To Our Children & Our Children's Children, October 19, 2014

To Our Children and our Children’s Children

Deuteronomy 4:1, 6-10, 2 Timothy 1:1-7

Stewardship Sunday

October 19, 2014

Grace Presbyterian Church

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Miller

 

Welcome This morning I invited a special group of people to worship with us so that we could show them our thanks for their great contributions to the life of Grace Presbyterian Church. As I read their names I would like them to stand.

Mr. and Mrs. Claude Z. Aubuchon, Mr. and Mrs. Zeno Aubuchon, Miss Cora Aubuchon, Miss Maybell Aubuchon, Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Balsiger, Mrs. Mae Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. L. V. Black, W. Warren Bradley, Mr. and Mrs. R. M. Conley, Edward D. Danks., Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Danks, Mr. and Mrs. William Dorsey, Mrs. Henry Edmonds, Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Fast, D. G. Hill, Mr. and Mrs. William Hewitt, Buell Hewitt, William Hewitt, Jr., Wallace Hewitt, Ethel Holdinghaus, Mr. and Mrs. P. P. Marshall, Mr. and Mrs. G. Z. Minton, Mrs. Jesse Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Ray, Mr. and Mrs. August G. Reitler, Mrs. J. Terry, and Mrs. Charles Welsh.  Also the Rev. W. O. Davis.

 No One Stood Up That’s funny. None of the folks I named stood up. Oh, wait a minute. I think I know why. These men and women were the forty charter members of Grace Presbyterian Church when it was first organized on May 26,1926. Even though they aren’t sitting in our pews, in a way, each of them is with us this morning. After all, if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here worshiping. If it weren’t for them, we’d have no music. If it weren’t for them, we’d have no building. If it weren’t for them, we might be Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Baptists!

Give Thanks to Saints of the Past  But the fact is that we are Presbyterians. And we are here worshiping in this beautiful building because of those forty charter members of 1926.  And thus it is most appropriate that we give our deepest thanks not only to them, but to all the men and women who have ministered in this congregation over the past 88 years. For the teachers who taught, the musicians who sang and played, for the deacons and elders who served, for the Bible study leaders, ushers and worship leaders, for the cooks, bakers, apple butter makers, building and lawn maintainers, and for all the hugs, laughter and expressions of love that echo through these hallowed halls of Grace.

In the same way, each of us here this morning is called to do the same for our children and for our children’s children who will follow us here at Grace in the years to come.

Cathedrals  Fourteen years ago, I visited some of the great cathedrals in Europe. Many of them took over 500 years to build. The stone masons, who built the first foundation, spread the mortar and guided massive stones into trenches that were twenty-five feet deep, had to make sure the foundation was laid plumb and level. If it were the slightest bit out of kilter, the walls and spires that later generations were to build would tilt and lean. Finishing a cathedral to the glory of God depended upon each generation trusting the other. Those who laid the foundation had to trust the future builders to continue what they started. And those who built walls, flying buttresses and spires had to trust that those who had preceded them had left them work that was true and solid.

Grace Presbyterian like a cathedral  In a way, Grace Presbyterian is like those cathedrals. Our ministries today rest on the shoulders of all the saints that have gone before us. Each day, we are building on the foundations of faith which they and many others have left us as a part of their legacy.  Their past faithfulness sustains and enriches our lives today.

As it says in Deuteronomy, We build on foundations we did not lay, We warm ourselves by fires we did not light, We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant, We drink from wells we did not dig. [see Deuteronomy 6:11]

Paul  Paul put it this way in his letter to Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” [2 Timothy 1:5]  From Lois, to daughter Eunice, to grandson Timothy. This transmission of faith down through the generations is being repeated again and again right here at Grace.

Any Descendants of Charter Members?  Are any of you a child or grandchild of any of the charter members I named earlier? Were any of you married here? Any baptized here? Any have Celebrations of Life for departed loved ones here? Any confirmed here? Would you please stand? Actually, all of us could stand because we all are the children and the children’s children of those forty charter members for each of us is reaping the benefits of their labors.

As Isaiah wrote, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.”   [Isaiah 51:1-2]   

We Are the Saints  Yes, we are in great debt to the saints of the past. But now we are the saints of the church. We are the workers in the vineyard - the teachers, and singers, and youth workers. We are the deacons and elders. We are the ones passing on our faith in our homes.  We labor in the vineyard of our Lord with the hope and expectation that our children and our children’s children, will have a place to worship, marry, baptize, and bury 88 years from now. And the reason we’re here is due to those who went before us.

