• In doing so, we will hopefully gain some more insight into the conversation that the experts of the law had with Jesus, when they ask him…  "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matt 22:36-40
• We saw in yesterday’s lesson, how the first four commandments are given to help us understand how to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. In today’s lesson, the next six commandments will help us understand what Jesus meant when he said we need to learn how to love your neighbor as yourself.

Fifth Word: Encourages us to recognize and honor authority starting with our parents!

• Ex 20:12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

1.     Responding to a promise…

• Let me begin by calling your attention to the audience to whom these words were addressed. Growing up most people were was taught that this Command was addressed to children. But the command, as with all the commands, was a personal word given to grown men and women at the base of Mount Sinai. In other words, they are for you and me. And I believe that there were three reasons that this command was needed.

        A.    Remember that Israel was just released from 400 years of slavery. Meaning, they had lived in a culture that                        devalued age! Remember they were slaves, so the older you became, the harder it was to work. And when you                    finally got so old that you couldn’t work, you were declared worthless. Interestingly, we are seeing the same thing                developing today! It’s called early retirement.

        B.    Secondly, they lacked the social structure that would provide for people in need. There was no Social Security,                no retirement plans, so older people had to rely on their children when they could no longer care for themselves.                Of course, today we have nursing homes to take care of the elderly and sadly, many people feel that because of                   them, they are totally relieved of any responsibility they have towards their parents. But according to this                               commandment, this is simply not true! In fact, this commandment turns our cultural attitude towards our parents                     upside down. Today, the elderly are looked upon as a burden to bare, where in scripture, taking care of our                         parents is seen as a privilege!

        C.    Thirdly and most importantly, this command insured the future of Israel. You see, many people read this                              command as saying that those of us who will honor our parents will have long and healthy life! But that’s not the                  promise. The promise as its stated here is: “so that you [THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL]  may live a long time in the                        land that I am giving you. Why is that significant? Because the land represents a life with God where people live                  in complete peace because they are safe from their enemies! Also, it’s a land where they will be provided fruit                      which they did not labor for. In other        words, this land represents the kind of the life where you are                                    experiencing the full blessings of God!

2.     One of God’s highest calling is to be a Mom and Dad!  

• In God’s eyes, the responsibility of raising our children does not lie with schoolteachers, school counselors or day care people as wonderful as they are. Nor does the responsibility lie with TV programing, movies or the internet. The responsibility of training our children fall on us as parents!
• Parents have an awesome responsibility when it comes to their children! And it goes far beyond teaching our kids to play sports or to change a tire or balance a checkbook. We are responsible for teaching our children WHO GOD IS and HOW THEY SHOULD RELATE TO HIM!
• Billy Graham’s daughter Gigi, once said… The only thing that parents can take to heaven is their children.

3.     Restoring our ability to honor…

• The word “honor” means to show respect, to reverence, and even to hold in awe. In other words, we are NOT to take our parents, their authority or our care for them lightly.
• Christian marriage counselor Gary Smally gave the example of the time he stood before a crowd of people and held up a broken old violin before them. He began to explain to them all the ways it was broken. The crowd quietly listened to him until the very end when he said, by the way, this is a Stradivarius! (A very old and valuable violin) which caused the      crowd to audibly gasp in awe! At which point Mr. Smally said; Now, that is what it means to show someone honor!
• While this sounds nice, it is not an easy thing to do these days. This seems to be a lost concept when it comes to our culture.
• Author Oscar Wilde died over 100 years ago, yet summed up the spirit of our own time when he said:
  "Disobedience is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and rebellion." Implying we live in a society that admires disobedience and rebellion.
• If you do not believe me, just watch TV for a few minutes. Most TV programs portray authority figures with few exceptions as complete idiots: Parents are clueless morons while teachers are about the same. Clearly communicating that we don’t really care for authority figures in this country. Look at how we mock the highest office in the land, the president himself!
• So, how do we as a nation reclaim the ability to honor people? It begins by learning how to honor our parents within our homes! I believe God designed our home life to be the primary school where we learn how to respect and honor all forms of authority!
• Of course, this immediately raises the questions within us as children; Does this mean that we must do everything our parents tell us, even after we turn 18? Of course not! But it does mean we need to:

           1.     Respect them

           2.     Value their advice

           3.     Let them know we appreciate their efforts

           4.     Meet their needs

           5.     Forgive their failings

Sixth Word: Encourages us honor life and to work through our anger before it kills us!

