October 17, 2024 • 46 mins
tjbhpodcast@gmail.com
What if the Ten Commandments are more than just a set of rules? Discover how these ancient guidelines are expressions of grace and love, designed not just as a moral checklist but as a pathway to freedom in Christ. Our journey through Exodus 20 reveals the context and significance of these divine directives, encouraging believers to view them as invitations to live a life firmly rooted in God's love and wisdom. We explore the concept of moralism and remind ourselves that these commandments are not about ticking boxes for salvation but understanding the heart of the lawgiver Himself.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
I'm with Justin again.
What's up, dude?
What is up bro?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Fantastical, now that you'rehere, fantastic, I'm going to be
fine, majestic.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Wondrous.
I'm glad, I'm glad.
Thank you, I got my presencedoes that for you.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I really am your presence is just a captivating
thing, Tim.
That's why you keep showing up.
I'm just trying to catch someof the light coming off your
sails, Captain.
Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm still trying to catch some of that too.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You are my Moby Dick Tim.
The cannibal part, I mean whythat doesn't work is because
that whole story is aboutsomebody's whole existence being
torn apart by his inability tocapture this thing.
But it's still good.
I thought it was about a fish.
Well, it's about a whale.
It's a joke.
It's a Ron Swanson joke,anyways.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, all right.
I hope everybody enjoyed lastweek's because that one was a
lot of fun with Nick.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh man, Go check that one out.
That was so good.
We'll have him on again.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, for sure, I think yeah, but now Justin and I
have been talking about thisfor a while, about doing a, I
guess maybe a 10-episode series.
I guess I'm going to call itthat.
We'll see, we'll see, yeah,we'll see, but going through
basically the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Not your Sunday school version of the Ten
Commandments.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I mean, it might be you may have been in a Sunday
school.
They're like we're going totake an hour, this isn't posted.
We're going to talk throughthis, yeah, no, I just think
there's significance to this.
We've done a couple of podcastson the law, but I thought it'd
be really good to just kind ofstart walking through the whole
idea of what are the TenCommandments, why are they
(01:42):
significant and what do theyhave to do with our life.
Yeah yeah, yeah, because I thinkeverybody knows the term Ten
Commandments.
Most people haven't actuallyspent a lot of time thinking
through, I guess, the value ofthese things or the heart behind
a lot of what's being said.
So I mean, I just think it'd begood to talk through the
significance of the TenCommandments to us as Christians
(02:05):
today and the significance ofthe Ten Commandments to us as
Christians in the currentenvironment that we find
ourselves in, and then kind ofwalk from that.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Okay, Interesting.
Well, I'm curious because whenyou see the Ten Commandments,
like well, yeah, don't killanybody.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, that's duh, Boom Done.
Some guys are like blew it.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How much of this can we actually get out of?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Let's find out, all right, all right, well, I guess
We'll start with the first onetoday.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We'll definitely get into the first one.
I think the goal, though, thatI would want to set up is this
Getting into the TenCommandments.
What you need to realize isthat if you land in Exodus
chapter 20, without realizinghow you got to Exodus chapter 20
, you end up in moralism asopposed to like realizing that
they're a product of grace.
So the first thing that youneed to understand is what is
(02:53):
the context of what has led upto this moment where God is
actually giving them the TenCommandments?
Because if you just start withTen Commandments, it's kind of
like.
It's like not having a dad andjust having a government.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Like think about it that way A bunch of freaking
rules no benefits no heart, noone who cares.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, exactly Exactly .
Get the 36 booster, anyways.
So what has happened up to thispoint is God has seen his
children suffering andstruggling in Israel.
He then sends Moses to redeemthem and call them out of Israel
through signs and wonders.
He is utterly destroyed andmocked the demon gods of the
(03:36):
Egyptians.
He calls them out of Egypt.
He splits the Red Sea.
He feeds them manna from heaven.
He gives them victory in allthese battles that they should
never win in.
He loots all of Egypt.
He's providing all thesedifferent things.
He finally brings them to thismountain so that he can then
give them the way that theyshould actually live.
(04:00):
Okay, so if you don't see, firstand foremost, the redeeming,
grace-giving, electing God, whohas brought them out of things,
who has already set them free,you're going to miss a lot of
the heart behind this, which ishim telling them here's how you
live like.
You are free.
I brought you out of Egypt.
(04:21):
Now live like you're out ofEgypt.
I brought you out of this, I'veadopted you.
I've Now live like you're outof Egypt.
I brought you out of this, I'veadopted you.
I've created a family with you.
I've invited you to my mountainas opposed to Egypt, and now
I'm going to teach you how toactually walk in light of that.
So if you start with if I dothese things, then I'm saved.
You're missing the grace of thegospel here, which is no.
God saved them.
(04:42):
He brought them through the RedSea, which is no God saved them
.
He brought them through the RedSea, which is a symbol of
baptism, to the place where theywould learn how to worship him,
which is the commandments.
Does that make sense?
So, like you come as a son, notto become a son, you're
learning the family rules.
You're not learning to do therules so that you can be part of
the family, because if youstart without grace, you're not
(05:03):
saved and you'll end up being aPharisee who does this thing
where they love the law morethan they love the lawgiver.
They loved the Torah, theyloved the Mishnah, they loved
all the boxes to check and allthe things that came along with
that, to the detriment of theperson who actually gave it to
them.
So you love, if you love thehouse that your dad gives you,
but you don't actually love yourdad.
(05:24):
You kind of missed the wholepoint.
He's the only reason it's there.
Those rules exist for him to beable to bless you and help you
live and survive and thrive, andI would want us to understand
that, which kind of leads to asecond part of this, tim, which
is really that rules are a goodthing, like they're fantastic.
Like I have young kids.
(05:45):
Tim, you ever had a kid getaway from you?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Okay, it's a game for them, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I'm telling you.
It's like a real thing, rightwhen.
It's like you start to realizeoh, that's why that was there.
Oh, that's why my parents toldme that.
Oh, that's why that kid's on aleash.
And I listen, don't put yourkid on a leash, Okay.
But my point is this thedifference between somebody
playing in the street andplaying in the yard is a fence.
(06:12):
You know what I mean.
The difference between somebodyhaving an environment to
exercise and have freedom and dothings and them being in an
unsafe environment where they'reno longer just freely doing
things, they're actually puttingthemselves in danger or
offenses.
Those things are put there sothat you can exercise liberty
(06:33):
within virtue.
But if you remove virtue fromthe word liberty, you end up in
vice, and that's God's idea offreedom starts with.
Let me teach you how to liveand have fun and enjoy life and
enjoy the whole house, but notblow it up and put yourself in a
place where it's actually goingto kill you.
And that's the heart of afather.
(06:54):
So if you read the 10commandments and you hear
government and not my fathergave me these, who already saved
me and redeemed me and broughtme out of slavery so that I
could live in a way that wasrighteous, and I would know how
to worship and live and do mylife, Then you're going to end
up with what I think a lot ofother people do, which is these
are the rules, this is whatwe're supposed to do, and we do
these things because Sky Daddywill kill us if we don't.
(07:16):
It's not that you have a fatherwho's invited you to his own
table and now he's teaching youhow to be part of his family,
now that you're adopted in.
So that's the beginning.
That's what we start with, andso Exodus chapter 20 starts with
these words.
Then God spoke all these wordssaying I am the Lord, your God,
(07:36):
who brought you out of the landof Egypt, out of the house of
slavery.
And then he says this you shallhave no other gods before me.
And then he says this you shallhave no other gods before me.
Okay, so this is important,because this is how every kid in
Israel would start off theirday.
This is how they would startmost of the stuff around their
(07:57):
dinner table.
This is frequently referred toas the Shema.
You see this it's echoed inDeuteronomy 6.
Hear O Israel, the Lord, ourGod.
The Lord is one.
That's what they're startingwith.
You shall love the Lord, yourGod, with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all yourmind, with all your strength.
This is that first commandment.
So even when you hear Jesus saylove the Lord, your God, with
all your heart, soul, mind andstrength, love your neighbors
(08:17):
yourself, he's really giving youa pitch of hey.
It starts with a love for Godand it's important that we see
that it's actually knowing whoGod is.
I am the Lord, your God, whobrought you out of the house of
slavery.
You shall have no other godsbefore me.
I wouldn't say you shall haveno other gods before me is the
commandment.
I would say it's part of thecommandment, which is I am the
(08:38):
Lord, your God.
I brought you out of the houseof Egypt.
Serve me.
And if we don't get this, wescrew up a lot.
This is part of what I wasgetting at.
If you don't know that, he'sthe God that saved you and
brought you out and did all thisstuff and you just start with
serve me.
You missed the heart of the 10commandments, which is I bought
you, I redeemed you, I've savedyou, I'm the Lord, I'm the
(08:58):
self-existing one.
Who is God?
He's telling you who he isbefore you get to don't serve
anyone else.
So the first commandment reallystarts with this who is God?
Who is this God?
Who is the one that we'reactually serving?
What has he done?
And the context is he's theonly one that's ever worth
(09:18):
serving.
He's the only one who wouldactually redeem you and save you
and bring you out of thesethings.
Don't forget that he's the onewho chose you.
You're not speaking to himright now.
He's speaking to you.
You're not saving him.
He saved you.
You didn't choose him, he choseyou.
Everything in the 10commandments starts with who God
is and what he's functionallydone.
The law is then given as a giftto his people, and the first
(09:42):
response to grace from ourfather should be fidelity.
All right, okay.
So think about it this way yougot a knight and you got a
princess, and the knight savesthe princess so that the
princess can have the knight andher guy on the side Right.
See how that doesn't work.
Fidelity is really the firstcommandment.
(10:05):
It's saying knowing who God isand worshiping him alone, and we
need to understand that,because every addict knows this.
You can't be told what not todo.
You need to find something thathas a higher value and actually
do that.
If I'm an addict and I justtell you not to do drugs anymore
, what am I now thinking aboutDoing drugs?
The drugs I'm not allowed to.
I just tell you not to do drugsanymore.
What am I now thinking aboutDoing drugs?
(10:25):
The drugs I'm not allowed to do?
Yeah, right, and where doesthat end More?
drugs Doing those drugs orfinding what A different drug I
was going to say Something elsethat I'll do.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, I won't do that , I'll do something else, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So the goal is not to simply say you know, the first
commandment is not don't worshipthese other gods.
The first commandment is who isthe God that you should be
serving Now?
Serve him, worship him, knowhim.
I brought this up, tim, becauseit's important that we start in
that place who is God?
Who is God?
Because this is what he'scommunicating to us.
