Sermon preview--The Eighth Commandment

What is integrity? The American Heritage Dictionary contains three definitions: The first is, “steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.” That’s what we’ve been talking about these past eight weeks. But the other two definitions are rather interesting: “The state of being unimpaired; soundness.” “The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.” Many of you have bought a house before. It’s not like buying a pair of pants or a bicycle. There’s a painstaking process that goes along with it. You pay out of your own pocket to have inspections done because you want to make sure the house has integrity before you put money into it. It has to be sound: Is the foundation cracked? Does the roof leak? Do all the locks work? It also has to be complete: if any of the appliances have quit working, you need to know that. The inspectors then present you with a list of problems they found, areas of the house where the integrity was compromised. If you’re wise, you then take that list and give it to the seller, saying, “Here is what you need to repair or replace before we will buy this house.” And that is how God deals with us. He expects us to have integrity. Please understand. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect. Just like we don’t expect our house to be just like a mansion in River Oaks. We just want it to be the best, soundest and most complete house it can be. In the same way, God doesn’t expect the impossible of us either. He just wants us to be complete; to have integrity. That is why He gave us these last four commandments. A person with integrity is faithful sexually, is forthright when it comes to money, is truthful at all times, and is free from greed and covetousness. Just like with that house, He often presents us with a list of things we need to repair. This Sunday the Holy Spirit will provide us with a list of changes we need to make, because the eighth commandment goes a lot further than we think. There is something in this commandment to challenge every one of us. I hope you'll be there.

Sermon preview--The Seventh Commandment

The commercial only aired once, during the Super Bowl a few years ago. A woman sits in a nice restaurant. A man arrives late. He shushes her to focus on his cell phone call, gawks at a passing waitress, tries to discourage the woman from eating cheesecake lest she get fat. He then gets up and leaves, saying, "Happy Anniversary, Honey." The voice-over says, "Have you ever been on a terrible blind date? Now imagine that date lasts the rest of your life. Maybe it's time for something new." The spot ends with the woman and a handsome stranger in the restaurant making come-hither eyes at one another.

The company that sponsored the ad (which will go nameless here) bills itself as a dating service for people who are already in a relationship. They have previously advertised with billboards saying, "Life is short. Have an affair." In one of those all-too-rare moments that restore one's faith in humanity, there was tremendous public outrage over the Super Bowl commercial, such that subsequent ads have been rejected by the networks. At the very least, society at large still thinks it's wrong to be unfaithful to one's spouse. But plenty of people still buy the message of that commercial. And popular culture, through tawdry soap operas, cheap romance novels, and even classic movies like Dr. Zhivago, sell us the message that forbidden love is exciting, romantic. Sometimes, our culture seems to say, adultery IS the right thing.

What does God have to say about the subject? And why did He single out adultery as a topic of one of His Ten Commandments? Are we permitted to indulge mentally in what is forbidden physically? And how can we set a pattern for life that will keep us faithful for a lifetime? We'll talk about that and more this Sunday.

Sermon Preview--The Sixth Commandment

This week, the murder trial of Casey Anthony, a single mother accused of killing her two-year old daughter in 2008, ended in acquittal. Millions of Americans have been following the case on television and internet, and there was widespread public surprise at the verdict. I must confess that I have not followed this case closely. I don't really have an informed opinion on the subject, except that I believe people who watch The Nancy Grace Show for more than five cumulative minutes are in severe danger of losing their mental and spiritual health. But even that is just my opinion. I have no idea if Casey Anthony was guilty or not, or if not, why she behaved the way she did after the death of her daughter. I have no idea whether or not the prosecution overreached by shooting for the death penalty, or if they did a poor job presenting their evidence, or if the Anthony family's profound dysfunction is an explanation for the bizarre nature of this case.

