Understanding God's Instructions for Life

If you're to go overseas somewhere, it's a very important thing for you to learn the customs of the country that you go to. I learned one time, and the missionaries were talking about it, that in some places of the world where you take a small child and here we kind of rub their heads or with our hand on top of their head, that in some parts of the world that's an insult and it's very embarrassing and demeaning to someone you do that to. Here we think it's kind of a friendly thing to do, to rough a kid's head or hair up. In some places you go to, you know there's places where you drive on the left-hand side of the road. If you go somewhere and you get in a car, it's good to know if you should go on the right-hand side of the road or the left-hand side of the road. And so when missionaries get ready to be sent, they go to a place where they're trained. Someone teaches them about the culture in which they're going and the instructions that they should follow and what the laws are in that land so that when they go, they will know exactly what they should do and how they should do it. God did the same thing. When he gathered Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden, he went through the rules. He said, now, here's your job, you're going to take care of the garden, you're going to take care of everything in it, and I want you to walk with me every day. And then he said, there's one thing you don't do, don't eat from that tree. They knew exactly what they should do and what they shouldn't do. What God was saying is, the two of you are going to get along if you do this, what I'm telling you. You and I are going to get along if you do what I'm telling you. As soon as they ate from that tree, everything changed. Adam and Eve no longer felt comfortable with each other. There was a barrier between them, a sense of mistrust there. And then when God came to be walking with them, they couldn't even face him because they were so embarrassed about what had taken place. Their rebellion against what he asked them to do changed everything in their lives, between each other and even between God. The rules that God had left them were so clear, so plain, and they had every opportunity to feel at home with God, but that was over. When Moses led the people of Israel to the land of promise, he brought them to Mount Sinai. There at the foot of Mount Sinai, God told his people, you're my people, I brought you up out of Egypt, you belong to me, I've rescued you, I've saved you. Now let me tell you how you can live so that you can get along with each other and so that you can get along with me. And that's when he gave them the commandments that we read as the Ten Commandments. All the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy are filled with an explanation of these instructions. What God was saying to them is, if you do the things that I've asked you to do, you're going to get along with each other. If you do the things that I'm asking you to do, you're going to get along with me. If you want to live in peace with each other and with me, this is what you do. For these instructions will guide your lives so that you can have the life that I've planned for you. Now we call these Ten Commandments, commandments, and I heard somewhere someone said we must follow the Ten Commandments because God wrote them down and he didn't give us the Ten Suggestions. Well he didn't give us the Ten Suggestions, nor did he call these the Ten Commandments. What they're called in the Hebrew Bible is the Ten Words from God. It's not that they're really commandments, they're instructions about how we behave so that we can relate to God correctly and to the world around us properly. They're laws in this sense, not like the laws that are on the road where you have to drive 55 miles an hour, somewhere someone wrote the law up, passed it, and they can change it. 55, 65, 75, they can be changed by men. But there are some laws men don't make up and they can't be changed. It doesn't matter what day of the week it is, how old you are, where you are in the world, if you get up on a two-story building and jump off, you're going to have a real collapse when you hit the ground. The law of gravity is never revealed, nor is it adopted. It just is there. The biblical instructions are like the laws of gravity. God says there are certain things in the world that you have to learn to live with. Those are the things, the physical things, like the laws of nature, what's going to take place. If you follow these and you don't jump off of something high, you will not be hurt. Now when you start out, a child begins, they don't have any sense of the law of gravity. It takes a few skinned knees, it takes a couple of jumping off of something, maybe with a broken arm or something twisted or hurt, before they stop and say, you know, I shouldn't do that again. I think that's a bad deal. We learn when we see that violating these principles in nature, violating them, create distress for us. God said to the people of Israel, here are the instructions by which you can live. If you live this way, you will find life in its fullness. Now he is giving these instructions to his children, his people. The Ten Commandments begin by saying, and God brought the people of Israel up out of Egypt and then he said to them, therefore, since you are my people, this is the way you live as my people. This is the way you live. When we had our second son, our oldest son was a couple of years old, I had stereo equipment around my room and he had been admonished and encouraged and disciplined for touching knobs that were not supposed to be touched. So when we brought our second son home, we set him on the sofa across from the stereo and my first son looked at him and he went over to the stereo and said, no, no, no, to the record player, no, no, no, to