“Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor” (Exodus 20:12-17) | 5/21/23
Exodus 20:12-17 | 5/21/23 | Will DuVal
Okay, I’m gonna invite my 6 Scripture readers on up - since our theme for “Church in the Park” always has to do with unity as a church, the importance of Christian community… I thought it was kinda perfect timing that in our study through Exodus this year, we just so happen to be hitting the second half of the 10 Commandments - the last 6 “horizontal commandments” - that govern our interpersonal relationships AS God’s people - this morning. Last week, as a reminder, we looked at the first FOUR “vertical commandments”, that outline our proper response to GOD - remember: our obedience is ALWAYS a response to what God has ALREADY done for us; “We love because he FIRST loved us”; because of who God IS (“I am the Lord your God”) and what He’s DONE (“I brought you out of… the house of slavery”), He’s our LORD AND SAVIOR. So Jesus summed up ALL the commandments this way: “You shall love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself”. And LAST week we learned how to love God - commandments 1 thru 4 - by:
TREASURING Him,
WORSHIPING Him,
HONORING Him,
And RESTING IN Him.
And this morning, we’re gonna learn how to love ONE ANOTHER; SIX ways. So would you stand with us, as you’re able, out of respect for the reading of God’s word, from Exodus ch20, vv12-17, and I’ll turn it over to the kids, as we hear the word of the Lord…
““Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.””
This IS the word of the Lord… Let’s PRAY…
-
Now KIDS: I hear that y’all have actually been learning the 10 commandments in YOUR Sunday school classes, so I’m gonna need your help teaching the adults some of the HAND MOTIONS, that help us remember them. You remember the first FOUR?
“Only ONE God!”
“Cut out the IDOLS!”
[make “W”] “Watch your WORDS (about God)!”
[thumb sleeps] “REST on the Sabbath!”
So we ready for #5?
V12: [*salute*] “HONOR your parents!”
Now, as we said - or as JESUS said, actually! - ALL the commandments are REALLY about LOVE. So when God commands us to “honor our parents” here, it’s because God wants us to LOVE…
#5 - THE FAMILY.
According to God, the FAMILY is the basic building block for all of human society. “Loving your neighbor” has gotta START with your very CLOSEST neighbors of ALL: the ones in the bedroom right across the HALL!
Kids: if you can’t LOVE and RESPECT your parents - the ones who gave you LIFE, the ones who put CLOTHES on your back and FOOD on your table - if you can’t love ‘em BACK, and HONOR them, you’re gonna be hard pressed to truly love ANYONE in your life. It’s gotta start at HOME.
What does it mean to “HONOR”? The Hebrew word here - “kaved” - literally means to be “heavy,” or “weighty”; it’s the OPPOSITE of the word used back in commandment #3, for taking God’s name “in VAIN” - we don’t use God’s name “lightly”, flippantly… KAVED means we treat our parents SERIOUSLY. Philip Ryken explains (604): “[We] give due weight to their position… we give them the recognition they deserve for their God-given authority… to respect, esteem, and value fathers and mothers as gifts from God.” By the way, the Bible’s the ONLY book in antiquity that demands the same level of respect for MOTHERS as for fathers (Ryken 604).
If you’re wondering HOW seriously we’re supposed to take this - how seriously GOD takes it - just consider the punishment He orders for violating it: Leviticus 20, v9: “anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death” (cf Dt 21:18-21) - Kids: God is DEADLY serious!
But the FLIP side is that God’s BLESSING for obeying this commandment is equally WONDERFUL! All the other 6 “horizontal commandments” we’ll look at are stated negatively - “Thou shalt NOT…” - but #5 here is the only POSITIVE one: “Thou SHALT honor your parents”. And in the NT, the apostle Paul points out that it’s the first commandment “with a PROMISE” (Eph 6:2) - “that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Does that mean Ms. June must have REALLY honored her parents? (cuz she’s about to turn 98 next month!)
Well, I’m sure she DID, cuz Ms. June is just cool like that, but that’s not really what God means here. This is a Hebrew expression, an idiom, that refers to the “fullness of God’s blessing… to have an abundant life” (Ryken 605). It’s more about QUALITY than QUANTITY. Kids: do you want God to BLESS you with life to the FULLEST? Honor your parents.
Col 3:20 “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”
Eph 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”
Notice: there are LIMITS to obeying your parents; Paul said, “obey your parents… IN THE LORD”. To the extent that your parents are leading you IN THE LORD, then you FOLLOW them. But you don’t obey a parent whose orders are AT ODDS with the Lord’s.
