Do Not Murder

Good morning. My name is Shane and one of the pastors here. If you are new with us this weekend. Thanks for joining us. Uh, it’s been a beautiful weekend. And so hopefully you’ve had Fun with friends and family. We have been working through the 10 commandments. And so today we’re on commandment six and I tell you to flip open your bibles and we would read through it. But I bet I can tell you it before we get there. Right, you shall not murder. So there’s our text for today. We’re looking at exodus 20 13. So in English, we’re talking about four words. Uh, hebrew. We’re talking about to write no murder. So how are we gonna fill a half hour time? Well you’ll see. So some translations actually will look if you flip open, some may say you shall not kill. I’ll tell you why in a little bit here on why murder would be the better translation. It opens the door when it’s just used the word killed. To some misinterpretation justified areas where killing may be necessary. So I’m not gonna actually spend a ton of time on that portion of it except for the fact that you know sometimes to understand what something does mean. It is good to understand what it doesn’t mean. It can narrow the scope. And so I want to narrow our scope a little bit because I do think there might be some legitimate questions around what this may or may not include. So when I think about what are some areas that this does not include, that the context of this verse, you shall not murder is not talking about. So the first one that we would take into consideration would be ex exodus 22 2. If somebody breaks into my house and I have a wife and four kids and there’s an imminent threat to health and life, I’m going to defend my family at any cause. And if that results in death, right? This is not the context of this verse. You shall not murder is not talking about legitimately defending your home, your family from an imminent threat. It is also, uh, not talking about a pure accident. If we look at Exodus 21, it will differentiate. It talks about hey, if you’re in an accident, right, you’re out doing something recreationally. You’re driving a vehicle, you get in a wreck, somebody in your vehicle dies. It’s purely an accident. It’s not something you’re trying to do, right? It’s gonna differentiate from that versus do not murder. So, it’s not talking about an accidental death in those situations. It is it is not addressing capital punishment. In a sense of the bible talks about there’s an authority of life for a life or that. Uh, in genesis nine or Romans 13 where God has given the governing authorities the right to yield the sword for legitimate again, legitimate reasons where somebody takes a life that could be tried and prosecuted and convicted of a crime where they could then lose their life. So this is not talking about capital punishment. That’s not the area when we refer to you shall not murder? That people can take this out of context. Other concerns, which is fitting for today would be What about war? Should we advocate people signing up for the military? Is that just Murder? And it’s not right? So in in all the old testament as murder is used 47 times. It is never once used in the context of war and which is again fitting for this weekend. I’d like to say, thank you for anybody here who is, who has served in the military, who is serving in the military memorial weekend is to honor you. And I just want to say, thank you for protecting uh, some of the many freedoms. We have one to be here together as a church. Thank you for defending those. One other one that I’m very thankful for is it’s not talking about that. We need to all be vegetarians or vegans. Okay, so hopefully have a nice thick steak and a burger and some brats today. Right? So it’s not talking about killing animals. That’s not the context in which it is being applied. So that would be obviously for food for animal sacrifices in the old testament. That’s not the context here. So hopefully that takes this verse, You shall not murder and take some of the peripherals out of it. So as we narrow down the scope, you shall not murder. That should give us a little bit more of a focused intention. And so why would I say murder is the better word to use and just killing? Well, murder in our language does have that connotation where it’s a unlawful premeditated immoral killing of another person taking someone’s life in that way that is unlawful, immoral and premeditated is what the context of this verse is addressing. And we can think, man, we live in Lincoln Nebraska, it is safe. It is, we just don’t deal with this, which to some degree we don’t Deal with it. Like some of the other parts of our country and definitely some of the other portions of the world have to deal with this. But in 2020, the CDC reported 27,576 homicides. There’s a lot, there’s still a lot in our own country, people. Would you talk about, Hey, what cities got the most people are gonna probably usually throughout Chicago. Right, Chicago. Two people a day are being killed, but it’s not just Chicago ST louis Missouri highest per capita murders. So this does happen around us. Think about in the news right now texas, I think it’s vivaldi, Right? We have a shooter come in and he, he killed 19 students to teachers wound seven. Uh, that’s all after he had shot his grandma. So this is around us. This is in our world. It’s happening today. And it should grieve us. Right. Hopefully it grieves us very much. But we have to ask the question why though, why does it grieve us? Why is taking someone’s life so significant? Because let’s be honest, if we’re justice, you know, conglomeration of cells, that doesn’t mean anything, that there’s not any existential meaning to life that transcends our own personhood, right? There’s no soul that moves on. It’s just here and now and that’s it. Well then it wouldn’t really matter, to be honest, it really wouldn’t matter. But our biblical view grounds us in not only why we were created, but the importance of life itself, in the value of life itself. And there are many verses but pointing back to genesis 1 26 I think this is the great place to start, it said Then God