Text: Matthew 26:14-16, 31-35, 47-27:10

This week we are starting our study leading up to Easter.
As we look at the gospel of Matthew, we see that Jesus was betrayed. Judas betrayed Jesus by handing him over to his captors. The disciples betrayed Jesus by abandoning him in his time of need. Peter betrayed Jesus by denying, swearing and cursing that he didn't know him.

We betray Jesus in many of the same ways. We abandon him and walk away. In areas of our life, we pretend that we don't know him and do our own thing.

The question is not whether we have betrayed Jesus.
The question is how we respond.

Are we going to respond like Judas, with remorse and regret and that's it?
Or are we going to respond like Peter, with remorse and regret and repentance?

Back in December, I wrote this in the blog at the beginning of this study:


I'm excited about preaching the upcoming series on the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17)
I'm hesitant about preaching the upcoming series on the Ten Commandments.

John Timmerman writes about the 10 Commandments:
The 10 Commandments "intend to be both a gracious reminder of who we are and an abrasive prod to be who we ought to be."


That has been the case for me as I have preached this series.
It has been a great reminder of God's grace and a challenge to holy living.

This last commandment is no different.
Coveting is a matter of the heart. It moves from actions to attitudes, from motions to motives, from forbidden deeds to forbidden desire. The law can not define whether we have kept it or broken it. After all, who can judge the boundary between proper and wholesome desire and covetousness?
A idol is an object; swear words we can hear; the Sabbath is a day; parents are real people; murder; adultery; theft; lies. These can all be identified.

But coveting is a spiritual matter. Ultimately, coveting is a perversion of our desire for God; we desire for our own sake, for our own gain. Instead of loving God and desiring to serve him, coveting is loving ourselves before God or before our neighbor.

God desires to have a relationship with us. He says this in the words, "I am the Lord YOUR God."

How does Coveting break our relationship with God and with our neighbor, if it is a matter of our own heart?

Giving false witness. Exaggerations, half-truths, and misleading silences can all in effect be lies.
We must be careful in our communication with people and about people because it not only effects them but it also reflects much about ourselves.

We all know people that we can’t believe a thing they are saying. They exaggerate about themselves to make themselves feel important. Some things they say are not quite the full truth, there is truth in it, but it’s not the full truth.
They slander people and cut them down, even the people closest to them. And they put on a good front of who they would like to be but really aren’t deep down inside. And you can not trust a word that they say.

Instead, we are to speak truthfully. We are to choose our words with care and listen lovingly and carefully.

I wonder how often we break this commandment without even realizing it?

In the Ten Commandments, God guards something that is of great importance to our welfare – our possessions. Our possessions matter to us. They are not just something in this world that we need to get by, but they care also an extension of ourselves. Property is sacred because it is the fruit of our labor and our intelligence. We worked hard for what we have. Sometimes things we own are tied to a particular memory or have sentimental value. If someone steals something from us, it is like stealing part of my very person – and with it, part of my human dignity.

The question we face is this: How does each of us steal?
Maybe we don’t shop lift something from the store, but stealing is more than just taking a candy bar. In our life, where do we take what doesn’t belong to us?

Longing. God created us with a longing.
In marriage, God created husband and wife to long for each other. The physical sexual relationship is the repeated knowing of each other as a husband and wife who belong to each other exclusively and without reserve. God created the place for sex in a relationship where the sexual experience grows richer as the couple experiences more and more of each others exclusive loving faithfulness.

Yet in our world, sex has been cut down to simply an outlet for a physical need. It is sometimes viewed as a quest for kicks, relief from boredom, the desire to control or humiliate or mere reaction to someone’s sex appeal. Such motives cheapen sex.

By reserving sex for marriage, God is not trying to keep something wonderful from his people, instead God wants his people to enjoy his gift of physical intimacy to the fullest, because he knows the pain, guilt, and chaos involved when it is misused.

So we are commanded to remain pure in a world in the sex-soaked culture of our society.
There’s a challenge for us!

