WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:03.520 So we have been on our own journey. 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:06.400 An Exodus of sorts. 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:09.119 An Exodus through Exodus. 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:13.119 Wow. 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:13.839 Okay. 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:20.399 Just so you know, up here, I'm treating laughs and groans equally. 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:24.480 If I can get either one, I mean it's worked. 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:38.000 So, quick update as we've journeyed through Lent here and through Exodus, week one, we're talking about being that baby on the river and kind of uh uh moving through life with all the different influence that life offers. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:45.359 Then we talked about God coming to us in this burning bush with uh a something better, a better way to live life. 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:49.280 Then we make our commitment in faith, right? 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.399 The blood on the door, and God delivers us. 00:00:52.399 --> 00:01:06.400 Uh then the journey itself gets kind of difficult as we realize that uh that enslavement, or the Israelites realized that enslavement from back then at least came with some stability. 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:10.959 Now they're wandering, they're eating manna, they're eating quail. 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:18.879 Finally, God provides in a different way for this community of people that are adrift, right? 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:20.959 They're wandering through the wilderness. 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:28.159 God offers them these ten commandments for them to follow. 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:37.439 So if you're reading through them, you'll probably notice these aren't just individual instructions or guidelines or even commandments. 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:41.920 These are communal guidelines as well, right? 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:46.400 They're for us as individuals, but they're also for us as a community. 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:54.719 It's not just about how we're going to live, but it's also how are we going to live together, right? 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:58.799 So we can tell this kind of by the nature of the list. 00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:02.400 The first five are kind of me and God. 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:05.040 How are we going to live together, me and God? 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:07.599 How am I going to live and trust God? 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:10.080 And then the last five are a little more social. 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:14.319 Social and communal, me and everyone. 00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:21.199 For me, I use this cross kind of metaphor to kind of keep me in that mode and in that mindset. 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:27.759 So um, so why don't we take this litmus test here? 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:34.400 This little uh uh set of uh guidelines, these commandments. 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:38.080 How many have uh broken some of them just today? 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:40.960 Right? 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:46.159 Right this last week, you know, have you wrestled with some of these? 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:50.400 The last one to me might be the hardest, that coveting. 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:56.000 You know, it's one thing to be able to stop my behaviors, the things I say. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:01.439 It's another thing to be in my head and stop me from from coveting things. 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:05.680 Sometimes I think it might be an easier test if we went the other way. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:09.680 I mean, how many of you got five out of ten just this week? 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:11.520 Right? 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.000 That's commitment in its own way, too. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.800 You've got to dedicate time, you gotta be organized. 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:20.000 That's a lot to get done, is what I'm saying to you. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:26.240 So a little bit of breakdown, some of the exegesis, the deconstruction of the passage. 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:37.439 This is stuff I get largely from Pete Enns, who's uh part of uh the Bible for Normal People, a website you might enjoy, and a podcast that me and Stephen actually enjoy a lot. 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:43.360 Uh, I got about five points, I think, worth uh worth pointing to. 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:45.120 How many are engineers? 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:46.560 Right? 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:48.240 Okay, five. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:49.840 So get your pencils out. 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:51.360 You can list all five. 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:52.639 You're welcome. 00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:53.520 All right. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:04:00.719 First of all, this is just the beginning of things as concerns laws. 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:02.560 The Pentateuch, right? 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:08.000 The first five books of our Bible are really full of laws. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.400 It's laws and then it's narrative. 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:12.159 Laws and narrative. 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:18.160 613 laws that are part of that Pentateuch. 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:30.879 And you'll see that it's really one large story of the laws being given and us kind of wrestling with them, and then God responding with new laws to help us with and just to grow together. 00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:40.079 And part of the ultimate goal of all of this is that we might live our lives in a way that point to God and who God is. 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:47.120 We follow these laws, and then people come to understand the loving God that we follow. 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:58.079 So, a second point of deconstruction, these laws or the Ten Commandments, as written, they really are kind of a response to their deliverance, right? 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:04.160 God, God came and delivered them, and now it's your job to follow God's laws. 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.120 God came through, now we need to come through. 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:15.839 I wanted to point that out just because that's slightly different than the understanding that I've been working on with this theme. 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:28.800 To me, I it's more of an understanding of God coming to us, promising us a new way, and not really quid pro quo, but more us just saying, Yes, I want that better way. 