God's Command for us

Rev. Harriette Cross First United Methodist Church of Wilmington October 8, 2023 Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 God’s Commands for Us 19th Sunday after Pentecost Year A Prelude Welcome Call to Worship L: Welcome to God’s house, a place of faith. P: From our homes, we come seeking God’s word. L: Here you will find nourishment and hope. P: May we learn lessons of courage and peace. L: Here you will find rest from your struggles P: Lord, prepare our hearts to receive your words that we may leave this holy house of faith and return to our homes, encouraged and challenged to be your people. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley Opening Prayer Lord, from the mountaintop in ancient Israel, you gave your people ways in which to live in harmony with all creation. As time has progressed the power of those words seems to have faded in our lives and we often succumb to base temptations of power and greed. Bring us back to your words of compassion and hope, offered to all creation by your Son Jesus. Open our hearts to receive your love and your direction in our lives. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley Responsive Reading Psalm 19 UMH 750 Song My Hope is Built UMH 368 Children’s Sermon How many of you have rules at home? Do you have rules about when to eat? How to eat? How long you can watch television? How you should act? (no hitting, no spitting, no yelling?) Do you like the rules? I remember saying that I did NOT like some of the rules when I was little; especially at school. There were too many!! Let's think about rules and play a game called "I wonder." I'm going to ask you a question that starts with "I wonder" and you guys are going to use your imagination and help me answer. In our country, we have a lot of rules about food -- how it has to be made before we buy it and eat it. I wonder what would happen if we didn't have any of those rules? (do you think it would be clean? Taste as good? would restaurants be as clean?) We also have a lot of rules in sports and games. I wonder what would happen if our games didn't have rules? (people would cheat and lie, we wouldn't know how to play -- it wouldn't be as fun) And what about on the road -- we have tons of rules on how to drive or ride our bikes on the road. I wonder what would happen if we didn't have those rules? (You could drive anywhere, stop when you want -- there would be crashes all the time!) We have a lot of rules to live by, and most of them are good, and necessary. If we didn't have them, the world would be crazy! God also gave us some rules to live by. They are called the 10 commandments and God gave them to Moses. There are 10 of them and they are very important: 1. Don't worship any other gods. 2. Don't make anything in your life more important than God. 3. Don't use God's name in a bad way. 4. Rest one day a week 5. Obey your parents 6. Don't kill 7. Be faithful to your family 8. Don't steal 9. Don't lie 10. Don't be greedy It's important for us to learn these rules and to obey them! To help you, I'm going to give each of you a bookmark today to help you remember the 10 rules or commandments that God gave to us. (Sermons4Kids) Prayer for illumination (adapted from Psalm 19) O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Brian Christopher Coulter) Scripture Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Sermon God’s Commands for Us I would say that I am pretty good about honoring the sabbath. Usually for me, free time starts at about 3pm on Friday an lasts until 7pm on Saturday. During that time, I can do whatever I want to do. I just have a hard stop at 7pm on Saturday, so that I can start my sermon prep time. This week, I really needed that sabbath time. On Saturday, I washed my hair, and while sitting under the dryer, I not only got the read a book, I was able to finish it before 7pm. The book was called Rest as Resistance. It is about the importance of taking sabbath in your everyday life as a part of the civil rights movement. The lady who wrote it calls herself the nap bishop. She goes all over the country scheduling these event where people sign up to take a nap for 2 hours. She puts you to sleep and wakes you up after about 2 hours in the middle of the day. She calls this the nap ministry. Her message is the in a capitalist society, we are defined by our productivity. So each person owes it to themselves to step away from that and take some time to refresh. I really enjoyed the book, she talks about how her dad was a Church of God in Christ minister, who also worked a full time job. He died of a heart attack at 50 from exhaustion. She too grew up struggling to survive and move ahead, so she came up with the nap ministry while enrolled in seminary full time, working and taking care of a six year old child all by herself. I thought that it was interesting that she never mentioned the bible in the book – or the 4th commandment to remember the sabbath and to keep it holy. Even though remembering the sabbath is the 4th of the ten commandments, it is actually the oldest of all of the commandments. It goes back to the creation story when God, Godself tells us that God worked to create the world on 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. And that we should do the same. For the last few weeks – we have been reading the exodus story – following how God called the isrealites out of slavery in Egypt into freedom. They went on a journey into what was wilderness to them, they cried out to God, God answered, God provided. When God provided manna for them to eat, God did make