(11:01):
If you get me wrong, it doesn'tmatter what the other
commandments are, because you'reactually going to miss the
heart of who you're serving.
You won't worship me, right?
I've brought this up a bunch oftimes before, but we transfer,
or, let's say, exchange, worshipfor sincerity in our culture.
(11:25):
Most people believe if I'msincere, that counts.
I could have a different beliefthan you do, and you could have
a different belief than I do,and what we're actually weighing
is the sincerity of our hearts,not the truth of what it is.
All right, so think about itthis way and this is a bad
(11:46):
example, because it's the truth.
Like it's this bad If your son,who is, let's say,
four-year-old, cooks you steakversus you know Mario Batali or
something like that, right, sureOne, or let's say, both of them
can have equal sincerity, butthe outcome is totally different
.
Right?
We don't see it that way.
(12:07):
We think as long as we triedthe same, then we're good.
And God is saying with these 10commandments absolutely not you
will worship me, I will give myworship to no one else.
And it starts with who Godactually is.
It's the Shema, it's the hero,israel, the Lord, our God.
The Lord is one.
(12:28):
You shall love him, you'llserve him, you'll trust him, and
if you don't know who he is,you're screwed.
There is no hope.
There's no other name on heavenor earth by which we must be
saved, and he's trying to revealthat to him.
Why is that?
Because Israel, and he's tryingto reveal that to him.
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Because Israel historically and even after this
point, but coming into it ispolytheistic, not monotheistic
Meaning they serve other gods.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yes, worship other gods, the big joke is that the
Israelites were monotheistic.
It means they had one god,right, but for the entirety of
Israel's history, they wereconstantly trying to get rid of
all the other gods.
They were in the process ofserving All the other.
They have this idol being drugalong with them and this thing
that was, I mean, even with you.
Even see this gosh.
(13:17):
I'm trying to think With Jacoband Rachel and Leah, right, she
steals the household gods andhides them away in her stuff on
their way out, and it's likeJacob's in the process of
serving God.
The only reason he's got Rachelor Leah and is going to make it
out is because he's beenserving God.
And what is the first thingRachel brings out of her house?
All these other gods that Iwant to bring along with me?
What do you think she's goingto teach her kids?
(13:37):
You know what I mean.
So, throughout the wilderness,and what's the first thing that
the Israelites make in thewilderness when Moses goes away?
Right, he goes up on themountain, he comes back, and
they made this ox, right, thisgolden calf thing, right, yeah,
golden calf, right, and this,ironically, is the symbol of the
God who provides in Egypt,right, and it's like, oh, what
(13:58):
are they doing?
Well, we'll just resurrectanother God when this one stops
working for us.
And it's ironic that he comesdown the mountain with the first
rule on the list, which islisten, you need to serve me,
don't serve something else.
And they're like we're going togo ahead and start with this
then Right.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Let me ask you something real quick.
Did the Israelites know thatbeforehand, before the 10
commands, before this firstcommand comes out not to do that
?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Well, this is the question, Tim Do you know that
you're supposed to love yourwife?
Yeah, I mean, I would hope so.
I would hope so.
The other difficulty in this,though, is that people were so
steeped in polytheism, in theworship of all these other
deities and gods and everythingelse, that I don't know if they
(14:45):
even realized how immersed inthat culture they were.
I mean, I think the same thingkind of for us today.
To be totally honest, I thinkwe have such a bad view of what
idolatry actually is, and we'llget to the second commandment.
By the way, if you were aLutheran, luther put these two
commandments together in hiscatechism you shall have no
(15:06):
other gods before me and youshall not make for yourself an
idol or a graven image right,some of you may have heard when
you were a kid.
An image, right, some of youmay have heard when you were a
kid, Because they're similar,but I really am trying to stress
this idea of it, starting withwho God is before we get to what
you're not supposed to do, andat some level, they're
definitely connected.
There's gray here, but he'smaking a statement.
I'm the Lord, your God, whobrought you out of the land of
(15:26):
Egypt, out of the house ofslavery.
You shall not have any othergods.
You shall have no other godsbefore me and this to me, one of
my favorite stories about this,tim, is actually Elijah and the
900 prophets.
Basically, you have 400 prophetsof Baal.
You have 450 prophets ofAsherah, which always get left
out in this story.
I don't know why.
(15:46):
Everyone is like the 400prophets of Baal, right, there
was also 450 prophets of Asherahthat are mentioned.
It's like 950 people, which, bythe way, at the end of the
story, he takes them down to theriver and kills all of them
himself, which is just a crazystory to me.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Man, that was a bloodbath.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You think afterwards, elijah was just like man, that
was crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
What a crazy story.
I can't believe I did that.
I'm pretty savage.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
What a freak accident .
Exactly't believe I did that.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I'm pretty savage.
What a freak accident Exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I just woke up and looked around like whoa got a
little extra over here.
In this story one of myfavorite lines is he says the
word how long will you teeterbetween two gods?
If Yahweh is God, serve him.
If Baal is God, serve him.
He's trying to evoke thispicture for them.
(16:39):
Serve the God who is real.
Serve the one who actuallysaves.
Serve the one who actually acts.
Serve the one who actually doesstuff.
Serve the one who is the trueGod.
When all the chips are on thetable and they were constantly
looking for somebody else on theside and I think honestly I
(17:00):
bring it up all the time.
But our relationship and ourmarriage and how that
relationship is supposed tofunction speaks so much to our
relationship with God.
Like it's the wedding feast ofthe lamb.
The, you know, the beginning ofthe Bible starts with Adam and
Eve and the Trinity, the onenessthey're creating, the, you know
, the husband and the wife, andit ends in this wedding supper
(17:21):
of the lamb with a bride and thegroom come together.
I mean it's constantly speakingto us of fidelity, covenant,
relationship, one and one.
Don't pick anything else.
This is what it's supposed tolook like.
Before you do anything else getthis right.
There can be no one else inthis equation.
And the only way that you canhave no one else in this
equation is if you actually haveallegiance and a deep love for
(17:46):
your actual spouse.
You can only it's only going towork that way If you actually
end up loving them at the end ofthe day and it becomes a thing,
and that means knowing who theyare.
Because, back to the, uh, the,the analogy I was giving you,
tim, if I tell you, um man, I, Ilove my wife so much.
Uh, you know, let's see, let'smake it funny Her name's Brett,
(18:07):
she's wonderful.
And uh, we have two kids, um,freya and uh, liz Liza, sorry
you ever call her Liz.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And I sit here and have this conversation with you
and you're looking at me andyou're like no, tim, I'm serious
, she's just the best.
She means the world.
We've had so many yearstogether and it's been.
You're going to be like you'rea crazy person.
That is my wife.
Those, yes, exactly.
And it doesn't matter howfervent I tell you or how much I
spell out the things that Ilove about them, it's not true,
(18:39):
it's not real, it's a lie, it'sa fabrication.
And we have so many peopledoing this thing with, like.
You know, god's like anelephant and there's five blind
men.
You know what I mean.
One of them's grabbing the legand one's got the trunk.
They're all trying to describewho God is like and in that
illustration, you get thevantage point of the person who
(19:00):
apparently is all-knowing andactually knows what God is.
And everyone else is wrong, andI'm right.
That's a very for the record.
That's a very arrogant positionto take.
Everyone else in the world iswrong and I'm the only one that
sees every path.
You're welcome, but no, thepicture is wrong.
And I'm the only one that seesevery path.
You're welcome, right, but no,the picture is.
Fervency doesn't get you there.
Fervency is only helpful ifyou're worshiping the true God.
(19:21):
Fervency is only helpful if youunderstand who he is and
actually what he's doing.
And I would like to take us tothat passage in Deuteronomy real
quick, tim.
If you're cool with that, totalk about the consequences of
fidelity and how this actuallyworks out, I'll go ahead and
read it to you because I thinkit's good.
This is the commandment, thestatutes and the judgments that
(19:45):
the Lord, your God, hascommanded me to teach you that
you might do them in the landwhere you're going over to
possess it, so that you and yoursons and your grandsons might
(20:09):
fear the Lord, your God, to keepall his.
And he says this hear, o Israel, the Lord, our God.
The Lord is one, shema Israel,adonai Elohenu, adonai Achad.
There you go.
That's for free.
You got that today All right.
There's a little Hebrew for you,but this is what he's saying
the Lord, our God, the Lord iswhat he's saying, all this stuff
.
And then he's saying hear me onthis.
(20:30):
This is where the firstcommandment starts.
This is the command.
Start here.
The Lord is one, serve him,follow him.
And what is all of this for?
So that your son and yourgrandson might fear the Lord,
your God.
Why is that important, tim?
Why do you think fear isimportant?
(20:50):
Fear, yeah, oh man.
Probably so you know what you'rerelying on.
Okay, that's good, that's good.
I mean a little bit back to theillustration you ever seen, uh,
man, you ever seen those videos, tim, like compilations of
people doing stupid things allthe time?
(21:10):
You know what I mean?
There's, this one is myfavorite.
It's this guy who's always gotlike a hard hat on and a vest
and it just shows little clipsof him looking over and stuff
that's happened on, like youknow job sites and stuff.
Just horrifying things.
Okay, that should invoke in youa yeah, I probably shouldn't do
that.
Yeah, that's not actually goingto work out for me.
It's supposed to awake a fearthat would stir obedience.
(21:33):
If you understand, if I crossthat fence, it will not go well
for me and my dad put that fencethere to protect me, right?
Then I understand how I'msupposed to live, because I
trust my dad, I trust his heart,and that should give me a deep
fear of what happens when I gooutside of that fence.
(21:53):
Why?
Because I'm no longer underGod's protection.
In some sense, anyone who's notunder his protection is under
his wrath.
So if I go out there, that'swhere the wolves are.
I think I brought this up theother day.
It was.
The man lives in a home andwolves continue to come in and
are trying to attack and takehis livestock.
So he builds a fence around thehome.
(22:15):
The woman thinks that the manbuilt the fence around the home
to keep her in.
The woman destroys the fence.
The wolves come in and kill thewoman.
Wow, I was like oh man, there'sa truth there.
Not even necessarily about theman and woman thing, right, but
about the idea of how we tend tothink about stuff yeah, god put
these things in place and thenpeople tore them down, thinking
(22:37):
that God did it to oppress them.
And then they find out the hardway that God put those there
because he loves you.
So when it talks about yoursons and your grandsons and
wanting to instill a fear, ahealthy fear of what happens if
you pet the bear right, then wewould actually get to a place,
(22:57):
if we would listen to him, wherewe would live long.
It would go well for us.
We would actually be able towalk things out.
If you have fidelity to God, itwill go well with you.