 

Challenge  I am challenging us this morning to invest our faith, values, time, talents and money to ensure that our children and our children’s children have a solid foundation of faith and this beautiful place to worship God.  Our children and children’s children are the greatest reasons we have for investing our time in the church. They are the most important reasons for investing our talents in the church. And they are the most vital reasons for us to invest our money in the church. We cannot pay back those who have gone before us - all we can do is say thanks and pay forward. We may never live to realize the return on our investment. However, it can and will be a return which multiplies itself down through the years ten fold, a hundred fold, and even a thousand fold.

So here’s where we’re at  With me as just a supply preacher, we’re breaking even financially each month. But when you call your next pastor, your budget will increase by $35,000 a year. That’s $96 a day increase in our expenses. The good news is that we’ve got the money to pay for that increase. The bad news is that it’s still in your pockets. So all we have to do is transfer it from your pockets to the church. The fact is that if I were a candidate to be your pastor, the first thing I would look at was your financial pledges for this coming year. If I saw that you were going to be $35,000 in debt, I’d look elsewhere.

So is there any one here who would be willing to donate $35,000 to the church this morning? Please raise your hand. Hmmm. Didn’t see any hands go up. That means it’s up to all of us working together to make it happen. That’s where it becomes doable. It comes out to $1.13 a day increase by each of our 85 giving units. I know. That comes out to $412.45 a year increase. For some of you, that may not be possible. Thus, for those of you blessed by God financially, you will need to increase your giving for our children and children’s children by $1,000 a year or more.

 

Pledge Cards this week  As Bill mentioned earlier, this coming week you will receive                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        your 2015 pledge card. I expect that we will get 100% of you pledging knowing that every single one of you believes in pledging whole heartedly. I say this because you pledge to pay the rent or mortgage, you pledge to pay electric, gas, and phone bills. You pledge to make car payments. You pledge to pay on your credit card each month.  And you pledge to pay your taxes each year. As you fill out your pledge card, remember:

You are pledging so that your children will have a place in which to worship.

You are pledging so that your children’s children will have faith foundations upon which to build their lives.

You are pledging so that your children’s grandchildren will be instructed in the Christian faith.

You are pledging so that all future generations will have a place in which they can marry, baptize, receive communion, and worship to the glory of God.

We’ll Be the Saints  I leave you with this thought. One day we will be the saints of Grace from whom our labors rest. Eighty-eight years from now, the members of Grace Presbyterian will be gathered for worship in this sanctuary giving praise and thanks for you, the saints of the past, who loved Jesus so much you wanted to make sure this grand outpost of God’s Kingdom was vibrant and healthy and continued as such through the years. Remember, the Church of Jesus Christ is always but one generation away from extinction.  We must pass the torch of salvation and redemption on to those who follow. Amen.

Deuteronomy 4:1, 6-10  NRSV

Moses learns that he will not have the privilege of leading his people into the Promised Land and that Joshua will do that instead. So Moses takes this opportunity to give some final directions to his people.

“So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!"   For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?   And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?   But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children--how you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, "Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children to do so"
2 Timothy 1:1-7 NRSV

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Idols Of The Mind, Sept. 28, 2014

Idols of the Mind

The First and Second Commandments

Isaiah 44:9-17, Acts 17:22-25

September 28, 2014

Grace Presbyterian Church

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Miller

 

Review  Last Sunday we directed our attention upon the background and meaning of the Ten Commandments and found, much to our delight, that these commandment were, and are today, gifts and blessings from God. Why? Because they are expressions of God’s love and his desire to protect us. They are guides for out pathway through life.

This morning  This morning, we’re going to look more closely at the first and second commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” Theses two are quite similar and often combined.

Idols in Biblical Times  To understand these two commandments more clearly, we must remember that in biblical times, it was very common for the people to worship many gods. There could be gods of the harvest, gods to protect, gods of fertility, gods of war, and gods of healing.  And since human beings like to worship a god they can see and feel, idols were created out of such elements as wood, gold, silver or bronze. And God is jealous simply because our worship, praise, honor and greatest love rightly belong to God and no one else for only God is truly worthy of it.

