Ten Words for Lent and Obedience from the Heart

At Redeemer, we want to encourage our congregation to participate in the Lenten season, from Ash Wednesday on February 22^nd until Maundy Thursday. To aid our worship in this season, Rev. Paul Hahn and I will be leading a new sermon series entitled, “Ten Words for Lent.” This series will take us through the Ten Commandments – the Ten Words – that should guide and direct our lives. It is important to say that we are not saved by keeping the ten commandments. Salvation is all of grace. But the commandments reveal to us our sin and need of a savior and set forth God’s law for how we should live as his people. It is our hope that as we contemplate the commandments God would tenderly reveal those things in our lives for which we need his grace, and empower us to pursue obedience from the heart.

So often, we are like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, believing that cursory law-keeping is enough to fulfill the commandments. Jesus invites us into a deeper, spirit-filled obedience, which engages not only the actions of our hands, but the motivations of our hearts and the direction of our lives. The law of God does not simply give us a short list of rules to follow. Rather, it offers us a vision of what it truly means to honor and glorify God.

This has major implications for how we live as Christians. The Westminster Larger Catechism says that the duties required in the sixth commandment “You shall not murder,”  include carefully and thoughtfully working to preserve the life of others, subduing all our passions, thoughts and purposes that might tend toward the unjust taking of life; justly defending the weak against the violent, working towards reconciliation, bearing and forgiving injuries, returning good for evil, and protecting the innocent. Our goal as Christians in keeping the sixth commandment, therefore, should not simply be to avoid murder, but to do everything we can to make peace (Luke 19:42).

The observance of Lent helps us to grow into this obedience from the heart. When we engage in repentance as a community, our spiritual lives are reinvigorated to “set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth…[because] our lives are hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2-3).

Lent also offers us an opportunity to look with longing to Christ’s return, when our sin will be no more. In Mark 2:19 Jesus says, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”

We live in “that day,” the time when Jesus is not physically present with us and so we are called to deepen in our longing and repentance until the day in which Christ comes again. When engaged in the full knowledge that Jesus has completed our salvation, Lent can be a time that deepens our hope, grows our faith, and helps us be faithful in our witness to the coming of Jesus. As we walk through the Ten Commandments in the season of Lent, please ask yourself: How is God using his commands to reveal the motivations of my heart and deepen my need for Jesus?

We hope you will join us for this season in the life of the church!

Join us for Redeemer's Ash Wednesday service at noon on Wednesday, February 22^nd. The Redeemer Nursery will be open for the service.