Without trust there can be no relationship.

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Reading: Jeremiah 17:7-8

Visit thestorychanger.life for more resources on changing our story with God’s Story.

Jo De Blois is Chief of Staff at Puritan Reformed Seminary.

I’ve read (or tried to read) many books about apologetics. Most of them have left me asking, “But who talks like that?”

So much of Christian apologetics is detached from reality. It’s academics speaking to academics, but it’s utterly useless for everyday conversations. Is there a more useable and useful apologetics?

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Reading: Acts 17:22-28

Podcast notes.

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Apologetics, the defense of the faith, is something only experts do, right? Even the word ‘apologetics’ says “Keep out: Experts only.” Apologetics books do the same.

One of the reasons I like Josh Chatrow’s book, Telling a Better Story, is that by focusing on stories, it makes apologetics accessible to all, and do-able by all.  In chapter 5, for example, he sums it up as steeping in and stepping into.

Reading: 1 Peter 3:15

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Podcast notes.

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INTRODUCTION

What motivates you? What gets you up in the morning? Your boss? Money? Success? Fame? Parental expectations? To provide for your family? Fear of failure? What’s your motivation? Why do you do what you do?

Same question applies to spiritual matters? What motivates you spiritually? What brings you to church? Why do you live or serve the way you do? What’s your motivation? Why do you do what you do?

The question of motivation is important not only because God sees our motives but because motives determine the quantity and quality of energy we bring to our tasks. Without motivation it takes much more energy to just get started. Poor or sinful motivations are like fuel contaminants which affect the smooth running of our engines.

BACKGROUND

Paul’s adversaries in Corinth questioned not only what he did but why he did it. They accused him of sinful motivation, of doing what he did for the wrong reasons. In 2 Corinthians 5:11-15, verses he confesses to two holy motivations.

What was Paul’s first motivation?

1. WE’RE MOTIVATED BY THE FEAR OF THE LORD (11-13)

We please the Lord

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord… (11).

Paul’s not talking about his personal fear of judgment. As we saw in the previous sermon, he’s looking forward to that because he knows that God will vindicate him and exhibit his faithfulness before all. This ‘fear’ is humble reverence that leads to an earnest desire to please God alone (8-10) and persuade others to do the same.

We persuade others

…we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart (11-12).

He rejected rhetorical persuasion and techniques, but not the need to persuade. (Acts 17:4; 18:4; 19:8, 26; 26:28; 28:23). He tried to convince others of the truth and of his truthfulness.

• We try to persuade others: to live for the Lord so they are also ready for the judgment
• We are not trying to persuade God: God knows my motives
• We are not trying to persuade you: Deep down, whatever you say, you know my pure motives
• We are trying to persuade others through you: I want to give you materials and arguments to convince others. You can vouch for my integrity and motives to others. It’s not about outward impressiveness but God’s approval alone.

If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you (13).

We only care what God thinks and how to benefit you. He does not do what he does for himself but for God and for the Corinthians.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Christians are God-pleasers. We live to please him alone. We do not live in terror of him but with a reverent awe which makes us enjoy pleasing him

Christians are people-persuaders. “How do I know if I fear God?” We will be persuaders of others. You will reason, plead, beseech, call, others to prepare to meet God. You will not care what others think only what God thinks.

GOD-PLEASERS ARE
PEOPLE-PERSUADERS

How can I become a better persuader?

2. WE’RE MOTIVATED BY THE LOVE OF THE LORD (14-15)

The love of loves

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced… (14).

Paul was motivated by Christ’s love for him. We know this verse is speaking of Christ’s love for him rather than his love for Christ because the following verses speak of Christ’s love manifested at the cross. When Paul is speaking about Christ’s love for him, it’s not some mushy emotional feeling, but a convictional knowledge of Christ’s cross. This changed Paul’s life. He was no longer constrained or pressured by hatred. He was propelled forward by Christ’s love. This dominated and besieged him. It hemmed him in and pushed him forward.

The death of deaths

…that one died for all, and therefore all died (14).

Christ died not for his own sins but for the sins of others. ‘For’ does not only mean ‘because of’ but ‘instead of.’ It does not only mean ‘for the benefit of’ but ‘in the place of.’ It’s not only sympathy but substitution.

‘All’ does not necessarily mean every single person that ever lived, but may mean all sorts of people (e.g. Jn. 12:32). The same group of people who are raised to life in verse 15 are those who died in verse 14. That’s not everyone.

We expect to read that because one died for all, that all lived. Instead, we read, ‘All died.’ ‘All died’ is the same verb and tense as the word in ‘one died.’ When the ‘one’ died, the ‘all’ died. As one was put to death, in God’s eyes, the all were put to death, the all for whom Christ died, died with him. He died for them, and they died with him. This death was done for us but treated by God as done by us.

