Summary 

The resurrection transforms lives, changing doubters into missionaries and deniers into bold confessors. Many resist God's commandments because they view them as burdensome rules or tools of performative religion. However, God introduces the Ten Commandments with a crucial reminder of His completed work of salvation. The gospel order is essential: Done (God's salvation through Christ), then Do and Don't (our response). When we start with Christ's finished work rather than our performance, God's law becomes not a burden but a gift - pathways to flourishing life for those already loved and saved.

Transcript

Lord, we pray, Lord, I pray that we would be those who run to you and find that your yoke is easy and your burden is light.
That we would find life in you, that we would find following you to be the great joy of our lives, the great desire of our souls.
God, I pray, Lord, that as we turn to commandments, law, that in this process it might be. It might be the words of Psalm 19 might be true to us, that your law is more to be desired than gold, and that we find it sweeter than drippings from the honeycomb, that we find your communication to us something that is better than anything else that we could desire in this life. Life with you, God.
Lord, some of us come with. With a lot of skepticism towards that. And all of us come with degrees of doubt and degrees of faith and wondering about the truth of your word. And I pray that. That you would speak to us this morning that it might be more true, having been with you after this service, that your law is lovely, your words are wonderful.
God, do that, please. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. All right, if you were here last week or if you weren't, I'm going to tell you. What I suggest to you last week is that the resurrection changes people, changes people, change the disciples.
Thomas, Peter, Mary, just the disciples as a whole. And also it changes those still who are brought to life in Christ, who are brought into his resurrection. Easter people. Thomas's doubt becomes a belief and it actually becomes a going. I don't know if you know this, but many believe that Thomas actually went all the way to India.
It's believed that he went all the way there to preach the good news of the resurrection. And no doubt sometimes his life was. There was doubts in it and belief as ours are, but his life was changed by meeting the resurrected Christ. Think of Peter. Some of you know that Peter famously denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed, right?
His threefold denial was changed there in the Gospel of John to not a threefold denial, but a threefold confession of love. You know, I love you, Lord. And then of service, feed my sheep. He was changed. The resurrection changed him, changes us.
Our denials often can move towards statements of love. Think of Mary's weeping, right? We looked at. We considered that a little bit last week. Mary goes to tomb to bring these spices that would cover the stench of a rotting body.
She's weeping over the empty tomb, not knowing where her Lord is, where he has been taken. And yet here, weeping at the end of that passage comes to a proclamation that's what it becomes. I have seen, Lord, the resurrection changed her. The resurrection sent her out. And of course, the disciples as a whole too.
We talked about that, right? Their locked up fear in that upper room becomes a going, I'm sending you out. Receive the Holy Spirit. What I'm saying is that the resurrection changes people. The fact of what God has done for his people in the cross and the empty tomb changes people.
So each Easter tide, which is like a church way of talking about just the. The season after Easter, typically that's thought of as the time from Easter up until Pentecost, which is 50 days afterwards, which Pentecost will get there, is the remembrance actually of the giving of the law, because Pentecost happens 50 days after the Passover in the Old Testament. But when we've had these times together, we've often. Actually every year that I've been here, and this is my 11th Eastertide season with you all, we've taken a topical series together in this season. Normally we kind of go through the Psalms and the summer and the Old Testament, New Testament, the fall, and then the Gospels.
Then we do a topical series and we've done series like the Fruit of the Spirit. How do we live by the Spirit? What does that look like? Or the life of prayer through looking at our Lord's prayer, or frankly, we look at the mission statement of our church. How do we want to be a people?
We considered stewardship. That was a little while ago. What do we do with the world? God's given us the relationships God's given us, the means God's given us, and various things like that. But for the most part, what I've tried to invite you into is this idea of the resurrection changes us.
What does it mean to be an Easter people?
