Exodus: The Ten Words

The Ten Commandments are often viewed as a restrictive, legalistic burden. However, Jesus presents them as a pathway to an abundant and better life. In the "Ten Words" (as they are known in Jewish tradition), we find a lifestyle defined by a relationship with the God who rescues. While modern culture prioritizes the latter six commandments concerning human interaction, the first four commandments—focused on our relationship with God—provide the essential foundation. Without putting God first, the rest of the law becomes unmanageable and nonsensical.

Key Points
1. Rescue Before Relationship (Exodus 20:1–2) The Law begins not with a demand, but with a statement of grace: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt." God establishes His role as Deliverer before He issues a single "Thou shalt not." These are family rules for those already rescued, not a test to determine who gets into the family.
2. Word One: Prioritize the King (Exodus 20:3) "No other gods before me" is an umbrella statement for all other commands. It requires seeking the Kingdom of God first. When God is prioritized over family, career, and self, obedience to the subsequent commands follows naturally.
3. Word Two: Proper Worship (Exodus 20:4–6) While the first command identifies who we worship, the second addresses how. We are prohibited from reducing God to an image or a "Golden Calf" that we can control. This includes making God in our own image by picking and choosing which of His ethics to follow. Note the corporate nature of sin mentioned here: what we do not overcome, we often pass on to future generations.
4. Word Three: Honoring the Name (Exodus 20:7) Misusing God's name involves more than profanity; it includes hypocrisy. Claiming the name of Christ while acting contrary to His character is the most serious violation of this word. We are called to "hallow" His name in both speech and conduct.
5. Word Four: The Rhythm of Rest (Exodus 20:8–11) The Sabbath is a creation principle. While not strictly repeated as a legal requirement in the New Testament (Colossians 2:16), it remains a vital rhythm. Resting is a test of trust—an opportunity to believe that God’s work is more important than our own productivity.

Conclusion
Jesus summarized these four words with the greatest commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." We do not keep these rules to earn love, but because He first loved and rescued us through the work of Christ.

Calls to Action

• Evaluate Priorities: Identify "good things" that have taken God's place as the primary focus of your life.
• Examine Your Conduct: Are you "wearing the name" of Christ in a way that reflects His character, or is there hypocrisy to address?
• Embrace Rest: Commit to a rhythm of rest this week as an act of trust in God’s provision.

Transcript

Just then, a man came up to Jesus and asked T teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?

Why do you ask me about what is good? Jesus replied, there is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones? He inquired. Jesus replied, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.

We ask for your help. Lord, we ask for just wisdom and understanding during this time. Ask that you would teach us Holy Spirit and you just show us more of your heart. God. Just show us your heart and all of this. Amen. All right. I am Glenn. Glory said. I get to talk about the Ten Commandments today, so I'm excited about that.

I know with the Bible reading, I. I cut the story off. For those of you who know the story, I cut it right in the middle. So I wasn't trying to trick you, wasn't trying to hide anything from you, but I wanted to just highlight something that Jesus said in this story. So if you could put that passage back up on the screen, actually, I, I love this little snapshot of Jesus's heart for the Ten Commandments, because this is this is what he quotes.

And this this guy comes up to him, we usually call him the rich young ruler. And he asks him, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? And Jesus said, there's only one who is good. And I think if one of us were filling in the rest of that sentence, we would have said something like, there's only one who is good.

So put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Which would be true, right? I mean, that's a true statement. We would have ended it like that. But Jesus says something different. He says there's only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which kind of rubs us the wrong way, right?

I mean, as good Protestants who are big on like by grace through faith people, Jesus is like, yeah, you want life, obey a lot. Keep the commandments. It's like, make, make the Ten Commandments great again. And everyone's like, no. Oh my gosh, Old Testament obedience. This is lame. And then Jesus just keeps on. He starts listing them, starts listing some of the Ten Commandments.

So to be clear, Jesus wasn't saying this was a way to be saved. He's talking to people who know God, who are saved. And he's saying, if you want to enter life, if you want to live life the way that God wants you to live life, then keep the commandments. And and that's I wanted that to set the tone for the way we talk about the Ten Commandments this morning, because it can feel, it can easily turn into, oh, these are a bunch of legalistic rules that we should follow, and we're probably not going to follow them.

So praise God for grace anyway. Moving on. You know, and and that's not really Jesus's heart for the Ten Commandments. Jesus's heart was know this, this is actually life. To follow these, to obey these. This is actually a pathway to a better, a happier, a more abundant life. And so that's how I want to approach the Ten Commandments.

