We're going to be an Exodus today as you guys have been doing the 10 Commandments. This is a little bit different. Some of you may be like, what commandment are you going to do today? And the truth is, I'm kind of doing the intro and I know you've already done a few Commandments, but it's actually good in my opinion to back up and to orient. Orientation is actually very important. I am a scatterbrained individual and often times I will be on the way somewhere and because I'm on the way somewhere at the last minute because I'm a little scatterbrained. I won't be thinking and I have a GPS that kind of keeps me straight and tells me which direction to go. And that's kind of my orientation, but every now and then I won't be paying attention. Maybe some jock jams comes on the radio or something and I'm back in high school just rocking it after I get gas and I will get on the interstate and I'll just be singing like Jerry McQuire and my car, you know, just hitting the steering wheel singing. And suddenly I realize that I needed to be headed north and I'm actually headed south and I've driven about 10 miles, the absolute wrong direction because my orientation, now I was doing everything else right. I was driving. I was having a good time. I was enjoying myself. I was headed somewhere in the right time, but my starting point, my orientation where I began and the direction I began to head was way off. And this morning, I don't know where you are in the ticket mess, but how many have you done? Three. That's great. It's perfect. As you have listened to the three commandments, some of you, it's actually my hope to reorient you back a little bit to the beginning, to get back to the first thing about the commandments that you need to understand that you need to know. It's an orientation surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, away from you. This is what I mean. Perhaps if you have listened to these commandments, perhaps as Bo has been talking to you about them, they begin to sound like this. Do this. Why do they sound that way? Because that's how they're written. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. And perhaps for a lot of you, that has become the way you have thought about it. And the 10 commandments now about after the third one are starting to feel a little bit oppressive because they're weighing on you. I don't do that. And I do this. Don't do that. Perhaps you began to feel like Paul struggling in Romans 7 and the things I want to do, I don't. And the things I don't want to do, I do. And these things are kind of pushing in on you. And what you may not even realize as these things push in on you is what that does is make you very, you oriented. I'm not doing this or I am doing this and days you do it right, days when you can high five bow. Hey, I did it. I mocked that out. One God. No other guys would want me all day. Pow. And you feel good about yourself and you're prideful and you're walking around feeling tall and feeling satisfied and prideful and arrogant. And you feel that way about you. And other days when you drop the ball, maybe after you get off your computer, maybe after your husband comes home, you yell at him, maybe after you lose your patience with your kids or whatever it is, whatever guilt and shame complex, Satan stands beside you and whispers into your ear, you feel shame and you feel driven away. But it's you feeling that way about you. The 10 commandments was never about you. The law of God is not at the end of the day centered, fulfilled, written, given, steeped in, rooted in and based in you. It's rooted in based in God himself. So this morning what I hope to do is get us back to our first love, get us back to our orientation, our direction and actually change the way we view the law and the 10 commandments so that we actually, our first thought is not me and then our first thought isn't actually do. But our first thought is what God has done and who he is, the person and work of Jesus Christ, who God is in Himself and what He has already done. So if you will look with me at Exodus, Exodus 20, I'm going to read just two verses at Exodus 20. I'll be going around a little bit in the scriptures but hopefully, hopefully we'll be able to follow here. Exodus 20, I'm going to read one and two. And God spoke 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. This is the prologue, the root, the base of the law of God, the 10 commandments. Pray with me that we can understand it and praise God for it. Just we need you to teach us this. We need you to reorient our minds, our hearts, the way we hear the law, the way we think about it, the way we live it. May we see you and what you have already done, your beautiful salvation. Jesus let us look on you and bid our anxious fears. Goodbye. In Christ, name we pray, amen. As Israel comes to the base of the mountain, many of you may not have known that the 10 commandments had a little bit of a preview. I love previews and movies and that's, it's not exactly what this is but God is reminding them of something you see for a long time they have been doing something else. For a long time, Israel has been under Egypt and slaves of Egypt. That's their culture, that's where they're from. That's the gods that they have been exposed to. That's everything in their world is very Egyptian