LAW HOMILY: Sinful Verdicts

Every week we go through the law of God because we wanna understand what God has to say. We were talking about this in Sunday school this morning that, oh, and by the way, another announcement, Sunday school is gonna take a break for the month of September and we're gonna come back in October.

So it'll be just a short little break in Sunday school. We'll come back in October. Anyway, we're talking about Sunday school this morning, how God himself is the one who authored the law. And because God is good, his law is good.

God's Good and Holy Law

And because God is holy, his law is holy, and we as God's people, especially as God's people, can't have a standard that makes us believe that we are somehow more righteous than he. When we look at the things, this is not the law homily, but I'm just now soapboxing.

When we look at things like how adultery is commanded to be punished with capital punishment, and then we look at that and we say, oh, thank God we live in a world where that's not true. What we're really saying is that God, your word was only good for a certain season, and that now we've evolved pasture holiness.

That's a tough thing to say. So what we wanna say is, God, we love your law. We wanna obey your law. We wanna be people who are under your law, seeing it as what it is, a tutor that points us to Christ, and knowing that now in the spirit, we can learn and grow to obey your word.

The Ninth Commandment Against False Witness

So today we're on the ninth commandment out of the 10, and that's Exodus 20, verse 16. And it says, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And in that way, again, the ninth commandment doesn't merely forbid us from telling lies.

It also forbids us from speaking falsely against our neighbor. And one of the easiest ways that we can speak falsely about someone is to start talking before we've actually understood what's happening.

The Folly of Rendering Verdicts on Partial Evidence

We're astonishingly willing to render verdicts on partial evidence. We hear one sentence, we see a single screenshot, we receive one complaint, watch one clip, notice one expression, and suddenly we know the entire story.

We know what happened. We know why it happened. We know what the person meant in our omniscience. We know what was in their heart even. And very often we know almost none of these things and we still render the verdict.

Proverbs 18, 13 says, he who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him. Notice that Solomon doesn't merely condemn getting the answer wrong. He condemns the speaking before the understanding.

It's okay to get something wrong. It's not okay to opine and make judgments out of that wrong. The shame is not merely that our conclusion has proven incorrect. The shame is that we were willing to reach a conclusion without doing the work necessary to know whether or not it was true.

False Witness Through Misjudging Our Neighbor's Motives

And this is how it connects to the ninth commandment. The ninth commandment is that we shall not bear false witness against our neighbor. And how many times have we in conversation bore false witness against our neighbor who's corresponding to us by believing something that is wrong or sinful against them because we think we knew what they meant.

I know you're just being selfish. Well, was that really? I mean, I guess in some ways, sure. But when we ascribe motives that aren't true, when we ascribe meaning that isn't true, when we ascribe motivations that aren't true, are we not bearing false witness against our neighbor?

And should we not repent of the ways that we do these things to one another? Should we not embrace what Proverbs says, we'll talk more about in our sermon later, Proverbs 18, 13, that we should understand a matter before we speak.

Repenting of False Witness and Purifying Our Speech

These seem like small and trifle things, but to a holy God, they're important things. So let us repent of any occasion this week where we've borne false witness against our neighbor, where we've spoken ignorantly without actually knowing what the matter was about.

Ask God to forgive us, ask God to help us, ask God to purify our speech, and ask God that even in our words that we would glorify him in holiness and truth, amen. Let's pray. Lord, there's so many ways that we fall short of your glory, so many ways we fall short of your standard, so many ways that we do the things that we ought not to do and fail to do the things that we ought.

The Tongue's Power for Good and Evil

Lord, help us. James says that this small little member is like a spark that causes a forest fire. It's like a rudder that controls the entire vessel. It's like a bridle that controls the horse. The tongue is a powerful instrument for good and for ill.

Lord, I pray that you'd forgive us for the ways that we have slandered, for the ways that we have lied, for the ways that we have spoken without actually knowing what it is that we're saying. Lord, help us to be careful people, people who use our tongue carefully and with holiness.

Repentance as the Joyful Fellowship of the Saved

Help us to, in everything, whether we eat or whether we drink, give glory to you, and that certainly applies to the way that we speak. Lord, help us to consider our speech as a way of glorifying you, and help us, Lord, to repent when we fall short.

Not a repentance that comes out of a place of despair, thinking that we must repent in order to be saved. Lord, help us to repent as Christians who are saved, that we would have our relationship strengthened by our enjoyment of you, bolstered by that repentance that causes nearness and fellowship with you, thanking you constantly of what your Son has done on the cross for us, that we may now repent with joy, that we may now repent with gladness and delight.

So, Lord, help us to lay down our sins and receive your forgiveness, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to this homily on the law of God from our Covenant Renewal worship this past Lord's Day.

Loving and Obeying God's Law Through Christ and the Spirit

We publish these messages each week because we believe that God loves his law, and far from throwing it away, we believe that the death and resurrection of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will actually help us learn to love and obey God's law.

And that's our prayer for you, that as you chew on these expositions each week, that you would both learn to love and come into alignment with the law of God. And we pray that you would do that by the Spirit's power, through the finished work of Christ and to the glory of God.

And with that, God bless you.