is truth descending from above. You say, well, that's very obvious. Yes, but I point that out because our culture believes precisely the opposite about truth.
The greatest source of truth we believe comes from within. We regard our hearts to be the best source for discerning what is right for us and what is true for us. I asked ChatGPT. To give me the modern Ten Commandments? And it said, Oh, that's a fun question.
That's the first thing it said to me. And then it listed out ten modern commandments. And the first two on its list were these. Number one, be true to yourself. Number two, respect individual autonomy.
But see what this means is that these commandments That God gave to Moses challenge our culture at the very core of our assumptions about how we determine what is right and wrong and true and false. If the commandments come down from above, you see, that changes the rules for how we evaluate them. Because if they come down from above, then you and I have no business offering our perspective. on whether or not they resonate with us or they work for us. God did not offer these commandments as suggestions for us to evaluate, but as commandments for us to obey.
The central question you need to ask about these commandments. And this book in general. Is it really from God? In fact, if you are a person here considering Christianity, the central question you need to ask about everything in this is was Jesus and was all the rest of this stuff, was it actually from God as it claimed to be? In John 3, Jesus said something offensive and mind-boggling to a religious philosopher named Nicodemus, and Nicodemus objected.
He said, that's impossible. That doesn't make any sense. And Jesus responded to Nicodemus with imagery that is reminiscent of Exodus 19. He said, no man has ascended into heaven, Nicodemus, to find truth. The Son of Man has come down from heaven to bring it.
Do you believe him? In other words, Jesus said, what I'm telling you, Nicodemus, is not the result of a man or a group of men ascending up to Mount Olympus heights of wisdom. These truths come down from above.
So I'm not asking you to receive these because they resonate with your experience. I'm asking you to receive them because they come down with the authority of heaven.
So stop arguing. About whether or not you agree with the commandments and whether you find them personally helpful, and just consider whether or not you think they're really from God or not. Was Jesus telling the truth or was he lying? Was Jesus deceived? Was Moses telling the truth or was he deceived?
I often find myself in discussions with college students or young professionals about the helpfulness of some biblical moral. And I'm trying to show them the reasonableness of it or trying to show why it's good for society or its practicality. But I always tell them that at the end of the day, I don't believe these commandments because they make the most sense to me or because they work for me personally. I believe them because they come with the authority of a savior who rose from the dead. Our central commission, church, is not to be defenders of the commandments, but to be proclaimers of the resurrected command giver.
Furthermore, I often tell students: you and I don't get to edit these commandments because we find them offensive or unfashionable. Any more than a biographer gets to edit out the parts of a person's life he doesn't like. Say you hired me to write a biography of you, and so I did a deep dive study of your life. Read all the emails you've ever written, and just really walked with all the people that walked with you. And then I presented you with a finished biography.
600 pages all about your life, but I was like, no, heads up. Before you read this, in this biography, you're an astronaut. Who lives alone with all your cats because you got a string of broken marriages and you're just really, really bad at relationships. And you're like, well, actually, I'm a happily married accountant. And I'm scared of heights.
And like normal people, I like dogs, not cats. And I say, yeah, but you're just so much more interesting the way that I presented you. And I think this biography will sell a lot better if you're a divorced cat-loving astronaut. You would be insulted and I would be fired as your biographer. How do you think God feels about it when we try to edit him into a version we think our generation is going to like better?
He is, I am who I am, not I am who you, sinful, twisted human, want me to be. In fact, the second commandment is going to be, do not ever remake me. Into some image that you happen to like better. I am who I am. Receive me or reject me, but do not edit me.
Number two. Second observation, the commandments are an expression of freedom. Not slavery. See, most people in our culture hear authoritative commandments and they think compulsion and captivity. But these commandments are presented as the gateway to freedom.
They're literally at the brink of the promised land. This is the gateway to freedom. This is the exodus from slavery. The giving of these commandments is the climactic moment in this Exodus deliverance. Let me explain.