the TV, no, no, no. If you do these things, I've discovered you're going to find it a lot better at our house. Two year old. There are rules, you know, that everybody has. God has them too. The rules by which he allows our children or his people, his children, to be able to live in peace with him. Now every family probably has rules. You probably have rules for your kids that you should, one of them maybe should do certain jobs and another one should do other jobs. And when they do the jobs, it's because they're your children and they're under your roof. Now you may say to one of your children, now your job is to do the dishes this month and your job is to clean the house and your job is to mow the grass. And whenever they do those jobs, you know that they've done what they're supposed to do. They're part of the task. You say to this, you say this to your kids and maybe a neighbor kid could come in your house and say, you know, I like this family. I'm going to come up every week and mow their grass. If they did that all summer and they came to you at the end of the summer and say, now am I your child? You would say, well, I really appreciate you mowing my grass, but just because you've done one of the jobs my kids were supposed to do doesn't mean that you become my child. This is an important ingredient in understanding the Bible. What God did was he said to the people of Israel, come and follow me, and he made them his children. Then he gave them the commandments and instructions. For many years they followed these in obedience to God. They drifted away from them sometimes and came back. They drifted away and came back. Finally, they were so rebellious to God that he gave their land away to someone else and they were carried into captivity. In reflecting on this, the people of Israel said, you know, we didn't keep the instructions God gave us. Now he's kicked us out of the house. Maybe if we go back to these rules that he gave us and we started living those rules, we could get back in. So the Pharisees arose in captivity and they made a list of all the laws that God had and all it took to keep them. There were hundreds of them. And they began to say to the people, if we do these things, we are going to be able to get back into the land of promise. When Jesus came, his instructions in Matthew chapter 5, the beginning of his first message to the people of Israel who were listening to him, he told them why he was there. Matthew chapter 5, beginning with verse 17. It had to do with what the law really is. Is it a law that is made by man or is it a law made by God? What is the nature of this thing that you see? Do not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. These two words sort of symbolize all of the Old Testament. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Now some people think that when he says this word fulfill, that Jesus means that he's going to keep all of the laws of the Old Testament and live a perfect life and then be sacrificed on the cross to pay for our sins and that's what the fulfillment means. I don't think that. I think that what he was talking about is, I'm going to explain to you in detail what the law began to describe to you when Moses gave it. There is a further graduate course in what the law is about and I am going to teach you what it means completely and fully. But Jesus didn't change anything and he didn't make up anything for the tenth commandment is the one that turned all the laws internally where he said there, you're not to covet your neighbor's wife, which means if you begin to lust after your neighbor's wife from your own mind and heart, then sooner or later you're going to commit adultery. Some of you are going to do that. So I'm telling you that adultery begins with your heart and with your mind. So control that. Don't covet your neighbor's house or your animals or his wealth or anything that he has because if it does it, it soon leads you to want to steal it or to take it. So theft really starts inside and murder starts inside. So Jesus came and took every one of those commandments and described for us how that the origin of those commandments really start in our minds and in our hearts. What we think about and what we desire. He helped us to understand the fullness of what God wanted to do. Now John, when he writes about Jesus coming, says as many as received him to them, he means received him as the Messiah and the Lord, to as many as received him, to them he gave the ability to become children of God. That's the important ingredient. Now Jesus comes to as many as receives him, they are now the children of God. Now when he begins to teach them about what the law is, he is teaching this to the children of God, already followers of his, already holy, already righteous. The word righteous means to live in alignment with God. The word holy means to be set apart from the rest of the world so your lifestyle and thoughts and behavior are different than the rest of the world, whose minds are controlled by their own desires and passions instead of the power and the presence of God. Now Jesus is going to teach them how the law could be completely used in their life because this period of time had taken place where it was begun to be misused. So I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen by any means will disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. There is a Hebrew letter that's like our letter R and it's simply a rounded little curve. There's another Hebrew letter that's done the same way but it has right at the top of that curve a little dot, smaller than we would make if you made a capital G, you know that little part at the top. He's saying not even the little dot above the letter, not even that little dot will be changed. Every single detail of the law is still in force. Now he's not talking again about the law that