The Ten Commandments: #1, No other gods Ray Ortlund 13 September 2011 And God spoke all these

words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:1-3 1. The cultural idol: pluralism The fact of pluralism: growing diversity in race, heritage, language, culture, styles. This is neither good nor bad, necessarily. Some prefer it, others dont. But it is simply a fact in our world today. This pluralism is not our problem. The ideology of pluralism: the widespread feeling that no one can say whats true as opposed to false, whats right as opposed to wrong. The only wrong is calling something wrong. Its okay to do evil; its not okay to call something evil. This pluralism is our problem. To the extent that we have drunk this Kool Aid, and we have, it makes us crazy. For example, 74 percent of Americans strongly agree that there is only one true God, who is holy and perfect, and who created the world and rules it today, while at the same time 64 strongly agree or agree somewhat that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Thats crazy. But it is not new. The OT claimed Israels all: The LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). Gerhard von Rad: This intolerant claim to exclusive worship is unique in the history of religion, for in antiquity [the worship centers] were on easy terms with one another and left devotees a free hand to ensure a blessing for themselves from other gods as well. The same with the New Testament. The NT world was a hodge-podge of many religious opinions and practices. This diversity was politically enforced. Francis Schaeffer: The early Christians were not persecuted because they worshiped Jesus; they were persecuted because they worshiped Jesus only. The cultural idol is a persecuting power, to keep our mouths shut, our faith privatized, our influence neutralized. 2. The personal idols: fear, pride Fear: the doubt in our hearts that Jesus really understands us and will come through for us. So we run off to our own devices, to get our needs met. And the more we doubt and depart from him, we doubt and depart from him still more. Pride: the self-assurance that we know better, that we are pretty good at assessing how things should go in our lives. So we dont place ourselves under the Bible.

The personal idols are a depressing power, never unleashing us to live right out loud and be as prophetic as we want to be. 3. The first commandment: liberation from the idols Dont skip the preamble: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The presupposition of the Ten Commandments is grace. We dont obey the Ten Commandments to get grace but because we have grace in Christ. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. That is the power of grace. The preamble to the Ten Commandments means they are not here to bring us back into slavery but because we have been freed from slavery. Freedom is not doing whatever I feel like doing; freedom is finally being able to do what I never could do before because I never really believed God loves me. The first commandment, You shall have no other gods before me, does four things for us. First, it shows us who God really is. Second, it exposes our sin. Third, it guides us into a new way. Fourth, it predicts what well be forever in eternity. First, who is God? He is our jealous Lover. What would you think of a husband who said to his wife, I dont care who gets into our bed. Just keep the noise down so that I can get my sleep? He takes our idolatries personally, the way a husband would feel about the adulteries of his wife: . . . before me. Did you realize how important your love for Jesus is to Jesus? Second, what is sin? It is not mere rule-breaking; it is a personal insult to Jesus. It is saying, You loser, you dont get me at all. You dont love me. So Im allowing this other thing into my life, to make up for your failure. Whatever we allow to come between our hearts and Jesus is an idol, and it is dishonoring him and defiling us. Who am I in bed with, because I dont believe Jesus loves me that much? Third, how do I need to change? Trusting in Christs all-sufficient love for us wouldnt require one more moment of time in our schedules; everything we already do would be covered with his love and grace and authority and exclusivity. Everything would be before me. Another way of putting it is walking in the light. What needs to be put second in your life, so that he can be first in your life? Fourth, what will all of us be like in eternity? We will be like Jesus, who said, I always do what pleases my Father. In heaven, you will look in the mirror and be able to say that about yourself, even to yourself, with complete confidence that its the truth. You will no longer choose what pleases him. Your heart will transcend choice, you will be so caught up in his glory. Heaven will be eternal and unspoiled communion with God. Dont lose heart. You will soon be there.

The Ten Commandments: #2, No man-made God Ray Ortlund 20 September 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not make for yourself a carved image . . . . You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God. Exodus 20:1-2, 4-6 The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. . . . Left to ourselves, we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get him where we can use him. We want a God we can in some measure control. . . . The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the gods of Greece and Rome, if indeed he is not actually inferior to them in that he is weak and helpless while they at least had power. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, pages 11-12, 16 Everything thats wrong with us is rooted in our wrong concepts of God. It is not only difficult for us to think of him clearly, it is not natural for us to think of him as he really is. The most natural thing in the world is to continue in the easy flow of the idolatries we have always taken for granted. Our very perception of reality can disable us from seeing God truly and joyfully. We modern people tend not even to have the categories with which we can press into who God really is. The dominant thoughtstructures with which we process reality are not biblical but psychotherapeutic and not good psychotherapy at that! Lets go back to the foundations. Lets rethink everything from the ground up, starting with who God is: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Short of that radical clarity, we will baptize our fallacies with a sprinkling of biblical authority and never know why we cant break out of our old patterns. Lets reach for a new vision of God, according to the Bible alone, however much that demands that we change. It says of the early church that awe came upon every soul (Acts 2:43). That is what happens when we sinners start seeing God with new clarity. The first commandment sweeps away our false gods. The second commandment sweeps away our false concepts of the true God. Idolatry is more than false gods; it is also false views of the true God. The second commandment forbids us from representing God as if he were reducible to anything within the created order. He just doesnt fit down inside anything we can see. He is too great for that. And he is jealous for his glory. That is the force of the second commandment. What then are our take-aways from the second commandment? Remember that each of the ten commandments accomplishes four things at once. First, it shows us who God really is. Second, it exposes our sin. Third, it guides us into newness of life. Fourth, it predicts what we will be forever in eternity.

