The Big Ten

The Life of Moses- ep.#23 ⚖️ Can personal desires truly guide us towards righteousness? Join us on this eye-opening episode of Whispers of Grace as we confront the pervasive issue of moral relativism, exploring how the societal shift away from absolute truths is creating chaos. We'll take a deep dive into Exodus, chapter 20, to understand how the Ten Commandments offer a foundation of divine guidance that stands in stark contrast to today's "individualistic truths." Through these ancient laws, we uncover the enduring relevance of God's standards in leading a life of true righteousness.

Drawing from C.S. Lewis's keen observations on human behavior, we investigate the commonality of moral laws that are universally recognized, even in our daily disputes. Stories like Cain and Abel reveal that these truths are not just social constructs but are deeply embedded in our conscience, aligning with the natural order God created. This episode underscores the idea that moral principles are not just cultural artifacts, but divine imperatives meant for human well-being.

Moving to the New Testament, we delve into the teachings of the Apostle Paul from the book of Romans, where we uncover the liberating power of grace and faith. Paul's insights reveal that righteousness by faith, as exemplified by Abraham, transcends mere adherence to laws. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount challenges us to embody a deeper, Spirit-led righteousness. Finally, we reflect on how God's love, conveyed through moral absolutes, provides a stable foundation in a world teetering on the brink of confusion. Embrace the divine moral code and find true freedom in Christ's grace and love.

Transcript

Julie: 0:19

Kia ora, and welcome to Whispers of Grace, a place for women to be encouraged by God's holy word. I'm your host, julie Colbeth, and I am overjoyed to dig into the Bible with you today. Kia ora, friends, and welcome back to Whispers of Grace. I am so excited to dive back into the life of Moses with you today. So I'm sure that you've noticed, but truth is under attack everywhere. There's an attempted siege against the Lord in everything in media, in politics, in lawmaking, in governance, in schools, in the workplace, in our communities and even in some of our churches. Traditional morality and absolute truth are often seen as dim-witted or dusty, an old province that we just need to simply outgrow with the changing times. At least, that's the way I've seen it portrayed. Even media that's designed for our children often proclaims this hedonistic call just follow your heart. They encourage children to value their own desires above everything else, to forsake everything to attain their deepest wants and to view anyone who stands in their way as an enemy. Desire has long been made king Follow your heart and it will never lead you astray, they say. In the world, opinion and experience have become fact. This concept is known as moral relativism, and it sounds like the world telling you to go and find your truth and to leave behind any concept of traditional morality. Whatever feels right to you is your truth. So you have to act on it and be honest with yourself about it. And while I think that some of the intention behind this mindset is probably inclusivity and a desire not to judge or discriminate, what happens if we follow moral relativ, not to judge or discriminate? What happens if we follow moral relativism to its inevitable end? What happens when my heart tells me that kicking kittens is a good way for me to process my feelings of rage? Then I will certainly be stepping on the truth of so many other people that love and protect kittens. And then what of so many other people that love and protect kittens? And then what? So who's right and who's wrong? Well, that's the problem. No one can say, because when we throw out absolute truth, then everyone is right and no one can be wrong, and whoever gets in the way of me and my truth should be canceled. They should be removed and shamed and pushed out of society. When we stop and see this ideology for what it is, it's incredibly dangerous and it will never work, but it is so prevalent in our world, in our society, and it creeps into things so easily. The problem is that the world does not want to acknowledge a standard that reaches across communities and continents, because this would point to the existence of a lawmaker that has left his fingerprints on creation. But fear not, my friends. I know this is a heck of an intro, but this is nothing new.

Julie: 3:40

Satan's goal has always been to deceive us, to make us think that our truth, our personal truth, is absolute. Satan comes to us with his age-old deceptions. He wants to keep us plucking that fruit of Eden under the illusion that it will make us wise. His task is not so hard, though, because we make it really easy for him, don't we? We have always loved to set ourselves up as gods. We don't like to be told what to do, we shy away from accountability, we manipulate to get our way, and we so often cling to our feelings in any given moment. As gods themselves, we easily fall down and worship them, but what we need to understand is where truth comes from and what it looks like.

