Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): God, in his justice, gave the law, and in his grace gives an altar. We'll explain next on Abounding Grace.

Hey welcome to another week of Abounding Grace online at aboundinggraceradio.com. As we wrap up our look at the Ten Commandments today, we want to draw special attention to the altar that was set up immediately after the giving of the law. It's a beautiful reminder of God's justice and grace. Here's Pastor Ed Taylor in Exodus chapter 20.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Verse 17 now, coming back to Exodus. The final commandment given is, "You 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 that is your neighbor's." Some of you are going, "Checkmark, checkmark, don't want my neighbor's ox, don't want my neighbor's donkey." But covetousness is a sneaky one. This is a sneaky one because I don't know how many people I've ever met that really come and confess, "Pastor, will you pray for me? I'm very covetous." But it's very common. It's just unseen. This is interesting because it's internal. It's very internal, hard to see outwardly, hard to see the action outwardly. Nobody sees your coveting heart. Nobody physically sees my coveting heart, but God.

Covetousness is a form of discontentment. Jealousy is really seeing someone else has something and you really want it. Coveting is a little worse than that. Coveting is you see what someone else has and you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. You begin to despise the person. When you're jealous of someone, you're like, "Oh man, he has that. I wish I really had that." It can be kind of sinful not being content with what you have. But coveting includes, "I see what you have. I really want it." It's all jealousy, but then it's like, "Now, I don't like you for having it. I don't like that you have it."

And maybe even someone says, "Not only do I not like that you have it, but I want to hurt you in some way for having it, taking it from you." I think covetousness is a source. I know it's an interesting source, but I think it's the source of when someone decides they just want to key your car. I think it's one of those resentment areas. You come out from the store and you're like, "What was going on? What happened here?" It's just somebody saw what you had, they don't have it, and they want to express their anger and frustration and ruin it for you. I would say there's probably more than jealousy there. Especially like a stranger who doesn't know who you are, doesn't know anything about them, you have no issue with them, but they see something of yours and want to destroy it. They want to harm you for it. Covetousness.

It's very important that we are aware covetousness drives a person to take what God has given someone else. It is an area that God illuminated in Paul's heart. Now you remember Paul, when he looked back at his life as Saul of Tarsus, he looked back at his life as being the epitome of a religious man. He looked back on his life apart from Christ and he looked back and said, "I was everything that you would expect to be. I lived to the strictest standards. I lived to the strictest rules. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees in my life." But when the Holy Spirit gave him new life, when he was born again and God opened his eyes to the scriptures, listen to what he says in Romans chapter seven, verse seven. This is what he says of himself. He says, "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law said, 'You shall not covet.'"

God revealed to him an issue in his own life, and it took Paul a long time to see how much he coveted. Again, you probably could make a strong argument that covetousness is tied to anger as well, where you're not content, and because you're not content, you're upset. Because you're upset, you start to take it out on people that are closest to you. With the Ten Commandments, I know we spent a few weeks and I know each one of them could have been a study in and of themselves, but we're going through a little bit broader on our verse-by-verse in our midweek study. Even though we summed them up, you can see how valid they are. There's really nothing in the Ten Commandments that can be argued with. They're so reasonable and logical and protective and needful and valid.

Nine of these commandments transcend the nation of Israel, reflecting God's desire upon us today. They reflect his moral character. Now all ten of them reflect his character, but the imposition of them in the New Covenant, only nine of them are given to us repeated in the New Testament. The Sabbath law, remember we studied this, now is found by faith in Christ. He is our Sabbath. We have our rest in him. But that's not to negate the need of the pattern. Six and one. You can't work seven days a week, 24 hours. God made you for rest. Replenish yourself, be strengthened, go back to work. God made you to work. God made you to rest.