Here is what I do know: The death of little Caylee Anthony is a profound tragedy that grieves the heart of the God who created her in His own image...and should grieve us all as well. I have heard many people question why this case garnered so much media attention. "Why do we focus on the death of one little girl, when thousands of children die every DAY in our world, many from preventable causes like too little food or drinking water?" They have a point. But we also need to remember that everyone of those children matters to God just as much as Caylee. As do the people who die in our current war in Afghanistan, including American troops, Afghan civilians, and even Taliban fighters. As do you. Each human life has an inherent value and dignity in God's eyes that you and I do not fully comprehend...if we did, it would radically change the way we live in innumerable ways. That's the message of the sixth commandment. It's not enough to simply not murder your enemy; In order to obey this command, you have to value each human life like God does.

I don't plan to speak about the Casey Anthony trial this Sunday--you've probably heard enough about that already. But I will talk about what it means to value life like the God who created life...and what difference it would make in our lives if we did. I hope you'll be there.

Sermon preview--The Third Commandment

Kevin Miller is a preacher and Vice President of Christianity Today International. In the days just after 9/11, he was flying from San Francisco to Chicago. Five minutes before takeoff from San Francisco, a gate agent came on the plane and said, "Get your bags and come with me.” Miller wound up sitting in the airport watching the flight take off without him, wondering what the problem was. Soon, four armed San Francisco policemen showed up and began grilling him. Suddenly it hit him. His friend had been ordered out of the security line and so he arrived on the plane much later than Miller had. When he got on the plane, Miller asked jokingly, "Why were you stopped? Was it your beady terrorist eyes? Explosives?" 11 stray words were the source of all this trouble. Meanwhile, the airline officials were talking to the FAA and the police, trying to decide what to do with him. Finally, an airline rep said, "You realize that you can't talk about these things. We're in a new day. Another passenger overheard you and refused to fly on the flight. The captain was told, and he made the decision to remove you from the flight." They agreed to let him take their next flight out to Chicago, but it didn’t take off until 11:30 that night, and arrived at 5:30 AM. The lead cop looked at him and said: "You win the prize for Idiot of the Day." In Kevin Miller’s words, “So now I'm sitting in San Francisco airport for 9 1/2 hours and losing an entire night's sleep…All because of a few stray words.”

This much is true; we are in a new day. In many ways, stray words are taken much more seriously than they used to be. Just ask any prominent person who has had to publicly apologize for some off-the-cuff remark. In many ways, people are beginning to pay much closer attention to the words they say. On the other hand, there is a new casualness when speaking about God. We have lost the holy reverence that the Old Testament refers to as the fear of God. You can hear it in our speech. And one symptom of that is the fact that we take the third commandment least seriously of the ten. This week’s sermon will be an experience for many of us similar to what Kevin Miller experienced in that airport. We will find out that words we have been using in a casual way—stray words—are taken very seriously by the One who judges our lives.

Sermon preview--The Second Commandment

A couple of weeks ago, I spent all day Saturday at the George R Brown at an event called Comicpalooza. This is an annual convention for fans of comic books, anime, sci-fi, and other related entertainments. Why was I there? Because my daughter wanted to go, and I love her. But the last time I was more out of my element, I had walked into a women’s restroom by mistake. There were several thousand people at the GRB. At least 1/3 of them were dressed as some superhero or another. Of the rest, most at least had on some kind of fan gear. And by the way, these weren’t kids, for the most part. I’d say the median age in that place was around 35. Occasionally I would see someone who looked fairly normal, and I’d be tempted to take him aside and say, “Have you ever seen so many weirdos in one place in your life?” But I was afraid he would produce a magic wand and change me into a toad or something. Then again, while I was feeling all smug and judgmental, it occurred to me that if someone from another civilization—like say, Moses—was to attend a football game with me, he might have much the same response. He’d see thousands of people—many of them well-lubed from a pre-game tailgate party—screaming and shouting, alternating between violent anger and ecstatic exhubrance, some of them with painted faces or painted bodies, singing ritualistic songs, and he’d conclude he was participating in the rites of some strange cult that worships an oblong brown object. There are a lot of things we do that seem like worship. Some people, mostly men, give up their precious time off and spend lots of money so that they can ride in a magic cart, whacking a magic ball with one of a bag of magic sticks. And when the magic ball goes into the water, they say magic words! (Curiously, the magic ball does not reappear) Some other people, mostly women, offer costly sacrifices at the altars of gods called Prada and Nordstrom and Saks and Ikea. They spend money they don’t have on stuff they don’t need, with a great deal of faith that these magical items will bring them joy and fulfillment.

