Our God, as we turn to your word, the word that you have breathed out to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, this word that is to us a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, we seek, Lord, the help of the Holy Spirit. that light from heaven would shine into our minds and hearts, that your truth might live in our hearing. Cause the word of Christ to dwell richly within us and among us. Blessed Holy Spirit. And we ask it all in our great savior Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. I've been asked to speak this evening on the subject of worship and the Ten Commandments. I've struggled over many months to know just quite how to approach the subject. I should probably have asked Terry what was on his mind and heart, but I was reluctant to do so in case he said something that I thought I could not live up to. So, please turn with me first of all in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, reading familiar words from verse 17. Matthew 5, reading from verse 17, the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking, "'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." And then secondly, in the 50th Psalm, Perhaps the prevailing sin of God's covenant people was covenant presumption. They presumed that as long as they punctiliously fulfilled the divine requirements for worship that God would be satisfied. And in the 50th Psalm, we read from the 16th verse, God is addressing his wayward covenant people. But to the wicked God says, what right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline and you cast my words behind you If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I have been silent You thought that I was just like you, but now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. Mark this then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver. And then thirdly, in the letter to the Hebrews, again, familiar words, closing words of chapter 12, the apostle is writing to Jewish Christians who are being sorely persecuted. They're being tempted to turn back from Christ, to return to Judaism, to escape the hostility and the harm that they were presently experiencing. And the writer comes something to a conclusion of the various arguments that he has been bringing before them pastorally to encourage them to go on with Christ. And in verse 26 he says, see that you do not refuse him who is speaking, for if they did not escape, when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." The most significant thing about you is what you think about God. And what you think about God will shape and inform and style how you worship him. The whole Bible is God laying before us who he is. I think we can sum up the whole written revelation of God in three words. behold your God." From the opening words in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 to the very end, the closing words of Revelation 22, again and again, in this way and in that way. God is saying to his people whom he has covenanted to be their God and for them to be his people, he is saying to them again and again and again and again and again, behold, you're God. Behold, you're God. And when we think about the Ten Commandments, Exodus chapter 20, I wonder what thoughts immediately come into your mind. What do you think the Ten Commandments are for? Why did God give to His people, whom we read in Exodus 19, verse 5, whom He bore on eagles' wings and carried to Himself, delivered from their captivity in Egypt, and brought them out to be His people, publicly to own Him, represent Him, worship Him. Why did God give to his people, to his church, for this is what this people were. They were the church of the living God, the Kahal Yahweh, the Ekklesia Tutheu. They were the people that God had congregated out of the world to be his people. Why did he give them these 10 words? I would guess there is no one right answer, though I think there is a predominant, preeminent answer. Too often, I think, we approach the Ten Commandments thinking, above all else, that they are there to convict us of our sin. Now, the commandments do convict us of our sin. They set before us the revelation of the righteousness of God. They are perpetual reminders to us of what God requires of us. And his word, as we were hearing in a prayer earlier, like a mirror confronts us with our sinfulness, our fallenness in Adam, our first head, and our repeated sinfulness out of the fallenness of our own natures united to that Adam. And of course, the commandments alongside that map up, map out for us the pathway of right living that God would have demarcate the lifestyle of his people in this fallen world. But if we were to think of the 10 words, the 10 commandments simply in those categories, I think we would radically miss the great initial desire of God in giving to His church these commandments because in them God is saying to His people, behold your God. This is who I am. Get who I am in order that you may then begin to begin to live lives that will please me and honour me in this world. The whole Bible, and not least these ten words, are God declaring to us, Himself, behold your God. The tragedy, both in the old covenant people of God and in the new covenant people of God, was there and our propensity to forget God. Did you note that in the reading from the 50th Psalm? Mark this then you who forget God. And I would reckon the people would be bewildered by that. Forget God? Don't we perform all that the Lord God requires of us? Are we not punctilious in our performances? Do we not sacrifice the right sacrifices? Do we not do all that God the Lord requires of us? If we had time, we could read, hopefully, to our great prophet, the first chapter of Isaiah, especially verses 10 through 20, I think, where God reproves, rebukes, condemns, and eviscerates His people, not because they are lacking in the punctilious observance of what He has required of them, but he confronts them with this, in all that you are doing, you forget who I am. Therefore God says, I hate your sacrifices. I abominate your prayers. You have forgotten who I am. They were covenantally presumptuous. They assumed that because they were God's covenant people, the possessor of God's glorious covenant blessings and privileges, that all was well with them. And they forgot who God is. They forgot that He is of purer eyes than to look upon sin. They forgot that He was other than they were. Did you note those words in Psalm 50 as at verse 21, you