Divine Guidelines: Unpacking the Ten Commandments

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Bible guys, and we want to welcome you here, and today we're actually

jumping into this is another big one. Actually a lot of big things with

Moses, right, this is the ten command He didn't just kind of go

halfway on hardly big stuff. Everything is locked and loaded with Moses, man,

I mean just you know, we have the Passover, which is so

relevant for us, fundamental foundational with Jesus. We have the Party of the

Red Sea, which is just yesterday, and today is the Ten Commandments.

God's top ten lists. Yeah, top ten out of the six hundred and

thirteen. There you go. So we are going to do a segment the

Desiree put together called stump the pastor these are fun yeah, And so this

one comes from Annie R. Hi, Annie, and Annie asks this question,

If according to the Trinity, Jesus is really God, then why does

he refer to God as his father? Nice? This is an act.

This is a great question. And honestly, whether you're a new Christian,

which I would definitely understand why a new Christian would definitely ask that question.

But even if you're a mature Christian, you know, if you've never heard

somebody fully explain the Trinity and just sort of reference it father, son,

holy Spirit, and they just move on, and you've gone to church your

whole life, and nobody's really ever you know, took a delve into it.

You want to you want to try to answer that. Really you said

it all the way up to that point and then didn't give on. Well,

I could answer it, but I think you go ahead, all right,

So here's my response. The response is, there's good answers. We

can understand why you confused. Jeff, go ahead, Jeff and head off.

No. The answer is is that the Trinity is one of the most

complex things I would say conceptually in the Bible. Absolutely, and so what

we did we as a human as humans, is we invented the word trinity.

Nowhere in the Bible, does the word trinity actually appear. There is

a concept in the Bible where Jesus refers to him in being one with the

Father. You know, in the beginning was the Word, and the word

was with God, and the word was God. We find out later on

Jesus was the word capitol. W gave himself the nickname, or God give

him the nickname. It also says that Jesus was actually a part. He

was a part of the creation of the world. It talks about, you

know, Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

You know, the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus

talks about the intrinsic relationship between he and the Holy Spirit, and how the

Holy Spirit interprets us when we pray. We pray, and our prayers are

received and interpreted and translated by the Holy Spirit. So all of these things

we pieced together, and we've come up with the doctrine of the trinity,

which is that that is one God, three persons. It's a triune God,

right, So the trinity is one God, three persons. And it

seems to be that, you know, I was taught anyway in Bible college

that each one seems to play a specific role. So the way I was

taught was and it seems to match up, is that God the Father spoke

primarily in the Old Testament, and that seems to be the age of God,

the Father who spoke aloud. And then the age of the Son.

We see him featured in the gospels. He came on the earth, lived

three and a half years, set course, you know, set everything in

motion. And then we live post church, which is the age of the

Holy Spirit, which means now Jesus says, we have the ability to have

the power of God inside of us, which is a new concept, and

we have the privilege of that. And then the role of the Old Testament

and the Father was God seems to be the one that sets forth his will.

Will. He's the one that has the will. When whenever you hear

about the will of a person's life or the you know, the the direction

is set, it always comes back to the word the Father. Jesus is

sort of like the foreman on the ground. He's the one that comes and

he initiates the work of the Father. He sets in motion the work of

the Father. That seems to be his role. While on earth. And

then the Spirit is the completer of the work. Right, the Holy Spirit

says, he began a good work in you, the power and the completer,

right, Yeah, yeah, definitely the power for sure. And you

know he translates, he completes. Uh. He said the helper. He's

the perfector of the faith. He's the helper. And that seems to be

the Spirit's role in all things. So, you know, why does Jesus

call God the Father? Because apparently that's the dynamic that is set up,

and we don't fully understand it, but we do know that that is what

God says. He very specifically describes himself this way. Yeah. There are

some non traditional groups that are on the fringes of Christianity that reject the idea

of the trinity, and particularly this would be one of the main arguments is

why does Jesus refer to God as the Father and always submitting? Why does

he pray? And so the other side of that is, so there's no

doubt in the New Testament that Paul taught the trinity, right, there's no

doubt that the Trinity shows up in so many places that Jesus baptism at creation

where you see God creating everything. Jesus is the word that creates, and

the Spirit hovers over the earth. I mean, that's the very first few

verses of the Bible. You've got all three persons of the Trinity there.

