The Ten Commandments

Transcription

1 The Ten Commandments Sermon Transcript May 29, 2016 My Brother s Keeper Exodus 20:15 This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on May 29, 2016 at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at 1

2 Sermon Text Exodus 20:15 15 You shall not steal. Luke 3: Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 10 And the crowds asked him, What then shall we do? 11 And he answered them, Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? 13 And he said to them, Collect no more than you are authorized to do. 14 Soldiers also asked him, And we, what shall we do? And he said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. Luke 19: He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. 9 And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Ephesians 4: Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ! 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off 2

3 your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. The Ten Commandments Catechism Introduction You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself any idols. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor you father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. Q. What is the eighth commandment? A. The eighth commandment is: You shall not steal. Q. What does the eighth commandment teach us? A. To obtain lawfully the wealth and material well-being of ourselves and others. You shall not steal. Perhaps some of you can remember being taught this 3

4 commandment through a real life incident that happened during your formative years. I had such an incident where I was taught by my mother of some of the far reaching implications of the eighth commandment. I was in Junior High School at the time. I had to stay after school because I played on the basketball team and we had practice after school. When practice was over we all lined up behind a thing called a pay phone. I asked my 22 year old son this week if he ever remembers making a phone call from a pay phone and he has no such memory. So for some of you, let me explain the mechanics of a pay phone. It was a phone, mounted to a wall outside of the school building. It cost a quarter to make a local call. So you took out a quarter, inserted it into the phone and you were then free to make your call. And so I did, asking my mom to come and pick me up from school. When I finished making my call, I hung up the phone. As soon as I hung up the phone, like a slot machine, money began pouring out of the phone. Since I was the one who made the call, I was in the best position to profit from this unexpected windfall. Others behind me also took opportunity to scoop up what my hands could not contain. And off I went, feeling quite excited about my new found wealth. I got in the car and I couldn t wait to tell my mom what had just happened. (No one ever accused me of being very bright!!) As you can imagine, as soon as I told her what had happened, she informed me that I would have to take the money back and return it to the school office. But why? What ever happened to finders keepers, losers weepers? That was the creed we always lived by out on the playground. It is not like I stole it. It just happened to come my way! It was a matter of destiny! But my mom would have none of it, and was quick to teach me that it was not my money but it was money that belonged to the phone company and to keep it would be equivalent to stealing. Stealing? It is true. Technically, stealing is to appropriate someone else s property unlawlfully. 1 The malfunction in the phone did not constitute a gift from the phone company. And so somewhat reluctantly, I took the money back to the school office the next day. About a week later, I received a nice letter from the phone company praising me for being such a honest young man. Little did they know that this good deed was done in protest, but a good lesson was learned. This childhood incident provides a good introduction to this commandment because it reminds us that the sin of stealing comes in many forms. But it is not just the form of stealing that I am interested in considering this morning. There is an attitude, an outlook on life, that needs to be considered when talking about this commandment. Jerry Bridges suggests that there are three attitudes we can take towards possessions. The first says, What is yours is mine, I ll take it. This is the attitude of the thief. The 4

5 second says, What s mine is mine, I ll keep it. Since we are selfish by nature, this is the attitude most people have most of the time. The third attitude the godly attitude says, What is mine is God s, I ll share it. 2 This simple statement reminds us that this commandment is not just telling us what not to do. But it is also helping us to understand that the opposite of stealing is not simply that we keep our hands to ourselves. Rather, the opposite of stealing is giving. That is the point Paul is making in Ephesians 4:28, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. This morning I want to first look at the many ways we can be guilty of breaking the eighth commandment, you shall not steal. Then I want to get to the heart of the matter and consider how we view people and our possessions. And then, I want to end by looking at how Jesus changes our outlook on life and frees us to live a life of generosity. You shall not steal. Stealing: Let Me Count the Ways When we think about breaking this commandment, we often think of obvious examples of stealing. Perhaps shoplifting readily comes to mind. According to statistics from 2010, shoplifting cost retailers $13.7 billion. That cost gets passed down to the average consumer to cover the loss to the retailor and the cost for added security. The added cost to you and me is over $400 a year. 3 Or perhaps this commandment conjures up images of someone walking into a bank and holding up a teller at gunpoint and demanding that money be handed over. But to limit this commandment in such a way causes us to miss the many ways we actually steal. Martin Luther expands our understanding of how this commandment is broken by defining it this way. Stealing is taking advantage of our neighbor in any sort of dealing that results in loss to him. Luther went on to conclude that the breaking of this commandment is so pervasive that if we look at mankind in all of its conditions, it is nothing but a vast, wide stable full of great thieves. 4 Stealing is a problem that plagues both the poor and the rich. Perhaps we can understand the motivation of the poor when it comes to stealing. But it is not just the poor who steal. White collar crime is a serious problem in our culture. Whether it is deceptive accounting practices, insider trading or Ponzi schemes, multi-billion dollar companies have been destroyed as a result. Consequently, innocent investors have lost wealth and good hard working people have lost their jobs. 5

