Affairs of the Heart

Exodus 20:7-11

Have you ever tried to read instructions for 1040 tax form?

-each year the IRS claims to have streamlined and simplified the

procedure, to have clarified all ambiguities

--I think this year they have actually done it

Listen to this paragraph entitled, “Special Rules for Clergy” à If you are filing Schedule SE and the amount on line 2 of that schedule includes an amount that was also reported on Form 1040, line 7, follow these special rules. First, write “Clergy” directly to the right of line 56a. If you received a housing allowance or were provided housing, do not include the allowance or rental value of the

parsonage as nontaxable earned income on line 4 of the worksheet

on page 23 (or on line 56b of Form 1040) if it is required to be included on Schedule SE, line 2. Then, if you are figuring the earned

income credit yourself, determine how much of the income reported on Form 1040, line 7, was also reported on Schedule SE, line 2. Next, subtract that income from the amount on Form 1040, line 7.

Then, enter only the result on line 1 of the worksheet on page 23. Last, be sure to complete the worksheet on this page.

For some reason, to Joe Taxpayer, that’s just a tad bit confusing

-amazingly to a tax preparer or an IRS agent, it makes perfect sense

Hold that thought for a moment as we look at the 4^th Commandment

Read Exodus 20:8-11

That seems relatively straightforward: don’t work on Saturday

-but a question begs to be asked: “What, exactly, is work?”

--that seems like a reasonable thing to want to know

-as you might imagine, over the years, the answer to that simple

question developed into a complex set of regulations, definitions,

interpretations and on and on

--just like our modern tax code, the intent—seriously—was to be

helpful...as issues or cases came up, religious leaders would

confer and formulate a response

--by the 1st century, there was a group of men whose job was to

make sense of these endless religious laws—the Pharisees

-what IRS agents are to our tax code, Pharisees were to Jewish law

--they are not the bad guys! they never have been!

--they are here to help...to interpret and explain the rules

-Pharisees understood human nature...that nearly everyone wants

to maintain the strict letter of the Law so they can stay on God’s

good side, but also that most will take advantage of any gray area

--so, for example, the Pharisees determined that walking more

than 1000 yards from home is work...but if on Friday you set

out enough food for two meals 1000 yards from your house,

you could declare that place a temporary home and therefore

walk another 1000 yards from there

As you might imagine, not many people were very happy when Jesus

shows up and teaches His radical re-interpretation of the rules

-just as an example, let’s read Matthew 5:27

--heard it? of course they’d heard it! it’s the 7^th Commandment

—they’ve heard it all their lives

--what does it mean? duh! everybody knows that one...

-so when Jesus refers to Exodus 20:14, they’re all satisfied with

themselves...after all, they’ve never had sexual intercourse with

someone else’s wife...that’s something done only by major

league sinners—definitely not applicable here, Jesus, but thanks!

--but Jesus doesn’t stop there, not with merely the technical,

external, physical interpretation

-read Matthew 5:28

--whoa! just hold on a second, Rabbi! aren’t You carrying this

thing a tad too far? You’re saying that adultery can occur in

the heart and mind as well as in bed?

-obviously Jesus’ unspoken answer to that question is “yes”

because He goes on to give 5 additional, similar examples

--His point? the Ten Commandments aren’t merely black &

white regulations that you follow to the letter and that will

make you okay in God’s judgment

--the Ten Commandments aren’t superficial legal matters—

they are affairs of the heart

We’ll begin by tackling the 4^th Commandment because it is the most

likely to be misunderstood, misapplied, and legalized to the point of

meaninglessness (and because it’s really easy to use it to judge the

validity of other people’s religion) à Read Exodus 20:8

To help us understand this command, we’ll break it down...

-the Sabbath day is the seventh day which is Saturday

--we are to “remember” it by “keeping it holy”...okay

---“holy” means “set apart” or “separate” or “unique”...okay

-so maybe this isn’t as obvious as it seems...perhaps the next three

verses will help us out à Read Exodus 20:9-11

If you had to summarize this command and these four verses in one

word, what would it be? rest!!!

