A gift given in love - The Commandments
Sermon Summary - Rev Brian McConkey
It was not unusual for the 10 commandments to be painted either side of the wall of a church. You knew exactly where you stood, the 10 commandments are foundational. The confirmation classes at the moment are studying different parts of a course called “pilgrim”. One is about the 10 commandments.
When I went to Sunday school when I was younger I simply had a catechism book. I had to know the 10 Commandments. In lent we will still go through the 10 Commandments in our morning communion services.
The 10 commandments came after thousands of other commandments that the Jews had to follow, but unlike these other rules the commandments were different. The ten commandments were not conditional, they were very bold.
They sometimes stop people joining the church when they hear that they must not do things.
One commentator tells me the tablets were given as a gift to Moses, as people will give gifts to their mothers on Mothering Sunday. It was a gift of love and gifts are given in love. Imagine a gift that someone gives without liking them, a gift is after all an act of love.
Love from God gives us the 10 commandments out of his great love. Even though the 10 commandments are bold and tell us exactly what we need to do they are good for the laws of this country are based on the 10 commandments.
I was reading a book entitled keep “taking those tablets tablets.” Tablets help people to get better. Gods love in the form of 10 commandments written on tablets is very much the same thing, they are there to keep us healthy spiritually.
please keep taking the tablets.
People can also be very self-righteous, but we need to put the bible in the light of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice.
Jesus summarised the laws into two important ones.
Matthew 22:37-40
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. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
If we really hold our lives up against these commandments can anyone hold their hand up and say I am completely innocent. This reading is given to us through Lent, so that we can measure ourselves against the ten commandments, and Jesus’ two.
God loves us because He wants us to love him.
Keep taking the tablets.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen
