Liturgy: Covenant and Commandments - Exodus 19:3-7, 20:1-17 (October 9, 2022)

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Call to Worship

Leader: Moses came down from Mount Sinai and set before the people all the words that the Lord commanded him.
People: May we have ears to hear them!

Leader: God has given us both covenant and commandments to bless our lives.
People: May we have the wisdom to receive them!
Leader: The Lord be with you!
People: [Respond with indicated gesture:] And also with you!
Leader: Let us worship the Lord.

Sermon: "Let Faithfulness Rain", Exodus 19:3-7, 20:1-17 (October 9, 2022)

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By the time we get to this point in the story of God’s people, we’ve learned a lot about the many benefits that come with being chosen by God – we’ve read about God’s deliverance in the stories of Noah, Joseph, and the parting of the Red Sea, we’ve read about the promises that God has made to humanity in general and to Abram specifically – but this is the first time we’ve encountered the RULES of being a people set apart by God. As it turns out, being God’s most precious possession comes with some obligations, and this is the first time that they’re formally laid out in Scripture.

Sermon: “Recipe for Repentance: Reflection”, Exodus 20:1-17 (March 7, 2021)

(This is the third sermon in our Lenten series, "Recipe for Repentance". Previous sermons can be found here and here, and the Ash Wednesday message can be found here.)

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“That’s it; you’re in time-out!” How many of us have heard these words and experienced the pure panic of a child knowing that they’re in big trouble? Although we usually thought of it as a punishment in the moment, a time-out should more accurately be considered a “behavior modification strategy”. Unlike grounding, in which privileges are revoked as a method of negative reinforcement, a time-out is intended to remove a person from their normal environment and give them the opportunity to reflect on their bad behavior. After all, you can’t express remorse or make it right if you don’t understand what you’ve done wrong. In the words of parents since time immemorial, you’re put into time-out in order to “think about what you’ve done.”

Sermon: “Why We Rest", Exodus 20:8-11/Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (October 4, 2020)

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If I were the betting type, I’d bet that every single one of you already knew that the Ten Commandments come from the Bible. I even suspect that many of you already knew that you can find them in the book of Exodus (or if you didn’t know, you could figure it out based on context clues). But how many of you knew that these laws could be found in TWO different places in the Bible? Raise your hand if you knew. I’m not talking one full list and one quick recap; I mean that the Ten Commandments are recounted, in full, both in Exodus AND again in Deuteronomy. In Exodus, they’re given directly from God to Moses on Mount Sinai; in Deuteronomy, Moses is passing them along to the people.