One, who is God? He is transcendent, beyond all visible categories and images, and he is jealous for that glory. In other words, he burns to accomplish his goal. God cares passionately about how we think of him and speak of him and respond to him, and his goal is that we would know him and revere him and trust him and rejoice in him and obey him as the endless God he really is, with no limitations or dark side or anything else we might find disappointing or manipulable. God is spirit (John 4). God has no edges. God explodes our small thoughts of who God should be. We need the Bible every day to correct our thinking about God. As Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories. Only a close and constant study of the Bible can save us from distorting God into something unfair to him and inadequate for our needs. If we want to see God most clearly, Jesus is his ultimate representation (John 1:14, 18; John 10:30; Colossians 1:15). Every other biblical way of thinking about God is clearly traceable to Jesus or it isnt biblical. Two, what is sin? Sin is adding our thoughts onto God rather than receiving from God his own thoughts about himself. Absolutizing anything other than God, emotionally requiring anything in addition to God, needing God to be presented to us according to our preferences, being closed to new but biblical truth about God, feeling uneasy with the biblical grandeur of God and restlessly wishing he would give us more space these heart-impulses are sin. God will not un-God himself for anyone. Not wanting to adjust so that full-strength God can be all that he wants to be in my life that is sin. Three, what is the new path God wants us to walk now? Lets constantly ransack the Bible for new insights into who God really is, and lets consider this journey the thrill of our lives. The Passion Band used to sing, Its all about you, Jesus, and all this is for you, for your glory and your fame; its not about me, as if you should do things my way; you alone are God, and I surrender to your ways. That heart is faith and repentance. Four, what then will we someday become? Rather than imposing our images onto God, we will ourselves miraculously become images of him. When he appears, we shall be like him (1 John 3:3). We will be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). We will bear the likeness of the Man from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49). Even now, we are being renewed in knowledge in the image of our Creator (Colossians 3:10). When his grace through Christ has perfected us, we will not only not misrepresent God, but we will be true and living representations of him. God is jealous to get us there. Questions: Your top-line thoughts? How does this change us for the rest of this week? What would the rest of our lives look like if we didnt have the second commandment?

The Ten Commandments: #3, No empty God-talk Ray Ortlund 27 September 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. Exodus 20:1-2, 7 This commandment speaks to our longing for the reality of God in our lives. God himself longs for that more than we do. He longs for reality with us so intensely, he forbids all empty, cheap, glib, phony, trite, foolish talk about himself in any respect. A literal translation: You will not take up the name of the LORD your God to emptiness. When we speak of God, of the Bible, of the gospel, of the Church, of the sacraments, of anything directly connected with God, we are touching his name, how he has revealed himself and made himself known, how he has identified himself and brought himself graciously within our experience. If we then treat God as if he werent all that he says he is, if we trust anything else as more real and more weighty, if we ignore parts of the Bible, if we put upon God our own meanings, if we redefine God by our own preferences, if we think of him and speak of him according to our own imaginings, rather than let God be all that he says he is, then we treat the real God as if he didnt matter, as if he didnt really exist at all. This is practical atheism. Our thoughts and words shape our experience of reality. Our thoughts and words shape our community. And God has called his Church to be the one community on the face of the earth that knows him truly and perceives him clearly and accepts him fully and reveres him humbly and talks about him really, not emptily. But if we in the Church join with the world in desecrating the name of God on earth, we rob him of the glory due his name and we lose our legitimacy as the people of God in this world. The first three commandments are for glory-thieves like us, who want to repent of the sin of robbing God of his glory for the sake of our own little false glories, and we want to get back to reality with God. Negatively, we repent of ever thinking and speaking and living as if God, the real God, didnt exist. The rest of the third commandment reads, . . . for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Treating the living God as vain and empty and unreal is a life worthy of damnation and hell. Positively, by faith, we embrace God in his full-strength glory in Jesus. We are seeking the reality of God in our lives. We are receiving him humbly for all that he is. We want as much of him as hell give us. Thats why we are here tonight.

