Law & Gospel – Part IV
Part 4 of the “Law & Gospel” sermon series. This week is an exegetical sermon on Romans 7:7-12 that looks at the law from God’s perspective as tender commandments as exemplified in the decalogue. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on March 17th, 2007 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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:: The Resolved Church :: March 17, 2007
duane matthew smets
(pastor/overseer/evangelist)
Romans 7:7-12
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
“The (Ten)der Commandments”
Law and Gospel – Part IV
Romans 7:12
Introduction
Good morning. Welcome to The Resolved Church. If you are new with us this is the part of our service where we take this book seriously and together strive to learn it and live by it. Last week my friend Philip was her and he preached an amazing sermon about the prodigal son and the love of The Father, the God we worship. It worked out kind of well because we have been in this series studying this little chunk of Scripture, Romans 7:7-12, which is all about law and gospel. And why it works out good is because we have one last verse, verse 12 to deal with, which is all about God the Father (I’ll show you how in a minute).
Paul, the author of Romans presents it as his 7th reason why the law isn’t bad. And as we have learned in our other three sermons, “law” here can mean either the internal moral law, that inner sense of right and wrong in all humans, or it can mean more specifically the 10 Jewish commandments which is core of their sacred Jewish Torah. The really striking thing is that these 10 commandments almost identically line up with the commandments we find inside ourselves in this inner sense of right and wrong.
So today I have a few goals or things I want to do. The first thing is to show you why I think verse 12 is really talking about the being of God. The second thing is to run through these 10 commandments and see how they reflect God. And then the third thing is to show how they lead us to the gospel of Jesus Christ…which is what this is really all about, that law leads us to Christ. That was the main point of my sermon two weeks ago, law is our schoolmaster to teach us Christ. The main point of Philip’s sermon last week was that the Father loves us. And the main point of this sermon today is that these two things are the same, the Father loves us by giving us the law so that we will find the great joy of knowing and living for Christ.
Verse 12 is About God
Let’s read our text so that we know the thought flow going on here and to remind ourselves that it is Scripture driving us and not just clever sermons. (Read vs.7-12 and re-read vs.12 at the end) It is interesting that verse 12 at least from the outset doesn’t even look like a reason. It just sort of looks like a statement. If the charge is that the law is bad and Paul is saying no its good and here’s why…simply just saying the law is good isn’t a reason, that’s the question that’s on the table, whether it is good or not because a whole lot of bad seems to come from it…if there was no law then people wouldn’t break it and there wouldn’t be sin and we wouldn’t be so confused and miserable, so why have the law, it seems bad.
But verse 12 is a reason if we recognize Paul’s literary geniusness. I think the thing that will help us best see it is by going to a passage in the gospel of Luke (18-18-22), where this young, loaded, corporate exec. in an Armani suit, driving his M3 rolls up to Jesus and says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus, rather than answering his question right aways says something interesting…he says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Interesting. So first Jesus recognizes God as the source of all goodness, what is right and true and just. Then Jesus says this, “You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not (lie), Honor your father and mother.” And the guy responds…“All these I have kept from my youth.” Cocky jerk know it all. J Then Jesus, probably with a half smirking and half with a sad face says, “One thing you still lock. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.”
You see the guy got the letter of the law and thought he could earn his way by doing everything just right, the same way he got ahead in every other part of his life. But he missed the heart of the law…treasuring God. He missed that the law is about the being of God, about his pure and utter goodness…about God’s holy righteousness.
I think Paul is saying the same thing in Romans 7:12. I think he is saying that the law is not bad because it is a reflection of who God is…that it emanates out of God’s very being. “The law is holy, and righteous and good” because it comes from God! Goodness is not some abrstract reality that God ascribes to or follows. If it was then wherever that came from is God and is what we should be worshipping.
But maybe that isn’t super clear to us right from the outset. And on top of it all…we’ve reference the law a lot as we’ve been studying this passage over the last few weeks but we haven’t really talked much about each of the specific commandments. So what I want to do is go back into the Old Testament, into the Hebrew Bible and look at the Ten Commandments one by one in hopes that by doing so we will better see how they reflect God and his love for us and how great a treasure the gospel of Jesus is.