Exodus, if you recall, the book of Exodus is the second book in a five-volume series that Moses wrote. In Volume 1, the book of Genesis, Moses presents the original creation where the earth is in this formless, chaotic state, and God speaks into the darkness and the chaos, and he brings order out of it. He creates light in the land and creates the rhythm of days and seasons, and creation begins to flourish. Creation, after God gets done with it, is now described not as formless and void and chaotic. It is described as good, very good to be exact.
But then, Genesis 3, when man rejects God's rule, creation starts to fall back into disarray. Brother kills brother. Bodies start to age and ache and gray and sag and deteriorate. The earth itself is cursed with thorns and thistles and tsunamis. Then in Genesis 12, God chooses to bring salvation to the world to the descendants of a man named Abraham.
But those descendants fall into captivity in Egypt for 425 years.
Now, Egypt, as we've seen now for several weeks, represents a place outside of the rule of God, so to speak. It is a place of captivity, a place of bondage, a place of misery and oppression.
So God raises up Moses, a deliverer who delivers them from Egypt by inflicting a number of plagues on the Egyptians.
Now, like I explained to you in our week on the plagues, the plagues are way too systematic and they progress way too logically to simply be random displays of God's power. The plagues progress in a very logical fashion. The Nile turns to blood, which destroys the natural ecosystem of the Nile. Out of the Nile come the frogs. From the frogs come the gnats.
From the gnats come disease and the boils and so on. It's as if, watch this, creation itself is unraveling, and that's the point. The plagues are like the inverse of Genesis 1. In Genesis 1, God brought order out of chaos. In the plagues, we've got order descending back into chaos as a picture of what sin does to us.
These commandments restore us to order, to the good, to creation as God intended it, to creation where it flourishes, to you and I where we experience the abundant life. These commandments are how God designed his creation to work. And thus obedience to these commandments leads to freedom, not slavery. C.S. Lewis famously compared these commandments to the water that a fish swims in.
You don't set a fish free by taking it out of the water. And putting it up on the land in reality. Doing that would kill the fish, not set it free. I know you're sick of that water being constrained in that water. Let me set you free by putting you up on the land.
Now a fish is freest when it's in the habitat it was designed to be in. These commandments are how God created us to flourish. We'll compare that with our culture and our mentality. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, for example, in writing the majority opinion in 1992 of Planned Parenthood versus Casey. Here's what he said: the heart of liberty.
It is to define one's own concept of existence and the meaning of the universe. He's saying that true freedom is when you have no restraining authorities, no commandments, no system of truth that is imposed on you from anywhere outside of you, and you can just do whatever you want. But friend, that is not freedom. That's the slavery of Egypt. These commandments are the creator's freedom.
These commandments are the water in which the fish of humanity thrives. Observation number three. These commandments begin and end. as a prohibition against idolatry. They begin and end as a prohibition against idolatry.
I wish I had longer on this one, but got to move quickly. Martin Luther. in the greater catechism that he wrote. Pointed out that prohibitions against idolatry bookend the commandments. Commandment number one, you shall have no other gods before me.
That is a literal command against idolatry. Then you got commandment 10 at the end: you shall not covet, which the Apostle Paul explains in the book of Colossians. Coveting is a kind of idolatry because coveting arises in your heart when you identify something that somebody else has that you think you need and want more than God and whatever He's provided for you to be happy. Martin Luther said that God bookended the commandments with prohibitions against idolatry because it is idolatry that is really at work in the breaking of any of the middle eight. For example, why would you steal?
You steal because you covet something that God has not provided for you. God and his plans and provisions are not enough for you. You need something more. Why do we lie? It's because we covet something that we can't purchase with the truth.
Why would we murder?
Well, because somebody took something from us or kept us from something that we really wanted. Why would we commit adultery? It's because we're not satisfied with whatever romantic sexual situation God has put us in, and so on. All the commandments go back to idolatry, not being satisfied with God or not really trusting Him. And that's what drives you to break all the other commandments.
