God has certain expectations for his people, which was made clear in the 10 Commandments and affirmed by Jesus in his succinct statement: “Love God and Love Others.”
One of the staples of "The Late Show With David Letterman” has long been its nightly top ten list. They are always quirky, irreverent sometimes, and often irrelevant. I noticed that even Jennifer Fleming at her recent retirement party had her list of top tens, one of which was "Not to attend any more City Council Meetings."
"Top ten" lists are not the inventions of modern marketing culture. Long before there was a mass media culture, people had compiled lists of important values and cultural standards. No doubt if one were to draft a top ten list of the greatest top ten lists in history, the "Ten Commandments" would hold the number one spot. This was God's top ten list and it is found in Exodus 20. This top ten list came from the desert of the Sinai 1200 years before the birth of Jesus, became the bases of the Torah, The Law of God, is yet known as the "Ten Commandments".
Over the long years of Israel's history, the Pharisees had taken the Ten Commandments and had expanded them to over 600 laws to be obeyed. Jesus went to the heart of the matter, and gave the Reader's Digest of the Ten Commandments with his top two: "Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself." Do this and you will live the abundant life.
In a recent election in Italy, one of the main debates was over reducing the number of laws in the country. No one knows exactly how many laws are on the books, but one party pledged to eliminate 60,000 laws, which it deemed useless. Apparently over the years, the Italian legislative body passed one after another of these laws, many of which are outdebated, but with no sunset law, they all stay on the books. When you are suppose to obey so many different laws, after a while, they all blend together and you begin to ignore all of them.
That's something of what happened with Israel as the original Ten were added to one after another. Well while the Rabbi's were busy adding to the number of sacred regulations, Jesus was moving in the opposite direction attempting to help the people see that the heart of all the laws was to be found in loving God and in loving others. Jesus was not discounting any of the Ten Commandments, but rather was summarizing the essence of all of them.
For Example, The first deals with our relationship with God.
Said Jesus: "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This encompasses the first four of the Exodus Commandments:
There shall be No other gods before me.
You will not bow down to any "graven images"-homemade trinkets
Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
None of the first four commandments are to be ignored, but kept as holy. The one dealing with "Keeping the Sabbath Day as a Holy Day" is being challenged today. I noticed this past week that this new store at a local mall had its grand opening. There was this big brochure in the Sunday paper advertising their grand opening Sunday 11:00 AM. What are these people thinking? 11:00 on Sunday is nothing sacrosanct but in the South, we still honor the morning of Sunday as a day of worship. All other stores at this mall open at 12 PM on Sunday and now this new store opens at 11. What are they thinking? They might advertise "Good Deals," but I will find it hard to be shopping with them on Sunday, or Monday thru Saturday.
And there is this rather flashy ad on TV about a New York newspaper, where the final scene is this lady who says: "I believe Sunday was made for (this newspaper)." What are they thinking about?
Sunday is not made for shopping, news papers, soccer, golf, or tennis tournaments, at least not for those of us who honor the Commandments as the way of abundant living.
There was an interesting article in The New Republic, where the writer Gregg Easterbrook states: "Recent studies indicate that men and women who practice in any of the mainstream faiths have above average longevity, fewer strokes, less heart disease, less clinical depression, better immune-system, and they are much less likely to commit suicide than the population at large. These findings come from a number of medical schools. For example, Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center has calculated that, with regard to any mainstream faith, "lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to 40 years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day."
Another study, conducted mainly by researchers at the University of Texas, found that those who regularly attended worship services lived an average of seven years longer than those who never attended."
So what can I say? Coming here and listening to me each week is good for your health. Seriously though, keeping the Sabbath day as holy unto the Lord is good for you as it is one among many ways of "Loving God with our Whole Heart, mind, and soul."
First, love God and secondly, love your neighbor.
The final six commandments delivered by Moses to the wandering Hebrews, defined how they would relate to one another.
Honor your father and your mother
Do not kill
Do not commit adultery
Do not steal,
Do no tell lies on others
Do not covet anything that is your neighbors.
There are a number of these commandments that are under threat of extinction, for example: "Do not commit adultery" or the flip side of this is be sexually faithful to your mate, and "Do not bear false witness." or tell the truth.
We live in an age of a perverted sexuality. One's sexuality is one of the most precious of gifts which the Creator has given to us, but it is to be used carefully as an expression of the most intimate of emotional gifts.
It is in the area of sexuality that man has historically made some awful mistakes. The statistics of sexual abuse of children is staggering and frightening. One out of every four girls are sexually abused. One out of five boys are sexually abused. What have we come to in this perversion of sexuality? You can mess people up forever when you cross the line of an older person doing something to a younger person.