How then does the third commandment help us live in reality with God? 1. The commandment shows us more of God. His ancient name Yahweh communicates that he is (Exodus 3). He is reality. We are secondary, derivative, dependent. He just is. And that means there cannot be optional versions of him floating around among us. He is who he is, and he revealed himself most clearly in Jesus. You cant miss him. By contrast, Marduk, the high god of Babylon, had fifty names. Take your pick. In fact, we have a Babylonian prayer that goes like this: May the god whom I do not know be tranquil for me. May the goddess whom I do not know be tranquil for me. Thats like praying, To whom it may concern, or Dear Sir/Madam. Lost people groping for Something out there. But Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 2. What then is the sin of taking up Gods name in vanity or emptiness or unreality? It is doing anything that would trivialize God in any way at all or treat him as theoretical. That includes taking up the name Christian but not living like a real Christian. It includes glib statements like, The Lord led me to do thus and so, when it wasnt the Lord. Or, The Lord has told me to say to you . . . . If the Lord wanted me to know, why didnt he just tell me? Proverbs 30:7-9 says that stealing profanes the name of the Lord, because its acting as if he doesnt care about me. Whenever we settle for a dull religious routine, without pressing by faith into the gospel for renewal, we start treating him as unreal. The third commandment targets much more than swearing, though thats included too. The very name of the movie Oh, God is a sin. 3. How does the third commandment guide us into a better future? It says we can so hurl ourselves at him in faith that we live with the confidence that he is fully real and will be true to every promise he has made. The universe will break down before God will be false to his Word. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 124:8). We may come to him confident that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). With God, we are not wasting our time! 4. What does the third commandment project out as our eternal joy? It describes us forever experiencing and revering God as more real and rewarding than anything else in all our experience. Our knees will bow, and our tongues will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2). We will be swallowed up in his glory, lost in wonder, love and praise. All doubts will evaporate. Never again will God be forgotten, overlooked, ignored, belittled, disrelished. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name (Zechariah 14:9). And that will be heaven.

The Ten Commandments: #4, No treadmill existence Ray Ortlund 4 October 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work . . . . Exodus 20:1-2, 8-11 If someone told you there was a way to glorify and enjoy God, slow down your jam-packed, over-committed pace of life, renew your family and friendships, engage in random acts of kindness, take a deep breath, think about the most worthy and exciting things in the universe all at absolutely no charge, not counting against your number of annual vacation days at work, youd want to know more about it. Well, here it is. Not the Sabbath, but The Lords Day. The fourth commandment is the only one of the ten whose authority today is debated among believers. The authority of all the others is obvious. But even in the time of Jesus, the observation of the Sabbath was a matter of interpretation. The rabbis spun endless rules about how to do the Sabbath. For example, to pluck a blade of grass was a sin, because it was work. To pick up a piece of fruit from the ground was sin, because it was work. A radish could be dipped in salt, but not for too long, since that would risk starting the pickling process. If a lady spilled water on her dress, the rabbis debated whether she could lawfully shake it off or wring it dry. They debated whether you could spit on the ground and rub it with your foot, but they agreed it was okay to spit on rocks. So your righteousness depended on which way you spit! But there was no discussion, that I am aware of, of how to rest assured in the love of God. The Sabbath was made into a tangle of petty rules, so that a man could never relax! Jesus hated this. Earlier, in Isaiahs day, the problem was the opposite. The people of God didnt observe the Sabbath at all. They did business on the Sabbath, they did whatever selfish things they felt like doing on the Sabbath (Isaiah 58). God hated this too. Both the Pharisaical and the commercial abuses of the Sabbath turned a day of joy into a nightmare of misery. Why do we do this, again and again? What keeps happening to us, either way, is that we lose our sense of God. And when we lose our sense of God, we tend to insert in his place a projection of ourselves, whether strict or loose. And we dont do well as our own saviors and lords. Jesus came to fulfill the fourth commandment. He is our Sabbath rest. We drop our frantic works righteousness and trust him and rest in him. One way we show that trust is by taking time off not just to goof off, important as that is but to be refreshed again in him, especially in community with other rest-ers in Jesus. Interruptions will occur from time to time. But our regular pattern of life should build in protected time for worship, prayer, study and community through the only One who said to us, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

