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Recently on NPR they featured a man who started a social experiment, online he solicited people to make confessions about things they hadn’t told anyone.  You can imagine some were fairly dark, some were humorous, but one stood out to me.  The one that stood out was, “People are so happy with me because they say I’ve stopped lying, they don’t know that I’ve just gotten better at it.”  At first you laugh and then you stop to realize how dark that statement is.

We all function at some level of trust, we all trust people to some degree, and we assume that they tell the truth.  This commandment here in Exodus 20:16 sets a fairly low standard in that it says in legal proceedings we must tell the truth.  I’m sure we could all keep that commandment but leave it to Jesus to take the simple and make it complicated.  He took the command of not committing perjury and made it a prohibition against lying.

There should be no degrees of honesty, all our speech should be truth. (Matthew 5:33-35)

• We should not need an oath to validate our speech. (Matthew 5:37)
  • Matthew 23:16-22 – shows how convoluted the “swearing system” of Jesus’ day was
  • We should not need to make oaths because the stakes are too high. (Matthew 5:33)
    • Ecclesiastes 5:5 – Don’t make an oath rather than not fulfill it.
    • Hebrews 6:16 – Mechanics of oaths brings a witness in, do you want to bring God in to witness your falsehood?
    • We can not swear by what we do not own. (Matthew 5:34-36)  Jesus here is quoting from Isaiah 66:1 – Informs us that we have no ownership of anything to make an oath.
  • James 5:12 – James reminds us to not make oaths, but simply let your yes be yes and your no be no.  In other words, don’t swear and live so you don’t have to, be people of integrity.
• How do we lie? or The Art of Lying…
  • It sounds like a simple question, but really it’s complex.  If we know the truth but don’t say it is that a lie?  Psalm 55:21, states that flattery is lying.  Proverbs 6:12-13, tells us that we can lie without even using words.
  • One of the most frequent places we lie is when asked for a reference, after thinking about a lazy employee one employer wrote, “You will be lucky if you can get him to work for you.”
  • We need to not think of all the ways we can not lie, and discern how we can best tell the truth.

How to have truthful, redemptive speech…

• Become familiar with the truth. (Philippians 4:8)
  • Many times people that have been lying there whole life have a hard time coming to tell the truth because in many ways they don’t know it.
  • Have you ever lied to yourself, to the point where you came to believe it?  If so ask the creator to speak truth to your inmost being.  (Psalm 51:6)
• Practice living the truth. (Eph 4:15, 25)
  • Once we love the truth, and then become familiar with it, the only logical next step is to live by it.  When you decide to do this, it makes Christianity a great adventure – especially if you’ve not been totally honest in the past.  For a primer in this watch Liar, Liar with Jim Carey.
  • If you start telling the truth then you’ll find  you want to start living the truth.  You’ll start doing the things that you can tell the truth about.  You won’t want to do things you’d be ashamed to say, you won’t want to go places you shouldn’t, because you know you’ll tell the truth!
• Speak the right words at the right moment. (Proverbs 25:11-12)
  • Sometimes we have the right word, but we say it at the wrong time.
  • We need to be wise in selecting the teachable moments of those around us.

Truth is so valued, it is so liberating, this is why Jesus says, “The truth will set you free – the truth is redeeming!”  If you’ve ever lived in a lie you know how true that is, how lies hold you in bondage, but truth sets you free in your relationships.  Even with God, are you honest to God this morning?

We have nuanced murder and allowed exceptions for everything from euthanasia to abortion.  We are plagued with violence, violence is our entertainment, it threatens our streets, it evacuates our schools, it invades our cities, for some of you it resides in your own homes and you live with violence everyday.  Murder entertains and is provided for our viewing pleasure every night on broadcast television.  It’s into this situation that God speaks this word in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”  God says to our society filled with violence, “Live!”