The second you want to anchorfrom him, it will not go well
with you so that your grandsonsand your sons might fear the
Lord to keep all the statutesand his commandments which I
(23:29):
command you.
Why I like this is because it'salmost like it's set up as a
promise.
Like, think about it this wayhey, if I do this thing in my
home, it will go well for us.
It may not be everything thatevery other person is looking
for from a financial or whateverstandpoint.
Oh, this will happen.
No, but it will actually gowell for you.
God will see to it that you'reunder his covenant and he's
going to take care of you, andat least then you know what
(23:51):
happens inside the house is whatmy dad is doing, not what some
other stranger is doing whathappens inside the four walls.
I may not like it, but I atleast know that he has my best
intention at heart, and this isfor a good reason, even though I
don't totally understand it.
Yet what happens outside thehouse is something else entirely
.
What happens outside the yardis a different story.
You know what I mean.
(24:12):
So he's trying to tell us thisis how you should functionally
live is a different story.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So he's trying to tell us this is how you should
functionally live.
This is what it's supposed tolook like.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So let me ask you is it okay, then, to not like that
fence?
That's a great question.
I think it would be a sin tohate the fence, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would say, oftentimes our heart is I hate
fences because they're keepingme from something.
Yeah, oftentimes our heart is Ihate fences because they're
keeping me from something, andGod's heart for you is, yes,
it's keeping you from all thethings that you should never be
and never do, and never, youknow, never supposed to possess
(24:42):
you.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What came to mind was the Garden of Eden with Eve and
the fruit and the wholeoriginal sin concept.
Really is like I could be Godif I know everything.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
So when you were talking about the fences and
stuff and turning them down, I'mlike yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
All of us have.
You know what I?
mean yeah, I know, yeah,wouldn't you say our current
right-wing political agenda isbasically trying to emulate the
Ten Commandments at some level.
Without the First Commandment,we'll do all the good things.
We're just going to add someother gods in.
Yeah Right, we're going to dosome.
(25:18):
We're just this, stuff's fine.
We're just not going to anchorourself to one god we want to.
We're going to be more carefulthan that, in case you let us
down or somebody isuncomfortable with that.
It's kind of like saying, hey,we're going to have four dads,
it's your house, but we're goingto have four of us.
How's that going to work?
Everybody's going to die, that'snot that's not going to work
(25:40):
out at all.
Listen, I've done counselingwith people with multiple dads
and multiple moms and blendedfamilies, and it is always a
nightmare.
I can't even imagine if you putthem all under the same roof,
how that would go.
But that fidelity piece is real.
We shouldn't hate the fences,we should learn to love the
fences.
Now, why do I say this?
You ever read through the Psalms?
(26:00):
Yes, you ever.
You ever gone there before?
Here's a.
Here's a fun one real quick.
This is a.
This is Psalm 19.
Let me see if I can get therereal quick.
I'm trying to pull it up, one ofmy favorite places to teach on,
if we're teaching about thevalue of the word of God.
The law of the Lord is perfect,restoring the soul.
(26:23):
The testimony of the Lord issure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord areright, rejoicing the heart.
The commandment of the Lord ispure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever.
The judgment of the Lord aretrue.
They are righteous altogether.
They're more desirable thangold, yes, more than much fine
gold, sweeter also than honey,honey and dripping off the
(26:46):
honeycomb.
Moreover, by them your servantis warned, and in keeping him
there is great reward.
Imagine a kid like leaning upagainst the wall of the house,
like the wall of this house isamazing, you know what I mean.
Like the door posts that holdthe door are fantastic.
The lock on the door iswonderful.
You know what I mean.
He's praising God for all thethings that he has put in place
(27:12):
so that he doesn't shipwreck hisentire life.
God has set all of these thingsin place for comfort for you,
for solace for you.
Comfort for you, for solace foryou, for safety for you, for
joy for you.
Think about the differencebetween a kid who grows up
(27:32):
having a home and a kid whogrows up without a home.
Home means everything.
Home is how you actually youknow, learn who you are and how
to live.
It's the place that you doholidays.
It's the place where you learnyour hardest lessons, you know,
and it's the place where you'regrowing and listen.
We can get into the when we getout of the house and the rules
and how that grows.
But I'm saying if a child doesnot have a home, there's a lot
(27:52):
that goes wrong, because thenthey're only relying on the
family.
And if a child doesn't have ahome or a family it's.
It's a disaster, Like it's allgoing to go south.
But what's interesting aboutthis is he doesn't say the law
is perfect, restoring the soul.
The testimony is perfect,making wise the simple.
The precepts are rejoicing theheart.
(28:13):
He says the law of the Lord isperfect, the testimony of the
Lord is sure, the precepts ofthe Lord are right.
What's central in all of that isI love these things because I
trust the father who gave themto me.
I love my home, not because ofthe home itself, because it's a
(28:34):
prison if it's not my father,but if I have my father, I know
it's not a prison.
I can trust that it's his homeand he's made this for me.
I don't trust the table of myenemy, I trust the table of my
father.
I don't trust the lock on thedoor of my enemy, I trust the
lock on the door of my father.
And so if you start and you getinto the first commandment and
(28:56):
you miss the heart of the fatherthat is trying to give you the
rules of the house so that youwould know how to live and walk
these things out, you're goingto be a mess and everybody,
everyone, struggles with thisbecause you can let your love
for God grow cold very quickly,you can start to stare at the
(29:17):
walls and very quickly become amess.
I mean, this was really thefirst lie from Satan.
Did God really say?
And what is he questioning whenhe questions that Not just the
word of God, but morespecifically, he's attacking the
character of God.
Would God really keep you fromsomething so wonderful?
Would God really tell you youcan't have something good?
(29:38):
Would God really keep you fromsomething that would be tasty
and look good and great forgaining knowledge?
Would God really do that?
Man must be a cruel father.
You should try this right.
It's the character of God thatis under attack at the same time
that the word of God is underattack, which is another way of
(29:58):
saying the character of yourfather is under attack when
you're scorning the rules andlaws he's put in place to
protect you.
The character and the heart ofGod, the heart of Jesus, is
under attack when you scorn therules that Jesus puts in place.
If you say I love Jesus but Idon't like his rules, what
(30:20):
you're actually saying is Idon't trust his heart.
I don't think he knows best forme.
Actually saying is I don'ttrust his heart.
I don't think he knows best forme, I know better for myself
and then you enter into everynightmare that comes along with
that and abandoning God and whathe said in place.
So I just I think about thehome.
I think about the household, Ithink about raising kids, I
think about God inviting us tohis table and the first thing
(30:42):
that he starts with is, hey,none of this home matters, and
it will all become a prison toyou.
If you don't start with me,this will all be a mess.
If you don't know my heart,this will not go well for you at
all.
And when I look at our nation,when I look at households today
shoot, tim.
When I look at churches today,there are people abandoning a
love for God all over the placein the name of doing religion.
Today, we call it spirituality.
(31:04):
You know what I mean.
Or we just go farther, like I'mdoing witchcraft.
No, no, it's good, I'm a whitewitch, right?
The whole idea of Wicca, tim.
There's such a massive followingon TikTok of all these.
I think it's just.
I'm trying to think if it'sjust called Wicca or what it is.
But you got girls you know whatI mean From like 12 years old
(31:26):
to like 45 that are lightingcandles.
You know what I mean andtalking about flying around in
brooms and like the witch life.
You know what I mean.
Especially, the farther we getto Halloween, the more people
you're going to be seeing doingthis stuff.
But it is one of the largestfollowings that we have online
is witches or people that aretaking part in this Wicca or
(31:49):
this kind of area.
It's people that areessentially like I'm walking
this way.
Everybody is trying to decideno, no, no.
I want all the benefits of thehouse, I just don't want that.
God, I'll be God.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'll decide who I want to serve.
It's like I want it to makesense for me.
So they go out and try to findsomething.
Yeah, I'll decide who I want toserve.
It's like I want it to makesense for me, so they go out and
try to find something.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, I mean it's, I just think it's, it's the um,
it's man, it's a creepy way toput it, but it's almost like
grooming.
You know what I mean.
Somebody wants to do somethingshady with your kid.
What they do is they convinceyour, your kid, that they're
friends and then they start to,let's say, disrupt the trust
that you would have in your ownfamily, and then they start to
(32:27):
do things to you that they nevershould.
You know what I mean.
And then it goes south reallyfast until your allegiance is
more to that person becauseyou're actually more afraid of
what might happen with them thanyou are of your own parents.
Right, and I think about how thedemonic works just like that.
The demonic comes in, satancomes in, he tries to convince
you that he's your friend, andthen he tries to convince you
(32:50):
that he knows better than Goddoes, and then he does something
to you or works in such a waythat now you're actually more
afraid you know what I mean ofwalking away for this or the
wrath that's going to come fromGod if any of this comes out.
So you stick with the oneinstead of the other.
It's a terrifying reality, butSatan really does come to steal,
kill and destroy.
And what's sad again, tim, isthat if you doubt the character
(33:16):
and love that God has for you,then you start to leave the
doors unlocked for people thatyou shouldn't.
And I would say this to peopleright now If you're dating
somebody who doesn't know God,what you're saying is I don't
really trust the heart of God,I'm going to leave the doors
unlocked, right?
What you're saying?
If you're getting into stuffthat you shouldn't be getting
into, or you're allowing, let'ssay, sin patterns to make
(33:38):
inroads that you never used tomake inroads, what you're saying
is you know, I just don't likethis fence anymore.
I'm going to tear it up.
I make inroads.
What you're saying is you know,I just don't like this fence
anymore, I'm going to tear it up.
I don't trust God, I don'treally love God.
I don't think he really has thebest for me, or I love Him, but
in all honesty, I think it'stime that I grow up and do my
own thing.
Yeah you don't really everoutgrow God.
He's not the dad where.
No, I'm an adult and I can dowhat I want.
(34:00):
No, he's there to protect youand walk with you and help you
grow to the fullness of whatyou're supposed to be.
So at one point you would enterinto his kingdom and he would
say well done, good and faithfulservant, come into the joy of
your master.
You're here.
There's no more fences here.
There's no more rules here,because you don't need them
anymore, because there is nostreet outside.
(34:21):
Now we just get to livetogether in harmony and beauty
and all these different things.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
What's a good way to identify the fence?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, I guess there's two ways, and maybe the way
that you're asking is how do Iidentify the fence in my life
that I'm trying to tear up?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That might be more what you're saying, Not knowing.
Perhaps you know.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The other side is hey , how do I find out what the law
of God actually is?
And I would say the fencestarts with knowing the word of
God and what he's actually said.