1. How does the fourth commandment reveal God to us? One, God works. We see that in Genesis 1, repeated in Exodus 20:11: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Work is not a curse. Its the futility of our work that is the curse. That is, we work and work and work for a lifetime to build, say, a business, and in no time at all, after we die, it disappears from the earth forever. So much in this life is like building a sand castle on the beach, and the waves of time wash it away forever. We feel that about our jobs, in many respects. But our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). And God himself is not ashamed to roll up his sleeves and work hard until the job is done. Two, God stops working. He rested on the seventh day of the creation week and rejoiced in his accomplishment. The Lord rejoices in all his works (Psalm 104:31). The universe sprang into existence effortlessly and ingeniously out of his thoughts, and then he stood back and looked it over and smiled. We too work intelligently and diligently, we get the job done, then we enjoy it and praise the Lord. By the way, the Babylonian calendar was not like the biblical calendar in the Old Testament days. The Babylonians gave the name Sabbattu to the day of the full moon and to the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first and twenty-eighth days of the month. They were not days of blessing. They were days of bad luck, like our Friday the 13th. The biblical Sabbath chases away the ghosts of the pagan worldview and makes it a good day, because God is good, and he wants us to enter into his goodness. And rejoicing in the goodness of God is the best joy of all. 2. How does the fourth commandment confront our sin? It exposes the madness of our frenzied, God-neglecting, soul-starving patterns of life. We live as if we were sustaining ourselves, as if God didnt care. We crowd him out, even while we find time to be busy with lesser things. For what priority do you absolutely clear your schedule? 3. How does the fourth commandment point us toward newness of life in the gospel? The word Remember at the beginning of the commandment is practical. I dont have to remember not to murder, for example. But the fourth commandment is easy to forget. So we have to be intentional about it: Remember. We schedule this. We dont leave time for God to chance. Plan your Saturday so that you dont wake up on Sunday morning caught off-guard, unprepared, scrambling. If we remember to make Jesus a priority in our schedules for one whole year, one day per week, then by one year from today we will have enjoyed 52 days, seven and a half weeks, of paid vacation with Jesus and his people! You kiddin me?!? 4. How does the fourth commandment prophesy our eternity in heaven? Resting in the finished work of Christ on the cross without a care in the world! No stress, no fear, no worries, no exhaustion, no Am I going to get fired?, no unemployment and no overwork, but every day enjoying the Triune God with the energy which will feel like rest. Let us make every effort to enter into that rest (Hebrews 4:11).

The Ten Commandments: #5, Honor your father and your mother Dan Orr 11 October 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Exodus 20:1-2, 12 Many historians believe that a significant shift in American attitudes toward authority took pace during the 1960s. It was the decade of the antiestablishment. Young people were anti-business, anti-government, anti-military, and anti-school. But of all the institutions that came under attack, perhaps the most significant was the family. Annie Gottlieb is one of the many participants who identify the Sixties as the generation that destroyed the American family. She writes, We might not have been able to tear down the state, but the family was closer. We could get our hands on it. And we believed that the family was the foundation of the state, as well as the collective state of mind We truly believed that the family had to be torn apart to free love, which alone could heal the damage done when the atom was split to release energy. And the first step was to tear ourselves free from our parents. The way to destroy a nation is to destroy the family, and the way children can destroy the family is by disobeying their parents.1 Although the 60s were a long time ago (sorry Ray ), this quote accurately describes our culture now. The fifth commandment was given to us for such a time as this. In a time where families (and societies) are falling apart, the fifth commandment instructs us how to build our families (and societies) up! Tonight, were going look at the fifth commandment by asking: 1) what we are commanded to do, 2) why we are commanded to act in such a way, and 3) what we need in order to live this way. 1) What we are commanded to do We are commanded to honor our father and mother (and all authority). The word from which honor is translated from in the Hebrew is Kaved, which means heavy or weighty. It is the word the OT uses for the glory of God, for the weightiness of his divine majesty. To honor ones parents, therefore, is to give
1 Ryken, Philip Graham, and R. Kent Hughes. Exodus: Saved for God's Glory. Wheaton, Ill:

Crossway Books, 2005. 601.

due weight to their position. It is to give them the recognition they deserve for their God-given authority. To honor is to respect, esteem, value and prize fathers and mothers as gifts from God.2 This honor is due to all fathers and mothers, even to those whom have acted in ways that have hurt you. Consider the example given to us by Jonathan and David in regards to Saul (1 Sam. 24). 2) Why we are commanded to honor our father and mother There are many reasons to honor our father and mother, but the reason given in this text is that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Paul reiterates this to the Ephesians by saying, honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land (Eph. 6:2-3). This is not necessarily a promise that you will live to 100 if you obey your parents. Rather, this expression, live long in the land, is a Hebrew phrase for the fullness of Gods blessing. It means to have an abundant life. Therefore, according to Ex. 20:12, the primary reason that we are commanded to honor our father and mother is that we will experience the fullness of Gods blessing if we do.3 3) What we need in order to live this way No one has kept the fifth commandment except for Jesus. From the beginning of his life to the end, he honored his father and mother in everyway. He was the only perfect son. Jesus, the perfect son, paid the penalty for our breaking the fifth commandment. Even more than this, his perfect obedience has been imputed onto us. Thus, everyone who trusts in Jesus has perfect obedience to the fifth commandment, because when Jesus obeyed his parents, he was keeping Gods law on our behalf. To the degree that we see Jesus fulfilling the fifth commandment on our behalf will be able to truly honor our father and mother. Discussion: 1. Your top-line thoughts? 2. What changes do you need to make as a result of the fifth commandment? 3. How does the gospel comfort and strengthen you as it relates to what we have discussed?
2 Ibid, 603. 3 Ibid, 605.

