Six!

We're working our way through the Ten Commandments and we are now on

commandment number six here that we read from Exodus 20. One of the helpful

frameworks for looking at the Ten Commandments comes to us from just after

the Reformation. So the confession that we subscribe to here as ministers and

elders at St. C's, the Westminster Confession, in the Catechism they explore

every single one of the Ten Commandments and they ask what is forbidden in this

commandment and then what is required. And that's because the reformers and many

people before them saw that in every single one of the Ten Commandments it's

not just telling you what not to do but embedded within that command is also

something that is your duty, what you're being asked by God to do, what you

should live into. And so one command is do not steal and do not steal also means

go and be generous. Don't spend the life of taking instead spend your life

giving. So there's two sides to every single one of the commands and that's

very much the case with the Six Commandment. You shall not murder, you

shall not unjustly kill and the positive side of that is that this command is

really about deeply about us seeing that it's giving us something, it's giving us

a command that tells us look at your relationships. It's talking to us actively

about how we consider and how we deal with the relationships we have in our

lives and how every single one of us have so many relationships that are

always in need of deep treatment, of repair, of reconciliation and that we've

got to be fighting for those relationships. That's the positive side of the Six

Commandment. So let's think about it exactly in that format. What is forbidden

and then what is required and how in the world are we going to do it? Okay so

first what is forbidden? What is forbidden is murder. Let us pray. It's very

simple. Do not murder, right? Some translations say you shall not kill and

that's not very helpful because this is a more specific word than just killing.

It's the word murder and it's got three instances in view across the Old

Testament and they include premeditated murder, murder in the midst of passion,

you know, murder in the midst of sudden anger, rage or extreme negligence that

causes death in some way. So these are the way this particular word in Hebrews

used across the Old Testament. Never used in the case of self-harm or just war,

anything like that. I won't get into any of that tonight but it's got this very

specific reference. Okay fine. We all agree. Don't murder people. Actually

everybody agrees in the modern world with this. So if you look at the first

five commandments like we've been looking at, modern Western people have a

really hard time with the first five commandments. But when you come to

Commandment 6, everybody's okay. Everybody agrees. All the nations are

happy with this for the most part. Part of that is because the modern Western

ethic is singular. It's one thing and that's you can do whatever you want as

long as you do no harm. And so in the first five they don't apply but when

you get to number six, it's obviously a doing harm situation. It's stealing life.

In other words, for modern Western people we think in the language of rights. We

think through the lens of rights, individual rights. And so murder infringes

upon a person's right to live, to life. And so everybody is okay with this.

Murder is clearly harm at stealing life. Yet, let me give you quickly three ways

that this commandment do not murder from the Bible confronts modern people.

Confronts the modern West in particular. The first is that after the

Enlightenment, when we came to the 19th century, the 1800s, Karl Marx was one of

the first among many to say that modern people have the possibility and the

requirement of seeking utopia. And that utopia, a real place, a real society, was

possible. And with that he said that utopia is a time where we reach a social

order where there is complete social harmony with no conflict and no violence.

And he said that that was real, that was possible, that we'd finally in a

post-industrialized age, we wouldn't need religion anymore, instead we could have

utopia. And we could really find that out. Now, two World Wars later, after the

Russian gulag and all sorts of other happenings, it came to 1955. And that

was the age where we said, you know what, that vision of ideological utopia did

not work, and it's not gonna work. But in 1955, a guy by the name of Raymond Aaron

wrote a book called The Opium of the Intellectuals, where he talked about that

and he said this, he said this, he said, ideology is over, it's finished, we've just

passed the World Wars. An imperfect and unjust as the Western society is in many

ways, it has progressed sufficiently so that reforms appear more and more

promising, that one day violence and unpredictable disorder will be gone.