You go, "What do you mean? God made me to work? That's part of the curse." No, your bad attitude is a part of the curse. But work existed before the fall. Adam and Eve were given the responsibility and the joy of tending the garden before the fall. The fall brought our bad attitudes toward work and made it harder and the sweat of our brow and such, which we all deal with every day. Jesus took these things, remember, one step further in his Sermon on the Mount and he said, "I say to you," Matthew 5:20, "that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

Well, okay, none of us are going to make it. There's no way our righteousness could ever exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, of the scribes, of the religious. And then he began to give illustrations on murder, adultery, taking oaths, service, loving our enemies, charitable deeds, prayer, fasting. All of these the Pharisees were hitting outward grand slams. They were hitting it out of the park. But Jesus taught us that the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was just outward. It had no spiritual merit. It had no heart. They were doing it to control people, to take advantage of people. They weren't real.

If I could summarize the Ten Commandments, God just says, "Be real, church. Be real. Let these be lived out in your life." When you love the Lord God with all your heart and soul and mind, you don't even need to think about these things. You're not going to lie. You're not going to steal. You're not going to covet. And if you do, like have that little desire, the Holy Spirit will be quick to say, "No, son. No, daughter. This is not for you. It's not for you anymore. You want that, but I've got something better for you." And something better for you like, again, coveting someone's car. You want that car, but I have something better for you.

Then you go, "Well, I have nothing." And God says, "That's better for you. That's where I have you. I will withhold no good thing from those that look to me, from those that live for me and please me," I think is what the Psalmist says. I'm not going to withhold anything from you that's good for you. So if you're wanting something right now and you don't have it, you can just say God is right now telling you that's not good for you. We say, "Okay, Lord. I'm going to go back to following you. I don't want to live by some external code. I don't want to measure my life of whether I did 100 good things today and 30 bad things. I want to live my life because I followed you today, I was close to you, I'm living by your parameters."

Back to the silly illustration. If I'm living in your house, you really only need to tell me not to drink milk out of your carton one time, and I think I'll get it. But you know, if we really have a relationship and I'm thinking of you, you're thinking of me, if I go to your refrigerator, I will ask you permission to open your refrigerator because it's your house. I'll ask you and say, "Hey, I have a habit of just eating things and throwing everything around and just drinking out of it and just throwing milk around. Is that okay with you?" It's relationship. It's connection. It's I think of you more highly than I think of myself. I value you. I respect you. I honor you.

All of the ingredients that make for a good relationship with us, they're learned by having a good relationship with your Father. And you don't need to write these down and remember, "What was those Ten Commandments again?" Although memorizing scripture is always good, for sure, but you don't need to worry about them as you abide in Christ. You won't do them.

Now, verse 18: "Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.' And Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.'" This was a monumental moment. The mountaintop was filled with the amazement of the presence of God and it was manifested through lightning flashes and thunderings and sounds, smoking.

And it caused a great fear, human fear, in those that were watching. "Moses, we don't want that. We are fearful of what you just walked out of, what you've been a part of." God is revealing himself in holiness, and the holiness of God demands these demands are given, these commands, these directions are given toward sinful man. You have holiness of God and sinful man. And God wanted them to fear, but the right type of fear. God wanted them to fear, but not in a human way. He wanted them to fear him in his holiness, not all that was surrounding him.

He wanted them to have a reverence is often how pastors explain the fear of God. It's a good explanation. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and the fear of God is not cowering in fear, but rather a reverence and an honor and a respect that you would enter into his presence with a respect for who God is and who you are. You would enter in and recognize that his holiness is something to not take lightly. As we've been emphasizing the relational aspect of these commands, we cannot at the same time, relationship, you've heard it over and over again, we cannot diminish the holiness of God. We cannot diminish the distance between you and God. His holiness, your unholiness.

That's why they're recognizing it right here. They go, "You know what? God is holy, we are not. Moses, we don't want to talk to him. You do that. There's something about you that's different. You be our mediator. You be our communicator. You go talk. We trust you. You go. We don't want to be close to that." And then in this high and holy moment, God, he comes with great words through Moses and demonstrates his awe and the splendor through all these amazing sights and sounds, things to see and to smell. And through Moses, Moses responds in verse 20: "Don't be afraid. God's come to you. He's come to test you, that you may fear, that his fear may be before you so that you may not sin."

