Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: What if you long for a relationship with God, to know Him, to celebrate Him, to bask in the wonder of people being transformed by His grace? Then worship does not go out of fashion because somebody is treating it legalistically. Your heart needs time in a relationship to build and grow and love and celebrate that relationship.

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares a lesson from Exodus chapter 20. Dr. Chapell investigates the Ten Commandments and how they ultimately lead us to the redemption found in Jesus.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell, Holiness by Grace. In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, Roadsigns to Jesus.

Bryan Chapell: If you can imagine, I was showing you in this very moment a skull and crossbones. What would be the first thought that came to your mind seeing a skull and crossbones? Please don't say, "I know the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds like a pirate to me." I confess that if you were to see a skull and crossbones on a flag, you might think either Jack Sparrow or the Jolly Roger.

But if you were to see a skull and crossbones in a warehouse even today, you would think hazardous material. If you were to see a skull and crossbones under a kitchen sink or in a garage or workroom, you would think there's something that's poisonous. It was not always so.

Centuries ago, the symbol of a skull and crossbones was carried by those who set bones and carried healing medicine to those who were dying. The skull and crossbones was the symbol of medicine and of doctors who would bring life. But when the great plagues began to move across Europe, causing the death of millions, if somebody showed up at your house with a skull and crossbones, the message was, most likely, death comes here.

And the symbol that was intended to show life instead became used as a symbol of death. Something very similar is happening in these Ten Commandments even according to an apostle. The apostle Paul says in Romans 7 that the very command that was intended to give me life became death to me. It crushed me.

I began to recognize that path to God that was to be made by the commands, I could not live. The commands that were intended to be life became death to my soul. And yet the same apostle who says those words will a little while later reflect on these commands, and he will say the law was a schoolmaster to lead me to Christ. How do you get from rules of death to a road to life?

That is an important question as you consider these commands. We will not get it right until we first consider the lead up, then the law, and then the love that is undeniable, the context of it all. What is the lead up? Verses one and two: and God spake all these words saying, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

The first thing that God reminds these people is, "I have redeemed you. I am for you." That's really all that's been going on to this point in the book of Exodus. Remember, you were in the land of plagues, but the plagues did not touch you. You went through the Red Sea waters, but the waters did not touch you.

The Egyptian army came after you, but the army did not touch you. There were storms on the mountain, lightning and thunder by the holiness of God, but He did not hurt you. You got manna in the morning. You got water in the wilderness. God has provided for you wonderfully. You know all of that.

That's the lead up. But what do you also know happened in the lead up? The same God who was redeeming these people was a God dealing with people who at every turn would grumble and complain and doubt, threaten and blame the leadership, and ultimately put God on trial. "What have you done for us lately?"

And yet out of all of that, God speaks of His redeeming love. "I brought you out of the land of Egypt." And it's not even in the past tense. Verse two, right at the beginning: "I am the Lord your God." I redeemed you. You turned on me, but I am still your God, which means what? You are still mine.

He has not turned away. He's not walked away. He's not said it's over between us. He is presenting to us the standard pattern of the gospel: love before law. Yes, there is a way to follow God in obedience. But we'll get it all wrong if we think that following God is the way to get His love, rather than to have the love first.

Just understand it this simply: what does God not say in this passage of the Ten Commandments? He does not say, "You obey me and I'll let you out of Egypt." What does He say? "I have redeemed you. You are mine. Therefore walk with me." It is a pattern that distinguishes Christianity, what distinguishes these commands from any other faith.

There are scholars you may have in colleges nearby who will say there is nothing particularly unique about the Christian faith. If you just take the Ten Commandments as an example, we have our moral code. Virtually every religion has its moral code. And most world religions have a pretty similar moral code.

They think adultery is wrong. They think that murder is wrong. They think that lying is wrong. There's really nothing special about Christianity if all you do is you look at the commands. You pretty much have to agree. Even the ancient Near East about this time through the code of Hammurabi had very similar standards. What's different? The pattern.