There was a survey a few years back. I have a little graphic for it. Americans were asked which of the Ten Commandments that they agree with the most. Well, which ones that they agree with regardless of their faith. So this was asked to people of all different kinds of faith and religions, and regardless of whether they're a Christian or not, what's their stance on the different commandments?

And so we we listed them here from top down and then continue in this column. We listed them from the one that people agree with the most to the one that people agree with the least. And so we we start off with you shall not commit murder, which is really encouraging that most people in America don't believe in murdering.

I, I appreciate that, but I'm concerned for the 5%.

I hope, I hope I don't live next to one of the 5%, you know what I mean? But it gets worse after that. Stealing is we're still pretty good. Lying starts to drop a little bit, honoring your father and mother that drops quite a bit. Coveting. And then once we get. This is really what I wanted to point out.

Once we get to the last four, it drops off quite a bit. So not worshiping idols, you shall have no other God. You shall not use the Lord's name in vain. And then the Sabbath comes in last, which is really interesting. But you notice there's a there's another steep drop off right after this coveting to worshiping of vitals.

What's interesting is that the the four commandments that Americans agree with the least, or actually the first four commandments, and I don't think they're the first four on accident. I think they're the first four for a reason. So it's interesting that the commandments that are at the bottom of America's list are at the top of God's list. And so I want to I actually want to focus on the first four commandments today.

I didn't think we'd have enough time to get to all ten anyway, but especially after seeing this survey, I really wanted to focus on these four. Talk about what they mean and just talk about what they mean for us. One last thing on this survey before we move on. Tim Keller, he was the he recently passed, but a few years back in the I think 2019 or so, he was interviewed about these survey results.

Actually it was another survey from the UK with with basically the exact same results. And it was a Fox News interview. You could Google it if you want, but I thought it was response to it was really profound. He said this, he said these results are short sighted. The first four commandments are the basis for the next six.

Without the first four that have to do with God. The next six don't make sense and they are not manageable. This is totally characteristic. Tim Keller he's so gentle. They're short sighted. I would have said something a whole lot, you know, like, this is dumb. You know, he's like, it's very short sighted. But he's. But I think he's right.

The first four commandments have to do with God. And without the first four, the the last six, they don't make any sense, and they're not manageable there. Jesus was right that there is only one God who is good. And he he. He said that for a reason before he said, if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.

He said, there's only one who's good. We we need the grace of God. We need God himself in a relationship with him if we want to keep these commandments. But once we do, they actually bring a lot of life and they show us the way to life. Okay. So let's let's get into it. So Exodus 20 is the passage that we're we're in this morning and I want to just work through it line by line for the for the few minutes that we have.

And it starts off like this. Exodus 20 verses one through two it says, And God spoke all these words, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. And I want to just pause. I know we haven't got to a commandment yet, but I want to pause because this is important.

It says, God spoke all these words, and this part is just interesting more than it's important. But in Jewish tradition, these were actually called the ten words, not the Ten Commandments. The ten words. And I think there's I think there's good reasons for that. But I think one of the reasons is that the words start off with a statement that's not a commandment at all.

It's actually a statement of grace. And Travis talked about this last week, that grace is all throughout our Old Testament. We don't have to wait till the book of Matthew till we find grace, literally from the beginning of the Bible. Grace. Grace and the Ten Commandments themselves, which, like I said, get such a bad rap for legalism and rules.

Start off with this massive statement of God's action, not man's action. And so he starts them off by saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. It's like God saying, remember, before we get to the thou shalt not, before we get to the list of things to do and not do.

Remember that I'm the one who saved you. Remember that I'm the one who bought you that I'm the one who loves you. You're my treasured possession. That's the foundation for everything else that follows. So we can't. We can't pass by that too quickly. Author named Christopher Watkin. He says this about the Book of Exodus. He says the constant refrain throughout the book of Exodus.

Oh, I think I skipped that. So the Christopher Watkin quote, the constant refrain throughout the Book of Exodus is rescue before relationship, call before code, liberation than law. Let my people go before thou shalt not. Have you ever thought that even the structure of the the Book of Exodus, which I know this is like a totally nerdy thing to point out.

You know, the the literary structure of the book of Exodus, you know, like, but when you think about it, it's really profound that the whole first half of Exodus is about God saving people who weren't necessarily, like, pursuing it, looking for it. I mean, they wanted to be out of pain and suffering for sure, but it's about a God who rescues people by his grace.