In 1774, John Adams said to Abigail Adams, "My dear, we live in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not." The sexual revolution, in which we are currently involved, is frightening and none of us know the consequence of the perversions of today.
When in doubt, revert back to the basic rule for healthy sexual relationship, "Do not commit adultery."
Also, "Do not bear false witness."
As there are two former presidents who have had their reputations tarnished by shading the truth and two little boys have been convicted of murder as they were judged by a jury to be lying about their part in the death of their father, I call upon you to be very careful in truth telling.
To tell the truth is the basis of people's ability to function in a stable society. Be as good as your word.
Summary: The Bible sees life as about decisions and choices. God's Top Ten List is found in the 20th chapter of Exodus and the book ends with chapter 30 with the words: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."
As you become familiar with the Bible, you realize the importance of certain definitive events: The call of Abram, the call of Moses, the exodus to the promised land, the death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Definitive events! Watersheds in history. From this or that definitive event, Israel, the people of God were different.
The exodus period of the long wilderness wanderings, and the people struggling to understand God's expectations of them, was a definitive time in the development of Israel. The scripture read this morning was such a moment of blistering insight. Moses had been gone on the Mountain of Sinai for forty days. The people were restless. They were dissatisfied, grumbling, always with an attitude toward Moses and God. "What have you done for me today?" In Moses' absence, they pooled their resources and constructed a small, sculptured animal made out of silver and gold, which gave them something tangible on which to focus their attention and to direct their prayers. This spirit business sometimes is just too much for a people who want something tangible, something they can see and touch. A God they can pull out of their pocket when they want him. A God who can be found when we want to find him. But when Moses came down from the mountain and saw them bowing before this man made image, he was not happy.
The first four commandments in his hand dealt with the uncompromising demands of God:
There shall be No other gods before me
You will not bow down to any "graven images"
Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy
God wanted a people who were Holy unto himself and every time he turned his back, they would drift back into old patterns. He would be out of the room for ten minutes and then return to find them reading the daily horoscope or praying to some Buddha like image, and as he would later say, "I want a people who will worship me in spirit and in truth."
It was not so much that God had, in Israel, called a Holy people, he had called a parenthetic, dysfunctional nation of slaves who had forgotten who they were and who now desperately needed a lot of help.
The first thing they had to learn was to love and focus themselves on Him, and Him alone, and then they were to learn to love and care for others:
First, there shall be No other gods before me.
You will not bow down to any "graven images"
Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy
And in addition to loving God, they were to love others:
Honor your father and your mother
Do not kill, Do not commit adultery
Do not steal, Do no lie,
Do not covet anything that is your neighbors.
Do these things and you will live! Love God first and care for others and you will be a holy people unto the Creator.
But Israel was not a Holy People for they were not obedient, as we are not a Holy People, but they, like ourselves, were on a journey. If they would only focus themselves and love God with their whole heart, soul, and mind and love and care for others, then they would be wholly unto God and a Holy People.
God knew they would need the commandments to keep them straight. I have found that the practice of Holy Habits help in the development of holiness in my own faith journey.
Holy Habits like:
Keeping the Sabbath and singing our hymns,
Daily praying and weekly worship
Giving away time in service and money to support Christian causes.
Holy habits produce a Holy People, which is what God was after long ago in the Exodus and is still after today.
These members of our choirs give themselves in a disciplined fashion to practice and then to lead us in worship as a holy habit. They are serving, but they are also developing their own God likeness. And listen, I know these folks and some of them need a lot of work. But at least they are working on it. And I see a lot of people every week who want the benefits of holy living, without paying the price of holy habits.
I went to Chicago this past year to meet a holy person, by the name of Marva Dawn. I knew her to be holy because of some eight to ten books that I had read over the past few years. So I went to meet a holy person in Chicago, of all places. Marva Dawn is a teacher and writer and has written for ministers like myself, who are leaders in worship and desire to encourage a holy people in a Church community. I had never met her in person and wanted to know her, so I went to this conference primarily because she would be there. Marva Dawn, isn't that a beautiful name? Interestingly, I wondered what she might look like, so I developed this mental image of Marva Dawn, but never having seen her I was unsure. The participates of this conference, some 500 to 600 in number and the ten or so speakers, were all staying in downtown Chicago in a large Hotel near the John Hancock building just across from the Second Presbyterian Church, where the Conference took place. Marva Dawn was to speak the second day of the Conference. In the morning, I got on the elevator leaving just enough time to travel the 38 stories down to the lobby and walk across the street to the church at the last minute for the beginning of the meeting, (sort of like many of you who miss the first few minutes of the beginning of the morning worship service) That morning everyone else had decided to go late and the elevator stopped on what felt that morning like every other floor. I was thinking about Marva Dawn - now isn't that an intriguing name? On one floor, a very attractive lady got on the elevator with her briefcase. She was dressed in a sculptured leather skirt and would definitely turn heads as she walked down a busy street. I wondered, is this Marva? She did look Mar-va-lous.