You don’t obey an ABUSIVE parent. In some, rare cases the most HONORING thing you can DO for a parent is to walk away from the relationship. We’ve got a member of our church who just last week had to take legal action against her mom, because she’s suffering from a mental illness, and she’s a danger to herself and others. I think she’s HONORING her mother in that.
But by and large, honoring is going to mean “regarding HIGHLY”:
Young kids: you honor your parents by only making them ask you ONCE. Don’t don’t talk BACK, don’t make them explain it to you… for the hundredth time, WHY you need to brush your teeth; just BRUSH them!
Teens: you honor your parents by treating them like they know more than you, cuz they DO! You honor them by letting them into your LIFE - TELL them about your day when they ask, don’t just GRUNT at them; open UP to them when you’re hurting, not just to your friends who are every bit as LOST and CONFUSED as you are - get your advice from your PARENTS! You honor them by remembering you’re still living in THEIR house, under THEIR rules, so respect your curfew. Don’t bring your phone to the dinner table. Leave your door open when you bring that “special friend” over to “study”. Do what they SAY; TRUST them.
Once you’re OUT of the house, you honor your parents by CALLING them every once in a while... Visiting them… Blessing them with GRANDKIDS to love on… and eventually, by taking CARE of them in their old age. 1 Timothy 5 says “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever”! (v8) Sometimes that means you’ve gotta put ‘em in the nicest assisted living home you can AFFORD, but one way or another, we’ve got a responsibility to care for our parents.
One last quick but important note here: there’s an underlying principle implicit in this commandment that goes BEYOND just our parents and calls us to respect ALL those whom God has placed in authority over us. The Israelites used this word “father” outside the home as well… to refer to the king (1 Sam 24:11)... to the prophets (2 Kings 2:12)... to their elders (Acts 7:2)... So we can apply this commandment to ANYONE in authority over us… those in GOVERNMENT - 1 Peter 2: “honor the emperor”; your BOSS, at WORK - Ephesians 6: “obey him”; the leaders in the CHURCH - Hebrews 13: “obey your elders”.
We HONOR them not just for THEIR sake, but for GOD’S. HE is the one who put them in that position of authority, whether they seem to deserve it or NOT (Ryken 606).
Commandment #6 [*6 fingers*]:
V13: “You shall not… [*hand motion* “BANG!”] MURDER.”
Why? Because God loves LIFE. He’s a God OF Life, a life-GIVING God. So we must value - CHERISH - life as well.
Now, Ryken explains (616): “The Hebrew language has at least 8 different words for killing, and the one used here… ratzach is never used in the legal system or in the military.” Later in His same Law, God prescribe the DEATH penalty for certain crimes. He also commands the Israelites to KILL the Canaanites. And God doesn’t contradict Himself. So He’s obviously not talking about capital punishment or just war theory here in Exodus 20. No, “What the sixth commandment forbids is the unjust taking of a legally innocent human life… ‘murder in cold blood, manslaughter with passionate rage, [and] negligent homicide resulting from recklessness or carelessness’” (616).
See, the reason God not only allows for but actually commands certain forms of killing is because He IS so pro-life! “Their goal isn’t the destruction of life but its preservation.” (Ryken 617) Lives are saved when a mass murderer is put to death, when an evil dictator is taken out.
“The sixth commandment… also preserves God’s sovereignty over life and death. Jesus is the LORD of life… It is HIS prerogative to take it, at his own time, in his own way.” (617)
A woman DOESN’T have the “right to choose” what to do with that human LIFE inside her womb, any more than I have the right to terminate my infant’s life if he becomes too inconvenient to me (which is a really good thing for BO, cuz we just started SLEEP-training 3 nights ago, and let me just tell ya: he hasn’t been honoring his PARENTS too well! He’s keeping us UP at night!)
But listen: we Christians need a bigger vision of what it means to be “pro-life”; GOD is pro-life all the way from the WOMB to the TOMB. Speaking of “nursing homes”, are the folks living THERE every bit as VALUABLE to us as any other “contributing member of society”? Do we appraise people’s WORTH by what they can “contribute”? Are we grieved just as much by the death of the 8-year old immigrant child as we are the death of the 8-year old who looked just like MY daughter, and therefore gets WAY more news coverage… which life is worth MORE to us, REALLY?
And we can get even more pro-life than THAT, cuz here’s what JESUS said about the 6th commandment; he said: ““You have heard that it was said… ‘You shall not murder… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother… and says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matt 5:21-22) According to JESUS, you can “murder” people with your WORDS… more than that, you can “murder” them in your THOUGHTS, just by getting MAD at them! He calls us to be so “pro-life”, that we SPEAK life, we THINK life, we EMOTE life… to EVERYONE. “Love [even] your ENEMIES”, he says; I want you to be pro-THEIR lives!