And then the second half of the book is about law and a in a way of life that's better. It's really important. The last thing I'll say before we get into the first commandment is that I think the these ten words, you know, the Ten Commandments, they're kind of like they're kind of like family rules. And I don't I don't shy away from the word rules.

You know, again, that's something that we talked about last Sunday. It's not a bad word, but when you have a family rule, it's not because you're trying to figure out who's in and out of the family. Okay. So we have some family rules. The first family rule that came to mind was a rule that we call no poop at the table.

Okay. This is a very important rule at the power family, because we have a five and a two year old, and there's lots of poop jokes, and I'm pretty liberal when it comes to letting my kids do poop jokes. I don't judge me, okay? But they I let them go wild in the car with their poop jokes. Okay.

But I put my foot down when it comes to the dinner table. Okay. And so I made this rule while back that there are no poop jokes at the table trying to eat here. All right. And so they they know this rule. You know, one of them will break it. And, you know, maybe my five year old. Actually, this just happened last night.

My five year old just let one slip. She let a poop joke out at the dinner table. And a two year old right away. She goes, no poop at the table. They know the rules. But the point is that when somebody breaks, the ruler keeps the rule. It's not. It doesn't determine whether they're in my family or not.

There they are. My kids. Their love, their accepted, no matter what. Okay. When Judy broke the parole last night, it wasn't like I was like, okay, now I need to call your teacher and tell her that your last name is not power anymore and that you're going to be sleeping on the streets tonight. You know, I'm. I'm not going to exile her.

She's she's in the family no matter what. And I think I think the ten words are like this. It's like God saying I rescued you. You're in the family. Now, this is how our family does things. Okay. All right. So let's get into the first word. Word number one. You shall have no other gods before me. Now, this.

This is seems super simple. This is so huge.

Jen Wilkin, Bible teacher. She wrote a whole book on the Ten Commandments. And if you're since I'm. Especially since I'm not going to get to the last six. If you want to study this more, go deep into it. I really recommend this book by Jen Wilkin. It's called ten Words to Live By, and she says this about the first commandment.

She says the first word serves as the umbrella statement for the other nine. If we obey the first word, we would automatically obey the others. Now that's a big statement. If we obey this one, we would obey all the other nine. Not coveting. Not committing adultery. Not lying. Like is this true? So what does it mean? What does it mean to not have any other gods before God?

Well, it definitely means only worshiping the one true God, right? We can't flirt with other religions and faiths. We can't worship a Hindu god here. And then a little bit of Yahweh here. Like, definitely the commandment means that. But I think it means more than that. And we see that with each one of the ten words that there's this, there's this surface understanding of the commandment, which is important.

But then there's a deeper heart understanding. And Jesus himself did this in the New Testament when he was talking about two of the commandments. He said, you have heard it said, do not commit, do not commit murder. But I say to you, if anyone's angry with another person in their heart. And so Jesus was known for taking these commandments and taking them deeper into the heart, to people's motivations, to their desires beyond just a surface obedience to them.

And so I think with this first command, yes, only worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's big. And probably a lot of Americans disagree with that. But it does go deeper than that. And the first commandment really is the call to prioritize God before everything else in our lives. It's the call to put God first before even good things in our lives families, jobs, friends, all of these things.

He is the one who's worthy. The one we need to worship first. This is how Jesus said it. In Matthew six. He said, no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one, or either you hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. And then a few verse, few verses later, Jesus says this.

He says, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. And I think that that that captures the heart of the first commandment really well, that we we're called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness above every other thing. And I think that Jen Wilkins. Right.

If we would actually do that, that's the great call of our lives, is to seek God first above everything else. And if we did, we would find ourselves obeying him in every other way. Is there some weird light thing happening right now? This thought maybe it was just me and saw a few of you looking at each other.

So.

Okay. Word number two.

Is 20 verses for through six you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, and a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

So at first glance, we think, is this sort of a repeat of the first commandment? Then we already cover that to only worship God and kind of, yeah, it kind of is a repeat. It's, it's we're still talking about worship. But again, that should underline how important this is to God and how important this should be to us, that the first two commandments are all about our worship.

But I think the second commandment is different. And while the first commandment is about who we worship, I think the second commandment is about how we worship. Now this is why I say that there's a story a little bit later on in Exodus, and we're going to cover this in a few weeks, where Moses is up the mountain having the best quiet time he's ever had.

