December 20th - Giving the Gift of Eternal Life

Giving the Gift of Eternal Life

Sermon Notes

Canyon Shearer

20 December 2009

Good morning, for those of you visiting this morning, I am not the pastor, but I do thank him for graciously loaning me his pulpit. My name is Canyon Shearer, I am Summit’s volunteer pastor of evangelism and I also teach Middle School Bible on Sundays. One of the reasons I am preaching this morning is because as of Friday, I have some letters after my name, an MDiv in counseling and an MAR in evangelism. In the 8:30 service we almost didn't get to the sermon, I was so mesmerized by the idea that I don't have a paper due this week that I just stared at the screen.

Please turn with me to Psalm 107. While you’re turning, let me tell you a brief story, you’re going to notice that I don’t move around too much behind this pulpit. The reason is because my normal stage is a soap-box that sits about 18 inches tall, and has a platform about two feet square. If I move around, I’ll fall off. I was preaching once in the open-air from my soap-box and had a lady heckle me, she yelled at me and told me to go read a certain popular book and I would see that “my god is a god of love, and he wouldn’t send anyone to Hell.” I did the last thing that she expected, I agreed with her, I cried out, “Ma’am, you are right, your god wouldn’t send anyone to Hell because he can’t, because he is a figment of your imagination; your god doesn’t exist!” When I said so I put some body movement into it, inertia took over; I lost my balance, and took a tumble. Sometimes when open-air preaching, it is hard to draw a crowd, that day was one of those days, but when I fell off my portable stage people came over to see what was going on and God was able to use my overzealous clumsiness for good.

So that is why I don’t move around much, because this stage is somewhat higher than my soap-box, and if I fell off, I might not get back up.

Hopefully by now you’re seeing a theme, that I like evangelism, and since I know you came this morning expecting a Christmas themed sermon, I’m going to do my best to point you not so much at the event of Christmas, but at the purpose of Christmas, that of giving the gift of Eternal Life. And as we do well to remember; Christmas without Easter wouldn’t be a holiday at all, and Easter without Resurrection Sunday wouldn’t be a holiday either. The whole thing revolves around Jesus’ ability to defeat death, and yet a famous Genevan Reformer once put it perfectly that, “If the gospel be not preached, Christ is, as it were, buried, let us stand as witnesses therefore and do him this honor.” Indeed it might even be said that if the gospel be not preached, Christ might as well not even have been born.

So we’re going to read from Psalm 107 today on how to do that. First, some basic context; this Psalm is anonymous and contextless. There is some evidence that this Psalm was written after the return from the Babylonian exile, but there is also some evidence that refutes that. Without going into it too deeply, the Psalmist here did a fantastic job of writing a beautiful Psalm that works for all believers at all times, and I encourage you to read the entire Psalm later today and see if it doesn’t tell your story; but today we are only going to read the first three verses.

Stand with me out of respect towards the Word of God.

Psalm 107:1-3 Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

Prayer – Father, bless the reading and hearing of your Word, let us be doers and not just hearers, recognizing that you are good and your steadfast love endures forever, you have redeemed us from so many wicked things but mainly from the curse of sin, and that you did by sending your Son Jesus Christ. Let us who are the redeemed proclaim your goodness and your grace, your love and your mercy, so that you receive the glory, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen.

I know you may be thinking that this is a stretch for a Christmas passage, but beloved, I can assure you that it has everything to do with Christmas. My first point is that we have to know the purpose of Christmas just as much as we have to know the event of Christmas. We all know the story of the census, the manger, the angels, the wise men, the Nazarene baby born of a virgin in Bethlehem called out of Egypt, but why is any of that important? Let’s let scripture answer that, why did Jesus come, why was he born?

John 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

Luke 4:17-19 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He (Jesus) unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

And my favorite,

John 18:37-38 Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

Jesus was born to bear witness to the truth, and what is truth? The truth is our first verse, that the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever. He is both totally righteous and totally merciful, the just and the justifier, God is love and yet God will by no means clear the guilty; he is a perfect judge and a perfect judge must be just, will not the judge of all the earth do right? Yet he is love and a loving God is mighty to save. these are totally contradictory ideas yet Jesus came to bear witness that God is both good and merciful, but the judge and the forgiver.