you've passed by the government but he's saying these instructions that if you live them you'll get along with each other and if you live them you'll get along with me. These are like God's spiritual laws of the spiritual nature, like gravity is for the physical world. These are the world laws of spiritual reality. How can you have inside of yourself and relationships with other and with God a oneness? These things allow that. If you don't do them, you won't have it. God's promise to his people is very simple. He said to them, I will give you guidance in all the choices that you make so you make good choices. If you make stupid choices, it's because you haven't trusted God with those choices. I will make here that I provide for you. If you find yourself not provided for, it's because you haven't trusted the instructions God's given you about your assets. I will protect you and he says I will stand between not you never hurting but never being destroyed and if that happens to you, you can look back and see that somewhere you got off the road with these. We're just like the laws of gravity, if you don't keep them, terrible things happen to you. Here are the instructions for life. So Jesus is saying to them, I've come to help you understand what all this is about. Anyone who breaks one of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now the Pharisees and teachers of the law knew the law perfectly and they kept all of these hundreds of laws that they had collected to keep you from disobeying any of the Ten Commandments. But the problem they had was they thought that keeping these laws would make them righteous and make them a child of God. Remember your neighbor comes up and mows your grass all the time. You would never, no matter how long you mowed your grass, make him your child unless you adopted him. So you have the Pharisees every day struggling to keep these laws, hoping that they would become good enough to enter heaven. Our world is filled with people in church and outside of church who believe, if I do enough good stuff, I'll go to heaven. It's like your neighbor saying, if I mow the yard enough, I will become their child. It never, ever will happen. Jesus understood that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law had misunderstood what the law was about. The law is not a road to a relationship with God. It is the way you maintain your relationship with God. But it starts with a relationship that you have with God. When Paul was writing about this, he was one of those people who was dedicated to keep the law no matter what. He was even prepared to kill people to keep what he thought was the law that he might go to find God as a part of his life. When Paul came to know Christ, was adopted into his family, like John said, to as many as received him, to them he gave the ability to become the children of God. When he had that, he discovered what a terrible mistake had been made. Writing in Romans chapter 8, Paul was talking about this very issue. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The Pharisees thought there was condemnation for not doing enough good. Jesus, in the lives of a person, never comes there without forgiveness of their sins. So Paul understood that whenever you gave your life to Christ and he engulfed you so that you were being like inside of him, like being in a house, he engulfs your life and controls and possesses it that you are righteous, regardless of which of the commands you've never kept. For in that moment, forgiveness is given to you, righteousness and holiness are given to you, he sets you apart which makes you holy, he forgives your sin which makes you righteous, you're aligned with God and you're set apart. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And if you've accepted Christ, there is no condemnation in your life. And if you think that there is, even though you've accepted him, you really haven't understood what he's done for you. There is no condemnation. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Here he describes two kinds of law. One of them is the law of sin and death which says, if I'm good enough, I can finally make it to heaven and I'll finally become God's child. That's the law of sin and death because sin keeps you from doing it and death is in your life, the spiritual death is there all the time. The law of the spirit of life is, now Christ is my Lord. He has forgiven me, redeemed me and changed me. And now he tells me what to do. And I do the things he tells me, not to become a child of God, but because I am a child of God. All the difference in the world. Two people side by side could be doing the very same acts, mowing the grass. One does them because mom said to, dad said to, the other does it because I hope they'll adopt me. Every same task, two different outcomes. And so the Pharisees looked around them and said, if we're good enough, God will take us to be with himself. For the law was powerless to do. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature. Make us children of God. God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin and sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law may be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit. We don't live controlled by our sinful nature, but controlled by the presence of Christ. Paul made it clear that there was a great distinction between keeping the law as a result of wanting to achieve a relationship with God and keeping the law because we had a relationship with God. Paul writing in chapter nine of the book of Romans is dealing with this issue again. What shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it? A righteousness that is by faith. But Israel who pursued the law of righteousness has not attained it. Here's the great mystery, he said. The Gentiles never tried to keep the Old Testament law. They just did what