#SEVEN?? [*fingers…*]
v14: “You shall not commit… [*fingers under hand…*] ADULTERY.”
That’s two people getting under the SHEETS together.
See, kids, when a Mommy and a Daddy love one another very much, they do things in the bedroom that according to GOD, ONLY that Mommy and that Daddy should do with one another, as husband and wife. (And if you have more questions about that, you can ask YOUR mommy and daddy later on the playground.)
But I’ll just say this: the REASON adultery makes God’s “top ten list” is because God is so pro-MARRIAGE. That’s the next blank in your bulletin, for #7: God calls us to LOVE MARRIAGE. Ryken explains (629): “Adultery is marital infidelity… The primary purpose of this commandment is to protect marriage. Adultery is the greatest sexual sin because it violates the trust between a husband and wife [and] it breaks the marriage covenant, a promise made before God.” And NOTHING breaks that promise quite like adultery; that’s why Jesus’ only EXCEPTION to the rule that Christians shouldn’t get divorced is… ADULTERY, “sexual immorality” (Matt 19:9).
1 Corinthians 6:10 goes so far as to say that “ the sexually immoral… will [not] inherit the kingdom of God.”
So Hebrews 13:4 exhorts us “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
That also means if you don’t HAVE a “marriage bed”... YET… then you don’t ACT like it. Most of you here who AREN’T married yet likely WILL be one day. That means your spouse is somewhere out there right now; do you want HER “playing husband and wife” with some other guy, under the sheets? Or do you want her to HONOR your future marriage bed? Then you do the same.
But see, once again, right when we think, “Okay, I can handle that; I can wait”... Or for those of us who ARE married: “I can restrain my occasional desire to get under the sheets with someone else”... here comes JESUS again, reminding us of the HEART of the Law, GOD’S heart, behind this Law: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:27-28)
Affairs don’t start in the bedroom. They start with a second, longer look. With a text message. With a simple ride home from work. With an intimate, personal conversation that NEVER should have happened. It’s ALL there, in the seventh commandment.
See, I heard a pastor helpfully explain it this way: think of the commandments as like the LAST stop on a train route; MOST of us will never reach the END of the line: murder… adultery… But there are PLENTY of stops BEFORE that - “cut folks off in traffic”... an EMOTIONAL affair… - that are STILL sinful, and that Jesus therefore wants to PROTECT us from; he doesn’t want us riding the train AT ALL! Get off the train!
#EIGHT [*fingers*]:
v15: “You shall not… [can you see it…] STEAL. [“3” is “stealing” from “5”...]
Don’t STEAL. Because God wants us to LOVE #8 - PROPRIETY.
To love “RIGHTNESS”, or “justice”. But I like the word “propriety”, because originally, the ROOT of the word had to do with PROPERTY (ownership). Ryken (642) explains: “To steal is to take something that doesn’t belong to you. The Hebrew word - ganaf - literally means to carry something away, as if by stealth… to appropriate someone else’s property unlawfully.”
But once again, God’s prohibition here really refers to a whole category of what WE like to think of as “lesser” sins. Most of us will never be convicted of outright LARCENY, armed robbery, grand theft, embezzlement… but I bet MOST of us have had those days at work, where you just kinda take it easy, ya know… you slack off… or you use time on the clock when you’re getting paid to work for personal purposes instead - that’s STEALING. Taking a “sick day” when you’re not actually sick is STEALING. Writing “lunch with the pastor” off as a “charitable donation” on your taxes is stealing, from the government. And let’s not even get STARTED on all the ways the government steals from US (OVER-taxing…), all the ways your employer steals from YOU (demanding longer hours than you’re contracted for…). It seems like we’re ALL stealing from one another!
“According to estimates, as much as one-third of a product’s final cost goes to cover the various forms of stealing that occur on its way to the marketplace.” ( Ryken, 643) When you buy that dress… that you really only need ONCE… and then return it after prom is over… that’s STEALING.
Insurance companies steal by taking your premiums but then refusing to pay out on your valid claims. You steal someone’s JOKE, you appropriate it as your own, so that people think YOU came up with it, and think you’re funnier than you actually are; plagiarism - failing to give credit where credit is due - is STEALING. You steal someone else’s idea at work, and take the credit.
