1 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep 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; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. 12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that 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 bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” 21 Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. [NRSA]
“When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Moses 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.” The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” [NIV] Exodus 20:18-21
“To Keep You From Sinning”
Scripture: Exodus 20:1–21
Key Verse. “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.”
— Exodus 20:20
Introduction: The God Who Sets Us Free
When most people hear the words “Ten Commandments,” they immediately think about rules.
Do this.
Don’t do that.
Keep this.
Avoid that.
And if we are not careful, we can read Exodus 20 as though God simply handed Israel a list of restrictions designed to make life harder.
But notice what God says before He gives a single commandment:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
That changes everything.
God does not begin with, “Here are the rules you must obey so that I will save you.”
He begins with, “I have already saved you.”
Grace comes before the commandments.
Deliverance comes before obedience.
God rescued Israel from Pharaoh, brought them through the Red Sea, provided for them in the wilderness, and then brought them to Mount Sinai. And now God says, in effect, “Since I have set you free, let me show you how free people ought to live.”
The commandments are not chains designed to enslave Israel.
They are boundaries designed to keep Israel from returning to another kind of slavery.
And near the end of our passage, Moses explains the purpose:
“God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
That is our theme today.
God gives His people boundaries because He loves them.
1. God’s Commands Begin With God’s Grace
Before God tells Israel what they should do, God reminds them of what He has already done.
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.”
Imagine an Israelite standing at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Not long before, that person had been a slave.
Pharaoh determined when they worked. Pharaoh determined how hard they worked. Pharaoh controlled their lives.
But Pharaoh no longer owned them.
God had set them free.
And now the God who rescued them was teaching them how to live.
That distinction matters because Christianity can easily become nothing more than a list of religious obligations.
Go to church.
Read your Bible.
Pray.
Give.
Serve.
Behave yourself.
Don’t do certain things.
But the Christian faith does not begin with what we do for God.
It begins with what God has done for us.
Illustration: The Rescued Swimmer
Imagine someone drowning in the ocean. A lifeguard swims out, pulls that person from the water, carries them onto the shore, and saves their life.
Afterward, the lifeguard says, “You need to stay away from that dangerous current.”
Would the rescued person respond, “Why are you trying to control my life?”
Probably not.
The warning comes from the one who just saved them.
God is saying to Israel, “You know who I am. I am the One who brought you out. Now trust Me when I tell you how to live.”
And that is still the foundation of Christian obedience.
We do not obey God in order to make God love us.
We seek to obey because God has already loved us.
2. The First Commandments Put God in His Proper Place
The first commandments concern our relationship with God.
“You shall have no other gods before me.”
“You shall not make for yourself an image.”
“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.”
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”
Before God addresses murder, adultery, stealing, lying, or coveting, He addresses worship.
Why?
Because what occupies first place in our hearts eventually shapes everything else in our lives.
Israel lived in a world filled with idols. Every surrounding nation had its gods.
We may look at ancient idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold and think, “We don’t have that problem anymore.”
Maybe our idols simply look different.
An idol is anything we allow to occupy the place that belongs to God.
Money can become an idol.
Success can become an idol.
Career can become an idol.
Politics can become an idol.
Sports can become an idol.
Even family can become an idol if we ask our family to provide the ultimate meaning and security that only God can provide.
The question is not merely, “Do I own a statue that I worship?”
The deeper question is:
What has first place in my heart?
Illustration: The Compass
A compass can be off by only a few degrees and not seem terribly wrong at first.
If you are walking across a room, a tiny error makes almost no difference.
But travel for miles with that same error and you can end up far from where you intended to go.
The same is true spiritually.
When God is displaced from the center of our lives, we may not notice the consequences immediately.
But eventually everything else begins drifting.
Our priorities drift.
Our relationships drift.
Our values drift.
Our decisions drift.
God says, “You shall have no other gods before me,” not because God is insecure, but because God knows that when the center is wrong, everything else eventually gets out of place.
3. God Gives Us Sabbath Because We Are More Than What We Produce
The fourth commandment deserves special attention:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”
For six days Israel was to work, but the seventh belonged to the Lord.
Think about how extraordinary that must have sounded to former slaves.
In Egypt, their value had been measured by production.
Make more bricks.
Work harder.
Produce more.
Pharaoh even took away the straw while demanding the same quota of bricks.
But God says:
Stop.
Rest.
Worship.
Remember who you are.
Your worth is not measured by how many bricks you produce.
That message may be more relevant than ever.
We live in a culture that constantly tells us to do more, accomplish more, earn more, build more, and become more.
And God still reminds us that there are times when we need to stop and remember:
I am not simply what I produce. I belong to God.
Illustration: The Field That Never Rests
Farmers have long understood that land cannot simply be demanded from endlessly without consequence.
Soil needs replenishment.
A field that is constantly depleted eventually produces less, not more.
Human beings are not machines either.
God created rhythms of work and rest, labor and worship.
Sabbath reminds us that the world continues turning even when we stop working.
That requires faith.
When we rest, we are quietly confessing:
“God is God, and I am not.”
4. Loving God Must Change How We Treat People
The commandments then turn toward our relationships with one another.
“Honor your father and your mother.”
“You shall not murder.”
“You shall not commit adultery.”
“You shall not steal.”
“You shall not give false testimony.”
“You shall not covet.”
Notice the movement.
Our relationship with God cannot be separated from how we treat other people.
We cannot claim to love God while treating people as though they have no value.
God cares about life.
God cares about marriage.
God cares about property.
God cares about truth.
God cares about families.
God cares about our neighbors.
And Jesus would later summarize the law with two great commandments: love God and love your neighbor.
Illustration: The Cross
Think about the shape of the cross.
There is a vertical beam and a horizontal beam.
The vertical reminds us of our relationship with God.
The horizontal reminds us of our relationship with one another.
You cannot really have the cross without both.
Our faith reaches upward toward God and outward toward our neighbor.
What happens in this sanctuary on Sunday should affect what happens in our homes on Monday.
It should affect how we speak to people.
How we conduct business.
How we handle disagreements.
How we treat our spouses.
How we treat strangers.
How we speak about someone when they are not in the room.
Godliness is never merely vertical.
Love for God must become visible in love for people.
5. The Last Commandment Goes Straight to the Heart
The tenth commandment is different from many of the others:
“You shall not covet.”
Murder can be seen.
Stealing can be discovered.
False testimony can be heard.
But coveting happens inside us.
Someone can obey nine commandments outwardly while violating the tenth privately.
Coveting says:
“I would be happy if I had what they have.”
Their house.
Their money.
Their marriage.
Their career.
Their opportunities.
Their recognition.
Their life.
And suddenly we stop thanking God for what He has given us because we are consumed with what He has given somebody else.
Illustration: Looking at Someone Else’s Plate
Imagine sitting at a wonderful meal.
Your plate is full.
The food is good.
There is more than enough.
But instead of enjoying your meal, you spend the entire time staring at the plate of the person sitting beside you.
“Their piece looks bigger.”
“They got something I didn’t get.”
“Why did they get that?”
Before long, you have forgotten how good your own meal is.
That is what comparison does to gratitude.
Coveting makes us stare so long at someone else’s blessings that we stop seeing our own.
The command against coveting is God’s invitation to say:
“Lord, teach me to be grateful for what You have entrusted to me.”
6. The Fear of God Is Meant to Draw Us Toward Holiness
Then something dramatic happens.
There is thunder.
Lightning.
Smoke covers the mountain.
The trumpet sounds.
The mountain trembles.
And the people are terrified.
They back away and tell Moses:
“Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
And Moses gives what initially sounds like a contradiction:
“Do not be afraid.”
Then he says:
“God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
Do not be afraid—but fear God.
Moses is distinguishing terror from reverence.
God does not want His people running from Him in hopeless terror.
But neither does He want them treating Him casually.
There should be awe.
Reverence.
Holy respect.
The recognition that God is God.
Illustration: Fire
Think about fire.
Fire can warm a house.
Fire can cook food.
Fire can provide light.
But nobody who understands fire treats it carelessly.
You respect it because you understand its power.
The problem is not that the fire is evil.
The problem comes when we forget what we are dealing with.
Sometimes we become so comfortable talking about God as our friend that we forget He is also holy.
The God who loves us is the God before whom mountains tremble.
The God who invites us into His presence is still the Lord of heaven and earth.
And Moses says that reverence serves a purpose:
“To keep you from sinning.”
7. God’s Boundaries Are There Because Sin Enslaves
There is something beautifully ironic about this chapter.
