We are saved by the Lord your God.

 

Sermon for Trinity 6, July 11, 2021

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Exodus 20:1-17  Then God spoke all these words: ²I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.  ³You shall have no other gods beside me.  ⁴You shall not make any carved image for yourself or a likeness of anything in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  ⁵Do not bow down to them or be subservient to them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.  I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, if they also hate me.  ⁶But I show mercy to thousands who love me and keep my commandments.  ⁷You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not permit anyone who misuses his name to escape unpunished.  ⁸Remember the Sabbath day by setting it apart as holy.  ⁹Six days you are to serve and do all your regular work, ¹⁰but the seventh day shall be a sabbath rest to the Lord your God.  Do not do any regular work, neither you, nor your sons or daughters, nor your male or female servants, nor your cattle, nor the alien who is residing inside your gates, ¹¹for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.  In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.  ¹²Honor your father and your mother so that you may spend many days on the land that the Lord your God is giving to you.  ¹³You shall not commit murder.  ¹⁴You shall not commit adultery.  ¹⁵You shall not steal.  ¹⁶You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.  ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. (EHV)

We are saved by the Lord your God.

Dear sojourners in the wilderness,

            When the larger parts of our country were being settled, many wagon trains set out on long journeys into uncertain futures.  If at any time the wagon master felt there was danger of an imminent attack, he would call for his charges to circle the wagons as a form of protection for the people within.  The circled wagons would be a barrier against the attackers, and no one would be permitted to leave that circle of protection until the threat had passed, for to leave those confines would expose the foolish person to immediate danger of death.  This picture well represents what God was doing as He spoke these words of our text.  The primary message for us is that We are saved by the Lord your God.

This text is often recognized as the Ten Commandments, but Moses didn’t record it as the commandments but as the words, or declarations, of the Lord.  Then, also notice that the first saying here listed is not the First Commandment as we know it, though it is related.  Rather, God’s first statement is this most important declaration: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.”  This statement tells us, without a doubt, that no one is saved by obedience to the law, but that we are saved by God graciously rescuing us from our former slavery to sin, death, and the devil just as God delivered the Israelites from their enslavement by the Egyptians.

The Lord God Creator of the world is your God and mine by nature, by action, and by declaration.  We rightfully belong to the Lord because He created the world and everything in, all of us included.  Because He is our Creator, God has the natural right to do with us as He pleases.  But, take note, God created this world expressly for mankind, so that He could have a relationship with the human race. 

The Lord God is also our God because of His actions.  Though mankind had been captured by the devil’s trickery and led into a life of servitude to the one who hates God with a white-hot passion, God didn’t allow that kidnapping to stand forever.  Indeed, shortly after the moment of the betrayal by the devil and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God promised deliverance for His loved ones.  In this, just as He didn’t demand that the Israelites fight their way our of Egypt and rescue themselves to reside in His presence, God doesn’t offer us any hope of self-rescue, but rather, God sent His Son into the world to be the ransom that won us back from the devil’s deceit. 

Paying His own lifeblood in exchange for your soul and mine, Jesus was God in human flesh delivering mankind from slavery to the devil.  In Egypt, the blood of spotless lambs protected the Israelites when the angel of the Lord wiped out the firstborns of Egypt as God crushed Pharaoh’s resolve to hold God’s chosen people.  Likewise, the blood of the spotless Lamb of God rescued us from the deceiver’s control as Jesus gave His life on the cross for the sins of the world.  Then, in undeniable victory, Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning signaled that by His sacrifice, Jesus had completely destroyed Satan’s rebellion, crushing that serpent’s head so that he can no longer reign over us. 

Again, just like the Israelites were rescued once more from their slaver’s threat as God led them through the waters of the Red Sea, so you and I also were delivered from despair by the waters of baptism whereby God puts His name on us and declares that we are His dear children.  So, by baptism and faith in God’s word, We are saved by the Lord your God.

