Sermon Cloud

September 13, 2009

Exodus 20 “No images”

What We’ve Learned

 ¹And 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. ³ "You shall have no other gods before me. 

1.  God’s commands are in the context of redemption.  God doesn’t just give rules and hope that we’ve got the will power necessary to do them.  He is redeeming us and revealing His character to us and simultaneously showing us how to relate to Him and each other.  That’s pretty gracious, isn’t it?

2.  God will tolerate no rivals.  This means that Jesus alone is the way we approach God the Father.  It also means things or people that we place in God’s rightful place are not ok.  We were made to worship and it’s not a question of “if” we will put something in the central place in our heart, but “what” or “who.” 

The Second Commandment

⁴ "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

            This is a pretty obvious command that is urging us to avoid being idolaters.  Man, does this seem irrelevant to 21^st century moderns?  I mean, when is the last time you or someone you know went to your shed in the backyard and made a little tiki idol that looks like the show “Survivor” could use it as the prop that shows someone is immune from an elimination vote?  Isn’t this another example that shows how antiquated the Bible really is? 

            Let me try to take these concerns here.  On the one hand, yes, the Bible was written to its original recipients that had a specific historical location.  And yes, the people living around 1000BC tended to make idols to represent their gods.  Therefore, that was going to be something that would be a real temptation for them because it was so culturally familiar.  On the other hand, you can go to other parts of the world and actual physical idolatry still happen in full effect.  You’ll see representations of gods and demons and angels that worshippers will pay their respects towards.  In other cultures, there may be a picture of an ancestor and family members will venerate them and others that have gone before them.  So its not that irrelevant.  These things that seem so foreign to us are huge issues when we bring Jesus to some peoples with these types of backgrounds.        But that’s not where you live. 

Why does it matter?

            The command is clear enough:  Don’t make an image of a false god.  That makes sense and has a clear connection to the first commandment where we are told that we should only worship the true God and He is jealous (not in the petty sense).  Not only that, but our obedience or sin is never in isolation.  It will affect your children and grandchildren.  It will affect your friendships.  So for your sake and theirs, worship the real God.  While you are at it, don’t make an image of the true God either!  What is this going after?  Why does it matter?  If we are following the right God, what’s so wrong with making an image or idol of HIM?  I can think of 4 reasons:

1.  God is big! When you make some sort of image (even relatively large ones) it gives a spatial limitation to God.  Even the largest carvings made out of decent sized hills still seem very small when compare to the deep oceans and big mountains and the stars  the sky that are millions of light years away and are so big that it almost blows our mind. 

2.  God is everywhere.  When you give God a physical form, you make it seem as if that is where He is exclusively.  In other words, you make a statue of Jesus and put him somewhere.  Probably, you’d put him on your mantle in your living room next to your autographed Michael Crabtree picture of him scoring against UT.  Or maybe you would put him in a church building.  But see the trick?  He may well remind you of the real thing, but then you go to work.  Where is he?  You go to the bedroom.  Where is he?  The true God is everywhere and any image makes it seem like he lives in one spot and is possessed by you when He is the one that owns you!

3.  The true God speaks!  Images or idols don’t.  That’s pretty simple.  You can rub its belly and give it your attention when it suits you and he never corrects you, never tells you the best way to honor Him and to live in a loving way to your neighbor. 

4.  In general, as soon as we visualize Him, we limit Him and remake God in our image.  We’ve already mentioned 3 things that limit God when we make an image of Him.  It makes Him much smaller than He is, spatially bound, and mute.  None of those are true of God.  And then we have to make God behave and think like something.  What do we have available?  Ourselves!

But I don’t make Idols or Images!

            Well, I’m sure you don’t.  But I wonder if the real REASONS for this command (not giving us and others a false impression of God’s nature) might still be present in you.  Let’s go through our 4 things.

1.  God is big. Do you live in a way that reflects the magnitude of God?  Is there a fear and humility of the God that could scoop up all of the water of the earth with the palm of His hand and could pinch off Mount Everest and get an exact measurement? (Isaiah 40:12)  Do our independence and life goals reflect something of his greatness and strength?  Notice I didn’t ask you if you would check the “super size” box on a survey on a religious survey asking about how big God is.  Think about it:  when you feel like you need to control things, you think God is small.  When you get angry and bitter because of life circumstances, your God is small at that moment. 

2.  God is everywhere. Does your life indicate that God lives in some places and not others?  In other words, does He seem very important to you in worship services, Redeemer groups, and maybe a mission trip or something and basically irrelevant at other places and times?

3.  God speaks. Does God speak to you and actually change how you think about life and decide what things are true and valuable?  Press yourself on this.  Do you start off with your largely cultural assumptions of what ought to be and dismiss or ignore parts of the Bible that contradict that?  Ask yourself this:  If God were to want to correct something in your life, how WOULD He do it?  For lots and lots of us, there is now way He would do it because we don’t want Him speaking to us.  Instead, we have made up a god in our own image that will simply affirm our perspectives and values.  Which leads us to…

4.  God is self-defined.  Does the god you follow look remarkably like you?  Not physically, of course since God doesn’t have a body.  But does He pretty much value whatever you value?  If God can’t really speak to you and challenge some of your assumptions, you will make Him into your image.  There’s really no way around it.  And if He can’t speak and is pretty much defined by you, then you don’t have God, you have an appliance (Tim Keller). 

            OK, so fine you probably don’t have a chain idol making habit back in your woodshop days in high school.  You probably haven’t tried to draw a picture of a tarantula and started tithing to support tarantulas everywhere.  Your probably haven’t drawn a picture of the true God and used it to worship Him at home.  No, but the things that image would do that would belittle God in us, are alive in us, aren’t they?  My hope is that if you aren’t a follower of Jesus that has become clear today.  He has been small to you and barely even in one place and surely hasn’t spoken and you recognize you imagine Him on your own terms.  You realize now that He is much bigger but don’t know what to do.  Let me tell you:  God sent His Son Jesus to show you what God is like.  He obeyed all of God’s commands including this one.  He knows He is big.  He refused to limit Himself.  He was crucified, dead, and buried, but came to life on the 3^rd day and will return to make everything right.  Follow Him.  Your life can have more meaning and clarity to how you relate with other people and God than you’ve ever imagined.  More importantly, you could know the REAL love of God.  Not the imagined self love of your made up God in your head.

            Lots of you here already are Christians, but you see yourself in all 4 of those things.  I do.  What are you supposed to do with that?  I think I have an answer.  One of our biggest reasons why we tend towards apathy and microsizing God is that we are spending very little or no time considering and viewing the greatness of God.  You are doing some of the right things.  But Christians always have to come back to what actually changes us.  2 Corinthians 3:18 helps us.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  When we see the glory (greatness) of God through His Son Jesus, we are changed.  If a Christian has eyes to see, they will see God’s character coming through in commands like the one we see this morning.  Don’t make images or idols.  Why?  Because God is bigger than you have ever dreamed and we need to fight our minimizing tendencies with everything we’ve got!  Don’t just stop with the rule (no idols)!  Look at God, Christians!  Look at His excellence and be transformed from one degree of glory to another.  We need to see more of God.  Let’s use the ground war and air war as means of grace to see that.