Let people live don’t kill them with…

• Your actions (Exodus 20:13)
  • The most literal interpretation of this command prohibits the actual, physical taking of life.  We can not murder each other.
  • God values human life and we see this clearly throughout scripture.  I think where the value of life is shown most clearly is in the punishment for murder.  God says you can’t put a price tag on life, the only way to pay for it is with a life.  Which is why for centuries the church has generally supported capital punishment.
  • Today we do not have the time to discuss the ramifications of the death penalty, the effectiveness of it, or whether or not it has place in Christian society.  I will however state that the death penalty can be strongly supported from scripture.
    • Genesis 9:6 is generally seen as predating and holding precedent over this command.
    • Numbers 35:31 tells us that humanity has no power to commute the death sentence.
    • In Romans 13 we see that Paul admonishes respect for the government agents who bear the sword.
  • This command does not rule out the death penalty, only murder and other scriptures support it as well.  But, thankfully most of us aren’t murderers, we haven’t been called to make decisions on jury’s regarding the death penalty and so I want to move on to what we are more prone to struggle with.
• Your language (Matthew 5:22)
  • I like the way the NASB translates verse 22 when it translates the word “raca” very literally as “good-for-nothing.”  Literally, “you don’t count for anything,” “you’re empty headed.”  Jesus makes it clear that we can kill each other with our language.
  • I just attended a seminar on some issues of domestic violence in the church; it was very intense, very interesting.  The presenter who’s worked with thousands of victims of domestic violence says that so often what remains hurtful the longest is the violent language these women hear.
  • Our words are so damaging, we turn our words into knives and attack each other.  Jesus speaks to this and says, “Stop killing each other – LIVE!”
• Your carelessness (Matthew 5:23-26)
  • Notice the language here, Jesus says listen, “If you are offering your gift at the altar.”  This is active, in other words it’s happening right now.
    • One thing I hate is when you’re in line, 5:30pm at the grocery store.  Every checker is 4 people deep and everyone wants to get home quickly.  The only reason I’m there is because Jenny called and said, “Can you pick up one thing for me, please?”  So, I’m here – I want to be there and I’m next in line when the guy at the checkout says, “I forgot something,” and darts back into the store…
    • This is what Jesus is talking about, you’ve waited in line to make your offering, you’re at the altar, you’ve got your sacrifice and you remember that you’ve forgot.
    • What does Jesus say to do?  Finish your offering and then be reconciled?  No, stop what you’re doing and be intentional about reconciliation.  Don’t allow anger, hate, language, actions to build to the point where we kill each other because we were too lazy to reconcile.  Reconcile now!
  • Martin Luther’s comments on the proactive nature of this commandment.  “Under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him.”  (For further reading see Matthew 25 and James 2)
  • In other words let your thoughtful way of living be a living way for others!  Do not let others die because of your carelessness.

Grace: provides us a chance at life.

• Life is maybe the top value God has for us.  Jesus proclaims this in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life abundantly!”  So, we too must be about the work of living and life-giving.
  • John 3:16 tell us that God sent his son so that we would have eternal life.
  • It’s grace that provides us the chance at life, and we love grace when it’s for us.  We love to be the recipients of grace, but what about the dispensers?  What about grace when it’s for others?  What about when it’s for truly depraved people?
• What about murderers?
  • Many in this church would say that those who murder, they deserve the death penalty.  There are good scriptural grounds to justify it.
  • We see in Egypt it’s an eye for an eye (Mat 5:38), but in the Promised Land we turn the other cheek.  It’s not that there isn’t a price for our sin, it just means you don’t have to pay it.
  • I find it so ironic that this command to not kill, was chiseled by the same hands that took a man’s life in Egypt.  Moses the murderer becomes Moses the life-giver.
  • What I about the persecutors like Paul?  (Acts 7:54 -8:1)  Paul gets a second chance at life and uses it to write almost half of the New Testament.
• This text is used so often to rail against abortion.  I know that God is intimately involved in our creation (Psalm 139:13) and believe that abortion is a sin.  But, God’s grace is big enough to cover this sin.
  • Sometimes those who call themselves Christians speak so angrily against abortion providers and women who receive them.  I hear words like murderers, immoral, selfish, worthless, hate.  All these are summed up in that Aramaic word raca and I wonder, if there are not two parties guilty of murder.
  • And while Paul deserved the death penalty and Moses deserved the death penalty and some women might – I’m so glad that there’s grace.  Because you can rise from that situation into a place of prominent service with Jesus Christ.

I think at the end of the day we need to realize we all have violated this command (Luke 24:7).  Jesus was handed over to us sinners and we killed him.  Romans 6:23 reminds us that the wages of all sin is death.  We all deserve the death penalty, we all deserve punishment.  All of us sinners, along with Moses and Paul, and anyone else whose ever taken a life, we as sinners crucified the Lord of Life.  And things would look pretty bad for us, if it stopped at Romans 6:23, but it goes on in a great crescendo to Romans 8:1 which states, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”  Amen.

Are we living in sin if we fail to rest?  Are we living in sin if we don’t sleep enough?