said, let us make man in our own image after our own likeness. And let them have Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. You may have heard the term theological term, the imago dei. It just means the image of God. We were created in the image of God. This is different and this differentiates us from animals from plants from all other creation only human beings were created as God said in his own image. And so we can kind of get involved and you hear from other, you know religious, you know, whether it’s Eastern Mysticism, kind of the syncretism of joining up all these things where it’s like, you know, we’re all the same plants and animals and humans and and that’s wrong. And that’s not a biblical view, only people, only human beings were created in the image of God. And there is a special unique uniqueness to bearing that image. There is a superiority in the value in burying God’s image. So what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Does it mean we’re like demigods, kind of cool. But that’s not it. Right? No, doesn’t mean that, does it bring God load that God is just really God is just like us. No right to be created in the image of God really means that we are created in the image of God, in our moral, in our spiritual, in our intellectual essence, right? That we have this divine nature and ability that is uniquely characterized in us that we can express with the gifts God has endowed us with, each one of us has created uniquely and we uniquely represent? We uniquely reflect God in the way he created us differing from one another, but yet similar as we reflect christ and it can come out in many different ways that again, doesn’t come out in the rest of creation whether that’s our rational understanding or some of our creative liberties, the capacity for self actualization or or to live for a transcendental means, right? So we can live self transcendently for something greater than ourselves, nothing else does that. So that is the uniqueness as we are made in the image of God and why taking a life is so different than just whether it’s an animal or a plant or a part of nature and what we’re called to be good stewards of all those things, but but it is not on the same plane as taking a life. So what we must acknowledge is that human life is miraculously and divinely inspired, right? It is, it is created by God all life and our situations reflect that. So we do not have the right to take life outside of those few justified means that we discuss briefly at the beginning, but there are three areas that we need to discuss that does incorporate and include the 6th commandment of do not murder. These would be abortion, suicide and euthanasia. These topics are of very prominent proportions in our society today in the news cycles and the events and the debates that go on. This is for our any living generation right now, this is a very well known topic and there’s been headlines right now think about if you read the news, which to be honest is not always a great idea. But if you read the news or listen to the news right now, there is the Supreme Court and they are, you know, it’s projected that they’re going to overturn roe versus wade in 1973 decision where it gave the right to women to have an abortion with little to no intervention, right? Really un refrained, unrestrained ability to have an abortion. And obviously, as a church, as a body, we stand in opposition to the ability to take life for any means, whatever means that is. But the truth of the matter is that no matter what the law says, if the law says, it’s it’s possible and legal to do it, or if the law says it’s illegal and you cannot do it, it doesn’t matter. The law does not supersede God’s command. So what God says is above and beyond any law of the land. And so we refer to that, and we see this in psalm 1 39 where God created from the very beginning from conception says for you created my innermost being. You knit me together in my mother’s room. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body All the days ordained for me were were written in the book before one came to be. And so this is from the very conception God’s creation that we have no right or justification to take. And it is disheartening when you think about abortion statistics, A few of them, the CDC would say that there’s 600,000 abortions a year According to the gut Meyer Institute, 18% of all pregnancies excluding miscarriages result in abortion. And some statistics would even be higher saying one out of four pregnancies and in an abortion. So what I want to highlight is that yes, this is a grievous and heinous um, Sin against the 6th commandment, right? And I want to I don’t want to shy away from that. That’s that is what it is. It is taking a life, it is against the 6th commandment. But what I also want to highlight is that the gospel is more powerful than any sin. Statistically there would be some women in here who have experienced or chosen to have an abortion. And I understand that again, not to shy away from the nature of sin that it is, but to say that those who repent and trust in jesus christ, the blood of christ covers sufficiently all sin. Amen covers it. And so we can turn to christ at any portion of our life and accept that life is is and we have stepped into that two others that are briefly mentioned that I want to briefly mention would be suicide and euthanasia. So euthanasia, some might not be familiar with the term some coin and death and dying or sorry, dying with dignity. Um, but it’s generally as people get older and it’s becoming passed again as law in many states, where as you get older people are just done living, they just want to be done. They don’t feel like there’s any more useful life for them or maybe they are sick. They might be in pain, They might be going through whatever they’re going through. And they’re just saying, hey, I want to end this. And so doctors can prescribe them at least lethal concoction to take and essentially kill themselves. And I think this highlights the fact that we, as humans tend to want to control. I mean that is a natural instinct. We want to be in control. When we’re not in