arrangements for the sabbath. The manna would go bad if your stored it, except for when stored for the sabbath. If you were to track all of the places that the isrealites went while in the desert, the map will not make sense, and we don’t know all of he places that they stopped. As we are approaching chapter 20 – apparently they have been traveling for a while. Moses starts to see that they are starting to gel and come together as a community. God apparently realizes that they are going to need to ground rules for community. The Jewish community calls these the 10 words, not commandments. There is no penalty from God for breaking these rules, but there are consequences for each one. It is in everyone’s best interest to honor these commandments. And interestingly enough, each of these commandments is short and to the point, there is no explanation, just don’t do them. That is except the 4th commandment, which is a whole paragraph. Verses 8-11 - [8] "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. [9] Six days you shall labor and do all your work, [10] but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. [11] For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Sabbath is not just about you, it is about your household and everyone that the interact with. Sunday used to be a day where nothing happened, nothing was opened. That has changed a lot now. The seventh day is to be kept holy, set apart, and different from all other days. Just as Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt, so we who have been set free by God's grace should not become enslaved by the demands of this life. For Christians, the holiest day of the week is not the seventh day, but the first day. Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, and Sunday became the Lord's Day. Gradually, Sunday merged with the Sabbath in Christian practice, until this Fourth Commandment came to be applied to it. Charlemagne, in A.D. 789, declared that all ordinary labor on Sunday was a breaking of the Fourth Commandment. Bishop Arthur Moore said, "Our great-grandfathers called it the Holy Sabbath Day. Our grandfathers called it the Sabbath Day. Our fathers called it Sunday. Now we refer to it as the weekend." We all know what Sunday means for each of us, but do we know what sababth means? How do you rest? How do you keep it holy? Where is God on Sunday. For me, once church is over I sleep on Sunday. My brain is mush on Sunday, and I can’t do anything else meaningful. But I don’t know that, that is about God, it is about being tired. That has been my practice for most of my ministry, for some reason worship on Sunday just drains me. Sometimes it is hard even for pastors to remember to keep sababth holy. A preacher friend of mine, Cecil Meyers – retired from Peachtree Road Methodist Church last year. He has written a number of helpful books, in one of those books, he talks about his own experience in relation to taking God seriously. He tells of experiences in a hospital ten years ago. His doctor was a Christian and very understanding. Cecil said he was over-worked or over worried or both - so the doctor put him in the hospital for some rest and some tests. One day the doctor came into the room and sat beside his bed awhile and talked, they’d always been close friends, but the doctor startled Cecil by saying, “You aren’t a Christian, are you?” While Cecil was gasping for his breath and stammering around to find an answer, the doctor went on, “You don’t believe in the Bible do you?” That really got Cecil. That’s what he proclaimed from Sunday to Sunday, the message of the Bible. Finally, when Cecil picked himself up off the floor and got him self together enough to ask for an explanation, the doctor said: “If you really were a Christian, and if you really believe the Bible, you wouldn’t be in here now!” You can imagine that he had Cecil’s total attention then, so he asked him if he had ever heard the passage from the Bible that reads: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). Of course Cecil had heard of it. He’d read it a hundred times, and had preached perhaps a dozen of sermons on it. But the doctor wouldn’t let him respond he asked, “Have you heard of the verse that goes, “believe, all thing possible to him that believeth?” (Mark 9:23) Of course, Cecil had heard that - but he didn’t have a chance to tell the doctor he had, for the doctor went on. “If you believed these things, you wouldn’t be here.” Cecil got the message. He’d been trying to run his own life, do it himself, handle his own affairs, and organize his life apart from God. I know what Cecil is talking about. I’ve been there too, and I suspect that many ministers who leave the church for various reasons primarily leave because they find their work impossible. They try to do it in their own strength. ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Collected Sermons, by Maxie Dunnam Perhaps that is why the most important commandment is number one – Put God first in everything that we do. We should set God as the foundation of all of our behavior. We should stay connected to God. 