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:30.480 I want that life. 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:35.360 So just a little bit different experience of God and different theology. 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:39.680 Another one, and here's some good fun Bible words for you. 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:46.000 The early Israelites, they were not monotheists. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:51.040 Ah, you thought you thought they were, didn't you? 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:55.519 You're like, oh yeah, those early Israelites, of course they were monotheists. 00:05:55.519 --> 00:06:02.000 Anybody even had that thought in their life yet? 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:14.720 No, monotheists, we tend to think that Judeo-Christian faith has always been this monotheistic faith, meaning there's one God, right? 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:17.199 And we worship the one God. 00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:24.319 Well, we can tell from these commandments that they weren't monotheists, they were actually monologists. 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:26.800 Did I say it wrong? 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:27.600 Monologers. 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:29.199 Monologers. 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:30.720 Monolatrists. 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:32.240 Monolatrists. 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:35.439 Oh, see, this is why I'm glad Stephen walks with us here. 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:36.879 He keeps me. 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:40.639 I can run a church, but he knows the Bible really, really well. 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:42.879 This is what I'll say. 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:56.560 So, in any, those are people who understand that there's multiple gods, they just believe the God of the Israelites is the best God, the strongest God, the God that was able to free them from their enslavement. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:02.000 So, uh a bit kind of interesting for a lot of people who study this kind of thing. 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:22.480 Um, also, we should be careful when we start talking about comparing Old Testament and New Testament, Old Testament being about law, New Testament being about grace, you know, and the mindset of the New Testament fixes the Old Testament or evolves into, right? 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:24.800 And we kind of minimize our Old Testament. 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:30.000 We should remember that grace came before the law, right? 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:36.399 God delivered the Israelites, an act of grace for the Israelites, before the law comes. 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:39.279 So grace has always been a part of the faith. 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.560 It's not something that comes along with just with Christianity. 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:46.639 Finally, number five, engineers, I got to my fifth one. 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:49.680 There are two versions of these commandments. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:56.319 It suggests that there were two different communities of faith that were tracking these and keeping these. 00:07:56.319 --> 00:08:03.199 And when it came time to put it all together into one Bible, they decided to keep both. 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:08.560 And if you're interested in digging in, uh, the commandments themselves are pretty similar. 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:13.600 It's actually how they uh describe the response and the reasoning for the commandments. 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:14.720 It's a little bit different. 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:21.680 You'll find that the the list from Deuteronomy, different than our list from Exodus, is a little more humanistic. 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:30.959 Commandments were made for and out of love for the humans to be helping them as opposed to instruction, as it comes off in Exodus. 00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:34.000 So there, a little meat on the burger for you right there. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.320 Those of you who like to study this stuff. 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:38.559 So, what are we going to make of it? 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:41.919 How does this matter to us today? 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:57.519 You know, I've been talking about this overarching understanding of Exodus, not just as a journey that's taken by this ancient people and this ancient land, but actually a journey to faith, as a metaphor for this journey to faith. 00:08:57.519 --> 00:09:21.840 And along that line, we're at this point on that journey to faith, where the people who were formerly enslaved had all of their lives dictated for them, now had to figure out how to live without that dictation, without those laws, without the guidance, without that oppression, they had to be taught how to live. 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:31.440 So when we take that in a more metaphorical sense and bringing that sense of how am I on this journey to faith and deepening? 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:48.000 How am I or was I enslaved to something, connected to something that uh I needed to move away from and needed instruction about to be able to get to that place? 00:09:48.000 --> 00:10:04.240 I know did any of us take uh the Lenten season a little more seriously and give up something that you liked maybe a little bit too much, or something that isn't so healthy for you? 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:06.799 Did anybody go on that journey? 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:22.240 Or maybe you left here on a Sunday morning recognizing that something kind of had hold of you, just a little bit more than you were comfortable with, hold in the way you'd rather God had that focus. 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.399 And so you've tried to minimize it a little bit, right? 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:41.039 You've tried to to get some of that control back, you've tried to get that focus back on God, only to find it wasn't that easy. 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:46.080 It's not that easy to to let those things go behind. 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:49.759 All right, Jane, I have to ask. 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:50.879 Uh oh. 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.679 I meant to ask you before. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:56.720 We had confession, me and her. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:59.440 Can I share your confession? 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:02.000 Oh, thank you. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:05.039 This is why Jane's going to heaven. 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:08.720 And it's why I'm not. 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:22.879 So we had full confession, and Jane was telling me that her thing that draws her back, that thing that grabs at her, Big Mac double fries. 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:27.360 Hey, amen. 