You Must Do Your Best To Keep The Commandments

Hello and welcome to social media ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for being with us today. We’ve got a great message for you. If you haven’t yet subscribed or followed us on your favorite platform, please do that, whether you’re listening on a podcast, watching on YouTube, or any other social media platform.

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Today we’re talking about keeping the Commandments. Now, how many Commandments are there? Some of you might say, “10. 10 Commandments. I know them.” How many do you know? Well, we’re not talking about that today. We’re actually talking about the Commandments in the entire Bible. How many Commandments are in the entire Bible?

If you know, put them in the comments below. And don’t cheat by looking at other people’s answers, but check it out. Seriously. How many people, how many of you know how many there are? If you’ve grown up in the church, you probably know that there are 613 Commandments throughout the Bible. 613, that’s a lot of Commandments.

Do you need to follow them? You need to follow all of them? Well, let’s turn to the Bible and find that out. John– actually, first John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commands.” Woah. So, wait a minute, 613 commandments? If you love Jesus, keep His commands. If you love God, keep His commands. Do you love God? Are you keeping all 613 Commandments? If you’re not, do you love God? Could be a dilemma. Do you see what I’m saying here?

If you’re not keeping the Commandments, do you really love God? You might say you love God. You might think you love God. But if you’re not doing what God wants, do you really love them—love God, that is? Just like a spouse—if you tell your spouse or you tell your children that you love them, but you don’t do what makes them happy, or you don’t do things for them, do you really love them? How are you showing them that you love them?

If you don’t do what God says, how are you showing God that you love Him? We spoke about this a week ago; be a doer. Check it out, it’s an awesome message, here, about being a doer of the word. Just like if you tell your children [that] you love them, but you don’t do things for them, how are you showing that you love them? No, you’re just saying it but you’re not proving it.

Are you just saying you love God, or are you showing God? If you do, you will do what God says. 613 Commandments—613 rules you need to follow every single minute of every single day. Yeah. Seems impossible, but guess what? Jesus did it. If Jesus did it, why can’t you? Well, He was perfect—[He] is perfect. We are not, but you can try.

You can try really hard to follow those Commandments. We talked about that: practice makes almost perfect. Because we can practice following 613 Commandments, but we’re going to mess up and that’s okay. Seek forgiveness; move on. Try harder next time. Keep moving forward. Jesus followed them all. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Woah. What does this mean?

Well, this is a big, heavy Verse. We’re going to unpack it, and you’ll have to do some unpacking yourself. “God made him who had no sin”— that means God made Jesus with no sin. He followed all 613 Commandments. And if there are more, He followed them all; He followed everything. Jesus took those Commandments and made them even harder. He raised the bar so we could argue there are way more Commandments. Jesus doubled them.

You could argue, “Hey, He took all these and took them to the next level, so now we got to follow at this level plus this level.” Did He double the load? Did he make them harder? That’s a sermon for another time.

There are so many Commandments and rules to follow. Jesus followed them all. No sin. Let’s keep going, though, on this one: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” What does that mean? That means when Jesus died on the cross, He became sin. Why did he die? He had no sin. The Romans thought they were executing someone because he was an interrupter. The Pharisees said, “We’re executing someone who’s going to take people away from our religion.”

Jesus knew none of that was true. He was going to execution, just like an electric chair, lethal injection, firing squad—crucifixion was only a means of execution. That’s all that word was. It was a method of execution. Jesus was going to be executed. Beheading, electric chair— take your pick. It was an execution. Yes, brutal, an execution.

Why was He executed though? The real reason, Jesus knew, is because while He was being executed, He took on the sins of the world. And at that moment, God turned His back from Jesus and condemned Him to Hell for you and for me.

Jesus took that punishment. He became sin so that we don’t have to— that we might become the righteousness of God. It’s heavy. It’s a big deal; let’s appreciate what He did for us and say, “Alright, I’m going to try to sin less.” We can’t be sinless, but we can sin less. Try to follow as many of these as possible. We need to try to do it as much as possible.

Let’s go to Leviticus 19:2. It says, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.’”

We need to try to be holy because God is holy. He’s our example. So, we can try to be holy. Each and every day, we have to work hard to follow everything that God says. But you know what, you don’t need to memorize all of these Commandments and strictly adhere to following them word for word. No, we don’t.

There are some graphs and charts that if you type it into Google or your favorite search engines of, “What are the reductions of The Commandments?” You know, throughout time, they were reduced.

We had 613. Then some prophets said, “Alright, it’s these. Take them down to 5 or 10—follow the 10 Commandments.” Moses took them to 10. Then we had other prophets [say], “Alright it’s 5.” Then we even had Jesus taking them to: “Love God and love your neighbor.” Two.