So this season we're going to look at the Ten Commandments together, which is going to take longer than 50 days. Okay. It's going to bleed into our summer series. And these are the words the Lord himself gave to his people when he met with them. Actually, he wrote them on the stone tablets himself.
And they're the words that are stored right there in the Ark of the Covenant, which was right there in the most holy place, right in the center of the Tabernacle and then the temple. Such a central thing to God and his people. The ten words that summarized love of God and love of neighbor.
But I'm thinking that as quickly as I'd say that we're going to have our attention focused on the Ten Commandments. My guess is that there are different reactions that come up and that some of those reactions are you thinking, I don't know if I really want to give my attention to Law Commandments. And so I kind of want to introduce this series in some ways by maybe addressing why you may feel that kind of initial gut reaction and then why I also want to say this is in a, this is a good thing to consider as an Easter people. And I want to do that in a way that I hope this makes sense. I want to do that in a way, in this way, I want us to consider the order of the words don't do and done.
Okay, how do you order those words?
So first we're just going to take them in that order. Don't do, done.
So my, my, my assumption is that for a lot of you, when I think, when we think of the Ten Commandments, again, you kind of come, come to that idea and you're like, I don't know that I really enjoy this kind of idea for a series. Maybe this is, and maybe this is you. Because when you come to the Ten Commandments, the first word you think of is you think of rules.
You think of maybe the Ten Commandments hanging up in a school room. Rules. Maybe you think of the controversies, right, surrounding Ten Commandments, like them hanging up in courtrooms or municipal buildings. Rules. You think of church, state stuff maybe when you think of that.
But for the most part, when you think of Ten Commandments, this is what you're thinking of. You're thinking rules. And when you think of rules, you think, no, thank you.
And some of this, I think is just our good old fashioned rebellion, like when you're told not to take a cookie out of the cookie jar. It is so hard not to do that when you're told that because your heart just wants it. There's just something nice about breaking some rules.
The Ten Commandments, along with a good number of other things have also become rules for kind of performative religion.
Like politicians posting pithy proverbs to perform for their people. I tried to think of how many P's I could get in one sentence there.
But you know, performative religion, I'm going to post these things as if I care. I'm going to make this prayer so that you think I care, so that I can win something from you.
And performative religion, performative acts that correspond to true faith but lack it are a turn off.
They were to Jesus as well. He called a lot of people whitewashed tombs. And those people he called whitewashed tombs, man, they knew their commandments, they could rattle them off in order. So we may approach a series on the Ten Commandments with a no, thank you, in part because of our good old fashioned rebellious hearts.
But also we might do that because there is an approach to religion that just reeks of hypocrisy.
We might also do that because churches often have led with the don'ts.
Here's, here's the thing, right? For as much as some people don't like rules, a lot of people like rules too, right?
It's true that a lot of churches kind of lead with don'ts. Don't do this, don't do that. And no doubt some of you are turned off by that kind of thing. But it's also the case that self help books like 10 Steps for this are wildly influential. You don't need the show of hands.
But I guarantee a lot of you have read 12 rules for life, that wildly popular book by Jordan Peterson. There's a lot of rules that we kind of like and Christians oftentimes love rules. So one turnoff is that you come to Christianity and you think, man, all I'm hearing is a lot of don'ts. Don't, Right? It's true.
A lot of people in church settings love rules and they love the don'ts. Don't swear, don't drink, don't chew, and do not go with girls who do. Amen. No, don't say amen to that.
So you come and you go. Don't covet, don't covet, don't lie, steal, don't commit adultery, don't murder. And I hope that you actually find that those are life giving words and there's something to be cherished and that something that we can get behind actually societally because they are for our good. That's actually part of my desire in this service is to see that those are words that give life. But let's just also admit that so many Christians, so many churches lead with the don'ts.
The order is don't do done.
And man, that list of rules can be so oppressive. A lot of people perceive Christianity to be a religion of don'ts before it is a religion of do's and before it is a religion of done. If you just don't do a bunch of things, then God will save you. God's favor will be upon you. That's the order that we often put them in.