Part of why we're going throughthe Ten Commandments and
actually want to talk about itis hey, let's start talking
about all the things, the veryyou know first, things that God
said are really freakingimportant in your life.
(35:02):
And from these 10 rules, theother 613 that we see in the law
are comprised.
All of them are, let's say,case studies.
All of them are derived fromthese 10.
Even when Jesus, you know,gives the love of the Lord, your
God, with all your heart, soul,mind and strength, love your
neighbors yourself.
(35:22):
That was, taking the 10commandments and putting them in
the two sections would say relyon.
The first four are all abouthow to love God.
The last six are all about howto love your neighbor, right?
So everything that is said issummed up in these 10
commandments, and the first oneis this you need to anchor
yourself to have a love for God.
And if you want to know moreabout where the fences are, I
(35:46):
would say start to study whatyour dad has actually said.
Start to learn what he'sactually going through.
Ten Commandments are great, butI mean I just think we hoot and
laugh now when we read throughthe Psalms and he's like I love
your law, it's the best thingever, I love it.
It's the bed I lay on at night,it's the drink I have in the
morning and, um, we don't saythat, but I'll tell you this,
(36:06):
tim, somebody who has made anabsolute mess of their life uh
comes in and it means the worldto them To.
To be honest, um, tim, I thinkabout my dad when I think about
this.
A lot, because my dad didn'thave a dad.
Um, his dad left when he was Ithink he was two years old just
(36:31):
walked out on him I don'tbrought this up before.
He had a really messyupbringing.
Um, I mean, it was, you know,in and out of juvie and you know
smoking and doing drugs and allkinds of stuff.
Um, he, you know he had hisbest friend, um, you know,
deleted himself in front of himwhen I think he was like 11
years old or something.
My grandma was working threejobs, you know what I mean, and
is is narcoleptic to this day.
Um, because she was trying toput food on the table and make
it work.
Uh, he was a hellion and, um, hedidn't have the heart of the
(36:55):
father and he didn't have therules to help him know how to
actually succeed in life.
And it seemed like, whatever hedid, he continued to fail or it
didn't go well.
Um, and it seemed like whateverhe did, he continued to fail or
it didn't go well, and it was acycle for him.
So we got into the military andhe started to learn structure
and he realized that if youactually have laws, you have
rules.
It helps you succeed so youdon't smash the things that
(37:17):
you're trying to build beforeyou even get to see it done.
And then my dad found Jesus andhe realized that, oh, god has
actually given me rules for mylife.
He's shown me how I'm supposedto live so that it would go well
for me, so that it would gowell for my sons, so that it
(37:37):
would go well for my grandsons.
And if I actually just do thesethings, I will actually have
success in these areas that I'mtrying to and I won't continue
to hit a wall.
My dad I say it all the timetended to be more structured and
oftentimes I felt like on myend it was more moralistic and
less gospel.
(37:57):
These are the rules.
Do a good job.
And it frustrated me growing upbecause I was like man where
was the gospel and all that?
And my dad was trying tocommunicate love by giving us
rules and things to follow along, because those were the things
that he did not have and thosewere the reasons his life was so
painful early on.
If you didn't have those rules,if you didn't have structure,
(38:19):
if you didn't have school, youdon't have people teaching you
the right things to do.
You don't value them unless youhaven't had them before.
So this is what I the analogy Ibrought up earlier the husband
builds the fence because thewolves are taking stuff away,
and if you haven't had thewolves take stuff away from you,
you don't value the fence whenit's there.
And when you stop seeing thewolves, then you start to get
(38:40):
angry at the fence.
But the reality is, if you knowthe heart of the person and
what happened and why the fenceis there, then you stop griping
about the fence and you rub yourhands against and say thank God
, this is here.
Whoever put this up must reallycare for me, and I think my dad
learned why the law, why therules, why God, what the
(39:01):
statements, the statutes, thecommandments, all these
different things, why they wereso valuable.
Because he had to live withthem long enough to realize that
you absolutely destroy yourlife if somebody doesn't help
provide the structure so thatyou actually walk it out.
Because if I'm making the rules, it goes badly, but when God
makes the rules, things actuallygo really well.
And so I learned kind of afterI got saved, I started to see
(39:22):
the heart of my dad and growingup it was really hard and I
could talk about you knowdifferent ways that I.
It could have been better orthis could have been done or
that could have been done.
My dad, for my entire life, wastrying to show me the value of
actually having rules, laws andstructure, because it was
something that he never had.
The greatest statement of loveI feel like my dad gave to me
and to my family is if you dothese things, this is the way
(39:43):
you should go, and if you gothis way and you don't depart
from it, it will go well for youbefore God He'll take care of
you.
And he was trying to display tome the heart of the father,
which is hey, if you do thesethings, if you walk this stuff
out, if you obey these rules, Iwant you to know it's going to
be so much better for you inyour life.
And these things are herebecause I love you, not because
I'm trying to capture you.
But unfortunately so often andthis is true in churches too
(40:08):
like first-generation churcheslove the gospel,
second-generation churchesassume the gospel and
third-generation churches hatethe gospel, because if you
haven't seen the wolves on theother side, you assume the
wolves are inside and it sucks.
It can blow stuff up in a hurry, and it sucks, it can blow
stuff up in a hurry.
So I guess I would just say foranybody out there listen, if you
understand this reallyimportant truth, that the reason
(40:31):
for the Ten Commandments andthe rules that God has given you
is because you have a fatherthat actually does love you and
wants to raise you up and teachyou the better way to live, then
maybe you would view thoserules a little bit different and
say okay, maybe I don't totallyunderstand this, it doesn't
make as much sense to me, but Itrust your heart, I trust your
hand and I trust that this is abetter way and I want to walk
(40:52):
that out.
It would go a lot better foreverybody.
And the more that we've tornthese things apart in our own
society, the more chaos, themore brokenness and the more
hurt that we've seen.
And everybody wants to startwriting their own set of rules,
but nobody wants to return backto the big 10 and really out of
the big 10, the one the Shema,the Lord, is one.
(41:16):
You got to serve him.
You got to start there.
Give your allegiance to him andnothing else.
Love him and then all the otherrules begin to make sense.
But if you don't get that oneright, you literally have
nothing and you'll be bankruptin your faith.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Nice, it's a lot to chew on yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
There you go, tim.
Take the meat and spit out thebone, not bad for one verse.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Huh, we did a couple today.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So I guess my heart for everybody would be this is
we're digging into the TenCommandments.
I would recommend, hey, whydon't you go and read them?
Dig into Exodus, chapter 20.
You're welcome to pick up thelist in Deuteronomy as well.
Read through them.
There is one difference thatwe'll get to when we talk about
the Sabbath, which I think isinteresting and worth bringing
up.
Oh, cool.
But I want you guys to startthinking and asking the question
(42:00):
how am I in my life fallingmore in love with Jesus?
How am I in my life fallingmore in love with Jesus?
Because if you're falling morein love with God, then what
happens is the rules start tomake more sense and you won't
struggle with trying to teardown fences because you'll trust
the fences that are there.
But if you're flirting withtearing fences down and you're
flirting with sin in your life,it's because you're forgetting
the heart of the father thatloves you and has put that there
(42:20):
for good reason.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Very true.
Let me ask you something realquick.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Still got some time.
I don't know if this is normalor if this is all that common,
but it's kind of been talking tosome people, man, who are just
kind of new believers within ayear or so.
Yeah, and, like you know,things were a lot easier a year
ago for me.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Is that common, like before someone becomes a
believer in God?
Totally Like.
Why is that?
I mean, these are people whodon't have jobs now, or their
marriage is now crumbling ortheir kids now hate them.
You know.
Like just difficult, difficultstuff.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah.
Yeah, it was hard for theIsraelites to get out of Egypt.
Yeah Right, it was hard forthem.
It was much they hated it inEgypt and they were ready to
leave.
But also, leaving Egypt is anextremely difficult process
until you get to the promisedland.
And then in the promised land,you have the difficulty of
actually maintaining thepromised land and not letting it
(43:17):
become Egypt.
But I would say, anybody whocomes to Christ immediately is
going to have wars to fight.
They're going to have red seasthat they're going to have to
walk through and they're goingto constantly be trying to
follow and make their way to aplace with God where at some
point it's David's kingdom youknow what I mean or Solomon's
kingdom.
It's like, man, we're good, wedid it, this is working, this is
(43:39):
cool, god's doing stuff.
But that's not a one-partprocess.
I would say when you leave Egypt, it actually starts kind of in
a war.
You're thrilled when God partsthe sea, but, man, there's a lot
of times where you're lookingback, trying to make an idol out
(44:00):
of your gold rings, trying tohope that sustains me because
he's been really quiet and mypastor's not really doing what
he's supposed to be doing.
He's not helping me, he's beensilent for forever.
And my pastor is not reallydoing what he's supposed to be
doing.
He's not helping me, he's beensilent for forever.
And you know, I just needsomething to get me out of this
situation.
And in those moments it's likeman God is calling you, say, hey
, do you trust my heart, do youtrust me in this?
And yeah, man it's not easiercoming to Christ, but it is
(44:20):
better.
It's not easier immediatelyhaving rules, but it is better
immediately having rules.
Nice, yeah.
So I would say, if somebody'scoming to Christ earlier on in
their life and they're like, orcame to Christ recently and is
like, you know, it got a lotharder for me, I'd be like yeah,
yeah, that's what it's likewhen you leave slavery.
Prison's easy because they payfor all your meals and it's the
(44:43):
same system every day and you dothe same stuff and you hated it
there.
What's really hard isacclimating and get back into
real life.
And a lot of people are stuckin kind of a spiritual Stockholm
syndrome, where they love thesin and the thing that was
enslaving them and they have areally hard time getting to a
place where they're living theway that a normal person should,
because their affections havebeen so jacked up and misaligned
(45:05):
that they're having to learnwhat a new, actual, functional
life looks like.
And then your desire is toteach your kids to never go back
to what you were a part of, butyou're also keeping in the back
of your head that man Satancomes to steal, kill and destroy
and his goal is to geteverybody back into Egypt.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
So yeah, right on, thanks, man Right on Well,
praying for you guys.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
I hope you guys will dig into the 10 commandments
with us.
We'll start walking throughthese one at a time, and I hope
it just blesses you.
Be thinking about the goodthings that God's been doing in
your life.
Think about what he saved youfrom what he saved you to what
he saved you for, and then startthinking about the good things
that he's placed in your lifethe laws, the wisdom, the rules
that he's placed for you so thatwe would live better.