6 Employees steal from employers all the time. When someone lies about a sick day or pads the time sheet or fudges on the expense account, they are stealing from the company. Perhaps the most common form of theft in the workplace is failing to put in a full day s work. But employers can steal as well by not offering a fair wage or by fudging on a contract or by downsizing to the point where corporate profits are all that matter and those left behind are being asked to do their job plus the job of those laid off. Citizens steal from the government by not claiming as income what is received under the table or by making false claims for disability. At the same time, you could say that government steals from the people by the way public money is wasted and by a growing deficit that is passed down to the next generation. Consumers are also guilty of stealing by the way some buy on credit with no means of being able to make good on their debt. At that same time, interest rates of 20% on credit card debt, make it difficult for someone to get out of debt and get back on a solid footing. Through these brief examples, I just want you to see how this commandment is broken at every level of society and we are all guilty of it. Philip Ryken observes, The trouble is that when it comes to stealing, nearly everyone is doing it. Yet, according to the Barna Report from nearly 90% of evangelical Christians claim that they never break the eighth commandment. This statistic is hardly encouraging. What is shows is that Christians have forgotten what stealing really means. The truth is that theft is pervasive at every level of American society, and like everyone else, we are all in on the take. 5 So can we look at the two thieves crucified next to Jesus and humbly take our place with them? When it comes to breaking this commandment, we are all guilty of it many times over and every single day. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, we play the role of thief. But it is not just the action I want to address this morning through this commandment. There is something that resides in the heart that drives our actions. There is an attitude that needs to be identified and addressed as we seek to live out God s purposes for us. Am I My Brother s Keeper? As I think of the attitude that often pervades the heart of man, I think of the story that emerges from Genesis 4. It is the story of the first murder, the story of Cain and Abel. Jealous of his brother and God s acceptance of Abel s offering, while out in some remote field, Cain was overcome with anger and he killed his brother. When confronted by God, God asked Cain, Where is Abel your brother? Trying to hide his guilt, he 6

7 responds with no remorse by saying I do not know, am I my brother s keeper? That is an interesting question. Am I my brother s keeper? It is actually a rhetorical question. By definition, a rhetorical question is a question that really doesn t need an answer. That is because the answer is obvious to the one asking the question. An example of a common rhetorical question would be, Is the Pope Catholic? When you ask that question, you know what the answer is. But here is the interesting thing about Cain s rhetorical question. He had the wrong answer. Not only did he not express remorse like David did when he was confronted with his sin of adultery and the killing of Bathsheba s husband to cover up his tracks; but by asking this question, he was claiming that he had no responsibility for his brother. Allen Ross, in his commentary on Genesis says, In all probability, the answer to Cain s question should be yes. If a nation or family is to survive, the people must be responsible for the well-being of another. 6 I think Cain thought the answer to his question was a decisive no. Do you know what David Brooks calls that attitude? He calls it the problem of the Big Me! It is an attitude that pervades our culture. In observing our culture, he writes about the need for something he calls the humility shift. He writes, We live in the culture of the Big Me. The meritocracy wants you to promote yourself. Social Media wants you to broadcast a highlight reel of your life. Your parents and teachers are always telling you how wonderful you are. But then he observes that the people he really admires are the people who are honest about their weaknesses and they have identified their core sin. He actually wrote that in the NY Times! Often the core sin is identified as selfishness. So here is the humility shift that takes place in such people, They have achieved a profound humility, which has best been defined as an intense selfawareness from a position of other-centeredness. 7 In other words, they would answer Cain s rhetorical question with the obvious answer, Yes, I am my brother s keeper. But is this not the point of the whole second half of the Ten Commandments? We have already seen how these six commandments tell us what our duty is to our fellow man. Henry Grunwald was the managing editor of TIME Magazine at the close of the 20th century. In 1992 he wrote an article as he anticipated the coming turn of the century. The article was called The Year 2000: Is It the End Or Just the Beginning? In the article he laments how humanism and secularism failed us. And he wondered if there would be a new turning to God and to faith in the new millennium. Do you know what he called for in his article? He said, we need a new sense of drive, less emphasis on rights and more on responsibility in short, we must create a new psychological climate. 8 He was actually calling for a return to God because he felt our view of man 7