thought I was just like you, a bigger version of you. In fact, the Hebrew I think could be maybe better translated, you thought that the I am was just like you, a bigger version of you, a grander version of you, but simply just like you. And so when we come to the 20th chapter of Exodus, We need to understand that what God is saying to his people, principiently and preeminently, is behold your God. Get who I am. Now we need to set this, don't we, however briefly in its wider context. God's people have been in captivity for over 400 years. We don't know for how many of those years they were enslaved, but they had become infected with the atmosphere of paganism. they had breathed in the unholy, ungodly atmosphere of polytheism and pluralism and ignorance. And so when God comes and reveals himself and gives these glorious revelations to Moses in whichever way he was pleased to do this. Right at the outset, Genesis 1-1, God is saying to his people, in the beginning, God, your God, the God who has rescued you and redeemed you, who has borne you on eagles' wings, he created the heavens and the earth. I get a little, and more than a little, frustrated by my brothers and sisters who read Genesis 1 and who get fixated with questions like, how long are the days? Well, they're days. But the whole point of Genesis 1 is not how long are the days, but behold your God. glorious, sovereign, majestic, other than everything and anything, exalted above the heavens, the sun that the Egyptians worship, your God made it. And then the greatest throwaway line in literature, in human history, and also the stars. And page after page after page after page, God is saying in the midst of the tapestry of his people's wanderings, are you getting who I am? You know, we read the Bible so anthropocentrically. We read the Bible to find ourselves. We read the Bible for comfort. We want comfort, don't we? We read the Bible for insight and understanding and help, and all of that is good, but we forget that our greatest comfort, our greatest help, is in knowing God. Knowing God. This is eternal life, said Jesus, that they might know you and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. And so when the Lord comes to deliver these 10 words to Moses, we read of them in the 20th chapter of Exodus, and then there is the second giving of the law. You know the background and the context in Deuteronomy 5. God is enshrining in written words what he first etched into the heart of Adam at creation. Read Romans 2. And God is saying, here is my Torah, my instruction. I've much to teach you about how you are to live. I've much to say to you about what I love and what I hate. But in all of that, here is the big thing God is saying. Here is the big thing. Behold your God. And I want very simply in the few moments we have just to look briefly at these commandments. What is it that God is summoning his people to behold? What is this beholding that is to inform and shape and style and dynamize their living in this fallen, godless, sinful world? Well, the first thing is simply this. God says, behold the grace of your God. Behold the grace of your God." The opening words of Exodus 20 are not simply preparatory and prefatory to what follows. They provide the very dynamic that will pulse through these 10 commandments. 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. This is who I am, the God who saves. the God who reaches down in tender mercy and in sovereign goodness and grace and redeems lost sinners to himself. This is who I am. Do you get it? Will that reality pulse through your worship? Will people as they come among you marvel that there is an ethereal dimension to your worship as you pray, as you sing, as my word is proclaimed? Will they taste the excellencies of your God and supremely the excellency of my grace? You remember later in Exodus 33, Moses pleads with God, Lord, show me your glory. And you'll remember how we don't have time to unpack the passage, but how the Lord In the next chapter places Moses in the cleft of the rock and there is this remarkable theophany where God passes by Moses and causes all his goodness to be apprehended if not comprehended by Moses and then the Lord speaks. you want to see my glory, Moses, get this, Yahweh, Yahweh, rich in mercy. That's who I am. Yes, I will by no means clear the guilty, but judgment is my Secret work, mercy is my proper work. Rich in mercy, slow to anger, abounding in covenant love. And these opening words cast a glorious, gracious shadow over all that follows. And God is saying to his people, as you become formed covenantally and corporately and collegially in this world as the people to whom I have come, let this be the dominating hallmark. of your existence in this world. You belong to Yahweh, the God who is rich in mercy, who is full of grace. Behold, I am a God of grace." And then the Lord says, Behold, I am unique. 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." God is summoning his people to live counter-culturally in their service to him and in their worship to him. They're to be uninfected by the pluralism of the world around them. Because Yahweh is unique. He is sui generis. He's one of a kind. He's not one of many. He's not the supreme of many. He is the alone God. And he is to be worshipped exclusively. There is no other like unto you, O Lord. Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory. You do great wonders. I was asked recently, if there was one thing that could be done for the evangelical world, what do you think that one thing should be? And really without thinking, I said, a recovery among us of the godness of God, the godness of God. the uniqueness of God, the transcendence of God, the otherness of God. Yes, gloriously in our Lord Jesus Christ, God is our father. There is an intimacy, there is a tenderness, there is an exquisite gentleness. But beloved, he's our father in heaven. The unfallen angels veil their faces before him. And God is saying to his people, are you getting who I am? Will this uniqueness pervade your life as my covenant people in this fallen dark world? Behold, I am the God of grace. Behold, I am unique. And then he says, thirdly, behold, I am incomparable. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. It could not be clearer, could it? And yet, almost immediately, what happens? Aaron. Aaron. Aaron. builds a golden calf. Oh, the people wanted it. The people wanted some visible marker, some visible entity. The infection of Egypt over so many centuries had not yet been expunged from them. and almost in the twinkling of an eye, this people whom God bore on eagles' wings, this people to whom God had come in redeeming kindness and tender mercy, had built for themselves an isle of gold. Never think that because you are today a faithful congregation of Jesus Christ. Never think that because Terry Johnson is your pastor, you're immune from that. Read the history of the Christian church. Satan is always on the prowl, looking to deceive. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And that applies to congregations as well as individuals. And God is saying to his people, do you get who I am? I'm incomparable. Nothing created can begin to begin. to begin to conceive me or portray me. I'm beyond all comparisons. I am, was it the French say, I am non-pari, beyond all comparisons. That's why we need to be very careful with the language we use about God. We need to use language that is fitting for God. And if you'll excuse for a brief moment one hobby horse, please, please, please do not use the word awesome to refer to anything other than the Almighty. Nothing is awesome but him. And we can create mental images as well as physical images. And God says, I'm beyond them all. Don't demean me. Don't reduce me. I'm the God of grace. I'm the unique God. I'm the incomparable God. And then he says in the third commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. I am the holy God. Don't trivialize me. Don't trivialize who I am. My name is holy. And when we think of that word instinctively, we think, well, we know the root of holiness, kadosh. It means to separate, and that's true. God is separate from us. He is a diameter removed from us. He is the eternal one. He is from everlasting to everlasting, and we are creatures of time and change. He is separate from us, but God's holiness goes back into eternity. What was he separate from in eternity? Well, he wasn't separate from anything in eternity. The Father wasn't separate from the Son. The Son wasn't separate from the Spirit. So what did holiness mean in the eternal being of God? It meant the Godness of God. the devotedness of Father to Son and Son to Father and Father to Spirit and Spirit to Son. God is saying, don't trivialize me. Guard your lips. Watch how you pray. Watch what you're singing. If you don't mean what you're singing, don't sing it. If you don't mean what you're praying, don't pray it. If you don't mean what you preach, don't preach it. Because I'm holy." And our time is really gone, but just briefly notice that God says then, your God, the Sabbath-keeping God. Remember the Sabbath day. You see, the Sabbath day wasn't inaugurated here. It goes back, doesn't it, to Genesis 2. God rested on the Sabbath day. It's a creation ordinance, as we say. And God is saying to his people, I want my people to be marked in this world by being a people who reflect me. And just as I rested on the Sabbath day from my works of creation, so my people are to reflect the family likeness. in their resting on the Sabbath day. All of life is worship, isn't it? We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord, pleasing and acceptable in His sight, which is our spiritual worship. All of life is worship, but there is a covenantally focused, memorialized day in the midst of the routine of life. that gloriously emblemizes to the world around us, not just to the church, but to the world beyond the church, of who God is. And here in Exodus 20, it highlights the reality that we do not live in the midst of an evolutionary accident, but that our God made the heavens and the earth out of nothing in the space of six days and very good. And in the second giving of the law in Deuteronomy 5, remember that you were slaves. This Sabbath day is a creational redemptive reminder to us that our God is the originator of all things and the savior of the world." And then just in a word, the closing commandments, God is saying, behold, you're God who cares for the world he created. Wasn't it, hasn't it been good to hear these past sessions, Terry, others praying for all kinds of things, family life, the sick, the broken, the bewildered, and beyond that, kings and presidents and those in authority. And God is saying to his people in these commandments, I'm a God who is compassionate to my creation. I'm a God who cares for families, for marriages, for integrity and truth and righteousness. This is who I am. Do you get who I am? Does who I am impregnate who you are? When people come in to worship here or in smaller gatherings, do they leave with a sense of the godness of God, not simply his otherness, but his eminence, his nearness, his involvement with the broken, the needy, the poor, the marginalized? Do people know that our worship is not simply self-indulgent? The Ten Commandments are there for many reasons, but surely principally they are there to say to God's church and to God's world, this is who I am. This is who I am. And the Lord Jesus Christ came. And it's from his hands that we receive the law. We don't receive the law from Moses. I hope you know that. We receive the law from the one who gave it to Moses. We receive the law from nail pierced hands. We receive the law from the one who fulfilled it perfectly on our behalf, in our place as our covenant head. We receive the law of God in its pristine glory unpacked for us. Read through Matthew 5 through 7, Jesus is not giving us new law, he is unpacking the fullness and the richness of the law that had become lost to the people of God, which is why I think the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 5, do not think that I've come to abolish the law. Why does he say that? Because as people listen to Jesus, they're thinking, well, where's Moses? Where's Moses? And the greater than Moses was standing in front of them and expounding the law of God to them in his own life. And he couldn't see it. Do not think I've come to abolish the law. I've come to fulfill it. I've come to obey it in all its perfections on behalf of all who will put their trust in me. And so in Christian worship, we bless God for giving us instruction that imperishably memorializes to us his uniqueness, his incomparableness, his grace, his kindness, his compassion. And he says, hear that law from the lips of your nail-pierced Redeemer, because he's the one who first gave it to Moses. The 10 commandments in worship, Well, whether that was what's expected is what you've got. Amen.