The elevator stopped again and two men and a very efficient, professional lady stepped on, and I wondered: "Is this Marva?" Again the elevator stopped as I wondered if I was going to make my meeting on time, and there stood this little lady in a worn dress and tennis shoes and she shuffled her feet taking forever to get on the elevator. Finally, we made it to the ground floor and I raced pass this lady who was holding up the entire process, took one last passing look at the lady dressed in leather, and made my way across the busy Chicago street where the meeting had already begun. After catching my breath and settling down in a back pew, the leader apologized for starting late but then introduced the much-anticipated speaker of the day, Marva Dawn. Said he, "She is a respected writer of books which are shaping the mind and styles of ministry of a new generation of Christian leaders. The crowd rose to their feet to greet the speaker and before us stood this little old lady in a worn dress and tennis shoes shuffling her feet toward the podium, the same lady I had in my mind complained about in the elevator just across the street.
You can't tell a book by its cover! Marva Dawn, I now know, is severely physically handicapped, blind in one eye, limited physically in many ways but writes with a pen of holiness. Her book entitled, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly is redefining my attitude toward the entire week. It is, in the faithful obedience to the commandment to Keep the Sabbath Holy, that we will find the abundant life. She writes: "Immersing ourselves in God’s love on the Sabbath overwhelms us with his grace, clarifies our perceptions of our role in life, and empowers us for the tasks that lay before us in the new week."
The Sabbath is a day for counting our blessings, singing our praises to God and thanking him and embracing the goodness of our own individual, particular circumstances. Without the Sabbath, without worship, without our praise of God, it all gets jumbled up and we lose the reference point beyond ourselves. We become angry, selfish, and mean spirited.
Keeping the Sabbath is a Helpful and Holy Habit to keep God in His rightful place in our lives.
Mr. Melvin was a holy man. He was old when I first met him. He was sitting on the front porch of his old house in Conecuh County near Monroeville, Alabama. Mr. Melvin's working days were over and mostly he sat on his front porch with his open Bible in his lap. On Sundays he was in his church near the front row. Now what was interesting, that I came to learn about Mr. Melvin, who sat with his Bible open before him and in worship every Sunday, was that he was blind and almost deaf. One day I visited with him and asked: "Why do you come to church when you can't hear? And why do you open your Bible before you when you can not see?" And he gave me two reasons: "First, I want there to be no doubt as to whose side I am on. In the struggle between goodness and evil, between God and the Devil, I am on God's side and I want people to know it and I want God to know it. And Secondly, it makes me feel better."
That's why we practice the Holy Habits. I realized that Mr. Melvin couldn't hear because, although he could not sing with the rest of the congregation, or on tune, he did sing. He would open his hymn, unable to see, and would sing along a little behind and humming a number of the words he could not remember. Mr. Melvin wanted people to know whose side he was on and it made him feel better. It is a way for you to make your witness to your children and you do feel better.
Sing the hymns! First praise and thank God and then ask for blessings. In Paul's letter to the Philippians, the Apostle writes: "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
Sing your faith! Pray your prayers and in all things give thanks! One of our elderly church members was a dear lady by the name of Minnie Lou Franklin (Zurlene's mother). She died a few years ago, in a nursing home, a victim of Alzheimer’s. But it was very interesting that before the end came as her illness had progressed, she did not recognize me nor communicate with me when I would visit with her. But sometimes, when I would step into her room, before identifying myself to her, I would hear her mumbling and singing the words of our old hymns.
I
walk in the Garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and
He walks with me and he talks with me, and tells me I am his own.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.
God calls us today to be a Holy People devoted to him, and Holy Habits will get us there.
I invite you to join with me in the journey of Holy Living. Let us eliminate anything and everything that is not pleasing to God or is hurtful to other human beings. Let us seek to be holy as God is holy.
Here in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, we encounter some of the earliest writings in the N.T. Written somewhere around 50 AD, which means 20 years after the resurrection, whereas the Gospels would be written 40 to 50 years after the event. Here Paul affirms the young growing church in Thessalonica that they are doing a good job. They are growing and the news of their faithfulness is found everywhere.