control. It’s difficult. We find ourselves struggling to be in control. We’re always trying to gain that control. And I think this tends to be a final stand of someone’s life who says, you know what, I’m gonna show that I’m ultimately in control. I’m going to choose how I die. I’m going to choose how I go out. But again whether it’s suicide or whether it’s euthanasia, they are both self murder. We were not called to take our own lives. And I know I know there’s a lot of nuance, especially when you move into the world and in the conversation of suicide, because behind that, you gotta you gotta look and consider what is going on. There’s there’s generally a lot of pain that someone is dealing with, whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, that there’s this, they feel stuck in this portion in this time of life, and they in there to the point where they think that taking their life is the only good option, right? There’s probably some shame or remorse or something, they’ve done that. They feel like this is it, I’m done. And so that is important to consider, because there’s generally a lie behind that, right? What satan wants to do is plant that lie, that you have no value, that there’s no other way out, that this is the only solution that no one’s gonna miss you, that it’s that no one’s gonna care or whatever it might be. And so we wanna we wanna back up to that and say this is where the gospel again comes into play, right? If somebody doesn’t know, jesus christ, we want to invite them to accept the gospel that they have a meaning, that they were created in the image of God, that they bear a very specific reflection of the creator himself, that they have value, that they have worth that there are these lies. They may believe that we want to dispel with Biblical truth, and they’re obviously our counselors and professionals who can help do that, but the word of God is the foundation, no matter what, that they have value and worth, that you have value and worth. And I know for a fact some of your testimonies include that contemplation. I know for a fact, as I’ve heard some of your testimonies that suicide was a contemplation. And even as a believer, how could a believer contemplate that? Well again, that’s the lie. And so where an unbeliever first needs jesus christ. They first need to repent and turn to christ. A believer needs to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. As in romans 12 1 and two, we need to be transformed and dispel those lies and believe the truth. This is where our family, the church comes into play. This is where we can walk alongside one another, that we can be open and honest, that we can share that. We can be transparent with one another because this world is full of pain and all of us are going to deal with pain in shame and remorse in whatever it might be. We can help each other. I don’t know what paul exactly was going through, but he tells stories throughout the bible of how he was shipwrecked, how he was beaten, how he was ostracized. You know, all these different stories where he’s like, I don’t know if I could deal with that, right? Sometimes I think I don’t know if I could have went through what paul went through and then Second Corinthians 18, he says we were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired of life itself, right? He was in situations where some may say I’m just ready to go be done with, but we need to turn to christ as our creator. He gets to dictate. He has dictated when we are born and he also is in control of when and how we will pass. That is not our own to be decided. So that’s the most literal foundation. When I think of this text, The 6th commandment. Do not murder. That’s the most literal as we take. Consider taking her own life, consider taking somebody else’s life as plain matter of fact as you can get. But Jesus goes beyond that like he does in many other situations, he takes this physical and he takes it down to the heart. He wants to get to the purest intent of this verse And he gets to the heart of it in Matthew five. So he’s given the sermon on the mount and there’s these Pharisees around and he’s telling people you need to you need to be more righteous than them. And you see on the outside, they were the most righteous, physically obeying these commands. But yet God called them whitewashed tombs full of dead man’s bones. So again, hopefully we can all say we’ve obeyed this physical command of the 6th Commandment, but Jesus says it’s not good enough to stop there. I want your heart and I am concerned about your heart and your mind and your thoughts and your intentions. So he brings it even farther. Here’s what he says. You have heard that it was said of old. You shall not murder. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable for judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says, you fool will be liable to the fire of hell. So we speak about murder. And again, the physical sense of yes, there could be worldly consequences. Being convicted, being tried right? And being guilty and having to face consequences. But God again, is going to bring it to an eternal sense, saying that anyone who sins is going to stand before God in the eternal sense. And as Jesus off so often does, he takes the 6th commandment. And he says not just the physical, but you’re going to be examined at your heart level at the very thoughts and intentions that were in your heart. And he addresses it by using the word anger, which is such a common feeling or emotion. If anybody here has not felt anger, I would have to say that it’s probably a lie, right? We have all experienced anger. That frustration, even if you didn’t act on it. Just that thought in your mind, dwelling in that situation is what God says, I want to address because he wants us to be pure, not just in action, but at the very thought and intention of our heart. So that’s what he wanted to get at. So it’s easy to say, oh yeah, I’m I’m rightfully uh mad. And uh there’s this indignation when I think of the sixth commandment, because murder is bad and abortion is bad and and we should be mad at that. And I understand there is a righteous indignation