WORST of all, we steal from GOD, don’t we? When we give LESS than the 10% back that He asks for, from what He has so generously blessed US with - in Malachi 3:8-10, God asks: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me… In your tithes and contributions… Bring the full tithe [the full TENTH] into my storehouse…”
“Another way to rob God”, Ryken (651) points out, “is to fail to give him the best of our time and talents. All our abilities and opportunities come from God, and they are all to be used for his glory.” Speaking of money, some of you are GREAT with it. God gave you the ability to stewart money WELL; why aren’t you serving on the FINANCE team at church? 1 Peter 4:10 says “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace”. Some of you will bless your shower with the beautiful voice God gave you, but you NEED to get up here and bless the CHURCH, by serving on the worship team. You fix YOUR OWN toilets and sinks at home; we need you to serve on the church facilities team and help fix OUR toilets and sinks!
“Still another way to rob God”, Ryken (645) continues, “is to break his law, thus denying him our obedience. Every violation of the 10 Commandments involves some form of theft. Bowing down to idols steals God’s worship. Desecrating the Sabbath steals his holy day. Murdern steals life; lying steals the truth…”
But then Ryken - in the spirit of JESUS - goes even FURTHER and takes us back to the HEART of the Law, and suggests that “Whenever we squander money that could be better spent on something else, we are guilty of a kind of theft.” (646) Cuz God rightfully owns everything; He’s just lending stuff to us for a short time, to steward it for HIS glory. And the Bible says we must all give an ACCOUNT of our stewardship - for every $6 Starbucks latte we ordered, while over 1,000 people have already DIED this morning from hunger around the world.
John Chrysostom (cited in Ryken 647-8) - famous 4th c pastor - put it this way; he said: “Not to share one’s possessions is theft… Just as an official in the imperial treasury, if he neglects to distribute where he is ordered, but spends instead for his own indolence… so also the rich man is a kind of steward of the money which is owed for distribution to the poor… If he spends more on himself than his needs require, he will pay the penalty thereafter. For his own goods are NOT his own [they are GOD’S, and]… we do not possess our own wealth [only] but theirs [also].”
Have you ever considered that perhaps the reason you have far more than you NEED is that God gave you someone ELSE’S wealth, to test you and see if you would SHARE it, like He commanded you to?
Jesus told a parable about that (Matt 25:14-30). About 3 servants who were given stewardship of 1, 2, and 5 “talents” - that was a unit of currency; a LARGE unit: a “talent” was worth 20 years’ wages for a common laborer! - but the Master wanted to see how the servants would STEWARD such riches. And the parable was all about EVANGELISM - how do we “invest” the GOSPEL - the greatest treasure of ALL that we’ve been given; the saving good news of Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins - will we just BURY it, and keep it to ourselves, or INVEST it in the lives of others? That’s perhaps the worst form of stealing of ALL: robbing others of the opportunity to hear about JESUS and be SAVED.
Any of you starting to think, “Gosh, maybe I DON’T keep the 10 Commandments as well as I THOUGHT I did… maybe I DON’T want them hanging on the walls of the local courthouse, because as the apostle Paul said, the Law brings condemnation (Rom 4:15)... brings DEATH (2 Cor 3:6)...” Good, you’re getting the point…
#NINE? [*fingers*]
v16: “You shall not… bear false witness against your neighbor.” [*See, I’m swearing testimony in court]
God wants us to Love TRUTH. And once again, even though the immediate context here is a formal court of law, the word ‘neighbor’ here ought to bring to our minds JESUS’ definition of “neighbor”, in the story of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37); Jesus BROADENED the idea of neighbor to include EVERYONE; everyone is our neighbor! So yet again, God is outlawing the most EXTREME case of LYING - in a courtroom, where your false testimony could cost your neighbor his LIFE - the last stop on the train route, as a way of warning us against ALL forms of lying! That’s the underlying principle here: don’t LIE.
Because God loves truth. God IS truth! Jesus said, “I am the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life” (Jn 14:6). Remember: ALL these commandments reflect the heart and character of God HIMSELF!
Murder is wrong because God is LIFE.
Adultery is wrong because God is FAITHFUL.
LYING is wrong because God is TRUTH.
By contrast, the Bible describes SATAN as “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). Lies come straight from the pit of HELL.
We certainly don’t think of lying in that way, do we? When we’re telling the “fish story”… or letting our 13 year old still eat off the kids menu… or updating our RESUME; “According to a recent survey of nearly 3 million American job applicants, nearly HALF of resumes contain one or more deliberate falsehoods” (Ryken, 654).
OR we just tell half the TRUTH - we conveniently leave out the parts that don’t suit OUR purposes, work to OUR advantage.
The MEDIA does it (pushing their own narrative), the POLITICIANS do it (making empty campaign promises), the SALESMAN does it (burying the truth about the deal down in the fine print), MARKETING does it (“just buy this product, and all your problems in life will be FIXED!”).