8 was directly tied to our view of God. Is this not what the Ten Commandments tell us? These ten statements are not a listing of our rights! They are a listing of our responsibility and duty to God and our fellow man. And so when it comes to this sin of stealing, I need a new psychological climate to govern my heart. My concern is not just the letter of the law and making sure that I am not unlawfully taking from someone else. Rather, this commandment is now an issue of stewardship that recognizes that all I have belongs to God and I am to use what I have for the good of others. The opposite of stealing is generosity. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. The Change that Comes with Jesus So how do I get there? How do I get to a lifestyle of generosity? How do I go from being focused on the Big Me to being focused on others? How do I go from being concerned about my rights to being more concerned about my responsibility to care for my fellow man? How do I go from seeing the eighth commandment as simply telling me what not to do to seeing it as something that moves me towards a lifestyle of giving? The answer is found in Jesus. Here is what comes up over and over again in Scripture. The bi-product of a life that has encountered Jesus, is that it moves us in this very direction. Jesus leads us to a life of generosity. Let me offer you a few examples from Scripture. In Luke 3, when John the Baptist is preparing the way for the coming of Jesus, he is heard calling the people of Israel to repent. But repentance doesn t just mean that I am sorry for what I have done. Rather, it involves a change in direction. So he says to them, Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. When the crowd asks him to give examples of the fruit of repentance, listen to his examples. Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, Collect no more than you are authorized to do. Soldiers also asked him, And we, what shall we do? And he said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. You can see the eighth commandment all over this passage. When Christ comes into our lives, we are to stop using the system to take advantage of others for our own benefit and we are to use what we have to help the one in need. I think of the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. He is introduced to us as a chief tax 8

9 collector. That means he was at the top of the food chain and he got his cut from the other tax collectors working for him. Jericho was known for being a place where major tolls were levied on goods passing through the area. Working on behalf of the Roman authorities, these tax collectors were despised by their own countrymen because they would often work the system to their own advantage. Consequently, the text tells us that he was rich. One day, Jesus was passing through town and out of the crowd he picked one person to visit, Zacchaeus. The crowd murmured against the thought that Jesus would seek to be entertained by such a scoundrel. But this encounter with Jesus changed the life of this tax collector. I am intrigued by how the text described the change Jesus brought to his life. Zacchaeus gives his own personal testimony when he says, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. The Heidelberg Catechism captures the essence of this change that Jesus brings into our lives when it comes to this commandment. The question is, What does God require of you (positively) in this commandment? The answer goes like this: That I do whatever I can for my neighbor s good, that I treat him as I would like others to treat me, and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need. There are two things that contribute to this change in our lives. First of all, when we begin to move towards a generous lifestyle, we are simply following in the footsteps of Jesus. This is the point Luke makes at the end of the story about Zacchaeus. The concluding statement reads like this, For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. Jesus sought us. Jesus moved towards us. When he was crucified, he was numbered among transgressors, namely two thieves. Philip Ryken puts it this way, there were really three thieves on the cross that day: two who died for their own crimes and one who took our sins upon himself. He took the sin that belongs to us and died for us. And so we are told in Philippians 2 that we are to have the very same attitude that was in Christ Jesus. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God... emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant. he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Secondly, in Ephesians 4, we discover like last week that the change begins with a change in thinking. Here the old man - the person we were before Christ came into our lives - 9