Now the translation you are using may not say steadfast love, the reason being is because this word in Hebrew is impossible to translate, it is Chesed and it carries so many meanings with it that it is very difficult to capture in a single word.

The ESV translates it as steadfast love.

The Holman translates it as faithful love.

The KJV translates it as mercy.

The NIV translates it simply as love.

The NASB translates it as lovingkindness.

In fact, the English word lovingkindness was actually invented to try to capture the meaning of Chesed. The word bears with it a faithful love in action that overlooks transgression; grace or agape love fit into the definition of Chesed. Remember this word, we’re going to be looking at it momentarily.

Our second verse says that the redeemed of the Lord ought to bear witness to the truth, but we have to ask ourselves first, what are we redeemed from? This is our second point.

Galatians 4:4-5 When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

We are redeemed from under the law, the law which meant life but which when transgressed has meant death for you and I. This is precisely the definition of sin, according to First John 3:4 which says sin is transgression against the law. One of the biggest sins, I’m sure, is trying to set ourselves up as God, check out Proverbs 20:6.

Proverbs 20:6 Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?

Anybody want to take a guess as to which word translates steadfast love? You guessed it, Chesed. Only God has a perfect steadfast love, a perfect chesed, yet almost every person will proclaim their own. The KJV really gets this verse right when they translate it here, “most men will proclaim every one his own goodness.” And it's true, I've asked over 2,000 people if they consider themselves to be a good person, and I've yet to find a non-Christians who would answer this question correctly, "There is none good but God."

Beloved, if you’re good, then you don’t need to be redeemed, and you certainly don’t need a Redeemer, because you’ve set yourself up as your own personal redeemer. You’ve pretty much declared to God that you are as good as him and therefore are set to go, Jesus agrees in Luke 5 when he says,

Luke 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

He doesn't save good people, he came to save the bad. How do we turn ourselves and others from declaring our own godliness to recognizing that we and they are a sinners in need of redemption? Just as Jesus was born to redeem those of us under the law, so does that same law show us our sin.

Romans 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost, if you’ve never been lost, how could you be saved? And this not an easy law, it’s a law that says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” but Jesus said, “If you look with lust, you’re guilty of adultery already in your heart.” It’s a law that says, “Thou shalt not commit murder, and everyone who murders is liable to the judgment,” but Jesus said, “If you hate someone, or call them an idiot or a curse word, you’ll be judged as a murderer, and you’re liable to Hell.” It’s a law that says all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. Surely the wrath of God will be revealed against all ungodliness.

To this effect the evangelist Leonard Ravenhill said,

"If I was to ask you tonight if you were saved? Do you say 'Yes, I am saved'. When? 'Oh so and so preached, I got baptized and...' Are you saved? What are you saved from, hell? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating? Are you saved from lying? Are you saved from bad manners? Are you saved from rebellion against your parents? Come on, what are you saved from?"

I was preaching on KSU some time ago and a female student cried out, “We don’t care!” I responded, “That’s why I’m out here!” She responded, “But we don’t care!” I replied, “I know you don’t care, you need to care and know that lest you repent, you will surely perish, unless you care, you won’t recognize that Jesus Christ is God and you are not.”

She put together a very eloquent and very well structured reply of nothing but curse words pointed at Jesus Christ, then turned and directed a similar assault towards me.

Beloved, I was offended, she said some very nasty things about me, I wanted to vindicate myself so badly and it was everything I could do to not cry out, “Watch your mouth, there’s ladies present!” But something, or more accurately someone, inside of me was also offended, the Holy Spirit, infinitely more offended and infinitely more capable of vindicating Jesus Christ than I was of vindicating myself; so my response came from Psalm 73 and 139 fused together,

“When you take the name of the Lord your God in vain, you set your mouth against Heaven, you declare war on the God who made you. And this is not a God who loses wars.”