influence, okay? Everything about who they are. When I lived in Dallas, you know, I came from Alabama, I was a Southern boy and I had a Southern accent and my wife kind of liked that and I was all SEC, football, that still held pretty strong. And there were several things about me that just yelled at people, Alabama, okay? Now I'm actually mistaken for a city boy. It's interesting, there are times because my accent kind of went on because everything in Dallas when I was there for four years began to orient me more towards city life. I began to think like a city person, I began to talk like a city person. I'm really just a redneck. And so it's interesting that that began to be, you know, my framework and my view, Israel, everything about it had been steeped in Egypt, the Egyptian gods, the culture, how they did things, how they worshiped. But God had called them out and he had brought them to himself and here they stand at the base of this mountain after seeing some pretty amazing stuff. But there is the most part, there's a little bit of confusion. There's a little bit of disconnect. Have you ever seen one of those shows where the long lost child of a father or a mother was found biologically, you know? And the thing is they haven't really had much of a relationship, they neither want, both wanted it. It's not like they intentionally left them on a doorstep or didn't want to see them. But the biological child probably on like Maurya Povitch or something is like brought to the parent, okay? And it's always on TV, but even on TV they can't mask the awkwardness, right? Oh, I'm your child, let's hug, you know? But they haven't been in close relationship. They haven't been next to one another and close to one another. And as Israel comes to the base of the mountain, as there is sign out, there is lightning there is fire, there are trumpets, there's mass confusion. People are scared if they touched the mountain, they're going to die, there's a lot going on. And so what we see at the very first thing is God being extremely gracious to His people. God reintroduces Himself to His people. And this is really him telling them this is who I am. The voice you hear, the noise you hear, the power you see. You actually know who I am. He's reminded them graciously of who He is and He's telling them His name. That's a big deal. What do you do when you meet somebody? What's the first thing you usually ask Him? You're holding out your hand and what do you feel the most guilty church about not knowing? Somebody's name. Oh, the face is so familiar, hey, Bill. God graciously, lovingly stoopstown and introduces Himself. There's a great scene in dances with wolves. You know it's an old movie, but you young bucks just watch it sometime. You'll like it. It's an epic Kevin Costner. Kevin Costner is on the plains and he's the last outpost before the Indians. The Indians and the Union don't play nice together at this point. And he's sitting there and he actually gets invited finally into the tent of one of the medicine men, kind of one of the leaders of the tribes of the Indians and the leader of the tribe of the Indians, kind of a medicine man, as he has an interpreter filing, they can talk and he just begins to shoot in with questions and he's speaking the language, the Indian language, and then the translator is trying to speak everything that the Indian chief is approaching Kevin Costner. But Kevin Costner does something that I think is beautiful. He says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't know your name. We need to make a call before we talk about how the Indians and the Union are going to get along. These cultures that are opposed to each other, where there's going to be potential conflict, where there's going to be bloodshed actually, where there's going to be harm and pain, and where there's going to have to be a massive reorienting of ideas. Kevin Costner says, before we get into that, I mean, the Indian messaman is ready to just jump and he says, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, my name is John Dunbar. That's nice to meet you. Before God speaks a word of do, before the law is given, as his people sit confused, God and his grace knowing that these cultures are about to clash. The culture of Egypt, the orientation of Egypt, and really just, he knows his people. He knows us, the orientation towards self and towards self-worship. He knows, as soon as he says, worship me alone, they're going to be in some massive conflict. And he stoops down and he says before we get into that, there's some things you need to know. The first is my name, I am the Lord, I am Yahweh, I am your God, that's the second thing he says. I'm not some foreign deity, I'm not some God who's been away. When he says, I am your God, that is pregnant with meaning, that is pregnant with interpretation and when we got to hear it kind of with Jewish years, their God, Yahweh meant, oh, I remember hearing stories about you. You're the one who met with Jacob who wrestled with him and showed him visions, you're the God of Abraham who gave them the sign of circumcision, who called him out of his land and gave him the promises to make him a people. You're the God of Joseph who watched over him and took care of him when he was taken into Egypt as a slave and when he delivered him and when