His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy E-Book

Jani Ortlund

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Seitenzahl: 227

Beschreibung

Many Christians view the Ten Commandments as laws they are forced to obey in order to stay on God's good side. In her book His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy, Jani Ortlund invites readers to look at the Ten Commandments from a different perspective. Ortlund urges believers to recognize the Ten Commandments as a mirror, reflecting our need for God's cleansing and forgiveness. Throughout the book, each commandment is presented not as another rule to follow, but as an invitation to experience more of God's love. As readers grasp this knowledge, they are able to experience true freedom in Christ. They will begin to understand how embracing God's laws and passing them along to future generations offers a needy world a glimpse of the truth of God's love.

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“Jani Ortlund has once again written a convicting work for women seeking after God. She addresses each of the Ten Commandments and challenges us to do some serious soul searching. She clearly and thought-fully demonstrates the powerful relevance the commandments hold for Christians who seek holiness by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

—MARY K. MOHLER, Founder and Director, Seminary Wives Institute

“Jani Ortlund blows the dust off the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Written with the wisdom and insight gained through a lifetime of teaching God’s Word and raising four children who love the Lord, His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy equips readers not only to see themselves in the revealing light of God’s Law, but also to guide children into loving God with their lives.”

—NANCY GUTHRIE, Bible teacher; author, Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament Bible Study Series

“Ortlund explores the richness of God’s grace to us and to our children in each of the Ten Commandments. Her warm, devotional style helps move us to respond to God’s love by obeying his laws. The creative children’s exercises provide engaging questions, crafts, and memorable metaphors that will help children to understand more fully our covenantal God and his Word to us. Any parent or adult who ministers with children will find here a rich curriculum.”

—TASHA CHAPMAN, Director of Educational Studies and Professor of educational ministries, Covenant Theological Seminary

“Jani Ortland takes us right to the heart of God and offers biblical principles for us to practice and to pass on to our children, so that we may live according to God’s law.”

—MARGI GALLOWAY, Minister to Women, Scottsdale Bible Church, Arizona

His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy: Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them to Our Children

Copyright © 2007 by Jani Ortlund

Published by Crossway Books a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Georgia Bateman

Cover photo: iStock

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are from The Holy Bible: New International Version.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.

Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-58134-868-2ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2000-6PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-0188-3Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-0821-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ortlund, Jani   His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy : Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them to Our Children / Jani Ortlund.     p. cm.   ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-868-2 (tpb)   1. Ten commandments. 2. Christian education—Home training. I. Title. BV4655.O78    2007 241.5'2—dc22

2006102867

To my beloved mother-in-law

ANNE ORTLUND.

Thank you for a lifetime of loving God

with all your heart

and giving his Word with all your strength.

Your legacy lives on.

CONTENTS

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

INTRODUCTION: AND GOD SPOKE

1 NO OTHER GODS

2 ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP

3 EVERYTHING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS

4 NEXT REST STOP: SUNDAY

5 IT ALL BEGINS AT HOME

6 A FOUNTAIN OF LIFE

7 MARRIAGE: MAYHEM OR MELODY?

8 LIVING ON EARTH AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN

9 LOVING THE TRUTH

10 REAL CONTENTMENT

CONCLUSION: JESUS, PRICELESS TREASURE

NOTES

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

EXODUS 20:3–17

1. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image. . . . For I the LORD your God am a jealous God.”

3. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.”

4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

5. “Honor your father and your mother.”

6. “You shall not murder.”

7. “You shall not commit adultery.”

8. “You shall not steal.”

9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

10. “You shall not covet . . . anything that is your neighbor’s.”

MEMORY VERSES

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

PSALM 119:18

“Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life.”

DEUTERONOMY 32:46–47

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

MATTHEW 22:37–40

INTRODUCTION: AND GOD SPOKE

Praise the LORD!

Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,

who greatly delights in his commandments!

His offspring will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

PSALM 112:1-2

His offspring will be mighty in the land . . . blessed.” What mother doesn’t hope that for her children? Raising up children who are leaders both in and outside their homes, respected, courageous, and surrounded by God’s blessing is a parent’s deepest desire.

The psalmist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that one of the keys to raising godly, mighty, blessed children is found in a man’s fearing the Lord and taking great delight in his commandments. Why should we? How can we? That is the message of this book.

His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy will invite you into deeper delight in God as we consider how he loves us through the Ten Commandments. The purpose of this book is to help you pass on that delight to the children in your world.