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” There is a Jewish legend that a certain leaf wanted to be free to fly like a bird. It struggled to separate itself from the tree and floated to the ground. But without the life-giving power of the tree, the leaf slowly withered and died. As it died, it cried to the other leaves, “Don’t do as I have done. It is death instead of freedom.” Freedom is the key to remembering the commandments. Envronmentalist/United Mehodist Bill McKibben – The turtle does what she does and magnificently. She can’t not do it, though any more than the beaver can decide to take a break from building dams or the bee from making honey. But if the bird’s special gift is flight, ours is the possibility of restraint. We are the only creature who can decide not to do something we’re capable of doing. That is our superpower, even if we exercise it so rarely. We are the only creature with the freedom to do or not to do – but we still have to be guided with how to use that freedom. John Wesley felt, as heavy as the Ten Commandments are, they could be kept. He was convinced faith established the law and made such good works possible. He felt the statutes were both law and liberty, and taught that the Law might actually be fulfilled in the believer's life. We have suspected these Ten Words were just too much, but we humans always have had more knowledge of what we are supposed to do, than the power and desire to do it. We need to reflect upon these standards and internalize their truth into ourselves. No sermon can adequately cover them all, but at least we can get an overview of their usefulness to us by looking at them, briefly, however hurried the glance may b Jesus sums up the 10 commandments into 2 commandments – first love the Lord your God with all of our heart, mind and soul. Second Love your neighbor just like that. If you notice, the first 4 commandments are about our relationship with God, the second are about our relationship with family and neighbors. Some of the other commandments are honor our marriage, watch our words, honor our parents, do not bear false witness. A young wife called her mother on the phone, crying, and said she wanted to leave her husband and return home. When asked why, she said her husband had been saying dirty words to her - four-letter dirty words! The mother, trying to understand, and at the same time encourage her daughter to stay with her husband, asked, "But what kind of four-letter, dirty words does he say to you?" "Oh, real dirty words, Mother," she cried. "He says words like 'wash, iron, cook, and dust'!" So Jesus summarizes the 10 commandments into 2 , but in reality the commandments can be summarized into 1 commandment, one 4 letter word – that word is love. All love flows from God and all love flows back to God. As Christians, we get the chance to live our lives within that flow. We let that flow determine our actions. We have the honor of receiving love from God and intentionally using it by giving it to others. G. K. Chesterton said years ago, "Good art and morality teach us the same lesson--it is wisdom to know where to draw the line." There it is, then. A practical, down-to-earth formula against which to measure the daily choices of our lives. Does it make good sense? Is it faithful to the rules in which I believe? Is it true to the person I want to be? Would I mind if other people knew? Could I be pleased if the people I admire did the same? Will the consequences really be what I want? If the answers to all of these are "yes," then it's probably the right thing to do. CSS Publishing Company, TIMES OF REFRESHING, by E. Carver McGriff The oldest candle company in the world is based in Dublin, Ireland. Rathbornes, which first sold candles made from tallow, or animal fat, was established in 1488 and is still in business today. The Irish government once considered candles to be absolutely essential to the safe functioning of society. In fact, in 1616 the municipal government in Dublin passed the “Candlelight Law,” which required that every fifth house keep a lit candle in the window during certain hours to guide passersby safely through the streets. (7) The Ten Commandments serve as a “Candlelight Law” for the Israelites and all the nations around them. They were intended to make the Israelites into a living embodiment of God’s character and purposes in the world. Song How Great Thou Art UMH 77 Morning Prayer We stand in awe of your creation, magnificent Lord. We gaze at the autumnal leaves and the indicators of change that is coming. We begin to think about the winter ahead and make preparations for the differences that come with changing seasons. Help us to turn our hearts to you, Lord. As we begin to settle down into more predictable routines, let us always be mindful of the needs of others. This morning we lift in prayer the names of loved ones who struggle with illness, grief, alienation, and sorrow. We share aloud in this congregation some of these names and their situations which weigh heavily on our hearts. Let us pray: [People may offer prayers of concern at this time.]. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. We also share those things which make our hearts and spirits dance with joy. Let us pray: [People may offer prayers of joy at this time.]