Then God spoke all these words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:1-3

Our first reading today offers us one of the most famous passages in all of scripture: God’s giving to Moses the Ten Commandments. It occurred to me that I have not preached a sermon on the Ten Commandments in quite a while. So I thought I would correct that this morning, and offer a sermon on this famous passage from the Book of Exodus, Exodus 20:1-17. 

And to give a bit of a spoiler to where I am going in this sermon, what I mostly want to get across is the idea that these commandments are not rules designed to get us in trouble. Not at all. Instead, they offer us a wonderful description of what it looks like to live as God’s chosen people. They offer us God’s path to a blessed life. 

Mt. Sinai

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me backup and remind us of where we are, in the biblical story, when Moses receives these commandments. The people of Israel have been freed from slavery in Egypt. Moses has led the Israelites to safety through the Red Sea, and to a life of preparation in the wilderness. They are journeying to the Promised Land, but first they must be prepared – learn to trust God, and to obey him. They have received manna; they have been shown sources of water. And now, they have reached Mt. Sinai. 

God has just assured them, through his prophet Moses, that if they obey God’s voice and keep God’s covenant, they will be God’s treasured possession, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. But what is this covenant? How are they to obey God’s voice? What does God want of them? What does God expect of them? The answer, of course, is the Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses as a guide to how to live as God’s chosen people. 

[The specific numbering of these commandments does differ a little in different denominations. Some denominations have as the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself an idol …” Others (like us Lutherans) consider that part of the first commandment, and have as the second: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name …” How do both still end up with ten? Well, the ninth and tenth commandments (You shall not covet neighbor’s house … neighbor’s wife …) are combined by some, but not  typically by us. It’s a small thing, really, but I mention it because you may have always wondered about it.]

These ten commandments were famously inscribed by God himself on two tablets of stone. The “Ark of the Covenant” was then created to be a travel container for these two tablets, and was designed according to specifications given directly by God to Moses. 

Loving God and Neighbor

The Ten Commandments have two essential parts. The first part, which includes the first three or four commandments (depending on how you number them), describes our relationship with God. The second part, beginning with the command to honor our father and mother, describes our relationship with each other. 

Another way to say this is that the Ten Commandments give a little more detail to what Jesus famously called the Greatest Commandment – to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as our self. The first part helps us see how to love the Lord our God, and the second part helps us see how to love each other in the way God intends. 

Ten Gifts!

Okay. Now, here comes what I consider to be one of the most important things to remember about the Ten Commandments: They are God’s gift to us, and we are blessed to have them! Think of it this way: When God gives us a rule, it is always out of love, and is by default good for us. God is not trying to make our life more difficult when we are given rules, but better. And that is certainly true of these Ten Commandments. 

Just imagine what the world would look like if everyone lived faithfully by these commandments! What a wonderful world this would be!

So, think of these commandments as God’s gifts. Or, think of these commandments as rules to protect God’s gifts. You can ask these two questions of every one of the Ten: What is the gift that God is giving us? And how does this commandment protect that gift?

Again, these are not rules designed to get us into trouble. They are rules intended to guide us in our relationship with God and one another, and are given to protect the gifts that God gives to us. 

The First Commandment

So, let’s run through a few of them very briefly to see what I mean by this. Beginning with the first commandment. The first on a list is always important, maybe the most important, and that is certainly true of this list of commandments. In fact, Martin Luther suggested that all of the Ten Commandments can be thought of as being arranged in decreasing order of importance. 

So, here is how Exodus 20 introduces the first commandment: 

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.”

What a gift – that the Lord God chooses to be our God! The Creator of the Universe chooses to personally involve himself in our world and in our lives. A God who loves us, who rescues us. A God who gave his only son for us. Such wondrous love. 

But how can this gift be protected? By having no other gods before the Lord our God. What does that mean? Are there other gods? If so, what are they? Here is how Martin Luther explains this, in his Large Catechism: 

“Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.” 

These are false gods, of course. You can also call them idols. And it is human nature, since the fall, to be tempted to make idols. 

Martin Luther goes on in his Large Catechism to offer some everyday examples. Money and property, to begin with, or the god of mammon. “This,” Luther writes, “is the most common idol on earth.” And that has never changed. It is always tempting to rely on money and property. “This desire for wealth,” Luther writes, “clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.” 

But Luther offers other examples of false gods or idols: “Those who boast of great learning, wisdom, power, prestige, family, and honor and who trust in them have a god also, but not the one, true God.” 

The truth is that every false god will eventually let us down. They cannot be trusted; not really. They don’t love us, and even if they could, they cannot be relied on in the same way that the one, true God. In the end, it is only God. 

And so, God warns us – for our own good! – against putting our trust in idols, in false gods. And like a good, loving, parent, threatens to punish us if we don’t obey, but for our own good. All for our own good, to protect the greatest gift of all: That the Lord God chooses to be our God. And so, Luther concludes, “If the heart is right with God and we keep this commandment, all the rest will follow on their own.” 

The Second Commandment

Well, let’s look at another commandment or two, and think about the gift that God gives us and how this commandment protects that gift. The Second Commandment is: 

“You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.” 

And the gift here is pretty obvious, isn’t it? We know the name of the Lord our God! We have a God who wants us to get to know him, who tells us his name, and invites us to turn to him with our needs. And that is truly a gift!

But how can we protect this gift? By not making wrongful use of the name of the Lord our God. But we can go even further than that – we can protect this gift by making God’s name holy, by hallowing God’s name, just as Jesus taught us. 

Would it be too much to devote our lives to trying to live up to God’s holy name? To trying to honor the name “Christian”? Not just avoiding take the name of the Lord in vain, but honoring God’s name and hallowing it by our words and deeds? This, too, is what it means to give thanks for the gift of knowing God’s name. And to protect that gift. 

The Third Commandment

And then there is the third commandment, the last of the first part focusing on our relationship with God, and the last that I will look at in this sermon:

“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.” 

What is the gift that this commandment helps us to protect? The gift of rest. The word “sabbath” literally means to rest. God rested on the seventh day, and teaches us to do the same. 

Rest is essential to our well-being, for all sorts of reasons. And there is enough in this one commandment to preach an entire sermon or two. But instead I will simply point out that this commandment is not just to remember the sabbath day, but also to keep it holy. 

How do we keep the sabbath day holy? And why? What is the gift that this protects? I think that this part of the commandment is God’s way of reminding us that we do not need rest just for our bodies, but also for our souls. No matter how well-rested we might be physically, we will still be restless until we rest in God. God offers our restless souls true, holy rest. 

One day a week, we come here to remember that our souls need rest, too. We come here to be reminded that God is in charge, not us. We come here to feed our faith, and to remember our hope, and to rest in the love of our Creator. Rest for our souls. A gift that we receive by keeping the third commandment. 

Closing

I could go on and look at the rest of the commandments, the ones that focus on our relationship with each other. And at some point I probably will. But not today. For today, it is enough to consider these first few commandments that focus on our relationship with God. 

Each of these commandments highlights a gift from God that we have been given, but a gift that needs protection. It is why God gave us these commandments. Not rules designed to get us in trouble; not rules that are difficult to follow; but instead God’s path to a blessed life. A life where we know that there is only one God, who loves us and cares for us, who shares with us his name, and who offers us rest for our weary souls. What a gift. 

Thank you, Lord. Amen.