SEEING JESUS IN

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

March 7, 2021

Rev. Bernt P. Tweit

Epistle Lesson; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25

Psalm of the Day; Psalm 19

Gospel Lesson; John 2:13-22

Sermon Text; Exodus 20:1-17

Two weeks ago, on the first Sunday in Lent, the Gospel Lesson was Jesus' Temptation in the Wilderness. Right after that portion of scripture, scripture goes on to say that Jesus went back home to Nazareth. And, as was His custom, He went in to the synagogue, on the Sabbath Day. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to Him. He read the selected reading for the day. He gave the scroll back to the attendant. And, He sat down to begin to teach the people. This is what Jesus said.

“Today these words are fulfilled in your hearing.”

What Jesus was telling the people that day was that those words that were written seven hundred years before, were fulfilled in Jesus, Himself.

Just a short time after that, there was a group of Jewish people who hated Jesus. They wanted to put Jesus to death. So, Jesus was discoursing with them. One of the things He said was this, as He was holding up scripture.

“These words testify about me.”

Jesus was simply saying that God's Word points to Himself.

Now, sometimes it is really obvious to see how a portion of scripture points to Jesus. For example, next week Sunday, Pastor Bartels is going to be preaching on the bronze snake. (I am not going to preach your sermon for you. I am not going to give it away too much.) But, you can't help but see Jesus, as the bronze snake was raised up on a pole to save the people. Jesus was raised up on the cross to save us. You can't help but see Jesus.

Or, two Sundays ago, the first Sunday in Lent, The Old Testament Lesson was God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, his one and only son. You see that section of scripture and you can't help but see Jesus.

Or, a few Easters ago, I preached on The Old Testament Lesson from Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, Jesus was in the grave for three days. Sometimes you just can't help but see Jesus. It is very obvious.

Well, what about when it is not very obvious? You are looking at a portion of scripture, and you just don't know if you can see Jesus, or not.

We have all heard the phrase before, “All roads lead to Rome”.

Hopefully, as you look at this map, you can see Europe.

All of those dark lines are roads leading to Rome. It is a true phrase. “All roads lead to Rome.”

Well, we should think of the same thing. Every time we pick up God's Word, we should say,

“All roads lead to Jesus.”

Whether it is obvious or not, our prayers should be, “God, please help me see Jesus in the portion of scripture we are looking at today, because sometimes it is not very obvious.”

Sometimes, it may be like, “Well, I just don't quite see it”.

Here is a collage of pictures.

If you take a step back to look at it a little bit more closely, God in His Word, reveals that we can see Jesus.

What about The Ten Commandments? The Ten Commandments are The Law. How are we able to see Jesus in The Ten Commandments? Let's look at The Ten Commandments, today. It is taken from Exodus, chapter twenty, looking at verses one through seventeen.

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.

You shall have no other gods beside me. You shall not make any carved image for yourself or a likeness of anything in heaven above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them, or be subservient to them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. I follow up on the guilt of the fathers with their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, if they also hate me, But I show mercy to thousands who love me, and keep my commandments.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not permit anyone who misuses His name to escape unpunished.

Remember the Sabbath Day by setting it apart as holy. Six days you are to serve and do all your regular work, but the seventh day shall be a Sabbath rest to the Lord your God. Do not do any regular work, neither you, nor your sons or daughters, nor your male or female servants, nor your cattle, nor the alien who is residing inside your gates, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother so that you may spend many days on the land that the Lord your God is giving to you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covert your neighbor's wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

These are your words. Heavenly Father lead us in the way of truth. Your Word is truth.

Amen

The Law shows us our sin. The Law tells us what to do, and what not to do. The Law says this.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul,

with all your mind.”

That is the first three commandments.

And, The Law says,

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

That is commandments four through ten.

Jesus said this about keeping The Law.

“Be perfect, therefore,

as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

God's Word says this about The Law.

“Whoever keeps the whole law

and yet stumbles at just one point,

is guilty of breaking all of it.”

I don't know if you guys remember this event. It happened on September 1^st, 1983. It was still when The Cold War was taking place between the United States and the Soviet Union. On that day there was an airplane, Koreans Airline, flight 007 that left Anchorage, Alaska heading for Seoul, South Korea. They got up in the air. They set the auto pilot.

It was just a very minor error that they made in setting the course. They were off by one and a half degrees. That is very minor, right? Not that big of a deal.

As the airplane kept going, obviously, it kept getting farther and farther off course. In the course of time, they started to fly over Soviet air space.

Now remember, it is The Cold War. So the Soviets scrambled a couple of fighter pilots. Those Soviet fighter pilots shot down this commercial airline, because they were four hundred and fifty miles off course.

What started out as just a very minor error, had very deadly consequences.

As different church bodies look at The Ten Commandments, they are enumerated differently. Maybe you have seen that, as you have looked at The Ten Commandments online. You are like, “Hey, other churches don't enumerate them the same way we do.”

Well, even different churches innumerate The Ten Commandments differently.

Regardless of how you number the commandments, the number of commandments that each and everyone of us has kept is a big, fat zero. We have not kept any one of them.