God has just delivered Israel from slavery.
Now He gives commandments intended to keep them from becoming enslaved again.
Not necessarily enslaved to Pharaoh.
But enslaved to something else.
Sin.
Because sin always promises freedom while eventually producing bondage.
The commandments say:
Don’t become enslaved to idols.
Don’t become enslaved to greed.
Don’t become enslaved to dishonesty.
Don’t become enslaved to lust.
Don’t become enslaved to jealousy.
Don’t become enslaved to hatred.
Don’t become enslaved to endless work.
Don’t become enslaved to wanting what everyone else has.
Illustration: The Guardrail
Think about a guardrail along a mountain road.
Nobody drives along the mountain complaining:
“That guardrail is restricting my freedom!”
The guardrail is there because beyond it is danger.
You are free to travel the road precisely because there are boundaries protecting you from going over the edge.
God’s commandments are guardrails.
We sometimes look at God’s commands and ask:
“Why can’t I?”
Perhaps a better question is:
“What is God protecting me from?”
God knows where certain roads lead.
And because He loves His children, He warns us before we reach the cliff.
8. The Commandments Ultimately Show Us Our Need for Grace
There is one final truth we cannot miss.
If Exodus 20 simply means, “Keep these commandments perfectly and everything will be fine,” then every one of us is in trouble.
Because we have all failed.
Maybe we have never murdered anyone, but Jesus tells us to examine our anger.
Maybe we have never stolen something valuable, but what about dishonesty?
Maybe we have never bowed before a golden idol, but what has occupied God’s place in our hearts?
And who among us can say that we have never coveted?
The commandments do not merely show us how righteous people should live.
They also reveal how desperately sinful people need grace.
The law becomes a mirror.
Illustration: The Mirror
Suppose you look into a mirror one morning and discover dirt on your face.
The mirror has done something useful.
It has shown you the problem.
But you would never take the mirror off the wall and start rubbing it against your face trying to get clean.
The mirror reveals the dirt.
It cannot remove it.
God’s law reveals something about us.
It shows us God’s holiness.
It shows us God’s standard.
And it shows us how far we have fallen short.
That realization should lead us not into despair, but toward Christ.
The God who gave the commandments is also the God who provides grace.
Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
He forgives.
He restores.
He changes hearts.
And through the Holy Spirit, God begins forming within us the kind of life His commandments describe.
Conclusion: The God Behind the Commandments
So perhaps when we read the Ten Commandments, we should hear more than:
“You shall.”
“You shall not.”
We should hear the heart of a Father saying:
“I love you too much to let sin destroy you.”
Don’t worship idols—they cannot save you.
Don’t misuse My name—remember who I am.
Remember the Sabbath—you were not created merely to produce.
Honor your family—relationships matter.
Don’t murder—life is sacred.
Don’t commit adultery—covenants matter.
Don’t steal—your neighbor matters.
Don’t lie—truth matters.
Don’t covet—learn to trust My provision.
These commandments come from the God who begins by saying:
“I brought you out of slavery.”
And He does not want His people going back.
Invitation: Come Out of the Slavery of Sin
Perhaps today there is a commandment that has touched something in your life.
Perhaps something else has taken God’s place.
Perhaps there is bitterness you have carried.
Perhaps there is dishonesty that needs to be confessed.
Perhaps there is envy that has stolen your gratitude.
Perhaps there is a relationship that needs healing.
Perhaps there is simply an area where you know you have wandered beyond God’s boundaries.
Remember why those boundaries are there.
Not because God wants to take life away from you.
Because God wants to lead you into life.
Moses told the people:
“God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
The same God who tells us to turn away from sin also invites us to come near.
And when we come to Him through Christ, we do not come pretending that we have perfectly kept every commandment.
We come confessing that we haven’t.
We come needing mercy.
We come needing forgiveness.
We come needing grace.
And grace is exactly what God offers.
So as we come to this time of invitation, ask yourself:
Is there something from which God is trying to set me free?
Maybe God’s command is not a wall keeping you from something good.
Maybe it is a guardrail keeping you from something that will destroy you.
And maybe today is the day to trust the One who brought His people out of slavery.
The One who still sets captives free.
The One who still forgives sinners.
The One who still calls us to holiness.
And the One who loves us enough to give us His Word—
to keep us from sinning, come to the table of grace.
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