There was a day when you would see them; quite common they were. Harnesses, I mean. Only, not harnesses used for goats or ponies. I’m talking about a child harness. Small straps of leather with buckles. You tie a child in it. It keeps them from running away at the grocery store or in the park.
        People used to use these. But then there came a time where they were thought to be too restrictive. "Cruel to the child," it was said. So parents did without. That was even worse.
So today you see people going back to these things. Except they have yuppified it. Brightly coloured plastic armbands with velcro closing and bright plastic coiled rope that connects to equally bright wristband on mother.
Parents found that kids need restraint to keep from wandering away and getting themselves into trouble and all manner of misery.

Kids need restraint.

        That's why I had a friend who, as a toddler, had to be tied on the end of a rope at the beach. If not Wayne would tend to run straight for the water and real trouble.

        That's why they put fences around playgrounds: to keep kids from running into the street after their ball.

Same thing with adults, really --
        That's why they paint yellow lines down the centre of the road, tell you not to drink and drive, and limit how fast you can drive. Boundaries on travel.
        That’s why many workplaces are instituting seminars and regulations on what is appropriate conduct and what can be constituted as harassment. The workplace was often unsafe for women with lewd comments, unwanted advances and worse. Boundaries on relationships.

        Boundaries: they keep out the harmful, and keep folks inside the safety zone so that life is safer and more enjoyable.

Unfortunately we don't always appreciate boundaries.
        Kids pull at safety harnesses, climb over and under fences.
        Adults speed, pass when they shouldn't, and drink & drive anyway, taking the back roads in the hope they won’t get caught.

        We may even know that the boundaries set in place are for the best, but from somewhere inside a little voice wiggles out crying, "rights, my rights, if I want to I should be able to, let me choose, don’t tell me!"
        That sort of problem wells up when we sit down and read the passage from the bible which we just referred to - Exodus 20, the 10 Commandments, one of the most succinct summaries of the Law of God.
        We read it and our face begins to sour -
        look at all those "You shall not 's"
                Don't go here. Don't do this. Don't think like that.

        It begins to look like army boot camp. Or it begins to feel like a criminal code of sorts, giving some of us the impression:
                What God wants from you, beyond anything else, is that you follow what is contained there. Do that and you will stay out of the divine bad books.

Just like one obeys the laws of the road and stays out of trouble with the OPP. Willingly or grudgingly, just keep your nose clean as best you can, and God won't get mad at you -
        -- not too much, anyway.

        That makes it important for us, who hear the Law so often, to remind ourselves once in a while of what they’re all about.

        Item #1 to remember: The Law is not a series of hoops to jump through, and barrels to leap over in order to get into heaven.
        The first thing that God is concerned with is the state of our heart: do we love him, do we give our total allegiance in life and death to Jesus Christ the Saviour?

        Obeying rules and regulations, doing our best, won't get us one step closer to admission into God's family, won't get God to pay one more minute's worth of attention to us, won't give us any more assurance of a place in God's renewed Creation when Jesus Christ returns.

If you hear nothing else this morning, please be reminded of this basic truth:
        We are made into children of God;
        We are set free from the eternal curse of death,
                not because we deserved it,
                not because we obeyed some rules,
                        but strictly because of the gracious goodness of Jesus Christ.

Now, after accepting the forgiveness that Jesus offers us as a free gift, we are given a guide to help us in our trek to the Promised Land, to eternal life with Jesus.
        We are handed what Andrew Kuyvenhoven calls "a road map to safety."
The road map works in two way.

First, when we try to function according to the Law and get frustrated because we continue to blow it and step outside the line we are reminded that we ARE imperfect.
        We DON'T meet up to God's standards-
                And that sends us running to the cross where the One who lived the Law perfectly for us, died for us.
                        That sends us running to Jesus Christ, asking Him for forgiveness.

Secondly, the road map of God's Law helps us reorder our lives, as children of God.
        It shows us the way of living that will greatest blessing to us, and that will be most pleasing to our Father God. (Gal 3.15-22)

        Perhaps some of you that have studied the book of Psalms in the past have noticed verses that speak of the Law of God. Perhaps you considered them to be, as one student remarked to me, "really weird":

Psalm 1.2:
''His delight is in the law of the Lord y and on his law he meditates day and night"

Psalm 19.7-9:
"The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.... The ordinances of the Lord and sure and altogether righteous - They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb,"

        Is the song-writer a bear for punishment? Does he love restrictive living? Does he like being pushed around, and kept locked in his room?
        Why is he so big on God's Law?
        It's because it becomes evident to him when he lives in the way of the Law that things go well. It is a way of life that ultimately "fits."
        It works.
        It takes much of the rough edge off life.
 