That's the kind of fear that God speaks of. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom will lead you not to sin. It's a wise thing to avoid sin. It says in verse 21, "The people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was." There's a great emphasis upon relationship, but please don't diminish the holiness of God. Don't diminish the distinction between a holy and a righteous God and unholy man. Remember that. Notice as we close the chapter now in verse 22. It says: "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: "You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with Me—gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name, I will come to you, and I will bless you. And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use a tool on it, you have profaned it. Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it."'"

Now, the Canaanites in the land used cut and dressed stones for their altars, very ornate, very beautiful. And these altars were for their false worship. Remember, there's a distinction going on as this nation is coming out of the false worship of Egypt, going into the land of false worship, the Canaanites. They're going into the Promised Land that is filled with idolaters and there's a distinction in the children of Israel. This was just another distinction, so that of all the altars that are going to be in the land, the altars that didn't get torn down or found, they're going to know the one true altar because your altars, they're not going to be fashioned and formed. Just build it out of rocks. Just make it simple.

Make it simple. God did not want ornate objects built for him. If you build it, just make it out of the earth. When you build one, there shouldn't be any steps on it either. Again, the Canaanites would have the elaborate altars where you would walk up the stairs. And he says, "Don't make any steps on it. Make it just a nice size so that when you're going up, you're not uncovered in your nakedness." I read some commentaries that said that some of the Canaanite priests would sacrifice and have these ornate altars with no clothes on. And so he says, "No, look, you guys, I don't even want that. Don't even look like that. Don't even come close to it. I don't want you exposed."

Draw attention not to what you made, but draw attention to whom you worship. And it reminded me on a small scale when we were building this building, because this was land before we got here and we had the privilege of building this building. It was a very simple approach of, "Just make it a big box. That's all we need. We need a lot of space. Make it as big as you can with as big a piece of parking for folks and as much space for the kids. That's what we wanted." "Well, what about this and the other churches are doing this?" And it was like, "Well, this is what we want. We just want a big box, the biggest box you can." We actually wanted, you know how they build those buildings with the pre-made walls, the tilt up? That's what we just wanted. "Build us a Costco here, but it'll say Jesus on it, not Costco. Just build us a big building. That's all we want."

But the city wouldn't let us do it. They said, "No, you can't do that." And so the Lord was so gracious to us. I know you don't know the history unless you were here early, but he was so gracious to us because he brought a builder to us that not only was inexpensive relatively, but they had a new technology that they said, "Yeah, we would love to work with you, but we want to use this new technology." And we said, "Go, great." And it was basically these foam bricks, foam bricks with sticks sticking through them and wires like Legos. And they would build them up about six feet high and then shoot them with concrete.

And then they'd build them another six feet high and shoot the middle with concrete. So that while we weren't able to put a big tilt up, up with the walls of concrete, they were able to do it six feet at a time. So that the whole building is really just concrete surrounded by... and then we got a bonus because that insulation on either side, or that foam on either side, is automatic insulation that was built. So the whole building, all the external walls, were built with this technology. So we said, "Take that city." No, we didn't do that. It's just God was so gracious to us. He said, "I want to honor you. I know that you're running into some roadblocks with the city, but I've got a better way for you guys. It's even better than what you were thinking."

And we honored them. We were like, "Okay, we're not going to fight it. We're happy." And then the Lord said, "No, I've got something even better for you." You know, that's a word from the Lord for someone. That's the second time now that's come up today. You don't have something, but God says, "I've got something better for you. Just trust me. Just wait it out. Don't take things into your own hands. I've got something better for you. Wait on me." One more thing before we leave. As soon as the law is given, an altar is built. As soon as the law is given, an altar is built.

God in his justice gives the law, but in his grace he gives an altar. And they go together. You can jot it down in first John 2:1. It says, "My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin." The law. "But if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." We have a greater today than Moses as a spokesperson for us. We have God in human flesh, a mediator. There is no other mediator. You don't need a pastor. You don't need a priest. You don't need a parent. You can come directly to the presence of God in the throne room of God if you're a born-again believer.

You can come straight to him if you're not a born-again believer today and ask him to forgive you. He will give you forgiveness directly through the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator so that when you receive the conviction of sin, "I've written these things so you don't sin," you can stay with the Ten Commandments. "I'm giving you these things so you don't sin. But if you do, I have a mediator for you." If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, if you do.