Sadly, we’ve just come to expect lying almost everywhere in society, haven’t we? So much so that Oxford Dictionary’s “word of the year” back in 2016 was “post-truth”... and THAT was 7 years ago! Just think how much FARTHER from the truth we have strayed SINCE then! We don’t know right from wrong, truth from fiction, crook from President, boy from girl… over HALF of Americans today believe that truth is subjective. There’s no such THING as “objective truth”; “your truth is simply your truth, my truth is my truth” (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/20/most-americans-say-truth-subjective-no-absolute-ri/ ). I guess one of the perks is at least you don’t have to WORRY about “bearing false witness”, cuz there’s NO SUCH THING in a “postmodern” world!
No, friends, God’s word is concerned with THE truth, GOD’S truth is THE truth. God’s word - the Bible - is truth! If God SAID it, you can TRUST it. And He calls US to be equally concerned with our own representation of the truth as well:
Leviticus 19:11-12 “you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.”
Ephesians 4:25 “having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
And that’s the WORST kind of falsehood: the kind that harms someone else. False witness AGAINST a neighbor. It can be difficult to confront someone you love with the truth, can’t it? A difficult truth that they nevertheless NEED to hear. But REFUSING to do so can just be another form of “false witness” - lying by OMISSION.
Lastly, #TEN?? [*hands*]
v17: “You shall not… [*grabby…] COVET” [*gimme, gimme, gimme…]
“To covet is to crave… something that belongs to someone else…. It’s not simply wanting something we don’t have; it’s wanting something that someone else has” (Ryken, 666). Those of y’all who volunteer in the NURSERY with all those sweet, innocent BABIES we’ve been celebrating lately, just give it a few months and you’re gonna know all ABOUT coveting. Cuz nothing stimulates a child’s interest in a toy quite like ANOTHER child playing with it. Elijah’s got toys he hasn’t even bothered taking out of the BOX, for months, but the second his older sister decides to check it out, all of a sudden it becomes his favorite toy ever - the ONLY one he wants to play with!
But friends, are we really that different from our kids? You didn’t know you NEEDED that screened-in back porch til your neighbor built his, didn’t know you NEEDED that vacation til your friend took it, and posted all her pictures from it, and made you jealous. We resent the co-worker who got the promotion we wanted, resent the roommate who found romance while you’re still single (Ryken 666)… we want what we DON’T have, what OTHERS have instead, because at the end of the day…
We don’t Love OUR LOT. That’s the FINAL love God wants for us, in your bulletins: God wants us to Love our LOT in life. What’s the antidote to coveting? It’s CONTENTMENT. Learning to be happy - GRATEFUL! - with whatever God has given you, whether little or much. If you can’t be happy with what He’s given you today, you won’t be happy with what He gives you tomorrow, no matter HOW much it is, it’ll NEVER be enough.
Hebrews 13:5 “be content with whatever you have”.
Now, there’s something really INTERESTING about how God ENDS His list. Most of the commandments govern our external behavior - “honor your parents, don’t murder, don’t steal…” - but you remember where God BEGAN the list, by going straight to the HEART of the matter - “You shall have no other gods before me”; TREASURE me above all else! - and I pointed out how unprecedented this was in the ancient world, that God rules over not just our actions but our very THOUGHTS and DESIRES.
Well, look where he CONCLUDES: “Don’t COVET”. God takes it back to the HEART again - our internal impulses; “don’t desire things you shouldn’t.” What does that mean? It means if God judges us not just for what we do on the OUTSIDE, but for who we really are on the INSIDE, then we’re all far more sinful than we care to admit, more sinful than we even KNOW - “The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately sick, who can even understand it?” the Bible tells us! (Ryken 669)
So why does God END here? Because, Ryken notes, “This commandment - more than any other - convinces us we are sinners… for the gracious purpose of showing us that we need a Savior.” That’s what it did for PAUL; “Paul went through the first part of his life assuming that he could measure up to the perfect standard of God’s law… Then he came to the tenth commandment”, and he writes in Romans 7: “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” (vv7-8)
In other words, no matter HOW many of the commandments you THINK you’ve kept - “I’ve never MURDERED” (“No, but you do have ANGER issues”), “I’ve never committed ADULTERY” (“No, but you do LUST”) - but no matter how much we try and FOOL ourselves into thinking we can “measure up”, keep the Law, earn God’s favor on our OWN merit, we ALL know deep down that we fall short on #10. NO ONE is perfectly content.
That’s why we need a SAVIOR… JESUS!!