The Ten Commandments Reflect God
Let’s begin in Exodus 19. Exodus 19 is the chapter right before God gives the ten commandments. Before he gives them he gives this speech. I’m not going to read the whole thing but I’ll read just the beginning starting in verse 4. “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians (that’s where Israel was in slavery against their will for 430 years), and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mind and you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:4-6).” What happens after that is some narrative description about how Moses goes up on Mt. Sinai and how God envelopes the mountain in fire and inscribes the ten commandments on tablets of stone and then beginning with Ex.20 we read the commandments.
But before we read them, I just want us to notice the context we just overviewed…because the context is a very fatherly context. Did you hear it in those words I read a second ago? “How I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself…you will be my treasured possession.” Do you hear the voice of a tender and loving heavenly father? God swoops down, like an eagle to rescue us and then says “look father knows best” and gives some commandments. We have to recognize that because a lot of us may have had horrible earthly fathers and on top of that we don’t even like the word “commandment.” It just tastes bad and you want to spit it out. But that is not what these ten commandments are. Rather than rigid rules they are compassion and concern, rather than rejection and refusal they acceptance and affection.
I titled my sermon “The Ten(der) Commandments” to emphasize the goodness of God, our heavenly father, that we see reflected in his instructions. I have to give credit to a man named Ron Mehl for the title and for much of the content of this sermon. I knew Ron Mehl since I was a young boy, he was a Pastor of a church in Oregon and was friends with my parents and he actually paid for a good portion of my second theology degree. He died 2003 of Luekemia and five years before his death he wrote a book titled, “The Ten(der) Commandments.” So a lot of today’s content comes from some things I’ve gleaned from him and that book.
Now we could spend the next 3 months if we wanted to studying each of these ten commandments in depth but we’re not going to do that, we’re just going to run through each of them today and hopefully catch a glimmer of God’s beauty and wonder and glory that is woven through their eternal character.
So, first commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Is this the harsh statement of some insecure being trying to convince us that he is better than the next guy? I don’t think so. Remember the context, who God has shown himself to be. He is the all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, everywhere present Creator who brings life and beauty and meaning to everything. When God says, “have no other gods before me” he is telling us not to put any person, object, tast, duty, pleasure, priority, or affection in front of him because nothing else can satisfy because He is the all-satisifying being of the universe.
Just as in a marriage, the beginning point is a covenant between two people that they will be devoted to each other only. When I married Amy I was making a commitment that I would have no other women before her but would devote my life to putting her first.
When it comes to God, this first commandment is the hardest thing about being a Christian…staying close to Christ and keeping him first. Recognizing that needing him and living for him is what builds a happy satisfied life…keeping him first and not letting anything else get in the way. We know this in our hearts deep down…that there is only one true God and that we should worship him and him only.
Second Commandment. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” Now is this just some archaic and outdated directive that only applied for people back then or people in various eastern and animistic cultures since we in America don’t carve images and worship them?
I don’t think so. Images matter a lot. In every culture and especially in our culture. This show on TV “America’s Next Top Model” is amazing. There’s like 12 girls or something. None of them have eaten for like months and they all have boob jobs. They’ve got long hair, short hair, red hair, fro hair, or extensions. They are truly artists with their make-up, boots, shirts, jeans, ear rings, every article of clothing carefully accentuated…I mean it, they are super talented in how they are able to make themselves look and pose and everything, it’s incredible. J Now I’m not trying to bag on it. I think they’re all incredible hot, though none of them are as beautiful as my wife. J
I’m not so sure that it is terribly bad to want to express yourself in some way by how you dress.
But you can’t tell me that image doesn’t matter to us. And it matters to God to because he is Spirit and is the most beautiful being that we can ever conceive. That’s why we’re to worship him. You see we become like what we worship, what we value most. You can try other things but in time will discover they are worthless and make you feel drained of value. That is because the image of God is where all worth and value lies. What he thinks of you and not anyone else.
In Romans chapter 8, which we’ll begin studying in a couple months says that the point of the gospel is to mold us to the image of Christ. Jesus is the exact representation of God and we have all effaced his image in us and Christ restores beauty and meaning and life to us who have become unwanted, lost and confused.
