Honor Life

Published: March 8, 2023, 8:25 p.m.

Honor Life: The sixth command is, "You shall not murder." What does it look like to keep this commandment? If God is the author, sustainer, and savior of life, then we must work for and protect flourishing life, being especially attentive to the most vulnerable lives among us. Recorded on Mar 5, 2023, on Exodus 20:13 by Pastor David Parks. Ten Commandments: Learning the Law of Love is a sermon series on the most influential legal code in human history. Why should we learn about the Ten Commandments today? Because they reveal God’s will for how human beings ought to live: to love God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. Ultimately, the law of love points us directly to Jesus. Sermon Transcript So all year, the theme of our preaching ministry is Learning the way of Jesus. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series on the Ten Commandments. And we’ve said that the Ten Commandments reveal how God wants people to live. And ultimately, this way of life can be summed up as learning to love the Lord your God, heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments are really a law of love. Just a quick reminder, God’s moral law is not the way of salvation. We are not saved because of our obedience to the law. Remember, God saved the ancient Israelites by his grace from slavery in Egypt, and then he gave them the law. God’s law is the way to follow him once you have a relationship with him by his saving grace. So today, we are considering the sixth command, a command to honor life. But why does God care so much about life? And does this command simply mean we should avoid murder, or does it have deeper implications? Once again, we have much to unpack here. If you have a Bible/app, please open to Exodus 20:12. We’ll read through the second half of the Ten Commandments and then unpack the sixth together today. Exodus 20:12-17 (NIV), “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving 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 covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Now, the book of Exodus was written about 4,300 years ago by Moses, the great prophet and leader of ancient Israel. And Exodus describes a key turning point in history when God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and entered into a covenant relationship with them, which included giving them the Law. The first four commands are focused on how we are to love the Lord our God, while the remaining six are about how to love our neighbor as ourselves. We saw last week that our neighbor includes even the neighbors in our own home/family. And we were instructed to honor our fathers and our mothers. We saw that this was because parents are supposed to instruct their children in the faith and pass along any wisdom they have in how to live, both of which matter greatly to God. Well, today, we’re focusing on the sixth command, which reads simply, “You shall not murder.” Sounds simple enough, right? Not quite. You see, every negative command, a “thou shalt not,” if you will, also has a positive side. And the positive side is rooted in God’s character/nature and his heart for how this world ought to work. So, for example, the prohibition of the first command, “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex 20:3) also means that God positively intends for us to have a relationship with him. It’s not only about what we cannot or should not do; it’s also positively what that type of life we are called into. So here, the prohibition against murder also means that God intends positively for us to do what? To honor life, to work for flourishing life, and to protect human life when it is threatened.