Don't, do, done. Now I'm sure that there are others of you who come to the Ten Commandments and you say, well, I don't really like all these shall nots. It's so negative. It's so negative. You know, you shall not have any other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image of all of those rest of shall nots. So you're like, well, I don't really like the order of don't do done. I would rather it to be do first, at least. So maybe you go, I don't really care for the Ten Commandments. But you know what I love is when Jesus summarizes those Ten Commandments, because it says so positive.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind and your strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus own summary of the Ten Commandments. So you might not say, I don't like the don't do done. Let's at least go do first. Begin with the positive.
After all, Jesus is asked more than once actually what the most important commandment is. And also he's asked, how do I inherit eternal life? And he responds, by that summary of the Ten Commandments, love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. And maybe this morning that sounds a lot more appealing to you because it is a do love, a do love instead of a bunch of don'ts.
But this reminded me of something that happened to me years ago when I was living in St. Louis. I was attending Covenant Theological Seminary, and I was going back home to Washington State to see my family. And I must have gotten the cheapest flight possible because that's what I always did. And I had this long layover. I want to say it was about eight hours in Salt Lake City.
I'd been to Salt Lake City a few times, but this time I didn't have a car. I'd driven through quite a few times. And I thought, oh, there's a free shuttle to the Mormon Temple. I've got time. Let's go do it.
I've never been to the museum that's there. Let's go check it out. It was a beautiful day out. So I got on this shuttle and I went to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. And I went into the museum and I went through it and it was pretty interesting.
Then I sat outside and I remember sitting outside on kind of a rock cement wall that was in this little courtyard right in front of the main entrance into the temple there. And just sitting, and I think I was enjoying a coffee. It was beautiful spring day, I like today. And then I noticed there's all these brides and grooms coming and going. It was like very obviously not just one person's wedding, but quite a few people were getting married.
And so this lady comes out who was obviously not the bride or she wasn't dressed up as a bride. She came out and I was like, I'm going to go talk to this lady. So there's so many weddings today. I would guess that it's like the greatest honor of honors within the Mormon Church to be married at the temple in Salt Lake City. She said, it is absolutely an honor.
It's a great honor. And I said, well, how do I get to do that? And she said, you love the Lord Jesus as your savior. And I said, that's me.
Sign me. I didn't say sign me up. I don't think I was dating anyone even, but. But I was like, okay, well, I fit. Can I get married here?
And she's like, well, to be married here, you do have to be a member of the Mormon Church. That doesn't fit. And then she said, and there's a few other things. I was like, what are those things? And she said, well, you have to be honorably recommended by a couple people and they're recommending you based on virginity and tithing.
It's like, okay, so you have to show that you're worthy and you have to show that you're not. Just you've given, but your family's given for at least a few years to the church. Okay, I'm like, well, never mind. But here's why I'm tying this together. Because there's something that is.
There's something that sounds so just appealing by this. Love Lord your God, love your neighbor. And then there's this list of do's, and you've got to check it off in order to be approved. It maybe doesn't sound quite as bad as the shall nots and the don'ts, but they start with the do's, which of course quickly imply the don'ts. Right, they do.
Because mostly your acceptance is predicated on your action, What you have done, what you have not done. Often we love these two commandments. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor, because they're more positive. And it is a beautiful summary of the law.
But when we take away the Ten Commandments so often, we have to add so many more. It's like when GK Chesterton was asked about the beauty of the brevity of the Ten Commandments. He says, if men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall Be governed by the ten thousand commandments. Commandments. We just keep adding on the what are you doing?
What have you done?
In one of those interactions around the two commandments that summarize the ten, Jesus responds to the scribe who asks him the question by saying, this is Jesus response. When, when the man summarizes the commandments, he says, you are not far from the kingdom of God. Which I think is a really interesting statement. That's an interesting response that Jesus gives in that context, you're not far from the kingdom of God because he's saying, in a sense, you're getting something good by delighting in the law. And even by summarizing it in this positive way, you're getting that the love of God and the love of neighbor are an essential thing and a beautiful thing and something to be desired.
