[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, there are two things that God wants us to know, two things that He wants
us to believe.
The first is this, that we are sinners.
Sinners who have broken God’s law, who have not kept His commands, and who deserve, because
of our sin, His wrath, and anger.
Now the Lord has to convince us of this because we are by nature trusters in ourselves, self-justifiers.
We’re making the argument for our own righteousness.
And so that we would reflect deeply on this truth that we are sinners, I’d like tonight
to consider the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, you shall have no other gods.
What does this mean? We should fear love and trust in God above all things. So I ask you,
Now, in what have you trusted?
Or who have you trusted?
In what do you trust most?
For financial security?
For physical safety?
For emotional support?
Do you fear God’s wrath?
And because of the threat of His wrath, avoid every sin.
Do you love and trust in God so much that that is evident in your day-to-day life?
Do you expect only good from God in every situation, or do you worry, or doubt, or complain,
pain, or feel unfairly treated when things don’t go your way? Do you withhold from God
what is rightly His? What are you afraid of?
The second commandment, you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. This means
that we should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie
or deceived by his name,
but call upon it in every trouble,
pray, praise, and give thanks.
And so I ask you,
is the Lord’s word evident
in your daily speech and conduct,
or do you curse, speak carelessly,
or misuse God’s name?
Do you keep all of the vows
that you have made in the Lord’s name,
including your confirmation vow,
or your marriage vows?
Are you diligent and sincere in your prayers?
Or have you been lazy, or bored, or distracted in prayer?
Do you trust that the Lord God will answer your prayers, all of them, according to His
good and gracious will?
The third commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
What does this mean?
We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching in His Word, but hold
it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
Do I despise the Word of God by neglecting or paying little or no attention to it when
it is read and preached?
Do you attend the worship of the church faithfully or sporadically, or even when you’re there,
wish that you were somewhere else?
Do you pray for your pastors, for other church workers, and support the life of the church
by the gifts that God has given?
What is your attitude towards worship?
The fourth commandment, honor your father and your mother.
This means that we should fear and love God so that we don’t despise our anger, our parents
and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.
So I ask you, what is your attitude towards those in authority over you?
Have you honored your father and your mother
and other authorities, teachers, employers,
supervisors, governmental leaders,
receiving them as gifts
that God has put in authority over you?
Have you been angry, stubborn, disrespectful,
or insubordinate to those in authority over you?
Do you obey the laws that are put in place by the city and the state for good order and
for our benefit?
If you’re a parent, do you faithfully represent God the Father in disciplining and caring
for and catechizing your children or do you exasperate them and exhaust them rather than
and bringing them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
The fifth commandment, you shall not murder.
This means that we should fear and love God so that we would not hurt or harm our neighbor
in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.
Are we angry?
Are we vengeful?
Have we protected the lives of those around us, including the lives of the unborn?
Do I hate anybody?
Have I called anybody a fool or disrespected anyone?
Have I lost my temper?
Have I injured my neighbor by my thoughts or words or deeds?
Do you hold grudges or harbor resentment against your neighbor?
Do you ignore the plight of the helpless?
Are you callous toward the genuine needs of those around you?
The sixth commandment, you shall not commit adultery.
This means that we should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent
life and what we say and do and husband and wife love and honor one another? Are you in
a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse? Do you look at others lustfully,
committing adultery with them in your heart? Do you dishonor marriage by ridicule or divorce
or engage in forms of sexual immorality, or let lust have its free course in your heart
and imagination.
The seventh commandment, you shall not steal.
This means that we should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money
or possessions or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his
possessions and income.
So I ask, have you cheated?
Have you sought to get something
that you haven’t earned?
Do you care for what you have?
Do you pay what you owe?
Do you return what you borrow?
Do you respect other people’s property?
Do you give generously?
Are you generous or are you selfish and stingy and greedy
with your time and your money?
Are you unfaithful in the responsibilities of your various vocations?
The eighth commandment, you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him,
slander him or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him and explain everything
in the kindest way.
Put the best construction on everything.
Are you bitter?
Do you gossip?
Listen to rumors?
Do you take pleasure in talking about the faults and mistakes of anyone?