Remember I said that sometimes gathering a crowd is difficult? That day was somewhat slow, but with her outright assault against God, a very large crowd that was walking by stopped in their tracks, and I was able to go instantly into the gospel, which is how we are redeemed.

This is my favorite part and the third point. Martin Luther said to preach 90% law and 10% grace, in other words, 90% what you need redeeming from and 10% how you are redeemed; which means most of the message to unbelievers should be outright violence, seeking to show them their lostness, their hopelessness, their sinfulness, then when they see that they are not good, that they are dead in their sins and trespasses, enemies of righteousness, children of wrath, children of disobedience, children of Hell, following after their father the devil and utterly without hope, then you finally you get to open the floodgates of grace.

And how are we redeemed? Two-thousand and some years ago, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, stepped out of Heaven, born of the virgin Mary, he lived a perfect sinless life, tempted in every way we’ve been tempted but he never succumbed, then thirty three years later he went willingly to the cross to pay for our sins. He would pray in Psalm 69 that what he did not steal he had come to repay, we broke the law and he paid the fine. The wrath of God against sin was poured out on him, and he died in our place, despised by men and forsaken by his Father...and then he was laid in a tomb.

He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we can become the righteousness of God in him.

Hebrews 9:15 sums up our redemption,

Hebrews 9:15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

But beloved, it doesn’t end there, but if the gospel be not preached, it might as well; but three days later Jesus Christ rose from the grave, he lives forevermore to judge the quick and the dead and to make intercession for his saints.

So what ought we do about it? This is the third part of our passage and my fourth and last point. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Notice the verb here, say, you're never going to guess what it means. It means to say, it means speak, which means vocalize, it means declare, it means open your mouth, it means tell, it means you have say something. Peter shares the sentiment in 1 Peter 2:9, that we ought to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Paul said in Romans 10:17 that faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ. Jesus said that he who has ears, let him hear. You have to speak, you have to proclaim, you have to vocalize that God is good and his steadfast love endures forever.

There is a quote that many hide behind that says, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” A parallel would be saying, “Feed starving children at all times and when necessary use food.” Beloved, you have to open your mouth, being deliberate as the redeemed of the Lord to tell people of your redemption, both what you were redeemed from what you were redeemed to and how you were redeemed, and especially about your Redeemer.

We’ve all heard that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and so beloved, in this Christmas season and out of this Christmas season, I implore you as the redeemed of the Lord to proclaim the excellencies of the King who was born from Heaven, who though he was rich for our sake became poor, in order that he and now we give the gift of Eternal life. Just as Jesus’ purpose was to bear witness to the truth, you go likewise and make it your purpose to bear witness to the truth.

Titus 2:13-15 really sums up the whole thing well,

Titus 2:13-15 We are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

I love that last verse, let no one disregard you, you go after them anyways, tell them they have to listen to you! You have the words of Eternal Life! So let us as the redeemed of the Lord say so.

And finally, as powerful, as beautiful, and as Christmassy as Psalm 107 is, there is an implication within this verse that it is the redeemed of the Lord who are to be doing the speaking; if you are not redeemed, then this passage is not for you, you have no part nor lot in the kingdom of Heaven, you are still under the law, and God’s wrath abides on you.

If you have never repented towards Heaven and placed your faith in the Living Christ in order to receive forgiveness and righteousness, then I implore you in the name of the Redeemer Jesus Christ, be reconciled to God. There is one mediator between you and God, the man Jesus Christ, who was dead but is alive, so where you sit call out to him in repentance, beg him to save you, and beloved be sure that he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to him in faith. If you have questions, we have counselors available, but they can't save you, only the Nazarene baby born in a manger in Bethlehem called out of Egypt who grew up to die for you can save you; he is good, he steadfast love does endure forever, and he is mighty to save.