God says, "This is not what you do to have a relationship with me." He said, "I have a relationship with you. Therefore follow these commands." It is the gospel pattern. It is the gospel order that distinguishes not just Christianity but everyone who claims it and every relationship we have within the body of believers.

What does it mean for parents? For parents, it means that if I want to reflect this gospel pattern, I want my children to know that they obey because I love them, not to gain my love. I've said to you more than once how Kathy and I were changed even in adulthood, even after I was a pastor, of understanding the gospel's influence upon our families.

At some point, we had to change the way that we talk to our oldest son. I would say to my son at one stage, "Colin, you're a bad boy because you did that." Very easy to say. But what was I saying? What you do determines who you are. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad child. We had to say that's not the gospel.

The gospel says we are in a relationship that produces works, not in works that produce a relationship. I would say, "Colin, don't do that. You're my son and I love you. I want what you do to be based on a relationship. I don't want a relationship to be based on what you do." It affects our marriages.

It affects everything in our lives, which is so conditioned by contracts. Parents who say, "I will love you if you do what I expect." Bosses who say, "I will meet your needs if you meet my expectations." Spouses, sometimes girlfriends, sometimes boyfriends: "I will meet your needs if you meet my expectations."

But Christian marriage says, for better or for worse, I will love you. Not based upon what you do, but upon a commitment to a relationship. So that even if you do not meet my expectations, even if you fail in what you promised to do, I will love you. Love before law. Love comes first.

I will care for you even if you are selfish. I will love you, forgive you, even if you do not deserve it. Because it is our witness. What did Jesus say? "I will love you." And Paul says Christ died for the ungodly while we were yet His enemies. Christ died for us. Love before law.

If we don't see that, we will begin to make these commands conditions for the love of God rather than responses to the love of God, and these very commands will drive us from God rather than drive us to God. And so God says first, remember the lead up. I have loved you. I have redeemed you.

And now that you know that, yes, there is a law. There is a good and safe path. After all, how did Jesus explain these very commands to us? Somebody was testing Him. "Which is the greatest of these commands?" "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." What comes first? Love.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second commandment He said is like unto the first: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love comes first. Understand, it's the love that's going to contextualize everything else.

And those two statements, love of God and love of neighbor, are actually the basis of the Ten Commandments. We sometimes talk about the two tables of the Ten Commandments. The first four of the commands are about loving God. The second six about what it means to love neighbor.

Understanding that they are really telling us how to love God and neighbor is helping us. After all, the first commandment, this is verse three: "You shall have no other gods before me." Why? What's that about? Is God just petty and small? No, His word says there are no other gods.

For you to honor and worship others is to pursue something that cannot help you and actually will one day hurt you. And so you don't put anything above God. Not company or prestige or person or what others think you should do or what expectations you yourself have. Nothing comes before God.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. God instructs us in His word to be holy as He is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as He is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure.

That is, until we understand how God views us. In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness. Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy.

Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of His holiness your soul's deepest delight.

You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: Pursue something that cannot help you and actually will one day hurt you. And so you don't put anything above God. Not company or prestige or person or what others think you should do or what expectations you yourself have. Nothing comes before God.

The second command begins to unfold that a bit more. The second commandment is in verse four: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image of any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that's in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth." Now, God is not against statues and He's not against duck decoys that you can't carve those things. That's not the point.

The point is in verse five: "You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commands."

You shall not bow down to the things of earth, to the things of your creation. You shall not bow down to a better house. You shall not bow down to a better job. You shall not bow down to what others think you should do. Don't serve the career. Don't serve your body in such a way that if you don't get what you want, you don't get the person you want, you don't get the thing you want, you're going to be unhappy.

God says why not make an image of something else, often good things that then become worshipped? Because He says, "I'm a jealous God." Jealousy's a bad word in our culture. We think, "Why would God identify Himself as jealous?" Isn't jealousy the green-eyed monster that destroys relationships with suspicion?

But when God is jealous, He is jealous for a relationship with us. And He begins to express why it is so important. Here is gracious warning to His people, saying, "Because the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."