According to a recent Washington Post Magazine article:

To the Greeks, a life of leisure was a human’s highest aim. Liberated from work, one could devote his or her time to the pursuit of the higher arts such as poetry, art and music. (Though this applied largely to men.) True leisure was, as leisure scholar Ben Hunnicutt writes, “that place in which we realize our humanity.” Work was only the means to get you there.

Instead, Hunnicutt argues, Americans devote their lives to work. “Work now answers the religious questions of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘How do you find meaning and purpose in your life?’” Hunnicutt says. “Leisure has been trivialized. Only silly girls want to have time to shop and gossip.” To be idle is to be unproductive. To waste time.

[Entire quote and further discussion on this available at, "The Test of Time" from the Washington Post]

Scripture affirms work, as a matter of fact of the seven days we have in a week 6 are dedicated to work.  In most homes it means that we work 5 days for the man, 1 at home and 1 for us.  But, that is becoming blurred in many ways.  Email, blackberries, longer work weeks, two schedules being fit together during the week means more work at home on the week’s end.

Not only are we busy, but we love being busy.  We wear our busy-ness as a badge of importance and honor.  But, listen to the words of the Psalmist, in Psalm 127:1-2: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.”

It is because he loves us that he gives us this command, “8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)

Make time for rest.

• Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  Get it done!  (Exodus 16:25-26)
• Provision made for Sabbath – Moses commanded double portion collection for manna on Friday, the only day this was made possible.
• We have to make time to rest, we have to plan our rest, no one will do it for us!  If you have a hard time managing your time I’m going to recommend a classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  This book is not explicitly Christian, but it can teach you how to use your time in a Christian way.
• Because we need to rest and let others rest.  Notice that God says, “You and your slaves/servants rest, and let your work animals rest.”

Make time for worship. (Exodus 20:11)

• What is a week?  A year is one rotation of the earth around the sun, a month is one full lunar rotation around the earth, a day is one total revolution of the earth on its axis.  But, what is a week?
• There is no explanation in nature for the division of weeks by seven days, only the divine of God explains it.  The Sabbath is outside of a natural or celestial explanation, it shows God outside of time and nature.  This commandment has no parallel in other ancient culture.  It speaks to interrupting the cycle of work for worship and rest.
• On day seven, God created holiness and he called it rest and the highest form of rest is worship to God.  St. Augustine said “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in You.”

Sabbath principles from the New Testament:

What a great commandment!  Rest!  Why is it then that Jesus has so much criticism for the Sabbath in the Gospels?  The problem is that by this time the Pharisees and Jewish legal system had made all sorts of nonsensical laws about the Sabbath (some available here in the Talmud online).

• The Sabbath was made for us. (Mark 2:23-28)
  • As I talk about the Sabbath I’m talking about the Sabbath principle, the idea of regular, cyclical, planned, holy rest.  Often, I plan to rest every Friday that’s my day.
  • Martin Luther taught this, “However, this, I say, is not so restricted to any time, as with the Jews, that it must be just on this or that day; for in itself no one day is better than another; but this should indeed be done daily[the principle of pausing for rest and worship]…Accordingly, when asked, What is meant by the commandment: Thou shalt sanctify the holy day? answer: To sanctify the holy day is the same as to keep it holy. But what is meant by keeping it holy? Nothing else than to be occupied in holy words, works, and life. For the day needs no sanctification for itself; for in itself it has been created holy. But God desires it to be holy to you. Therefore it becomes holy or unholy on your account, according as you are occupied on the same with things that are holy or unholy.”
  • I think the main principle is to observe a cycle of living and work is a part of it – but so is rest.  The Sabbath principle is a gift, it gives us permission to stop.
  • Isaiah 58:13-14 reminds us that the Lord wants us to delight in the Sabbath – he wants us to enjoy our rest!  Too often people feel guilty about resting, God says, “Enjoy it!”
• Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and deserves worship on the Sabbath. (Hebrews 4:8-11)
  • The Sabbath and its worshipful rest is forward looking, Hebrews 4:8-11 reminds us that the Sabbath rest is a foreshadow of the rest to come.
  • Stopping should remind us that we are human beings, not human doings.  So I challenge you to commit to one day of holiness.  To a cycle of worshipful rest.
  • Divide up twelve hours through your week, count church in and spread the rest out so that you make time to engage in worshipful rest.
• We should do good on the Sabbath.
  • What good should we do?  Good that benefits others, that glorifies God. (Matthew 12:9-14)
  • Perhaps the highest good is to be restored.  There is an old modern parable often told, you’ve probably heard it.  It goes something like this… Story told of lighthouse keeper whose sole job was to keep the lighthouse lit, farmer came and needed oil to work by, mother came and needed oil to keep her family warm.  Ran out of oil the last night, and a ship came and did not see the warning beacon and many people died.
  • Sometimes we fail at our one purpose on the Sabbath and that is to be still and know that he is God. (Psalm 46:10)

Augustine taught that the Sabbath was a day for spiritual rest, “a regular periodical holiday – quietness of heart, tranquility of mind, the product of a good conscience.”  The observance of this is a celebration of the true rest that is to come in eternity.