Now, going back to the picture of the introduction, God put a circle of protection around His rescued people with the remaining words He spoke.  Those statements that we recognize today as the Ten Commandments are the summary of God’s will for the whole human race.  Those words were not given to stifle our free expression or to limit us from having fun, but instead, God puts these restrictions in place because through the laws, He defends us from every evil attack that the devil, the world, or our own sinful flesh might bring against us.

We must admit that we are under constant attack as if wild savages were racing around us firing flaming arrows intended to destroy us.  Though Christ has defeated him, “your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)  Likewise, the Holy Spirit warns that as the world and our own flesh tempt and deceive us, “The flaming arrows of the Evil One,” (Ephesians 6:16) are continually aimed our way.  Against such forces, we are defenseless on our own.  We can’t fight against these attacks with guns, canons, or physical strength but only with the Word of God. 

Now, I say “only with the Word of God” with an ironic intention, because God’s word is the most powerful force there is.  Whatever God says will be accomplished in exactly the time and place He determines.  Therefore, if we heed God’s statements, we will remain under His protective care.  It is only when we sneak outside of God’s circle of help that we are left defenseless.  Thus, one of the main purposes of the commandments is to guide us in how to remain safely in God’s kingdom of grace where He defends us from all evil attacks so that We are saved by the Lord your God.

If you remember from your days in catechism class, there is another main purpose to those commands, and that is to show us our sins.  By giving us these proclamations of His intentions for our lives, God teaches what His divine omniscience knows is best for His people, but each of these words serves also as a mirror showing exactly when we have crossed the line and left God and His loving care behind. 

Beneficially to us, these words of God are amazingly simple yet all-encompassing in scope so that if we only obeyed these simple commands, we would have no need for any other laws.  For example, if we obeyed the statement, “You shall have no other gods beside me,” we would have no worries, no doubts, and no fears about what tomorrow might bring.  If we fully obeyed the command not to murder, there would be no need for the wide variety of laws that deal with human killing, no need for hate crime regulations, and no need to teach kids not to bully the powerless.  If we fully observed God’s statements not to lust for things, people, or power, there would be no adultery, fornication, rape, theft, swindle, or war.

Now, there is one interesting twist in all of this.  The Hebrew language has the unique characteristic in that it has only two verb cases, perfect and imperfect—finished and not finished.  Thus, it is a beautiful language for how God describes our obedience of the law.  Because there is no imperative, or command, tense in Hebrew verbs, in each of these words, God simply says that you will do these things.  However, we know we fail often, and grievously, in our remaining close to God and inside His protective circle.  Because we so regularly, and sometimes, even willingly disobey God, we would naturally be found outside of God’s protection and mercy.  Thus, because of our sin, we need continual rescue.

This God’s Son did for us.  In His Son, Jesus, God fulfills all of the commands He gave us so that He can count us as His dear, holy, and blameless children regardless of the faults and betrayals we have fallen into.  That certainly doesn’t give us permission to disregard His words here.  However, we also need not fear that we have sinned in such a way that God will not forgive, because Jesus has lived in perfect obedience of every will of God for our lives.  Jesus is the One Man of whom God would honestly testify, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:17)  Yet, God doesn’t stop there.  In loving mercy for all those who believe and trust in His Son, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

You see, in this way, not only did Jesus pay the penalty for every time we have strayed outside of God’s protective circle, He also lived His own life fully inside that circle of commands so that God could rightly count those He credits with Jesus’ obedience as though they never sinned at all.  In other words, through faith in Christ Jesus, when we are called out of life on this earth, we will enter heaven credited as having perfectly obeyed all those things God said we would do. 

Furthermore, while we who believe remain here in the barren wilderness of the world, Jesus gives us His own body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper as a medicine of immortality that heals all the wounds the arrows of the devil, the world, and our own flesh have inflicted upon our souls.  All of this, dear friends, is why we rejoice that no matter what this world brings against us, no matter how desperate our situation might look, We are saved by the Lord your God.  Amen.

The God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.  To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.