The Ten Commandments: #6, No unsafe places Ray Ortlund 18 October 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not murder. Exodus 20:1-2, 13 God puts sanctity on innocent human life when he says, You shall not murder. God is Right to Life. He tells us to be the same. You shall not murder is a good translation. Thou shalt not kill was too vague. Murder is more accurate. After all, Genesis 9:6 says, Whoever sheds mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God he made man. So God doesnt absolutize all human life; he declares innocent human life worthy of our protection. The Hebrew text is brief: literally, Dont murder! The very fact that there is no direct object after the verb means we shouldnt murder anyone, including ourselves. But the sixth commandment has so much to say. Lets think it through. 1. What does this commandment say about the God who commanded it? The living God values life. The devil is a murderer (John 8:44), and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but life is in Christ (John 1:4). Our names are written in the Book of Life (Philippians 4:3). Throughout eternity we will drink freely from the fountain of the water of life (Revelation 21:6) and eat freely from the tree of life (Revelation 22:2). The God who commands You shall not murder is a life-giving, life-loving, lifeincreasing God. To an angry world drunk with bloodlust, God offers life. 2. What does this commandment say about our sin? Obviously, lets try not to murder anyone this evening. And tomorrow, for that matter. But God is not condemning military action, for example. There is a difference between force and violence. Force operates within the parameters of justice. Force exercises restraint. Violence is heedless of whats right and wrong. So abortion breaks this command. It is violence. And if a woman becomes pregnant through a rape, still, the child should not be penalized. After all, what is it about rape that is so horrible? The stronger one forces his will on the weaker one. How then can a mother turn around and do the same to her child, however unwanted? Political oppression breaks this command. Wars of aggression and slaughter, the robbing of freedoms, governments of totalitarianism and anarchy in the streets these are all lifediminishing human dynamics. Just because something is politically possible doesnt make it morally defensible.

Selfish anger breaks this command (Matthew 5:21-2). Even telling someone, Youre a fool puts the speaker in danger of hell. Hating someone is murder (1 John 3:15). How could it be otherwise? John Calvin wrote, See whether you can be angry against your brother without burning with desire to hurt him. The Old Testament itself said, Do not do anything that endangers your neighbors life (Leviticus 19:16). Every evil act springs from an evil impulse within. We are not nice people making bad decisions now and then; we are evil people proving it. In the sight of God, there is no difference between a ghetto drive-by shooting and a church where people assassinate each others character by gossip. Its only the difference between honest murders and hypocritical murders. Lets not justify ourselves by saying, I have every right to do this to so-and-so. Look what theyve done to me. God calls us to a higher standard. 3. How does this commandment guide us into a better future, newness of life? If you are offering a gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar, first go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24). We obey the sixth commandment not only by not only by not harming anyone socially or financially or professionally, but also by positively seeking happy relationships and life-enriching social conditions. God is calling us to change our personalities, right down to how we walk into a room, so that we are not life-depleting men but life-giving men. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us, By condemning envy, hatred and anger, God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful and friendly to him, to protect him from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies. That costs. Death is at work in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:12). Its worth the cost! Whats happening here on Tuesday nights is so meaningful to us because we are experiencing the sixth commandment. We are learning not to cut off one anothers oxygen by withholding love; we are learning to give life to one another. Some people are so accustomed to a life-depleting environment at church, they cannot imagine what it could mean to stop murdering everyone around. Not murdering one another requires intentionality. And I believe God is calling us men at Immanuel to create a new kind of church manly and life-giving, by making Jesus the center, according to the Good News. 4. What New Covenant promise is implied in this commandment? Look at the way Paul greets people in his letters: Grace to you and peace from God! That is the gospel directly impacting how Paul said Hello to people. God is giving that to us, getting us out of our self-absorption and lifting us into cheerful, loving, brotherly, encouraging relationships worthy of gospel community. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). God is giving it to us now imperfectly, and forever in heaven he will give to us perfect community.

The Ten Commandments: #7, You shall not commit adultery Dan Orr 25 October 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery You shall not commit adultery. Exodus 20:1-2, 14 Prior to the Reformation the church generally regarded sex even within marriage as a necessary evil. Tertullian regarded the extinction of the human race as preferable to procreation. Ambrose said that married couples ought to be ashamed of their sexuality. Augustine was willing to admit that intercourse might be lawful but taught that sexual passion was always a sin. Many priests counseled couples to abstain from sex altogether. The Catholic Church gradually began to prohibit sex on certain holy days, so that by the time of Martin Luther, the list had grown to 183 days a year. (Yikes). Thank God for the Reformation, which began to restore sexual sanity by celebrating the physical act of lovemaking within marriage The Puritan doctrine of sex was a watershed in the cultural history of the West. The Puritans devalued celibacy, glorified compassionate marriage, affirmed married sex as both necessary and pure, established the ideal of wedded romantic love, and exalted the role of the wife. (Thank goodness).4 Sex is Gods idea, and it is good. God told Adam to cleave to his wife so that they could be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28). Sex is not only for procreation for its also for our joy (see Song of Solomon). It is in order to protect this joy that God has given us the seventh commandment: You shall not commit adultery (Exod. 20:14).5 Were going to look at the seventh commandment by asking: 1) what we are commanded to do, 2) why we are commanded to act in such a way, and 3) what we need in order to live this way. 1) What we are commanded to do The Westminster Catechism says, The duties required in the seventh commandment are, chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behaviour; and the preservation of it in ourselves and others; watchfulness over the eyes and all the senses; temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel; marriage by
4 Ryken, Philip Graham, and R. Kent Hughes. Exodus: Saved for God's Glory. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway

Books, 2005. 627.

