Deeper: S3, E10 - Filled

As we think through the final in our season about the 10 commandments, we see that all that follows in this 10-strong, world-famous list is the way to accomplish number 1.  If faith communities across the planet lived more and more like this - how abundant would the world be?  How much stronger would faith and life and love be?  So - be inspired as we engage with the first commandment in the list of 10.

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Hi there and congratulations. If you haven't just jumped in straight to this episode, then you have been backing up courageously with us as we have thought through the Ten Commandments from Ten to 1. And we've been opening up the promise of Jesus that abundant life waits for anyone who believes in him. So in this, the final episode called Filled, we're going to look at the first commandment to not have any other gods except Yahweh. We're going to see that all of the other commandments really answer this one command and that they all really represent things that come in the way of our life to worship God. Then we're going to remember just what worshiping God is all about before we conclude with a blessing. And because I live on the Isle of Man, we're going to have that final blessing in both English and Manx Gaelic. So brace for impact. This is filled. Father God, as we look for the final time at what it means to have this abundant life you say believers are going to have, I pray that you will help us to have the courage to put down things we might already think and feel about how we live and who you are. Help us to lay them all at your feet and to re-examine our beliefs and practices in the light of what you might be saying to us. Help us to weigh up what's being said in the podcast, to take what comes from you and to leave behind anything that doesn't. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Right, this this is amazing stuff in here about this first commandment. But the Ten Commandments doesn't just randomly break into this list of ten rules. It starts with like this statement from God about what He's just done for them and with them. So he prefaces the whole list with, I am the Lord your God, which is actually I am Yahweh your God, and we'll look at that in a minute, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of your slavery. So that's Exodus chapter 20, verse 2. And the commandments start from verse 3. So what he what he's wanting everyone he's talking to to remember from the word go is that they were all slaves in Egypt, and then through this very dramatic, overtly supernatural set of ten plagues, which you may remember from the story of Moses, then walking them miraculously through the Red Sea with a wall of water on their left and a wall of water on their right, and also fighting on their behalf like a with this tornado of fire that keeps the Egyptians at bay and a bunch of other stuff as well. God is like, you're no longer slaves. I fought for you, I rescued you from slavery. Now here's how to stay free. And as a Christian, uh I have to remember that God's done exactly the same for the whole world through the life and the ministry of Jesus. More signs than you can shake a stick at, and then this incredible death and resurrection, where we go through this thing that we can't make ourselves, this way to God. Uh, and that's now here's how we also stay free. Plus, he uses this word, your he says, I am your God. That's also really important. It's not just a throwaway word, because the the idea that almost everyone in the ancient Near East world had was that gods lived in like an area. And when you moved into an area, you inhabit a new place, then you you come into the presence of the God who lives there, and you have to find out what kind of sacrifices and stuff they want and give it to them, otherwise you incur their wrath and their wrath burns against you. But Yahweh, the one who eternally is, he says to the Hebrews, I am your God. The place I inhabit is wherever you are, and that is revolutionary. So what follows is all about the promise that God is making to stay with them and to be their God and how they can remain in freedom, the in abundance, in other words. So we hit that all-important first commandment to not have any other gods before Yahweh, no other spiritual beings in place of him. We worship him alone. Now, just to be clear, when the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, uses the word worship, it's almost always, not in every occasion, but almost always referring to our lives rather than to like an event in time. Worshiping God is not about going to a church service, although sometimes it can feel that way. All the way through the New Testament and the Old Testament, worship is defined as our lived out response to the goodness and the acceptance and the testimony of God. It's living life with a spiritual posture that's directed towards God and outworked through the ways that we care for creation, the way we address human need, and the way that we bring faith into reach for everybody around us. So we caretake the planet, we love God, and we love people. This represents God. This is how we carry God with us. That's what the Ten Commandments have been all about. It's a summary of how to do commandment one: worship only God and bring everything in our lives into alignment with that one goal. And this whole thing works not because we're afraid that this God we worship is going to smite us if we don't give him the correct sacrifices every day. It works because of who God is. Time and time again I have seen this as I've walked alongside people who enter into faith feeling maybe broken or bruised or battered or betrayed, and as they grow to know and trust God more and more, and just be those carriers of his name and his presence that we're designed to be, I watch God heal them in body and mind and spirit. There's this metamorphosis into all of the best of who they were created to be. They leave behind the things that are harmful, whether that's unforgiveness or arrogance or pride or greed or hatred or lust or addiction or anything else, and they walk forwards into this beautiful open landscape of the possibilities that God brings about. For loads of us who are following Jesus today, this process is this lifelong, brilliant, grace-filled process, which is challenging, but we are so glad that we left everything and we took up this call to follow. Yes. So God lays out before us in the Ten Commandments this list of things that He knows, enslave and capture us. He says basically, don't don't live like this. You were slaves, now stop being slaves. These are the things that do not represent me. So when you do these things, you stop representing me too. You stop carrying my name and you drag my reputation and my presence through the mud with you. And the list is a list of things that most of the planet agree are rubbish. Avoid reducing God to anything less than the fullness of who he is. Avoid misusing God's authority and avoid dragging his name through the mud. Avoid overworking and depending on your own efforts and live inside this Sabbath rest of peace. Honor your parents and make sure you care for them and treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve. Avoid murder and hatred and judgmentalism and unhealthy anger and unforgiveness. Avoid dehumanizing people in your physical relationships. Avoid theft of any kind and how that leaves people feeling. Avoid dragging other people through the dirt, especially in legal matters, and avoid materialism taking over your lives. I mean, who doesn't want to live by a list like that? And what we're supposed to do with these Ten Commandments is flip them into positives, where we create faith communities which do the following things, which grow to know God in all of his fullness with our spirits and in truth, which carry God's name with honor and respect and vibrancy