And as we look at our worldtoday, as we look at the
(45:49):
election that we're having, welook at the chaos that's ensuing
in so many different places.
Every time we see a law, aprecept, a testimony of God,
what I want you to see is anexpression of the love of God
for his children that he hasadopted and put his laid his
life down for to save you.
Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate.
I'm with Justin again.
What's up, dude?
What is up bro?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Fantastical, now that you'rehere, fantastic, I'm going to be
fine, majestic.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Wondrous.
I'm glad, I'm glad.
Thank you, I got my presencedoes that for you.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I really am your presence is just a captivating
thing, Tim.
That's why you keep showing up.
I'm just trying to catch someof the light coming off your
sails, Captain.
Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I'm still trying to catch some of that too.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You are my Moby Dick Tim.
The cannibal part, I mean whythat doesn't work is because
that whole story is aboutsomebody's whole existence being
torn apart by his inability tocapture this thing.
But it's still good.
I thought it was about a fish.
Well, it's about a whale.
It's a joke.
It's a Ron Swanson joke,anyways.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, all right.
I hope everybody enjoyed lastweek's because that one was a
lot of fun with Nick.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Oh man, Go check that one out.
That was so good.
We'll have him on again.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, for sure, I think yeah, but now Justin and I
have been talking about thisfor a while, about doing a, I
guess maybe a 10-episode series.
I guess I'm going to call itthat.
We'll see, we'll see, yeah,we'll see, but going through
basically the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Not your Sunday school version of the Ten
Commandments.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I mean, it might be you may have been in a Sunday
school.
They're like we're going totake an hour, this isn't posted.
We're going to talk throughthis, yeah, no, I just think
there's significance to this.
We've done a couple of podcastson the law, but I thought it'd
be really good to just kind ofstart walking through the whole
idea of what are the TenCommandments, why are they
(01:42):
significant and what do theyhave to do with our life.
Yeah yeah, yeah, because I thinkeverybody knows the term Ten
Commandments.
Most people haven't actuallyspent a lot of time thinking
through, I guess, the value ofthese things or the heart behind
a lot of what's being said.
So I mean, I just think it'd begood to talk through the
significance of the TenCommandments to us as Christians
(02:05):
today and the significance ofthe Ten Commandments to us as
Christians in the currentenvironment that we find
ourselves in, and then kind ofwalk from that.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Okay, Interesting.
Well, I'm curious because whenyou see the Ten Commandments,
like well, yeah, don't killanybody.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, that's duh, Boom Done.
Some guys are like blew it.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
How much of this can we actually get out of?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Let's find out, all right, all right, well, I guess
We'll start with the first onetoday.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We'll definitely get into the first one.
I think the goal, though, thatI would want to set up is this
Getting into the TenCommandments.
What you need to realize isthat if you land in Exodus
chapter 20, without realizinghow you got to Exodus chapter 20
, you end up in moralism asopposed to like realizing that
they're a product of grace.
So the first thing that youneed to understand is what is
(02:53):
the context of what has led upto this moment where God is
actually giving them the TenCommandments?
Because if you just start withTen Commandments, it's kind of
like.
It's like not having a dad andjust having a government.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Like think about it that way A bunch of freaking
rules no benefits no heart, noone who cares.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, exactly Exactly .
Get the 36 booster, anyways.
So what has happened up to thispoint is God has seen his
children suffering andstruggling in Israel.
He then sends Moses to redeemthem and call them out of Israel
through signs and wonders.
He is utterly destroyed andmocked the demon gods of the
(03:36):
Egyptians.
He calls them out of Egypt.
He splits the Red Sea.
He feeds them manna from heaven.
He gives them victory in allthese battles that they should
never win in.
He loots all of Egypt.
He's providing all thesedifferent things.
He finally brings them to thismountain so that he can then
give them the way that theyshould actually live.
(04:00):
Okay, so if you don't see, firstand foremost, the redeeming,
grace-giving, electing God, whohas brought them out of things,
who has already set them free,you're going to miss a lot of
the heart behind this, which ishim telling them here's how you
live like.
You are free.
I brought you out of Egypt.
(04:21):
Now live like you're out ofEgypt.
I brought you out of this, I'veadopted you.
I've Now live like you're outof Egypt.
I brought you out of this, I'veadopted you.
I've created a family with you.
I've invited you to my mountainas opposed to Egypt, and now
I'm going to teach you how toactually walk in light of that.
So if you start with if I dothese things, then I'm saved.
You're missing the grace of thegospel here, which is no.
God saved them.
(04:42):
He brought them through the RedSea, which is no God saved them
.
He brought them through the RedSea, which is a symbol of
baptism, to the place where theywould learn how to worship him,
which is the commandments.
Does that make sense?
So, like you come as a son, notto become a son, you're
learning the family rules.
You're not learning to do therules so that you can be part of
the family, because if youstart without grace, you're not
(05:03):
saved and you'll end up being aPharisee who does this thing
where they love the law morethan they love the lawgiver.
They loved the Torah, theyloved the Mishnah, they loved
all the boxes to check and allthe things that came along with
that, to the detriment of theperson who actually gave it to
them.
So you love, if you love thehouse that your dad gives you,
but you don't actually love yourdad.
(05:24):
You kind of missed the wholepoint.
He's the only reason it's there.
Those rules exist for him to beable to bless you and help you
live and survive and thrive, andI would want us to understand
that, which kind of leads to asecond part of this, tim, which
is really that rules are a goodthing, like they're fantastic.
Like I have young kids.
(05:45):
Tim, you ever had a kid getaway from you?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Okay, it's a game for them, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I'm telling you.
It's like a real thing, rightwhen.
It's like you start to realizeoh, that's why that was there.
Oh, that's why my parents toldme that.
Oh, that's why that kid's on aleash.
And I listen, don't put yourkid on a leash, Okay.
But my point is this thedifference between somebody
playing in the street andplaying in the yard is a fence.
(06:12):
You know what I mean.
The difference between somebodyhaving an environment to
exercise and have freedom and dothings and them being in an
unsafe environment where they'reno longer just freely doing
things, they're actually puttingthemselves in danger or
offenses.
Those things are put there sothat you can exercise liberty
(06:33):
within virtue.
But if you remove virtue fromthe word liberty, you end up in
vice, and that's God's idea offreedom starts with.
Let me teach you how to liveand have fun and enjoy life and
enjoy the whole house, but notblow it up and put yourself in a
place where it's actually goingto kill you.
And that's the heart of afather.
(06:54):
So if you read the 10commandments and you hear
government and not my fathergave me these, who already saved
me and redeemed me and broughtme out of slavery so that I
could live in a way that wasrighteous, and I would know how
to worship and live and do mylife, Then you're going to end
up with what I think a lot ofother people do, which is these
are the rules, this is whatwe're supposed to do, and we do
these things because Sky Daddywill kill us if we don't.
(07:16):
It's not that you have a fatherwho's invited you to his own
table and now he's teaching youhow to be part of his family,
now that you're adopted in.
So that's the beginning.
That's what we start with, andso Exodus chapter 20 starts with
these words.
Then God spoke all these wordssaying I am the Lord, your God,
(07:36):
who brought you out of the landof Egypt, out of the house of
slavery.
And then he says this you shallhave no other gods before me.
And then he says this you shallhave no other gods before me.
Okay, so this is important,because this is how every kid in
Israel would start off theirday.
This is how they would startmost of the stuff around their
(07:57):
dinner table.
This is frequently referred toas the Shema.
You see this it's echoed inDeuteronomy 6.
Hear O Israel, the Lord, ourGod.
The Lord is one.
That's what they're startingwith.
You shall love the Lord, yourGod, with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all yourmind, with all your strength.
This is that first commandment.
So even when you hear Jesus saylove the Lord, your God, with
all your heart, soul, mind andstrength, love your neighbors
(08:17):
yourself, he's really giving youa pitch of hey.
It starts with a love for Godand it's important that we see
that it's actually knowing whoGod is.
I am the Lord, your God, whobrought you out of the house of
slavery.
You shall have no other godsbefore me.
I wouldn't say you shall haveno other gods before me is the
commandment.
I would say it's part of thecommandment, which is I am the
(08:38):
Lord, your God.
I brought you out of the houseof Egypt.
Serve me.
And if we don't get this, wescrew up a lot.
This is part of what I wasgetting at.
If you don't know that, he'sthe God that saved you and
brought you out and did all thisstuff and you just start with
serve me.
You missed the heart of the 10commandments, which is I bought
you, I redeemed you, I've savedyou, I'm the Lord, I'm the
(08:58):
self-existing one.
Who is God?
He's telling you who he isbefore you get to don't serve
anyone else.
So the first commandment reallystarts with this who is God?
Who is this God?
Who is the one that we'reactually serving?
What has he done?
And the context is he's theonly one that's ever worth
(09:18):
serving.
He's the only one who wouldactually redeem you and save you
and bring you out of thesethings.
Don't forget that he's the onewho chose you.
You're not speaking to himright now.
He's speaking to you.
You're not saving him.
He saved you.
You didn't choose him, he choseyou.
Everything in the 10commandments starts with who God
is and what he's functionallydone.
The law is then given as a giftto his people, and the first
(09:42):
response to grace from ourfather should be fidelity.
All right, okay.
So think about it this way yougot a knight and you got a
princess, and the knight savesthe princess so that the
princess can have the knight andher guy on the side Right.
See how that doesn't work.
Fidelity is really the firstcommandment.
(10:05):
It's saying knowing who God isand worshiping him alone, and we
need to understand that,because every addict knows this.
You can't be told what not todo.
You need to find something thathas a higher value and actually
do that.
If I'm an addict and I justtell you not to do drugs anymore
, what am I now thinking aboutDoing drugs?
The drugs I'm not allowed to.
I just tell you not to do drugsanymore.
What am I now thinking aboutDoing drugs?
(10:25):
The drugs I'm not allowed to do?
Yeah, right, and where doesthat end More?
drugs Doing those drugs orfinding what A different drug I
was going to say Something elsethat I'll do.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, I won't do that , I'll do something else, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So the goal is not to simply say you know, the first
commandment is not don't worshipthese other gods.
The first commandment is who isthe God that you should be
serving Now?
Serve him, worship him, knowhim.
I brought this up, tim, becauseit's important that we start in
that place who is God?
Who is God?
Because this is what he'scommunicating to us.
(11:01):
If you get me wrong, it doesn'tmatter what the other
commandments are, because you'reactually going to miss the
heart of who you're serving.
You won't worship me, right?
I've brought this up a bunch oftimes before, but we transfer,
or, let's say, exchange, worshipfor sincerity in our culture.