Elizabeth Andrews who works with our Food Source program, which provides nourishing food at lower prices to anyone, and in addition provides us with an opportunity to deliver food to the poor elderly in the community. Elizabeth tells about this lady, who upon learning that she was from the church, said to her, "These Methodists are everywhere, doing this and that.”
Well in Thessalonica, 20 years after the resurrection, the Christians were everywhere, doing this and that, in the name of Jesus.
Paul praises them that their reputation is that they are faithful and joyful in their faith, and that they are supportive and steadfast in their witness, despite persecutions. They are an example to believers everywhere!
In this scripture, we are reminded that God called them in their time and us in our time to be his people. Chosen as he chose Israel to come forth out of Egypt to a promised land, to be a light to all the nations. Chosen to be everywhere. Later the Apostle Peter would affirm their chosen status when he would write: "Once you were nobody, but now you are somebody, God has chosen you to be his people."
Paul sees evidence of God's People's faithful witness everywhere." Paul was pleased, as I am when I see evidence of your faith and your faithfulness everywhere I go.
I will come back to this, but first let me acknowledge what we all know about the brokenness of our times and the desperate need for hope and security and God's healing presence among us.
There is in our nation just now, little evidence of security, and Americans are uneasy at best, and frightened at worst. I don't want to add to your anxiety, but only want to illustrate the fragile nature of our situation. The head of the CIA has once again put out a bulletin noting that we are on heighten alert across America as a warning that another terrorist attack could take place anytime, as it did in Indonesia this past week. And in the Philippines on Friday three persons were killed on a passenger bus in a residential area.
This happens while a domestic sniper with a high-powered rifle drives casually around the suburbs surrounding the capital of the United States. Pizza delivery employees in the Washington D.C. area are a lot more interested in disarming a crazy sniper than in disarming Saddam Hussein. As a matter of fact, I also am a lot more interesting in disarming the people with high powered rifles by registering the guns and bullets they possess than I am of a dictator who guards the oil fields of the Mideast. Why don't we start at home with gun control if we want a world safe from violence?
There are today 200 million guns in the United States and they are used. Each year, 40,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds. To put that in perspective for you, that's a rate of 6.8 gunshot deaths per 10,0000 persons. That means statistically speaking that you have a 1 in 14,000 chance of being murdered in the next twelve months. We live in an insecure world.
The Stock market erodes our savings at warp rate speed. And now even "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" predicts a coming major failure in the stock market in his new book, "Prophecy". Is there no security to be found in the securities we have purchased? Was Lois Rukeyser asleep at the switch these past three years, for I never remember any clear warnings about a downturn in the market. Only sophisticated conversations about, “be careful, but buy here and buy there, and look at this area where you can make a killing.” Well, a killing has taken place, but it has for the most part been the little man, whose retirement funds have eroded, or the telephone operator for World Com, or secretary for Enron. Where is the security in our securities?
Today America and Iraq are arming and preparing for military warfare and it will happen. Something will trigger it.
And the family, the last citadel of security, is breaking up at a rate a bit faster than we can perform services of union.
Yes, security is a major problem just now. Let me make two affirmations:
It can only ultimately be found
in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Ps. 37: Trust in the Lord and do good, and you will dwell in the land in
peace and security. Jeremiah 33:6 - When my people are true to their covenant,
Behold, I will bring to the nation health and healing, and I will heal them
and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.
Thank heavens, for Christian believers like yourselves, for not only do you have security, but you give it to others. I, like the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians, see evidence of your faith everywhere I go. You provide security for those whom you encounter day by passing day.
You who are teachers, and work in the school system, every morning you dress and go to work, and give a place of security for the children. Others, such as those in the medical field, the brokerage business, and secretaries and receptionists who make strangers feel at home when they are insecure, help to provide security. Our people work in the real-estate business, providing homes for families, and others in courts of law. And everywhere I look there are those who are retired who through their volunteer service give the gift of helpfulness and security. Our people work in the fields of insurance providing life, and car, and home insurance. When you are secure in Christ today the greatest gift you can give is to surrender the gift of security. Look upon your labor as a gift to a troubled world.
Summary: I went with my granddaughter recently as she was trying out for a part in a play and watched how nervous she was before she went in for the tryout. I reminded her that Madonna did this once and I bet she was nervous also. I prayed for her. I sat quietly and watched. She did great and really felt good about how she handled it, and I was proud.
There are a lot of people out there in the world who are really nervous just now and need a close presence. God will be there for them, and through the miracle of the incarnation, will be there through you.
Yes, as Paul said, "In every place your faith in God has become known."