. Lord, in your spirit of joy, hear our praises! The light of God shines on us as we offer these names in concern and joy, illuminating our way and guiding our lives. For in all things, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment Jesus’ parables often draw pictures of God’s Realm. Matthew 21:33-46 (also told in Mark and Luke) describes a landowner who improves the land and leases it to tenants. Rather than responding as they had agreed to do, the tenants damaged two sets of the landowner’s servants, and killed his son, hoping to retain all the profits from the land. Jesus asked the crowds, “what will the owner of the vineyard do to the tenants when HE comes?” We, who have been loaned/leased this earth, may tremble when we hear the answer! Jesus teaches that the Realm of God will be taken away from those who’ve tried to steal, and given to those who produce the fruits of God’s Realm. Those who grab the goods and step on others to reach the top will be removed. We may not relish the words of Jesus as prophet, but Matthew, Mark and Luke all record these parabolic teachings. As we come to offer our gifts, what will you bring? As you consider all you have received, how can you live as a grateful recipient? Prayer of Thanksgiving God of all good gifts, we offer you a portion of what we have received. May the meditations of our hearts lead us to consider anew how best to use what we possess, for we do yearn to live in your Realm, both now and in the life to come. AMEN (Disciples of Christ, Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook Go forth to harvest fruit that impacts the world. Go forth with God’s love to share with all. Go forth with the peace of Jesus Christ and With the communion with the Holy Spirit to be the transformative agents you are being called to be. Amen! (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Rev. Persida Rivera-Mendez) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benediction May you follow the commandments. May you know Christ and his power. May you share with the heavens and proclaim with the firmament the glory of our God. And may go forth with the blessing of God — our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Brian Christopher Coulter) Additional Illustrations It was Boxing Day, December 26, 1989. Romania was in turmoil. The previous day, President Nicolae Ceausescu, unable to quell the tide of dissent in Bucharest, had been tried and executed. Now no one was in charge. Western reporters flooded into the country from the south, searching for someone who could speak English. Finally they found someone, and in one sentence she summed up not only Romania's predicament, but the human condition: "We have freedom," she said, "but we don't know what to do with it."[1] That was God's gracious purpose in giving the Ten Commandments to Israel — they were free now. Here are Ten Words on how to handle the freedom. ________________________________________ 1. David F. Wells, "God Spoke These Words," The ChristianCentury, 3/15/00, p. 301. CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, by David E. Leininger That magnificent preacher from Georgia, Charles Allen, likes to tell about some American explorers who went to Africa. They employed some native guides. The first day they rushed to cover as much distance as possible. They did the same thing on the second, third, and every day. On the seventh day they noticed the guides sitting under a tree. "Come on," they shouted, "Let's go." One of the guides replied, "We no go today. We rest today to let our souls catch up with our bodies." For that purpose, God says, "Remember the Sabbath." ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Collected Sermons, by Bill Bouknight America's premier Protestant preacher of the early part of this century, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, once told a story from his early days as presiding minister of the great Riverside Church in New York. It seems that Fosdick, liberal by theological standards of the time, was turned off by much contemporary preaching with its emphasis on sin and threat. He vowed he would place his emphasis on the love and forgiveness of God. One day a man who had attended Riverside for several months approached Fosdick to say that although he was not a church member, he had found great solace in the preaching emphasis of that church. Several more months passed and one day Fosdick realized he hadn't seen the man for quite some time. He made some inquiries and learned that the man was currently in prison for embezzlement. Dr. Fosdick said this was quite a shock for him and made him realize that the gospel was not complete without an emphasis on the moral basis of the Christian faith. We need this commandment, as we do all the others, for our own good. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Sabbath-keeping was not meant to be a punishment, but a privilege. We need it for worship, reflection, stillness, meditation, relaxation, and recovery from the toil of the week past and as preparation and gathering of strength for the week ahead Jesus' Two Commandments Jesus did not destroy the Law written in the Decalogue; he simply boiled the ten down to two. "Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind (Mark and Luke added, "and with all thy strength" This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:37-39) Colonel Sanders added the Extra Crispy to his Original chicken. Jesus did not do away with the Original Ten; he simply lets us know in this New Commandment that the relationship with God is not so much founded on obedience as on love. John Wesley wrote to Charles Wesley saying he had become convinced "the Law can be fulfilled evangelically by love." The religion of love," he said, "is the religion of the Bible. Moses, and the Prophets, and Christ and his Apostles, proclaim with one voice thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself. They all declare that love is the fulfilling of the Law." Do you love God with all of yourself? Who is the first person you think of when you win a victory, or when you face a crisis? Who hears your troubles first? Who carries the most weight in your life? Whose word is law? The Great Command of Jesus demands this be God. Whatever, or whoever, is first in your life is taking the place of God or is your God. The Second Commandment, the love of neighbor, is the other side of the same truth. If