Great Failure, Greater Hope

Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. Greer talks about the Ten Commandments. You see, you were created for God to have the first place in your heart.

Has that been true? These laws, these ten laws don't change you. Obeying them don't change you.

They just reveal how messed up your heart actually is. God's not after you coercing your behavior and earning your way into heaven. God wants people who obey Him because they love Him. Welcome back to a new week of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You know, many people think of the Bible as just a big thick book of rules and regulations. Thou shall do this and thou shall not do that. And the Old Testament tends to be especially intimidating, even for believers, because it seems to be full of impossible standards we can never live up to. Well, today Pastor J.D.

explains the true purpose behind all of God's standards in an encouraging message from our series called The Whole Story. J.D. originally preached this sermon on Easter Sunday, so you'll definitely sense the gospel urgency in this message that he titled Great Failure, Greater Hope. Late one evening, two men sat alone together in a bar in downtown Detroit, and one of them looked at the other one and said, Are you from around here? And the guy said, Yep, I grew up right here in Detroit.

And the other guy said, Well, that's amazing. He said, I grew up right here in Detroit also. He said, What year did you graduate high school? He said, I graduated in 1993.

He said, Well, that's pretty amazing. I graduated from high school in 1993. What high school was it? He said, I went to Luther High School. He said, Well, I went to Luther High School.

I graduated 1993. He said, What part of the city did you live in? He said, I lived over in the southeastern part of Detroit.

He said, I lived in the southeastern part of Detroit. What street did you live on? God said, I lived on Washington Avenue. He said, I lived on Washington Avenue in southeastern Detroit, graduated in 1993 from Luther High School. What house did you live in on that street? I lived in 2314 on Washington.. I lived in 2314 Washington Avenue.

Washington Avenue. Well just that moment the the phone rang and the bartender answered and it was his wife and he said yeah it's getting ready to close down not much going on the only people here are the Johnson twins and they're drunk again. So I share that with you because you don't have to be drunk to know this weekend that you and I have a lot in common. We literally this weekend have people here from all over the map as it relates to faith. There are a lot of Christians this weekend whom for them this is literally the biggest Sunday of the year. These are the people who have on their light green Easter tuxedos or their pink Easter dresses with their matching bonnet. They got the nine inch study Bible under their arm.

It looks like a lunch box. When they whipped in the parking lot this morning you can hear them blasting out the k-love. They got a bumper sticker that says something like be an organ donor. You give your heart to Jesus.

When they smile they got this little little gleam in their teeth. There are those people here. These are the kinds of people by the way who this morning did not give their kids a chocolate bunny. They got them a chocolate cross with a little sash on it that says no bunny loves you like Jesus or be hoppy in God or something to that effect. So there are some of you like that that that this is the biggest Sunday of the year.

There are others of you for whom this is the only Sunday a year that you come to church and then we have others for whom this is literally the first time you've ever stepped foot in a church. You are the ones that are sweating a little bit right now because you're wondering what's going to happen. Why did all these people have their hands in the air? Were they waving at somebody?

Are they trying to give Jesus a high-five? What is going on? They look at you look at me right now and you think are you the snake guy? Are you about to pull the snakes out? What's gonna go down here?

So we have people literally all over the map this morning but we still have a lot in common even with that and that is that we all ask basic questions. All of us whether we're religious or not we ask basic questions like is there a God and if so what does he really want? What does he really want or what happens after we die? Can we know what happens after we die and how do we get prepared for that? Does God consider me to be a good person?

People want to know that. Does God think of me as a good person and if not what do I need to do to become a good person in his eyes? The place we're going to look at in Scripture today answers those questions probably better than any other place in the Bible. It's one of the most recognized passages in the Bible Exodus chapter 20.

It's the story when God gives to the people of Israel the Ten Commandments. Some of you say well Exodus 20 I was really hoping to hear about the resurrection today. You will. You will.