Paul references multiple times. Was I just just pulled it up here a second

ago? Two Corinthians thirteen. He says, the grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be

with you, all right, So he's very clear here what he's talking about.

It comes up in First Corinthians chapter twelve, Romans chapter eight, Ephesian

chapter four, and we go on different places and he refers to the Trinity.

But when we look at why would Jesus, who is God, pray

to the Father, who is God? It really I think it's because we

misunderstand what prayer is. Right. Prayer is just talking, that's all it

is. And so would it be natural that Jesus would talk to the Father.

Sure, it's perfectly natural, But we tend to make this some kind

of a mystical religious thing as opposed to it's just a natural outflowing of a

relationship. If you have a relationship with somebody, you talk to somebody,

and that's the same thing here, is that Jesus. It really highlights the

intimacy of the relationship that the Trinity has, you know, amongst themselves.

Yeah, and let's not forget that. As hard as unbelievably hard as this

is to understand, uh, try splitting yourself and then uh and then the

part of yourself adding humanity to it, whereas the other part of yourself has

no humanity in it. Right. So it's it's, you know, beyond

our comprehension. But but if if truly God, God's portion of himself,

the Father portion of himself, is the one that sets forth the will,

then it seems natural to me that the other part of himself that isn't the

one right would would pray for the will of the Father. So that's why

Jesus would say, not my will, but yours be done. Yeah.

Yeah, So there's there's an argument here with regard to you keep referring to

God as himself as opposed to themselves. That's exactly right, right, So

careful, So this isn't one God with three different ways of doing things right,

right, It's it's three individuals that make up one God, yeah,

is the doctor of the training. It's hard because because you know, when

we pray, we say thou art right, which is you are right,

which which is singular right. But we're praying to the Father, but we're

praying the Father specifically, and the Father is singular yes. And yet he's

a part of a triune God. So I don't think it's incomprehensible. Quite

honestly, the idea of the Trinity. I think that we can understand the

edges of it, you know, it's it's hard to understand the nuances,

but the big idea, I mean, it's happened in our among humanity.

The Romans had a triumvirate. Three guys were one emperor. They spoke as

one, but they were three emperors, right, So I get that.

I don't know exactly. I don't understand all the intricate details. I can

read about it in Roman history, but I don't understand exactly how it worked.

But it was three emperors were one emperor, and it worked for a

while, right, Well, in this one, then we have three individuals,

the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father, and yet they're

one god. And like you said, they have different roles, and so

they would mutually submit to one another in their different roles and communicate. So

yeah, it's a hey, good question, Anny, And then you know,

just understand that there would be some who would push back against that idea,

but understand that that is not the historical orthodox Christian view over the last

two thousand years. It's pretty fringe. Some of the newer maybe in the

last one hundred and fifty years, two hundred years and then there was a

kind of a subset back more than a thousand years ago of Christians that would

push back against the idea of a trinity. But for the most part,

all of Christianity and the writers of the Bible believed in the trinity, right,

right, for sure? Hey, great question, really good question.

Yeah, and so yeah, stump the pastor that's a that's a good stumping,

good one. Hey, if you're gonna stump somebody ask questions about the

trinity. So that's right, that's right, that's hard. Well, Hey,

we are talking today about the Ten Commandments. So Moses has led the

people across the Red Sea. God does an amazing miracle. Then they start

heading towards sina I. Remember when when Moses ran into God in the bush.

He was Sinai, you're going to come back here, and so this

is a big, a big thing. He goes back to Sinai. So

that's the land of Midian, right, And he would have had to have

originally gone around the Red Sea when he first fled Egypt's right, but he

took a shortcut this time, so he got to SIGNI way quicker. He

could have gone across it in the boat. Oh yeah, you're right,

you could, you know, if you I don't know if he did,

but yeah, if he had a speedboat. Maybe I'm just being contrarian.