-does this mean Sunday afternoon naps are God-ordained? yes!

--now...if we left this subject with that, most of you would be

satisfied—I now have biblical support to take a nap—hallelujah!

---but it would still leave many with dozens of questions...

because most of us usually approach this command from

a legalistic angle: what can and can’t I do?

We could play an religious version of “Mother May I?”

-Pastor, may I pick up some things at Wal-Mart on the way home

from church?

-Pastor, may I go out to eat after church?

-Pastor, may I play golf on a Sunday afternoon?

-Pastor, may I work out at the Y later today?

Well, I’m not going to play that game with you

-I will tell you that most Christians today have a vastly different

interpretation of this command than they did even 30 years ago

--I’m old enough to remember Blue Laws

--I remember my pastor teaching that you should fill your car with

gas on Saturday, but never Sunday

--I never remember going out to lunch after church

-but let me raise a couple of issues...and then we’ll explore further

what the Bible has to say—that way if you disagree with me (and

you certainly will!), your fight is really going to be with Scripture

and you can forget about ever playing “Pastor, May I?”

The first problem: you and I do not and probably never have

remembered the Sabbath day by keeping it holy!

-the Sabbath day was yesterday! and not one of you came to this

church building to worship...not a single one of you slaughtered

and sacrificed an animal to God...I know! I was here! I watched!

-what’s funny is that we Baptists say that we are the people of the

Book, but we consider Seventh Day Adventists as old-fashioned

legalistic weirdos because they have church on Saturday...and

we criticize the Roman Catholics for having mass on Saturday

nights because (so we say) they just want to sleep in on Sunday

--don’t you see the irony in that?

---many of our Roman Catholic friends worship on the

Sabbath and then rest on Sunday

---yet we Baptists work on the Sabbath, worship on Sunday,

and then usually fill in the rest of Sunday with as much as

we can... meetings, Sunday School, worship, rehearsals,

worship...so that when Sunday is finally finished we’re

simply exhausted after our day of God-ordained rest

Okay, okay...enough sarcasm

-Saturday worshipers claim the Sabbath observance was never

abolished and they point to Jesus’ practice as strong support

-most of Christianity practices a version of a “Sunday Sabbath”...we

keep with the Jewish principles, but do so on a different day...and

we have the practice of the first-century church as our support

-some believers say that God’s intent was really “one day out of

seven”...that any day is fine as long as you set aside one

Do you want to guess what my point is going to be?

-every day is God’s...every day is the Lord’s Day...not one out of

seven, but seven out of seven are His

--the same principle applies to tithing...we don’t give 10%

because 10% belongs to God...100% of “our” money belongs

to God

-so why then do we worship on Sunday?

--it’s much more practical to gather on one day and have one day

of worship, teaching, fellowship...rather than have small group

Bible studies and music and preaching every day of the week

--true, the first Christians continued to go to the Temple on

Saturday, but very early on, certainly within 15-20 years after

the Resurrection, believers (many of whom didn’t have a Jewish

background) started saying, “Hey, let’s commemorate the

Resurrection of our Lord by gathering for worship on the first

day of the week.”...and then, being Baptists, they brought it up

in business meeting and it passed unanimously

Let’s go back to the original command—what are they actually

supposed to do? stop work!

-remember, this commandment is given to people who have just

spent the last 400 years in slavery...they didn’t have a day

off...they didn’t get a three-day weekend for King Tut’s birthday

...they didn’t even have a weekend—ever

--this command wasn’t a burden, it was a wonderful gift!

How would you feel if you went to school tomorrow and your principal

met you at the door and said, “You may go home. No homework.

This won’t hurt your grade at all. Just go, enjoy the day.”

-would you complain if your boss gave you the day off with pay for

no reason other than she thinks you could use the rest?

--isn’t it incredible how we distort God’s gracious intentions and

turn Him into some menacing ogre who’s out to make our

lives miserable?