I promise. In fact this passage is going to explain to you why the resurrection is necessary. It's not just important that you know that he rose.

You got to understand why he rose for you to know what the significance is and so we're gonna do that. In many ways today it'll feel like they say the way that Rembrandt painted his paintings. There was a lot of dark.

That's the way he started just so he could paint a few lines of light but the dark really made the light stand out and that's what we're gonna do. So let's walk through this. Exodus 19 is where we're gonna begin. One chapter back from Exodus 20. The giving of the Ten Commandments began like this verse 10. And the Lord said to Moses tell the people to wash their garments be ready for the third day and 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 this mountain where God is going to descend and he's going to say take care not to go up into the mountain or even touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountains shall be put to death whether beast or man he shall not live.

I want you if you can to try to imagine this scene. 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. Mysterious trumpet blast. Nobody knew where it came from it just kept getting louder and louder so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought out the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The whole mountain looked like it was was ablaze. The smoke of that mountain went up like the smoke of a furnace.

Can you imagine this? The whole mountain trembled greatly and as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder Moses on the people's behalf called out to God and God answered him in thunder. Imagine you're there on the plane in front of that or in that valley before that mountain on that day. You are terrified because literally the mountain is on fire. It is shaking. There's a trumpet sound that is splitting your ears. Your kids are terrified and you want to comfort them but you can't because you feel terrified.

You're holding tightly to them because you know if one of them breaks loose and runs up toward that mountain or even one of your pets does that then they are going to be killed. The message that is given in Exodus 19 is clear. God's majesty, His holiness is an awesome and terrifying reality. It is nothing to be trifled with and it is out of this scene in Exodus 19 that God gives the Ten Commandments. Ten things God says Leviticus 18 5, if you do these if you do these you shall live before me but if you cross this line if you disobey these things you will die.

You say well that sounds harsh. I understand that but at least consider this that is consistent with every other picture we see in the Bible of God's holiness. In the book of Numbers we're gonna find the story of a man who collects sticks on the Sabbath contrary to the law that God had just given. God had told them this is what I want you to do in the Sabbath and the man went out did something that we would consider to be morally innocuous.

He picked up some sticks. How bad is that? So the congregation brings him before God and says what are we supposed to do with this man who violated the law and God says stone him for one small infraction of the law. In the Garden of Eden it was one bite from a forbidden fruit that brought condemnation on the entire human race.

You ever thought about that? All the disease, all the suffering, all the pain, all the natural disasters, hell itself came from one bite of a forbidden fruit. In Genesis 19 there's a man named Lot who God tells he and his wife to flee a certain place and not to look back and she turns around and with one glance looks back at the city God has told her to get out of and she has turned into a pillar of salt.

She loses her life for one wayward glance. In second Samuel we see a man named Uzzah who reaches out his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant. It was it was being pulled by a couple of oxen and one of the oxen tripped and the cart that the Ark was on began to to stagger, began to sway and and he thought it was gonna fall so he just reached out and and touched it to steady it which was forbidden by God for them to touch that Ark and God struck that man dead. For one touch God struck him dead.

I know you hear that some of you say well that's just Old Testament stuff. God was mean and cranky in the Old Testament and then he comes back as Jesus like God 2.0. You know Jesus meek and mild.

He's all gentle. In the New Testament we find the story of a man named a man and his wife named Ananias and Sapphira who exaggerate the amount they put into an offering one Sunday. I mean they gave really generously but they just exaggerated it because they wanted to look good in front of other people and the Holy Spirit struck them dead which is never good for church growth by the way. People being struck dead in the middle of the offering.

They've been to a lot of church growth conferences. Nobody's ever brought this one up as the way to grow your church but God's holiness, his purity, his goodness is absolute and perfect and those who would enter his presence cannot do so with any sin in their hearts. The prophet Habakkuk said it this way, God is of such purity that he cannot even look at evil. Y'all we think that our sin is not that bad because we have a very human centered view of sin but you measure the wickedness of a deed in part at least by whom the deed is committed against. If you get mad and you kick a wall in your house repeatedly. Right well that might be a sin of frustration.