So there's a couple of things some people believe. Most I think believe that

Sinai is in the Sinai Peninsula between Egypt and Israel. Others, and there

are some legitimate arguments for the idea that Sinai is actually on the Arabian Peninsula.

So it's it's somewhere there right, somewhere in the Middle East and somewhere

where they can wander for a long time because it kind of stays that way

for a while. Anyways, Moses goes up on the mountain and he's communicating

with God and he's asking for help, and God is saying, hey,

I want you to go and consecrate all this area. He gives them some

basic laws for how to live and how to behave. And then after that

Moses goes back up on the mountain and God gives him these commandments. Right,

and it says he's still on the mountain, he comes down with these

commandments, it says in Exodus chapter twenty, verses one through twenty one,

it says, then God gave the people all these instructions. I am the

Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place

of your slavery. You must not have any other God but ME. You

must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of

anything in the heavens, round the earth, or in the sea. You

must not bow down to them or worship them. For I, the Lord

your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any

other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children, the

entire family, affected, even children in the third and fourth generations of those

who reject me. But I love it, wish unfailing love for a thousand

generations on those who love me and obey my commands. You must not misuse

the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go

unpunished if you misuse his name. Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping

it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but

the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.

On that day, no one in your household may do any work.

This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants,

your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days,

the Lord made the heavens, the earth, and the sea and everything in

them. But on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord

blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy honor your father and mother.

And then you'll live a long, full life in the land the Lord

your God is giving you. You must not murder, You must not commit

adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.

You must not covert your neighbor's house. You must not covert your neighbor's

wife or male or female servant ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to

your neighbor. And when the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of

ramshorn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from

the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear, and they

said to Moses, you speak to us, and we will listen. But

don't let God speak directly to us, or we will die. Don't be

afraid, Moses answered them, for God is coming this way to test you,

and so that your fear of Him will keep you from sinning. As

the people stood in the distance, Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.

That's a sight. Yeah, that is definitely a sight. So this

is a pretty This is a pretty big moment because Moses comes down with the

Tent, the Big ten, the big ten commandments. And many people think

when they refer to the law of the Old Testament, people think it's only

ten. Yeah, but it's more than ten, doesn't it isn't it?

Well, at this point, it's only ten. At this point, it's

only ten. Yeah, but Moses brings down later on a lot more.

But but yeah, the big ten. You know what's so funny is that?

So the first, very first one that says you you should not have

any other God before me. And if you you know, if you've been

around church world for a long time, you understand that we we violate this

all the time. Right. So we don't mean to a lot of times,

but a lot of times, you know, any anything that we put

in the place where only God is reserved to be, then we have a

false God. Right. So so a false God could be a relationship,

a spouse, it could be you know, it could be money, it

could be anything, right, And I think from time to time in our

lives, we we definitely do that. We go in and out where it's

like, ah, you know, God should trump this, you know,

and I'm I'm putting more priority towards this than I am than the Lord.

You know, God should have the final authority. And so whenever I teach

on false idols, uh, sometimes I do this thing where I had everybody

stand up and I say, Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm

gonna read through the tank commandments and when you feel like you violated the ten

commandment, sit down, and so I and so that all the mature Christians

know that they violated number one one hundred million times. So I say,

okay, you should not have any false gods. And it is amazing how

only like twenty percent of the crowd sits down. Have you ever done this?

No? And then you say, okay, you must not make for

yourself any idol, and then of course, you know, nobody sits down.

And then you're like, okay, you must not misuse the name of

the Lord your God or you know, in vain. And then of course,

like half the crowd sits down, right because they've done that. And

then you say, okay, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,

you know. Then a few more sit down, and then what I do

most of the crowd. And then what I do is I say, you

shall honor your father and mother, and then you know, another half the

crowd. But then it's it's pretty amazing. I mean, at this point,

depending on the side of the crowd, you have like twenty to thirty

percent that are still standing. They actually think that they've not violated this right.