And down the mountain, the rest of the Israelites just almost immediately turned towards idolatry and forsaken God. It's just this really sad, tragic story. But what's interesting about it is they don't just turn away from God and serve other gods. Like they don't start throwing out names of Egyptian gods and goddesses. They actually form this golden calf and they call it Yahweh.

They say here Israel, the one who saved you from Egypt, and they're looking at this golden calf. So what they've done is they've, they've they've landed on some kind of compromise. We're going to keep the name Yahweh, and we're going to keep this same salvation story, but we're going to just insert this little golden statue in here, and we're going to we're going to worship the way we want to worship.

We're not going to worship the way God told us to worship. We're going to we're going to decide on our own rules for worshiping. And that's exactly what the second commandment is about, is that we don't get to decide how we worship God. He tells us how we worship in and you're like, oh, like he tells us what songs to sing.

Well, no, no. Not like no. There there are definitely areas we have freedom in our worship, the songs we sing. But he draws some boundaries. You can't bring some of these other pagan practices into your worship, and beyond that, you can't worship your own version of me. That's really what was happening in that story with The Golden Calf is they're like, you know what?

This is Yahweh, this little statue that we can hold. And it's cute and we can control it. And God's like, you can't control me. You can't reduce me down to something like that. I know it's easier. No, it's more comfortable. But that's exactly what I'm telling you. You shall not do is reduce me into something that you can put in your back pocket.

We do this all the time. When we read the Bible, we decide. Well, the survey was a good example, right? I like this commandment. I don't like this commandment. I like what God says about not murdering. I really don't like his sexual ethic. It's really uncomfortable. It's really awkward. I'm going to make up my own sexual ethic. And God says, you can't.

You can't do that. You can't decide those kind of things that I've already decided.

So God also attaches a few statements to the second second commandment. And he says this. He says, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents. To the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. Let's focus on that for a second. Now, this is not a human petty jealousy.

This is a divine jealousy. So I've heard it said before that the difference between envy and jealousy is that envy is desiring something that's not yours, and jealousy is that is desiring something that is yours. But even so, most human jealousy is petty and it's lame. It's fleshly, it's superficial. But God, whose bought us and saved us, we actually do belong to him.

And so when God says, I'm jealous for you, it's actually a statement of his passion to have all of us. And that's exactly what the guys from the mountain were talking about this morning, right? God wants all of us. He wants all of our hearts, not just a little bit. That's what God means when he says, I'm jealous.

He says, give me all of you. I want all of you. Not just a little bit. It's actually good news. It's good news that God is jealous. He doesn't share us. Now, the next part is a little bit disturbing for some, that God punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation, I like this.

I like this quote from this scholar, Waldo Jansen in his commentary on Exodus. He says this instead of describing God as tenaciously vindictive. This passage points out the corporate nature of sin. You, the family head, cannot engage in iniquity iniquity without involving your whole household in the consequences. There is no private sin, no sin that touches only. You see, I think when we first read that, we're like, oh my gosh, God, punishing the children, like, what a monster, you know?

But actually we all see this in real life and agree with this, that the actions of the mom and the dad, the actions of the grandparents, they affect the children. This is part of life. This is there is a spiritual principle attached to this. It was Peter who said, Jesus may live in your heart, but grandpa still lives in your bones.

And I think that's a good little reminder that a lot of the things that we struggle with, a lot of the things that were wrestling with, have been passed on in, in one way or another. Now, is that a sealed destiny? I don't think so. I think that the verse is revealing reality, not a sealed destiny. I think it's showing the propensities.

It's. It's showing the spiritual consequences of sin that are passed on to 3 or 4 generations. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think, first of all, it isn't it a motivator for moms and dads that whatever you don't overcome, you pass on? Isn't that motivating? I mean, I know, I know some people, I know some areas even myself, where we kind of stopped fighting a certain battle a long time ago.

And then when we realized this principle that what we don't overcome, we pass on, we started fighting again. We said, you know what? I don't want to pass this on to my kids. I don't want to pass on this addiction. I don't want to pass on this victim mentality. I don't want to pass this thing on. And so we fight.

But I also think that for those who things have been passed on to, I think that there's a way forward as well. I think that there's the power of the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit enable us to walk free. And this is why we don't judge each other guys, because everyone is fighting a difficult battle and it's different than your battle.