Moses  One example of idol worship took place with Moses and the Israelites. After 430 years of slavery, Moses led them to freedom and across the wilderness to Mt. Sinai. Upon arrival, Moses ascended the mountain to talk with God. The Israelites waited for him to return, but the days and weeks went by and no Moses.

They got tired of waiting and asked Joshua to make them a god they could worship. So Joshua took all the gold from the bracelets, earrings and jewelry of the people, melted it down, and fashioned the gold into a golden calf. The golden calf was the god Apis, the same god the Egyptians worshiped while they were in bondage for over 400 years. When Joshua finished the calf, the people rejoiced and bowed down to it. They had a god familiar to them that they could see, touch, and worship.

Meanwhile, God had given Moses the Ten Commandments written on two tablets of stone. When he returned from the mountain carrying the commandments, he saw them bowing down to the golden calf and was furious!   to seeing the Israelites worshipping the Apis, the golden calf? He threw the tablets on the ground breaking them in pieces. He then grabbed the golden calf, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made the Israelites drink it. By so doing, he demonstrated vividly their golden calf could do nothing to save itself.

Isaiah The worthlessness and impotence of idols was illustrated the prophet Isaiah to tell of a man who split a piece of wood in half. With one half he made a fire to warm himself and cook his meal. With the other half, he carved a wooden image of a god. However, his little wooden god couldn’t do a thing. It just sat there staring into space, incapable of movement. It had to be dusted like furniture. If it fell over, he had to set it back up. Yet the man bowed down to this piece of wood morning and night. And if his home was threatened by fire or enemies, he had to save his god by carrying it to safety. [Isaiah 44:9-20]

St. Boniface and Wotan  Worshiping idols continued through the years. An example occurred in the year 724 when Saint Boniface was preaching the gospel to the Germans. He found some who were worshiping a huge oak tree in a clearing. They would pray to the tree, bow down to the tree, and do everything they could to protect the tree. They even gave it a name - Wotan the Tree God. Nothing Boniface could preach swayed their minds. So Boniface decided to demonstrate how worthless their worship of this tree was. He took an axe and simply chopped the tree down. The Germans did nothing to stop him for they were sure that Wotan would strike Boniface dead.

When nothing happened, and Boniface was unharmed, they listened to the Gospel and became Christians.

The worthlessness of idols is spelled out by the prophet Habakkuk when he wrote: "Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, 'Come to life!' Or to lifeless stone, 'Wake up!' Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him." [Habakkuk 2:18-20]

Paul  Our New Testament scripture for the morning tells of the time when Paul was in Athens. One day he took a walk around the city and saw one shrine after another, each containing an idol of a different god before which people would bow and pray. He noticed that one of their idols was labeled “To an unknown god.” So he said to the people,  ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Notice his psychology. He first of all compliments them on being very religious. Everyone likes to hear something like that. Then he says that the God of creation who is Lord of all does not live in shrines or is he served by human hands since he needs nothing.

Idols of our Minds  Now since none of us go home from worship and bow down before idols of wood, plaster or gold, we’re off the hook, right? We’ve escaped the first two commandments and now all we have to worry about are eight instead of ten! Now if this was true, I now could say “Amen” and go into the morning prayer. But of course, you know I’m not going to do that, right?

That being the case, let’s look at a different kind of idol - not fashioned out of gold, silver or wood, but rather fashioned in our minds. One man introduces this concept in this way: “What other gods could we have besides the Lord? Plenty. For Israel there were the Canaanite Baals, those jolly nature gods whose worship was a rampage of gluttony, drunkenness, and ritual prostitution. For us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach (an unholy trinity constituting one god: self), and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position, whose worship is described as "The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). Football, the Firm, and Family are also gods for some. Indeed the list of other gods is endless, for anything that anyone allows to run his life becomes his god and the claimants for this prerogative are legion. In the matter of life's basic loyalty, temptation is a many-headed monster.” [James Packer, Your Father Loves You , Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986].

Martin Luther Martin Luther put it this way. “Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior.”

Augustine said, “Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped.”

Love God More  So where does that leave us? It’s really very clear. Anything or anyone that we allow to rule our life becomes our god. If it is God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ, that’s fine. But if we love anyone or anything more than God, we are worshiping an idol. Jesus put it quite clearly when he said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” [Matthew 10:32-42 NRSV] Jesus isn’t saying that we shouldn’t love our parents or children. He’s not saying we shouldn’t love sports, or our job, or Grace Presbyterian. He’s just saying that we must love God more than any of these.

