Delivered on September 25, 2005, Melana

discusses "Rules and Grace"  We hope you enjoy

reading her sermons and wish you would

join us each Sunday to hear the

new one in person.

 

Rules and Grace                                         Ex. 20:1-17 & Phil. 3:4b-14

How many of you learned the Ten Commandments by heart when you were a child?

How many of you learned the Beatitudes by heart?

        By the time I was in elementary school, the philosophy of education was that memorization was not something to encourage.  That carried over into church education and consequently most of my generation does not know the Ten Commandments by heart -  We might have a general idea of what the commandments are - We at least know that you are not supposed to steal or kill or commit adultery - oh, and the one our parents drilled into us, despite the current philosophy of education - Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.

        This morning we are going to look at the rules that define our faith and at the grace that inspires our faith and how we work them together.  Rules and grace cannot really be separated - one flows from the other and the beginning and end can never be discovered.

I would ask you to open your Bibles to take a look at this point.

        The Ten Commandments can be found in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5.  Both sets of commandments tell the people first about grace, then about law.  They both begin by saying, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."  The commandments were given by the God who loved the people enough to use Moses to help them escape the slavery and oppression of the Egyptian people - that is pure grace at work.

Grace and love first, then the list of rules.

        The rules themselves are a reminder of God's love for us.  Look at verse 11 in Exodus 20.  The reason we are to keep the Sabbath is because God, himself, rested after the creation of the world.  This is a reminder in the midst of the list of rules that the God who is giving these rules is the God of all things - the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

        Now look at verse 15 in Deuteronomy 5, the giver of the commandments is the redeemer of the people from their oppression in Egypt.  God loved the people enough to save them from their bondage, now God is asking them to listen to these rules and learn to live by them.

The Ten Commandments are not merely a long list of "Thou shalt nots" -

        They are rules for living that are undergirded by God's grace and love.  The first four commandments address our relationship with God.  The last six commandments address our relationship with other people.  The laws of our nation stem from these Ten Commandments that outline right behavior.

        There is a Frank & Ernest cartoon showing the two in front of a wall of bookshelves in the Law Library.   Frank is saying to Ernest, It's frightening when you think that we started out with just 10 commandments.  If we were actually able to follow the commandments, the world would be a much better place.

        Some are easier to follow than others for most of us - we don't really have to think about not murdering, but the one about coveting is pretty hard sometimes.  We find ourselves wanting more than we have often, especially when we watch TV and see everything there is to have. 

        Our society uses material possessions as a status marker and we easily buy into that - pun intended.  The Jews in Jesus' day believed that if they could keep the law for one whole day, the Messiah would come.  We believe that the Messiah came because we are unable to keep the law - 

            Even for one day.

        Which brings us to the Philippians passage that we read this morning.  Paul was a Pharisee, a teacher of the law.  He knew the laws and tried to keep them, and felt righteous because of it.  He knows why God gave the law and after his conversion, he knows why the law was inadequate and Christ had to come to redeem us.  Paul tells the church in Philippi that our righteousness comes from Christ and from God's grace, not from anything we can do ourselves.

        We come back to the same refrain - grace is freely given, we cannot earn it, we do not deserve it, it is freely given.  Once we claim that grace and love shown to us in Jesus Christ, then we are different people and we want to live different lives.  That is when the law can help us determine how best to live our lives.  By grace we can begin to understand that our relationship with God and our relationships with others become part of our response to God's grace in our own lives.  By grace we begin to follow the law out of love, not out of duty.

That changes everything.

        Grace and law must go hand in hand.  When we err too much on one or the other, we are out of balance.  This is perhaps easiest to see when we talk about raising children.

        Children need boundaries, they need rules, they even want those rules and boundaries.

        Children who do not have rules and boundaries, do not seem to understand that grace comes with responsibility.  Children whose parents rule with an iron hand and very little grace, do not know grace in their lives and find it difficult to show.  Grace and law must go hand in hand - when children know boundaries and forgiveness, law and grace, they grow to be responsible children who can share love and grace with others.

        The same is true for all Christians - we cannot simply throw out the law because Jesus came.  We need the guidelines for right living with God and others that the Ten Commandments provide.  I do not want to enter the fray of arguments about whether the Ten Commandments should be allowed to be posted in schools and court buildings - that would be a whole different discussion.  But I do know that we have, in the United States, lost a sense of respect for others that would be a natural offshoot of following God's law that is given in love.

        Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself - Jesus said this was the crux of all the law and the prophets.  If we could follow this, it could mean a great difference in the world.  Teachers in public school know better than most the cost of this loss of respect.  Schools are now doing the work that belongs in the home and church,  teaching values and respect, because so many children do not learn it otherwise.

        The time is the 1950s. The place is a British colony near the equator. As in most colonies near the equator, making cement is an important enterprise. Buildings built with cement last. There termites do not eat cement.   Remember: Near the equator, you have two seasons. One is wet season when it rains almost constantly for a few months. The other is dry season when there is no rain for a few months.

        At a major cement plant in this British colony, every dry season the British administrator formed a work detail to sweep the cement dust off the roof at the end of the day. It was hot, filthy, hated work. Every week he told the work detail, "Your job is the most important job we have."

        No one liked that job. No one wanted to do that job. And no one thought that job was important.

        Now the time is the 1960s. That British colony is now an independent nation. The cement plant is still a very important enterprise. The first dry season begins, and no one wants the job of sweeping the roof. So that job is eliminated. Everyone is certain that it is not important. And through the dry months cement dust builds up on the roof to a depth of several inches.

        Rainy season begins. With the first rains the dust turns to stone, and the roof collapses. Sweeping the dust off the roof during dry season was important ....

        Obedience begins by obeying God's two greatest commandments: loving God, and loving people. If Christian obedience is not based on loving God and expressed in loving people, the roof falls in.

-David Chadwell, "How could I say that?" April 30, 2000, West-Ark Church of Christ Web Site, westarkchurchofchrist.org.

        Law and grace go hand in hand - when we lose either, the roof will fall in.  We come to the Table this morning as a reminder of God's amazing grace.  We are fed and renewed and called to respond to that love - 

        By loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind –

            And our neighbor as ourselves.

 

© Melana Scruggs 2005

 

 

  

     

    

 

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