In fact, it's fascinating. Right after giving these commandments at the end of chapter 20, if you can look toward the end of chapter 20, you'll see God starts giving them instructions about where and how they are to build their high places. High places in the ancient world referred to places of worship. What God was saying was, ultimately, if you put me in the right place in your life. If you put me in the high place, keeping these commandments will come naturally.
And when you put something else in your high place, Sexual pleasure, material prosperity, family life, whatever. When you put something else in the high place, then you'll start to break all these commandments. Tim Keller believed that connecting these commandments to idolatry This was the key, he said, to explaining them to a post-Christian generation where people tend to balk at statements like, thus says the Lord. Describing his 30-year ministry to young professionals in Manhattan, in New York City. Here's what he said.
He said, I began speaking about sin. To a young urban non-Christian like this, sin is not only doing bad things. It is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and your meaning on anything, even a very good thing. More than on God.
Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. I took a page, he said, from Soren Kierkegaard that sin is building your identity, your self-worth, and happiness. on anything other than God.
So instead of telling them they're sinning because they're sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them they're sinning because they're looking to romance. to save them, to give them everything that they should be looking for in God. This idolatry leads to addictions, workaholism, severe anxiety, obsessiveness, envy of others, and resentment. I have found that when you describe sin this way, postmodern people. Stop resisting as much.
They sheepishly admit that this is what they're doing. It makes sense so much more personal. Ultimately, the foundation of these commandments is letting God be God in your life.
So, Martin Luther said, if you would just obey the first commandment to have no other gods before God, if you would just look for meaning and permanence and significance and joy and satisfaction first and foremost in Him, you'd have no problem keeping the other nine. At Summit Life, our mission is simple but profound. To take people deeper into the gospel and to advance it wider across the world. With your support, we are able to meet people right where they are, whether it's in their homes, cars, or workplaces. As a media ministry, we share God's word through a variety of platforms.
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Number four, this is the last of the observations. The commandments grow. Out of grace. I grew up in an independent Baptist church. We had this strong theme of this theological thing.
called dispensationalism that ran through our teaching. Which is the idea that God deals with different people in different times in different ways. It was made popular by the C.I. Schofield Study Bible. I grew up in church assuming that C.I.
Schofield's notes here at the bottom. I just thought they were part of the original manuscripts. I thought that was what God had inspired. And so we believe that the C.I. Schofield Bible, KJV edition, of course.
Was all anybody ever needed for life and godliness.
Now, to be very clear with you, I am extraordinarily grateful for my heritage. My Independent Baptist forebears taught me to love Jesus. They taught me to trust the Bible. And they taught me to put the mission above everything. And that's a huge win in my book.
But there were moments in dispensationalism when the law, the giving of these commandments, was presented as if it were an entirely different way of relating to God. The implication was that Moses at Mount Sinai gave to Israel a covenant of works.
Now they had to, they basically told, God told them they had to earn their salvation by obeying these commandments. And only later, when Jesus came, were we introduced to the covenant of grace. Literally, the idea was that there was an Old Testament way of being saved, and then there's a New Testament way of being saved, and the two ways of being saved were fundamentally different. But you can see, can't you, the gospel of grace woven intricately through these commandments. I want you to notice, for example, that God gives these commandments to Israel only after he's delivered them.
Not as his requirement for delivering them. In chapter 19, 19, 4, he tells Israel, I've already borne you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. In the prologue to the commandments, chapter 20, verse 2, he says, I am the God who has already brought you up out of slavery. Therefore. You shall have no other gods before me.
What that means is that these commandments, hear this, they are not a list of requirements for you to be accepted by God, but they're the right response to you having been accepted by God. The foundation of these commandments is God's gracious, unmerited deliverance of Israel. There has only ever been one way to be saved. You hear me? Only one way that you can be saved, and that is by grace through faith.
They were saved by looking forward in faith to a Messiah who would come and deliver them by grace, believing that a Messiah would come. You and I are saved by looking backward at that Messiah, believing that he has come. Fat, there's another fascinating little detail in here that points to this being a covenant of grace. Exodus says the commandments were given to Moses on two tablets, right? And we've seen Charlton Hesson with his big old two tablets.