They might be fighting something that their family lines have been dealing with for generations, and you may not have that same battle. So you focus on your battle and we don't judge each other. We help each other. We encourage each other in the fight. There is one. There's one part of this passage, though, that is genuinely unfair. It's unfair, and it's the part that says that for those who love God, he will bless them for a thousand generations.

That's genuinely unfair, that God would bless people for a thousand generations for something that their ancestors that they don't even know about did. But that's the grace of God, right?

Okay. Next word. We have two more that we're going to cover this morning. The next word. Exodus 20, verse seven. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Okay, this is the cussing commandment, right? It's like, don't cuss. All right. On to the next one.

Well, I yeah. Yes. It's good. It's good to not. It's good to not cuss. It's good to not insert God's name into your cuss words. I don't think that's respectful. I was explaining this to my five year old Junie a few months ago. We were watching a movie and there was some of that. And so I explained to her, I go, no, we don't we don't just put God's name in cuss words.

It's disrespectful to God. She's like, oh, and you never know. Like what's fully sinking in or not. But this must have really sunk in because a few months later, she was telling me about some kids at her school who cuss and to use the Lord's name in vain. She's like, and I tell all my friends not to use God's name in vain, but they keep on doing it.

I tell them, I'm like you. Way to go, Junie. You hold the line on that one. That's good. I don't know how that's working out for her in kindergarten, but she is really holding the line on this one. She tells her friends. So for the for the ancient Jews, they they took this command very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they actually stopped saying the name of God altogether because they didn't want to misuse it.

They didn't want to take it in vain. And so even the name Yahweh is just I. We've talked about this before in earlier, Sherman, but it's our best guess at the pronunciation because they stopped writing it down. They they didn't want to use it in vain. They didn't want to misuse it. So, like, it'd be safer to just write a few of the consonants and not the whole letter.

And so we don't actually know. Now if we're on a spectrum of like going way too far with this commandment, like maybe they did or not taking it seriously at all. Which side do you think we're on today? Yeah, yeah, probably the other side, right? Probably. Probably none of us are, like, really worrying about using the name of God or Jesus in a wrong way.

And I and I think that's a corrective to us. I think this commandment is a corrective to us, that God's name really matters. It's really sacred. We don't want to use it in just inappropriate jokes. Or, you know, when we hit our finger with the hammer, like none of this is appropriate. Jesus actually, in the Lord's Prayer itself, he included this commandment in there when he said, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.

He's talking about this commandment because I used to think hallowed be your name. I used to think that was like a declaration of worship, like hallowed be your name. You're so holy. But that's not what. That's not what he's doing. It's a prayer request. May your name be hallowed. May your name be treated as holy and sacred. In the Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught us to pray regularly, he's saying, pray that the name of God would be treated with reverence.

That's amazing to me. There's this quote from David, Bible teacher, who kind of breaks down the different ways that we can break this commandment, and I thought it was helpful. He says this, these are the these are the three different ways that we can find ourselves misusing God's name, he says in profanity, using the name of God and blasphemy and cursing frivolity, using the name of God in a superficial, stupid way.

Hypocrisy. Claiming the name of God but acting in a way that disgraces him. Now that last one is a little bit shocking, right? We've talked about the first two, but this is a huge part of the third commandment is that when we wear the name of God, which we do as Christians, basically whenever, when anyone knows that you are a follower of Jesus, you wear his name in a certain way.

And when you act in a way that's opposite of his name and character, then in a sense you are using God's name in vain. I mean, isn't this why, when we hear about some of these scandals with with preachers and pastors were so offended because they, you know, they were the man of the cloth, they they wore the name of God.

And yet they acted in a way that was contrary to God's name. They misused God's name. This is probably the the most serious way to break this commandment, and the one that we should be most concerned with. Okay, let's end with the last commandment we're going to focus on this morning. It's number four says this Exodus 20, verses eight through 11.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. But he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, the Sabbath day, and made it holy. So it's really clear that for the original Israelites, keeping the Sabbath day meant a literal 24 hour observance, which on our calendar today would have been from Friday night to Saturday night.

That's how they kept the Sabbath. They stopped all work for this 24 hour period. What's interesting, though, is that this is the only one of the Ten Commandments. Travis mentioned this last week that is not repeated in the New Testament. And so the question is, should should we be keeping the Sabbath? Well, it doesn't repeat the Sabbath command, but it does give us a few hints.

And here's one of them. I don't have time to go over all of them. But this one passage in Colossians two, verses 16 and 17 says this. It says, therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come.