And then, because I don't want to point anybody out for adultery,

I always say, okay, how about this one. I'm gonna put the

next I'm gonna lump the next three together. You must not murder, you

must not commit adultery, and you must not steal. Well, then that's

like, you know the rest of the crowd. But then there's always still

these lingerers. And then when you say you must not lie for bear Fall's

testimony, then usually everybody sits down, and I say, well, that's

really funny because it took your eight commandments to sit down. But the reality

is everybody in this room should have sat down on number one. And then

you go into false tidle teaching. So I've done that like probably three times

in my life. Yeah, and it's amazing because you know, the rich

man comes to Jesus and says, what must I do to enter in the

Kingdom of God? And then Jesus says, well, you know the commandments,

keep the commandments and follow me. And then and then the guy says,

in his arrogance, I've done all of this since my youth. And

then Jesus looks at him and he's like, come on, man, right,

and he goes, okay, well, I'll tell you what. Take

everything you have, sell everything, give it all the poor, then follow

me. And then the man walks away disheartened, right, and just took

me back to the first one, right, right, for stuff. Your

stuff is your God, right, right, That's what Jesus was doing,

wasn't. Yeah, that's really great. So it's interesting, you know,

if you want a summary of all the laws of God, Jesus says in

Matthew chapter twenty, just love God with all your heart, soul, mind,

and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself as the second greatest commandment.

Right, It's just like it, and these break into that. The

first half of the commandments are all love God. It's you and God.

The second half the commandments, you know it don't kill people. That starts

to be about loving people, right, And so it really is divided that

way. God really does see your life as two major You have two major

realms. What are you doing with God? What are you doing with people?

Right? Those two sides, And so he breaks it into these,

these these areas. Now, I do believe he expects us to obey them.

And the reason why you know that is because they're terrified of hearing the

voice of God, right, the people, and they're like, hey,

you talk to us, don't like God talk to us anymore. That's too

scary. And Moses said that. I said, don't be afraid, for

God has come this way to test you, and so that your fear of

Him will keep you from sinning. You know, so a lot of times

we talk about the grace of God and the love of God, and God

we make God to be very very cuddly. Read Mount Sinai, and Moses

said, the reason why God's doing this is so that you learn to fear

him, and fearing God is what keeps you from sinning. Most of us

we're happy to indulge in God's grace. As a matter of fact, Paul

multiple times in book Romes has to say, just because grace exists doesn't mean

we should keep sinning. So he keeps saying that's a problem. There's a

problem. If all you talk about is grace and you never acknowledge the justice

of God, then you're going to want to keep indulging in sin because this

is great. You get a free pass, right do you remember did you

ever get a hall pass at school and then abuse the hall pass sneak around?

Oh? Man, I used to do it all the time. Hey,

can I get a haoll pass. I got to go to the bathroom

shirt. Next thing, you know, I'm out talking to my friends,

going all over the place, into the candy machine whatever, right, get

yeah, and uh, you know, all the things besides the hall pass.

And that's a lot of ways that people treat grace sometimes is grace cheap

grace we treat cheaply, right and uh And so here he says, a

healthy fear of God is what keeps you from sinning? Well, the Lord

says, the fear of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all

wisdom. Right, So the healthy fear of God is to understand that,

you know, it's it's fear in the sense to where like, oh,

no, he's gonna is at me, right, But but but it's but

it's not it's not fear of punishment necessarily, although that can come. But

it's it's a it's a fear of violating the source of life like like a

like a fear like is could it not also be a fear of a life

without him? Right? So like I I fear, I fear his judgment,

but at the same time I fear not being a part of his wisdom.

His plan is is blessings. Right, So it's it's it's more than

just like, oh, no, I fear you're going to I would say

that that is a very mature view of a fear of God, and most

most Christians don't get there. Yeah yeah, yeah, right, Well it's

all of this. So so what they're seeing is they're seeing smoke billowing,

lightning, thunder, and they're afraid of the power of God and a fear,

a healthy fear of the power of God in your life, what he

can do, and the fact that, hey, there are significant consequences.

What we didn't read is rate before this. He says, Listen, he

lays out all these things, He concentrates all this stuff. He tells them

to wash their clothes, he tells them to be celibate for a while.