Everybody knows two tablets. You ever wonder why it was two tablets and not one? I always just assumed that it was because God ran out of room on the first tablet. But God's not like a kindergartner who starts writing on one page and then runs out of a room and has to go grab another one to finish up whatever he's drawing. No, a better explanation is that in those days you always made two copies of a covenant.
One for each party. That way, if the other side broke their side of the covenant, if they broke the covenant, you could produce your copy of the covenant and you could hold them accountable, which is why it's significant that Exodus 25 tells us that both tablets of the covenant were put into the Ark of the Covenant directly under the mercy seat. In other words, God made himself responsible for both sides of the covenant. And when Israel broke their side, God took responsibility for them breaking the commandments, and he paid for their disobedience by sprinkling his own blood on that mercy seat. The foundation of these commandments is grace.
These commandments are not how you earn acceptance by God. They are how you love the God who has graciously purchased your acceptance by his blood. Or you could just say it this way: these commandments are not a to-do list to earn the acceptance of God, they're the way to respond to God's free gift of done.
So those are the four observations. The commandments come from God, not man. They free us, not enslave us. Their core concept is avoid idolatry. And number four, we obey them as a response to grace.
So here's my next question. How should these commandments function in the life of the believer? You see, you and I are no longer part of the nation of Israel. We're not under the same covenant that they were. That's where the dispensationalists partly got things right.
Paul makes clear in Galatians. We are no longer under the law. And that would include the Ten Commandments. We're now entirely under grace.
So what role do these commandments play in our lives now?
Well, Paul says three roles. They play three roles in your lives. These commandments serve as: A, a curb, B, a map, and C, a mirror. In Galatians 3.24, Paul says these commandments are a tutor. Or your version may say schoolmaster, or it might say guardian.
To bring us to Christ, a school, a tutor that brings us to Christ. What does that mean? Traditionally, Reformed theology has taught that it means three things. And again, I'll call them curb, mirror, and map. First, let's talk about curb.
The law limits the damage. of our sinful urges. Even though obedience to the law cannot produce righteous desires in our hearts, obeying these laws keeps me from causing further destruction through my sin. For example, by obeying the prohibition against adultery, you're not only preserving your wife and your family from hurt and devastation, you're keeping the power of sin from multiplying in your own heart.
So let me move to the second. The commandments serve as a map. After being saved by grace, the law shows us the best way to please the God that has saved us that we now love. Jesus said the essence of the law, the essence of the commandments was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.
But here's the thing. How do we know what that looks like in practice? A couple years ago, this ancient discussion. Popped back up in Christian circles like it was brand new. And that discussion was about whether or not the Old Testament was helpful anymore.
With some suggesting that the Old Testament and its laws are now, they're more of an obstacle to faith now for this generation than a help to it. And thus, these teachers said, we should unhitch our gospel witness from the Old Testament. What we should focus on instead, they said, was Jesus' message of love and acceptance and grace. And in particular, we should just preach the simplicity of the great commandment about loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself. And y'all, I know that sounds so appealing and so modern.
But the problem is We're left with this question, what does love for God and others look like in practice? Because one person thinks love looks like open marriage or affirmation of same-sex attraction or protecting a woman's right to abortion. Others say that love means the exact opposite of those things. Does everybody just get to decide for themselves what what that kind of love looks like? And do we really want our sinful hearts answering that question independently?
Before the giving of these laws, nations Wondered how to please the deity, how to please God. For example, what kinds of offerings does the deity require? Does he want us to sacrifice our own children to him? There were some cultures that taught that. If we're going to offer him our money, how much does he want?
Does he want 5%, 50%, 100%, none?
Well, see, the law answers all those questions for us. The law shows us what love for God and love for others looks like in practice. Unhitching ourselves from the law basically means going back to every man doing what was right in his own eyes. And that is not the glorious freedom of the promised land, y'all. That's the slavery of Egypt.
