Love God And Love Your Neighbor : 4th Commandment Series

Intro

Open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20 today as we continue our Summer Series entitled “Love God , Love your Neighbor” We are examining the 10 Commandments—God’s moral law—while focusing on Jesus is summary of the commandments found in the New Testament Gospels. The commandments teach us about God identity. They also serve guide us, to correct us, to protect us and most importantly, point us to our need for a Savior. God sent Jesus to fulfill the law by keeping it perfectly for us. And His life and words help us bring more clarity to God’s commands. It is through the biblical record of Jesus’ life we see the truest meaning and depth of God’s commands.

Jesus summarized the commandments when He was asked this question.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:36-39)

Jesus teaches us here that the 10 commandments are easily understood as “Love God” and “Love Your Neighbor” So we have taken the first four commands and focus them on our worship to God

and then we take commandments 5-10 and focus them on our mission. Jesus serves as our perfect example of what it means to love God with all our heart, mind and soul. He worshiped God with His whole heart, His mind was set on His Father’s mission and soul was surrendered to the Father’s plan of redemption for His people. He also serves as our perfect example of what it means to love our neighbor. His love for his neighbor goes so deep that He willing gave His life for us.

Today we come to the 4th commandment.

In a sermon is entitled: Worship: God’s Rest is Holy

If you're able we stand as we open up God's word today? I pray that you will hear the word of the Lord.

READ FROM THE BIBLE

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)

PRAY

The big truth is: Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Christ. The rest we find in Jesus is unlike any other rest. It is a holy rest.

We come to the fourth commandment and it is important to keep in mind the context which it is written.

The book of Exodus begins with several generations of God’s people in enslaved in Egypt. They were under the iron-fist of Pharaoh and his guards.God remembers His covenant with Israel and they are delivered out of Egypt by Moses. Moses leads them through the impassable sea toward the promised land in Canaan. This was a place given to the people of God where they could be free to worship the One true God. It was along this journey that God give Moses the moral law—the ten commandments.

The commandments begin to combat the polytheistic nature—of worshipping multiple gods—that His people adopted from the Egyptians.So He began with the first commandment saying there is the One true God and they are not to have any gods before him. The second was they were not to create or fashion an image of God to worship as God. Rather God desires a true and personal relationship with His people. The third command was that they were to keep the name of the Lord their God Holy. God’s people who were used to serving many gods with many names. How easy was it for them to bring the make of the LORD common or powerless like their Egyptian gods. So God’s gives us His name. It is a holy and powerful name that is above every other name. Therefore we are to not take it in vain.

Now we come to the 4th commandment. Where God speaks and says;

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God." (Exodus 20:8-10)

God commanded in Exodus 16 that they where to work for 6 days

And on the sixth day God commanded the Israelites to rest. He promised that He would provide a double portion of food on the sixth day so they would have enough food on the Sabbath day. And here God says to remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. The word holy here means to set apart, to consecrate. The word consecrate means to make something sacred. So this day God was commanding His people to make this day more sacred than the others. Set it apart for God and keep it holy.