Why should we make no idols?  God is guarding us from terrible distortions that our images of god cause.  (Click here for the Atlantic Monthly article I referenced about Christianity causing the financial crisis.)  Think of some listed by a professor at Princeton Seminary, Daniel Migliore:

Belief in “God” has destroyed human freedom, even in our own American history we can look back at ways the church justified slavery as a God given institution.

Belief in “God” has sanctioned the exploitation of the weak.  Look at the Crusades and the way that Christians exploited those who were not like them.

Belief in “God” has been used to justify spousal abuse, child abuse, and have kept women in subservient roles throughout history.

This God that has justified these things is not the God of the Bible – or should not be portrayed as the God of the Bible.  This God that has justified these things is a God created in our own image and one that was constructed by man.  And the problem is that…

Our images of God look too much like us! (Exodus 20:4)

1. Pat Robertson’s god, as seen this week (click here for news story/video), looks too much like Pat Robertson who is concerned with revenge and punitive measures.  Maybe your god looks more like you, maybe it’s even more pleasant, the predominant idol of god in America is quite benign at least on the surface and is worshipped by the health, wealth and prosperity gospel preachers.
2. We are exporting this prosperity gospel all over the world.  Even in the poorest reaches of Africa people are teaching that if they give to the their church then they’ll have buckets of money.  We have exported a god of consumerism that looks so much like us here in America. (Click here for Christianity Today’s coverage of the exportation of prosperity gospel.)

Our idols make terrible masters. (Exodus 20:5)

• The problem with making false gods or god in our image is that we end up serving that god instead of the true god.
• Definition of idolatry by Augustine: Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshiped. I think that we can saw we are in danger of worshipping the gifts over the giver.
• Today in many faith healing and prosperity gospel churches they worship their own faith.  What a terrible idol to worship!  The idol that invites you to give and to give and to pray and to pray.  If anything goes wrong it’s your fault because you didn’t have enough faith!  The god of your own faith wasn’t strong enough.
• The idol of that god is my faith – because my faith can do anything!  The idol for some of you is your righteousness – my works can do anything!  The problem is that our faith and works can’t do anything!  That’s why we need God – not just more effort.

Our attempts to control God fail, because he blesses and curses. (Exodus 20:5-6)

• This command does not forbid religious art but creating an idol that would control god.  In other words you can not control God by making his picture and using it.  You can not control god through excess faith.  God is moved by our faith – he is not bound to it!
• John 4 illustrates how religion gets in the way of worship.  The Samaritans thought that God was on their side because they worshipped on this mountain, the Jewish people thought that God was on their side because they worshipped on that mountain.
• I know in some of our darker moments we want to control God, we want to bargain with God, but God doesn’t bargain.  You can’t trade your life for your spouse, you can’t do enough good works to save your children.  You can’t.
• God is trying to save us from the heartache that comes by false hope of false gods.  Whether it be graven image, or a midnight bargain, or our faith as our god.

We must keep worship simple – we must come to God on his terms.

• John 4 illustrates how religion gets in the way of worship.  This woman wanted to talk about mountains and man made rituals – Jesus wanted to talk about life and faith.  He says that we are set free when we worship in…
• Spirit
  • Worshipping God happens in the Spirit and is not confined to a place or time, neither this mountain nor Jerusalem.
  • Worship is laying down everything before God and in return God lifts us up to his vantage point and shows us things from his perspective.
  • When we worship in Spirit we see a connection and clarity.  Acts 13:2
• Truth
  • Romans 1:20-25 makes it clear that we can inappropriately give our worship to something else.
  • What makes true worship is a true object of worship.
  • We must be clear that we worship God, why we worship him.  We must consecrate ourselves for this task and focus on his worth.
• When we come to God with our agenda, when we come to God with our terms, we find a God who looks a lot like us!  When we come to God and say reveal yourself to me, we find God as he is.
• Sometimes the God that we are angry with is not the God that is, rather we are angry at the god we have.  We must discard the idols, gods, in our lives and take up the true God as he is, not as we would have him.