10/11/2026 - "Ten Commandments" (Exodus 20:1-117)

Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words:

2 I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 You must have no other gods before me.

4 Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 5 Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the Lord your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents’ sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. 6 But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 Do not use the Lord your God’s name as if it were of no significance; the Lord won’t forgive anyone who uses his name that way.

8 Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. 9 Six days you may work and do all your tasks, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. 11 Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 Honor your father and your mother so that your life will be long on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 Do not kill.

14 Do not commit adultery.

15 Do not steal.

16 Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.

17 Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s house. Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

~

Have you seen the Dreamworks animated movie, “Prince of Egypt?” If not, have a movie night and watch it! It is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s the retelling of Moses’s story, adding in some very humanizing details with the consultation of hundreds of religious and spiritual leaders from the three religions that claim the Exodus story - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. They combined traditions from all three religions to make this movie, and the love and care in it is clear.

While animation has come a long way since the 90s, it is still beautiful to watch, the music is phenomenal, and the voice cast is amazing from Val Kilmer to Michelle Pfeiffer to Sandra Bullock to even Steve Martin and Martin Short as a comedic duo of high priests.

And not to spoil the story, but Moses does successfully lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. And the movie ends in a musical montage that concludes with Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets nestled in his arms, with the Ten Commandments written on them in God’s own hand, with a smile full of relief and love on his face as he looks out over his people, now free from enslavement.

Except, that’s not how it went, at least according to the Bible.

For one thing, the Ten Commandments were not given to the Hebrew people through being written on tablets. Those came later. Instead, God actually speaks directly to every man, woman, and child gathered at the base of Mt. Sinai and gives the Ten Commandments directly to them.

It’s the only time God will directly give any piece of the law to the Hebrew people. The rest of the laws will come mediated through Moses, and most of them will build off of the foundation that the Ten Commandments sets.

These commandments are all obligations; ways that God expects the Hebrew people to treat God, each other, and the rest of creation.

The first three commandments are how God expects the Hebrew people to treat God - don’t worship other gods, don’t make idols such as golden calfs - they break that one pretty quick - and don’t take God’s name in vain.

Keep in mind, they’re transitioning from worshipping multiple gods in Egypt to now just one God. That’s a pretty big paradigm shift if you’re used to going to a different god for every little thing in your life. So it’s more important for the point to be driven home that God is the only God they’re worshipping now.

So there’s some bite to these commandments; God says that God won’t forgive those who use God’s name in vain, and God will punish even the third and fourth generation of children of those who hate God.

But in the midst of that God also says that God will be loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love God and keep God’s commandments.

Even if somebody causes pain and trauma in their family that gets passed on as generational trauma, God will still be with that family as they grapple with it and work towards healing. Even if it takes a few generations.

And as for taking God’s name in vain; let’s be clear that this is not saying “Oh my God” or “Jesus!” as an exclamation after hearing horrible news or accidentally stubbing your toe.

Unfortunately we’ve seen a lot of people invoke God’s name like it means nothing in the past few years. We’ve seen politicians and pastors and public figures invoke God’s name in prayers and speeches supporting unjust wars, the detention of innocent people, and even the cutting of SNAP benefits.

That’s taking the Lord’s name in vain. And I think God’s hatred for God’s name being used in that way is more understandable than hatred for us saying “Oh my God.”

But even through that, God will still be loyal and gracious, even to the thousandth generation. God’s love and grace is not negated by what we do or what others have done to us.

It’s much stronger than that.

So when we put the first three commandments together, we see a more complete picture of a God who wants God’s people to take their new faith and covenant seriously, but also knows that they’re going to mess up.

God has already shown that God will remain committed to the Hebrew people through rescuing them from Egypt; now God is asking them to be committed in return so God can work through them to share God’s love with the rest of the world.

So when we reach commandment four, the shift from talking about God to talking about humanity makes sense. God is telling the Hebrew people, and now us, some of the ways we’re meant to live so we can share God’s love with others.

But the commandment about keeping the Sabbath is unique, because it extends to the entirety of creation, including livestock. God also specifically mentions immigrants; people living among the Hebrew people but who may not follow God or believe the same things the Hebrews do.

This is the only commandment that also explicitly applies to people who don’t follow God.

Everyone is required not only to rest on the seventh day, but to structure their lives and their communities so that everybody can do the same, no matter who they are.

The Sabbath commandment was never meant to be for individuals; it was meant for entire communities to follow together.

And in our days of constant work demands, caring for family members, and with our kids being in multiple sports and clubs, our society is just not structured to support a communal Sabbath.