 

Identifying Idols The idols of our mind are quickly identified by simply looking at how we spend our time, talent and treasure. This includes looking at our checkbook, our appointment calendar, the television programs we watch, the movies we go see, and the ways we spend our leisure time. Whatever dominates our lives has become our idol.

Holy of Holies In Jewish Temples, there is a sacred room called the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest may enter this room and then, only once a year on the Day of Atonement. Inside the Holy of Holies sits the Ark of the Covenant. This is a chest of wood layered with gold inside and out. In the chest are two stone tablets representing the Ten Commandments. The lid of the ark serves as a portable throne, a seat for God. On that throne is absolutely nothing. No statue or image. Just the invisible presence of God who is so mighty that there is no way to represent him.

In our sanctuary we have a communion table, baptismal fount, and Cross. We have Bibles, hymnals, and stained glass windows. They are all aids to worship but not objects of our worship.

So again, we hear the first two commandments saying “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”

The Scots Confession echoes these commandments when it says: We confess and acknowledge one God alone, to whom alone we must cleave, whom alone we must serve, whom only we must worship, and in whom alone we put our trust.

As we leave here this morning to live out another week as the children of God, let us keep reminding ourselves that the greatest commandment of the Law is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” [Matthew 22:37] If we do that, the idols of our mind will slowly fade away! Remember, the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Amen!

Isaiah 44:9-17 NRSV

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human. Let them all assemble, let them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.

 The blacksmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine. He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, ‘Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!’ The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it, and worships it; he prays to it and says, ‘Save me, for you are my god!’

Acts 17:22-25 NRSV

 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

The Hand Of God, Sept. 21, 2014

The Hand of God

 

Exodus 20:1-17

Grace Presbyterian Church

September 21, 2014

Rev. Dr. Richard E. Miller

Constitution Day  Weren’t the celebrations last Wednesday great? With ceremonies, songs and speeches? With flags, parades, and fireworks? As a certified Son of the American Revolution, I was filled with great pride.

How about you? How did you celebrate? You didn’t? I’m a bit surprised because I thought everyone was celebrating Constitution Day. “What’s Constitution Day?” you ask. It celebrates that day of September 17, 1787 when fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen states met in Independence Hall in Philadelphia to ratify the United States Constitution. [Rhode Island did not participate.]

Actually, there were no celebrations or parades or speeches last Wednesday, but there should have been. After all, our Constitution created the foundation for our government so that we, one nation under God, may live with clear guidelines for how we live together. I believe the Hand of God guided those delegates in their meeting that day.

Commandments  But this wasn’t the first time the Hand of God guided his people. This morning and in the weeks to come, we’re going to take a closer look at the 313 words of the Ten Commandments. 313 words. Really very short. Yet it seems that all great words of wisdom are short. The proclamation that “God is love” has three words.  The Lord’s Prayer has 66 words. The Beatitudes have 141 words. The Gettysburg Address has 286 words. The Bill of Rights has 463 words.

And, oh my goodness! My sermon this morning has 1,801 words. Maybe I should cut it back to 313 words. Then we’d be finished with worship seventeen minutes early! Well, maybe another time.

The Decalogue  I’d like to start looking at the Ten Commandments by sharing a few facts about them. First of all, they are also known as the Decalogue. “Deca” meaning ten, and “logue” from logos meaning word. Thus we could call them the “Ten Words.” And these “Ten Words,” in one way or another, have been the spiritual, moral and ethical foundation for three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

How the commandments came into being  Second, let us refresh our memories as to how these commandments came into being. It all started when God sent Moses to Egypt to lead the Israelites to freedom after over 300 years of slavery. Their destination was a place called the Land of Milk and Honey, or the Promised Land.

It was like a Shangri-La, a paradise or utopia where they would, in their minds, live happily ever after. It was, as scriptures tell us, a land with flowing streams, a land of wheat and barley, of olive trees and honey where you will lack nothing. [Deuteronomy 8]

However, to get to this Land of Milk and Honey, the Israelites had to cross the vast wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula, an area of 23,000 square miles. To do this, they took used their GPS - God’s Positioning System. God led them by going before them as a cloud by day and as fire by night. God provided them water to drink and manna and quail to eat. Finally, the Israelites reached Mount Sinai, a mountain rising 7,497 feet into the air.