The 10 commandments, you see, are God's blueprint for human life- When he designed people and put in them the ability and desire to intermingle and have families and societies, he designed them to function in certain ways. Those ways are the ways of the 10 words.

So, the 10 Words are the guiding, care-filled words of a loving God who desires the absolute best for us.

Dr. Gordon Spykman puts it this way:

"What curbs are for a car and rails for a train, what water is for a fish and air for a bird, what a shepherd dog is for a flock of sheep - that's what God's law is for His chiIdren. It's the Father's hand in our lives. It's the key to Iiberty and Iove and truth (Ps 119,45,97,142; Rom 7.22). God holds the law out to us as a lantern to cast its light upon our path." [Spykman]

God’s Law - a real life saver.
Summarized in the concise words of the 10 Commandments.
        10 boundaries:
                Four guidelines for how to conduct ourselves in our relationship with God,
                and 6 guidelines for how to conduct ourselves in our inter-personal relationships.

The first four talk about:

1) our basic relationship to God,
2) how to worship him,
3) how we may use his name,
4) how we should observe his special day

1) how we relate to those God put in authority over
2) how we respect our neighbour's life,
3) respect for our neighbour's marriage,
4) his or her possessions,
5) and his or her reputation.

        These are not 10 detailed statements, but are really 10 basic foundational principles. They are the basics on which the rest of Christian living is built.
The New Testament, especially, expands on them and helps us to understand how they should specifically be applied.

        We see Jesus do this, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount where he fleshes out the principles and describes the broad application of God's will to the life of the Christian.

There he digs beyond the outward and rigidly correct observance of the letter of the law to what lies behind it:

You shall not murder - what about hate and anger that is harboured and turns into a desire for revenge?

You shall not commit adultery - what about the lust-filled desires that pop up when you read those steamy romance novels, where you become the heroine in the arms of the hero, rather than in the arms of your husband; what about the overworked glands that get aroused when you sneak a peak at the top shelf of the magazine rack at Quickie Mart, or bring home certain videos, or watch someone going down the street, and you allow your mind to wander?

You shall not steal - do you hoard your possessions and refuse to share with those in need; do you give less than you know you should to the work of God; do you crave to have what another person has?

Remember the Sabbath Day — is it a day where God is given honour, and your faith life is recharged, or have you taken to becoming obsessed with what you may and may not do on Sunday?

There are two enemies that try and make God's law look bad, and that try to make it miserable for Christians to follow God's will -

Enemy #1 is Legalism. Legalism puts the rules and regulations front and centre instead of the God who gave them to us.
        It censures, ostracizes, and roundly condemns, supposedly in the name of God, all those who slip and fall -
        It prods people along a "tight rope, with barbed-wire fencing on both sides for those who lose their footing." [Spykman]

"A Christian," says the legalist, "is someone who loves his neighbour, doesn't cheat on his wife, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't do dope, doesn't work on Sunday, doesn't....."
        You've heard the 11st of do's and don'ts, mostly don'ts.

Says the legalist, "How can Andrew be a Christian? Do you know where I saw him coming out of last week while I was downtown?" "I can't see how that family possibly can claim to be Christian. Do you know where they go on Sunday after church?"

And how wrong such an attitude is. The Law of God is not a cage. To quote Oswald Chambers, "God never made birdcages."
        God is the God of Liberty. He wants our lives to soar free and joyous without hindering and bothersome hurts and destructive pursuits; He wants us to live life the way it was meant to be lived. So we have his boundaries.

Unfortunately, it is people that tend to take them and turn them into birdcages, adding bars and restrictions. After a while we become cramped and can do nothing but chirp and stand on one leg
        [O. Chambers The Moral Foundations Of Life]

Enemy #2: Libertinism That's a fancy label for those who say, "Rules? Rules, man, are made to be broken. Nobody, but nobody is going to tell me what to do- Get off my case, cactus—face. Get in my way and I'll mow you down. As long as I go to confession once a month, as long as I say a pray for forgiveness once a day or week, God'll understand - Who's perfect? So let's not get uptight about it all, OK? I know it's all right because it feels good inside - I'm sure God has forgiven me and understands what I'm really about inside-"

        And in its foolishness Libertinism wanders down a road that it knows nothing of, a road filled with hurt and misery, a destructive road.
 
 
 

        If you've had chiIdren, you know that they wriggle when you put them in the harness- You know that they try to climb over or crawl under the fence to escape the confines of the playground. But as the chiIdren grow they begin to grow in the ways you parents set for them.
        God has set the safe and wholesome way for us to live. We may struggle at first – Legalism, libertinism, whatever -- but as we grow we will come to join the song-writer and give thanks to God for his wise and perfect way.