So, do you need to memorize and follow all 613? They can all be summed up in a couple [words]: love god [and] love your neighbor. That’s what we have to follow, and then dive into the Word and keep learning more. Think in your mind, “What would Jesus do?” So, you don’t need to memorize all 613; you just need to think about what Jesus would do.

How do you know what Jesus would do? We have a sermon called “What Would Jesus Do,” or WWJD; check that out. But how do you know what Jesus would do? Let me ask you this: do you know what your child would do if you put an apple and a cookie and said, “You can choose whichever one.”

How many would know what their child would choose? Or if you say, “Here’s a Laffy Taffy and a Snicker bar,” which one would your kid choose? Or your spouse—how do you know what they would choose? Because you know them. In the same way, how do you know what Jesus would do? Because you know Him. If you don’t know Him, you wouldn’t know what He would do. So get to know Him. Invite Him into your life.

Spend more time in the Word. Watch more sermons; go to church. Get to know Jesus. Then you’ll know what He would do. Then you can follow what He would do. You don’t need to memorize all these Commandments. You just need to think, “I know Jesus. I know what He would do. That’s what I’m going to do.” And then go from there.

God doesn’t want you to memorize all these things word for word. He wants you to be doing. Remember we talked about being a doer of the word; He wants you not only to just know all of this stuff. See, there were people in history that— they knew all of this stuff, and Jesus came and said, “Shame on you. You guys sit around and talk about all these things that you know, but you don’t even do anything.”

He made some heavy insults. He threw some big stones; “Whitewashed tombs,” He called them. Pretty on the outside, but inside you’re filled with rotting and decaying bones. These people were Pharisees and Sadducees; He said, “These religious leaders, these traditional people, they know all of these rules but they’re not following them.”

He even told people, “Don’t do what they do because they tie up heavy burdens for others, and they, themselves, are not even willing to lift a finger.” So, it’s not about knowing the law, knowing the Commandments. It’s about following them and doing them. That’s what God wants.

So think in your mind, “What would Jesus do?” and then love your neighbor and love God. Love God and love your neighbor. That’s what you need to do in everything. Don’t be like the Pharisees. We’ve got a sermon on that: Be Not a Pharisee. Don’t be like them; pious, pompous people that just think that they were so great. They thought they were so righteous; they thought they were the most worthy, but they weren’t worthy at all.

You must have faith and works. Knowledge and application. It goes hand in hand. Together. You can’t have one without the other. Remember James said, “If you have faith without works, it’s like seeing someone who doesn’t have any clothes and saying, ‘Hey, good luck, I hope things go well.’”

But you’re not doing anything to help them out. If it’s 20 below outside and they don’t have a coat and they’re freezing – “hope God helps you out,” and you keep walking. That’s like faith without works. No, get the works. Take off your jacket and give it to them. Say, ‘Hey man, here take this. Be warm.’” And you, who have the means and opportunity, go get yourself a new one.

Faith and works. Faith and action. Faith and deeds. Knowledge and action. You have to take action. Jesus doesn’t want you just to know all this stuff. He wants you to do it. He doesn’t even care if you know it all as long as you’re doing it. How many people in the Old Testament times were illiterate? They couldn’t read or write, so they didn’t really know all of this stuff.

They weren’t educated, but they were doing what God said. And He loved it. You don’t need to have all of the education; you don’t need to have doctorates in theology. You don’t need to be a priest or a pastor or a deacon, a man or woman of the cloth. All you need to do is follow Jesus.
Do what He says. Do what the Bible says. That’s what He wants. He wants you.

What would Jesus do? Think what would Jesus do? If there’s any question or doubt anywhere on what He would do in a certain situation, then He probably wouldn’t do it. It’s that simple.

God doesn’t want you to be a slave to all of these rules and laws and following these things all the time, thinking, “Oh wait,”–like the ancient Jewish people said, “Oh, I can’t shake my hand with this,” or, “I can’t do this,” or, “I can’t share a cup or a plate or this with a certain person.”

Or, “Wait a minute, that pizza spatula, there was Canadian bacon with that pizza, and someone used it to scoop the pepperoni pizza. And now I can’t because that might have touched this, and this could’ve touched that, and that would be unclean”.

I’m telling you, there are still people who live like this. “Where did this come from?” “What kind of gelatin is in those marshmallows because if it came from pork, I can’t have it. So I better not.” Stop. Don’t worry so much about all of these rules. God doesn’t want you to be a slave to tradition, or a slave to rules, or a slave to law. He wants you to be a slave to Him.