Moses ascended the mountain where God said to him, “Say to the people, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” [Exodus 19] When the people heard these words, they responded “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.”

it was a relationship in which God said, “I will be your God,” and the people responded, “We will be your people.” At this point, a covenant relationship had been established between God and his people.

Then God gave them the conditions of their covenant relationship in the form of the Ten Commandments. And suddenly, the tired, raggedy group of former Egyptians slaves who had no identity of themselves as a people, and no idea of God, became the chosen race, a priestly kingdom, a holy nation. All because God gave them the Ten Commandments.

And their goal as a people of God was to show their thanks to God for their deliverance from slavery by following God’s commandments. However, we must remember that they followed the Ten Commandments not to gain favor with God for they already enjoyed his favor. Nor were obeying the commandments a means of obtaining their salvation, for God had already saved them. Instead, they obeyed the commandments out of gratitude for God’s favor and for their salvation.

Closer look at the Commandments  Now let’s look a bit closer at the commandments themselves. I don’t know if you noticed as we were reading them that the first four commandments address our relationship with God - worship no other gods, do not bow down to idols, do not misuse the name of Lord, and keep the Sabbath day holy. The last six commandments deal specifically with our interactions with one another. Honor your father and mother, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness against your neighbor, and do not covet anything that your neighbor has. Thus, both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationships with each other are addressed.

What Do You Think?   Now that we’ve refreshed out memories about these commandments, what do you think of them? Are they simply musty old laws buried in the sands of time that have little or no relevance to the modern world in which we live? Are they, as some people think, “wet blankets of pleasures”? In a way, I can understand why such thoughts exist because eight of the ten commandments say, “Don’t do this,” or “Don’t do that.” They stir up memories of our youth.

“Don’t stay out too late! Don’t forget to do your chores! You can’t go out and play until your homework is done! Don’t chew with your mouth open!” On and on the “don’ts” of our childhood could be listed. And we easily end up identifying with the little boy at his first day of kindergarten. When the teacher asked his name, he said, “My name is ‘Don’t Willie’”  By and large, we human beings hate being told what we should do or can’t do. It takes all the fun out of life because it infringes upon our freedom and happiness.

Great Joy However, I suggest this morning that the Decalogue is a source of great joy. Why? The commandments give us boundaries and guidelines of appropriate behavior with each other and provide a way for all people to live together in happiness. They point us in the direction we should go. One person noted: “The law is not over us to condemn us, but under our feet to be a guide for our path.” [Richard E. Phillips]

This observation echoes Psalm 119:105 which states: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” Thus, God’s commandments bring order out of chaos and safety out of danger.

Take Them Seriously  What about us today? How much do the commandments of God mean to us. Recent Gallup Poll showed that 84% of Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are a valuable guide to life. That’s sounds pretty good until another survey revealed that only 30% of people polled could name even three of the commandments. It is important that we take these commandments seriously rather than being like the person who said, “It is important to learn the commandments so that you’ll know how to break them properly.”

And the the commandments are not, as some people think, “Ten Suggestions for a Better Life” or “Ten Ways You Should Consider”. Nor are they the “Ten Habits of Highly Successful People” or “Ten Ways to Climb the Ladder” or “Ten Ideas That Might Work For You.”

 

Sometimes we trivialize them. It’s like the father who was giving his teenage daughter a lecture on her wild behavior. “Do you know what happens,” he concluded, “when you break one of the Ten Commandments? “Sure, Dad,” was the reply, “You still have nine left.”

Love God and Neighbor  Now if you can’t remember each of the Ten Commandments, Jesus made it easy for you. He was asked by a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 22:36-40]. What this means is simple. If we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, we will follow the first four commandments. It is because of our love for God that we worship only him, refuse to follow the gods of power, money, sex, and materialism, and remember the Sabbath Day. And if we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will follow the next six commandments. It is out of our love of our neighbor that we remain faithful to marriage covenants and refuse to steal, or murder, or covet what our neighbor has.

We must remember also that following the Commandments are not a means of salvation, for we have already been saved. They are not a means of making God love us more, for God already loves us fully and completely. Instead, we follow the commandments as an expression of our love for God.

So the Ten Commandments are gifts from God, not wet blankets thrown over our happiness, for with them order emerges out of the chaos in our lives and our society. Let us remember and celebrate these commandments as God’s promises to us for a life free from all that hurts and destroys by which our lives are conformed to the rhythm of God’s gracious will. And always remember, the Ten Commandments are not multiple choice! Amen.