Sermon Cloud

September 6, 2009

Exodus 20:1-3 “One God”

10 Rules Doesn’t Sound Real Exciting!

            I get that.  Most of us already feel like there is a pretty lengthy list of responsibilities as it is.  We need to hold down a job and we have expectations from our boss or customers.  If we are married, we have certain responsibilities…obligations even…to our spouse.  Think about it: It’s against the rules to cash your paycheck and spend money on your hobby and not use your income to pay for rent/mortgage, utilities, etc.  You have things that you really have to do to be a parent: You have to spend time and money on your kid and teach them how to do things and protect them from things.  If you aren’t independent, many of you have certain written or unwritten expectations to receive cash from parents.  It might be grades or degree progress or something.  Sometimes, an adult’s life can feel like one very long to-do list.  So when we hear that God has some addition rules, it doesn’t feel very life giving. 

Self-Revelation and Redemption

            I want to hit that assumption with everything I’ve got this morning.  How can commands, in general, and the first commandment, in particular, give life to us?  The first thing I can say is that rules don’t transform by themselves.  In fact, rules will only tell us the standard of what should be happening.  If we are honest about ourselves, this will almost always show us where we are failing.  That’s what laws, rules, and obligations do to us if they are not enveloped in love to the one we are obligated towards.  Husbands that love their wives never feel burdened by depositing their check into the joint account.  Moms nurse newborns and lose all kinds of sleep because of their affection for their little one.  And so it is with God.  Notice how the 10 commandments start:  With self-revelation and redemption. 1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

1. Self Revelation. God reveals Himself.  Don’t miss this.  God speaks.  Sometimes we get so turned off by the fact that God has rules at all that we miss the grace in the fact that God has chosen to speak to His creation.  He speaks and creates things with His words.  Who are we that He should choose to tell us things about Himself?  Please remember this morning that God was speaking to people that wanted to know Him and how to live.

2.  Redemption.  The God who is about to give commands, speaks to them as the One who redeemed Israel from the land of Egypt and is taking them to the land promised to their fathers.  All of God’s commands come to us in the context of redemption.  That’s a huge truth.  He is the God that reveals Himself to His people and then rescues them from slavery!  He doesn’t coldly, indifferently set decrees.  He loves you and likes you.  Enough that He rescued them from Egypt and rescued you from sin and death by the blood of Jesus!  He has sought you out and wants to heal you by revealing Himself to you.  That is good news. Now let’s move to the first command.

The First Commandment

            3 “You shall have no other gods before me.  Pretty simple.  And we already see the precedent for this in verse 2.  God has revealed Himself to Israel and this great King is intended to rule over every rival that exists.We don’t get to pick what we want God to be like.  You may like the idea of the god you’ve made up more than the real thing, but that doesn’t mean He’s real or that the true God will accept your misdirected worship as if it was intended for Him when it wasn’t. 

            I’d say the majority American religion is rightly labeled “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” as Christian Smith describes it.  According to Smith, regardless of which box you might check on a religious survey, America’s young people share some basic qualities in their opinions about God. 

1. It’s moralistic.  Today’s young Americans of all sorts of religions believe that God can probably be described in many different religious terms.   The important thing, they believe, is that we are good people and lots of religions help people be good. 

2. It’s Therapeutic.  The emphasis on their religious views centers on their own emotional health.  They will speak of their religion’s benefits in terms of how believing the things they believe makes them feel about themselves and helps them live life better. 

3. It’s Deistic.  Almost all Americans (young or old) believe in some kind of God.  But this God is strangely silent and disconnected from their life.  He might intervene in some random way occasionally, but mostly He stands on the sideline and watches life.  So, coming back full circle, a command to worship this God exclusively pushes us quite a bit.       The very first command we see here in Exodus 20 causes us to reevaluate our opinions about God.  This redeeming, revealing God says that He won’t share the stage with other gods that we or other people have invented.  This means, as narrow as it may seem, He is the true God.  He can only be known through Jesus Christ (see John 14:1-6 where we see the unity in Jesus and the Father).  You can prefer another way of thinking about God, but it doesn’t mean He will accept it.  To be clear, we can’t rightly worship God unless we worship Him as He has revealed Himself and this is most clearly seen through His Son, Jesus.  Sincere though you may be, your sincere alternative worship won’t be accepted by the One that matters. 