If it's a just universe, if it's a universe that just makes sense, there is cause and effect and there are consequences. And God with love warns His people, "If you turn away from me, if you make other things your gods and by doing that, you begin to dishonor me in such a way that other things are getting what you... then there are consequences."

Don't you recognize? Our own statistics would say it: abusers raise abusers, addicts raise addicts, child molesters raise children who know no boundaries, workaholics create driven children or children who drop out and want none of it. Our actions have consequences. And anything that is honored above God Himself has consequences in lives of one after another after another for generations.

We know that. Look at our culture right now roiled by the sexual scandals and the suits that are being brought against the church as people are saying, "This did not just affect me for a month. It did not just affect me for a year. This has affected my whole adulthood. This has affected my marriage. This has affected my children, what was done to me."

We know it's true. There is cause and effect of what walks away from God in rebellion or hurt. It's just evident in us. We say what's the great sin of our culture, of American culture? It was slavery. And here we are a century and a half later, the third and fourth generation past the great sin, and we're still experiencing the effects as a culture struggles for fairness and oppression and justice.

If we ourselves do not consider what it means to correct the sin of forefathers, effects, consequences still happen. It is dire warning. But right there with it is hope. Verse six: "But," says God, "even though there are consequences to the third and fourth generation, but I will show steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commands."

As though God is saying, "Yes, it is true that addicts raise addicts and abusers raise abusers and molesters raise children who know no boundaries. But I can stop that. The cycle does not have to continue." The past does not define the future. God is saying to hearts that are committed to Him, "I can break the pattern of the world. I will show steadfast love to thousands of those who love me."

Yes, third and the fourth generation are affected apart from God. But then He says, "But turn to me." And here are a thousand generations, as though the grace of God is outweighing a thousand times what sin can do to people and to their families. It's giving us hope again.

I may have been abused, I may have been hurt, I may have done the hurt, but I don't have to repeat the error. The cycle can stop with me because God promises He will show steadfast love to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commands. There is a way out. And it's because that way out is so important to us that God begins to explain His importance in our lives.

The third commandment, verse seven: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." I must tell you, I don't think God is particularly concerned about your vocabulary. That's not the issue. The issue is the God your lips label is the God your heart knows.

And so if the only way God comes out of your mouth is to curse or express meanness or damnation to people, then the God that you need or your family needs in time of hurt and difficulty and pain, you don't even know. And so He's saying, "Honor me. Count me as holy even in the way that you speak so that when you need me, you will know me."

The fourth commandment, very similar: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." A legalist begins to take out his notepad and begins to ask, "Well, how many hours? How many days per month? How much do I have to do this? How much time in church do I have to spend?" The person who is lawless simply says, "Ah, you don't need to do that at all. Don't worry about it."

But what if love drives you? What if you long for a relationship with God, to know Him, to celebrate Him, to bask in the wonder of people being transformed by His grace? Then worship does not go out of fashion because somebody is treating it legalistically. Your heart needs time in a relationship to build and grow and love and celebrate that relationship, which is what we do in worship.

And that doesn't go out of fashion. Which is why God says, "Remember where this got started. Six days the Lord labored, the seventh day He rested." Not because He was tired. Because He is demonstrating to His people, "You can rest from your striving. I can provide more for you in six days than you can provide for you in seven days."

In doing that, we are learning to rest in the provision of God, and not we only. Verse 10: "The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, the sojourner who is in your gates." It's reminding us that our worship has impact on others too.

One of the reasons that we protect worship—I know that we're not an agrarian society and we may not say I've got to spend the whole day, it's not really the point. The point is that our worship affects those that we love. And so we gather and we set example and we become part of celebrating the goodness of God because we know if we don't spend time in a relationship, the relationship will make no sense to our families and to those who know us later when they themselves need Him. Remember the Sabbath.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you would like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, you can find a collection of valuable resources at unlimitedgrace.com. When you visit, you will find today's message and many others from Pastor Bryan.

Also be sure to request a copy of Dr. Chapell's book, Holiness by Grace. We'll send you this book right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace.

This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.