Third Commandment. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” Names matter a lot huh? If I say Kanye West…you get a picture in your mind and a whole slew of things about him that come along with that picture right? Like hip hop, money, music…that are all connected to his name. Or if I say Angelina Jolie…same thing, you get a picture in your mind along with all these things you know about her right? She’s a movie star, hooked up with Brad Pitt, adopts kids from Vietnam. So names matter right because they represent who a person is.
And God is a person. So what do you think of when you hear his name? God. What comes to mind? If God is the most meaningful person in all of existence and is the source of everything that is good, true and right and loving then that name is a pretty holy name. We should rightly feel a sense of reverence and fear and respect at the name of God and not use it lightly. That makes sense if there really is a God…that we shouldn’t take his name in vain, especially when he expresses such tender loving care for us…constantly enabling the world to go around and providing food and rain and sunshine.
I find it interesting that God and Jesus Christ are the only ones who ever get cursed. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Ah Buddha!” “Mohommed Damnit!” “Hare Krishna!” I think that is because God, the one true God is fixed in our hearts and we know he is real deep down and we know he hears and we want him to know when we are mad, hurt, or frustrated. But there is a better way to do that then cursing him, it’s called prayer.
Acts 4:12 says that Jesus is “the only name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved” and Philippians 2:9-10 says that “God has exalted (Jesus) and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father.”
Fourth Commandment. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.” God, our good heavenly Father, knows what we need…he knows we need rest…he knows we need rest in him.
Everything in God’s creation needs rest, even dirt. Ron Mehl in his book talks about dirt, he says, “Farmers don’t plant the same things in the same fields year after year. They may plant corn one year, but the next year they’ll plant beans on the same parcel of ground. Why? Because the corn will take certain nutrients out of the soil, and the beans whill put ‘em back in. If a farmer can afford it, he will let whole tracts of ground lie fallow for a year or more and not plant anything because the land benefits from rest. After a year or two of lying easy under win and rain, snow and sun, it yields a greater, more bountiful crop.”
If dirt needs rest, how much more do we. God knows that he is the source of true rest. He knows we need a day to go and seek him and worship him…a holy day. A sunday. A day to enjoy his creation and a day to enjoy the study of His Word together with his people. Rest comes in two forms, as play and as worship. We need a chance to get away from our everyday life and we need a chance once a week to go worship God with his people. That’s why Hebrews 4:9 & 10:25 after talking about the eternal rest Christ provided for on the cross says that “There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God…(so) let us not neglect[ing] to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage[ing] one another…”
Rest is us knowing that God is working for us…that it isn’t luck, how much we are determined or how hard we work but it is God, who works in us to will and to do his good pleasure. I’ll just throw this in here too…there’s an implied command here also for the lazy ones, who are all play and no work. You’re just “resting” all the time, working on your beer belly and video game skills. The command here is get a job dummy.
Fifth commandment. “Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” This is a tough one. Right in the middle of the ten commands. And this command has a promise in it, a desire of the loving heavenly father for us…that our life will be well and long.
Last week Philip talked about how our picture of God the Father often has a lot to do with what kind of earthly father we have had in life. And it is a hard question to answer if we ask, why should I honor my father or my mother, especially if they were not there or if they mistreated us in some way, which has left us hurt, dejected, and angry? We long for loving parents. We long for a perfect father, like God.
But there is no exceptions in this commandment is there? It doesn’t say that we only honor good parents does it? I believe the reason is because God knows that how we respond to our family history has a big effect on our life, either good or bad and God wants to protect us from destructive attitudes, patterns and behaviors and the way that happens is by honoring our father and mother, regardless of whether or not they were there and were loving.
That is hard, especially hard for some. How do you even begin to do that? By coming to know the heavenly Father and finding his forgiveness for the ones who have wronged us and by coming to know his love for us which we extend toward them. That’s not easy. The innocent party always pays more emotionally and volitionally. But that creates a better life. And how do we come to know the heavenly Father? By embracing Christ in your life.
Jesus prayers a long prayer right before he goes to be arrested and crucified and he at the end of his prayer he says this, “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them (John 17:25-26).”
Sixth commandment. “You shall not murder.” It is amazing how easy it is to become numb to murder. It is everywhere all around us but we are mostly unaffected. Every single time the news is on there is a report of some new killing and every other TV reality show or day show seems to be people getting angry and violent toward each other. Killing has become cool and even fun. Microsoft is coming out with Halo 3 soon which is going to be the most expensive video game ever sold. It will cost $130 to buy so that you can go around shooting other people while you talk to them live over the internet.