For those of us who are redeemed, the call today is to follow Jesus, emulate him in seeking and saving the lost, giving the gift of eternal life, and bearing witness to the steadfast love of Jesus Christ. Maybe that is through an overseas mission trip, maybe that is through open air preaching and street ministry, maybe it is through teaching a class, maybe it is through being an assistant teacher, or maybe you're not even in a fellowship and you need to take the first step and join this church. Whichever it is, beloved, I ask you to do something to declare the excellencies of your King.

Let’s pray. – Lord God Almighty, we are so humbled under your love, that you would send your Son from Heaven to dwell among men so that we would no longer have to dwell under the law, but that you have adopted us as sons. How can we keep this to ourselves? As your redeemed give us the words to speak and the boldness to speak them so that your name receives the glory, for you are good, and your steadfast love endures forever. Let us hail the heaven born Prince of Peace, who has brought life and light, let us join with the heavenly host as they sing his praises. In the righteous and resurrected name of Jesus Christ that I pray, amen.

Benediction

Charles Spurgeon, after preaching a sermon similar to this one, gave one of the best exhortations I’ve ever heard. Charles Spurgeon was a famous preacher in the late 1800’s, the man had a vocabulary that was so large he could make a dictionary blush for inferiority, and so you knew every time he said something it was going to be precisely what he intended to say. When exhorting his hearers, as the redeemed of the Lord to say so, he summarized his sermon this way, “Do something, do something, do something!”

So beloved, I implore you to do something, we have resources on the welcome desk that will teach and equip you on how to give the gift of eternal life, or check out Summit's website, we have a fantastic gospel presentation that is designed to be sent to your friends and family. Just do something.

Remember that if the gospel be not preached, Christ is, as it were, buried, let us stand therefore as witnesses and do him this honor.

Stand with me for your benediction, and won’t you please give someone the gift of Eternal Life this season. Your benediction today is from Isaiah 60 and Second Thessalonians:

Arise, and shine, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness the people, but the glory of the Lord has risen upon you and his light is seen upon you, and nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. May the Lord Jesus Christ himself establish your hearts in every good work and word so that through your life all of the glory goes to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Merry Christmas. Amen.

December 13th - God of Wonders

Text - Colossians 1:15-17 He 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.

We watched the first 12 Chapters of God of Wonders, available from: http://www.godofwondersvideo.org/chapter1.htm

December 6th - The End of the Law

Prayer Requests
Tyler's Family

Keith Gardener's Health

William's Leg

Bethany's friend Melissa's family and house
Summit at Christmas
Christmas Parade Outreach - December 12th
Dave and Brooke and Eden

Text – Hebrews 10:1

Challenge – Memorize John 1:14 and 18:37 about Christmas.

Beloved, today I can't justify why I picked this topic except that I had very little preparation time and so you're getting a rehashed lesson on the law. The law is vitally important to know, so we're going to spend the class on it. This is also sort of Christmassy, because it points at why Christ came.

There are 613 laws in the Old Testament, they can be summarized in two, can anyone recite them?

Matthew 22:36-40 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

We're specifically going to look at the 10 Commandments today, but as we've looked at them in the past was pointed at you and me, today we're going to look at them through Jesus, using Hebrews 10:1 as our guide.

Hebrews 10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

The law is just a shadow of the good things to come. Who do you think it is a shadow of? Jesus Christ, Let's see where it explicitly says that;

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

The law is good, in fact in Psalm 19 it says it is perfect, and Romans 2:20 really sums up why it is so good,

Romans 2:20 ...having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth...

It is the embodiment of knowledge and truth. I like that word, "embodiment", does it remind anyone of anything?

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus Christ, who was God from everlasting, was a spirit until Christmas two millennia ago, when he put on flesh, became the embodiment of God on earth, and the law points to him perfectly, it was a shadow of his coming, it shows us his perfection.

I'm going to teach you two Latin phrases today. Before we do that, who remembers what Post Tenebrae Lux means? Out of darkness, light. Two words in Latin which are going to deal with our law and our king, they are "Lex" which means "Law", and "Rex" which means "King."