ALL THESE WORDS

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who, brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:1–2)

It had been three months since the children of Israel had been rescued from their slavery to Pharaoh. In that short time they had:

witnessed the miracles of the plagues and the Passover (Exodus 7:1–12:32);

been led by the steadfast love of the Lord as he went before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:17–22);

experienced a never-to-be repeated deliverance from their enemies as the Egyptian army was swallowed up in the Red Sea (Exodus 14:5–30);

tasted the bitter water turned sweet at Marah (Exodus 15:22–25);

enjoyed much-needed rest at the oasis of Elim (Exodus 15:27);

feasted on manna and quail each morning and evening (Exodus 16);

drunk freely of water springing suddenly from a rock at Meribah (Exodus 17:1–7); and

watched as Joshua and some of their own men defeated the Amalekites by the power of God (Exodus 17:8–13).

Then God led them to their new camp at Mount Sinai. What would he do after all these miracles? He spoke to them. From the midst of thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud and a very loud trumpet blast and a mountain that trembled greatly (Exodus 19), God spoke to his children. When God speaks, it is better than any miracle. What should we do with his words?

The first thing we should do is listen to his words. “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Thoughtful, patient listening to the message of God’s grace in Christ leads us into a fresh knowledge of him. Listening is communing with God. It is seeing reality from his perspective.

God built the human heart with all its desires and needs. His law not only shows us who he is, but it also gives us deep and profound insights into who we are. Donald Grey Barnhouse explained it this way:

The law of God is like a mirror. Now the purpose of a mirror is to reveal to you that your face is dirty, but the purpose of a mirror is not to wash your face. When you look in a mirror and find that your face is dirty, you do not then reach to take the mirror off the wall and attempt to rub it on your face as a cleansing agent. The purpose of the mirror is to drive you to water.1

Jesus is that water (John 4:10, 14). As the law reveals our deceitful and sick hearts (Jeremiah 17:9), we are tempted to withdraw in either pride or defeat. But Jesus invites us to draw near to God as he washes us with water made pure by his perfect fulfillment of the law and his God-satisfying punishment for our failure to keep it (Hebrews 10:19–22). The law drives us to the perfect Law Keeper to have the guilt of our law breaking rinsed away by the living water.

The second thing we should do is love his words. “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces” (v. 72). Open, eager cherishing of God’s words leads us into deeper intimacy with him. Loving his words is experiencing life in his presence.

The God of the Bible is a God of the heart who brought his children out of slavery (Exodus 19:4), leading them with cords of kindness and bands of love (Hosea 11:4), and redeeming them in love and pity (Isaiah 63:9). He is the God who sent us Jesus, his beloved Son, who lived a life of delighting in God’s commandments and showed us what real love looks like, for at the core of all that God is, is love (1 John 4:16). His love is the supreme energy of the universe. It is this love that draws us into fellowship with him, leading us out of the Egypt of our sins and, in love and pity, redeeming us from our own personal slavery in the kingdom of darkness (Romans 8:34–35).

The third thing we should do is leave his words. His words are for listening, for loving, and also for leaving a legacy to the children in our lives. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit . . . walk . . . lie . . . and . . . rise . . .” (Deuteronomy 6:7). “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done” (Psalm 78:4). Intentional, insightful teaching of God’s words brings our families into a sacred accountability with God. It is passing on a way of life that will last forever. If the strength and vibrancy and stability of the church depends on the children of our churches in the coming years, what will her future be? The church is always only one generation away from extinction.

Susan Hunt has said that children are a product of their theology.2 How true! What theology are you living out before the children in your life? What kind of God do your actions, your words, your responses to daily life show them?

As you work through this book, God will be speaking to you. Let his words instruct you, motivate you, and claim you and your family for Christ. At the end of each chapter you will find questions for study and discussion. After you read each chapter, stop and reflect, perhaps with a friend or in a small group, about what you are learning. Let the mirror of God’s loving law and the living water flowing from Jesus Christ open the door for deeper delight in our Law Giver.

HIS LOVING LAW

GRACE BEFORE LAW

The prologue to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1–2) teaches us how God deals with his children: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” The law belongs in a context of grace. We see this in the fact that the law doesn’t come until chapter 20 of Exodus. The preceding nineteen chapters tell the story of God’s grace as the bedrock of his relationship with us.

When the sons and daughters of Israel asked why they were taught to keep God’s law, their parents told them the story of their rescue from slavery by God’s mighty hand, as they had been instructed (Deuteronomy 6:20–25). The only way they could understand the meaning of the law was by knowing its context, which was the experience of the exodus, the story of their salvation. First grace, then law.3 Grace does not undermine law. Grace is the larger wraparound truth explaining why the law deserves a wholehearted “yes!” from every one of us.