This commandment gets at the heart of God which is love because the murder comes from anger which breeds hate and if it is not dealt with, it results in violence. Why do we get angry? Usually because we have been hurt and we want to hurt back.
God teaches us the hardest lesson of all when Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe, hung on a cross…murdered and chose not to retaliate, though he said he could call a whole legion of angels to his side to strike back. God is a long-suffering God. Not an unjust God but a God who wants us to learn that His lovingkindness is better.
Seventh commandment. “You shall not commit adultery.” This commandment is about sex but it is also about more than sex. God is all about sex. He made sex. God designed human to enjoy having sex in all kinds of ways, he enabled us to make babies through it, and to protect each other spiritually with it. It reflects the intimacy God intends for there to be in a covenant relationship between two persons.
And sex doesn’t work when it is not within marriage, period. Whether your having sex with with a TV screen, a picture in your mind, or someone physically in your bed who is not your husband or wife…it will not turn out well for you. Sex is not bad…some couples are having sex enough. And some of you may be having sex and you shouldn’t and that is because you are immature and you need to grow up. Immaturity always wants what it wants when it wants it and will not wait. And God knows that if we do not follow his plan and his design in this area it will mess us up good.
There would never be any divorce or any single parents if we as a people got a hold of the huge significance of this command and what is best for us as humans. Adultery is not compatibliity and marriage does not end when love does. There is something eternal going on with sex and the relationship of a husband and a wife.
Now that’s intense. I know. I mean to be…because there perhaps nothing so flagerantly a foul in our cutlure right now than this…and I am on a mission to try and make some people happy. You guys don’t know how much my heart breaks when I hear about you guys sleeping with people you’re not married to. I hate it…it is so gut wrenching.
But praise God for the gospel, because in Jesus there is forgiveness and there is acceptance and love. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” So embrace Christ, be loved by the heavenly father, and make a change about how you are going to live your life and who you are going to live it for…Christ or for someone who cannot and will not really love you because they don’t know or live for him.
Eighth commandment. “You shall not steal.” I’ve never played it but for awhile I kept hearing all this stuff about this video game called “Grand Theft Auto” where the goal is to go around and steal cars, money, and women. I’ve got to be honest…the idea of stealing a car sounds so fun. It’s right up there with my dream of robbing a bank just for the fun of it. To steal a car and then get runned down by the cops trying to get away. It just looks so fun.
I tried to steal a Nirvana CD when I was in high school. All my friends were stealing stuff all the time, so my first time I tried steal this Nirvana CD from Walmart. Back then they had these huge plastic things on the CD’s with things in them that set off the detectors you walk through when you go out the store. So I thought I was smart and took the CD to the hardware department and cut the thing off with some big ole’ metal snips. I put the CD in my pocket and just to be sure I went throught the check out line and bought a snickers. As I was about to walk out the door this guy grabs my arm, he has the plastic CD case in his hand, he asks for the CD and tells me to leave and never come back. J
So what is up with stealing. I think we mainly have a desire to steal for a few reasons…because we don’t have what we think we need or want, we want instant happiness, and we want status or to impress other people. And this relates to God in a big way because he is our provider…he has made the earth in such a way that we can grow and make and obtain food and clothes…and knowing Him is what makes a person happy long-term. God knows that possession cannot give us peace. That money cannot buy the measure of satisfaction we long for.
That’s why I worry sometimes about some of you college kids, because you just want to get your degree so you can get a job that is going to make you a lot of money so that you can buy a lot of things, thinking that hen you will be happy. And it simply isn’t true. The most important thing for you to do is to figure out what God wants you to do because only when you are doing that will you be happy.
Jesus says, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Because life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.” Why do we get anxious or worried about these things? I think the reason is we are afraid we will loose some pleasures, some praise from people, or we are afraid about the well-being of our physical life.
John Piper says this, “We ought not to be anxious about food and clothing because food and clothing cannot provide the great things of life – the enjoyment of God, the pursuit of his gracious favor, the hope of eternity in his presence. We get anxious about food and clothing to the same degree that we lose sight of the great purposes of a God-centered life.” Jesus said, “I have come that (you) may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).”