when it comes to sin, right? Where sin being, this grievance against God and the rightful treatment of other people, Jesus was angry. People will always point to that, right? He flipped tables in in the verses in John or in Ephesians four where he talks about be angry but do not sin, right? There is a righteous anger that we can have. But this is not speaking to the righteous anger and we are sinful and we live in a sinful world. And so anger is not always placed right? Because we have been tainted with sin. It means that our anger can be misplaced and that’s what he’s speaking about these circumstances where we allow this anger, right? Something happened and I just harbor that I i it sits in my heart and then all of a sudden you notice how it grows and you all of a sudden you hate this person and you despise them and in these events and these things and it’s it grows and think about it like a seed. If you let anger dwell in your heart, it grows and eventually it’s gonna produce fruit. And if if anger is allowed to be unrestrained and uncontrolled, it will many times result in murder, right? That’s the outcome of unrestrained anger. If we gotta play out our anger to its fullest extent, that’s where it would go. So, you can think about all the situations that may get you riled up, right? Is it somebody in traffic cuts you off? That gets you that get you going, right? Gets you a little upset. How quickly can we get angry? Or how about sports? The whole world of sports? And I’ve I’ve read stories where, you know, the super bowl and it’s down the last play, guy throws a touchdown, it gets called back because of a penalty. The guy who did the had the penalty will get death threats sent to his house. I mean, people are so angry in situations like that, right, wow, That is extreme. How about reading comments on social media ever get upset. Reading comments on social media, especially on a controversial topic. We’re talking to somebody who has a, you know, opposing political view as you hopefully you get what I’m trying to get out here is I don’t know if those things are what triggers you, but there are things in our lives that and to get us going build up that anger, right? You your ears perk up here. And you’re like, when that happens, right, maybe it’s your spouse who does that thing that you hate and she knows you hate it and they do it again and again and again and again. Right? Do we allow anger in any relationship in our life to grow? It is going to be to the destruction of that relationship? It’s going to be the destruction of your own self that we allow it to be there. And we see Matthew 5 22 says, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment again. Speaking of this eternal judgment. So are we putting murder and anger as equal? Are they the same? I mean, some might say, well, shoot, I thought of it. I might as well do it if it’s the same. Right? Hopefully not. And hopefully we can easily grasp that, right? We can all say, I think doing it would be worse. Yes, Yes, you are. So are they the same? I would say yes and no, here’s how they are the same. Yes. If we look at James to tennis is for whoever keeps the whole law that fails at one point is guilty of breaking it all In a sense of if in my entire life, I only send one time And in your entire life you only send one time. My sin was a lie. Your sin was murder. The yes. Is that both of them are worthy of eternal judgment that we would stand before a perfect and Holy God. And no matter what the sin is that even one sin would be a guilty verdict? Praise God for the gospel, right that we don’t stand guilty for those who have stepped before him, no matter what that sin is. But the yes. Is that all sin is worthy of Of death Romans 6 23. For the wages of sin? Is death? The no, the no is this not all sin will be judged the same. Some are more grievous and more heinous than others. Matthew 1123 and 24 says, And you Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven, Will you be brought down to Hades or if the mighty works done in, you had been done in Sodom. It would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it would be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. If you recall back to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was a pretty severe judgment of raining down fire and killing all the people for a lot in his family leaving. And they’re saying and yet the work’s done here would be even worse. There’s gonna be a even will be more tolerable for Sodom than for those who rejected jesus in person, right? There, there are a differing varying capacity to which thin holds judgment. So in one sense, yes, all sin will be judged, but some will be judged more severely physical act of murdering someone. Physical act of harming a child. The physical act of committing adultery are more previous and severely judged. Then the thought itself. The Lord, also, as we know, has that perfect standard, which is why one sin is in violation of it says be holy as I am holy. So God’s standard is not that we, you know, forego committing the physical act as long as I don’t kill them, I can hate them. No. Right, he’s gonna he’s saying, no, I’m concerned about the physical and the heart. And it’s not like we can hide that from God. We can hide that from other people sometimes. Some are better at hiding it than others, but you cannot hide that from God, Jeremiah 1710 Says, bears witness to God sitting this, I the Lord search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. He knows the very thoughts that run through our mind. And this is why I hope that it drives you to what the psalmist will say, write that as we evaluate and examine ourselves, which is what we’re gonna do when we think about communion, but that it would drive you to reflect what the psalmist said, he said, create in me a clean heart o God and renew a right spirit within me. When we think about God knowing the very thoughts and the very intentions of our mind. I think it’s sobering because we all are intimately familiar with the things that can cross our mind. And we’re probably intimately familiar with the things that we allow to dwell in our mind. God