You probably need to repair the wall but it's not that bad of a thing. But if you get mad and kick a dog repeatedly then you've done a genuinely bad deed. If you kick the lady next to you in the grocery store line then you're probably going to go to jail.

If you strut into Buckingham Palace and roundhouse the Queen of England it's gonna be worse than just going to jail the little guys with the fuzzy hats are gonna come in with sticks and beat you senseless. Our sin becomes more wicked based on who the sin is against. Our sin is infinitely wicked because it is against an infinitely righteous and glorious God. So it is in light of that that I want you to read through these Ten Commandments. Have you ever asked yourself how you measure up to these commandments? They say that ninety-two percent of Americans can't even name them all. Right and and you say well that's a tragedy that's not the point is not having to memorize the point is how did these show what's going on in your heart?

What do they reveal about your heart? Because this is we were supposed to obey all these things just instinctively. We didn't need to be commanded to do these things they were supposed to be the natural response of who we are. So that's the question how do you measure up? Here's what I want you to do if you're taking notes. I want you to make yourself two little columns like a W column, a win column, and a loss column. And I'm gonna walk you through these commandments give you a short explanation of what they mean and then if you feel like you have consistently kept this commandment throughout your life and you give yourself a W and if you feel like you have it you give yourself a loss.

And let's just keep score if you don't have something to take notes on just do it in your mind. Now here we go number one commandment one you shall have no other gods before me. Can you say can you say I've never put anything before God in my life?

Nothing's ever got in the place of God. He's always been preeminent in my thoughts, in my affections, and my actions. In other words the thing that I've always gotten most excited about in life are him and his word.

I've always gotten more excited about my relationship with him than I have a new romance or a new job or a new possession. Would you say that is a win or a loss for you? Have you consistently kept that one or not? Here's number two you shall have no carved images of me. This commandment is about reshaping God according to your liking. Believing wrong things about God because you would prefer God to be a different way. Have you consistently and always refused to do that? Believing fully everything that God's word reveals about him without wishing that God were different or trying to change it into what you want God to be. Is that a yes or a no?

Is that a win or a loss? Here's number three commandment three you shall not take my name in vain. This has to do with more than just not saying GD. It has to do with how highly we regard the name of God. Can you say I've not only if I never used God's name as a swear word I've always held God's name in the highest respect.

I've always represented that name well. Never for example calling myself a follower of his yet not obeying him fully. I've always fully and completely lived up to the name Christian.

Is that a win or a loss for you? Here's commandment number four remember the Sabbath. This has to do with giving God fully what belongs to him. In Scripture God tells us that there's a portion of what he gives to us that we are to automatically give back to him. As it relates to time it's one day a Sabbath day. As it relates to money it's a first fruits or we usually say 10% of what God gave to us. Can you say that you have consistently given to God all that was due to him specifically remembering to set apart one day weekly to worship him with others?

Is that a yes or a no? Commandment five honor your parents. Honor your parents. This has to do with how you relate to the authorities in your life because see your parents are the first representation of the authority of God to you. Scholars point out that the commandment to honor your parent father mother is the fifth commandment which means it comes right in the middle. The first four commandments are about our relationship to God. The last five commandments about our relationship to other people.

This commandment about honoring your parents is the hinge commandment because it bridges God and man because the first representation of the authority of God in our lives is our parents. So the question is how did you relate to the authority of God? The bigger question is how have you related to all the God appointed authorities in your life throughout your life? Can you say I never disobeyed or dishonored my parents or any others in authority over me. I consistently respected them and gave them honor and willing obedience.

I've done this with every God appointed authority in my life whether that's a government official, my boss, the local police, those who write the traffic laws or whomever. What do you think yes or no? If you're a kid right now look at your parents and they're just going like this.

