LAW HOMILY (Murdering Yourself)

Every week we look at the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people.

We want to understand who he is. The only way we can understand who God is, is to understand what God said. And when we look at what

God has said in his law, it reveals his character, his holiness, his goodness, and what we are supposed to be doing.

Now, obviously we know that we fall short, and this is the part of the service every week. Like Eustace, we get the scales cut off of us.

Things get a little bloody. But as we repent, and as we're reoriented back to this

God that we broke covenant with, we actually recognize every week that there's abundant and everlasting grace that he has for us as people.

So we do this every week for good reason. Now today we're going to be looking at the sixth command, you shall not murder.

And we're going to be looking at it in a sort of a different way. Most people hear the sixth commandment and instinctively narrow it to the courtroom definition of homicide.

You get pictures maybe of Johnny Cochran, and if the glove don't fit, you must quit.

If you remember all of those dramatic times in the 90s or early 2000s.

As long as you've not plunged a knife into your neighbor's chest or pulled the trigger in rage, well, we assume that that commandment is not for us.

And maybe if we are savvy in our theology and we look at the New Testament, we see that Jesus says, well, if you're angry at your brother, you've also committed murder in your heart.

So we're like, okay, okay, fine, I get that. But we always think about this externally, don't we?

We always think about the fact that murder is something that happens from us unto something else.

And yet, the Westminster Larger Catechism makes a very profound statement on the commentary to this commandment.

It says what the sixth commandment is, all careful studies and lawful endeavors to preserve the life of ourself and others.

And when it asks what's forbidden in this commandment, it says neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of the preservation of life.

That language is fascinating because the sixth commandment does not merely condemn violent acts from us.

It doesn't merely condemn angry thoughts against others. It actually condemns negligence in how we care for ourselves.

It doesn't just address moments of rage. It addresses disregard for our bodies, our minds, our hearts, and our souls.

And critically, it does not merely ask whether you've killed someone else. It's asking whether you are killing yourself, which is a fascinating thing to think about.

And it's not just suicide that it's talking about. There's a kind of quiet, socially acceptable form of murder that rarely shocks the conscience, that all of us have become okay with, where no blood is spilled, no sirens blare, no police report is filed, and yet the outcome is the same.

We accept a diminished life, a diminished capacity, an eroded relationship with God, a vocation that runs us ragged, a future that is becoming diminished through our not taking care of ourselves.

And it's the sin. It's a sin of long -term bodily neglect, willful refusal to steward the body that God has entrusted to us.

Scripture does not treat the body as a disposable tent or a shell. Yeah, of course it dies, and of course we're going to get a new body one day, but that doesn't mean that we get to just do all sorts of damage to this one.

We are not a soul that is renting temporary flesh. We are a unified creature, fearfully and wonderfully made, and we're crafted for obedience, dominion, worship, and endurance.

The body, therefore, is an instrument through which obedience is rendered unto

God on this side of heaven. And the apostle Paul assumes this when he writes, present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which means when we present our bodies as an unholy sacrifice, it must be sin.

To habitually deprive yourself. I'm preaching to myself. My wife told me one time, she said, how could you preach that sermon?

You struggle with that. I said, because I struggle with it, I must preach it. Because I need this,

I must say the truth. If I could only ever preach to you the things that I'm good at, you would hear no sermons.

But to habitually deprive ourself of sleep, to consume the kinds of things that destroy our bodies instead of nourish them, to refuse movement and sedentary lifestyle, to accept acceptable things like gluttony and sloth and self -indulgence and baptize it with the kind of language of grace and prosperity is not freedom.

It's slow violence against the future version of yourself that could have been benefited and blessed if you took better care of yourself and you could have served

God more vigorously with a more healthy body. You think of someone who constantly says,

I'll deal with my health later until they arrive at the place where they can no longer do it.

A father who can no longer get down on the floor and play with his children because of the pain in his joints. The man who refuses discipline now and wonders why in his 40s and 50s are marked with exhaustion and fragility and limitations.

Think about the woman who runs herself into the ground without rest, nutrition or care and then collapses under the weight of burnout or anxiety or chronic illness.

No one, no one of us is setting out to die earlier or to be broken earlier, but by the choices we make today, we are doing harm to our bodies.

This is something that's been a great conviction of mine where I want to do better with this because I want to serve the

Lord for 40 more years, 50 more years. I'd like to be in my 90s when

I go to be with the Lord and I'm not going to do that if I'm not taking care of myself. We have but one life and it will soon be past and only what we do for Christ will last.

And this command not to commit murder, I think, also applies to how we take care of ourselves and how we set ourselves up for serving the

Lord over a lifetime. So, wherever we need to repent with that, let's repent.

Let's ask the Lord to help us. Let's ask the Lord to make us passionate about taking care of ourselves well.

And let's ask the Lord to use our bodies for His glory and His kingdom. Amen? Let's pray.

Lord, there's not ever been a civilization as rich and wealthy as ours.

There's never been a time where we could have so many different vices at our fingertips for so little cost.

And yet, Lord, there's so much brokenness in our society, so much addiction in our society, so much lack of health in our society.

Lord, I think back to men who worked their fingers to the bone and yet lived strong and vigorous lives.

And Lord, I think about so many of us have jobs now where we sit for most of the day. Lord, would

You help us to be aware of these things? Would You help us to take into consideration that the sovereignty and the

Lordship of Christ enters in and trickles into every area of our life? And what we eat and what we drink, we give glory to You.

And how we move and how we bend and how we set up our bodies for long -term faithfulness is a matter of stewardship.

And Lord, I pray that You would help us and give us a passion to take care of the flesh that You've given us, the body that You've given us, to be healthy and to use that health and that vigor and that energy and that strength to serve

You all our days. And Lord, I ask that You would forgive us as we fall short.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Will you stand with me as we receive our verse of pardon?

All throughout the Scriptures, the Bible tells us that we are forgiven of our sins. And this passage is no different.

Acts 3 .19 says, Therefore, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the

Lord. I go through a list of verses. I don't know if you pay attention. We're in Acts.

We've been in Acts. But I love that this one's so perfectly correlated to what we're talking about because times of refreshing come from repentance, where sin binds us and gives us confusion and chaos and pain and scars.

When we repent, joy and refreshing comes from repentance. And in this area, how much more joy and refreshing to our bodies as we repent from ways we've misused them.

So as we repent, remember that God responds to our repentance by bringing joy and refreshing and that He does so because He loves us and cares for us and He's forgiven us on the basis of Christ.

Amen? Let us say our faith together as people who are forgiven, people who've been bought and paid for by Christ.

Dear Christian, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only

Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into Sheol. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the

Father Almighty from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the

Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

Amen. In further confession of our faith, let us go to Lourdes Day 21 of the

Heidelberg Catechism. This will be questions 54 through 56. I'll read the question if you'll join me in the answer.

What believeth thou concerning the Holy Catholic Church of Christ? The Son of God.

What a beautiful sentence. Question 55. What do you understand by the communion of the saints?

Members. And what believeth thou concerning the forgiveness of sins? Amen. If you will join me as we continue in worship by singing the four choirs.