• Ex 20:13 You shall not murder.
• In this short little commandment, there is a lot to unpack. But since this is just an overview, let me give you two different threads of thought that this commandment promotes.

1.  The true value of life…

• We live in a culture that not only trivializes death but glorifies violence. We ourselves, if we are honest, would admit that we have been desensitized to death and violence by our own repeated exposure to television and movie violence; to such a degree that most of us don’t even react to the violence any longer!
• Their message is clear, life is no longer sacred, but dispensable! Which is why everywhere we look; we are exposed to mindless violence against life! Think about it, think about the vast amount of energy that our entertainment uses to focuses on violence! They use every medium available to them; movies, music, video games, books, comics, you name it.
• So is it any surprise that every day we hear more about murders, suicides, euthanasia, and abortion!
• The fact is, if we open our eyes, our culture is full of killing; Just consider the act of abortion; in this country we kill over 1,000,000 unborn babies every year, mostly for the sake of convenience.
• Not only that, but we are quickly moving to the day when our elderly will be encouraged to die when they become seen as an inconvenience.
• How can this be? This is happening because in our society, we are de-valuing human life! In other words, “you are only valuable so long as you are like me or as long as you help me to get something that I want”
• And because of this mentality, we also tend to de-value ourselves. When we start to think the way the world thinks about value and significance, then we begin to base our value on what we are able to contribute or what we have or what we can do. Therefore, when we can no longer contribute, when our failures outnumber our successes, when we do not have any more to give, we begin to wonder how much value we really have.
• Of course, the ultimate outcome of that kind of thinking is suicide or self-murder. Which is a growing sentiment around the world, where it is becoming more and more a common thing that people have at least a passing or maybe even serious thoughts about suicide.
• But this commandment, teaches us that life is a sacred gift from God! We are to love life and seek to preserve and sanctify it. Meaning, no matter who you are or what you have done, you are a creation of God and someone that He loves dearly because you were made in the image of God!

 2.     Beware of the destructive power of anger!

• Quite frankly, most of us up to this point, have not paid much attention to this commandment; You shall not murder, simply because we believe we are not struggling with it. After all, 99.9 percent of us don’t go around killing people. So, we think to ourselves, no big deal, I got this one covered! Wrong!      At least not according to Jesus!
• Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus says “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool! Will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
• What Jesus is doing here is sounding an alarm on a number of different levels! Firstly, he is saying that the true meaning of this commandment goes far beyond the act of killing someone! According to Jesus, this commandment is speaking to our hearts, and more specifically, the attitudes of our hearts! Why?  Because our ACTIONS come from our ATTITUDES!!
• Jesus is warning us about the deadly effect of unchecked anger! That our anger can have the same consequences upon our soul as if we had murdered someone!

Seventh Word: Calls us to Sexual purity and Wholeness!

• Ex 20:14 "You shall not commit adultery.
• As we are going see, Jesus in his sermon on the mount, reveals to us that there is much more here than just a pronouncement of judgement on the act of adultery. With in this word, not only do we see the heart of God revealed, but also see the depths

1.     The heart of God:

• On the surface we hear God’s heart for marriage, that it is a God ordain relationship that should be earmark by faithfulness and loyalty.
• The bible teaches us that our marriages are meant to be a reflection of the relationship that God has for us, who loves us with such a love, that it is beyond our understanding and too good to be true! His love is so amazing, that even when we are unfaithful to him, he is never unfaithful to us!
• In other words, you will never hear God say; that’s it, I tried and tried and tried to help you, encourage you, heal you, and your still are not getting it! I have poured my life into you for the last 50 years or so, and you never love me back! So, I have had it, Hasta la vista amigo! I am out of here! (Aren’t you glad about this?)
• Faithfulness in the marriage is foundational and essential to experiencing marriage God’s way! And the kind of faithfulness God is looking for, goes far beyond just the physical act of adultery!
• In the New Testament, Jesus reveals to us in his sermon on the mount; Matt 5:27-28 "You have heard that the law of Moses says, 'Do not commit adultery.'  But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
• What Jesus is saying here, is that this word, the seventh commandment, in reality is a call to sexual purity! If anyone, married or unmarried, looks at a women or a man with lust in their heart, they have already committed adultery! In other words, all sexual activity outside the boundaries of marriage is sin.
• Does that upset you? Well you are not the only one!

 2.          The heart of our culture:

• When I was preparing for this message, I thought that this idea that adultery was a bad thing for a marriage, was something that most people believed in and always would!  
• Until I came across this article by Miss Manners of Adultery who says; Our society has come to think of adultery as kind of a “victimless crime. “For many, it’s not really seen as a crime at all. In fact, there are even books being published on how to conduct yourself when you’re in an adulterous relationship.
• Isn’t that crazy? This is one of the things that has led me to believe we live in a sexually saturated insane world, and unfortunately, I think it’s only going to get worst
• Did you know how many hits you get if you type the word porn into goggle search? 5 million? 10? 25? 150 million? Over 2 and half billion sites devoted to porn! Furthermore, porn is no longer considered just a male thing! 42 percent of those using porn today are women between the ages 18 to 44.
• One young author describes his generation as the “Porn generation”, especially when it comes to pop music of today, which is geared to sexualizing girls at a younger and younger age. He goes on to describe how his generation promotes the progression of  sexual development or its young starlings!
• They all start out pure, innocent, virgins, who then become risqué, but not overtly sexual, but then very quickly become very sexual and then encourage them to become bi-sexual, all outside the realm of marriage! Clearly, the culture we live in today scoffs at the very concept of sexual fidelity in marriage!

3.     Our broken hearts:

• Sadly, all this results in millions of lives being ruined! Yet no one reports to us of the millions of marriage broken or children devastated because of what their parents had done as a result of buying into these lies.
• No one really tells us about the pain a spouse goes through when their mate has an affair or the pain of a child who loses a parent through an affair!
• One counselor stated, I’ve watched women who have tried to readjust to life after their husbands have died. And I’ve watched women who tried to readjust to life after their husbands were unfaithful to them and they were divorced. I tell you, a woman who goes through the death of her mate usually readjusts more quickly than the woman who goes through a divorce because of unfaithfulness
• Furthermore, no one tells us of the billions of dollars we as a society has had to pay to take care of the aid’s epidemic or any of the other sexually transmitted diseases! Nor do they report on the true cost of all the divorce court cases, or delinquent child payments resulting from sexual immorality.
• No one tells us about the families trapped in pain as they watch their love one’s waste away due to aids.
• No one tells us about the pain young girls have to go through      with unwanted pregnancies that many times result in abortions.
• No one tells us about how having multiple sex partners when you are young can shut you down emotionally so that intimacy becomes a lost cause.
• No tells us that God created sex in such a way that it finds it ultimate experience in the context of a loving marriage and any sexual experience outside of that context is like a cheap imitation! Kind of like powder milk versus real milk or a tv dinner compared to 6 course homemade dinner made by the best chef in the world
• No one tells us about how sexual activity outside of marriage is one of the most addictive processes that exist today. Literally millions of people have become enslaved to porn or affairs or to self-gratification.
• And  lastly, no tells us how these sexual addictions become the primary driving force behind rape, incest and abuse and even murder.
• This all leads to us having to ask this very important question! Do you think, just maybe, that God knew this? That he knew our hearts and what would happen to us when we strayed from him? And that he wanted to protect us from ourselves? You see, reality is, the fruit of walking away from God has left generations of sexually broken people.

Eighth Word: Calls us to respect one another’s ownership of things through trusting in God!

• Ex 20:15 "You shall not steal.

1.      The heart of the matter:

• The word “steal” here is more comprehensive than outright theft. It also covers any type of deception or fraud, by which the offender takes unjust advantage of someone else, whether in the matter of money or business or property.
• The reason why our relationship with God comes into question when we steal, is because our stealing reveals our true heart! That we really don’t trust God to take care of us!
• Here are three questions every believer needs to ask themselves…

          A. Do you really believe that God knows better than you do exactly what your real needs are?

               -  So often our struggles with life makes us feel alone and isolated from the rest of the world, and                                          from God himself, but this is not true!

               -  Ps 139:1-4 O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down                    or stand up. You know my every thought when far away. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to                    stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am.  You know what I am going to say even before I say it,                            LORD.

               - There absolutely nothing about you or what you need that is hidden from God! Add to that, you are the apple                   of his eye, whom he loves like his own child!

             B. Do you really believe that God will honor His promise to meet those needs?

                 -  Has God promised to take care of your needs? YES!!

                 -  Psalm 23;1 The LORD is my shepherd; I have everything I need.

                 -  Matt 6:25-33 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your                            body, what you will wear… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given                      to you as well.

                 - In other words, if you put God first above all things, letting go of your own agendas to make yourself happy,                      you will discover that God himself picks up your cause and blesses you far beyond what you could do for                             yourself.

               C. Lastly, are you willing to wait for God’s timing on the fulfillment of your needs.

                   - This is where the rubber hits the road! No one likes to wait. We all want what we want now. That is why                             people take what is not theirs because they can’t or won’t wait for it, or believe they shouldn’t have to wait for                       it.

                   - Question: What do we call a child who throws themselves on the floor wailing about not getting what they                        want right now? Most of us would call them being spoiled brats!

                   -  You see, part of growing up is realizing that we cannot always have what we want when we want it.                                 -  Could it be then, that those times where we find ourselves in situations where we have to wait to get what                            we want, be it a better job or a change in your circumstances, is God trying to help us grow up?

                    - That just maybe, God is calling us to trust Him and his timing in our lives? That he is trying to show us how                           by trusting Him, we would learn that he always delivers on time, exactly what we need!

                    -  Bottom line, Stealing reflects really where we are at in our relationship with God, because it says, “When I                          steal, I don’t really trust you to be my provider!”

2.    Going deeper:

• Up to this point, we have focused on thinking of “stealing” only in terms of stealing physical things from another person. When we use the term thief, we usually picture a hardened criminal like a bank robber or the “cat burglar” or perhaps someone who is a kleptomaniac.
• Certainly, this command speaks to those types of people, but there is another realm to stealing besides the hardened criminal! It also speaks to the realm of how way we treat one another. More specifically, how we love one anther.
• Rom 13:9-10 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
• Paul is connecting the whole concept of not stealing with love. When you think about it, you realize that stealing is a purely a self-centered act that says, “I really don’t care what this costs anybody else, I don’t care what your needs are, I don’t care how you feel! I’m going to take whatever I feel like from you,  because I’m more important than you! Thus, stealing violates Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor”!

Ninth Word: Calls to integrity and honesty

• Ex 20:16 "You must not lie.”

Cultural phenomenon

• I heard Joyce Myers make a quote; The average person lies 200 times a day! This means that there must be people who lie 400x to make up for those who do not! That is a lot of lying!
• James Emery White, in a book called You Can Experience an Authentic Life, cites these statistics:

            -  79% had given out false phone numbers or invented new identities when meeting strangers on airplanes.             

            -  20% said they couldn’t get through even one day without going along with a previously manufactured lie.          

           -  White goes on to say this: Now here’s what I found most intriguing about the study: People no longer seem to                    care about lying. We accept it. It doesn’t bother us. We don’t get upset anymore when someone exaggerates,                     falsifies, fabricates, or misrepresents the truth. 

            - Think about it… Americans lie on their income tax returns to the tune of millions of dollars a year… Doctors fake                    reports in order to profit from Medicare patients… Prize athletes at great universities are kept eligible for                              competition through bogus credits and forged transcripts of academic records. Adding to that, we are constantly                being bombarded with erased tapes, tampered evidence, illicit cover-ups padded resumes, and exaggerated                    ads, to the point that we’ve pretty much given up on truth being a viable  enterprise.

The Call of God:

• The Hebrew word for lie is used to describe all words or activities that are “false,” in the sense of being without basis in fact or reality! It includes the sense being deceived, lead astray or even betrayed. The root implies that this deception is an unreliable spring of water that will poison you, make you sick and maybe even kill you! Where truth would be a very reliable spring of water that will sustain and refresh you.
• Solomon, who is portrayed as the wisest man in the Old Testament, gives us a little bit more insight into the heart of God on this matter; Prov 6:16-19 NIV) There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
• Just reading this verse at face value is a bit shocking. For some of us, it’s quite hard for us to comprehend that our God hates or despises anything, yet he does!
• Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that God is not only all loving, but all holy as well, meaning evil cannot be in his presence!
• The Hebrew word Hate expresses an emotional attitude of being opposed, detested, despised, something with which one wishes to have no contact or relationship with.
• The Hebrew word for Detestable: means to be an “abomination; something considered loathsome, and detestable!”
• In other words, God does not like lying!
• Now, some of you might be asking, where did it all start? Where did lying come from? Answer: In Genesis chapter 3, we find Satan coming to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He is intent on getting Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden just like he had been kicked out of heaven.
• Now Eve did not know a thing about Satan, but Jesus did. In John 8:44-45 he describes Satan… He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.
• In other words, Satan is the source of all lies! He is the origin of all deception! Up to this point, Adam or Eve never even knew what a lie was! They had never heard one or could even conceive that a created being would say one. Meaning, what we have here is the very first time in the history of world that a lie was told!
• And not by accident either! The devil knew exactly what he was doing! He knew they could eat and had been eating from all those other trees. So, when he asked the question; "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" He was deliberately misrepresenting the word of God for the purpose of casting suspicion on God, that their trust in him would be broken!

Three reasons why it is important to tell the truth;

1. Speaking the Truth is evidence that a change has occurred in      your life
2. Truth transforms our lives
3. Truth sets you free

Tenth Word: Calls us to find our Contentment in God, in Christ!

• Ex 20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Definition of covetousness:

• What does the word covet mean? The dictionary definition of “covetousness” is “grasping for more.”
• The literal meaning of the word “coveting” is “to pant after” – like a dog who is watching you eat something! They never take their eyes off your food or hand. If you happen to drop a      little bit on the floor, it’s gone! They scarf it right up! They are living vacuum cleaners!
• It is that overwhelming desire that we must possess what belongs to someone else. It may be that object that we desire belongs to a store, something we just happen to see as we walk down the aisles of a store, or it may be an that object that belongs to your neighbor, a friend or even complete stranger, it doesn’t matter!
• We also can covet people! Maybe there is a person who belongs to another, nevertheless, regardless of what it takes, you will do anything to be with this person. That is coveting!
• But the meaning of Coveting goes beyond that! It also represents an attitude that says, “I must have the object of my desire, or life will just not be worth living.” It is here we begin to understand the:

The Driving force behind covetousness:

• The fuel of coveting is DISCONTENT. Catch this, coveting grows out of two things; 1) a lack of satisfaction with what God has given you! 2) a dissatisfaction over the way God hands out His blessings.
• This discontentment can be so all consuming and so powerful that you can’t feel happy unless you get what you wanted! And it doesn’t matter whether you already had enough or more than you need.
• This is the nature of coveting; it is never satisfied!

Lastly, it is the basis for breaking all the other commandments!

• This last commandment is unique in that it exposes a dynamic within our hearts that provides the motivation for us to break all the other nine commands. Think about it; If I’m not satisfied with the requirements that God places on me or the blessings that He gives, then I’ll just put another God before Him. If I covet my neighbors’ style of living but know that I can’t get there just working 5 days a week, I’ll get a 2nd job and work 7 days a week. (4th Commandment) And if I      am not willing to get what he has through honest means, then I’ll do whatever it takes to get! I’ll lie (9h Commandment) or steal (8th Commandment)  and maybe even kill! (6th Commandment)
• Or when a person covets another person, they will commit adultery (7th Commandment) to satisfy their need!
• You see, coveting is the epitome of self-centeredness! Like the other commandments, it exposes within us, this “me, me, me” mentality. What about me! Dr. Lee Roberson calls this, “An ancient sin dogging the steps of modern man.”

To bring this whole section on the ten commandments to conclusion: We need to see how the 10 commandments fits into the overall narrative of both the Old and New Testament! God’s big picture!

A.    The Ten Commandments call us to participate in God’s kingdom!

• Matt 5:17-18 "Don't suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures — either God's Law or the Prophets. I'm not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God's Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God's Law will be alive and working.
• The question becomes, how does the life of Jesus connect with this idea that he came to complete or fulfill the law? We can start to answer that question by examining what exactly Jesus did while he was here on the earth.
• When you study the New Testament as a whole and look at everything Jesus ever did or said, you can sum it all up in one word: Kingdom!
• Jesus came too declare, proclaim, and announce that the kingdom is now.
• Luke 4:43-44 Jesus said, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."
• This was his mission, his purpose, his plan! He came to declare that the kingdom of God had come! That God’s rule and reign, God’s kingship was being expressed by the sending of God’s only begotten son! In other words, with the coming of Jesus, a whole new era had begun! 
• And not only did Jesus declare and teach us about God’s kingdom, but he then went on demonstrated it over and over again, by healing the sick from all diseases and afflictions and delivering people from all demonic strongholds and even by raising the dead!
• You see, to Jesus the kingdom was far more than just a great idea or lofty concept. The kingdom of God was something very real, and powerful, able to change people’s lives!
• This was something, as we are going to see as we go through the rest of the Old Testament, was the hope and longingof all the Old Testament prophet! Over and over again they would prophesy that a time was coming when the kingdom of God would come and bring justice, making all wrongs right, thereby giving peace to all!
• Jesus thereby became the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy, inaugurating a new age!
• An age earmarked by healing and deliverance. Rev 21:3-4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
• But what the prophets or disciples did not understand, was that the fullness of this new age would not come till the second coming of Christ! And that between these two events, the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ, we as God’s people are called to live a life that reflects the coming kingdom!
• A life now empowered by the Holy Spirit, manifesting the kind of life portrayed by the Ten Commandments.
• In other words, the commandments give us a glimpse of what kingdom life looks like, when it comes in fullness at Jesus returns. A time where there will be no murders, violence, no predators of any kind, no crime, no drugs, no theft, no lying, no greed! Instead, a life full of joy and peace! A life driven by compassion and mercy and grace! And most importantly, a life of love!

B.    The Ten Commandments call us to live a life of love!

• Rom 13:8-10 Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others. You can never finish paying that! If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill all the requirements of God's law. For the commandments against adultery and murder and stealing and coveting — and any other commandment — are all summed up in this one commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself."   Love does no wrong to anyone, so love satisfies all of God's requirements.
• As we have seen, the whole law can be summed up in one word: Love! The four commandments show us how to love God, while the last six words show us how to love one another.
• This is why Paul was able to say; Gal 5:14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

C.    The Ten Commandments call us to Salvation in Christ!

• Gal 3:24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
• What does this mean? Paul explains this in his letter to Rome!
• Rom 3:20-25 For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
• And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
• In other words, the law was given to show us three things:

           1) The law shows us what is sin! The law shows us the behavior that does not line up with who God is!

          2) The law showed us that none of us can live up to the law. We all have fallen short!

          3) The law then points us to Christ, who was able to live life without sin, without breaking the law, so that he could                    die in our place, so we could be saved by putting our faith in him and trusting what he has accomplished for us                    on the cross!

• 2 Cor 5:21 God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
• Meaning, that now through faith in Christ, we are made right with God. Jesus took our sin upon himself, and then put his righteousness upon us, so that when Father looks down on us, he see’s his Son’s righteousness! He sees us as if we had never sinned! Thus, through faith, we have been given this wonderful gift called salvation!
• A gift that none of us could have received had not God given us first his Ten living words!