So the burden then falls on us to figure out how we find rest in the middle of all of it. Which we were never meant to figure out on our own.

So it transitions well into the last six commandments, then, which all have to do with how we treat each other. More than half of the commandments God gave have to do not with how we worship God, but with how we treat our neighbors.

Which means that it must be pretty important to God.

And we’re probably all familiar with them to some extent; honor your parents, don’t kill each other, don’t cheat on your spouse, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t get jealous of your neighbor’s ox.

All of these things are important to a group getting along with each other and ensuring that everyone is safe and protected.

While most of them today are easy enough to understand why they’re important, some people with difficult relationships with their parents may understandably chafe at the “honor your parents” without any commandments for parents to treat their kids well.

That latter commandment will come along in Ephesians, but for this context, scholars think the commandment was meant to ensure that those who were elderly were taken care of in their old age in a time when there were no social services to look out for them or care for them.

Which is a common theme throughout the Mosaic Law. God calls the Hebrew people to care for the poor and the vulnerable, from their elders to the immigrants in their community to women who would be left vulnerable if their husbands cheated on them and threw them out.

And it started with the Ten Commandments.

Most of the time, I think we can see the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws in Scripture as sort of a contract between us and God.

If we follow what God says, then God will consider us God’s people, and we’ll get God’s protection and blessings and all of that stuff. If we don’t do what God says, then we lose God’s protection and blessings, and bad things happen.

Except this isn’t a contract. Because before God gives the Ten Commandments, God said, “ I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

God is already their God, just as God is already our God. Following God’s commandments to love our neighbors does not grant us salvation, or make us children of God, or however you want to phrase that.

Instead it’s what we do because we are part of God’s people, because we believe that God lives in the faces of each and every person in this world.

And we believe that our faith and spirituality live in the ways we care for our neighbors, whether they live right next door or halfway around the world.

It is what we do because we have experienced the grace and love of God, so therefore we show up for others to share that grace and love with them.

The Ten Commandments were meant as the foundational guidelines for a community of God’s people living together in a way where everyone was respected and cared for, had their needs met, and nobody went without.

Today we live in a society that more often than not doesn’t prioritize loving our neighbors well, and sometimes they invoke the name of God to justify it. It is exhausting and horrifying to see the level of violence and pain in our communities, broadcast on the evening news, and even live-streamed on the Internet.

It can feel demoralizing to try to not lie, steal, cheat, get jealous, when we see so many people who seem to be benefiting from doing it.

It feels like our small actions to do things differently, to spread love, to hold to the truth and act ethically are just droplets of water being flung onto a wildfire, and we still end up being parched while others thrive.

But through it all, the Church around the world has shown up to love and care for our neighbors who live on the margins, who find themselves vulnerable to hunger and violence and sickness.

The Church in Ukraine has shown up in impossible situations to provide spiritual comfort and strength while rockets fire overhead. So have churches in Palestine, Israel, house churches in Iran, and so many more war-torn countries.

Churches of all denominations here in the United States have stepped forward to help refugees and immigrants and advocate for their rights and safety.

Churches in Alabama and Florida this morning are reaching out to their neighbors and community in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias (ee-sai-ee-as). They’re helping them to begin cleaning up, making sure they have food and clean water and a safe place to sleep tonight.

And here in Lake Bluff we’ve shown up to care for our neighbors who live with food insecurity, which is a number that is only increasing with changes to SNAP benefits.

We’re already seeing that impact in what COOL food pantry is asking us for. Not only are we being asked for a wider variety of food donations, we’re being asked to donate more hygiene supplies and diapers. That’s because families are having to choose between feeding themselves and making sure they’re clean. Hunger makes that decision pretty easy most of the time. But we can help make sure they don’t have to make that decision.

And what we get asked to provide in our Thanksgiving bags this year might reflect this new reality too. We may get asked to include items that confuse us, that seem like they don’t belong in a holiday meal.

But we’re being called to show up before and after Thanksgiving too. Maybe those items won’t be eaten on Thanksgiving, but it’ll make sure that they’re fed the next day, and the day after that too.

And we’ll be there to make sure they’re fed in the days after that as well.

Because we don’t follow the Ten Commandments to get ahead in life. We don’t follow Jesus’s command to love God and love our neighbor, because we think we’re going to benefit.

We follow them because we are a people who knows what God’s love is, and we believe that we are called to share that love with the world.

Because God’s love and grace has covered us for thousands of generations, and we will make sure that it continues to spread as far and wide as it can through our hands and feet for the next thousand generations.