(11:25):
Most people believe if I'msincere, that counts.
I could have a different beliefthan you do, and you could have
a different belief than I do,and what we're actually weighing
is the sincerity of our hearts,not the truth of what it is.
All right, so think about itthis way and this is a bad
(11:46):
example, because it's the truth.
Like it's this bad If your son,who is, let's say,
four-year-old, cooks you steakversus you know Mario Batali or
something like that, right, sureOne, or let's say, both of them
can have equal sincerity, butthe outcome is totally different
.
Right?
We don't see it that way.
(12:07):
We think as long as we triedthe same, then we're good.
And God is saying with these 10commandments absolutely not you
will worship me, I will give myworship to no one else.
And it starts with who Godactually is.
It's the Shema, it's the hero,israel, the Lord, our God.
The Lord is one.
(12:28):
You shall love him, you'llserve him, you'll trust him, and
if you don't know who he is,you're screwed.
There is no hope.
There's no other name on heavenor earth by which we must be
saved, and he's trying to revealthat to him.
Why is that?
Because Israel, and he's tryingto reveal that to him.
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Because Israel historically and even after this
point, but coming into it ispolytheistic, not monotheistic
Meaning they serve other gods.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yes, worship other gods, the big joke is that the
Israelites were monotheistic.
It means they had one god,right, but for the entirety of
Israel's history, they wereconstantly trying to get rid of
all the other gods.
They were in the process ofserving All the other.
They have this idol being drugalong with them and this thing
that was, I mean, even with you.
Even see this gosh.
(13:17):
I'm trying to think With Jacoband Rachel and Leah, right, she
steals the household gods andhides them away in her stuff on
their way out, and it's likeJacob's in the process of
serving God.
The only reason he's got Rachelor Leah and is going to make it
out is because he's beenserving God.
And what is the first thingRachel brings out of her house?
All these other gods that Iwant to bring along with me?
What do you think she's goingto teach her kids?
(13:37):
You know what I mean.
So, throughout the wilderness,and what's the first thing that
the Israelites make in thewilderness when Moses goes away?
Right, he goes up on themountain, he comes back, and
they made this ox, right, thisgolden calf thing, right, yeah,
golden calf, right, and this,ironically, is the symbol of the
God who provides in Egypt,right, and it's like, oh, what
(13:58):
are they doing?
Well, we'll just resurrectanother God when this one stops
working for us.
And it's ironic that he comesdown the mountain with the first
rule on the list, which islisten, you need to serve me,
don't serve something else.
And they're like we're going togo ahead and start with this
then Right.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Let me ask you something real quick.
Did the Israelites know thatbeforehand, before the 10
commands, before this firstcommand comes out not to do that
?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Well, this is the question, Tim Do you know that
you're supposed to love yourwife?
Yeah, I mean, I would hope so.
I would hope so.
The other difficulty in this,though, is that people were so
steeped in polytheism, in theworship of all these other
deities and gods and everythingelse, that I don't know if they
(14:45):
even realized how immersed inthat culture they were.
I mean, I think the same thingkind of for us today.
To be totally honest, I thinkwe have such a bad view of what
idolatry actually is, and we'llget to the second commandment.
By the way, if you were aLutheran, luther put these two
commandments together in hiscatechism you shall have no
(15:06):
other gods before me and youshall not make for yourself an
idol or a graven image right,some of you may have heard when
you were a kid.
An image, right, some of youmay have heard when you were a
kid, Because they're similar,but I really am trying to stress
this idea of it, starting withwho God is before we get to what
you're not supposed to do, andat some level, they're
definitely connected.
There's gray here, but he'smaking a statement.
I'm the Lord, your God, whobrought you out of the land of
(15:26):
Egypt, out of the house ofslavery.
You shall not have any othergods.
You shall have no other godsbefore me and this to me, one of
my favorite stories about this,tim, is actually Elijah and the
900 prophets.
Basically, you have 400 prophetsof Baal.
You have 450 prophets ofAsherah, which always get left
out in this story.
I don't know why.
(15:46):
Everyone is like the 400prophets of Baal, right, there
was also 450 prophets of Asherahthat are mentioned.
It's like 950 people, which, bythe way, at the end of the
story, he takes them down to theriver and kills all of them
himself, which is just a crazystory to me.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Man, that was a bloodbath.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You think afterwards, elijah was just like man, that
was crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
What a crazy story.
I can't believe I did that.
I'm pretty savage.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
What a freak accident .
Exactly't believe I did that.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I'm pretty savage.
What a freak accident Exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I just woke up and looked around like whoa got a
little extra over here.
In this story one of myfavorite lines is he says the
word how long will you teeterbetween two gods?
If Yahweh is God, serve him.
If Baal is God, serve him.
He's trying to evoke thispicture for them.
(16:39):
Serve the God who is real.
Serve the one who actuallysaves.
Serve the one who actually acts.
Serve the one who actually doesstuff.
Serve the one who is the trueGod.
When all the chips are on thetable and they were constantly
looking for somebody else on theside and I think honestly I
(17:00):
bring it up all the time.
But our relationship and ourmarriage and how that
relationship is supposed tofunction speaks so much to our
relationship with God.
Like it's the wedding feast ofthe lamb.
The, you know, the beginning ofthe Bible starts with Adam and
Eve and the Trinity, the onenessthey're creating, the, you know
, the husband and the wife, andit ends in this wedding supper
(17:21):
of the lamb with a bride and thegroom come together.
I mean it's constantly speakingto us of fidelity, covenant,
relationship, one and one.
Don't pick anything else.
This is what it's supposed tolook like.
Before you do anything else getthis right.
There can be no one else inthis equation.
And the only way that you canhave no one else in this
equation is if you actually haveallegiance and a deep love for
(17:46):
your actual spouse.
You can only it's only going towork that way If you actually
end up loving them at the end ofthe day and it becomes a thing,
and that means knowing who theyare.
Because, back to the, uh, the,the analogy I was giving you,
tim, if I tell you, um man, I, Ilove my wife so much.
Uh, you know, let's see, let'smake it funny Her name's Brett,
(18:07):
she's wonderful.
And uh, we have two kids, um,freya and uh, liz Liza, sorry
you ever call her Liz.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And I sit here and have this conversation with you
and you're looking at me andyou're like no, tim, I'm serious
, she's just the best.
She means the world.
We've had so many yearstogether and it's been.
You're going to be like you'rea crazy person.
That is my wife.
Those, yes, exactly.
And it doesn't matter howfervent I tell you or how much I
spell out the things that Ilove about them, it's not true,
(18:39):
it's not real, it's a lie, it'sa fabrication.
And we have so many peopledoing this thing with, like.
You know, god's like anelephant and there's five blind
men.
You know what I mean.
One of them's grabbing the legand one's got the trunk.
They're all trying to describewho God is like and in that
illustration, you get thevantage point of the person who
(19:00):
apparently is all-knowing andactually knows what God is.
And everyone else is wrong, andI'm right.
That's a very for the record.
That's a very arrogant positionto take.
Everyone else in the world iswrong and I'm the only one that
sees every path.
You're welcome, but no, thepicture is wrong.
And I'm the only one that seesevery path.
You're welcome, right, but no,the picture is.
Fervency doesn't get you there.
Fervency is only helpful ifyou're worshiping the true God.
(19:21):
Fervency is only helpful if youunderstand who he is and
actually what he's doing.
And I would like to take us tothat passage in Deuteronomy real
quick, tim.
If you're cool with that, totalk about the consequences of
fidelity and how this actuallyworks out, I'll go ahead and
read it to you because I thinkit's good.
This is the commandment, thestatutes and the judgments that
(19:45):
the Lord, your God, hascommanded me to teach you that
you might do them in the landwhere you're going over to
possess it, so that you and yoursons and your grandsons might
(20:09):
fear the Lord, your God, to keepall his.
And he says this hear, o Israel, the Lord, our God.
The Lord is one, shema Israel,adonai Elohenu, adonai Achad.
There you go.
That's for free.
You got that today All right.
There's a little Hebrew for you,but this is what he's saying
the Lord, our God, the Lord iswhat he's saying, all this stuff
.
And then he's saying hear me onthis.
(20:30):
This is where the firstcommandment starts.
This is the command.
Start here.
The Lord is one, serve him,follow him.
And what is all of this for?
So that your son and yourgrandson might fear the Lord,
your God.
Why is that important, tim?
Why do you think fear isimportant?
(20:50):
Fear, yeah, oh man.
Probably so you know what you'rerelying on.
Okay, that's good, that's good.
I mean a little bit back to theillustration you ever seen, uh,
man, you ever seen those videos, tim, like compilations of
people doing stupid things allthe time?
(21:10):
You know what I mean?
There's, this one is myfavorite.
It's this guy who's always gotlike a hard hat on and a vest
and it just shows little clipsof him looking over and stuff
that's happened on, like youknow job sites and stuff.
Just horrifying things.
Okay, that should invoke in youa yeah, I probably shouldn't do
that.
Yeah, that's not actually goingto work out for me.
It's supposed to awake a fearthat would stir obedience.
(21:33):
If you understand, if I crossthat fence, it will not go well
for me and my dad put that fencethere to protect me, right?
Then I understand how I'msupposed to live, because I
trust my dad, I trust his heart,and that should give me a deep
fear of what happens when I gooutside of that fence.
(21:53):
Why?
Because I'm no longer underGod's protection.
In some sense, anyone who's notunder his protection is under
his wrath.
So if I go out there, that'swhere the wolves are.
I think I brought this up theother day.
It was.
The man lives in a home andwolves continue to come in and
are trying to attack and takehis livestock.
So he builds a fence around thehome.
(22:15):
The woman thinks that the manbuilt the fence around the home
to keep her in.
The woman destroys the fence.
The wolves come in and kill thewoman.
Wow, I was like oh man, there'sa truth there.
Not even necessarily about theman and woman thing, right, but
about the idea of how we tend tothink about stuff yeah, god put
these things in place and thenpeople tore them down, thinking
(22:37):
that God did it to oppress them.
And then they find out the hardway that God put those there
because he loves you.
So when it talks about yoursons and your grandsons and
wanting to instill a fear, ahealthy fear of what happens if
you pet the bear right, then wewould actually get to a place,
(22:57):
if we would listen to him, wherewe would live long.
It would go well for us.
We would actually be able towalk things out.
If you have fidelity to God, itwill go well with you.
The second you want to anchorfrom him, it will not go well
with you so that your grandsonsand your sons might fear the
Lord to keep all the statutesand his commandments which I
(23:29):
command you.
Why I like this is because it'salmost like it's set up as a
promise.