And he said ideology is over and now in the modern West we can now finally get

to the place where we put away violence and we get to, not utopia, no, that was

silly, but something like it. And what he was suggesting is that the same thing

keeps happening to modern people in every single political race, in every

single great political moment, in every single rebirth of a nation, at the end of

every war, at the beginning of every war, at the end of every revolution, somebody

stands up and says, now, now we will get finally to such a state of progress that

we will reach a point where there's no longer a land full of violence, no

longer a land enchanted, engrossed in things like murder. And the Bible comes

along with the statistics and says no. And for a reason that we're going to come

to in just a moment, but let me say this, the current world average, the current

world average of known keyword, known homicides over the last ten years has

held pretty steady at 475,000 per year. So that means that there are 1,300

murders taking place every single day that police across many of the countries

that participate in this actually know about. And that means that we haven't

really progressed, not really, not really. And we're not actually going to. The

second thing that the way this command confronts modern people is that

Peter Singer, he's a bioethicist at Princeton, he's one of the most famous

philosophers in the world. And Peter Singer writes this, he says, there is no

reason to say that human beings have a right to life any more than any animal

does. And he says the reason for that is because you can't say humans have any

inherent worth any more than any other creature that exists. And he says that

because he thinks that worth is not in what we are, but what we can do, our

abilities. And so he says that there are plenty of animals that have more ability

than certain humans. And he says, you can never say that a human's life is worth

anything more. It's all based on ability. He says that's the only way to say it. And

you know why? Because if you don't believe in God, if there is no God, then

anything goes. There's no way to ultimately judge worth, the value of a thing.

And if there is no God, then lots of philosophers have come alongside Peter and

say, you know what, you're right. How can we really, in other words, how can modern,

Western, humanistic society actually say that humans have quote, a right to life?

What exactly is that right? What are you actually believing in when you say that

human life is worth something? It's valuable, it's worth more than anything

else. And so we don't live in a progressive society that's a culture of

life. We live in a society that's a culture of death. And so we don't protect

human life like we think we do from womb to tomb, from abortion to euthanasia.

Now the third way that this command confronts us as modern people, and

this one's very short but the most important, and that's this, that we are

trained in the modern culture we live in to think of human beings as good people

and bad people. You know, there's a qualitative difference. There's the good

people, the respectable citizen, and then there's bad people. And bad people are

the ones that are prone to commit the great things that do not

murder. It's really for them that there's this qualitative distinction that cuts

through human beings between the good and the bad. The Bible comes along, Jesus

Christ comes along in Matthew 5 and says one big thing tonight, and it's simply

this, the lesson, and that's that murder is a problem of the heart. And that's why

we're not progressing out of it. And that there's really no such thing as this

great division, this qualitative distinction between good and bad. He says

that murder is a problem of broken hearts. And you see that in Matthew chapter 5

Matthew 5:21–24

verses 21 to 24. He says it really clearly right at the very beginning. Now he

says, you've heard that it was said to those of old. He's talking about the

Sixth Commandment, but he's talking about it as it's being interpreted through

the rabbinic literature, the rabbis in the first century. And for them, they

would have said, look, if you've never laid your hand upon somebody else in an

act of violence like this, breaking the Sixth Commandment in the most literal way,

you're fine, you're obedient, you've observed it. And Jesus comes and says,

but I say to you, if you are angry with your brother or sister, you are liable to

judgment. And then later we say, well, what judgment he says? It's hell, hellfire.

He takes it all the way to there. And so Jesus comes in and says that immediately,

Calvin said, this is the passage where we learn about murder of the heart.

Well, he gets that from 1 John 3.15. And it becomes even more clear there when John

says, if you hate your brother or sister or neighbor, you've committed murder

against them in your heart. And so we've got to think about how this happens to

really understand what Jesus means here. James chapter one, verses 13 to 15 says

that evil begins, sin begins in the desire and the deepest desire. So it uses

this word in Greek for desire, but it's a word that doesn't just mean things you

want, it means your deepest desires, all the way to the depths of your consciousness.

And then it says, each person is tempted when they're enticed by their own desire

and desire conceives and gives birth to sin through the hands, visibly, outwardly.

And you see the metaphor that's being used? James says that the way this works is

that first you have a deep, deep desire, like unjust anger, hatred towards

somebody, and it grows and it grows and it grows and it conceives. He puts it in

the metaphor of giving birth and eventually it can become birth to

something much more, a sin that comes out through the hands, not just deep down

in the heart. But you see, he's saying that it's all in the same

continuum. The distinction is not qualitative, it's just quantity, it's

just one of degree that murder starts right down at the depths of who we are,

deep down in the heart and it happens when we let anger boil and boil and boil.

So Jesus goes deep here and he says that anger, unjust anger, and hatred,

deep down in the depths of the heart, is murder before the Lord. He takes it all

the way to that extreme. How does this happen? Now here's how it happens. You'll

see in the, we read from the ESV and in verse 22 it says, whoever insults his

brother will be liable to the counsel. Older translations usually say whoever

says rocker will be liable to the counsel. And the reason that they did that

is because rocker is a word that has a powerful and specific meaning. So he's

saying here that it's not just rocker, it doesn't just mean that you've got some

mere concern for somebody. You know, it's not just when you look at your friend,

your brother, your sister, your spouse, and you say you're doing something foolish

and I'm concerned about you and I want what's best for you. That's not rocker.