Are you quick to defend others of false accusations or do you judge others without the authority
to do so?
So, do you speak the truth in love,
trying at all times to explain everything
in the best possible way?
The ninth commandment.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.
We should fear and love God so that we don’t scheme
to get our neighbor’s inheritance or house
or get it in a way which only appears right,
but help and be of service to him in keeping it.
Are you discontent with what belongs to you?
Do you crave something better, something different,
something more than what God has given?
Do you seek to satisfy the desires and the appetites
of your flesh at the expense and the well-being of others?
Or are you resentful and envious
of those who have what you do not?
The tenth commandment, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his manservant or
maidservant, his ox or his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
This means that we should fear and love God so that we do not entice or force away our
neighbor’s wife, workers, or animals, or turn them against him but urge them to stay
and do their duty.
Do you do it?
Or are you discontent with your spouse or with your family or with your vocation or
your job or the employees or employers that the Lord has given to you?
Have you done anything to break up a friendship or a marriage?
Have you encouraged someone to be unfaithful to their spouse or to their parents or to
their family or to their vocation or to their job or to their employees or their employers?
Are you contentious?
Have you encouraged disharmony in your congregation or in your family or your workplace?
Do you manipulate other people and try to control them for your own benefit?
Have you done everything that you can to mend and strengthen broken relationships?
These are the Holy Ten Commands.
And according to these ten words, the first truth that the Lord would have us know stands
true for every single one of us.
We are sinners.
curse.
We have broken God’s law in what we’ve done, in what we’ve said, in what we’ve thought,
in the good that we’ve failed to do, in the service that we’ve failed to rend.
The Lord has given us so much, and we’ve squandered those gifts, despised them.
So we stand before the Lord as guilty.
There’s a common⦠there’s a common just cliché that people will use when they think
of themselves.
They’ll just say something like this, you know, to err is human.
Everybody after all makes mistakes.
Nobody’s perfect, and that’s true enough.
But we stand here today with the Ten Commandments shining the holiness of God, and we realize
that that just doesn’t fit.
It’s not enough to recognize that we’re not perfect.
we recognize that our imperfection, that our failure,
and that our sin means that we stand
before the throne of God as guilty sinners,
deserving of His eternal wrath and punishment.
We know it.
But this, dear saints, is only the first thing
that the Lord wants us to know.
There are two things that He wants us to know.
And the second I would submit to you is even more important.
The Lord wants you to know, first of all, that you’re a sinner, because He wants you
to know, second of all, that Christ Jesus is the Savior of sinners.
That He who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us that we might become in Him the righteousness
of God.
God, that while we stand here guilty under God’s law, convicted and broken because of
His commandments, that if Jesus were sitting next to you and was being asked all those
same questions, He and He alone would sit with a clean conscience, unworried, unafraid,
because all of the commands of God, top to bottom, beginning to end, He kept. And
yet this one, the sinless Son of God, the one who is righteous in every way, this
one has taken all of your sins, all of your iniquities, all of your
transgressions, all that you’ve done wrong, all that you’ve failed to do right,
He has taken all of it and suffered in your place.
All the idolatry, all the blasphemy,
all the irreligion and dishonor and anger and lust
and greed and bitterness and discontent,
all of it, top to bottom, belongs to Him.
And all of that suffering on the cross,
all of it was because of those sins of yours
so that you would not suffer because of them.
I know that you’re a sinner.
You know that you’re a sinner.
Jesus knows that you’re a sinner.
And that, dear saints, is the point.
Christ came for sinners.
Christ suffered and died for sinners
so that Christ could save sinners.
Like you, and like me.
That spot on your forehead
that reminds you that you’re dying,
that reminds you that you’re going to have to
face the Judgment Day one day,
that’s not given to you so that you could be
sad and afraid,
but that you would long for that day with hope because while it’s true it’s
appointed for man once to die and then to be judged your judgment for your sin
happened already some 1960 odd years ago on the cross so that for you the door
to heaven is open wide. So, dear saints, know this. First, you are a sinner. But second,
Christ Jesus is the Savior of sinners. In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God
that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our
All bad.
