Sermon Notes: What to do when you find yourself in the imperative mood
Romans 13.8-14
Matt
18.15-20
Deuteronomy
5
Psalm
119.33-40
What to do when you find yourself in the imperative mood
Prayer of
Invocation
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for,
we know that you always resist the proud who confide in their own
strength, and that you never forsake those who make their boast of your
mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Prayer of Illumination
Teach us your ways; give us understanding that we may keep your word; lead us in the paths of your commands; incline our hearts to your testimonies and not to selfish gain; turn our eyes from looking at worthless things; and give us life in your ways; and give us life as we seek to walk in your righteous ways.
PROCLAMATION
You may have noticed a particular tone or feel, perhaps we might even say a mood, that infused what we have read this morning. These Scriptures have drawn us into the weighty world of imperatives.
An imperative is the technical term in language usage for the way we give a command, a request, or an exhortation: ‘take out the trash’; or ‘close the window’; ‘pass me the ketchup’ or ‘put on your mask’. These are all imperatives. In our texts today, we find weightier imperatives such as: have no other gods beside Me; do not take the Lord’s name in vain; observe the Sabbath; honor your mother and your father; do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not covet; be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you (Deuteronomy 5). This is what I mean when I say that our texts this morning have drawn us into the imperative mood.
If your brother or sister sins against you, go and tell them their fault; if he does not not listen, take one or two others along with you; if he refuses to listen tell it to the church; and if he still refuses to listen, treat him as one who no longer belongs to the people of God. (Matthew 18.15-20)
Love each other; cast off the works done in darkness and put on the armor of light; walk properly as in the daytime--and not in orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, quarreling and jealousy. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13.8-14)
Our texts this morning remind us of what we have been talking about for several weeks as we have engaged the Scriptures provided for us: faith in Jesus entails loyal allegiance to a new way of life; this is what faith/believe means. We have been saved, delivered, redeemed, and given a new status for a new way of being in the world, a way in which we seek to conform our lives to something other than our wants, desires, ambitions, and agendas. We have been granted an alien righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus, we have been declared to be in the right with God through Jesus’ death and resurrection (indicatives), and because of that objective truth that comes to us outside of ourselves, we are now called and enabled to orient our lives in a new way (imperatives).
These imperatives, these commandments are indeed weighty, and they call for careful attention, attentiveness to practice what the Lord has called us to do. But it is important to understand the pattern we find throughout the Scriptures in which we encounter these imperatives, a pattern that is significant to grasp if we are going to receive these commands as good news.
The pattern is this: imperatives follow indicatives. That is to say that the commands of the Lord come after statements from Lord about who He is and who we are because of who He is and what He has done on our behalf. We must always remember to read these imperatives, these commands, in the context in which we find them. For example:
- “I am the LORD
your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the land of
slavery” (Deut 5.6). “The LORD our God made a covenant with us” (Deut
5.2). These are the indicatives that come before the imperatives, the
statements about who God is and what He has done on our behalf before
He tells us what we ought to do. What do these indicatives tell us? At its
core, the indicatives in Deuteronomy tell us that God wants to be with
us, wants to share fellowship with us. They remind us that even though
we have rebelled against Him, even though we have profaned His name, even
though we have turned away from God, even though we have refused His
gifts, he nevertheless draws near to us--he moves towards our darkness and
rebellion. He repairs the relationship. And then, he gives us imperatives,
commands, “so that it might go well with us and our descendents forever”
(Deut 5.29); “so that we may live” (Deut 5.33).
2.
In Matthew’s Gospel we are told that Jesus has come to be God with
us, Immanuel (Matt 2.23); the kingdom of heaven is at hand in his person (Matt
3.2); righteousness is being fulfilled in the life of Jesus (Matt 3.15).
The Son of David and Son of Abraham has come to establish God’s rule forever
and to be a blessing for all the nations (Matt 1.1). He has come to reconcile
us to God, so that we can be what we were made to be--for the life of the world
(Matt 28.18-20). These are the indicatives that precede the imperatives that
tell us to seek out our brother or sister when they sin against us; when we are
directed to cast out our brother or sister if they do not repent.
3.