God is not speaking out of a void. He is intimately connected with his people. When he says in Exodus 20:2, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,” he is describing each believer’s salvation. Our exodus is his power bringing us out of our captivity to sin and guilt so that we would live for him. He is our freedom fighter.

Christ obeyed the law perfectly in our place. He died a guilty death in our place. And when God, through the sacrifice of his beloved Son, sets his lavish grace upon us, he claims our loyalty. His loving law shows us how to live out that loyalty.

HIS TREASURED POSSESSION

In the prologue to his Ten Commandments, God lays claim to you and me. That’s the point! He is the Lord your God who brought you out of your Egypt. If you know Jesus Christ, your conversion was your exodus out of your personal slavery and into covenant with “him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). God is saying, “I am establishing a love relationship with you by my all-forgiving, all-providing grace. I commit myself to you. Now commit yourself to me, and you will be my treasured possession” (Exodus 19:3–6; 1 Peter 2:9–10). And now he is writing his law on your heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and his abundant grace makes his law “sweeter also than honey” (Psalm 19:10) and “not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

MADE TO WORSHIP

Every human being was made to worship, and we all worship something:

money        food

control        success

pleasure     reputation

beauty        you name it!

Whatever I worship becomes my master. I am the slave of whatever I live for or whatever I cannot live without. Whatever drives me has authority over me. The Bible says, “Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19).

The human heart has room for only one master. You are either serving Christ or another master. When Christ becomes your master, nothing else can master you. “No servant can serve two masters” (Luke 16:13). The law shows us which master we are really serving, and it teaches the redeemed of the Lord how to live for their new Master.

God’s concern is to keep the one who has been liberated from falling back into slavery. The real meaning of our freedom is obedience to Christ. The Ten Commandments “are rules of life for liberated people.”4 When Jesus frees you from the ugliness and grief of your sins, he relocates you where you can enjoy his liberation—and that is obedience.

We mustn’t think of the Ten Commandments as just a list of dos and don’ts. When we do, they become their own form of slavery. The law of God is not slavery. God doesn’t lead us out of one kind of slavery only to drive us into another!

But neither does freedom mean erasing all restrictions. We all live quite happily—even freely—in a world filled with boundaries. We can’t live under water; we mustn’t go barefoot in the snow or play catch with a burning coal. I would recommend using an elevator rather than a window to come to ground level safely, and we are all grateful for traffic signals—at least when we’ve got the green light! True freedom is enjoying Christ within the boundaries of his kingdom because, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

Does the law restrict us? Sure it does—the way the sky restricts an eagle, or the soil confines a seed, or the ocean cramps a minnow. Embrace God’s law as his loving pathway for you out of sin’s slavery and into true freedom—freedom to live life well in the kingdom of his beloved Son.

OUR LASTING LEGACY

Living the Law

Imagine this: you are staying for a week in a rented apartment. In the bathroom there is an extra door on which is posted this sign:

PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR AT ANY TIME DURING YOUR VISIT

Guest Services

What would your response be? This really happened to me! I’ll tell you how I responded. At first I was just so curious! “What could possibly be hidden behind this door?” Then my curiosity turned to scorn: “How ridiculous! They ought to find another place for whatever is hidden behind this door.” And then as the week wore on, my scorn turned to pride: “So they think I’ll fall for this, huh? Just watch—it’s probably some sort of Candid Camera trick.”

I left that week quite proud that I had never opened that forbidden door. My outward obedience, however, didn’t really say much about me. Oh sure, I could control my hand from twisting that doorknob for a week. But I couldn’t control my heart’s scornful itch to disregard this simple request from my host. We live in a day that despises and fears any restrictions imposed by another—divine or human.

As we go through this study we must come to grips with the nature of the human heart. Our rebellious hearts are inclined to perceive the Ten Commandments as unfairly restrictive or as a list of things to do to keep on God’s good side. The law does tell us what to do. But more importantly, it shows us who we are. The law deals with both the external and the internal. It is like a mirror, showing us our need for cleansing but unable in itself to clean us.

The law tells us to do good and then proves to us that we can’t! Righteousness is never humanly manageable. I cannot use the law to produce my own righteousness and somehow gain more of God’s favor. As we keep the law, we won’t grow in our acceptability (Romans 3:20). But we will grow in blessing (James 1:25). We will go deeper with God than we’ve ever gone before.

Above all else, the Ten Commandments show us who God is. He is our Savior and Lord. When he gave us the Ten Commandments, he knew that our inability to keep them would lead us to Christ. It is sinners who admire, trust, and embrace a Savior who sets them right with God through his righteousness (Romans 7:7–10; 2 Corinthians 5:21). As you live out his loving law, don’t let any misunderstanding of it crush you rather than rescue you. The law is meant to show you who God is and how deeply he can liberate you.