Our two phrases are Lex Rex, and Rex Lex. They sound like the same thing, but they are not, they deal with progression and so the order they appear in is important, as to which one came first and which one is superior. Is the king supreme and therefore makes the laws, or is the law supreme and therefore is king?

Lex Rex means that the Law is King, or the Law makes the King. It is wrong in theology, but right in government.

Rex Lex means that the King is Law. It is right in theology, but wrong in worldly government.

We want earthly kings to abide by the law, not them to be able to be the law. Samuel Rutherford stood against the monarchy of England, stating that Lex Rex is the way to run a country, and Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were greatly impacted by it, and Rutherford's book, Lex Rex, was instrumental in the formation of the Constitution of the United States, even though it was written 150 years earlier. When Charles the Second of England read that he wasn't the law, he ordered the book burned and cited Rutherford for high treason, but Rutherford died before they could do anything about it.

The law is good and right because it is a shadow, a pointer, to Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't keep the law because it was something he had to do, the law was given to show that Jesus is perfect, the law proceeded from the King. Everytime there is a law in the Bible, it isn't to just keep you from doing something, it is to point at the perfection of Jesus Christ. For example,

Leviticus 11:6-10 And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you. "These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat. But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you.

The passage goes on to talk about birds that eat carrion as well. The point of the passage is that all of these things named either eat manure or dead things, and by their consuming of filthy things, you will become filthy by association, and therefore couldn't be allowed into the presence of God. Jesus Christ is neither a sinner by action nor by association, he is holy perfect and undefiled. The dietary laws were a hard law to keep, and fortunately Christ has shown us that it is not what goes into a person's mouth, but what comes out of it, that makes them unclean.

Matthew 15:17-20 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.

So without further adieu, let's look at how Jesus fulfills the 10 Commandments and the Shema, which is what the summation of the law is called, which means literally "Hear!"

1. Love the Lord your God

John 14:31 I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

Jesus proved he loved his Father by keeping his commands, and doing everything he was sent to do.

2. You shalt not bow down to idols

Matthew 4:8-10 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"

3. You shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

Romans 2:23-24 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

Jesus never broke the law, because he bore witness to the truth, and bore the weight of condemnation, he showed that God is both totally just in punishing sin, and totally graceful in saving sinners, but only by sending his Son to bear the wrath which justice demands in our place, so that we receive the righteousness of God by grace.

Similarly,

Matthew 12:36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak...

When we speak idle words, like "ummm" or "like" or any gossip or thing that is not eternally important, then we tell the world that every word God has spoken is not eternally important. For example, I've probably said um a few times in this class, would this class be worse off or the meaning changed if I hadn't said um? No, because you just ignore the "um"s, but with Christ you can't ignore even a word he said, because he spoke no idle words. We know how Christ is set apart from sinners, and in one more way he is more righteous than us, we know that he never said um or like or ya know.

When representing the name of God, he was perfect in every way, totally righteous, totally perfect, and he never took God's name in vain in either word or action. As God's original apostle, he was a perfect ambassador from Heaven.

I want to show you something pretty neat, we're created in God's image, right? Here is how you write God's covenantal name in Hebrew: יהוה If you stack those up, you get a little human stick man...err...person. That is not all it means to be created in God's image, but the main point is we are God's representatives to earth, visual representations of him, and so when we sin, we tell the world that God is a sinner, but Christ never sinned, so he perfectly represented God.

4. Honor the Sabbath Day, To Keep it Holy

Jesus Christ said that man was not created for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath created for man. (Mark 2:27) He was the Lord of the Sabbath, Sabbath meaning rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Some of these, actually all of these, we could really dig into and spend a whole class on, so this is just the overview. Read Hebrews 3 and 4 to see Jesus being the total fulfillment of the Sabbath, that we have eternal rest in him and not just one day in seven.