he delivered his people, you're that God. And God stoops down and lovingly introduces himself. Before we understand the Ten Commandments, the other thing we have to understand, this is God giving himself to us. This is not a sterile list of rules. This is not a control mechanism or a checklist. God is telling you, the next time you hear Bow or Shane or someone tell you the law, tell you the commandments. One thing you need to hear is God kneeling down beside a confused culture that doesn't know what to do with the Ten Commandments and doesn't know what to do with the law and see him kneeling down and putting his arm around you and saying, hi, I'm your God. This is me. This is my name. This is my character. This is who I am. And the law of God is first originated in himself. The second thing is that it really finds its root in his salvation and what he has already done. Again, I know we tend to think of the Ten Commandments as a do. A do list will stop. You heard it here first. If I get in trouble with Ricky, it's okay. I wore a suit anyway. Stop. Stop. Don't have your first thought be, oh, I heard that, I got to go do it. Think of what God has already done. How does he introduce himself to Israel? What does he say to them? He says to them, I am the Lord, your God, I'm your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the house of slavery. Now, I can get into, I mean, I'm just going to briefly mention this. They're actually being called to witness something here. There's some courtroom imagery there in the Bible and you need to know that. But they're actually being called to witness what he has already done. They're actually being called upon as his witness say, this is who I am and this is what I have already done for you. My salvation you have seen. In fact, the last time you saw me was in a big wall of water maybe, up beside you, as you walk through on dry land, I don't think I just lost my hair piece, I don't even need it doing. Can you all hear me? Sorry. I'm a loud guy. The last time you saw me was in a giant walls of water on either side. When you walk through, safe and sound, the last time you saw me, I'm giving you mana. I'm giving you food. I'm giving you a cloudy, a pillar to follow. The last time you saw me, I crushed your enemies and I gave you life. They're actually being called to witness and say, I brought you. It's me that brought you out of the land of Egypt. I have already given you salvation and you got to understand. This salvation was the greatest salvation that the world had ever seen. You don't just walk up to Egypt and say, hey, where are your whole economy? Everything we do keeps you guys running and we have a lot, but we're out. We're going to leave and we're going to take all your money and your economy with you. You don't do that to Egypt. In fact, there's a really important introduction that happens in Exodus. If you look back at Exodus 5, Pharaoh acts a lot more like a typical Egyptian and kind of gives us a little bit of, let's say, hey, we are going to take all our people. Pharaoh, you need to let the Israelites go so they can worship their God and be with him and be near him. And you know what Pharaoh says? Do you know what his first response is? Listen to this. This is in Exodus 5. After Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me and the wilderness and worship. But Pharaoh said, now listen, this is really important. Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and moreover, I will not let Israel go. See, Pharaoh considered himself to be a God. So when you came to him talking about God, you better know what you're talking about. And Moses and Aaron said, the God of Israel says let my people go and he goes, I'm unimpressed. I don't really know that guy. I don't really know who that is. Why should I care? I'm not going to let your people go. And what God is saying in his salvation, he's calling the people to witness. He's calling them to see what he has already done over Egypt, over Pharaoh in their lives and orient them before he says a word to them about what to do. He's saying I want you to see and witness what I have already done. Michael Horton talks about the plagues. I don't know if you, when's the last time you guys thought about the plagues, you're probably doing that in family worship, I would guess. But the plagues are not just random acts of violence. The plagues are not just these horrific things that began to fall. Michael Horton has pointed out the plagues are a systematic dismantling of Egypt and its gods. You know, God, Egypt had a lot of gods, for instance, Houghty. Houghty was the goddess of the Nile. What happened with the Nile? The waters did not serve Egypt, Houghty did not save Egypt, but instead it's almost like she was executed in the Nile itself and the streams were turned to blood. Or maybe Hect, Hect was the god of the frogs and the crocodiles and reptilian type stuff like that. Should have been able to control the frogs, right? But the plague sent the frogs to destroy Egypt. And again, God goes through and says, even the great god, Amon Ra, who was the sun god, most of you have heard of Ra, was blotted out and darkness was over the face of Egypt. And the god of the Israelites introduces himself to Pharaoh in a harsh way. And he says, you don't know me? Here's who I am. I'm