            Let me add that you might even use the right names and still be worshiping another god.  You might worship “Jesus” as your officially recognized religion, but your “Jesus” is a fictional Jesus that never existed.  You made this one up. You have this silly, sweet guy that just affirms your life, but doesn’t make any unwanted intrusions.  You like to worship silly, sweet, and affirming Jesus and think that does the trick because, heck, it’s Jesus and we are nice people.  Never mind that our idea of Jesus wasn’t formed in the Bible, but out of our dreams of what we would like God to be like.  Never mind that this sort of Jesus has been so unsatisfying that you could imagine any opinion or experience about God delivering the same to someone else.   The first commandment calls us to worship the true God and to do it on His terms.

            But here we are again feeling all squeezed in by rules on how we should or shouldn’t be doing things.  In this case, how or what we should worship. It doesn’t feel life giving.  It seems narrow and constricting. But is it?

Is it life giving to restrict these options?

            An extension of the first commandment is that we are commanded to avoid giving any other being or thing the place of worship that God deserves.   Not money.  Not sexuality.  Not comfort and success.  Not your spouse (future or current), not your kids.  Not your friends.  We look for people and things to save us all of the time and these are just as forbidden as making a shrine to a new god we just made up.

            Ah now we are getting someplace.  This rule squeezes us to be sure.  Oh, it’s narrow alright.  But it squeezes us so we know that our replacements for God haven’t worked either.  Ok, you have another religion.  How is that working for you?  Every religion I know puts all the emphasis on your performance so you can be accepted by him.  Are you tired?  Are you discouraged by your lack of follow through? How is your god dealing grace to you?  How is your god remaining just while he does this? 

            Most of you aren’t another official religion.  You give some faint praise to Jesus.  The trick is that you’ve substituted Him with weak substitutes.  How is that working?  Has putting your child at the center of your affections healed what’s broken inside or does it just make you act crazy?  Has your preoccupation with money and your future made you feel whole inside?  The answer to this is that God’s command to only worship Him is gracious!

            Every substitute god in the world will disappoint.  Even the ones we’ve made.  But God will satisfy regardless of our circumstance: successful or failing, rich or poor, healthy or sick.  God has redeemed His church and purchased out of slavery so that we could worship Him rightly and in so doing find our satisfaction and keep our lives from the harm that comes from worshiping substitutes.  God’s command when wrapped in redemption heals us and redirects our hearts!

            To non-Christians, I realize that this seems so arrogant.  I get that.  I suspect most Christians in here are a little embarrassed of how narrow God seems to make the road to knowing Him.  I hope that you’ll see that the narrowness is not intended to prove anyone is right and make you miserable, but instead to see His worth and know the One you were created to know. 

            To Christians, has God’s command to worship Him alone been constricting to you?  Do you feel burdened by your Christian responsibilities?  Could it be that you’ve forgotten that He has loved you and redeemed you?  Could it be that you’ve known that truth, but still thought your substitutes (false gods) would make you happier?  How is that working?  That question is not just for non-believers!   Your pursuit of alternatives is killing you.  Even the language of verse 3 sets up something like, “I don’t want another husband flaunted to my face.”  Go back to the One who actually loves you and dethrone His competitors.  They will not dethrone themselves.  This command is critical.

            In the bulletin, write down the rivals (other gods) in your life for your attention and affections.  If you get stumped, consider your purchases and time expenditures.  That will help you.  Consider what you daydream about.  That will tell you.  Not everything you do or spend money on is sinful, but if there are rivals, they will show up there!  Write them down, and give them to Jesus, specifically, one at a time.  Let the grace you are singing about be applied not just in general, but to those issues.  God redeems!