But he still says, you're not there. You can start. You can say, okay, let's not start with the don'ts. Let's not do, don't do, done. Let's start with the do's.
But even if you still start with your action or your lack thereof, he says, you're still not there. You're not far, but you're not there. What I want to suggest to you this morning is that there is only one gospel, which means good news order to these words. There's only one order, and if you get that order wrong in the Bible, you get it all wrong.
The Christian message is no longer good news, but it is a burden. If you get that wrong, it's no longer a freeing yoke, but a heavy weight. And here is the only order that the Bible ever talks about with regards to the law. Done. Done.
Do, don't.
Okay, this hasn't been a terribly like, exegetical sermon like coming right out of the passage. But turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. Okay? I want you to see this because I think this is essential.
So Exodus chapter 20. I forget what page it is on. It's on page 72. If you got your pew Bibles.
And you've got to see this, I want you to actually look at this, okay? Verse 21 and, or, sorry, verse 1 and 2, which Jason read for us. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. Now I, we. I want us to get to the rest of the commandments.
We are going to get there, but I wanted you to only hear that because that is the very beginning of all of the rest. And you do not hear all of the rest properly unless you first hear that that is the foundation. What has God done? The the great act of salvation in the Old Testament is that God brought his people out from the land of slavery and to himself. It's repeated again and again.
Why can you trust this God? Because I brought you with a mighty arm, with outstretched hand, with great deeds out from slavery. And I brought you to myself. I am the Lord your God.
Done. He's saying my work is done. What I'm calling you to is only out of a relationship that I have established based on my grace for poor sinners. The Bible always begins with what has God done first? And then moves into a call to action.
This same gospel order can be found again and again and again in the Bible. I want to just highlight a couple for you. So one of our New Testament passage this Morning was from 1st Peter chapter 2 and 1 Peter chapter 2. If we had time, we could go back to Exodus chapter 19. And what you would hear in First Peter chapter 2 is an echo of Exodus 19.
So the very. Actually it's the paragraph before the Ten Commandments that is echoed in First Peter chapter 2 and beginning in verse 9 of that chapter Peter. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Do you hear all the dones?
You are chosen. God does that. You're a royal priesthood. I've made you this. You're a holy nation.
That's what I've done.
You're the people for my possession. It says that you may proclaim right the dues out of the dones, the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Keep going in verse 10. Once you were not a people, but now you're God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
It's. You have. It's passive. It's what has God done for you? And then he says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
Then he goes to the do's and the don'ts. It is always done. First, let me. Let's consider another 1. Colossians chapter 3.
This is a beautiful chapter in Scripture, Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse 1. If then you've been raised with Christ, if you're a resurrection people, if you're an Easter people seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If you have been right, if this is true of you, if God has already done for you, then seek the things that are above. Verse 3. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who's your life appears, then you also appear with him in glory. And then that done, that reality of what God has done for you moves towards the dues, put to death. Therefore what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Don't those even echo some of the Ten Commandments? Covetousness, sexual impurity, idolatry. That's all ten commandment language. But it's coming out of the what has God done for you in Christ? I could keep going.
Actually, I will keep going. Look down at verse 12. Put on then, as God's chosen ones. See, as God has chosen you. Put on right.
Do have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience bearing with one another. And if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, right, Because Jesus has done this. This is the gospel order. This is the only good news Order. It's it.
Brothers and sisters, my hope in this is that you will come to delight in the law of the Lord. That like the psalmist says, like David said in Psalm 1, that it might be your meditation day and night, something you desire to pour over and to put on and to really know and become part of you. My hope is that you will be able to sing psalms like Psalm 19 where you say the law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul, where you don't approach it and you think, no thanks, I'd rather just do my own thing. You say it revives my soul.