5 Ibid, 629.

those that have not the gift of continency, conjugal love, and cohabitation; diligent labour in our callings; shunning all occasions of uncleanness and resisting temptations thereunto. In Matthew 5:27-29, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 2) Why we are commanded to not commit adultery a) The reason that adultery is forbidden is not because sex is bad, but because it was designed to be such a powerful force for good. Its like superglue. It seals the bond of matrimony. It is the covenant cement as Tim Keller calls it that helps hold a marriage secure.6 b) Marital faithfulness is meant to display to our wives (and the world) Gods covenant faithfulness to them. Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. c) We are united to Christ. 1 Cor. 6:15 says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 3) What we need in order to live this way In John 8, we see how Jesus responds to people who have broken the seventh commandment. The Pharisees brought to him a woman who had been caught in adultery, and they said, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? Jesus responded, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. After the men had left, Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. In order to live this way, we need to know that we are not condemned for our failure to obey the seventh commandment because Jesus was condemned for us. And, in response to this too good to be true news, Jesus instructs us to go and from now on sin no more.
6 Ibid, 631.

The Ten Commandments: #8, No rip-offs Ray Ortlund 1 November 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not steal. Exodus 20:1-2, 15 Every person has a right to his own possessions. You do not own your things by the gracious permission of the state. If you earned it by honest labor, you own it, because God says you own it. Only real ownership allows you then to be truly generous. But we live in a rip-off world. Stealing is so pervasive in our world we hardly notice its presence. We lock our cars. We guard our personal information. The IRS audits us, because they expect us to be dishonest. How wonderful heaven will be, where the only thought anyone will have is how to share more with the others around. We steal, because we dont feel loved by God. We dont think he will take care of us. We dont think he has been fair to us. We resent others. We pity ourselves. We think, First chance I get Ill return that tool I borrowed from my neighbor, but I just dont have time right now. We think, Ill exaggerate on this expense report, but it wont make any difference to this huge corporation. The gospel enters in with new thoughts of Jesus, who poured out his priceless blood for shabby sinners like us (1 Peter 1:19). 1. How does the eighth commandment show us more of God? The kind of God who would say, You shall not steal, is a generous God. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He is the God who makes us rich! The God who came down to us in Jesus is not a thief; he is a lavish, sacrificial, extravagant Giver. And he wants us to be givers, not takers, like him. The devil whispers to us, as he did to Eve, that God is holding out on us: You think this is the Garden of Eden? Wise up! This is the slum of the universe, and youre going nowhere fast. God is hoarding the good stuff for himself. Dont be fooled! So, which is it? What is the truth about your life and mine? Is God the great Giver, or the great Thief? The miracle of the Holy Spirit is to turn God-haters like us into lovers of God as our resource and provider and treasure. Do you need that miracle in your heart? 2. How does the eighth commandment expose our sin to us more clearly? The eighth commandment confronts us, because we need to be confronted. What does it say to us? That stealing is not simply a violation of another human being; it is an attack on God himself. Whatever you own was given to you by God. If I steal it, I violate God. He established the validity of private property. He has distributed to people whatever