Julie: 4:34

So today we have the great privilege of reading Exodus, chapter 20, which is the official giving of the Ten Commandments. So just a short little recap to remind ourselves of where we are in scripture. Israel was freed from Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea. They're being fed with manna from heaven, water has gushed from a rock and they found themselves at the base of Mount Sinai and God is currently revealing his power. There was thunder and lightning, earthquakes and fire and smoke and the sound of a trumpet blast that just got louder and louder and louder, and then the voice of God himself speaking out these commandments. I actually devoted an entire episode about this time. It's called Meeting with the Divine, the Holiness of God, at Mount Sinai. It's kind of the first part to this section, just in case you want to go back and listen to it for some context. But for today I'm going to read to you Exodus, chapter 20, verses 1 down to 21.

Julie: 5:39

Then God gave the people all these instructions I am the Lord, your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other God but me. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth, or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children. The entire family is affected, even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

Julie: 6:34

Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord, your God. On that day, no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock and any foreigners that live among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea and everything in them, but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the lord blessed the sabbath day and set it apart as holy. Honor your father and your mother, and you will live a long, full life in the land that the lord, your god, is giving you.

Julie: 7:17

You must not murder, you must not commit adultery, you must not steal, you must not testify falsely against your neighbor, you must not covet your neighbor's house, you must not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram's horn and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear. And they they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain. They stood at a distance, trembling with fear, and they said to Moses you speak to us and we will listen, but don't let God speak directly to us or we will die. Don't be afraid. Moses answered them, for God has come in this way to test you and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning. As the people stood in the distance.

Julie: 8:13

Commandments, the giving of the law, truth championed. So as we get started here, I want to just take a minute to clarify some things on this topic, because there's a whole lot of terminology that fly around concerning the law and there are some important distinctions to understand. This passage of scripture describes the giving of the Ten Commandments, which most of us are pretty familiar with. We've heard them. Even people that don't walk with God have heard of the Ten Commandments, but there are many more rules and practices that were given by God that make up the Jewish law. There's actually 613 ordinances, to be exact, so these cover things like cleansing rules and Sabbath observance and how to handle sicknesses, governance and all sorts of things like that. Many of these you probably skip over when you're reading your Old Testament because they just don't impact our lives too much anymore, but they still have significance and hold many amazing insights into the wisdom of God for his people. I've actually studied a lot of these little laws and things that when you read them you don't understand, but if you look into it, there's truly gems that you can mine out there. So you can read all these laws in the Torah, which is the first five books of your Bible.

Julie: 9:32

The Ten Commandments, plus these extra ordinances that I'm telling you about, are also known as the Mosaic Law or the Torah Law, because they were handed down from God through Moses to Israel. So the law. It became the central defining point for the Jews. It set them apart from all of the other nations. People thought that they were crazy for some of the things that they were doing, but it served as an incredible protection for them, even a lot of the protection against sickness and disease back when they didn't understand about bacteria. God knew and he was protecting the Jews and they stood out for it. So all of their lives they would revolve around the law. They would be ordered by it, and not just their worship, but their cleansing habits and their holidays, even their home lives and their relationships, all of their interactions with other people. They were all managed by the law that God passed down to them.

Julie: 10:30

The Jews also added many more laws and customs, and these were handed down by prominent rabbis of the day, so these are called the rabbinic laws. These extra laws are sometimes thought of by the Jewish community as the fences around the Torah, because some of the additional laws are aimed to help prevent people from violating God's given law by accident. So they aren't actually mandated by God, but they are seen as equally important to the Jews in Jesus' day and even now. So these extra laws were often showcased in the life of Jesus because he often violated them. So Jesus never violated God's law, but he constantly put the rabbinic laws to the test, like remember when he healed on the Sabbath day? Or he allowed his disciples to pluck the heads of grain and eat them on the Sabbath, which was seen as work by the Pharisees? Jesus and his disciples were also called out for not observing the ceremonial hand-washing before they were eating. So all of these little rules they broke. And the Pharisees just love to call Jesus out whenever he didn't abide by the rabbinic laws.

Julie: 11:39

So it's easy to see how law keeping alone produced these Pharisees that hassled Jesus. They would tithe even the mint and the cumin from their gardens, but their hearts were proud and corrupt and they were so far away from God and they were much more concerned with keeping their hands clean than with the souls of the broken people around them. When Jesus is healing, they're not even concerned about the fact that somebody's life was just changed. They're just concerned about the rabbinic laws being broken. So when we clearly see the corruption of the law keeping in the lives of these Pharisees and, let's be honest, in all of our own hearts it's there as well it begs the question is the law still good, even if it brings out such darkness from us? And what is important to point out is that nothing is wrong with the law besides us, we can't abide by God's holy law. But God's law is so good it's not evil or wrong or too strict or even outdated. It is, without a doubt, good and holy because it was breathed out by God himself. Reading these laws, it's kind of like reading the instruction manual for an incredibly complex machine, where only the creator of that machine knows everything about it, because he made it so. If something breaks or malfunctions, then you would refer to the manual for guidance on how to fix it. So these laws are God's instruction manual for living a good life in the world that he created, and everything that God does has purpose and it is perfect. And the law, the commandments? They are outside of our opinions. It doesn't matter if they resonate with our personal experiences or not. They're actually written on our hearts from birth. God has left his fingerprints for us to see, on our very souls.

Julie: 13:42

I would like to read a great quote by CS Lewis, who pinpointed this truth that we're kind of talking about. If you aren't familiar with the name CS Lewis, he is well known for writing the Chronicles of Narnia series, which are a fantastic read, especially if you have kids. They're great. But he was also a great thinker and an evangelist, and he wrote lots of other books. So the quote that I'm going to read to you today is from his book called Mere Christianity, and, interestingly enough, the contents of this book were first spoken over the radio by Lewis himself in England in 1942. This is when Britain was being bombed during World War II, and he used this time of great tragedy to rally the minds of the public to think about things of God and he reasoned with them over the airwaves for the faith, which is super cool. So this quote is straight out of that, and it talks about how the law is written on our hearts.

Julie: 14:40

Everyone has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant, but however it sounds, I believe that we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things that people say. They say things like this how do you like it if anyone did the same thing to you? Hey, that's my seat. I was there first. Leave him alone. He isn't doing you any harm. Why should you shove in first? Give me a bit of your orange. I gave you a bit of mine. Come on, you promised. People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grownups.

Julie: 15:24

Now, what interests me about all of these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behavior doesn't happen to please him. He's appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know. And the other man very seldom replies to hell with your standard. Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard at all, or that, if it does, there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality, or whatever you like to call it about which they really agreed and they have. If they had not, they might of course fight like animals, but they wouldn't quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong, and there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what right and wrong are, just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football. So this simple little quote from Lewis points out something that we all understand from such a young age that there really is a law that's written on our heart, and I love the way he states it so simply.

Julie: 17:04

So back to talking about the Ten Commandments. It's important to understand that the moral law that we're talking about it didn't originate the moment that these commandments were given. The concepts in the commandments were acknowledged and enforced long before they were engraved by the finger of God. Men always knew that it was wrong to murder, ever since the very first time that an unrighteous death happened. Remember all the way back to when Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. God said that Abel's blood cried out from the ground to be avenged. It was wrong, and the wrongness of that act. It didn't need to be explained, but it was known and it was understood to be a deep act of violence against God's created purpose stood to be a deep act of violence against God's created purpose. Cain knew his jealous violence was wrong and every heart that was impacted by the loss of Abel knew that it was against God's created order to experience this tragic loss. Similarly, adultery, lying, coveting, stealing and the like they all go against God's created order, and man's conscience has always bore witness that these things are wrong. So the appearance of the Ten Commandments it wasn't anything new, like the quote that I just read from Lewis.

Julie: 18:21

Our conscience was designed by God to prove what is right and what is wrong since the very beginning of creation. What is wrong since the very beginning of creation. But the problem remains the law, as good and holy as it is, cannot produce righteousness in us. It shows us what we need to do to please God, but it has no power to sanctify us or to enable us to live the good and holy lives that it asks. And as genuine of a desire that we might have to keep God's law and to do what's pleasing to him, we fail again and again, and again and again. We desire to do good, but sin is always right, there, waiting to have us, and we just can't free ourselves from this unavoidable truth. It can be so frustrating to see all of these good things that you wish and hope to do, but you fail over and, over and over again. But the hopelessness of our situation, it drives us in desperation. To the grace of Jesus Christ, I'm going to read the Apostle Paul's explanation of these concepts in the book of Romans that he wrote.

Julie: 19:38

It's in chapter seven and it's all the way through chapter eight. Listen to the way that he describes his battle with the law and the answer for this plight. Now, dear brothers and sisters, you who are familiar with the law, don't you know that the law applies only while a person is living? For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he's alive, but if he dies, the law of marriage no longer applies to her. So, while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she marries another man, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point you died to the power of the law when you died with Christ, and now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused those evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captives to its power. Now we can serve God not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

Julie: 21:05

Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not. In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said you must not covet, but sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me. If there were no law, sin would not have that power.

Julie: 21:30

At one time I lived without understanding the law, but when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life and I died. So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me. It used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy and its commands are good. But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not. Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes.

Julie: 22:17

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong. It is the sin that lives in me that does it, and I know that nothing good lives in me. That is in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good, but I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong. It is the sin that lives in me that does it.

Julie: 23:08

I've discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all of my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God, the answer is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. So you see how it is In my mind. I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus, and because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

Julie: 24:02

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us. So cool to read out these big sections of scripture, but this shows us God did what the law could never do. Praise God.

Julie: 24:49

When I read this, I just think hallelujah, because we're no longer slaves to the law or to our flesh, because Jesus's blood has fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law. His blood fulfilled the law, so now we can be free. Doesn't this bring you amazing joy? Whenever I think about this, I'm just overwhelmed with happiness because I feel like I can breathe again. I don't feel like I'm being crushed by this condemnation, but it's actually like I've been given wings through the death of God, because he came to redeem us, to give us hope in this dark time and this lifeline of grace in the storm. Our God is just so good. He takes such fantastic care of us.

Julie: 25:37

The problem is, as much as we hear these truths, we tend to fall right back into legalism and try to appease God through our good works, or try and earn our salvation through our good works, or try to make ourselves feel better about ourselves through our good works, and we forget that even our best deeds are like filthy rags to God. We look to perfect ourselves through the law. Yet again. Big surprise right, we're stuck on this cycle. And Paul addresses this perfectly in the book of Galatians, chapter three. I'm going to read you just a bit of it.

Julie: 26:14

So here, the Galatians are essentially doing the same thing that I have found myself doing over and over again, and Paul calls them out for it. He says oh foolish Galatians, who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ's death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not. You received the Spirit because you believed the message that you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human efforts? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not. It is because you believe the message that you heard about Christ.

Julie: 27:19

In the same way, abraham believed God and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. Because, remember, this is not Bible talk, this is Julie talk. Because, remember Abraham, he pleased God long before the Mosaic law was given. At Mount Sinai, right, abraham was dead and gone. It was Abraham, isaac, jacob, slavery, freedom, then law. So Abraham pleased God before there even was a Mosaic law, and that's what Paul's pointing out here.

Julie: 27:49

Okay, back to Galatians. So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law, for the scriptures say it is through faith that a righteous person has life. This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says it is through obeying the law that a person has life. But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. So again, we are not made righteous through our works, but through repentance and belief and through our faith in Jesus's redeeming work on the cross.

Julie: 28:33

I love this little section in Galatians. He says how foolish can you be after starting your new lives in the spirit? Why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort. But the question remains if we have been freed from this law, then how shall we live? Do we throw off the wisdom that the law gives and just live as we please, since we're not bound by it any longer? So this brings us to Jesus to explain to us how all of this works together. How should we live in light of his sacrifice that satisfies the requirements of the law for us?

Julie: 29:14

Remember when Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount, and it confounded all of the religious leaders at the time, because Jesus, he flipped their legalistic hearts upside down. He called their very hearts to a purity that reached far beyond their actions. So I'm going to read some pieces of the Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew, chapter 5, so you can hear it in Jesus's own words Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth Until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear, until its purpose is achieved. So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But anyone who obeys God's laws and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. But I warn you, unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Okay, pause button just for a second.

Julie: 30:26

Now, in light of everything that we've read and talked through, can you understand with a different perspective, what jesus is saying here? He says your righteousness must be greater than even the most careful of law keepers. It has to exceed that. It must be perfect to attain heaven. So what's he talking about here? We know that this is impossible with man. But what is impossible for man is possible with God. So Jesus would offer himself as the sacrifice of perfect righteousness. He is that perfect man.

Julie: 31:02

And then he continues on here. He said you have heard that our ancestors were told you must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment. But I say if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment. If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.

Julie: 31:25

You have heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery. But I say anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. You have heard the law that says the punishment must match an injury an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. You have heard the law that says love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven, for he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those that love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you were kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Julie: 32:29

Now, in reading this, don't just scoop out all of the to-dos of this passage and think now I have to be perfect and become a Pharisee that struggles to keep the requirement of the law again. Don't fall into that trap. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus because we need to be renewed day by day, and the secret is, the more that we focus on him, abide in him, love him, obey him, talk with him and about him, the more that we look just like him, because you become like the people that you spend time with. This type of living that he's calling us to is far more than simply obeying the commandments. It's deeper, it's wider, it's much more vast and it expresses the heart of God. It goes far beyond the law and it asks us to walk as Jesus walked, because we're called to be his representatives in this world, to turn the other cheek, to give wholeheartedly, to forgive liberally and to love intensely.

Julie: 33:37

But we do all of those things through the power of the Holy Spirit that comes to live within us when we first repent and believe. So, galatians, it tells us that if we walk in the Spirit, we won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It's about walking in the Spirit. It's the only way that we can please God and we can live radically different, because it's like we now have superpowers. We have the spirit of God that's guiding us and he's working through our, even our, weaknesses to prove himself strong. It's no longer about our willpower, trying to keep the law, but it's about the spirit power, the power of the Holy Spirit, that we have, that now we can live radically different when we allow the spirit to have his way in our lives, breaking us and remaking us and redeeming us and consistently conforming us into the image of God, sanctifying us and saving us each and every day.

Julie: 34:40

This is the work of the Spirit and it's beautiful and deep, and we need to see how much more valuable it is to have this relationship, because our love and obedience is birthed out of relationship and out of love. It's not law-keeping, it's love. It's for love's sake. Every romance that you could ever watch, it's always that. That's what grips us right Is the things that people will do for love, how they will lay themselves down again and again and again.

Julie: 35:15

And this is what Jesus came to do. He came to change something that was law keeping, that was trying to consistently measure ourselves against a standard that we could never meet. But God, he came. Jesus came on the cross to form a love bond, a love relationship with us that now our obedience is birthed out of love and we get to choose each and every single day how we are going to live, not because we are bound by the law, but because we are freed in love. So I just want to remind you one last time God, he gave his law because he loves us. He loves you so intensely and he knows how his creation works best. So when he tells us not to covet, it's because he knows how his creation works. He knows how to take care of us. When he tells us not to lie, it's because he knows how to take care of us.

Julie: 36:16

And every time that we choose to sin, we choose to believe that we know better than God does. We choose to sin because we don't believe that he really loves us or that he wants what's best. So we have to go out there and get it for ourselves, even if that means lying a little, being a little bit dishonest, doing this or that and kind of blurring the lines. We really really believe that we know better than God and we become wise in our own eyes, just like Eve. It's like we watch it all happening all over again on a daily basis and we reject the revealed truth that died on a cross to make a bridge between us and God, and I know that if we could just focus and see God's heart, see the role of the Spirit in bringing conviction is not to dull our fun or to push us away from other people and make us miserable, but it's to draw us in, to give us life.

Julie: 37:19

If we could see the love of Christ on Calvary life, if we could see the love of Christ on Calvary, then we would believe him when he tells us how to live, when we see him, really see him, everything is made simple. It's not easy, but it's simple because he loves us so dearly and he desires good things for you. And even when we can't fathom the shape of what those good things are, we need to trust our creator. We need to trust our Abba, our shepherd, because he's got us, he loves us and he knows what's best, even when we don't understand. That is what truth is for.

Julie: 37:58

Truth is not made for when things are comfortable and easy. Truth is made for when things are confusing and dark and we can fall down against a standard and realize that it is unchanging. So, my friends, let us rejoice in moral absolutes, not fear them or run from them. Let's rejoice that there is a divine moral code, because it was created by a God who loves us. So let's thank him for that and let's choose to love him more each day, as we obey and we allow his glorious power to work in us. Thank you.