The reality, however, is found in Christ. So he says, don't let anyone judge you in the way you celebrate your Sabbath, okay? Don't let anyone judge me, okay? It sounds like there's some kind of freedom involved, but then the next statement makes that even more clear. He says these are a shadow of the things that were to come.

The reality, however, is found in Christ. And so what I believe and there's some controversy over this within different churches and different denominations. And that's okay. This is something that we can disagree on. But what my take on this is that we're not called to follow the fourth commandment to the letter anymore. One day a week, Friday night to Saturday night, it's in the same category as the Jewish ceremonial laws in the feasts.

Right? Because we believe that that we don't need to keep the Passover or the Pentecost like we we honor these festivals and we learn from them and they teach us about Christ. But as Christians, we're not under an obligation to celebrate them. And I think the same is true with the 24 hour Sabbath Friday night to Saturday night.

So if I'm right, does that mean we can throw away the Sabbath? Not so fast. Sorry. No pun intended with that.

When God is talking about the Sabbath day, he ties it to creation. He says that he worked for six days that he created, and then he rested for a day. This is way back in Genesis, before the Law of Moses. So tying this all together, we may not be under a Sabbath day, as in a law, as in a commandment, as in you sin.

If you worked on a Friday night or a Saturday morning. But it is a creation principle that God wrote into us from the very beginning, and we need to honor it. So maybe another way to say it is that we do need to Sabbath, because it's a creation principle. But the way we Sabbath is a matter of freedom.

A lot of Christians today will will celebrate a Sabbath, a day of rest on a Sunday. It's a little bit hard for pastors. Usually that's one of their main days of work. But there's there's freedom in the way we celebrate our Sabbath. But but don't let that minimize the importance of it. Because, again, if we're on a spectrum of taking the Sabbath too seriously and two literally and not Sabbath thing at all.

Where do you think our culture and our churches are on that spectrum? Yeah. We yeah. Most of the time we just blow right past it. And I think that's the corrective we need is, oh, maybe we should honor what God wrote into the very creation at the beginning. This is a quote from Kevin that sums this up. And the Sabbath.

He says there's still an abiding principle that we ought to worship on the Lord's day, and trust God enough to have a weekly routine where we cease from our normal labors. He made the Sabbath from man, not man, for the Sabbath. God gives us Sabbath as a gift. It's an island of get to in a sea of half to who also offers us Sabbath as a test.

It's an opportunity to trust God's work more than our own. When I go weeks without taking adequate time off is the part that is kind of was ouchy to me. When I go weeks without taking adequate time off, I may or may not be disobeying the fourth commandment, but I'm certainly too convinced of my own importance, and more than a little foolish if my goal is God glorifying productivity over a lifetime of hard work, there are a few things I need more than a regular rhythm of rest.

Okay, let's let's put all this together. So we went over the first four commandments that have to do with God. This morning, Tim Keller reminded us that without the first four commandments, without putting God first in our lives, the last six don't make sense. And they're not manageable. We need we need the grace of God, and we need God first in our lives.

Jesus actually summed up the first four commandments by one. He summed up all the ten with two right love God and love neighbor. But this, this passage in Mark 12 he says this. He says the most important one. This is in response to what commandments are the most important? The most important one answered Jesus, is this hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, the most important one. So this is our priority. This sums up everything that we just talked about in the last 20 minutes. What does it look like to love God? It means to put him first.

It means to not reduce him in the way that we worship. It means to honor his name, to not misuse it. And it means to trust him enough to rest in regular intervals. This is what it looks like to love God. Worship team, why don't you come up and let's stand?

We're going to have a prayer team up here. And if any one of these four words touched your heart.

If you feel like God's calling you to put him above something else in your lives, then get prayer and do business with God. Get prayer from somebody else. If you feel like God's calling you to wear his name in a way that's worthy of him without hypocrisy, do business with God. Or if you feel like I. For me, as I went through this, the one that touched me the most was the need for rest.

And if that speaking to you then do business with God. Where do you need to trust God with your work and your productivity and stop and rest? This is the way we get to love God. And remember, we do all of it by remembering that he loved us first. Because if for the the Israelites, if the Ten Commandments started off with I am the God who rescued you from Egypt, for us it would start off with I'm the God who became a man and rescued you from sin and death.

I mean, how much more do we have to be grateful for? How much more of the grace have we seen? So show us Jesus. Show us the grace that's available. And would you just show us the way forward with these ten words? In your name, Jesus. Amen.