5. Honor your Father and Mother, the first commandment with a promise, that you may live long on the earth.

Did Jesus honor his Father? Yes he did, did he honor his mother? Yes he did. An off-topic point, as Christmas comes around you will probably hear Mary referred to as the Theotokos, the mother of God. She is the mother of Jesus, but she is NOT the mother of the Father or the Holy Spirit, so to call her the Theotokos is way wrong. Poor James and Jude must have had a terrible time growing up with a brother who was perfectly obedient to his parents. I wonder if Joseph ever asked, "James, why can't you be more like your brother Jesus?" James could come back and say, "It's because you're a sinner dad, and your genetics have made me a sinner."

Hebrews 5:8 ...speaks of Jesus' obedience to his Father, Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

6. Thou Shalt not Murder

It would be easy to skip past this one and say that murder is when you take someone's life unlawfully, and Jesus, as King and Sovereign and the one who is offended, takes everyone's life lawfully and with due evidence, but I want you to recognize that he never took anyone's life while he was here, he left all vengeance up to his Father. He was spit upon, he was beaten, he was slandered, his own neighbors tried to throw him off a cliff, and just as he can give life by a word, he could have taken life by a word as well, yet he restrained himself and did not take any lives.

James 4:12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

7. Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery

Who is Jesus' betrothed? The church. He loves her and laid his life down for her, she is his only bride, in Heaven will be that marriage of the Christian church and the Son of God, a perfect union.

Jesus never looked at a woman with lust, he never considered dating one, he was and is totally focused on his bride Israel, which in modern days encompasses the church and leaves out national Israel. He is not eloping with the Muslim religion, or the Zoroastrian religion, or the Jewish religion, he is totally faithful to his beloved, the church. And this point proves there is no life in outer space, lest Christ would have some other girlfriend in some other galaxy.

Isaiah 61:10 As a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

8. Thou Shalt not Steal

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

When Christ was on the cross, he prayed this;

Psalm 69:4 What I did not steal must I now restore?

9. Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness

Titus 1:2 ...in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began...

God never lies, in fact, it is impossible for him to lie, because his will is only for good. When Jesus came, it was to tell the truth, in fact, he is the truth (John 14:6), and is called true. (Revelation 19:11)

John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."

10. Thou Shalt not Covet

Jesus Christ, who is the creator and owner of EVERYTHING, doesn't need anything, and the Bible says even if he did, he wouldn't tell us.

Psalm 50:12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

Yet he emptied himself, he left the riches of Heaven to become the poorest of poor, in that he was thankful for the provision that God gave him, he didn't covet anything during his life on earth, even though he could have reached out and taken anything, because he owns everything, but did not esteem himself to that level.

So we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We see that Jesus loves God totally, how did he love his neighbor?

Matthew 5:43-35 You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Jesus laid down his life for his enemies, that while we were in willful rebellion against him, breaking all 10 of these Commandments and probably 600 more, Christ died for us. He was the only man to deserve Heaven, the only man who never sinned, the only man who would have never died, if he hadn't given his life for his sheep as the Good Shepherd. We'll talk more about this shepherd language when we get back to Peter, which might not be until January.

So Jesus is Rex Lex, our King is the law, we don't have these commandments for just moral reasons, but to point to Christ, and show that he is totally perfect and we are totally not. He is the end of the law for all those who believe, he was perfect, yet he faced a sinners' judgment, so that we who are sinners can face a perfect judgment.

We are required to repent and confess all of our sins, it is a command of Jesus in various places, but how many of us have kept this commandment? Have you repented perfectly? Have you confessed every sin you have ever committed perfectly? Every one? If you miss one, it will condemn you.

But Jesus, our perfect Saviour, even kept that command for us. On the cross he took possession of our sins, he called them his own, and he confessed to his Father our transgressions, which he called his own, so now we can be totally perfect, not on our works, but because Christ has done all of the work for us.

Psalm 69:5 O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

Hebrews 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Homework

Go home and read Psalm 51 from the vantage point that this is Jesus Christ confessing your sins as his own. Meditate on this fact and think about all that Jesus has done for you. Think about how hard it must have been for Jesus to confess these sins that he hadn't committed.