Starting Point: Role of Rules

Practically speaking, rules are often the centerpiece of religious life. Many people think the Ten Commandments are rules that make a relationship with God possible. If you follow the rules, God will be happy. If you don’t, he won’t. But what if a relationship with God doesn’t depend on our obedience? When it comes to your relationship with God, what is the role of rules? Why do we have so many rules in religion? Have you ever thought about it? I mean, if you think about it, it’s probably why we want to rebel against religion. Here’s what the Apostle Paul says about rules in religion, “It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.” (Romans 7:21-23). Let’s just be very honest about it. Every time you have a rule put on you, you think of ways you can break that rule and not get caught! My parents had a rule when my brother and I got lots of cavities because we didn’t brush our teeth at night—that we needed to brush our teeth before bed. But they didn’t say that you couldn’t eat cookies in bed after you brushed your teeth. That’s exactly what we did until we had to go to the dentist for fillings. I know its funny, but you didn’t have to go sit in the dentist chair in the early 90s when the dentist equipment was bigger than your mouth and sometimes the equipment malfunctioned and smoke started coming out of your mouth. The agonizing pain! I still have nightmares about it. I learned one thing about rules though, rules assume there is some type of relationship. Write that down. There are three types of rules–

• Family – when a family makes rules, it’s not a condition to be a part of the family. They have the rules for you after you were born and after you were a part of the family. They didn’t make up the rules to make your life harder. They made them because they love you. Like my family had a rule—try your hardest in everything you do and if you fail, then try harder. There was no reason to ever accept second best.
• Club – these are rules that people have to follow to belong to a club. For example, a fraternity or sorority or a country club or academic club. You have to meet the conditions of the rules in order to belong.
• Neighborhood association – or my least favorite, a neighborhood association—have to follow a set of rules whether or not you like them or you have to move! You can’t even exist if you don’t follow their rules. It’s so silly.

Today, we’re going to talk about a set of rules. Those rules are probably the starting point of our faith. Or at least, our first introduction to rules in Christianity. I would talk about other rules in religions and societies, but they don’t really apply to us the same way. The Ten Commandments is the third oldest set of laws ever written in human history. This is a fact. Here’s the funny thing about the Ten Commandments—everybody knows about them, but very few people know them. Here’s a test: are the Ten Commandments in the Bible? (Yes). Where are they? (Exodus 20). Okay, harder question, who can name all Ten Commandments? It’s pretty clear that nobody here knows all Ten Commandments. You might know two at most three, but definitely not ten. That’s okay. If you’re not familiar with how the Ten Commandments came about, let me tell you the story of the Exodus. Abraham had a son named Isaac, who had a son named Jacob, who had a son named Joseph, who was the prime minister of Egypt. Then there was a famine and all of Joseph’s family moved to Egypt. Then slowly the Israelites became slaves in Egypt and for 400 years they suffered. One day, a man named Moses came into the picture—he was a prince of Egypt, but also an Israelite. He delivers his people out of slavery by the hand of God (the plagues) and on Mount Sinai, God gives the nation of Israel the Ten Commandments. He gives them the Ten Commandments as a confirmation to them that they are His people. Thus the Ten Commandments provides evidence of their relationship with God. Let’s go to Exodus 20.

And God spoke all these words: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The first four commandments are simple: they establish signs between people and God about the relationship between people and God. Verse 2 says that “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt…” Verse 3, the first commandment says, “no other gods before me.” Then He says in verse 5, “I am a jealous God.” Write this down: We have a personal relationship with God that cannot be denied. God doesn’t say these things as if they are conditions of God being your God. He says that because He is your God, these things become evidence in my life and your life that He is your God. This is why we come to church on Sundays – because we work all day and on Sunday, we come to church because it is holy and because at church, with our brothers and sisters we set ourselves apart as holy for God. The next six commandments are not conditions either, they are confirmation to the rest of the world about what happens in society when we are in relationship with God, because God is our God. We:

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

When God is our God there are signs to the rest of the world of how we live that reflect that relationship. You see, it’s because we are God’s family that we do not murder. It is because we are God’s family that we do not steal. It is because we are God’s family that we do not lie. We do not do these things because in God’s family nobody does that to each other. These rules don’t limit our freedom, they make us free from these things happening to us. Just imagine a world where people don’t get robbed; where people don’t say bad things about us; where people don’t have to be jealous of anybody because they have everything they’ve ever imagined having? What an amazing place! The problem is that we see these commandments and recognize that there is something missing – like we can never get there, that something always goes wrong. I know it and you know it, every time you want to do something right and in the law, you’re stuck breaking the rule. Not because you want to, but because you have to, or you just don’t know why you do. Thank God Jesus came down to Earth. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. You’re going to realize that you were not smitted by God for breaking rules, you were gently disciplined to come closer. In fact, you’ll realize that when you did break these rules, God drew you a little closer to Him through Jesus. The reason for that is simple. God’s message in these rules is simple: I want you to trust me. This is a family model. God has these rules because He loves you. We were part of His family because of Jesus and He has these rules to protect you from what life shouldn’t be. That’s why we have these rules. We can trust in God because these rules were all about the best for us. ²⁰Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”