Listen, it is true. That the law cannot bring us righteousness. But the law shows us practically what righteousness in action looks like as it is expressed. The law, I've often heard it said, is like railroad tracks. The railroad tracks lay out for you the right direction for you to go, but railroad tracks are powerless to move the freight along the tracks.
The gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit in us, that's the locomotive that moves us. That's the only thing that creates obedience. But after you've been given the locomotive power of the Holy Spirit to obey, the law directs us in what love for God and others looks like in practice.
So a curb, a map, finally the law is a mirror. The law reveals to us how sinful we are. Because it holds up in front of us an image of what a truly righteous heart would look like. Charles Spurgeon compared the law. to a set of clothes that were perfectly tailored to the ideal version of you.
Imagine if the only clothes you were allowed to wear were those perfectly tailored to your ideal build and weight when you were like 22. Every time you put them on, the dilapidated state of your body would be on display for everybody. That's what the law does, Spurgeon says. You try it on. And it begins to expose all the places that your heart don't fit God's mold.
And see, that's what drives you to grace. Trying to obey the law brings you, like a tutor, to understand your need for salvation in Christ because you say, I can't obey all these things. Rather than just explain that to you. Let me just show you what I mean, okay? I'm going to walk you through a few of these commandments.
I'm gonna try to give you some like a little definition of them. And I want you to try to be honest with yourself. about how listen to this instinctive obedience to these commandments come to you I want you to make two columns, okay? Put your little yes column, a Y line, you know, and then put an N for no, a no column. And I want you to put a check under yes if obedience to the command comes naturally to you.
And then put a check under no if it doesn't, okay? Commandment number one, you shall have no other gods before me. Can you say? God is instinctively always preeminent in my thoughts, affections, and actions. Can you say, I never take more delight in things like a raise or a new car or a compliment or a preaching invitation in my world or a new job opportunity or a better apartment to live in?
I never take more joy in any of those things than I do in knowing God. God's glory and God's pleasure is always first and highest in my thoughts. Yes or no? Y'all, if I'm honest, sometimes I get more excited about a new TV program or a good church attendance report than I do know in and glorifying God. And just in terms of emotional energy spend, I pine for people's approval far more than I care about his reputation.
So that's a big one in the no column for me. Jump down to commandment four. Remember the Sabbath. You naturally take time out of... Every week, just to be with God, unworried and unhurried about the work that you're not doing because you're just confident God will supply all of your needs?
Have you consistently set apart one day weekly just to rest in Him? Does your life reflect a peaceful dependence on God and not an anxious dependence on self? Yes or no? Command the five, honor your parents. Our parents are the first representation of God's authority to us.
So, the big question in this commandment is how our heart responds to any God-ordained authority. Can you say? I always, I always gave my parents respect and heartfelt obedience. And throughout my life, that posture of submission extended to every other God-ordained authority in my life: teachers, traffic cops, the IRS, my board of directors. In general, submissive to authority is something that always comes naturally for me.
Yes, or no. Command of six, you shall not kill. You're like, finally. But then Jesus comes along and he messes that one out. Because he says that to hate somebody in your heart or to desire their harm in any way is like murder.
So here's how you answer yes or no for that one. Can you sit there and say, I've never had hateful thoughts about anybody delighting in or fantasizing about their harm or misfortune? Yo, I look at how I sometimes rejoice in somebody else's failure. Just because it made me feel better. Or secretly delighted in somebody's misfortune because I was jealous of them, or I just didn't like them.
Maybe you're not as messed up as I am, but y'all, I look within my own heart and I say, what's wrong with my heart? Number seven, you shall not commit adultery. Same rule with this one as the above one. Jesus said this meant not entertaining. Lustful thoughts about somebody to whom you're not married.
How would you do with this one if we judged you at the heart level? My daughter's car has a little GPS thing built into the dashboard, and it automatically knows what the speed limit is. on whatever road you're on and when you go over the speed limit it just flashes. I love it. It just flashes the correct speed at you.