Rocker is when you turn to your brother, sister, friend, neighbor, spouse, anybody

in your life and you say, you don't say you're doing something foolish, I'm

concerned. You say you're a fool. You say, you know, you're a cretin and there's a

word here in this passage that is the Greek word that stands behind the

English word moron and it's when you say deep down in the heart, you're, you are a

moron. That is what you are, that's who you are. That's what the word rocker means

and the way to think about it is it's like James 1, Matthew 5 is saying that

the human being is like a tree and when you look at that tree you see the

branches furthest extended out and those are like the sins that you see that are

most visible but when you follow the branches to their source you go down,

down, down all the way you see that something's happened all the way at the

root to give birth to the farthest branch that's possible and he's saying

that's where you've got to go to find the source for murder. It's deep down in the

roots, it's all the way down at the bottom and the way it works is that it

starts with unjust anger towards somebody. Maybe you've, you've sinned against

somebody else or they've sinned against you and there's a reason to be angry,

there's a justice in a certain type of anger but what he's talking about

here is when that anger becomes grudge-holding and so you know it starts

when you, when you, you become so frustrated with somebody in your life

they annoy you you know every single time you're around them the eyes

of your, the eyes of your heart are rolling constantly and there's a growing

disdain, there's a growing disdain and eventually it creates an awkwardness

that you can feel and eventually it creates a silence and finally it gets

to the point of separation and that's what he means by the word rocker it's

holding on because of an unjust anger a perpetual annoyance and actually

separating from a human being because you have a real disdain for them deep

down in your heart and you see what Jesus is saying he's saying that thou shall

not murder is ultimately about relationships and he's saying that if

we're not constantly tending to our relationships like a garden they're

going to grow weeds and so anybody who's been married knows that this is one of

the helpful metaphors that if you're not constantly working and working and

working on your marriage then it's going to naturally grow weeds and there

always has to be a pruning and Jesus is saying here thou shall not murder instead

thou shall seek reconciliation and repair in all the relationships in your

life all the time because without an active pursuit of reconciliation and

repair the relationships in our lives are just going to grow weeds that's what

he's saying here now let's move on we look at this and we say wow murder of

the heart this is searching because any act of sulling somebody's reputation of

unjust anger bitterness of grudge holding of saying that person is such a

fool of putting forward the gossip train to push their reputation down a little

bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more every single one of

those provoking acts even if it's quiet even if deep down in the heart Jesus

says that's murder of the heart and you and I say tonight how often do I do that

oh this is this is a search and command then that's exactly Jesus's point

because when you look deep down in the depths of your heart you say how often

do I do this do I struggle with this and Jesus is trying to get Pharisees who

are standing all around and thinking I've never broken the sixth commandment to

realize you break it every day when you when you look at the roots when you look

deep down at the bottom of your heart you've got to be willing to say I'm I

have murder in the heart according to Jesus according to 1st John 3 15 and

that means that the Bible Jesus is inviting us here to realize something

very important and that's it stands against every instinct of modern people

and that's that the line between the most visible unjust behavior the most

visible thing the most visible violent thing that we can think of the line

between that and the simple act of murder in the heart is not one of complete

qualitative distinction instead he's saying it's one of degree it's a

development and he's saying that that's where it begins deep down in the roots

and so Alexander Alexander Solzhenitsyn he was a victim of the evils of the the

gulags the Russian gulags and he wrote a book about it the gulag archipelago and

Alexander later became a Christian and when you read it you expect him at the

very beginning to disparage of course the people that were responsible and he

starts off an introduction very interesting he says you know don't don't

think that I'm going to say that the architects and the actors of the

communist gulag are the epitome of evil and then the rest of us are good he

starts that way and he says no and this is a very famous line that's been

quoted many many times he says no I've learned he says that the line between

good and evil passes through every human heart and if Jesus is right here and he

is we've got to say it passes through my heart it's very searching now what are

we gonna do what is required of us how can we how can we survive secondly

finally first in order to get a solution to this we have to think about just for

a moment why murder is so wrong and we're not told that in Exodus chapter 20 or

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 5 instead you go all the way back to the beginning God tells us

