Constitution- A written statement of fundamental laws and principles

 

You, as a citizen of the U.S. or an immigrant into this country, hold dear the Constitution as your key to free living. Most of us, this week, lived without thought within the parameters of our national statement of laws and principles.

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.  (March 4, 1789) 

 

We don’t even fight too hard against the 200 year process of  “interpreting of the law” that defines our daily lives. Almost every part of our daily lives is guided by these laws.

 

Last week I offered you a one hour window of freedom from all driving laws, after the service, and only one of you reported being pulled over on the way home. I’m sure a few of us this week, defiantly, didn’t put on our seat belt or accelerated through a yellow light but for the most part we have discovered that we find freedom living within the laws.

 

We all glory in the thought of the thirteen original Colonies, all with a unified goal of shared freedom, sitting down and hammering out our code of freedom..... Actually it wasn't quite that simple. There were:

 

- Only 3,929,214 people in the thirteen states and territories.
Entire state of Rhode Island had less that half this towns population

 

- Every Colony was so self-centered and bickered so much, between themselves, that people back in Europe were predicting dates when the experiment would all fall apart. 
 
- They fought over boundaries and duties… most of all they fought over who should pay the massive $45,000,000 debt.

 

In utter desperation they met in Philadelphia on May 14th 1787…
They knew that a failure to produce a satisfactory government would  
mean the end was near.

 

 With a lot of fighting, they finally hashed out, and ratified, the 7 articles and 23 amendments we hold dear. As time progressed, they discovered what they hadn’t caught on to before.

 

When everyone lives within the same set of moral and physical boundaries, there is huge freedom for everybody.

 

The Colonists  discovery of the freedom that came from living within boundaries was not really a new thing…. It was just a rediscovery of a principle established  years before …… by God! In fact, the Framers of the Constitution used this book as the model for the document we hold dear today.

 

Some of you here may look at this Bible and see a restrictive set of rules for living that are designed to keep you from living free… Everything in this book, (Many who hold this view have actually never read this book) is restrictive and stifling to your individuality. You can’t possibly live by this book and enjoy any freedom in life whatsoever.

 

Others of you could/would freely testify that you spent years living in rebellion to God’s law and you didn’t ever find real freedom. You would say that when you finally formed an intimate relationship with your Creator and began to live in harmony with why you were created….. that is when true freedom became a reality in your life!

 

We are living in a strange time in history… Hardly a day goes by but what we hear of some assault on our Constitution, our national path to freedom…. And… We are living in a time of siege against God’s Constitution, our eternal pathway to freedom.

 

We watched a shocking “man on the street video” last week of those who believe that there is no longer anything or anyone who can be defined as absolute truth. Some of you came up to me last week and said; in the arena where you live and work these are the views you face every day.  People who actually believe:

 

  Truth is whatever you decide it to be...All truth is relative. To find your own    pathway to truth you must look deep inside yourself.

 

  “My only moral responsibility is to be true to myself”...living in harmony    with my own inner values

 

 Immorality is defined as not being “true to myself”

 

  What is truth for me is not truth for ever other person in this world. One of    the most immoral things I could ever do would be for me to take my code of    values and try to attach them to someone else's life. 

 

The Framers of our US Constitution had no trouble pinpointing behavior that was true for everyone.

 

 Sec 2; P 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall  not have  attained    to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven  Years a Citizen of the     United States, and who shall not, when  elected, be an Inhabitant of that    State  in which he shall be chosen.

 

How could they do that? Didn't they know that each person needed to determine if that was truth for them by looking deep within themselves?

 

The FRAMER of our Moral Constitution, also, had no trouble pinpointing behavior that was true for everyone.

 

I. God’s Constitution Recited

 

Exodus 19:16-19 On the morning of the third day, there was a powerful thunder and lightning storm, and a dense cloud came down upon the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram's horn, and all the people trembled. 17Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18All Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook with a violent earthquake. 19As the horn blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply for all to hear.

 

 

 

II. God’s Constitution Received   (Let's break this down a bit)
Exodus 20: 1Then God instructed the people as follows: .
 This form wasn’t as new to them as it is to us. The whole Middle East was made up of tiny kingdoms, often not more than one city, and each was fighting for it’s very existence against the others. Kings of one city would make treaties with a few more, then they would all go and try to conquer another city. Once conquered they would make a “vassal treaty” describing who they were, what they expected and what they would, now, offer in the way of protection to those they conquered. God uses a form they understood to communicate with them:

 

A) God’s Introduction:
  
      2"I am the LORD your God!
      (not a threat...a covenant promise)
     B) His Credentials:
  “Who rescued you from slavery in Egypt”.
   ( an indication of what I will do for you)

 

   C) What He expects from them…
     3"Do not worship any other gods besides me.
  
4"Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. 5 You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god!

 

To the Hebrews He said- “When you get into the promised land you will find my competition…other God’s that try to take my place in your heart.

 

 They must not be allowed to take my place!

 

The Canaanites, like many primitive people depended on natural forces ( sun, rain, temperature, soil) Like all pagans tend to do.. they attached God-like significance to the sunshine and the rain…. They drew a link between the fertility of the crops and the fertility of childbearing.

 

The Canaanites had made the small, easy leap from worshipping a god who brought fertility to the land and womb and the worship of sexuality itself. Their society was all caught up in the all-out pursuit of getting what they wanted and sexual pleasure.

 

Pastor, that pagan culture has no relevance to us in civilized times. No???

 

 They worshipped what made them successful
 They worshipped human sexuality
 They bowed at the altar of personal fulfillment
        Just like us!

 

They lived in a primitive pagan culture…We live in a sophisticated pagan culture…The values are similar.. the level of sophistication has increased.

 

God, to the pagans, was anything perceived to have the power to help them get what they wanted!

 

 Idol worship, by God’s definition, was anything they inserted in the #1 place.

 

They Israelites, later on, would struggle with idol worship, for them it wasn’t a matter of dismissing God altogether,… they would simply take one of these other pagan idols and place it equal to, or above, God.

 

We, like them, are faced with competition pulling for our attention and often God’s voice gets muted coming through the haze:

 

 Who is  number 1?
This question had to be asked over and over in the Bible. Who is #1?

 

 Joshua 24:14"So honor the LORD and serve him  wholeheartedly. Put away    forever the idols your ancestors worshiped  when they  lived beyond the    Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve  the LORD alone. 15But if  you are    unwilling to serve the LORD,  then choose today whom you  will serve.    Would you prefer the gods your ancestors  served beyond  the Euphrates?    Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose  land  you now live? But as for   me and my family, we will serve the LORD."

 

God doesn't have some ego-maniacal problem where he needs our worship...

 

 
 1 Kings 18:20-21 So Ahab summoned all the people  and  the prophets to    Mount Carmel. 21Then  Elijah stood in front of them and said, "How long    are you going  to waver between  two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow    him!  But if Baal is God, then follow  him!" But the people were completely     silent.

 

People who, today, are fixated on finding truth within themselves...are not on some higher intellectual plane than everyone else. They are simply dealing with this same question the Israelites dealt with.

 

 

 

The world's magnetism toward putting everything else in #1 slot except God is not something just the Israelites dealt with...we live with that every day ourselves.