Commanded To Function Series

We continue in our series dare to be different and this month our theme is different function.

The word Function is a Noun and it means an activity that is natural to or the purpose of a person or thing.

So for this all-age service what I want us to think about is the function that God has commanded all of us to have.

Something that perhaps is not natural or easy to some of us, but it is both an activity and a purpose each of us should demonstrate in our everyday lives.

What am I talking about? In Leviticus 11:45 God commands, “you must be holy because I am holy”.

“Be holy” What does “holy” mean?

It means “set aside for a relationship with God”

It means “belonging to God”

It means following God’s commandments and rules.

It means living in a way that we know and others know we are God’s children and we belong to Him.

“Be Holy”

In Bible Times God gave His people a list of commandments to help them function in a different way to the many other people in the world.

Listen to Exodus 20:1-17 in the Message paraphrase of the Bible,

God spoke all these words: I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.No other gods, only me. No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of His name. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; He rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; He set it apart as a holy day. Honour your father and mother so that you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you. No murder. No adultery. No stealing. No lies about your neighbour. No lusting after your neighbour’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbour’s.

So what have we discovered so far?:

God commands us, His people, to be Holy.

Because we belong to God He has told us how to function, how to live in the correct way.

Belonging to God means living differently from the other people who live around us.

Living in God’s way.

Keeping God’s Commandments.

Obeying God’s commandments so our lives show who we belong to.

When we live the way God has told us to live we show other people what God is like.

When we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, all of our sins are forgiven.

We are adopted into God’s family, we become His children and we experience Him blessing us.

God has given us the Ten Commandments so that we can live and behave in a way that shows we love and trust God.

We must be holy because God is holy.

In Bible times, it seems like the Israelites often forgot they belonged to God.

The Bible speaks many times about people who failed to function the way that God expected them to function.

People who filed to keep the Ten commandments, people who failed to live as followers of God.

The good news is that although the people made God sad by what they did, God did not give up on His people.

God still loved and cared for His people and wanted to be in a real relationship with them.

God spoke to His people through one of the prophets, a man called Jeremiah; God said that a day was coming when He would make a new agreement with people.

God would call a people to belong to Him and instead of writing His commands on tablets of stone, He would write them on people’s hearts.

That day began when Jesus came two thousand years ago.

Jesus called people to follow Him, to become His disciples, His followers.