TWO RESPONSES

As we come to God’s law, we all are faced with one of two responses. Either we will feel that God is too hard of a master, and we will withdraw into a moral universe of our own making where we write our own laws (Judges 2:12; 21:25), or we will turn to God, who offers us Christ as the perfect Savior of sinners. When we do, our guilt over that image in the mirror of his law will turn to true sorrow and repentance. And God will begin doing a deep work in each heart that has turned to him.

God will show you that every violation of the law you have ever committed—or ever will commit—has been absorbed by Christ on the cross of Calvary. God accepts you because he is satisfied with his Son’s sacrifice in your place. Not only that, but God will put his very Spirit within you. And his Spirit will get to work, breaking the reign of sin’s power in your life. He will transform you into a law-loving servant of God (Ezekiel 36:26–27; Romans 8:1–4; Hebrews 13:20–21), who makes much of Christ’s transforming power and little of your obedience. And he will guide you right on through to heaven, where you will keep God’s law perfectly (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:27).

Giving the Law

How can we live and give the Ten Commandments in such a way that our homes, our churches, and our cities feel the blessing of God? We must let our children see and feel our love for Christ and his law. The coming generations need to observe in us a whole-hearted response to God and his Word to us—a careful, loving obedience that clings to him with all our heart and soul. “Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Joshua 22:5).

Make it your goal to both inform and inflame your children with your own delight in following Christ. “Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1–2).

The Bible tells of wicked Queen Athaliah who, in her pursuit of power, ordered all her children and grandchildren to be killed (2 Kings 11). Only one-year-old Joash escaped. In six short but formative years, young Joash emerges as one of Judah’s brightest reformers. Someone was influencing this child toward God in those early years. Second Kings 12:2 tells us, “[Joash] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.” Jehoiada gave himself to the training of a young child, and all Judah benefited.

What child needs your influence, your instruction, your example to help him live for Christ in his generation? What legacy are we leaving for the coming generations? When our houses are sold and our possessions divided between our family and Goodwill, what will we have left to the children in our lives?

He . . . appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments.” (Psalm 78:5–7)

What are you leaving your children? What will they remember you with? What will they remember you for? Use the suggestions after each chapter to help the children in your life “set their hopes in God.” The discussion questions for “Giving the Ten Commandments to Our Children” can be readily adapted to different age groups.

My prayer is that as you read and discuss His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy the Lord will direct your heart to the love of God (2 Thessalonians 3:5) and that your offspring will be mighty in the land (Psalm 112:1–2).

Study and Discussion for Living the Ten Commandments

1. Read 2 Peter 2:19. What overcomes you? What discourages, distracts, or overwhelms you?

2. Imagine your funeral service. List five attributes you would like others to use to describe your influence in their lives.

1._________________________________________________

2._________________________________________________

3._________________________________________________

4._________________________________________________

5._________________________________________________

If you had only three possessions to pass down to the next generation, what would they be?

1.________________________________________________

2.________________________________________________

3.________________________________________________

3. Review the story of Exodus chapters 1–19, focusing on God’s loving care. Now read Exodus 20:1–2, inserting your name in place of the words your and you.

4. God is speaking to us in the Ten Commandments. What are three things God wants us to do with his words?

1.________________________________________________ Genesis 3:1; Exodus 15:26; Proverbs 22:17; Matthew 17:5; 1 John 4:6

2.________________________________________________ Psalm 1:2; 19:10; 119:72, 97

3.________________________________________________ Deuteronomy 6:6–7; 32:46–47; Psalm 71:17–18; 78:4

5. How does God love us through his law? See Deuteronomy 7:6–11 and Psalm 19:7–11.

6. Describe how God’s law is like a mirror. What can a mirror do? What can’t a mirror do?

7. Meditate on Jeremiah 17:9–10. Take time to talk with God about your heart’s condition. Pray over Jeremiah 31:33 and Psalm 51:10. Ask God to write his law deep within your own heart.

8. To ponder and pray over: what would a family look like in which the Ten Commandments were making a lasting impact? How about a church, a classroom, a city, or a country?

9. Memorize Psalm 119:18. Use it as your prayer as you study God’s loving law. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

Study and Discussion for Giving the Ten Commandments to Our Children

Materials needed: Bible, pencil, marker, large piece of red poster paper, scissors, index cards, small mirror, and tape.

1. Does your child know the story of Moses and the exodus? Look through a children’s Bible together to teach or review the events leading up to the giving of the Ten Commandments. As you set the stage for this study, make sure your child understands the Israelites’ slavery to the Egyptians and God’s wonderful deliverance that brought them to Mount Sinai.