It's like the car is wagging its finger in her face saying, ooh, you're doing wrong. What if you had a little light on your forehead that flashed every time you had wrong desires towards somebody? How many times a day would it go off? In fact, I rented a car a while back, and this particular model I rented took that warning light to a new level. If you went over the speed limit by even one mile an hour, It would override the radio and say, in this slightly scolding voice, this self-righteous voice, the speed limit.
is 45 or whatever the speed limit was. Basically announcing your sin to everybody in the car. Imagine if you had that feature attached to your heart. Every time you men had a stray thought, a voice spoke up and announced to everybody: your wife's name is Megan. or just whatever it is.
The point is, on the heart level, on the instinct level, we're all really messed up. Right? You wouldn't want other people knowing what you were thinking at any given moment. What's it like to stand before a God of thunder and lightning and perfect holiness with all the filthiness of our inner thought life exposed? Commandment 9, you shall not lie.
I shouldn't even have to go over this one. But could you say I've never distorted the truth in any way for my own benefit? I've never covered up my faults or hidden awkward things I didn't want other people to know. I've never exaggerated my accomplishments or presented things in my life in marriage better than they are. How about this?
I've never fledged the age of one of my children so they could get the kids rate at movies. Worth all you can eat golden corral buffet? I've never posted or shared something online that turned out to be false. I've always told the truth in every situation regarding every person I've ever known. Yes or no?
Commandment 10, you shall not covet. This is, like Paul said, the worst one. Can you say, I've never jealously yearned for other people's success? I've never yearned for their beauty, their talents, their intelligence, their skill, their possessions, their popularity, their income. I've always rejoiced with others in their blessings.
Glad they had them even when I didn't. There's one word that describes my whole life, it's contentment. Yes or no? I don't know about you. But I'm zero for however many we did.
News flash all. If you get a zero on the final exam of the class, you're not going to pass the class. I look into the mirror of the law and I say in despair: if the Lord marks iniquity, who can stand? There's none that are righteous. No, not one, certainly not me.
All have turned aside, including me, maybe most especially me. Together, we've all become unprofitable. There's nobody who does good, not even one. The prophet Jeremiah was right. I have an incurable heart wound.
My heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and all my righteousness, the best of the best of J.D. Greer, is like a filthy rag to God. Friend, how can we hope to come into God's presence? How can we penetrate that barrier to get to God, that God that we long for, that God we know we need, without being struck dead? Coming into God's presence with this wicked heart of mine would be like a piece of tissue paper trying to touch the surface of the sun.
How do I stand before this great and terrible mountain of fire and thunder? Without the holiness of God breaking out to destroy such a sinner. As I, and how in the world could I walk with and know and have a relationship with this God? And y'all, here's the thing, and it's where so many people go wrong.
So many people go wrong. Where religious people go wrong. Merely forcing myself to act right doesn't change my heart at the root level. Just because I've changed my behavior doesn't mean I've changed my desires. Martin Luther talked about the dilemma of the great commandment.
The dilemma Is that in the great commandment, Luther said, God is commanding you something that by definition cannot be commanded? See, if you love something, you don't need a command to do it, right? You never have to commend me to eat a steak, take a nap, or hug my kids. I do all these things naturally. On the other hand, if you don't love something...
Well, no command can change that. I hate manes. I've told you that. It grosses me out, and I do not understand you people who like it. I genuinely don't.
If you put a mayonnaise jar in front of me and you command me to eat a spoonful. I suppose If you're big enough, boy. You could force me to do it. But your command and your forcing will not make me love it. I'll be fighting the gag reflex the entire time.
Martin Luther said the dilemma of the Great Commandment is that if we love God, we don't need to be commanded to love God. And if we don't love God, no command can change that. Thus, the dilemma of the law, Martin Luther said, is what the law requires is freedom from the law. That's the dilemma. The law is commanding us something that, by definition, cannot be commanded.