the god you don't mess with. And I'm the god who will deliver my people and who will conquer every other god and every other thing in Egypt until you let my people go and send them with me, until Pharaoh is utterly broken before him. So every command that God gives is rooted in himself and every command that God gives is rooted and should be witnessed to his salvation, what he has already done. Now maybe you guys, I mean, I think you're bored and here's why I think you're bored because I'm talking about Israel. You got to hear me. This god, follow me, he's introducing himself to Israel, he's introducing himself to you. If somehow, no, he has in Hebrew and in Jesus Christ, he says, this is who I am. I have drawn near, you want to know my name, you want to know who I am, I am Jesus. And he is drawn near to you and he's given you his name. And we're not just standing at the base of Sinai and we don't just talk about waves and we don't just talk about mana. We actually stand at the foot of the cross. And we're witness to that salvation. You know, the Exodus was an amazing salvation. To defeat Egypt to save the people of God is a big deal. But to defeat death and hell itself, we stand at the foot of the cross. We're called to witness that salvation. When you began to hear the law, when bow and shame and these guys teach you the law, you've got to hear it, you've got to orient yourself to sit down and to hear it, not about you and not about it to do list. But you have to begin to hear it rooted in Jesus Christ himself and rooted in what he has already done in the salvation that he has already given because the law ultimately is only and finally fulfilled in Jesus is a really great part of the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew when Jesus is being accused of messing with the law. Do you remember what he says? I didn't come to mess with the law. I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it. I came to do it in its entirety. You know, I know that you've heard the term grace. I know that you probably believe that Jesus is important to save you if you hear this morning. Part of you acknowledge is that you need him probably. But I just have to be honest and share from my heart that every time I hear the law of God, so much of me, orient to myself, so much of me says, what am I doing? What am I not doing? Instead of beginning and starting and living and resting in what Jesus has already done, what is your default response, what is your default reaction because the 10 commandments aren't things you keep to get Jesus. These are things that Jesus kept to get you. What that does, see, that totally reoriented the way you hear it, okay? Tom Sawyer, there's a famous scene in Tom Sawyer where he's kind of white-washing this fence. Do you remember this? Do you have to read Tom Sawyer in high school or junior high? I don't know. I think I read in college or something. Tom Sawyer went to Auburn. Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer's out there painting a fence and these people are watching him and it's a little deceptive, so it's a little bit different, but people are watching him. And basically, he is just acts like he's having so much fun doing it. It goes from being a chore to people who are lining up and they're begging him, hey, can I come white-washing that fence? And it's because his orientation, he changed the way they thought about that fence. My son, I see it's all the time in my son. If I tell my son, if I look at him, I say, son, you have a chore, clean your room. Well, he needs to obey me, it's true, I'm his dad, he should. But if I look at my son and know my son and love my son and say, you have a secret ninja mission to attack the dirty parts of your room. And I love you, son, and I know who you are and I know that as a good ninja, no dirtiness will be able to withstand your skill. I want to reorient your hearts and what, mine, y'all do whatever. I'm trying to reorient my heart and my mind to the law of God so that it's not a chore, so that it's not a checklist, so it's not a to-do list. I'm trying to reorient myself like these people reorient in a Sinai because I've been introduced to the God who loves me, who draws near to me and who says, it is finished, it is done. You don't labor under it, you don't struggle to be free, you are free. So now you can struggle. So now you can run up, tell one story real quick from Keith Berger, tells a story of this guy who was down in South America and he was kind of a poor man and he became a Christian. And so he would go around with his Bible and he would try to speak to people about Jesus. And he got mixed up one day, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and he got apprehended by a gang that was affiliated with the drug cartels. And they bound him and they blindfolded him and they took him to a cave. And he says, he remembers the cave. He says, he remembers how it felt, it was dark, he couldn't move his legs and he couldn't move his arms. He didn't know where for him to go and he was blind. And he would hear these calls of the men mocking him in his helplessness because he would pray to his God and they would hear and they would say to him, run, go get away, go, go ahead, run, mocking this man. He was helpless, he was bound and he began to give up hope. But one day, I