And in Romans, Paul tells us that God’s righteousness has been
revealed in the faithfulness of Jesus (Rom 1.16); he tells us that we are all
under Sin, the slavemaster who distorts our lives individually and
corporately (Rom 3.9). But in Romans we learn that through Jesus, God has
worked against the power of Sin and put us into a right relationship with Him
(because, again, He wants to be with us) by putting forth His Son as a
sacrifice of atonement (at-one-ment); God is both just (in that he does not
pass over our sins) and the justifier (because he deals with our sins) of those
who share in the imputed faithfulness of Jesus (Rom 3.26). In Jesus, and by
faith (our loyal allegiance to Jesus), we have peace with God. We have been
given access to the Father by the Spirit and through Jesus; God’s love has been
poured out upon us through the Spirit, and we who were in the first Adam have
now been healed by the Second Adam, who has faithfully responded to God’s call
(Romans 5). What is more, in baptism we have been united and raised with Christ
and given a new status, a new life. We are no longer slaves of sin and death;
instead, by the power of the Spirit, we have been set free from sin so that we
may become slaves of righteousness and life, adopted children of God (Rom 6,
8). God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves (Rom 8.3-4). These
are the indicatives that come to us before the imperatives to love one another,
to cast off the works done in darkness, to not engage in orgies, drunkenness, sexual
immorality, quarreling and jealousy; and to instead put on the Lord Jesus
Christ (Rom 13.8-14). “Sin will have no dominion over you because you are now
under grace” (Rom 6.14). Something has happened to us in Christ; it is only
fitting that now we live in that reality. And imperatives, commands, come
alongside us to tell us how we ought to live.
What’s
the point in all this? Why is grasping this pattern important?
- It reminds us
that God’s imperatives (his commands) provide us with a picture of the
good life, a picture of what life is meant to be. Do you want life? Do you
want meaning and purpose? Do you want happiness? Then do these things!
This is what we have been made for, what you have been redeemed for.
- Another way of
saying this is that the imperatives direct us to live a kind of
life that is in keeping with the word that God has given to us about who
we are in light of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Imperatives or
commands point us to the kind of life that conforms to God’s declaration
of who we are--the word that has come outside of us and that declares to
us that we belong to God.
- It is therefore
important to underscore that we do not do these commandments of God in the
hope that if we perform them well enough God will draw near to us, accept
us, and call us his own. We do not do the commandments of the Lord in
order to gain His favor or earn His love. He has given us these
commandments because He has already reached out to us, brought us near,
shared His life with us, welcomed us to his table. Paul says it like this:
“Do not present your members as instruments for unrighteousness, but
instead present yourselves to God because you have been brought
from death to life” (Rom 6.13).
Why,
then, should we “be careful to do as the LORD God has commanded us” (Deut
5.32)?
- So that we may
live; so that it may go well with us and our descendents (Deut 5.33);
because “your rules are good” (Psa 119.39).
- Because sin is
serious. As unfavorable as it is to talk about sin these days, we must
remember that it destroys our fellowship with God, who is our only source
of life; sin distorts our humanity, and as such it corrupts our
communities; it has dire (if not also subtle) consequences; it defames God
and ruins our call to bear witness to our new life in Christ. The
imperatives of God remind us that sin is grave, and they protect us from
its corrosive consequences.
- For the life of
the world; so that the world--our family, our neighbors, our friends, our
classmates, and our coworkers may find life. Our communal life together,
our new way of life together in which we seek to carefully do all that the
Lord has commanded us bears witness to the life we are made to live before
God, it functions as a signpost to life.
For this
reason, we join with the psalmist of 119 with our own imperatives, requests
that we make to God in light of His imperatives to us:
- Teach me, O LORD, the
way of your statutes (33)
2.
Give me understanding, that I
may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart (34)
3.
Lead me in the path of your
commandments (35)
4.
Incline my heart to your
testimonies and not to selfish gain (36)
5.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless
things; and give me life in your ways. (37)
6.
Give me life (as I follow in your
righteousness). (40)
EUCHARIST
Even
within the Eucharist we find this indicative/imperative framework that is found
throughout the Bible. The indicatives of the table are many: God loves you and
wants to be with you; God has provided a way for you to be reconciled to
Himself--through Jesus Christ your sins are atoned for, forgiven; by faith you
receive the righteousness and faithfulness of Jesus so that you can have peace
with God. Therefore (here come the imperatives), believe,
or entrust your life to Jesus; taste and see that the Lord is good; receive his
imputed righteousness; come to Him for life; eat his body and drink his blood
or you will have no life in you; and welcome one another as God has welcomed
you in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God. The table reminds us that God and His
declarations and promises always go before us; he extends to us declarations
about who we are; and He gives us promises; and we receive those words, we
entrust ourselves to those promises--and in so doing we take God’s directives,
his imperatives as directives to the life we are called to by His grace. Divine
pronouncement dictates the Christian life.
Discussion
Questions
- Why is it
important to place the commandments of the Lord in the context of His
indicatives or statements about who we are in Christ?
- What is one
command that you have heard this Sunday that you need to be careful to do?
- Which request in
Psalm 119:33-40 do you need to pray most this week and why?
BENEDICTION
You have
been given the words of eternal life. Be careful to do as the Lord has
commanded you that you may live and that it may go well with you.
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