they own. But stealing says, Im going to push God aside and re-order the universe more to my liking. That pride puts oneself in the place of God, which is blasphemy. How might we do this? Falsifying tax returns, refusing to pay debts or paying them late, not returning things weve borrowed, living on welfare when we dont need to, a cheap tip, using software we havent paid for, not giving our best at work and wasting time but taking full-time pay, paying unjustly low wages, stealing someone elses ideas, robbing someone of their reputation or not speaking up when they are being gossiped about, doing anything dishonest that tears at the fabric of trust that holds us all together, and not tithing: Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me in tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8). We might have come to the eighth commandment thinking, Well, at least heres one that doesnt have much to say to me. Really? 3. How does the eighth commandment point us to a better life? Honesty. Being straight-up with one another. Fair dealings. No corner-cutting. Leaving people better off than they were before they met us. He who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work, doing something useful with his hands, that he may have something to share with those in need (Ephesians 4:28). Stealing destroys the soul. It kills our sense of the love of God for us. It eats away at our self-respect and confidence that we can make our own way and accomplish things to be proud of. We end up with isolation and emptiness. But Jesus saves thieves and puts them to work and makes them productive and generous. What a great blessing work is! Lets receive it as from Jesus himself and give it our best every day so that we can make honest money, provide for our families, and give. Each of you should not only look to his own interests but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). Zacchaeus, the converted crook, repaid those he had cheated four-fold (Luke 19:8). The gospel makes selfish people into a blessing to others. We are the alternative to the ugly grasping of this world! 4. How does the eighth commandment prophesy our eternal future? As Jonathan Edwards put it, Heaven is a world of love. How wonderful it will be when, by the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit will have written the eighth commandment so deeply into our hearts that we naturally and joyfully radiate generosity of spirit and complete honesty and no mistrust toward others. In heaven, we will be able to take everyone at face value. No false advertising. No hidden agendas. No manipulative words. Jesus is preparing a place for us in the Fathers house, where there are no locks on the doors. We will mingle in heaven with complete openness and innocence and transparency. All will be respect and trust and giving. No tightwads, no robber barons, no Wall Street protesters peeing on someones front steps, no hot checks, no confiscatory taxes, no security systems, no PIN numbers. Heaven will be friendly to human beings, because heaven is filled with God. And that generous God is preparing us now for that everlasting blessing. Lets lay aside everything that falls short of the highest standards and create here at Immanuel a culture of men who, in the eyes of our watching city, are a living foretaste of this heavenly love, by the grace of God.

The Ten Commandments: #9, No unruly tongues Ray Ortlund 8 November 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Exodus 20:1-2, 16 If there is no such thing as truth, if all we have is different versions of events, different perspectives, different takes on things, then what we say about one another doesnt matter. The words coming out of our mouths arent a question of truth but only outlook. And that makes any comment as valid as any other. If there is no such thing as truth, then there is no such thing as gossip or slander or lying. All we have left is what we want to say, what we feel like venting, and no one is safe any more. How did we get here? Long ago the human race exchanged the truth about God for a lie (Romans 1:25). And if we didnt mind lying about God, we can lie about anything. God is the God of truth (Isaiah 65:16). Jesus said I am the truth (John 14:6). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 16:13). His gospel is the truth (Colossians 1:5). The church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). But the devil is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), sin is deceitful (Hebrews 3:13), and an unruly tongue is set on fire by hell (James 3:6). For all these reasons, we men of God are men of truth. How does the ninth commandment help us to live as men of truth? 1. What the ninth commandment reveals about God God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). It is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18). When God wanted to take an oath, he had to swear by himself because there was nothing greater to swear by, no higher standard to appeal to (Hebrews 6:13-14). Psalm 45 describes the Messiah as riding forth victoriously in the cause of truth (Psalm 45:4). The Bible says, The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver . . . refined seven times (Psalm 12:6). The Bible says, God will judge the peoples by his truth (Psalm 96:13). What we think is not the standard by which God will judge us; what he thinks is the standard. The Bible says that the Lord hates a lying tongue, . . . a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up discord among brothers (Proverbs 6:16-19). Men who believe in this God will respect truth so much they will care about thought, they will care about doctrine, they will care about fairness, they will care about honesty. Such men will consider truth more important than saving face because of who God is. 2. What the ninth commandment says about our sin Something inside us relishes gossip and negative information about someone and the inside scoop. The Bible says, The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels (Proverbs 18:8; 26:22). When we hear bad news about another guy, something inside us

savors it because we are jealous and insecure. A Christian leader once said to me, Some try to pull down a prominent man not because they themselves wish to take his place but because doing so gives them a feeling of power. That is how the Son of God was condemned through false witnesses who twisted his words to bring him down (Matthew 26:61). It is the work of Satan to accuse the brethren (Revelation 12:10). He can hide behind even the feeling of moral fervor in a Christians heart. We must be so careful with our words! Jesus said, I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned (Matthew 12:36-37). At the bottom of our sinful words is pride, wanting to look better than we really are, and fear, that another mans success might diminish my life. This is not walking in the light. 3. What the ninth commandment commands about a better way The Heidelberg Catechism coaches us: I should love truth. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbors good name. God is calling us Immanuel men to make this church safe for sinners, where every mans reputation is respected and advanced. The tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18). Words can be powerful for good. Some of us have come from difficult church situations. Lets not import that previous dysfunction and hurt into Immanuel. You might need to coach your wife about this. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth (Psalm 145:18). That is what Immanuel exists for to be a place where anyone can call out to God with gospel honesty. Lets always stay on that positive path! 4. What the ninth commandment promises about our eternity One, when Gods New Covenant power finally reaches into our innermost core and our hearts are renewed entirely and his law is written on our very personalities, our mouths will flow with his praises and with healing for others. We will feel so secure in the love of Jesus, we will never need to put anyone else down or rehearse their wrongs. We will be too happy to care any more about the dark experiences of this broken world. Two, God will forever bear a true witness about us, his neighbors. He will honor us. He will stand by us. He will right every wrong, expose every slander, defend every reputation. He will call you forward, put his arm around your shoulder, and he will announce to all the redeemed how much he rejoices over you and how much you accomplished for him and how worthy of admiration you are, because you really will be. If you are being criticized for living as a Christian now, dont worry about it. God will beat a true witness about you when it really matters forever. In the meantime, We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with Gods word, but by open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyones conscience in the sight of God (2 Corinthians 4:2).