10 is described as having faulty thinking. Paul describes our thinking with phrases like, the futility of their minds... darkened in their understanding... the ignorance that is in them. But when Christ comes into our lives, he talks about the way you learned Christ... you were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus... renewed in the spirit of your mind. This is what leads to the filling of the Spirit and the change we have already referred to in Ephesians 4:28, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. So this new thinking tells us that everything we have belongs to God and that we are stewards of what God has given us. A steward is someone who takes care of someone else s property. Therefore we are to use what we have to serve God and to serve others. What is Mine is God s, I ll Share It. By way of application, let me just mention three places where we live out this commandment. Good hard work and caring for the needs of our families: As Christians, we ought to have the best work ethic as we seek to earn our living and provide for our families. With the fifth and seventh commandments, we have already discovered the primary calling of the family, and so this commandment adds to that calling by being faithful and taking care of the needs of our families. Watching my children become young adults who are in a position to now meet their needs has been one of the most satisfying experiences in my life. That is what we train them to do and as parents we make a lot of sacrifices to meet the basic needs of our children. But that is one way we keep this commandment and live a life of generosity. Giving of our offerings to God: When we give of our offerings to the work of the church and the furthering of the work of the kingdom of God, we are making eternal investment and we are practicing a lifestyle of generosity. In Malachi 3, God accuses the people of Israel of robbing God. In essence, you can steal from God by not supporting the work of the furthering of the ministry of the gospel through the local church. He even challenges the people to put him to the test. He says, put me to the test. If you live a lifestyle of giving to God, you will see how God provides. Put him to the test. Giving to the one in need: There are so many opportunities to care for the needs around us and to invest in people. We can do with our possessions, our money and our time. Down through the years of the church, the constant testimony of God s people has been 10

11 one of caring for the one in need. Whether it be education, health needs, monetary needs, employment, the dying, the most vulnerable... You name it. The constant testimony from the church is that we are our brother s keeper. Prayerfully evaluate where that is on display in your life and pray that collectively as a church we could continually be compelled to cross the bridge through acts of mercy. By God s grace, may we grow in grace and may this mantra be our way of life: What is mine is God s, I ll share it. 1 Philip Ryken Exodus (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) Jerry Bridges The Disciplines of Grace: God s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994) 88 3 Parija Kavilanz Thieves will cost you $423 at the mall this year Oct. 19, Martin Luther quoted in Michael Horton The Law of Perfect Freedom (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993) Ryken Allen P. Ross Genesis: Creation and Blessing (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996) 7 David Brooks The Moral Bucket List NY Times Op-Ed April 11, Henry Grunwald The Year 2000:Is It the End Or Just the Beginning? TIME, 30 March 1992, 74 9 Ryken, 652 by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved 11

12 Sermon Title: My Brother s Keeper Sermon Text: Exodus 20:15 Sermon Date: May 29, 2016 Getting To Know Me Questions 1. Do you have any childhood memories of being taught not to steal because of taking something you weren t supposed to? Share what you remember with your group. 2. Spend some time as a group reciting the Ten Commandments together and rehearsing the Q & A catechism for this week. Open with a time of prayer. Reflecting on the eighth commandment and the catechism for this week, what do you want to thank God for? What do you want to confess? What do you want to ask God to help you with in living out this commandment? 3. Share what you learned about the eighth commandment this week. Diving Into The Word 4. As a group, come up with at least ten examples of how the eighth commandment is broken. In looking at your list, what are some of the subtle ways this commandment is broken. In examining this list, where do you feel most prone to stumble in this area? 5. Read Genesis 4:1-10. Reflect on Cain s rhetorical question, Am I my brother s keeper? How would you answer that question? Why do you feel that way? Discuss how the Ten Commandments help inform your answer. How does this change your outlook on life? How does this move you to being more concerned about your responsibilities than being concerned about your rights? 6. Read Luke 3:8-14 and 19:1-10. Take time to make observations from these two passages. How does the eighth commandment show up in these two stories? Share what this tells us about our own life in Christ. 7. Read Ephesians 4: Break this reading into two parts. Start with Ephesians 4:17-24 and discuss what this passage says about the mind and our way of thinking before Christ as compared to after Christ. Discuss what role the mind plays in living out our faith. Now read Ephesians 4: How many statements in this passage can you connect to the Ten Commandments? What do you learn from Ephesians 4:28? Taking It Home 8. How can you apply this statement - What is mine is God s. Share it! 9. What is one thing resonating with you from your conversation? 12