-when we do that, we’re only following the bad example of the

Pharisees à Read Mark 2:23 – 3:4

What’s Jesus saying?

-first, He’s specifically saying that it’s perfectly fine to do necessary

work like preparing food...along with work of mercy and healing

-but overall He’s reminding them and us that we’ve turned

everything around...we don’t exist to keep a certain day holy...the

day is set apart for our benefit, not our curse

--you and I turn miss the boat when we get all legalistic about it

or when we never slow down enough to rest

When you think about it, wrapped up inside of this command is

actually a strong requirement of faith

-in Exodus 16, before the Ten Commandments are given, God is

feeding the Israelites with bread from heaven, called manna

--this was a daily event...any manna left overnight would spoil

---God was instilling in them a sense of dependence on Him

--on Fridays, God would give twice the daily amount and He’d

keep it from spoiling

---on the Sabbath, then, He wouldn’t send any manna

-why would God do that?

--because it gave the Israelites a day of rest

--and because it reminded them Who was actually feeding them

John McBain writes about a church who had a parking shortage

-this was during the days of blue laws, so every Sunday a nearby

grocery store had an empty parking lot

--the owner agreed to allow the church to use it on one condition

-the written agreement stated that for 51 Sundays a year the church

could use his parking lot without charge, but one Sunday a year

was designated as a “no parking” day

--his rationale was simple: “For 51 Sundays I give you use of this

lot for free. But on one day a year, I want you to remember

who gave it to you.”

Can you see God’s reasoning?

-“I have given you this earth...its fertile soil...its animals...its

resources. Care for them. Use them for your benefit. But one

day a week stop and remember who gave it all to you.”

-“I have given you my only Son. He loved you so much He died for

you and made it possible for you to be forgiven of your sins and

given eternal life. Stop and remember who gave it all to you.”

And just like the heart of the fourth commandment isn’t about an

empty ritual one day a week, the third commandment isn’t really

about our speech...it, too, is a reflection of our heart

Read Exodus 20:7

NIV translates the verb as “misuse”...the KJV renders it “take in vain”

-in an effort to keep this command faithful Jews wouldn’t and still

don’t say the name of Yahweh—well meaning, but misses the point

-neither does this command have to do with swearing, cursing,

cussing, or filthy language—the Bible has plenty to say about that

subject, but that’s another sermon

-the Hebrew verb means to make something empty or meaningless

-it forbids using God’s name flippantly

--I think you can make a good argument that the popular use of

the phrase, “Oh, my God!” or anything similar using “Jesus” or

“Christ” violates the heart of this command

---when you do that, you are taking the precious and holy

name of God and treating it as if it were worthless

-this command also makes it a sin to toss around God’s name and

use it to claim Jesus is Lord of our lives when He’s not

--Matthew 7:21-23 is the clearest example—read

---could that be you? just casually tossing around God’s

name, sounding all religious, doing religious things...but all

the while you don’t know Jesus?

--700 years before Jesus spoke those words, God spoke through

Isaiah the prophet à These people come near to Me with

their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are

far from me.

---it’s significant to note that those who heard that message

would have surely assumed they were on God’s good

side...but notice that He calls them “these people” not “My

people”...critically, there was no relationship

Allow the Holy Spirit to examine the condition of your heart

-do you belong to God? does He know you?

-is Jesus Christ truly the Lord of your life seven days a week?

-do you sound and look the part of a Christian, but inside where it

counts, you know you are far from God?

I didn’t preach this message so that you’d leave here feeling badly

about yourself

-I preached this message so that each one of us would be

confronted with the truth of Scripture...so the Holy Spirit could

then convict us of our need to surrender daily to the leadership of

Christ and to live out our faith

--if you leave here feeling badly about yourself, then that means

you’re leaving here in the same condition you arrived...and

you did not allow God to transform you

Now is the time to deal with God...He is here...He wants you to come to Him in faith...to find forgiveness and real life