LAW HOMILY: Corroding Hopes

Every week we look through the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people and we want To understand what it means for us to obey God. We do not believe that once we've been saved that we can now go on doing whatever we want.

We believe that God through his Holy Spirit now is empowering us towards obedience. So every week we go through the ten commandments looking at them from different and various angles today. We will be back in the first commandment and I will read that to you Exodus 21 through 3.

Then God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery and You shall have no other gods before me. The first word that God spoke to his covenant people from the mountain before he told them not to kill before he told them not To steal before he told them not to lie or covet or commit adultery.

He told them where to put their hope. You shall have no other gods before me, which is first not by accident. It is first because every other commandment grows out of the root of this one. Every sin that we have ever committed begins here.

And as we talked about last week ends in coveting if. This is the root of all sin coveting is the fruit of all sin and every tier. That you have ever shed over your own folly began here. Every cold pew every silent prayer every shipwreck marriage every drunken night every bitter word spoken to a child or a spouse.

Every hour wasted doom scrolling in the smallest hours of the night all of it began with a hope misplaced. Brothers and sisters we were made to hope. Thomas Chalmers once says that a heart without hope.

It's a heart that cannot survive. It would be given over to such despair That it would not even want to live. Every heart has to hope in something. The question is what is it hoping in? And all of our issues and life began with hope misplaced.

The human soul is an anchor in search of a rock. The question that the first commandment is asking us this morning is not whether you are going to hope it is. What are you going to hope in? Because you can't help but hope.

Look at Jeremiah in the ruins of Jerusalem. The temple is in rubble the walls are smoking the children are dead in the streets the prophets eyes are caverns of Weeping and he cries out in chapter 3 of Lamentations, and he does not say dear God.

What have you done? Because my Jerusalem has fallen my temple our temple. He's not hoping in those things. What does he say? He says in the black ash of Jerusalem and in the smoldering embers of its downfall.

He says this I recall to my mind therefore have I hope.

What did he recall?

He recalled the Lord.

He recalled that God's mercies are new every morning in the middle of a book full of tragedy. The center verse of the entire book is God's mercy is new every morning.

Why?

Because God's mercy is at the center of even our little chaos. He recalled that God is great and God is faithful. He said the Lord is my portion. Therefore I will hope in him. Here's the point. There is a portion that every soul is looking for that's claiming for itself.

Every soul says of something. This is my portion and whatever you say. This is my portion to is your functional God. Some of us have made our portion our bank accounts. Maybe you wake up in the middle of the night, and you check the Nasdaq or you check crypto .com or whatever.

You sleep with your phone at your bed, so you can check the Tokyo markets and when they open. Maybe the dollar is your steadfast love. Maybe your 401k is your refuge in your strength.

Some of you made your portion your children.

It's easy to do these beautiful creatures who also sometimes swing from chandeliers and drive you insane. But these beautiful children you look at them, and you say this is my purpose. For why I live.

Many of us do it for marriage this person. If I could just make them happy I could just do what what would please them if I could just have a Peaceful happy marriage. If I can have a marriage that other people look at it.

They say that is a good marriage that that becomes my identity that becomes your portion for which you hope for. Some of us have made our portion many things. If you make your portion your spouse, then you're demanding of a sinner what only a Savior can do.

And You've wanted to be seen by them in a way that only Christ can see you and you wanted to be known by them the way that only the bridegroom can know his bride. And When they fail you you've concluded that love itself has failed it has not.

But you were just looking for it in the wrong place. Some of us have made our portion our reputation our platform our followers our applause. Like Lady Gaga, we've done it for the applause. You wake up checking the likes.

The way that a priest of Baal would serve at his altar and the silence kills you repents of that. Some of you have made your portion your own sin. You return to it as Proverbs says like a dog to its own vomit giving you momentary hope that it will please you and Give you that flash of relief that counterfeit joy that the soul was never made for.

And it's hollowing you out from the inside repent. Some of you dear ones and this is the saddest of all. Have made your portion your own righteousness. Your discipline your reading plan your sermon notebook your theology the way that you do family worship your hope in your own hope and.

It's sand.

Repent of Building your life on your own righteousness. The Lord this morning is The one whose mercies do not fail Not your husband not your bank account Not your righteousness His mercies do not fail because life has this profound way of kicking us in the teeth and Showing us that we can't control anything that we can't That we can't even control our next breath.

So hope thou and God as the psalmist says and.

He will lift your head.

Amen. Wherever we've fallen short in this wherever our hopes have become misplaced. Let us take a moment right now. To pray to the Lord and ask for forgiveness if it's your spouse if it's your money if it's your prominence if it's your reputation if it's your job if it's your Children, whatever your identity has been foolishly placed upon that is not Christ, and it's not his gospel.

Ask the Lord to help you to have the courage to sever that and to return again to the fountain of living waters.

Let's pray Lord. It's so easy for us to make our identity about so many things.

We can make our identity about almost anything you make our identity about our vocation. We can make our identity about that weight loss plan that we're so fixated upon that we That we forget everything else we can Turn anything into a functional deity, which is why Calvin told us Our hearts are idol-making factories.

That's why Jeremiah said that our hearts are desperately sick who could even know them. Lord I pray that you would Unencumber us from the roots of idolatry and That we would worship you as our one and only God and that we would look to you for hope alone.

For strength alone.

For sustenance and nourishment. And Lord may the passing pleasures and fleeting temptations of this world pass away as We behold the light of your countenance and face. Let us find our satisfaction in you and you alone.

Because dear Lord if we do it will make everything else sweeter. It will make us better husbands. It will make us better wives better parents. It will make us better in every way When we triage our orders of love with you being.

Ultimate.

Lord help us and forgive us as we fall short in Jesus name. Amen.