Sermon Tone Analysis

Personal intro:

Jamie Stinemetz

Elder

It’s going to be an amazing 5 weeks as we begin this series today, each elder of Exodus preaching over the next 5 weeks.

On a passage that is dangerously familiar.

That might sound a bit dramatic but sometimes the stories, the truths, the verses of scripture become so familiar, so unaffecting that we gloss over them as we read and study.

Our eyes and minds glaze over because we’ve heard this one so many times before.

It’s like the basketball team with mostly Exodus kids I’m coaching this season.

These 6th grade boys are so excited to play like superstars that at practice where do they go on the court to warm up?

Three point line, of course.

Throwing shots up with all their might, and watching it fall woefully short or offline.

And I call them in to begin with a simple right hand layup.

Oh, coach, we've done so many of those we don’t need to do those again….

This is how unaffected by scripture at times, particularly when passages in front of us are so thoroughly repeated that we can’t imagine getting anything more out of them.

Our series these next five weeks can be one of those passages, so I’m excited to dive in, explore, look with fresh eyes and hear from several worthy men how this passage is anything but mundane, ordinary or over-played.

We are talking of course about the 10 commandments from Exodus chapter 20.

Now your mind is instantly filled with images, yes?

Moses, who looks a lot like Charlton Heston for some reason, is holding two enormous gray marble slabs in his hands.

Do we think of the 10 commandments as a rigid demand list of moral codes from God meant to keep Israel, who was always on the verge of sinning, from those very sins.

Do we attach feelings of negativity, condemnation to our thoughts of the 10 commandments?

Most assuredly.

Do we also see what king David saw? Oh how i love your law he says, i put the hope of my life in your law he says, the unfolding of your law gives light he says.

In God 's commands do we find life and love and freedom?

Do we see christ in the law behind above before beneath every word?

My prayer for this series is that our hearts will be trained to see the law as David saw, so let's jump in.

To place ourselves historically remember, Israel has been set free from captivity in Egypt after 430 years of slavery.

They ritualized the first passover meal, they were saved passing through the waters of the Red Sea, they were fed manna from heaven, quail from a sea-bourne wind They were given water to drink from the rock at Horeb. and they have camped in the wilderness of Sinai opposite Mount Sinai.

God has gathered Moses and his people at the foot of the mountain and has spoken these 10 commandments to them by overshadowing the mountain.

We see this in chapters 19 and 20.

What are some things we may not know about this passage?

The 10 commandments aren’t the first place in scripture God speaks 10 things.

In Genesis Chapter 1, 10 times “God said” as he spoke all things into creation.

Likewise these commandments were first spoken by God from the mountain, not written by Moses and later delivered to the Isrealites.

The 10 commandments are never referred to as the 10 “commandments” in Exodus 34 and Deutoronomy 4, the Hebrew for our english commandments, is Dabar—-word.

So better would be to say God’s 10 words.

These ten words, naturally 2 sets of 5, eventually will end up in the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle and the temple.

5 by 5 patterns are all over the tabernacle and temple.

10 lampstands in two rows of 5, 10 tables of showbread in two rows of 5 and 10 water stands in the court of the temple in two rows of 5.

So there are some deeply special things we are beginning to see about the 10 words.

And that’s just the beginning.

I'm excited for this series, excited to see and to show you that God's law like all scripture is living and active.

May it do a work on us over these next 5 weeks.

I think it will be helpful as we introduce this series to view the 10 words through two frames.

Two structural truths that can help us as we look at our passage with more insight and meaning over the next 5 weeks.

First, we’ll use the frame of the incarnational reality of God through his Law.

What do I mean by this?

What do God and Law and incarnation have to do with one another?

Modern theologian Olivier Clement stated it this way, “ Everything exists in an immense movement of incarnation which tends toward Christ and is fulfilled in him - Olivier Clement ”.

What we must come to realize through our time in God’s law is that it is not a transactional treaty from a curmudgeon who likes rules.

Rather, it is the beginning of an intimate relationship that God chooses to reveal himself in a fuller way to his people through the law than he has ever done to this point in history.