they wanted to. Then when Christ came and was preached to them, they said, wait a minute. We trust this man. We accept him as the ruler of our lives. And all of a sudden, even though they'd never kept the law, they became righteous and holy. While on the other hand, the Pharisees were saying, we would really like to be righteous and holy. Let's keep all these laws. And when we finally get righteous and holy enough, then we can be God's children. The Gentiles who never sought this righteousness received it by simply trusting God. As many as received him, trusted him, they're made the children of God, what John says. Paul was saying of Abraham, Abraham was accounted righteous because he believed God. Not because he kept the law, because the law was not there. And yet the Jews, in their fervor to be obedient to God, thought that they could receive this gift of righteousness and holiness because of their work. So Paul said, for those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed. And why not? Why did they not receive this? Because they pursued this gift not by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. See I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. And the one who trusts in him, God, will never be put to shame. So the one who trusts in God will never be put to shame. Not the one who keeps the most laws will never be put to shame. What Paul was writing about was the great mistake that people made, thinking that holiness and righteousness results in a relationship with God. It doesn't. If you talk to people around you and say, what do you think it takes to get to heaven? Most of them will tell you, you should be good. Most people at funerals talk about the person that's dead and all the good things they've done. He's a good person. He helped people out, he's kind to people. All these things are lists of things they think is going to make sure that when they get there, God's going to say, well, I've got a list of good things you did here. You've got enough of them, you get it, come in. That is not going to happen. What God is looking at when we stand before him is, has your life been yielded to me? Did you say to me, I give myself to you? And as my child, you begin to live as I wanted you to live. The relationship of righteousness and holiness is made when we lay our lives in God's hands. The lifestyle that we use to live after that is the result of what happens to us when we're brought into the family of God. What Paul is helping us understand is what Jesus said was the fulfillment of the law. The fulfillment of the law is clearly understanding that it is not an attitude of working to get righteousness, holiness, and heaven, but it is a gift of God, freely given to those who yield themselves to the hand, power, and authority of God. There's no other name given whereby you must be saved except the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. And his name, or his authority, comes to those who yield themselves to him and receive him. The Ten Commandments are given to us to say, here is how you know how to stay in a relationship with God and people around you. They're sort of like a test for us. Like if you jumped off a roof as a small child, and you thought maybe if you moved your arms you could fly, and you found out that you just went straight down to the ground and hurt yourself badly, you would get up and say, you know, I don't think I can fly. Whenever you begin to live, and you find yourself in trouble with any of these areas of the commandments, theft, adultery, sexual things, immorality, family life, married life, if you find yourself in trouble in any of those areas, you go back and say, am I doing this as God told me to do it? The pain of our life circumstances should bring us back to the laws of God, like the laws of nature. They're the laws of spiritual nature. What would you think of somebody who kept climbing back up on the two-story building saying, I think if I jumped again, it wouldn't happen to me again. I would land softly. You would think they are absolutely stupid. But there are people all over the world who are doing the same things every day outside of the kingdom of God, trying to make their life work, and they do it over and over and over, thinking next time it's going to work right. What God is saying to us simply is, here are the rules by which you live. If you accept me as the ruler of your life, and you live this way, your life will come together as it ought to, and your relationship with me will be what it ought to be. Think of people around you whose life is not working very well. See if you can find out whether or not they have really surrendered their lives to Christ. I don't mean join a church. I don't mean baptize. I mean see if they really are saying every day, God, direct my life. I'll do what you tell me. And if they're living in submission to him, with him as the Lord, following his directions, they're finding life in its fullness. Regardless of the troubles they have, they're still finding life in its fullness. Jesus said, I've come to make it clear to you what the law is all about. If you're a child of God, this is the way you live so that God can bless you in every way. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? I want to ask you to reflect for yourself on your own life. Do you remember a time in which you said to God, I recognize that you are the ruler of the universe. I surrender myself to your authority. I pledge today that I'm going to live my life in obedience to you the rest of my life as best I can because you are now my father. You're now my Lord. You're now my ruler. You've never done that. And I'll tell you, you can join a church and not do that. You can be baptized and not do that. But if you ask God if I really surrendered my life to you, he will tell you yes or no. Don't fool yourself by thinking joining the church, teaching Sunday school, doing good things once in a while will open that door for you. It will not. Only one thing, Lord, I accept you as the ruler of my life. I pledge to live as you direct me. And then he adopts you as his child, forgives you of your sins so your righteousness, so your sins are all gone and righteousness now in your life, and he sets you apart as his child. Apart from the rest of the world, it's not. And then he gives you these instructions about how to make this work. And maybe you have in your life said to God, yes, I give myself to you. And maybe you're like the child that promised you'd cut the grass, but some other things came up in your life, and first thing you know, you're not doing it. You have to come back and say to the Father, I did give myself to you, but I'm not doing it. I need to be forgiven. I need to be re-energized with a passion to be obedient to what you've told me. I've heard your voice, but I let the cares of the world come between what you told me and what I know I should do. You can start over with God at any time and place in your life. In a few moments, I want to ask you to ask God what he wants you to do in your own life, the next step in your life. For some of you, it may be come and say, I want to follow God and give my life to him. Others, it may be, I know this is a place God wants me to be a part of his church. For others, it may be I need to come and recommit myself to Christ. Some of you, you may say, I know there's some things God wants me to do that I've not been doing, the things I'm doing that I should stop. This is a time when God talks to his people. Whatever he says to you, what you do about it will determine whether or not he's your father. If you brush it off, he's just a neighbor. If you hear him call your name, like a kid down the block, you know when your mother or your dad's voice calls you, and you know it's time to do what they told you. I'm going to ask the pianist to play. I'm going to ask you to talk to God. If there's anything God wants you to do, today you do what he's telling you. If you want to pray or share your commitment, I'll be here at the front. Ros will be here at the front. We'll pray with you. We'll pray with you. We'll pray with you. We'll pray with you. We'll pray with you. Mike, would you come up? Would you turn around and look at the crowd? Mike Poppelreiter, did I pronounce that right? Mike has told me this week that he had made a commitment of his life to Christ some years back, and he's now living in our community, and he felt like this is the place God wanted him to be a part of this fellowship. Let me ask you, Mike, have you... Hold the mic up close to your mouth. Is it on? It's on, it's on. Okay. You have committed yourself to Christ, is that right? Yes, sir. And you've pledged to live in obedience to him as best you can? Yes, sir. You've been baptized by immersion to show that your old life was over and your new life has started, is that correct? Yes, sir. And you committed to God to live in obedience to him. Yes. You feel this is a place where God has asked you to become part of the fellowship of believers here? Most definitely. Okay. We know that what we ask of people who become followers is that they've committed themselves to Christ, that they've pledged themselves to read the Bible regularly, that they've pledged themselves to have a relationship with God in prayer, and that they're faithful in being a part of a church body, attending services, taking responsibility in the church as God leads them. Are those the commitments that you've made to God when you trusted your life to him? Yes, sir. We think that there's an obligation we have when someone comes to be a part of our family. It's not that he's mowed the yard enough times to deserve to come in. It's that he has the same father we have. And since he has the same father we have, and his father has said, this is where I want you, son, we as a family have to accept him. What that means is that you speak to him, that you get to know him, that in times of difficulty you pray for him, that any way we can help him we do that, that we see him now as a part of our group so that he is someone that we recognize as a family member. If this is a promise you can make to Mike, I want you to hold your hand up just a minute. As a member of this church, we could pledge to live our lives as a brother and sister to you and accept you as a follower of Christ and as part of our family. Would you stand please for a moment of prayer together? If you're interested in finding out whether or not you need to go to the Designing My Directions, take one of the brochures out there in the vestibule, look it over, talk to God about it, and do what he tells you. If you do, we'll have exactly the right number of people there and he can train the people he needs to come back and help with what he wants to do here. So Father, we're thankful that you call us. We're thankful for Mike and the life that you've led to him as he came to know you and he shared that with me and the service he's given in the church. He comes still needing to renew his devotion to you and follow you and that's what he thinks he's doing today. This is the step I know you want me to take, God, and so I take it. I ask, Father, for every person who's prayed that same prayer here today that you would lead them in the very next step of their life that they might find life in all of its fullness. We leave here to go into the world, the world that's not here, to be able to tell the world what you've done in us, that they might find life too. Open our eyes to the people we need to speak to. Put passion in our hearts to do what we're supposed to, that we might live before the world, holy and righteous, examples of what you can do to anyone who trusts you. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.