Like, think about it this wayhey, if I do this thing in my
home, it will go well for us.
It may not be everything thatevery other person is looking
for from a financial or whateverstandpoint.
Oh, this will happen.
No, but it will actually gowell for you.
God will see to it that you'reunder his covenant and he's
going to take care of you, andat least then you know what
(23:51):
happens inside the house is whatmy dad is doing, not what some
other stranger is doing whathappens inside the four walls.
I may not like it, but I atleast know that he has my best
intention at heart, and this isfor a good reason, even though I
don't totally understand it.
Yet what happens outside thehouse is something else entirely
.
What happens outside the yardis a different story.
You know what I mean.
(24:12):
So he's trying to tell us thisis how you should functionally
live is a different story.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So he's trying to tell us this is how you should
functionally live.
This is what it's supposed tolook like.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
So let me ask you is it okay, then, to not like that
fence?
That's a great question.
I think it would be a sin tohate the fence, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would say, oftentimes our heart is I hate
fences because they're keepingme from something.
Yeah, oftentimes our heart is Ihate fences because they're
keeping me from something, andGod's heart for you is, yes,
it's keeping you from all thethings that you should never be
and never do, and never, youknow, never supposed to possess
(24:42):
you.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
What came to mind was the Garden of Eden with Eve and
the fruit and the wholeoriginal sin concept.
Really is like I could be Godif I know everything.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
So when you were talking about the fences and
stuff and turning them down, I'mlike yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
All of us have.
You know what I?
mean yeah, I know, yeah,wouldn't you say our current
right-wing political agenda isbasically trying to emulate the
Ten Commandments at some level.
Without the First Commandment,we'll do all the good things.
We're just going to add someother gods in.
Yeah Right, we're going to dosome.
(25:18):
We're just this, stuff's fine.
We're just not going to anchorourself to one god we want to.
We're going to be more carefulthan that, in case you let us
down or somebody isuncomfortable with that.
It's kind of like saying, hey,we're going to have four dads,
it's your house, but we're goingto have four of us.
How's that going to work?
Everybody's going to die, that'snot that's not going to work
(25:40):
out at all.
Listen, I've done counselingwith people with multiple dads
and multiple moms and blendedfamilies, and it is always a
nightmare.
I can't even imagine if you putthem all under the same roof,
how that would go.
But that fidelity piece is real.
We shouldn't hate the fences,we should learn to love the
fences.
Now, why do I say this?
You ever read through the Psalms?
(26:00):
Yes, you ever.
You ever gone there before?
Here's a.
Here's a fun one real quick.
This is a.
This is Psalm 19.
Let me see if I can get therereal quick.
I'm trying to pull it up, one ofmy favorite places to teach on,
if we're teaching about thevalue of the word of God.
The law of the Lord is perfect,restoring the soul.
(26:23):
The testimony of the Lord issure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord areright, rejoicing the heart.
The commandment of the Lord ispure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever.
The judgment of the Lord aretrue.
They are righteous altogether.
They're more desirable thangold, yes, more than much fine
gold, sweeter also than honey,honey and dripping off the
(26:46):
honeycomb.
Moreover, by them your servantis warned, and in keeping him
there is great reward.
Imagine a kid like leaning upagainst the wall of the house,
like the wall of this house isamazing, you know what I mean.
Like the door posts that holdthe door are fantastic.
The lock on the door iswonderful.
You know what I mean.
He's praising God for all thethings that he has put in place
(27:12):
so that he doesn't shipwreck hisentire life.
God has set all of these thingsin place for comfort for you,
for solace for you.
Comfort for you, for solace foryou, for safety for you, for
joy for you.
Think about the differencebetween a kid who grows up
(27:32):
having a home and a kid whogrows up without a home.
Home means everything.
Home is how you actually youknow, learn who you are and how
to live.
It's the place that you doholidays.
It's the place where you learnyour hardest lessons, you know,
and it's the place where you'regrowing and listen.
We can get into the when we getout of the house and the rules
and how that grows.
But I'm saying if a child doesnot have a home, there's a lot
(27:52):
that goes wrong, because thenthey're only relying on the
family.
And if a child doesn't have ahome or a family it's.
It's a disaster, Like it's allgoing to go south.
But what's interesting aboutthis is he doesn't say the law
is perfect, restoring the soul.
The testimony is perfect,making wise the simple.
The precepts are rejoicing theheart.
(28:13):
He says the law of the Lord isperfect, the testimony of the
Lord is sure, the precepts ofthe Lord are right.
What's central in all of that isI love these things because I
trust the father who gave themto me.
I love my home, not because ofthe home itself, because it's a
(28:34):
prison if it's not my father,but if I have my father, I know
it's not a prison.
I can trust that it's his homeand he's made this for me.
I don't trust the table of myenemy, I trust the table of my
father.
I don't trust the lock on thedoor of my enemy, I trust the
lock on the door of my father.
And so if you start and you getinto the first commandment and
(28:56):
you miss the heart of the fatherthat is trying to give you the
rules of the house so that youwould know how to live and walk
these things out, you're goingto be a mess and everybody,
everyone, struggles with thisbecause you can let your love
for God grow cold very quickly,you can start to stare at the
(29:17):
walls and very quickly become amess.
I mean, this was really thefirst lie from Satan.
Did God really say?
And what is he questioning whenhe questions that Not just the
word of God, but morespecifically, he's attacking the
character of God.
Would God really keep you fromsomething so wonderful?
Would God really tell you youcan't have something good?
(29:38):
Would God really keep you fromsomething that would be tasty
and look good and great forgaining knowledge?
Would God really do that?
Man must be a cruel father.
You should try this right.
It's the character of God thatis under attack at the same time
that the word of God is underattack, which is another way of
(29:58):
saying the character of yourfather is under attack when
you're scorning the rules andlaws he's put in place to
protect you.
The character and the heart ofGod, the heart of Jesus, is
under attack when you scorn therules that Jesus puts in place.
If you say I love Jesus but Idon't like his rules, what
(30:20):
you're actually saying is Idon't trust his heart.
I don't think he knows best forme.
Actually saying is I don'ttrust his heart.
I don't think he knows best forme, I know better for myself
and then you enter into everynightmare that comes along with
that and abandoning God and whathe said in place.
So I just I think about thehome.
I think about the household, Ithink about raising kids, I
think about God inviting us tohis table and the first thing
(30:42):
that he starts with is, hey,none of this home matters, and
it will all become a prison toyou.
If you don't start with me,this will all be a mess.
If you don't know my heart,this will not go well for you at
all.
And when I look at our nation,when I look at households today
shoot, tim.
When I look at churches today,there are people abandoning a
love for God all over the placein the name of doing religion.
Today, we call it spirituality.
(31:04):
You know what I mean.
Or we just go farther, like I'mdoing witchcraft.
No, no, it's good, I'm a whitewitch, right?
The whole idea of Wicca, tim.
There's such a massive followingon TikTok of all these.
I think it's just.
I'm trying to think if it'sjust called Wicca or what it is.
But you got girls you know whatI mean From like 12 years old
(31:26):
to like 45 that are lightingcandles.
You know what I mean andtalking about flying around in
brooms and like the witch life.
You know what I mean.
Especially, the farther we getto Halloween, the more people
you're going to be seeing doingthis stuff.
But it is one of the largestfollowings that we have online
is witches or people that aretaking part in this Wicca or
(31:49):
this kind of area.
It's people that areessentially like I'm walking
this way.
Everybody is trying to decideno, no, no.
I want all the benefits of thehouse, I just don't want that.
God, I'll be God.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'll decide who I want to serve.
It's like I want it to makesense for me.
So they go out and try to findsomething.
Yeah, I'll decide who I want toserve.
It's like I want it to makesense for me, so they go out and
try to find something.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, I mean it's, I just think it's, it's the um,
it's man, it's a creepy way toput it, but it's almost like
grooming.
You know what I mean.
Somebody wants to do somethingshady with your kid.
What they do is they convinceyour, your kid, that they're
friends and then they start to,let's say, disrupt the trust
that you would have in your ownfamily, and then they start to
(32:27):
do things to you that they nevershould.
You know what I mean.
And then it goes south reallyfast until your allegiance is
more to that person becauseyou're actually more afraid of
what might happen with them thanyou are of your own parents.
Right, and I think about how thedemonic works just like that.
The demonic comes in, satancomes in, he tries to convince
you that he's your friend, andthen he tries to convince you
(32:50):
that he knows better than Goddoes, and then he does something
to you or works in such a waythat now you're actually more
afraid you know what I mean ofwalking away for this or the
wrath that's going to come fromGod if any of this comes out.
So you stick with the oneinstead of the other.
It's a terrifying reality, butSatan really does come to steal,
kill and destroy.
And what's sad again, tim, isthat if you doubt the character
(33:16):
and love that God has for you,then you start to leave the
doors unlocked for people thatyou shouldn't.
And I would say this to peopleright now If you're dating
somebody who doesn't know God,what you're saying is I don't
really trust the heart of God,I'm going to leave the doors
unlocked, right?
What you're saying?
If you're getting into stuffthat you shouldn't be getting
into, or you're allowing, let'ssay, sin patterns to make
(33:38):
inroads that you never used tomake inroads, what you're saying
is you know, I just don't likethis fence anymore.
I'm going to tear it up.
I make inroads.
What you're saying is you know,I just don't like this fence
anymore, I'm going to tear it up.
I don't trust God, I don'treally love God.
I don't think he really has thebest for me, or I love Him, but
in all honesty, I think it'stime that I grow up and do my
own thing.
Yeah you don't really everoutgrow God.
He's not the dad where.
No, I'm an adult and I can dowhat I want.
(34:00):
No, he's there to protect youand walk with you and help you
grow to the fullness of whatyou're supposed to be.
So at one point you would enterinto his kingdom and he would
say well done, good and faithfulservant, come into the joy of
your master.
You're here.
There's no more fences here.
There's no more rules here,because you don't need them
anymore, because there is nostreet outside.
(34:21):
Now we just get to livetogether in harmony and beauty
and all these different things.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
What's a good way to identify the fence?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, I guess there's two ways, and maybe the way
that you're asking is how do Iidentify the fence in my life
that I'm trying to tear up?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That might be more what you're saying, Not knowing.
Perhaps you know.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The other side is hey , how do I find out what the law
of God actually is?
And I would say the fencestarts with knowing the word of
God and what he's actually said.
Part of why we're going throughthe Ten Commandments and
actually want to talk about itis hey, let's start talking
about all the things, the veryyou know first, things that God
said are really freakingimportant in your life.
(35:02):
And from these 10 rules, theother 613 that we see in the law
are comprised.