The Ten Commandments: #10, No restless hearts Ray Ortlund 15 November 2011 And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall not covet . . . anything that is your neighbors. Exodus 20:1-2, 17 This is the law that brought Paul down (Romans 7). He was feeling okay about his obedience to God. He didnt know that true obedience goes deeper than outward, technical compliance. Then this commandment exposed the hidden realities of his heart he himself hadnt even noticed. We too barely know ourselves. This commandment is an unfriendly introduction to the real you and me. It tells us that, not only are we not to dishonor God outwardly or violate one another socially, but even our very hearts are to be still and quiet and happy and contented and at peace before the Lord, no matter what. The verb translated covet means to desire, to take pleasure in, to like. It addresses what we feel inside not how we act, important as that is, but what we feel. And we cant help what we feel. Our feelings come naturally and effortlessly, but that doesnt make our feelings right; it only shows us how deeply weirded-out we are. We dont even have to try to sin. It flows out of us, and it rarely even feels evil. My heart is whatever I want, whatever I feel like moving toward. And my heart does not lie. What I want tells me what I am. I shouldnt look at my exteriority to see myself but at my interiority before God. He wired us with raging desires, so that he could satisfy our hearts with his mighty love. But our hearts are out of whack both hyperactive and dead. Hyperactive: We want too much. We want bad things. We want good things for bad reasons. Our hearts are a jungle of undergrowth out of all control. We can keep up a decent exterior; but inside, moment-by-moment, its another story. Dead: We open up to God reluctantly, incompletely. When God gets too close, our hearts go on alert. What we most desire we also most fear: to be fully known and utterly loved. We want that, but we also fear that, because we know that radical love will reduce us to honesty. 1. What does this commandment say about God? God is desirable. Every other truly desirable person or thing is a faint whisper of what awaits us in God. He made our hearts for himself, the Fountainhead of all satisfaction. God is profound. He sees our hearts more than we do. He knows our every impulse, even before it pops up inside us (Psalm 139). We are not fooling him or surprising him at all. And he loves us too much to settle for surfacy obedience. God is wise. He can change what we want before we want it, without our wanting it. I will change their shame into praise (Zephaniah 3:19). We think things and feel things so evil we scare ourselves. How wonderful that God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

2. What does this commandment say about our sin? The Heidelberg Catechism: That not even the slightest thought or desire contrary to any one of Gods commandments should ever arise in my heart. Rather, with all my heart I should always hate sin and take pleasure in whatever is right. Instead, what do we see? Every kind of covetous desire (Romans 7:8). The Westminster Larger Catechism: . . . discontentment with our own estate, envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor, together with all inordinate emotions and affections toward anything that is his. What might we covet about another man? His job, money, looks, brains, wife and kids, car, house, opportunities, influence, position, education, musical talent, promotions at work, sense of humor, friendships, etc. Our hearts are ungrateful, blaming, resentful, insecure, sulky, grasping, plotting, unhappy, defeated with selfishness. The Israelites murmured and complained their way right out of usefulness to God. And Paul says their story is a warning to us (1 Corinthians 10). At the bottom of it all, the human heart is unhappy with God, even angry. Our hearts are born in attack-mode toward God. The battle of life is won or lost not primarily at the level of intellect and belief but at the level of heart and desire. Heres how unfree our hearts are. Even the awareness that we shouldnt think or feel certain things arouses those very thoughts and feelings! If we have the honesty to watch ourselves closely, we will end up on our knees before God. 3. What does this commandment say about a better way to live? Romans 13:9-10 says the Ten Commandments boil down to this: Love your neighbor as yourself, for love fulfills the law. The generosity of heart called love frees us from craving what God has given to another man. Love frees us to rejoice with that guy. Love calms us into contentment with the life God has assigned us. We even go beyond contentment. We become generous. The righteous give without sparing (Proverbs 21:26). There is more happiness in giving than in receiving (Acts 20:35, JB). How do we get into that happy place? God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all you need, you will abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). We cant explain it, but we know its true: In giving, we receive. God is able to supply us with such inner fullness that we have something to give to all around. 4. What does this commandment prophesy about our future? Jesus said, I am the bread of life (John 6:35), and he will prove it to us forever. He said, The water I give to you will become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14). The Bible says his love is so wide and long and high and deep, we have to pray our way into his vastness (Ephesians 3:14-19). And the longer we live, the more we feel this emotion: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far (Philippians 1:23). To be with him just being with him is far better than every desire in all this world actively fulfilled to the max. And we will be with him. We, the undeserving, will experience forever how satisfying he is to our deepest hearts.