The life of lives

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again (15).

Christ’s death must change our lives. Usually life leads to death but here death leads to life both for the one who died and the all who died with him. Just as his death was ours, so his life is ours. How do we see that? We live for him as he lived for us.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Love makes everything easy. When we love someone it’s much easier to live for them, put them first, and serve them. Being loved by someone is even more powerful than loving someone. There is no greater love than the love of Christ for his people, it is the love of loves that died the death of deaths, to give the life of lives.

GOD-LOVERS ARE
PEOPLE-PERSUADERS

SUMMARY

PRAYER

Awesome Lover, motivate me with your awesome love that I might live to please you and persuade others

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What are the biggest motivations in your life? Why do you do what you do?

2. “The fear of the Lord is just an Old Testament idea.” How would you answer that?

3. What does a Christian persuader look like? How can you get better at this?

4. How can you increase the motivating power of Christ’s love in your life?

5. How is pleasing God connected with persuading others?

6. How can you live for Christ this week?

PDF OF SERMON NOTES

INTRODUCTION

We live in a desperately unhappy world that is desperately seeking happiness. Despite the passion and pursuit of pleasures, our culture is becoming more negative, pessimistic, and hopeless. Optimistic America is a distant memory as a large majority of people now say that the country is on the wrong track. For the first time ever, American parents do not believe that their children will be better off than themselves. The American Dream is fading fast.

How do we recover the American Dream? How do we change our culture? Or, at the very least, how can Christians be counter-cultural in their optimism, hope, and happiness?

The Ten Commandments.

“What? That’s the cause of all our problems,” we’re told. “If only we could shake off these ten pleasure-killers, we’d all be much happier,” politicians and pundits tell us. Even some Christians think it’s time to dispense with the Ten Commandments and either make up some new modern ones, or else, just trash the whole idea of objective divine laws and be loving instead.

They are all so wrong. They could not be more wrong. That’s why we’re starting a series of sermons on The Ten Commandments called The Ten Pleasures. I want to persuade you from the Bible that God’s Law is not only still relevant, practical, and applicable but also an essential component of a happy life.

BACKGROUND

The Ten Commandments are widely viewed as pleasure killers. Therefore, before we look at each of the Ten Commandments as the Ten Pleasures, we need God’s Word to help us with this re-framing of them as the Ten Pleasures. That’s why we’re going to spend four introductory sermons that will give us the biblical warrant for calling the Ten Commandments the Ten Pleasures:

• The Path to Pleasure
• The Person who is our Pleasure
• The Power of Pleasure
• The Problems of Pleasure

Although God’s Law is announced in Exodus 20, the introduction begins in Exodus 19. Israel had left Egypt three months before and had now arrived at Mt Sinai.

How does pleasure begin?

1. PLEASURE STARTS WITH REDEMPTION (4)

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings…” (4)

“I did.” God’s Law is introduced with God’s deeds. God’s doing comes before Israel’s doing. God did and Israel simply watched as God defeated the Egyptians and carried Israel out of Egypt like an eagle carries her young up and out of danger on her wings

God’s sovereign initiative came before the human response. He plagued the Egyptians while protecting the Israelites. He killed Egypt’s firstborn and provided a lamb to protect Israel’s firstborn. God’s lamb (Ex. 12) came before God’s Law (Ex. 20). God’s provision came before God’s precepts. What God has done comes before what Israel should do.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Our pleasure begins with God’s redemption. God’s redemption is the essential foundation for our pleasure. Personal pleasure with God’s Lamb is the first step towards personal pleasure in our lives.

That’s why our pleasure begins with Christ’s cross, with seeing what God did to our greatest enemies through Jesus the Lamb of God and how he transported us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son (Col. 1:3). We sell ourselves to sin for nothing, but God buys us back from sin with everything.

All true pleasure begins with God’s salvation. We will be coming back to this again and again because we forget it again and again. We will never change our story of pleasure unless the first chapter becomes redemption through Christ. We will never find any pleasure in God’s Law until we find our greatest pleasure in God’s Lamb. We will never do anything that makes us happy unless we start with what God has done to make us happy. God makes us most happy with what makes him most happy, his work of salvation through his Son.

OUR GREATEST PLEASURE IS
GOD’S GREATEST PLEASURE

So, do we get to our doing now? Not so fast.

2. PLEASURE IS A RELATIONSHIP (4)

“…how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” (4)

The ultimate aim of the Egyptian defeat and the Israelites deliverance was to bring Israel to himself. It was not to bring them to Sinai, but to bring them to God. The redemption was not just an act of great power but an act of great love. God’s redemption brought them into a relationship with God. Rules do not come first or even second. Redemption is first, relationship is second, and only then, as we’ll see, do rules enter the picture.