Ninth commandment. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” That means don’t lie. Words are so powerful. Dishonesty breeds discontent. Words cut deep. Words shape lives. From a husband to a spouse, from a parent to a child, from a teacher to a student, from a friend to a friend. Words can either build up or tear down and can in an instant bring a whole house crashing down. It is something we know too well, lies make more lies which make more lies. And in the end there is nothing good.
This commandment reflects the truth of God in an amazing way. There is so much out there today when it comes to God and religion. Everybody seems to have there own idea. And into this world of confusion and doubt God speaks and gives us His Word. God doesn’t intend for us to be broken and hurt and misunderstood and baffled by him. God is source of all truth and commands for us to tell the truth because he is not a God of deception but of perfection. And knowing him and his word of truth is what brings confidence and assurance into ones life. Without truth there will always be fear and hesistation.
In regards to this commandment Jesus comes to us and says “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but by me (John 14:6).” And for those struggling to find what is true he says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32).”
Lastly, the tenth commandment. “You shall not covet.” We talked about this a bunch when we first started this series on “Law and Gospel” because Paul referenced this commandment as his first reason for why the law isn’t bad back in verse 7 of Romans 7. The heart of this commandment is desire, our affections. Coveting is to have a strong desire to posses something that belongs to somebody else. Coveting is a an affection, a want, a desire…and so this command deals with the desire of our hearts as oppossed to exterenal behavior.
This concludes and connects all the other commandments because they all assume desires behind them. You steal because you desire to have something that you can’t afford. You commit adultery because you desire to have sex with someone who is not your wife or because you don’t want to wait for marriage. Coveting relates directly to the desires and is behind every one of the commandments.
And on top of it all coveting brings everything back to the issue of God because coveting says my desires, not God’s, my desires are the measure of right and wrong, what is good and bad and true and false. Coveting says says my will and desires are the standard, what I want things to be. And what is that but the desire to be our own God. It is the root of rebellion and the commitment to be our own god to ourself, where we are the final authority in our life. Where what we decide is what happens. Where i am god. And is nothing other than a violation of the first commandment starts out by God saying “You shall have no other gods before me (Ex. 20:3).” That is why Jesus said all the commandments are summed up in this one phrase, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Mt 10:37).”
The Commandments to the Gospel
That’s the ten commandments driving by them at about 80 miles an hour. Maybe you feel a little drained after that. It’s a lot. It’s heavy. And as heavy as it is it is also hopeful. These commandments are truly the tender loving care of our heavenly father who knows us best and knows what we need. And these commandments lead us to the glory of Christ. They make him shine because as these commandments are a reflection of God himself, they are a reflection of Christ.
Colossions 1:15-20 says “(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.”
This is the conclusion of Romans 7:7-12 on “Law and Gospel.” The law leads us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is that Jesus, the God-man, came to earth, died an eternal death to God’s wrath in our place because we have all broken these commandments time and time again and it’s a great offense to the love of our heavenly father. So Jesus died for us and rose again and lives today as the victorious king over all and is spreading the message of his kingdom through us until the day he returns in all his power and might.
And that is what we are about here at The Resolved Church…spreading the message of the kingdom of Christ. I was careful as I went through each of the commandents to show you how each of them reflected the character of God, and how each commandment is something that is discernable in our own hearts regardless of whether we read it in this book or not, and then I was also careful to show you how each commandment pointed to Christ and how Jesus fulfills each commandment.
But there was one thing I left out and that was any reference to community. Yes, these commands are for us individually but they are also for us together. They are given so that we might create a way of life together that reflects God as our treasure as we grow and build in love. You see you can’t live life together with people if you are lying to each other, sleeping around, and being angry with each other all the time. It doesn’t work and one of the many beautiful facets of the gospel is that it changes us into being a certain type of people…the kind that really and truly care for eachother.
That’s what I want The Resolved Church to be. A movement in this city which lives a different way of life because of who we treasure, Christ together. We are trying to build a city within this city, so that others will see our joy and satisfaction and truth by how we live and love and then be drawn in through the gates in that we build through all kinds of creative means. Our heart is to beat with mission because we know that this city’s heart is dying because it does not have Christ as its treasure. So join in as we join Christ and His (ten)der commandments. Let’s pray.