There's lightning and thunder and the cloud and all this stuff, and then he

says, hey, if they go across this boundary, they're gonna die.

Right, So this this very powerful moment, and then there are significant consequences

for breaking what God's setting up. Then he gives these ten commandments and all

of that. They're terrified. Now, man, we're not sure where we

should step. We're not sure what we should do. We're afraid God,

Moses, don't don't let God talk to us anymore. You talk to us.

We're afraid and God's and Moses says, okay, now you have a

healthy fear of God, right, right, and and developing a healthy fear

of God. But if our children grow up and they don't have an understanding

of the power of mom and dad and the consequences that come from mom and

dad, they usually don't fear God either, right, They don't fear authority,

they don't feel And I think that's a significant issue in our culture,

in our society today, that we have people who just don't have any real

fear of authority and don't have any healthy respect. Right. And that all

comes from it starts off with mom and Dad and God. And then if

we have that, then men alive instead of killing somebody, you know,

we will think twice, instead of stealing from somebody, will think twice.

And that's really what God's trying to do, is this is the moral code.

If you can, if you can obey all of these, you can

follow the rest of God's law. Right. All the rest of God's law

falls in here. Most of God's law as you read through the rest of

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All the rest of them are

either about how to worship God right, which is the first half of these,

or how to deal with each other civilly right, take care of each

other's property, not steal from each other, don't kill each other right except

all So when we talk about the six hundred and seventeen other laws, all

of them could be summarized in these six six thirteen, yes, six thirteen.

Yeah, I remember doctor Professor Eli Haru had had us memorized that there

were two hundred and forty eight Thou shots three hundred and sixty five Thou shot

knots to make up six hundred and thirteen precepts. I don't know why memorize.

It's it's in my mind, suff that's in your head that yeah,

it's just one of those things. He was a good teacher, yeah he

was. And but yeah, it's it's a By the way, I've always

laughed at the fact that there was slightly more of Thou shot knots than there

were Thou shots. Well, that's our nature, though we need to be

we always want to know the edges. So Here's what I would say is

an I've done this before, Hey, which one's your favorite one to break?

Right? Because there's nowhere in the Bible where any of these laws are

suspended. I would say for our listeners, most of them, it's the

Sabbath, right, right. A of a lot of our listeners probably have

little statues that they pray to, put little statues on their dashboard. Yeah,

they wear little statues in their necklaces, right, Yeah, they pray

in those situations, and they're they're using other advocates instead of the Father,

right, instead of going through Jesus to the Father. So there's that one.

There's a lot of a lot of people who would have other graven images.

But then the main one I think most Christians blow off is the Sabbath.

And he says, hey, you work six days, you take one

day off. And Jesus said in Matthew, he said the Sabbath was made

to meet the needs of people, not people to meet the requirements of Sabbath.

And so even then Jesus affirms the fact that there's value in the Sabbath.

But it's for you. It's a gift. It's a gift from God

to you. And too often Christians go, oh, God, I don't

have time for your gift. I don't like your gift whatever, And then

they wander around or wander around wondering why they're coming apart physically, why they're

coming apart emotionally, why their relationships are falling apart is because they're just driving,

driving, driving seven days, seven day, seven days. And you

believe you can get more done in seven days than God can get done in

six days. And so that's why we push that way. So I would

encourage, Hey, he doesn't let you off the hook on any of these

and so you need to find a way where you got a twenty four hour

period every seven days where you're taking a break and stepping away from whatever it

is you know. So at Heritage Church, we tell our staff we don't

want you to plow Heritage's field. Right, So I don't know what your

sabbath should be that recharges your batteries and this gift from God, but so

we just say, hey, don't plow heritage just feeld, don't do Heritage

Church work twenty four hours every six days or seven days, right, right?

And I think it's import God didn't let us off the hook, So

go through, figure out which one's your favorite one to blow off, and

then hey, let's address that one this week. That's good. Well,

hey, that is our time. Although there's more to talk about, so

much more, but we just have to end. So hey, hopefully we'll

just pick up again and we'll see you then next time on the Bible, guys,