My point is that if someone observed our lives objectively, they might have a difficult time determining what it is we truly worship. What is worship, after all? It is delighting in something, rejoicing in something, so much so that we will sacrifice to it, make it our identity and source of fulfillment. And what we worship determines the course of our lives. That’s why when God was creating a new nation during the Exodus, in giving His chosen people their code by which to live—the Ten Commandments—He starts with two consecutive commands that govern our worship. Last week we looked at the first commandment, which is about keeping God first in your life. This week, we'll look at the second commandment, found in Exodus 20:4-6.

Sermon preview--The First Commandment

This week, a blog I like to read posted a video of Billy Graham being interviewed by Woody Allen on a TV show in the 1970s. It’s amazing to watch these two men, so very different in their outlooks on life—at one point, Allen tells Graham, “I am determined to convert you to agnosticism,” and Graham retorts with, “Many people have tried”—who were so very gracious toward one another before a national audience. Later in the interview, the subject of premarital sex comes up. Allen asserts that the Christian understanding—that sex is for marriage, period—doesn’t make a lot of practical sense. He points out that we certainly don’t buy a car until we give it a test drive, so why would a man marry a woman without…well, you get the picture.

We’re beginning a series on the Ten Commandments this week; taking a break from our year-long study of the parables of Jesus to do this. You might be wondering why. After all, many people these days—including many Christians—feel a sense of weariness with the rules of Scripture. Like Woody Allen, they feel like some—if not many—of the Bible’s commands are outdated, maybe a little arbitrary, designed by fusty old ladies and judgmental preachers to keep the rest of us from having fun. Others of us are a little embarrassed at the way Christians have often over-emphasized the rules to the detriment of the message of the Gospel. After all, Jesus didn’t come to give us more rules to follow; He came to set us free. The Pharisees were the ones who were focused on rules, and they’re the ones who conspired to kill Jesus. So why spend ten weeks on a bunch of thou-shalt-nots? And still others will say, “There are thousands of commands in the Bible. What’s so special about these ten?”

Hopefully over the next ten weeks, you'll see what's so special about these commands so important, God wrote them in stone with His own finger. We'll start this Sunday with the first commandment. Take a look at Exodus 20 this week to read the entire list.

Here's a link to the video. It's worth a look.

Sermon preview--Know Your Place

When I was in college, one day I came back from class to find a pigeon in my dorm room. One of my roommates had left the window open, and this poor bird had flown in and couldn’t remember how to get out. I tried to help, but every time I got near this bird, it went crazy, flapping its wings, flying into the walls of the room, and generally beating itself to death. So our little dance went like this: I lunged for him, he smacked himself into the wall, I backed off. I lunged at him…you get the picture. Finally, the poor guy was so tired and beat up, I managed to grab him with both hands covering his wings and hurl him underhand through the window. But first, I said to him, “I drive a silver Chevy Camaro. Leave my car alone!” There are so many people, including perhaps many of you room, who would say—if they were honest—that they feel like that bird. Life is a constant flurry of frantic activity that gets them nowhere. Everything they do seems to ultimately fail. They’re smacking into a wall, over and over again. And they just can’t see any way out.

You'll see Sunday why I told you that story. The parable we’ll study is not one of the more popular ones Jesus ever told…in fact, I’ve never heard it preached before. It’s not warm and fuzzy; it actually stings our pride. But there is freedom in this story. Read Luke 17:7-10, and pray that this Sunday, God will help each one of us get into a proper relationship with Him.