Deo Gloria
Sermon for July 21, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Exodus 20:13
Theme: Respect God’s Gift of Life!
- The life he has given to others
- The life he has given to you
This past May people across our country were shocked and dismayed when they heard the news of yet another school shooting, this time at a charter school in Highlands Ranch, CO, just a few miles down the road from Columbine High School. When it was over, one student lay dead and eight others were wounded. As I heard the news, several thoughts came to mind. First of all, what would cause a person to do something like that? They say the kid was a bully; but is that really what you want to be remembered for? While that may give us a little insight into what he did, I don’t think we’ll ever really understand; nor does it excuse his actions. Second, can you imagine how the victim’s parents must have felt when they found out what had happened, when the police called and told them that their son had been killed at school? Again, I can hardly even imagine. And thirdly I had to wonder: Why are people upset? I mean, this happens every day in our country, in fact about 4,000 times each day. Roughly once every 30 seconds a woman who is pregnant and doesn’t want her baby goes to an abortion clinic. There a doctor inserts a tube into her uterus and sucks her baby into a sink and brings an end to her “problem” pregnancy. “How can something like that happen?” we might wonder. “In a country where each and every citizen is guaranteed by the Constitution the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, how can such senseless slaughter go on? Why is it even permitted to go on?” I’ll tell you why: because many Americans have lost their respect for life.
In the 5th Commandment God commands that we respect his gift of life. To the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai he stated it negatively: “You shall not murder.” If we turn that around and state it positively, God’s command is that we respect his gift of life. This morning as we continue our series on Living Life God’s Way, the main point God wants to impress on us is that we respect his gift of life, both the life he has given to others and the life he has given to us.
When it comes to life, the first truth we need to understand is that God is the one who gives life. Life is not an accident. Life did not spontaneously generate from some primordial soup one day millions and billions of years ago. God gave life to Adam and Eve in the beginning. As we heard in our first Scripture lesson, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”(Genesis 1:27) And God is still the one who gives you and me life today. True, God did work through our parents. Through their sexual union God created a new life. He created you. He created me. King David expresses this in Psalm 139 where he says to God, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”(v. 13). Yes, God is the one who gave life to you and me and everyone else.
And he did so for a very specific reason. God gave you the time of your life as a time of grace, a time to come to know Jesus as your Savior and God as your loving Father, so that you might receive forgiveness for your sins and not have to suffer the punishment they deserve: eternal death in hell. But you only get one chance. If you fail your driver’s test the first time around, you can go back and take the test again later. And if you fail the second time, you can take it a third time or a fourth. But you only get one life. You don’t get nine lives as a cat supposedly has. You only get one. And that’s what makes life so precious. Your life is your one and only chance to come to know Jesus as your Savior and obtain eternal life.
That’s also what makes it such a terrible thing for one person to end another person’s life. A person who kills another person is arbitrarily ending that person’s time of grace. What if that person hadn’t come to faith in Jesus as his Savior yet? He or she wouldn’t get another chance. Such a person would be in hell. And the person who took his life would have had a direct role in sending him there. But even if the person had come to know Jesus as his Savior, who are we to determine when a person’s time of grace is over? Only God has the right to do that. You and I and doctors and nurses do not have the right to end the life of an elderly person or someone who is suffering with some debilitating disease by starving them to death or by giving them a lethal dose of medicine in order to put them out of their misery because we feel their “quality of life” has deteriorated. Likewise you and I and doctors and nurses have no right to end the life of an unborn baby because we don’t happen to want it right now. Reproductive freedom does not justify abortion either. Women have always had the right of reproductive freedom. They have always had the right to decide when they’re going to go to bed with someone and have sex. But women do not have the right to practice making babies and then kill the baby that God has allowed them to conceive. God and God alone has the right to end a person’s life. And he will hold anyone accountable who usurps that authority and takes another person’s life.
There is one group or agency, however, to whom God does extend the right to take another person’s life, and that is his representative the government. Paul talks about this in Romans, ch. 13. As we heard last week, the governing authorities have been established by God and therefore we owe them our obedience and respect. Then in v. 4 Paul says the following: “He [that is, the government] is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.” The sword was a symbol of Rome’s power, including its power over life and death. If we were to paraphrase what Paul is saying, we might say something like this: “The government is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do evil, you better watch out, because the government is also God’s servant to punish you. And if necessary, the government can punish you by taking your life.” Another passage that speaks to this issue is Genesis 9:6. There God says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” In other words God is not against the death penalty. He is the one who originated it. So the US government isn’t doing anything wrong when it executes someone like Timothy McVeigh or somebody else on death row. God gave our government the right to administer capital punishment.
Of course, the government may choose not to exercise that right. The government may decide that the death penalty is not effective in preventing crime or that there are better ways of dealing with those convicted of murder while upholding people’s respect for life. On the other hand, the government may decide that the best way to uphold people’s respect for life is to enforce the most severe punishment possible on anyone who dares to take another person’s life: the death penalty. The government does have that right.
Lest you get the wrong impression, though, murder is not the only action that violates God’s will in the 5th Commandment. As Luther says in his explanation: “We should fear and love God that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body.” Child abuse, spouse abuse, abuse of the elderly, fighting at school or fighting with your brother or sister at home—all are sins against the 5th Commandment.
And, as always, God’s commands apply to more than just our actions. They apply to our thoughts as well. Hatred is a sin against the 5th Commandment because hatred is murder in the heart. “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer,” says the apostle John, “and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him”(1 John 3:15).
The 5th Commandment also applies to what we watch on TV or in the movie theater. Naturally you would agree that standing and watching someone kill another person for pleasure is wrong. Likewise you would agree that watching a video of someone actually killing someone else for entertainment is wrong. So tell me, why is it OK to watch a horror movie like Halloween or Night of the Living Dead? I mean, what’s the difference? I know they’re only acting it out, but if you were to put the two side by side—a video of an actual murder and one that is acted out—and watched them, there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of difference. And besides, the same thoughts and emotions would run through your mind and heart no matter which one you watched. And besides that, it is primarily the watching of all the murders and killing on TV and in movies and videos that the devil has used to dull our consciences and erode our respect for life.
Perhaps you think I’m exaggerating. A number of years ago my family and I went to a video store one Friday night. We hadn’t watched a movie in a while and we thought it would be fun. As we were looking for a good movie to watch, a dad came in with his son and daughter and a friend of his daughter. The boy was in 5th or 6th grade, the girls probably 8th or 9th. The father went off by himself to find a video, as did the children. After about 10 minutes, the father came up to where the children were in the row next to me and said, “Well, ya’ got one picked out yet?”
“Yeah,” the boy answered. “We want to watch this one, ‘The Faces of Death.’”
“Ah, now wait a minute,” the father responded. “Why do you want to watch that one? All that is is a bunch of violence and murders and killing. Why don’t you get a different one?”
“But, dad,” the boy replied, “that’s what we like to watch.” “That’s what we like to watch!” Is that what kind of children are growing up in our society today, children who like to watch people getting killed? And then we wonder why kids aren’t afraid to bring guns to school and shoot their teacher or their classmates. Then we wonder why hardly a week goes by here in the Twin Cities area when another family isn’t mourning the death of their son or daughter who was killed in some kind of shooting. Then we wonder why the #1 cause of death among teenagers is suicide.
Yes, suicide too is a sin against the 5th Commandment. God not only wants us to respect the gift of life he has given to others, but he also wants us to value and respect the life he has given to us. No matter how depressed I feel, how miserable I feel, how hopeless my life seems to be, I have no more right to take my own life than I do to take someone else’s. God is the only one who has the right to end my life.
And yet here too the 5th Commandment applies to more than simply the act of committing suicide. God doesn’t want us to do anything that harms the health of the body he has given us. So it’s wrong to abuse our bodies with drugs or alcohol. It’s wrong to abuse our bodies by eating too much food or by working too much or by depriving our bodies of food or sleep. God wants us to take care of the bodies he has given us, to keep them in good health. That way we will be able to make the most of our lives, our times of grace. We will have more time to continue to grow in our own faith and to share the saving message of Jesus Christ with others.
So how have you done when it comes to keeping the 5th Commandment? Have you ever murdered someone else? OK, probably not. But how about the fighting part, with the intent to hurt or harm? Have you ever hated someone else—someone at school, your own brother or sister? What about the shows you watch on TV or the movies you watch or the music you listen to? Do you get a certain thrill from watching the violence, the shootings, the murders? Or maybe you’ve just become numb to it all—the killings and the violence—it hardly even phases you anymore? Do you abuse drugs or alcohol? Do you take care of your body the way you know you should?
No, we all have sinned against this commandment too. At times we haven’t appreciated the precious gift of life that God has given us. At times we have shown little or no regard for other people’s lives. At times we have hated others and even wished that other people were dead. In God’s sight we are as guilty as the murderer on death row. “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you now that no murderer has eternal life in him”(1 John 3:15).
I know someone, though, who did obey the 5th Commandment, someone who never got into a fight at school or with one of his brothers or sisters, someone who never got drunk or got high on drugs, someone who never hated anyone, but was always kind and helpful to others, even his enemies. Yes, Jesus obeyed the 5th Commandment perfectly. He did so in your place and mine as our Savior. And when he laid down his life on Calvary’s cross, he paid the penalty for all of our sins against the 5th Commandment, so that we might have life, unending life.
So how do I show my gratitude to Jesus for all that he has done for me? By striving to do what Luther says in the explanation to this commandment: “but help and befriend him [that is, my neighbor] in every bodily need.” I show my gratitude to God by appreciating the gift of life that he has given to me and that he has given to others; by doing everything I can to protect the lives of others, that they might have every opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ their Savior and come to faith in him. I show my gratitude by taking care of my own body and making the most of my time of grace here in this world. That’s how the 5th Commandment guides me in living my life God’s way. And then one day, when God is ready and the time is right, he will bring our earthly lives to an end and give us an even greater gift, eternal life in heaven. Amen.