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:28.960 Amen. 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:33.440 I go to that church every now and again myself. 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:35.919 Right? 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:39.120 Sometimes it's hard to give that up. 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:43.759 And I use food a lot because I feel like that's accessible, right? 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:47.679 You use a word like sin, and we're like, oh, here comes the Bible stuff. 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:52.159 But when I start talking about, oh, have you ever tried to give something up? 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:56.480 And food is just that easy one, because we've all got a little something. 00:11:56.480 --> 00:11:57.840 Just a little something. 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:18.639 And if it isn't food or something in that range, it might even be something weightier, like an emotional thing, a personality thing, a weight you were trying to change to make yourself better, and you're trying to let something go, and you realize it is a lot harder to do than you might think. 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:29.200 And we laugh at these silly Israelites who started to pine for their abusive master, the Pharaoh. 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:35.039 And we have to ask ourselves, are we really that much better? 00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:46.159 Pining for whatever that thing is that we know is not right for us, and yet we're finding our way back to it. 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:48.559 We're being drawn back to it. 00:12:48.559 --> 00:13:09.440 To me, uh there's uh a program called the Bible Project Video, and these are these are resources I pointed you at toward at the beginning of Lent, and it does a really good job of shaping a fuller understanding of what we think might be going on here. 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:22.799 We learn from Scripture, in particular in Exodus, we follow the law to make God known to the world. 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:23.440 Right? 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:46.240 So we do those commandments and we live out this story of God giving us guidelines and us trying to follow the guidelines, and God continuing to grow with us as we stress and wrestle over these guidelines, that ultimately we're trying to express the God that we know so that others might see that God. 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:47.120 Right? 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:55.279 And for us as Christians, Christ is the fulfillment of that law. 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:59.039 In fact, he even calls himself the fulfillment of that law. 00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:00.799 So, what what does that mean? 00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:05.200 Do you remember when he summarized the Ten Commandments? 00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:08.559 Some of you might have that on your mind. 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:10.879 He brought it down to two. 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:14.000 Some of you are gonna remember it. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:18.799 Love God, love neighbor. 00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.080 Do you remember this cross I was making earlier? 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:26.000 Love God and love neighbor. 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.360 It's kind of how our Ten Commandments are set up, right? 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:34.399 Love God, the first half, love neighbor, the second half. 00:14:34.399 --> 00:14:51.279 I think this this is why it it helps me to remember that when I make the cross with it, he will remember that that the Ten Commandments mirrors that, that he's summarizing the Ten Commandments, but there's this addition of love. 00:14:51.279 --> 00:14:57.120 The love is significant, really significant. 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:09.120 When we add this component of love to our commandments, there's a layer formed that goes a bit beyond just behavior. 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:12.399 An example. 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:37.679 To love somebody means I gotta go even past keeping myself from living out whatever anger that I might have. 00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:44.559 Jesus made God known by showing the love that God holds for us. 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:51.279 A love so deep it included loving enemies. 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:57.679 In other words, Jesus made God known to the world by loving the world. 00:15:57.679 --> 00:16:09.039 I think the invitation to us, the invitation for us today is that we're we're on this journey, right? 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:30.159 We're taking this journey, and it's going through rivers, and it's going through burning bushes, and it's going through blood on the doors, and parting seas, and eating manna, and eating quail, finding some water, all with this promise and this hope of finding this better way that God is offering. 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:36.240 And on this journey, God offers us a bunch of laws. 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:40.960 You can see how it probably feels like. 00:16:40.960 --> 00:17:06.640 The difference is when we follow these laws and we make God known by following these laws, we also make God known to ourselves. 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:21.119 When we live out these laws, when we leave out these guidelines, it not only becomes real to those who experience us on that journey, but it becomes real for us in our hearts. 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:26.240 We're reminded of the value of that authority in our lives. 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:51.279 So when we're struggling in all the ways that life offers challenge, part of our prayers every week, when we are struggling, we can remember that there was a time when God's love did win my heart, did win in my life, and not only that, but it was good. 00:17:51.279 --> 00:18:06.319 We made a point to look for God, and God was there, maybe not in the way we thought, maybe even hoped for, but God was there with us. 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:32.799 And when we sit in our own wilderness trying to understand exactly how we are supposed to be moving, somewhat freed from our former gods and temptations, but still being tempted by those old masters by living these laws, by living these commandments, we give ourselves a glimpse of that better way. 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:41.519 And the more glimpses that we get, the fuller the picture is, the fuller that life experience is. 00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:47.599 God becomes real for us when we live these commandments. 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:54.000 Maybe Paul in our New Testament says it best in his letter to the Romans. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:01.680 This is chapter 13, verse 8, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:11.440 When we love another, we make God's love real for that person. 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:17.680 But let's not forget we make it real for ourselves as well. 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:20.400 Amen.