1 Corinthians 7:22. 1 Corinthians 7:22: “For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freed man. Similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave.” Okay, wait a minute. If you were a slave when you were called, you’re now free in Christ. Now, most of us in today’s day in age, slavery isn’t around.

Yes, it still exists—open your eyes. People are being sold into slavery every single day whether it’s labor camps or sex trafficking—there still is slavery going on today in the 21st Century. Alright. It needs to stop. We’re going to do our part to try to end that, hopefully, you can help. But, if you’re a slave and you’re free, you’re now free in Christ.

For the rest of us, the majority of the people in the world who are free when Christ called them, or when they became a Christian – Christ is calling everyone. He’s standing at the door knocking. Seek Him. So, whenever you turn to Christ, if you were free now, you are a slave to Christ. Now does that mean the slave who is free in Christ is not a slave? No, they’re free in Christ.

Free people are now slaves in Christ. You are not a slave to law or tradition or to the rules. You are becoming a slave to Christ; that means that in everything you do, you’re working for God. You’re trying to please God. You’re not working for earthly masters; you’re not trying to please people on earth anymore. You’re trying to please God.

Now, He’s not forcing you to do any of this. It’s not that type of slave. It’s—He wants you to follow Him. Alright? Paul understood this. Let’s go to Romans 1:1, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” Other translations: “Paul, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Slave. Other verses say you used to be a slave to sin or to the devil, but then you found Jesus and now you’re a slave to Christ. Follow Jesus. Be His slave. Do everything you can as if working for the Lord. That’s what this is talking about.

God doesn’t want you to do everything you can as if working to follow written law or tradition or make sure that I have four tassels on my cloak, or make sure that on certain days I don’t use my phone, or I have to put a certain hat on, or whatever. Pick on any tradition you want—I need to go to confession every week, and if I don’t, I’ll be condemned to Hell, or I better show up in church even if I’m hungover or whatever—no.

[You] shouldn’t be hungover in the first place. Follow Jesus, not some tradition set forth by who? Who made the traditions? Humans. God wants you to follow Him. If you’re following traditions, you’re a slave to tradition which is humans—mankind, humankind. Whether a man or a woman set up a tradition, or a religion, or a religious leader—you don’t be a slave to that. Be a slave to God.

So, all you need to do is think about, in every situation, “What would Jesus do?” If Jesus would do it, even if it is tradition—maybe there’s a tradition that says: helping other people on certain days of the week. Or giving up something to get closer to God, like fasting. Or the Catholics, or other religions, do things like Lent. Or the Muslims do Ramadan—things like that. What is the purpose of that?

If the purpose is being closer to God, then their tradition is working hand in hand with what Jesus wants. Jesus would do that; He’d say “Yeah, no problem.” But if there are traditions that don’t make sense, He wouldn’t do them. Just take a look at how many times He healed people on the Sabbath. [He] said, “This tradition doesn’t make sense. Why would you not heal someone if it’s possible? Why would you not help someone if you had the power and ability to do so?”

Some traditions Jesus said don’t make sense. Why are you so worried about what you’re eating or what’s touching what? It’s not what you put in the body that defiles you, it’s what comes out. Jesus said, “Use a little common sense and think.” Love God, love your neighbor, and do what Jesus would do.

Try it one day—the WWJD challenge—try it for one day, and see how long can you go without sinning, without screwing up? Then each day, start over. Try to make it a little further. Maybe your first thought was a curse word because you got out of bed, and you walked over to your child’s room and stepped on a Lego. Okay, well tomorrow, let’s try to make it a little further. You see what I’m saying? Things happen in life. God knows that.

He says, “It’s okay. Seek forgiveness. Try to do better. Try to be better.” It’s hard. Try. Keep the Commandments. WWJD. Think about it. What would Jesus do, and try to do that.

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, thank You so much for everything you’ve given us. 613 Commandments. It’s a lot to follow, Lord. Thank You for simplifying them, reducing the list. Thank You for making it as easy as possible for our limited intellect. Thank You that we know that all we need to do is think about it: what would You do, and how do we know what you would do?

We need to get to know You more. So what we need to do, Lord, in every single day situations is strive to know You more, and if we do that, we can strive to follow You and do what You would do.

So, I pray that each and every person out there would get to know You more intimately. That they would know You more than they know anyone else. Better than they know themselves. That they would know You more than they even know themselves, and that they would do what You would want them to do. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Thanks so much for being with us this week. I hope you enjoyed the message. In addition, please follow us on social media and hit those subscribe buttons. Hit those like buttons. Show your support, and get out there and do what Jesus would do. God bless.