I'm not going to like this sermon this week.
Just thought I'd get that out there right away.

If this commandment was just about taking another persons life, then most of us would have this one nailed.
But, Jesus transforms it or refines it by applying it to our heart and motives and thoughts.
Now, maybe we're not so good.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't even think of murdering someone. Most of us wouldn't even hit someone and attempt to draw blood. I think we have the outer action that breaks this commandment down pretty good.

But the internal application? Not so much.
We may be much too quick to insult someone, put them down, put them in their place, and then maybe even boast about it later on. Whether it is a phone solicitor or another driver on the road or a co-worker behind their back, we break this commandment.

Jesus applies this commandment to our motives, thoughts and heart. It is not enough to refrain from murder or from cruel and hurtful language. Rather than being okay with just not doing these things, Jesus commands us to love our neighbor and pray for those who persecute us.

Jesus sure does give us something to wrestle with in our lives!

We have been given a commandment with a promise: honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

One might expect a few specific how-to's on what to do.
But, no. Instead of specific behaviors that we should have, we are given principles and values that guide our practical decisions and behaviors.

So how do we live this out?
What are some of the values that we are given in order to honor our father and mother?
What are some of the principles and values that we are to have as parents in order to make it easier for our children to honor us?

God gives us the instructions to "remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." To be holy means to be set apart as different from that which surrounds. As holy people, we are to live differently than the world around us. As a holy day, the Sabbath is to be set apart from just becoming another day of the week.

But, we don't do this.
We tend to view this commandment as more “optional” than the others, not as important to keep. It's more like the 9 Commandments and 1 Suggestion. We make excuses for not worshiping together. We justify working on our day off. We bring work with us on vacation. But it’s not so bad.

If God created the world and then rested, if he commands us to do the same, shouldn't we listen?

This first Commandment dealt with God taking priority in our life. This second commandment seems to go right along with the first. Aren't they the same?

Not really. The first deals with priority: is it God or something else. The second deals with our understanding of God.

Do we understand God as he reveals himself to be in the Bible or do we have our own idea of what we want God to be?

When the Israelites worshiped the golden calf, they were using their imagination to conceive god in terms they could understand. But God is incomprehensible. We can not fully understand the awesome majesty of God.

If we let our imagination lead our thoughts about God, we'll get it wrong. No statement starting with “This is how I like to think of God” should ever be trusted.

The second commandment sets us free to enter into more of the grandeur and majesty of God.

This week we begin our study of the commandments.
The first commandment is "You shall have no other gods before me."

Check.

Next?

Wait, not so fast.

This one can be a big challenge in our lives today. God wants us to put him first in our lives, before anything else.
When it comes to making decisions in our lives, what values drive us?
When life gets tough, who do we trust?
When we make a list of priorities, what comes first?
When we look at our checkbook, what does it say about what or who we worship?

Do we create time for God or relegate him to the side of our life? Do we make decisions based upon showing his glory in our lives?

As we look at our own life, what is our priority?
What really is number one?
Family, food, pleasure, power, money, sports, work.

Whatever we make our priority, whatever we put as most important, whatever we list as our number one, is our god.

I'm excited about preaching the upcoming series on the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:1-17)
I'm hesitant about preaching the upcoming series on the Ten Commandments.

John Timmerman writes about the 10 Commandments:
The 10 Commandments "intend to be both a gracious reminder of who we are and an abrasive prod to be who we ought to be."

But some will say that Jesus came and gave us grace so we don't need the law. But Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Then in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus not only applies them to our actions but to our thought life, our motives and our intentions as well.

So you see why I'm excited and hesitant to preach the 10 Commandments?

This week we are starting with an overview of the 10 Commandments. Next week (Jan 10), we'll start studying them one by one.

As we think about them, we must remember that God gives them to us because we are in a love relationship with God.
He gave them to us because he loves us and wants us to live life to the fullest. The 10 Commandments are "God's Blueprint for the Best Life Possible."