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

why murder is wrong all the way back in Genesis chapter 9 right at the end of

Genesis 9 · chapter mention

the flood and so this is what he says he says you shall not shed another person's

blood because they are the image of God so he says murder is wrong because human

beings are made in the image of God and so that means that life every single

human life is the gift of God and that means no other human is allowed or can

take that away life is a gift of God and it's only up to him to decide when it

starts and when it ends and so he says look out and know that every single

human being is made in God's image is God's image and so that's why human life

is precious and more precious than any other life on the face of the planet and

alright look here's what that means Matthew 5 that means that when we have

disdain for people holding on to grudges it means that we are regarding them as

less than the image of God that's what that's that's got to be the application

that's got to be what Jesus ultimately means but when my anger my anointing my

annoyance my bitterness furthering the sulling of their reputation by gossip

about a person overtakes me and I have deep deep disdain for somebody in my

life I'm regarding that person is less than the image of God and that's why

Peter Singer can come the great philosopher and say you know what human

beings are not any more valuable than animals you can't really say that Peter

says why because he has no doctrine no belief that human beings are made in the

image of God you see the reason murder is wrong is because human beings are made

in the image of God and so if you deny the existence of God you don't have a

justification for why human life is so precious and so valuable and that's

exactly what we learn here in Genesis chapter 9 now the second thing that

Genesis 9 · chapter mention

that's why murder is wrong well then what is required of us now Jesus tells us

Jesus tells us here he says in verse 23 if you're offering a gift at the altar

and you remember there that your brother has something against you he says stop

and go and be reconciled and then come back now you got to think about this in

the context there is only one altar it's in Jerusalem in the first century and

that means that if you live in Galilee or even further you've traveled in the

first century 50 miles you've hitched your wagon you know you've prepared

your family you've gotten all the supplies you needed you've traveled all

the way to the city of Jerusalem it's taken you a long time it's been a big

commitment you could have faced robbery robbery along the road along the way and

now you're there you're finally there you've been preparing all week to offer

your sacrifice and he says now if you're standing there practicing your

religion and somebody has something against you there's real real bitterness

he says leave it and go it's extreme you said I've traveled 50 miles to get

here to the Jerusalem temple and now you're telling me to go and that means

that he's picking up on something from the Old Testament which is that God

perpetually over and over again says to us I desire mercy not sacrifice you know

I care less about your religion and your religious practices than the

condition of your heart and he says if you're holding bitterness and grudge and

disdain he said he's saying you've got to go and seek forgiveness that's what

that's what's required of us that's what he says here go and be reconciled now

when you attach this to Matthew 5 to Matthew 18 here it says if somebody's

got something against you that you need to ask forgiveness for he says go Matthew