They're going no that's a big ol' L for you. By the way kids that's same on their list too. Number six you shall not kill. You're like finally one in the W column and Jesus came along and he messed that up because Jesus said that to hate somebody in your heart or to desire their harm is to commit murder in your heart.

So here's the question can you not only say I've never murdered anybody can you say I've never had hateful thoughts or taken the slightest pleasure in seeing harm or misfortune happen to another human being? Commandment seven you shall not commit adultery. So I think I'm good on this one too because I'm not even married. Jesus messed that one up because he said to think even lustful thoughts about somebody to whom you're not married is committing adultery in your heart which is what God sees of course. Can you say I've never entertained thoughts about physical intimacy with someone to whom I'm not married?

Is that a yes or a no? How about commandment eight you shall not steal. Can you say I've never taken anything that doesn't belong to me? I've never taken credit I don't deserve. I've never taken anything. I've never fudged my numbers.

Alright we're coming up on April 15th. So I mean I just changed a few numbers. Government waste all my money anyway. Plus I didn't even vote for the people that are in office right now.

I don't like them. I need this money more than they do and I'll do a better job with my money anyway so I'll just keep a little bit of it even though God has put them as an authority in my life. Can you say I've always refused to enjoy anything that I just wasn't entitled to? I'm not trying to make light of this but you remember Napster when that came out and remember how we were all like hey everybody's music is now for free. Then somebody came along and they're like actually no it's stealing. We're like no no it's sharing. See right there it says file sharing and mom taught me that sharing is caring.

So it's a good deed that I'm trying to do here. But deep down we knew it wasn't free. We knew it wasn't free.

We did it anyway. Hadn't your life been filled with those kind of things of it's not is it right it's just can I get away with it? Have you always given fully to others what they were entitled to? Never defrauding your employer for example by using company time to check Facebook or watch YouTube or things like that. Can you say I've always been completely truthful and fair in all of my dealings?

Is that yes or no? Commandment 9 you shall not lie. I shouldn't even have to go over this one but can you say I've never lied, never exaggerated, never slandered another person. I've never exaggerated the truth for my own benefit. I've never covered over one of my mistakes. I've always told the truth in every situation regarding every person I've ever known.

Is that a yes or a no? I've heard people say well I don't lie per se I just sometimes struggle with telling the truth. I'm not sure you don't lie no no just struggle with telling the truth like right now right right I'm not telling the truth right now. Here's why I struggle with telling the truth. I want to exaggerate my accomplishments to make myself look more awesome than I am and I want to minimize my failures so that there's no reason that you have to disrespect or make fun of me. So the reason that I lie is because I value other people's opinions more highly than I value God's opinion which is not only a violation of the ninth commandment in the lie it's a violation of the first commandment in that I love your opinion more than God's.