Martin Luther once said this about The Law. He said, “The Law says do this, and it is never done.”
On the other hand, the Gospel says,

“Believe this, and it is already accomplished.”

As we look at The Law, which we have not kept, we look at The Law, and we see how Jesus has fulfilled it for us.

This last week the eighth graders here at Holy Cross had their second examination. In their second examination, they shared with Pastor Bartels and myself their knowledge of the material we are going over. Two of those questions were, “What is the passive obedience of Jesus?” and, “What is the active obedience of Jesus?”

I have said this before, but the passive obedience is one that we focus on certainly every time we gather together for worship. 'Passive' means, 'you are not moving'.

Scripture clearly has us look at the passive obedience of Christ. At the cross Jesus made full, and complete payment for our sin. We see that each week.

But, maybe it is not as obvious, and maybe we don't see as much that Jesus fulfilled The Law for us. That means He was actively obedient throughout the course of His life. Everything Jesus did, He was actively obedient, fulfilling The Law for us.

So, what scripture says about Jesus is this.

“We have One who has been tempted in every way,

just as we are,

and yet was without sin.”

So, let's briefly, very briefly look at Jesus in The Ten Commandments, today.

The First Commandment says, “You shall have no other gods”. Go back to the first Sunday in Lent, The Gospel Lesson, and Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. The devil was so bold to come to Jesus and say, “Bow down and worship me.”

Jesus simply said,

“Worship the Lord, your God

and serve Him only.”

In doing so, Jesus was keeping The First Commandment for us.

The Second Commandment. “You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain.” Which includes, “We should pray, praise, and give thanks.”

On Maundy Thursday evening, when Jesus was in The Garden of Gethsemane, His prayer was not only for Himself, His prayer was not only for His disciples, who were going to endure trials and temptation, but Jesus' prayer that night was for you. Jesus was fulfilling The Second Commandment for us, as He was going before the Father on your behalf.

The Third Commandment. “You shall keep the day of rest holy.”

Do you remember when Jesus was twelve years old, and He and His parents went to Jerusalem? Mary and Joseph were on their way, back up to Nazareth, but Jesus was not with them. So, they went back to Jerusalem, and do you know where they found Jesus? They found Jesus in church. They found Him in the temple. Jesus simply told His parents,

“Didn't you know that I needed to be in my Father's House?”

He was keeping The Third Commandment for us.

The Fourth Commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother”.

Just two verses after the one He shared with His mom and dad, just two verses after that, The Bible tells us this about a twelve year old Jesus.

“He went back to Nazareth,

with His parents

and He was obedient to them.”

Parents, imagine having a perfect child. Or adults, imagine being a perfect child to your parents. Jesus fulfilled The Fourth Commandment for us.

The Fifth Commandment. “You shall not kill”, including “being a friend to others who are in need.”

Scripture says this about Jesus.

“Jesus went around doing good,

and healing all who were under the power of the devil.”

But, here is where we also need to remember Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for sin, too. We need to look at Jesus' passive obedience on the cross. But, along with that, Jesus was actively obedient, as well.

The Sixth Commandment. “You shall not commit adultery.”

Jesus was clean, decent, and chaste in everything He did in this life. Maybe a great passage to focus on here, (and husbands, we are guilty of breaking this), the Apostle Paul said this about Jesus in the book of Ephesians:

“Husbands love your wives,

just as Christ loved The Church,

and gave Himself up for her.”

Jesus kept The Sixth Commandment for us.

The Seventh Commandment. “You shall not steal.”

God's Word says this about Jesus giving everything to us that we need for this body and life.

“You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That though He was rich,

yet for your sakes He became poor

so that you, through His poverty, might become rich.”

Jesus kept The Seventh Commandment for us.

The Eight Commandment. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Again, these are words of Isaiah, seven hundred years before Jesus lived. Isaiah said this about Jesus.

“He had done no violence,

and no deceit was in His mouth.”

The Ninth Commandments and The Tenth Commandments on coveting. “You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.”

Jesus said this.

“A person's life

does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

In all Ten Commandments Jesus presents Himself to God, perfectly in His thoughts, in His words, and in His actions, on our behalf, having fulfilled them perfectly.

I close with this. Right after Jesus' triumphal entry in to Jerusalem, there was a group of Greek men who found Phillip, a disciple of Jesus, who simply said this. “We would like to see Jesus.”
So, Phillip ran, and grabbed Andrew. Then, Phillip and Andrew ran, and grabbed Jesus. And, Jesus came to greet those Greek men. It was a great, little request they had.

“We would like to see Jesus.”

Today, as we look at The Ten Commandments, and God giving The Ten Commandments, what do you see? Maybe you see this. God giving Moses The Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. For many people in the world, that is what they see.

But, today our prayer is just like those Greek men.

“We would like to see Jesus.”

Even in The Ten Commandments, even as we are reading Moses, we are able to see Jesus. May our prayer be, as we are looking at a section of scripture that may not be as obvious as other ones, “Lord, help me to see Jesus”.

Amen

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, shall be now, and forever more.

Amen

Now, may the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts, and your minds, through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Amen