But please don't. Because it'll wreck you and it'll hurt you and it'll harm you. You never want to take the position, you may not be taking it now, but you never want to take it in the future, "Well, I can sin because God will always forgive me." What kind of language is that? The Lord didn't inspire that in you. "I can sin but God will forgive me." Yeah, you can sin and God will express his forgiveness through the blood of Jesus in your life, and you will suffer for that bad sinful decision.

Sometimes that suffering... "Well, I can control it." No, you can't control the consequences of your sin. You don't know how bad it's going to be. You don't know who it's going to affect. You don't know what long-lasting issues. You can't control that. "Well, I can control my decision." Sure you can. "And I can control how far I go." Yeah, but you can't control the consequences. You're at the mercy of God. Sometimes you're at the mercy of a judge. Sometimes you're at the mercy of a spouse. Sometimes you're at the mercy of an officer. There's a lot of people that sin puts your control... you give control away to a person in authority over your life.

You give away your peace. You give away your confidence. You give away your ministry. You give away your future. On and on you can go. So what does God say? "No, no, no, I'm writing to you that you don't sin. I'm giving you these," God says, "so you don't sin. And when you build an altar to me, worship me, but don't worry about what it looks like. Worry about me when you worship. Do the best that you can with what you have." The law was given to us to reveal who God is and who I am.

The law we'll learn later in our study through Galatians is a mirror. It's not the source. It's just a mirror. It reveals. You don't take the mirror off the wall. You look up and you wake up in the morning and some of you are shocked by what you see. But the people close to you, that's what they see all the time. But you're like, "Whoa, must have been a rough night in sleep," or whatever. Makeup's all over, my hair. Whatever. It's like, "Whoa!" But the mirror, it's not the mirror's fault. Don't be getting all mad at the mirror. "Hey honey, get us another mirror." No, this is what you look like every day.

It's the same way when you look at a picture. You go, "Oh, I don't like that picture." Well, that's you. What don't you like? That's you. That's me. That's what we see, what we live with all the time. That's it. But we love each other anyway, right? You can't take the mirror down. The mirror just reveals. It just shows you. It has no power to change you. You're going to have to brush your teeth. The mirror's not going to do it for you. You need to comb your hair. You need to take a shower. The mirror just reveals. And that's how the law is. It just reveals. The law is powerless to cleanse you, to change you, but it reveals.

It leads you and me to the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what cleanses, his finished work. It's just a tutor, just teaches us, the law does. This is God's heart for us. And when you love God right now with all your heart, soul, and mind, you're going to find that love of neighbor. You're just going to have such a sweeter life in a very hostile world. You're going to have so much less to worry about when you're abiding in Christ. He's just going to cover you, protect you, lead you, guide you. You wonder what abiding in Christ looks like? Read tonight before you go to bed. Just read it. It's very quick. Even if you've memorized it, take your Bible, read it fresh. Psalm 23. You want to know what it's like to have a good shepherd in your life? Psalm 23 is perfect. John chapter 15, beautiful reminders of the faithfulness of God.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We're going and growing through a study of Exodus right now. You can hear this message again online at aboundinggraceradio.com or listen through our app. Search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play. Well, maybe you're looking for a good book to go through. Here in the month of March, we've picked out an excellent one written by Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips.

It's titled Anger Is a Choice, and it provides counsel and exercises to help us better understand the causes of anger, how to control it, and how lack of control affects us physically and spiritually. We'll send you a copy when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more. Just call, ask for Anger Is a Choice. Our number is 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order online at calvaryco.store.

Abounding Grace is made possible through the generous support of our listeners. And as we continue to deliver God's Word one verse at a time, we're looking to our listeners for help. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of Christ and make a difference in these last days. To make a secure donation, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. Next time on Abounding Grace, we'll continue Pastor Ed Taylor's study of Exodus. Thank you for listening today, and we'll look for you tomorrow as we open the Word together in search of God's abounding grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado, here in Aurora.