So not only do I get an L in the lying column I get a double whammy a double deduction in column number one it's like I break them all at the same time. Commandment number 10 you shall not covet. This is probably the worst one. Can you say I've never been greedy for something that wasn't mine. I've never been jealous of the abilities the looks the position or the possessions of others. I've always been fully content in just what I have. Y'all I'm pretty sure the entire HGTV network is built on coveting. It's it's like cribs for people with with tools and a little bit of disposable income that's how I I see that at least on MTV's cribs I know I could never afford that that's just not my world HGTV is here's all the things your house could be if your husband was a little bit more handy and if you just chosen more wisely in your marriage can you say I've never resented other people's success never resented the house they lived in the opportunities they have their beauty their talents their possessions the way their body looks their popularity their husband their wife whomever I've always rejoiced with others in their blessings even being glad when they had it and I didn't that consistently yes or no be honest with yourself what are you what's your score I'm 0 for 10 folks if you get zero and the only exam in a class do you really think you're gonna pass that class now remember the setup for this chapter across the border one time one sin and you die do you see why Paul says we are dead in our sins obedience to these laws was supposed to come naturally to us our hearts were supposed to love God so much that we naturally did all these things I don't need to be commanded to do the things that I love that you never need to command me to eat a steak or take a nap or hug my kids or kiss my wife I do those things without commands because I love those things we weren't supposed to need to be commanded to do any of this there was one man in Jesus's life who had the audacity to say to Jesus after Jesus walked through a list like this the man said oh yeah yeah all these I've kept since my youth up he was what we call a Pharisee here's why I said that Pharisees were professional do-gooders they built a career on doing good they developed this thing they called the hedge around the law the hedge around the law think of like that like a hedge that you would put around a hole that you don't want to fall into so they were so concerned with not disobeying the commandments that they made a bunch of other commandments to keep them away from the commandments that God had given that was the hedge around the law if you grew up in a house with really strict rules you can probably relate to this and in the world I grew up in cussing was so bad that you couldn't even say a word that sounded like a cuss word so we couldn't say darn it or golly or gee whiz or dadgummit we couldn't go see g-rated movies at the theater because when we were at the theater we might be tempted to see an r-rated movie or maybe even worse somebody else would see us at the theater wouldn't know we were going to the g-rated movie they would think we were going to our movie then we would influence them to see the r-rated movie they would see it then it'll be our fault I'm kid you not that was a line of reasoning that was used we could not make out with girls because it might lead to dancing right we had all these rules this guy said not only not only I keep all the rules I kept all the rules that kept me away from breaking the rules so Jesus looks at this guy he says all right one thing that you like go so everything that you have and give it away to the poor and follow me the man couldn't do it is he loved his possessions too much Jesus's point was not hey there's one more bonus one I forgot to tell you about Jesus's point was to turn it away from actions that you took into a heart and how you felt about God he was trying to put the focus on what this guy's heart loved the most and he was saying that the essence of the commandments is that your heart loves and priorities God above everything has that always been true in your life you see you were created for God to have the first place in your heart has that been true these laws these ten laws don't change you obey them don't change you they just reveal how messed up your heart actually is God's not after you coercing your behavior and earning your way into heaven God wants people who obey him because they love what do you love most what do the Ten Commandments reveal about your heart you're listening to summit life with JD Greer we're so excited to have you along with us for this study as we walk through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation remember you can always find all of our teaching free of charge at JD Greer comm the Word of God is part of the two-way communication that we have with our Father we read and we know him through Scripture but the truth is communicating with him can be a struggle sometimes we don't think prayer will make a difference or we rely on ourselves or we're just too busy and even if we do pray regularly it can feel more like a duty than a delight in his newest book just ask pastor JD shows us how prayer was a non-negotiable daily staple in Jesus's life more essential to him than eating or sleeping and therefore it's why we need to pray as well he shows us how we can enjoy the same source of power as our Lord and the early church when we learn to just ask and depend on our Heavenly Father as they did in his introduction to the book pastor JD says prayer is not a religious task to accomplish it's an invitation to lay down your burdens at Jesus's feet to share your heart with him and to be the one in whose presence is the fullness of joy and at whose right hand our pleasures forevermore giving specific practical tips for growing in prayer and everyday life this book leaves readers wanting to pray rather than just feeling that they ought to be one of the very first to have a copy of this new resource when you give $25 or more to support this ministry we'll send you a copy of just ask as our way of saying thanks you can also request the book when you make your first donation as a member of our monthly gospel partner family gospel partners commit to regular giving and in a real sense they're the backbone of this ministry if you've been growing through this program diving deeper into the gospel message with us why not join the team today give us a call at eight six six three three five fifty two twenty and remember to just ask for pastor JD's new book titled just ask I'm Molly Vitovich why does the Bible give us so many rules and regulations pastor JD answers that question as he further describes the purpose of these Old Testament instructions learn more about the Ten Commandments Tuesday on summit life with JD Greer and sponsored by JD Greer ministries