guess one of their leaders heard him praying and he was actually praying for them, which is pretty powerful in itself, but this leader, not because he necessarily feared the God of the Bible but because he was a superstitious man, said, we have to let him go. So he took him outside and they drove him in a jeep. They blindfolded him and they didn't know where he was. But when they let him go, they cut his ropes off his legs and they cut his ropes off his arms. And here's the description, and I just want you to listen to this, here's the description. He says, and suddenly in through my nose and in through my mouth, I breathed free air. It wasn't the dank, stale air of a cave and of bondage. And suddenly, when I moved my arms, I could move them apart. And muscles that ate to move began to feel their strength again. And I smelled the dirt and I smelled the plants of a world that was big and free. And I stood on my feet. And as I stood up on my feet, I felt the strength return to my legs and it's kind of a forest gump moment, right? Because then he heard the voice of the cartel yell, run and what did he do? He ran like a free man. He had the strength in his legs and the breath in his lungs and the freedom before him and the freedom around him. And so he was no longer bound and oppressed. And so now when he heard, run, he could take off and he ran like a free man. You're going to hear the ten commandments. And part of you and part of your sin is going to say, this is binding you. This is tying you up. This is blindfolding you and this is hampering you. And it begins to feel like a weight or a burden, but that is not the law of God. That is not the commands and the beauty of the law of God. The law of God says, in Jesus Christ, you are free, so you can run to the commandments as a free man. Only in Jesus Christ because he is the one who had no other gods. He is the one that was perfectly faithful, perfectly trustworthy, who never stole, who was content with what he had, who never took his father's name in vain, who always loved, who always kept the law. And in Jesus Christ, you can run to the law, you can run in the law as a free person, breathing and living and using those muscles you were built to use. Your heart needs to begin to beat according to that drum, according to the drum, not of what you can do or what you have done, but what God has done and who Jesus Christ already is for you. Then you can sing that hymn, well, then you can sing the hymn that we have already heard. That's when you can rest assured that you will land on can inside, not because you do it right, but because it has already been done right for you in Christ. That's when those anxious fears that you have about keeping or not keeping, doing well or not doing well, that's when you bid those goodby. I'm going to give you two ways real quick to know what that looks like. You quit keeping score. My students will tell you I'm a little bit too competitive. I keep score with everything. If we stop at a gas station, there's part of me that's like racing to get gas faster than a person next to me. I don't even know what that is. That's got to be some kind of psychosis. If this begins to take part of your heart, it frees you from that. You don't begin to look at other people around you, and this church will begin to look like a church that doesn't look around at one another and go, hmm, I bet you're about at a five today and you're keeping up the law. You begin to feel good about yourself or look down on those families around you who don't do what you do. You don't orient yourselves that way, but instead you become a community and you begin to look at one another's people who are all in Jesus Christ free. So you begin to wrestle and struggle together and run together, arm and arm, hand and hand as free people. The other is you put away the checklist for yourself. When you close your eyes at night, what's the last thought you have that lets you go to sleep? It's a simple test. What is it that rockabies you? I have a little daughter Harper who's two. I try to sing her rockabie or any other normal song. She will not go to sleep till I sing the Wonder Pets theme song. It has become for her that communication that everything is okay, the daddy's here, that her world is all right. What do you sing to yourself? What song do you sing to rockabie you to sleep? The song of the law will oppress you. The song of the law will give you pride, give you vanity, or it will crush you, but the song of Jesus Christ, the song of His finished work, will let you sleep and will let you rise and hope and enjoy. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by our flesh could not do by sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He can dim sin in the flesh and order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to ourselves or the flesh, but according to the spirit, probably with me. Jesus, may we walk in your finished work, may we use those muscles given by the Holy Spirit, may we not have fear, may we not have oppression, but may we walk joyfully and know that the law is much more about who you are and what you have done instead of what we must do to earn your favor or to be accepted. Let us rest fully and let us run faithfully in the work that you have done to Jesus Christ, as in your name that we pray.