All of them are, let's say,case studies.
All of them are derived fromthese 10.
Even when Jesus, you know,gives the love of the Lord, your
God, with all your heart, soul,mind and strength, love your
neighbors yourself.
(35:22):
That was, taking the 10commandments and putting them in
the two sections would say relyon.
The first four are all abouthow to love God.
The last six are all about howto love your neighbor, right?
So everything that is said issummed up in these 10
commandments, and the first oneis this you need to anchor
yourself to have a love for God.
And if you want to know moreabout where the fences are, I
(35:46):
would say start to study whatyour dad has actually said.
Start to learn what he'sactually going through.
Ten Commandments are great, butI mean I just think we hoot and
laugh now when we read throughthe Psalms and he's like I love
your law, it's the best thingever, I love it.
It's the bed I lay on at night,it's the drink I have in the
morning and, um, we don't saythat, but I'll tell you this,
(36:06):
tim, somebody who has made anabsolute mess of their life uh
comes in and it means the worldto them To.
To be honest, um, tim, I thinkabout my dad when I think about
this.
A lot, because my dad didn'thave a dad.
Um, his dad left when he was Ithink he was two years old just
(36:31):
walked out on him I don'tbrought this up before.
He had a really messyupbringing.
Um, I mean, it was, you know,in and out of juvie and you know
smoking and doing drugs and allkinds of stuff.
Um, he, you know he had hisbest friend, um, you know,
deleted himself in front of himwhen I think he was like 11
years old or something.
My grandma was working threejobs, you know what I mean, and
is is narcoleptic to this day.
Um, because she was trying toput food on the table and make
it work.
Uh, he was a hellion and, um, hedidn't have the heart of the
(36:55):
father and he didn't have therules to help him know how to
actually succeed in life.
And it seemed like, whatever hedid, he continued to fail or it
didn't go well.
Um, and it seemed like whateverhe did, he continued to fail or
it didn't go well, and it was acycle for him.
So we got into the military andhe started to learn structure
and he realized that if youactually have laws, you have
rules.
It helps you succeed so youdon't smash the things that
(37:17):
you're trying to build beforeyou even get to see it done.
And then my dad found Jesus andhe realized that, oh, god has
actually given me rules for mylife.
He's shown me how I'm supposedto live so that it would go well
for me, so that it would gowell for my sons, so that it
(37:37):
would go well for my grandsons.
And if I actually just do thesethings, I will actually have
success in these areas that I'mtrying to and I won't continue
to hit a wall.
My dad I say it all the timetended to be more structured and
oftentimes I felt like on myend it was more moralistic and
less gospel.
(37:57):
These are the rules.
Do a good job.
And it frustrated me growing upbecause I was like man where
was the gospel and all that?
And my dad was trying tocommunicate love by giving us
rules and things to follow along, because those were the things
that he did not have and thosewere the reasons his life was so
painful early on.
If you didn't have those rules,if you didn't have structure,
(38:19):
if you didn't have school, youdon't have people teaching you
the right things to do.
You don't value them unless youhaven't had them before.
So this is what I the analogy Ibrought up earlier the husband
builds the fence because thewolves are taking stuff away,
and if you haven't had thewolves take stuff away from you,
you don't value the fence whenit's there.
And when you stop seeing thewolves, then you start to get
(38:40):
angry at the fence.
But the reality is, if you knowthe heart of the person and
what happened and why the fenceis there, then you stop griping
about the fence and you rub yourhands against and say thank God
, this is here.
Whoever put this up must reallycare for me, and I think my dad
learned why the law, why therules, why God, what the
(39:01):
statements, the statutes, thecommandments, all these
different things, why they wereso valuable.
Because he had to live withthem long enough to realize that
you absolutely destroy yourlife if somebody doesn't help
provide the structure so thatyou actually walk it out.
Because if I'm making the rules, it goes badly, but when God
makes the rules, things actuallygo really well.
And so I learned kind of afterI got saved, I started to see
(39:22):
the heart of my dad and growingup it was really hard and I
could talk about you knowdifferent ways that I.
It could have been better orthis could have been done or
that could have been done.
My dad, for my entire life, wastrying to show me the value of
actually having rules, laws andstructure, because it was
something that he never had.
The greatest statement of loveI feel like my dad gave to me
and to my family is if you dothese things, this is the way
(39:43):
you should go, and if you gothis way and you don't depart
from it, it will go well for youbefore God He'll take care of
you.
And he was trying to display tome the heart of the father,
which is hey, if you do thesethings, if you walk this stuff
out, if you obey these rules, Iwant you to know it's going to
be so much better for you inyour life.
And these things are herebecause I love you, not because
I'm trying to capture you.
But unfortunately so often andthis is true in churches too
(40:08):
like first-generation churcheslove the gospel,
second-generation churchesassume the gospel and
third-generation churches hatethe gospel, because if you
haven't seen the wolves on theother side, you assume the
wolves are inside and it sucks.
It can blow stuff up in a hurry, and it sucks, it can blow
stuff up in a hurry.
So I guess I would just say foranybody out there listen, if you
understand this reallyimportant truth, that the reason
(40:31):
for the Ten Commandments andthe rules that God has given you
is because you have a fatherthat actually does love you and
wants to raise you up and teachyou the better way to live, then
maybe you would view thoserules a little bit different and
say okay, maybe I don't totallyunderstand this, it doesn't
make as much sense to me, but Itrust your heart, I trust your
hand and I trust that this is abetter way and I want to walk
(40:52):
that out.
It would go a lot better foreverybody.
And the more that we've tornthese things apart in our own
society, the more chaos, themore brokenness and the more
hurt that we've seen.
And everybody wants to startwriting their own set of rules,
but nobody wants to return backto the big 10 and really out of
the big 10, the one the Shema,the Lord, is one.
(41:16):
You got to serve him.
You got to start there.
Give your allegiance to him andnothing else.
Love him and then all the otherrules begin to make sense.
But if you don't get that oneright, you literally have
nothing and you'll be bankruptin your faith.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Nice, it's a lot to chew on yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
There you go, tim.
Take the meat and spit out thebone, not bad for one verse.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Huh, we did a couple today.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So I guess my heart for everybody would be this is
we're digging into the TenCommandments.
I would recommend, hey, whydon't you go and read them?
Dig into Exodus, chapter 20.
You're welcome to pick up thelist in Deuteronomy as well.
Read through them.
There is one difference thatwe'll get to when we talk about
the Sabbath, which I think isinteresting and worth bringing
up.
Oh, cool.
But I want you guys to startthinking and asking the question
(42:00):
how am I in my life fallingmore in love with Jesus?
How am I in my life fallingmore in love with Jesus?
Because if you're falling morein love with God, then what
happens is the rules start tomake more sense and you won't
struggle with trying to teardown fences because you'll trust
the fences that are there.
But if you're flirting withtearing fences down and you're
flirting with sin in your life,it's because you're forgetting
the heart of the father thatloves you and has put that there
(42:20):
for good reason.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Very true.
Let me ask you something realquick.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Still got some time.
I don't know if this is normalor if this is all that common,
but it's kind of been talking tosome people, man, who are just
kind of new believers within ayear or so.
Yeah, and, like you know,things were a lot easier a year
ago for me.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Is that common, like before someone becomes a
believer in God?
Totally Like.
Why is that?
I mean, these are people whodon't have jobs now, or their
marriage is now crumbling ortheir kids now hate them.
You know.
Like just difficult, difficultstuff.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah.
Yeah, it was hard for theIsraelites to get out of Egypt.
Yeah Right, it was hard forthem.
It was much they hated it inEgypt and they were ready to
leave.
But also, leaving Egypt is anextremely difficult process
until you get to the promisedland.
And then in the promised land,you have the difficulty of
actually maintaining thepromised land and not letting it
(43:17):
become Egypt.
But I would say, anybody whocomes to Christ immediately is
going to have wars to fight.
They're going to have red seasthat they're going to have to
walk through and they're goingto constantly be trying to
follow and make their way to aplace with God where at some
point it's David's kingdom youknow what I mean or Solomon's
kingdom.
It's like, man, we're good, wedid it, this is working, this is
(43:39):
cool, god's doing stuff.
But that's not a one-partprocess.
I would say when you leave Egypt, it actually starts kind of in
a war.
You're thrilled when God partsthe sea, but, man, there's a lot
of times where you're lookingback, trying to make an idol out
(44:00):
of your gold rings, trying tohope that sustains me because
he's been really quiet and mypastor's not really doing what
he's supposed to be doing.
He's not helping me, he's beensilent for forever.
And my pastor is not reallydoing what he's supposed to be
doing.
He's not helping me, he's beensilent for forever.
And you know, I just needsomething to get me out of this
situation.
And in those moments it's likeman God is calling you, say, hey
, do you trust my heart, do youtrust me in this?
And yeah, man it's not easiercoming to Christ, but it is
(44:20):
better.
It's not easier immediatelyhaving rules, but it is better
immediately having rules.
Nice, yeah.
So I would say, if somebody'scoming to Christ earlier on in
their life and they're like, orcame to Christ recently and is
like, you know, it got a lotharder for me, I'd be like yeah,
yeah, that's what it's likewhen you leave slavery.
Prison's easy because they payfor all your meals and it's the
(44:43):
same system every day and you dothe same stuff and you hated it
there.
What's really hard isacclimating and get back into
real life.
And a lot of people are stuckin kind of a spiritual Stockholm
syndrome, where they love thesin and the thing that was
enslaving them and they have areally hard time getting to a
place where they're living theway that a normal person should,
because their affections havebeen so jacked up and misaligned
(45:05):
that they're having to learnwhat a new, actual, functional
life looks like.
And then your desire is toteach your kids to never go back
to what you were a part of, butyou're also keeping in the back
of your head that man Satancomes to steal, kill and destroy
and his goal is to geteverybody back into Egypt.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
So yeah, right on, thanks, man Right on Well,
praying for you guys.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
I hope you guys will dig into the 10 commandments
with us.
We'll start walking throughthese one at a time, and I hope
it just blesses you.
Be thinking about the goodthings that God's been doing in
your life.
Think about what he saved youfrom what he saved you to what
he saved you for, and then startthinking about the good things
that he's placed in your lifethe laws, the wisdom, the rules
that he's placed for you so thatwe would live better.
And as we look at our worldtoday, as we look at the
(45:49):
election that we're having, welook at the chaos that's ensuing
in so many different places.
Every time we see a law, aprecept, a testimony of God,
what I want you to see is anexpression of the love of God
for his children that he hasadopted and put his laid his
life down for to save you.
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