knows and sees those things and even that is worthy of repentance to God, only jesus can create in us a clean heart, which is why we turn to him, but he does not leave us without commanding us to act in repentance and reading Matthew five. So it says right, even those right we met in Matthew five that he says yes long ago, murder is wrong. But I’m telling you, even if you are angry with your brother, you say these things to him, you are also guilty. And then he goes on to say right after that in the next verse. So if you’re offering a gift on the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you leaving leave it need to get there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother. And then come offer that gift. I like how it tells us to remember there are times of reflection where we need to look back, where am I hurt somebody, what I said, what I did in my anger and my frustration and I do something that I need to repent of and if you do you go physically go to that person that you have hurt, that you have offended, that you have harmed and you repent in humility, asking for forgiveness and you reconcile that relationship. We we think about this during Communion. As Alex says, Communion, we’ll talk about taking a moment to reflect, to remember that we stand before God, before we take the sacrament of his body and his blood to be pure, not only in action, but in our very thoughts and intentions. And there are things that we have done that we know, like I said, that run through our mind, that we know we’ve allowed to dwell there, that we’ve allowed to sit, that we haven’t turned from even those things as we reflect, we turn to God and we confess and repent to him at that moment, so that there is reconciliation, because unrepentant is the very thing that allows the seat of anger, frustration to grow and eventually bear fruit. That anger, you know, if you don’t deal with it, if it is unrepentant, if that right, that relationship is not reconciled, eventually, that anger will grow as a seed grows and bear fruit, and it’s not good fruit. The destruction of relationships, the compromising of a friendship, whatever it may be, it’s going to produce fruit that you don’t want. So, we need to be aware of these things and there’s two actions, Right? one Is, you know that situation just causes you to get riled up, avoid it, right? So avoid if reading social media posts, get you all riled up, you can just avoid that. You know that that’s actually an option. You don’t actually have to go into social media, there’s a lot of other things you don’t have to do right, You can just avoid it. But on the flip side, if you find yourself getting worked up because something your spouse, your kids do, you can’t just avoid that or at least you should not avoid that. What we need to get to is the heart of the issue is dealing with that. Why am I angry developing self control, developing patients, developing grace. This is part of sanctification becoming more like christ, we want to become more and more like christ and in our anger, we can find those ways that we have a long way to go and that’s okay in a sense of recognizing them and choosing to grow in them. That’s again where the body of believers comes in. We have the ability to help impact each other and so we think about obviously murder and the topics that we discussed. One of the sidebar topics that I think is important as this is we talk a lot about community groups and every time, you know, announcements and every week we’re gonna talk about community groups and one of the areas that I think is shown in this portion of scripture is a unique ability of jesus, that I think we should all try to grow in. And that’s the ability to take this text do not murder and to bring it down to the heart. So, in a community group, as we get involved in community, you could go to a community group, you know, most of the time to fulfill the letter of the law, to be part of the membership of our church, right? It’s part of our membership, that you’re engaging the community group. And so, okay, I need to go, I think two times a month would be enough to at least stay on the membership roll. And and I can go there and I can Yeah, things are fine, mike’s good and in and out. But I think just like this verse misses the point of doing life together and so even in our community groups, this is not just for community group, leaders, in community group. The the reason we have this is that we can go from that outward appearance. Yeah, I didn’t murder someone today. All right, you’re good media groups. Done is to dig down deeper and say, yeah, but how’s your heart? How are you doing it? Is to go deeper and deeper and deeper, to not be okay with a superficial relationship, a super superficial relationship with the church or the brothers and sisters that you’re walking alongside. And so, my encouragement is has jesus displayed, even in this, the intention might be this external appearing one. But the real matter is the heart. And we need to be involved with one another on a heart level to know and to grow with one another that I can walk alongside you again. You might appear like everything’s fine, but at the heart level you might be saying, but I’m struggling, I’m so angry and this hurt me and this is going on. It’s like, yeah, we want to come alongside in that and we want to walk together, become sanctified, right to become more like christ to deal with these issues. Because as jesus was concerned with the heart, we need to be concerned with each other’s hearts. Amen Lord. We thank you for today. We thank you that you value life. Thank you. That you value my life and every life here. We praise you that we are designed and created in your image and that we display a unique attribute of you. Lord, thank you for how you value us. And that we can reflect you. We ask that we would all be able to reflect on our own hearts. Even during Communion today, where we can address any issues that we see that we need to address from our heart. We just praise you for your forgiveness. No matter what we have done that your your grace is sufficient, father, We love you your name. We pray Amen