The law is like the fence I've told you that my granddaddy put up around his pigs. He'd take slop out to feed them, and sometimes he'd take me along as a little boy to go with him. And that slop was the nastiest stuff you could imagine. Basically just rotting food. Just food ought to be in the trash.
But man, those pigs love it.
Now I was a brand brand bunch of little boy. But not one time, not one time in my entire life did my grandfather ever have to say to me, now, JD. I'm going to put the slot down. I'm gonna go grab some. But don't you eat the slot.
Son, I mean it if you eat the slab you're gonna be punished I could sit there. beside that pig slop all day long with no supervision and I would never touch it. Even if granddad gave me permission to scoop out a handful and eat it, I wouldn't touch it. Those pigs, however, Man, if they got a clear path to that slot, they're going to devour it like it's their last meal on earth. If you want to keep pigs away from the slop, you got to restrain them.
See, God doesn't want spiritual pigs in heaven who crave the slop of sin and only stay away from it because they're afraid of punishment. He wants people who Who wouldn't choose sin even if they had the opportunity because they have his heart? Listen, God is not just after obedience. He's after a whole new kind of obedience. An obedience that grows out of desire, an obedience in which you seek God because you crave God.
and obedience in which you practice righteousness because you love righteousness. The law is a mirror revealing our sinful hearts and driving us to see our need for Christ. It's a tutor that brings us to Christ, who alone can change our hearts to desire the things that God desires. That's what the law shows us. And so one day, one day, He came.
One greater than Moses that Moses pointed to. One greater than Moses was born under the law who lived the life that you and I were supposed to live. He kept the law perfectly, not just in his actions, but from his heart. He naturally and instinctively desired whatever the law commanded. But then, but then, strangely, he died under the law's curses like the worst kind of lawbreaker.
He kept up his side of the covenant, even though we'd broken our side. But when it came time for him to produce his copy of the covenant and hold us responsible for our violations of that covenant, he made himself responsible for our violations. And the penalty for our transgression of the barriers of his holiness was placed upon him. And the thunderbolt of God's judgment and the earthquake of God's wrath went into him. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was placed upon him. And then God sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat above where the tablets of the law are kept, so that there would be therefore no condemnation for those of us that are in Christ Jesus. Because very simply, no copy of the covenant can be held against me because Jesus paid not just his side of it, he paid my side of it. He's taken that list of requirements against me and nailed them to his cross. Chapter 20, verse 19, right after Moses gave the Ten Commandments.
Remember, the people said, Hey, you speak to us. Don't let God speak directly to us, or we'll die. You see, already, already the people recognize they can't fully keep this law. They need an intercessor. They need somebody to go between them and God, but Moses can't do that.
Moses is going to have his own sin that's going to keep him out of the promised land, in fact. The intercessor we need would come later. Jesus, the Messiah, born of the Virgin Mary, sinless and perfect. The law is the schoolmaster that brings you to Christ. It teaches you.
Your need for Christ, and then teaches you to love Christ with all your heart, soul, and mind. It's grace that teaches my heart to fear, and then grace my fears relieve only through the law. Only through the law will you ever learn to say, O wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death. Only from the law will we experience those depths of despair that will cause us to then soar to the heights of praise. Because those who are forgiven much, they're the ones who love much.
And those who are deep in the law, the ones who realize how much they've been forgiven of. Only in the law can we truly understand what it meant for God to save us, what it cost Him to bring us out of sinful Egypt on eagle's wings. Only in the law, only in the law will you see that to deliver us, God could not merely just pour out plagues on our enemies, He had to take the curse of those plagues into Himself. Only the law, only the law will make you say from the depths of your heart. What can wash away my sin?
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I hope this teaching has brought you new encouragement, insight, and resolve to do things God's way. You see, here at Summit Life, we believe a life rooted in scripture leads to lasting transformation. That's why this month's featured resource is a brand new set of scripture memory cards, designed to help you reflect on God's word wherever you are.
It's one of the simple ways we are helping listeners go deeper into the gospel every day. Don't miss out on getting your set before the end of the month at jdgreer.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Uh
