The Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:1-21

And God spoke all these words:?I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ?You shall have no other gods beforeme.?You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.?You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.??Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.?For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.?Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.?You shall not murder.?You shall not commit adultery.?You shall not steal.You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.You shall not covet your neighbor?s house. You shall not covet your neighbor?s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ?Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.?Moses said to the people, ?Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.?The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

Then Jesus said in Matthew 22 this about the Ten Commandments: ?Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:??Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law??

Jesus replied: ??Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.?This is the first and greatest commandment. ?And the second is like it: ?Love your neighbor as yourself.??All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.?

There are some rules I like and other rules I don?t. For instance, I am not always a fan of following the speed limit. Some people are not fans of the rule to pay taxes. You might have similar things in your life. Where there are rules you like and rules you don?t. Then as parents, we give rules and guidelines to our children. And for the most part, they don?t like them. As children, we resist the rules from our parents and try to do things our own way. Sometimes that worked and other times it didn?t. At some point most of us learn, but not everyone does. The phrase ?live and learn? doesn?t always apply to everyone. Under the category of rules is also the understanding of expectations. When we don?t follow rules or meet expectations, there are consequences. It is my understanding that many of us, and our children, have faced different consequences because of our actions or inaction.In addition, there are times I like details and other times where I don?t like them. Sometimes details are helpful, and sometimes the details keep us away from what could be important in the grander scheme. There are times when we need to rise above the details and look at things from a different perspective. And this is where we land with the Israelites in our story for today. We land in a place of rules, expectations, and details. Seeing these rules, expectations, and details sometimes causes us to struggle with what all this means to us today. I think that is when we are invited to look beyond the details and look into the bigger picture. I invite you to pray with me over the sermon titled ?New Commands and a New Covenant.?

As we continue in The Story, I hope we can remember a little context. These words of Scripture were written during the Exodus, during the time when the people were wandering all those years. These words and stories are how the people remember everything that was happening. Scripture is truly inspired by God, but written by human hands. Sometimes these words are hard to hear, but these words are how the people remember God being. And the words in our Scripture are still alive and integral to our lives. As we read each story in the Bible, there is always a detail that could catch us, but there is a whole story that can change our lives. Throughout this walk through the Bible, we will be looking more at the bigger picture than all the little details. There are some times we can get bogged down in the details of the scripture and forgot about the bigger story. And other times we can just focus on the bigger story and forgot about some of the details. You recall that God?s Upper Story started in a garden. A perfect environment where God could walk and talk and enjoy a relationship with the people created. God made everything available to them except one thing, and they chose this one thing that was forbidden, forever banishing themselves?and us?from the garden. So God took another approach to doing life with the people. God would create a nation and would be revealed through that nation. After preserving the people during a famine and rescuing them from slavery in a foreign land, God was ready to lead the people, through Moses, into another garden. Canaan. The Promised Land.A land gardenlike, flowing with milk and honey. This would be the place where God could build a nation where the power and presence of God would be make known. Where the plan for all people to be in relationship with one another and God would bring them back together.

It is almost as if God is so excited about being with the people again, that God is a little giddy. God is getting ready to meet the people in the Promised Land and walk with them again. Although God hadn?t left the people, worshiping God from a distance was hard for the people. So God wanted to try another approach to forming a relationship with them. God decided to come down and dwell with the people to be with them once again. God will be dwelling, living, and being present with the people again!

But in order to do this, God had some things to figure out and work out with the people. And Moses would be the lucky guy to help God out with helping the Israelites understand. First, God insisted the people live by a set of guidelines. We have all seen how societies can run amuck if there aren?t guidelines in place for how people are to live. And as we read through the scriptures for this week, it happened. So God created the Ten Commandments for the sole purpose of creating a community where everyone got along with each other and God. Pretty simple right? But as I mentioned earlier, not everyone likes rules. Rules get in our way, and we don?t like everyone forcing us to stay within our boundaries other than the ones we set. And the Israelites aren?t any different than we are with this. It is almost like the motto ?I can do whatever I want whenever I want,? was created by the Israelites and continues with us today. But I don?t know about you, but when I just live by my own rules, things don?t always go as well as I think they were going too. In most cases, living by my own rules can get me into more trouble. And this was the case for the Israelites too. God was trying to tell the people, ?I want to be with you, but first you have to learn how to treat each other, which is why I?m giving you these rules.? But when everyone things the rules apply to others and not to themselves, then no one follows them (The Heart of the Story, pg 60-61).

And when we look at the commandments, we know the details of them. The first four commandments connect with how we relate to God. Jesus summarizes these four commandments with ?Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.? Then the rest of the commandments are about how we treat others. Very simple, don?t do anything that would harm or hurt anyone. God wanted a community that has everyone?s best interests at heart. Jesus summarizes these six commandments with ?Love your neighbor as yourself.? Looking past the details of these commandments and looking at the bigger picture, these are designed to create a community where people are treated with respect, where God can return and live with us.

Second, God needed a place to live. So God gave instructions on how to create the space for God to be. This is the tabernacle, meaning ?tent? or ?place of dwelling.? It was a space for God to live, for worship. It was a place that traveled with the people. It was symbolic of God being with the people.? And this is where God would meet the people.

And third, God required a way to restore fellowship between God and the people. This is where the atonement for sins comes out in the process of sacrifices. Making a sacrifice to the Lord is a part the scriptures. Reading through Leviticus is where all the rules on how to offer a sacrifice are laid out.? When the Israelites were in a place of learning what it meant to live within these guidelines from God, they wrote out these guidelines for blood sacrifices to help everyone be on the same page.

With these three approaches to living with the people, God began to do life with the Israelites once again. All the Israelites needed to do now was remember the story of the Exodus and follow and live by God?s rules. That should be a pretty easy task right? Then I think about us now and how Jesus has given these new commandments, based on the Ten Commandments, and wonder how easy those are to follow? As we move forward in our week, it is my prayer that we look at how we are living our lives. Where are our priorities? Where are we willing to grow? How would our lives look different if we looked at these guidelines as ways of allowing God to dwell with us even more?

It is my prayer that as we continue through The Story, where we look at how our story and God?s story intersect, we see how important it is to be in relationship with God and that God?s desire is to dwell with us and in us. It?s a journey of opening ourselves up to God in a way that looks beyond detail and opens us up to authentic relationship. Amen.