That you might continue to sing that psalm where you say, I desire it more than gold and what I can acquire, I desire it more than honey, even fresh honey from the honeycomb. What I can taste and consume.
My desire for us. My hope is that you will come to call the Ten Commandments. What St. Augustine, who's the theologian of love, right, called that instrument of 10 strings.
The instrument of 10 strings by which we play beautiful music that show our love for our Lord.
But what I'm suggesting to you is that the only way we are going to do that, the only way we do that is if we get the order right.
If we flip flop it. If we flip flop it and we Put our work before God's work, our doing and our don't doing before his done work. And we just follow all the other religions.
It's all the other stuff. Do this and God will look upon you in kindness.
Christianity says, I'm the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Therefore don't have other gods, don't have any other gods before me. And says, if then you have been raised with Christ, if Christ's finished work is for you, then seek the things that are above where he is seated. See, as long as the don'ts and the do's come first, all you will find is that the law is a burden. It will be something you will disdain.
Be a slave master. But at first you look to the one who keeps the law perfectly on your behalf, the Lord Jesus himself, who was crucified and resurrected for you. Then living as an Easter people is something that we would all gladly seek, we'd gladly sing of. We'd think it'd give us wings and make us fly.
A lot of you probably know John Bunyan. John Bunyan wrote one of the greatest books, certainly one of the greatest selling books ever, Pilgrim's Progress.
He kind of famously wrote Run this poem he wrote. Run, John, run and work. The law commands, yet finds me neither feet nor hands. But sweeter news the gospel brings. It bids me fly and lends me wings.
You just start with the law. You can't get anywhere. There's no hands and feet. Just with that. If you have the good news, you can start to fly.
Now, most people think that John Bunyan actually didn't first write that.
They think John Erskine, who was a great Scottish pastor, actually wrote something that then John Bunyan twisted because he liked to put his name in it. Let me give you Erskine's Erskine, who lived a little bit, a little bit before John Bunyan. They were sort of contemporaneous, but he was a little bit older, wrote a rigid master. Was the law demanding brick, denying straw. I want you to think of that.
Because if the law is just that, then all God was doing was taking them out from one form of slavery and putting them into another. Right? Demanding brick and denying straw. That's an echo of what was happening in Egypt under slavery. But when the gospel tongue, it sings, it bids me fly and it gives me wings.
Which is to say, if you can start with the finished work of Jesus, he kept the law perfectly. He gave his life for you. If you can rest in this reality of what Was done by God.
And you'd gladly say, lord, help me fly with your wind behind me. Let me run the race that was set before me. Let me put on a kind of living that is reflective of you.
The only way. The only way the law will be wings for us. The only way we will find it sweeter than honey and more to be desired than gold. The only way it will be our meditation day and night and not suffocate us. The only way it will revive our souls Is to see it coming from a God who is love and who acts in love, who acts in compassion and who saves us when we were slaves to sin.
Who gives of himself perfectly and completely his own life for ours. Who goes to the cross and through the cross the empty tomb to give us life. Let me pray. Lord, I pray that we would be those who desire to know your law. That specifically the Ten Commandments would be something that we don't shirk off, but put on.
Because it is something given to us in grace and kindness, in love.
God, I pray that we would be a people that eagerly seek to follow your ways. That we would so taste and see that you are good. That we would so know your love for us. That your words of invitation to us to live in such a certain way would not be burdensome, would not be distasteful, would not be something that we are inclined to say, no, thank you, Lord. I'll do what I please.
But, God, that we would eagerly say, lord, teach us your ways that we might walk in them, God, that we might hear you, Lord Jesus, say, take up your cross and follow me. Become fishers of men, God, that we might find a new way of walking, a new way of being as we follow you. Do this, please, Lord, and conform us into your beautiful image. Give us life. We pray.
Amen.

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