and purpose. Can you imagine a whole community of people living constantly inside that Sabbath rest of peace and forgiveness, who honour not just their parents but all the generations above them, who protect the vulnerable and live in forgiveness and grace, who treat each other as holy and precious in our physical relationships, a community of people who create other communities that are strong and safe, who speak with honesty and positivity about each other, and who avoid the ease with which materialism takes over our lives. We are content with what we have and we work for freedom. I mean, if we did those nine things, that's how we worship God. And ultimately, we remember that that it's God who is humanity's creator, both as a whole planet of people for all of time, and personally for us, for our personal soul. There's a psalm, a spiritual song in the Old Testament, Psalm 139, and the first few verses tell us that God knows us inside and out. Like each time we even sit down or stand up. He knows every thought that crosses my mind when I'm out and when I'm asleep, all my little quirks and my habits. God knows all the stuff I'm going to say, and he sews me in in front of me and behind me. He he fills the universe in every minute corner, so there's nowhere I can go that I'm not gonna be in God's presence. Even when I try to hide myself in the slimy places that we like to take ourselves to where we think God would never go, he's ahead of us and he's there with us, even in those places. It says that God created the secret parts of me right in the centre of who I am, knitting together my DNA and my being while I was in the secret place of my mother's womb. He could see everything that we can't see, and he has placed us where we are because he's already seen every single day planned out for us before we were even born. This is not a god who's like Zeus or Hermes or Poseidon, all the gods of the ancient world who demanded child sacrifices or self-harm, who were self-serving, power hungry, just bigger versions of what humans do. This is a god who is tender and compassionate, eternal and imminent, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Who wouldn't want to worship this loving, tender Father? And then when the church pioneer Paul writes to one of his churches, he says about all that God has done and what he is doing in the letter to the people called the Ephesians. And he says that God has already blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing that comes from knowing Jesus. The whole thing is ours already. God has hand picked us before creation even begun. He already knew before he said, let there be light, before that bite of the fruit was taken in the Garden of Eden, He knew that He would one day bring a person who is you, and you've been planned out, and you are full of purpose. He knew that he would choose you to be holy and without blame when he looks at you, that you would be adopted as one of his own spiritual children, and he would buy you back from the slave master of sin. He would set you free to be able to live like Jesus. He tells us his plans by whispering how we can join in with this the great orchestration of the cosmos. And to fully embrace this, God gave every believer, including you, his spirit. God himself coming to make his home or pitch his tent inside and alongside us. So this list of commands isn't a straitjacket. It's an invitation to love God and be loved by God. It's to allow his river of goodness to flow through us into the freedom he wants to bring us into. It's an invitation to join him on his mission to care for creation around us, to put an end to human failures and flaws, to fight for right living, to seek goodness and mercy. It's not a command like you must adore me or else. It's an invitation to live in an ongoing relationship with God without letting anything else overshadow that. And the kinds of things God sees as getting in the way aren't good things at all, anyway. They're things that don't enable us to be loving to God or loving to other people. That's why the Ten Commandments are so incredibly revolutionary and freeing. This is why Jesus belts out the chip the beatitudes at the start of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says this Blessed are the poor in spirit or the humble in heart, for this new kingdom totally belongs to them. Blessed are those who are broken with sadness or grief, because God will come Himself to comfort them. Blessed are the ones who are content with what they have, those people will gain everything. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right living, that hunger will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for God will show them mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, because those ones can see God for themselves. Blessed are the ones who work for peace, for people will nickname them God's own kids. Blessed are those who are persecuted because they're living this way, because the kingdom of God is fully theirs. That's the way to live. This is what Jesus is inviting us into when we come to follow him, not because we're earning our place, but because of a response to what he's done, a supernatural life where we ask God Himself to come and fill us. We trust him for his unconditional and full spiritual freedom, our debt to God and other people wiped clean because of Jesus. We trust that living this way will keep us free, and we listen for His Spirit to direct and guide us day by day, moment by moment. And we believe that we are working in partnership with Him for the transformation of the world back to its original purpose and place. We become these co-inheritors of everything that God has, which by the way is everything that we can see and not see in the whole of space and time, and we have a place at the table of honour and the banquet which is already going on in heaven. This magnetic, beautiful, interwoven love. Nothing can separate us, not trouble, not hardship, not death or life, not angels, nor demons, not the present or the future, not any power, not height or depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from this God's love experienced through Jesus. So may we carry his presence and power, his authority and his grace, and may we do it well. Father God, turn our spiritual posture towards you unreservedly and passionately. Lord Jesus, may we know you more and more as you make your home within us and we make our home within you. May we do the miraculous things that you did. May we speak the miraculous words to spiritual ears. May we wrap your arms around a world in need and wash the feet of those who you serve. And Holy Spirit of God, raise up that water table of your spiritual presence within us. Fill us, baptize us with yourself again and again, constantly filling us and bringing faith, hope, and love to everyone in our circle of influence. Amen. Well, this has been a truly inspiring and enlightening journey for me. I found out new things about the Ten Commandments as I've researched what to include. I've definitely been challenged in certain areas, but how I live and act and the attitudes I have that need to change. And I've remembered who humanity truly is, who we're made to be, uh, who we're called to be now, and just how high an opinion God has of who we are. I mean, I do honestly pray that we would carry God's name into the next generations with dignity and holiness and passion, that we would dig deeper and deeper into this abundance that God has, so we can pour that out into the lives of everybody who wants to listen. So thank you for listening with me, and we end with the grace from 2 Corinthians 13 in both English and Manx Gaelic. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Grace Ninjan Yezicrist, and the love of God as Gra Yi, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, as joy and spirit new, be with us all forevermore. Dera Merin U Son de Brech. Amen.