God did not come to Israel first as Ruler with his rules, but as a Redeemer with his redemption, and as a Father with a loving relationship. We see this also in the preface to the Ten Commandments: 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” (Ex. 20:1-2). There is redemption (I brought you out of the Land of Egypt) and relationship (I am the Lord your God), before there’s a hint of law.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

The best pleasures are the best relationships. Good relationships are our greatest joys. That’s the case for God too. The relationship within the Trinity is his greatest joy, but he reaches out to us with the offer of a relationship with him. He sent his Son to bring us to himself (1 Peter. 3:18). We run from God but God runs to us.

Relationship is at the heart of God’s covenant relationship with his people as he makes clear in the covenant language of both the Old and New Testaments: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God wants us as his people and loves to call us his people.

Just as many in Israel who were in an external relationship with God as members of his covenant were not his spiritual children, so it is in our day. Having a formal relationship with the church is a help, but it’s not the end. It’s a help towards the end of a living relationship with Jesus.

Most people have no idea how much joy can be found in a living personal relationship with Jesus.

RELATION IS RECREATION
CONNECTION IS CONTENTMENT

Can we now get to the rules? Yes, but they’re not just rules now.

3. PLEASURE HAS RULES (5)

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant…” (5)

The rules come after redemption and relationship have been established. We only hear “Now therefore…. obey” after God secures the redemption of Israel and relationship with Israel. God is saying, “In the light of all I have done for you and all I am to you, here is the way you should respond.”

Notice that it’s not “obey to enter into my covenant,” but “obey to keep [maintain] my covenant.” They have entered covenant relationship already but now they are given laws to maintain that relationship and to keep it happy, healthy, and holy. It’s faith then works.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

There is no happiness without rules. Rules are required for rejoicing. Perhaps there is nothing that is more difficult for people to grasp than the connection between rules and happiness. In our minds, this seems like a contradiction.

Maybe it’s especially hard for Americans to get this connection between law and happiness, because of our love of freedom and independence. But, American freedom and independence are freedom and independence from oppressive and abusive government. The founders did not believe in no government or laws but limited government and for-the-people laws. Our experience of law depends on the character of the law-giver.

In every relationship there are rules, often unspoken but rules nonetheless, that help to maintain the enjoyment and happiness of the relationship. Think of your relationship with your friends, your kids, or even with your wife or husband. Rules can never form or make a relationship, but they do help relationships to flourish. A love without limits is a limited love. But these laws, these limits, these rules must always stay in third positions.

WE OBEY TO WORSHIP
NOT TO WORK SALVATION

What motive is there to keep these rules? There’s the motive of rewards.

4. PLEASURE IS THE REWARD (5-6)

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (5-6).

Israel’s gratitude for redemption and relationship is motive enough to keep the rules. But God adds three further motives to reward their obedience. Gratitude looks back and obeys because of what God has done. Reward points them forward to what God will do.

They will be God’s treasured possession: This is the word used for a unique and exclusive possession by someone who owns everything. It’s the crown jewel of a large collection, the masterwork.

They will be a kingdom of priests: They will be God’s mediator to the nations, employed in his service to be a channel of truth from him to them.

 They will be a holy nation: God redeemed them out of the nations to be separate to the nations so that they would be an exhibition to the nations. They were God’s showcase to the world. The law was to make Israel visibly different.

CHANGING OUR STORIES WITH GOD’S STORY

Jesus confirms this pattern for us. Just in case we think this is only a New Testament concept, look at Jesus’s words in John 14: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (15, 21). There is redemption, relationship, rules, and reward. There’s a reward of special relational intimacy and special missional usefulness (1 PETER 2:9). What pleasures await obedience!

REWARD IS NOT THE BASIS OF SALVATION
IT’S THE BONUS AFTER SALVATION

SUMMARY

PRAYER

Redeemer, give us greater pleasure through a redemptive relationship to your rewarding rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do you usually think when you think of the Ten Commandments?

2. What role do the Ten Commandments have in your life?

3. How can you increase the impact of the Ten Commandments in your life?

4. Give some life examples of where rules have helped human happiness.

5. In what ways does John 14:15, 21 excite and inspire you?

6. How are the Ten Commandments helping you drawn closer to God and be a better missionary or witness to others?

PDF OF SERMON NOTES

Five kinds of rest to enjoy.

Reading: Psalm 23

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Visit thestorychanger.life for more resources on changing our story with God’s Story.

Jo De Blois is Chief of Staff at Puritan Reformed Seminary