The Divine Crash

Today in church we studied the second group of the ten commandments.  You can listen to this on iTunes (link will open up iTunes) or you can click play at the bottom of this post.

We started with a little bit of 10 commandments history and why they were so important for the ancient Israelites.  Then we began speaking about the commandments and what they each mean to us today.

Each of these are about how humans interact with each other because God is interested with humans being human.  When we kill, steal, etc… we stop being human and start being slaves and our God is not about slavery our God is about freedom.

Don’t kill:  To kill is to make anonymous, every time we cut someone off in traffic, or hang up on someone we have made them anonymous.

Do not commit adultery: Adultery is literally to break your former loyalties.  Yes that is being faithful to your spouse but also to what you have agreed to.  Those credit card bills that you said you would pay?  Those crazy buy 1 cd get 12 free? Let your yes be yes and your no be no.  When we don’t do what we say we will do then we have broken our former loyalties

Don’t steal: Stealing is to take away by deception or stealth.  To take what is not ours.  When we rip off the waitress from the tip they earned we have stolen what is theirs.  We are christians who have eternal treasures waiting for us and we can’t leave a decent tip? Really?

Don’t lie about your neighbor:  To talk to or about your neighbor, Jesus says it is both those you like and don’t like.  What do you say about them? To them?

The last one, Do not covet.  Ancient rabbis did not consider this a commandment but a reward.  When a person follows the other commands they are rewarded with not coveting.  Because, at the heart of coveting is contentment. When we don’t cheat, steal, or kill we will be content, but on the other side when we are content we won’t kill, steal, or lie.  So contentment is not only the reward it is also the beginning of following the commands.

If Ben Roethlisberger had been content he wouldn’t be in nearly the amount of trouble he got in.  Ben wouldn’t have been accused, he wouldn’t have been suspended and he wouldn’t be losing all that money.  If he was content with what he had.  It all comes down to contentment.  When we aren’t content we get in trouble.

Being content is not about stuff, if it were about stuff then we must need more and get more in order to be content and yet we are never content.  So then, we already have all we need to be content.  We have Jesus, who lived, died, and is alive forever.

Sermon Audio

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