you don't love God and your neighbor, you don't love either. John says, "If any one says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother ... cannot love God." (1 John 4:20) The judgment day will find a lot of us standing in the merciless light of God's condemnation and wrath as to what we have done with the stranger, the sick, the prisoner, the poor, the hungry, the disadvantaged. Jesus will say, "As ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:4 If you think that’s a crazy notion, and has no meaning for you - that there’s no way for you to be a Christian in profession but an atheist in practice - will you perform a very serious experiment for me - no, don’t do it for me; do it for yourself and do it for God. Sometime during this coming week, will you set aside maybe thirty minutes - if you can’t give it 30, give it at least 15 - ask yourself, and honestly answer, three questions. What do I think about most when I’m not thinking about my work? Let me repeat it now if you’re making notes. What do I think about most when I’m not thinking about my work? Two, move a bit deeper. How do I spend my leisure time - the time not required for my job or my keeping the household going? How do I spend my time - the time not required by my job or by keeping the household going? The third question is this: How do I spend my money? Look at that closely friends, and don’t pass it off without studying the issue. Get beyond your normal complaints about big grocery bills, and high utility rates, and huge house payments, doctor bills - look at those things, but look on to the end - how do I spend my money? If you’ll answer these three questions, you’ll have an answer to whether or not you’re a practical atheist, though a professing Christian - you’ll discover whether you’re really taking God seriously or not, Now I want to give you a challenge. You are just like an automobile. Just like you can check gauges on your automobile to see if it is functioning properly, God has given us three gauges by which we can give ourselves a check-up. We have a mental gauge, a physical gauge, and a spiritual gauge. Now check yours - Mentally are you absolutely running on empty? Are you mentally exhausted or are you charged up and ready to do what God wants you to do with passion? Physically - are you rested? Are you fit? Are you as healthy as you can be? Spiritually - are you walking with the Lord? My challenge to you is for the next 90 days take one day a week just for the Lord to refresh yourself mentally, physically and spiritually and see how much more productive and peaceful your life will be. We need the Sabbath day. We need a change in our routine. We need a mental change. We need to take a break and think about what is really important in life. We need a physical change. We need to get out of the office, the school, the plant, the store and get into a new environment where we can be encouraged by other people. We need a spiritual change. We need to be in church where God's word is preached and taught and where we can fellowship with other people who believe God is important too. Sometimes you will see on a tombstone these words, "Rest in Peace." There will be neither rest nor peace unto you find both in Jesus Christ. Remember He is the one who said, "Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28, HCSB) Jesus is the one that gives, not just your body rest and your mind rest, but your spirit the rest of knowing that when you know Him, you will spend eternity with God and that is the greatest Sabbath of all. 1 – (hold up 1 index finger) Number 1 is You shall have only one God. 2 – (hold up your index and middle finger, putting one behind the other) Number 2 is you will not make or worship idols, or you shall have no other Gods before me. This means God should be the most important thing in your life! 3 – (hold up your index, middle, and ring fingers, pointing out how they make the letter “w”) The third commandment Is do not take the Lord’s name in vain, and the three can remind us to watch our words 4 – (hold up index, middle, ring, and pinkie finger, motioning as if the four fingers are a family going to church) Number 4 is keep the Sabbath holy, which means give one day a week to God, like when you come to church on Sunday with your family 5 – (hold up all 5 fingers, then salute) Number 5 is honor your father and mother, and the salute helps us remember to listen and obey our parents 6 – (hold up all 5 fingers on one hand, then your index finger on the other; the single index finger becomes a gun pointing at the other 5) Number 6 is do not murder. 7 – (hold up all 5 fingers on one hand, then your index and middle finger on another, showing how the two are separate from the other five) Number 7 is keep your marriage promises, which means that when two people are married, they stay with each other and don’t mix with other people 8 – (hold up 4 fingers on each hand, hiding your thumbs) Number 8 is do not steal, and we can remember it with our hands like this because in some cultures in history, if you stole something, they would cut off your thumbs. 9 – (hold up all 5 fingers on one hand, hold up 4 on the other, hiding your thumb in your palm) Number 9 is do not lie. When we lie, we leave something out or hide something, just like our thumb is hiding behind our hand. 10 – (hold up 10 fingers, then turn your palms up and wiggle all 10 fingers like you’re trying to grab something or saying “give me give me”) The 10th commandment is do not covet, which is a fancy way of saying don’t be greedy or jealous of what others have. (From DeeprerKid Min)