18 it says if you have somebody something against somebody else go and be

reconciled and you see that he's saying that it works in both directions if

you're the primary if you're the one that's sinned against somebody he says

go if you've been sinned against he says go he calls the Christian in other

words when you look at the Westminster larger catechism it says that the duty

required of a person obeying the 6th commandment is actively to be a

peacemaker to seek peacemaking now last thing how can we do that I was helped

by Tim Keller's book on forgiveness because he takes this command and works

through a thousand situations many many different instances so it's important to

say that we can't tonight talk about all the nuances all the ways all the big

ways and the little ways that this applies to us because there are all sorts

of situations where a person cannot and should not go find somebody to seek

reconciliation of course that's very true and so I encourage you to read that

book where that's talked about here and there but in a most basic way what

we're being told to do here is two things inner repentance and forgiveness

and then external repentance and forgiveness now internal repentance

and forgiveness is so important and what is it internal repentance internal

repentance is when you've done something against somebody else and you say

before God deep down in your heart without any conditions this is what I

did and I know it was wrong it's sin you know it's not it's not the language of

if I offended this person in some way then I am sorry for it and that's

that's repentance with conditions and it's not repentance instead it's saying

internally what I did I did and it was wrong and even if you were the person

that's been sinned against in some relationship that needs tending he

talks about the attitude of repentance and the attitude of repentance is when

you're you might not be the primary one that's caused this problem between you

but the attitude of repentance is where you still say internally you know I

know that I'm a sinner too and I know deep down in the roots of my heart what

I'm actually capable of and when you look and search and deep down to the roots

you say you know there are things in my life too that I need to repent of and so

that allows you to actually approach a person in a spirit of reconciliation

because you approach them in a way where you see you see what you're capable of

yourself and so that's inner repentance that leads to internal

forgiveness and internal forgiveness happens when you say looking at the

looking at the cross of Jesus Christ I do not need to be repaid for this I'm

willing to swallow the pain to let it die deep down inside of me it hurts it

causes pain because that's what Jesus Christ has done for me that's an internal

forgiveness and you know I'm willing to cast this as far as the east is from the

west now Keller makes the note that this may be enough this may be all you need

to do because for most of us most of the time in most of our relationships we

don't actually need to go seek reconciliation with people all the time

about everything you know he makes the point that we don't we don't want to

nitpick about every single thing that happens amongst us as friends and

spouses and co-workers and colleagues and all sorts of things he says instead

most of the time the way to heal our relationships is actually just very

simple internal repentance internal forgiveness to just let it die right here

it says because most of the time that's enough but sometimes we also are being

called to seek external repentance and external forgiveness and that's when

you realize no you know we've got to actually talk we've actually got to go

and meet and try to seek reconciliation and healing in the midst of this

conflict we need we've got to seek peacemaking let's close the condition

how how can we become people how can we become people that live like this how

can we come become people who can actually look deep down inside and see

who we really are it's very searching this command and then turn and become

peacemakers reconcilers with the people around us in deep deep relationships

and I think the only way that that's possible is if you look deep down in the

heart and realize I know how far sin goes down into me you know we believe in

total depravity here which means that sin has gone down and corrupted every

aspect of who I am in my soul and then realize but the grace of Jesus Christ

goes deeper still in other words sin goes so deep it corrupts us to the to

highest degree and yet the grace of Jesus Christ goes so much deeper it gets

underneath it it heals the roots all the way at the bottom it gets up underneath

the soil of sin and regrows you changes you changes your heart from the very

bottom it gives life to a tree that's dead that's how far the grace of Jesus

goes you know Jesus Christ is the only human being who never had a murderous

thought he's the only human being who never breathed a single word of disdain

he never had unjust anger and more than that he we shall not murder because

human beings are created in the image of God but he is the fullness of that image

he is the image of God in full he came to show us peace we became violent to

him you know he came to teach us the way of reconciliation we murdered him acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 we mentioned it last week Paul looks out at a crowded room in

Jerusalem with lots of people groups to tons of people that were not there at

the crucifixion and he says you use y'all y'all crucified Jesus you put him on

the cross he came to seek peace with his creation and yet we murdered him he was

murdered at our hands and that means that we look at the cross and we see it's

horror and yet we still call it good Friday and how can we and it's because

when Jesus Christ went to the cross you know he was the boy the baby that came

to die he knew what he was doing he came with the full intention to serve us to

all the way to the bottom to be murdered by the people he made and that means that

the cross was so intentional that God the Father received the sacrifice of

Jesus Christ in your behalf and he gives grace to you by the Holy Spirit that

runs so deep it goes all the way to the root it goes all the way to the bottom

and can heal you and can change you it's the place of forgiveness for every

thought of disdain that we've all had towards other people it's the place of

healing now that means and this is true the last word that means we all we all

can ask tonight you know where in my real what relationships in my life need

tending what relationships in my life the weeds need to be pulled up from who do

I need to go to what do I need to repent and forgive internally and then go

perhaps and speak with somebody to heal a wound and a relationship but look

before you do that the only way that that is gonna be lasting and truly

powerful is if you see first the great wound that needs to be healed is you

need to be reconciled to God you know we need to be reconciled with other

people but before that we need to be reconciled to God and you can't be

except he did it Jesus Christ did it the cross of Christ did it he reconciled

you so tonight be reconciled to God by faith and then go and reconcile with the

people in your lives that you need to reconcile with let's pray father teach

us what it means to obey this command all the way to the bottom it's very

searching Lord for us tonight as we consider all the ways deep down in the

heart we've been disdainful and dismissive and unjustly angry and

perpetually annoyed and gossipers seeking to hurt somebody else's reputation

so Lord teach us the path of peace the path of forgiveness by helping us

tonight by the Spirit to know that the cross of Christ heals and forgives

every single one of our deeply deeply simple thoughts protect us Lord from

those sins becoming anything more than that because sometimes they do and so we

ask that you would teach us what it means to obey this commandment in both

directions and we pray this in Christ's name Amen.