God continually and more fully reveals himself throughout scripture until He reached down to us as the incarnate Christ, fully known, completely revealed.

We see this pattern in every facet of life.

This movement towards incarnation, making known what is unknown, a full revelation of what is first not fully revealed..

A man and a woman meet and fall in love.

They don’t just think about their love for one another, they reveal themselves to each other with words, long talks, staring into one another's eyes for hours, they move toward a fuller revelation/ incarnation of their love.

They marry, and as Genesis says, the two become one flesh.

Love between husband and wife is incarnational, it is completed in their union as one flesh.

We will see as we move through the 10 words that even God’s act of giving the law is a movement of incarnation.

A movement towards more fully revealing himself and his character to his people.

Think back to the garden.

God’s most revealing, most tangible, most incarnate movement, is the final act of creation, his crowning glory, mankind.

You see how this moves?

Ultimately then, the Law finds the full and final and true incarnation, completion, fulfillment, in the God Man Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself said, he came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it.

To make it fully and completely all of what it was pointing towards, moving towards, aiming at being.

So the incarnational reality of the Law will be front and center to help frame our view of the 10 words.

What an intense and amazing thought, that if we began at the end of all things where God as father son and spirit are dwelling with his people in the new heavens and the new earth, a relationship fully incarnate ,and we moved backward, a little bit less incarnational as we go, a little less realized, a little more veiled by symbol or type, we’d start with Revelation 21, God dwelling with his people in the new heavens and new earth, Christ as our light; we’d fly past the church at Pentecost, soar thru the gospels and Jesus’ miracles, carry through the years of silence, past the prophets, and make a stop on the mountain of Sinai, then land at the start where God spoke at creation.

This is One immense incarnational movement.

The law is incarnational.

Secondly, we can shape our view of the 10 words, framed with the relational reality of the Law.

The law is relational because for Israel, to know God and to be known by God starts with God's covenantal terms of that relationship.

In the first four commandments we will see how we are to relate to God.

And in the final six, we will see how we are to relate to one another rightly.

The first way we see the relational reality of the Law is as between a Father and his Son.

Think of the 6th,8th, and 9th commandments, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness.

These all sound very proverbial.

Like Solomon when he speaks to his son.

Like I would speak to my sons, we say bear false witness all the time believe me.

And this is especially relevant for Israel at Sinai, because God actually calls Israel his son in Exodus chapter 4:22-23.

In fact all of Israel’s exodus story can be seen in the father-son relationship.

As we just read, Israel, God’s son is in captivity, God wants them free from Pharaoh.

Pharaoh refuses and his ‘first born sons’ suffer the consequences.

God’s son is given instructions for the passover of the angel of death.

The son obeys and is given freedom from slavery.

Shortly the son will sit at the feet of the Father at the foot of Mt Sinai and receive more instructions.

Fathers, we love our sons, do we not?

And sons, we love our fathers, do we not?

And yet apart from Christ and his perfect law of liberty, we cannot restore the inherent brokenness in our relationships.

When we see the law rightly, we see the restorative relational work of the 10 words.

We also see God relate to his people as a bridegroom to his bride.

This relationship of bridegroom and bride highlights the way God always relates to his people, which is by covenant.

A relationship with attendant blessings and curses.

From Psalm 19 to Isaiah 62 God is seen as the bridegroom and Israel his bride.

Adam and Eve entered a covenant relationship with the LORD in the garden, Noah covenanted with God in the new creation after the flood.

Abraham receives a covenant of seed and land, Moses, as we arrive at our current passage receives a covenant of law, of word.

The 10 commandments are covered in covenant language from start to finish, most easily seen in the 7th and 10th.

Do not commit adultery and do not covet the wife of your neighbor.

This frame will be particularly helpful as we look into the first two commandments this morning, as the appearance of the covenantal marriage relationship may seem more subtle at first glance but they will brighten as we look in.

WIth these two frames: the incarnational and relational reality of God and his Law let’s begin a closer look at the 10 commandments.

Starting in verse 1 of Chapter 20, it is written, EXODUS 20:1-2