Ten Words Transfigured - No gods before God

Good morning, everybody. Good to be with you this morning. Pastor Jason's away, so I get to preach this morning. And we're going to head back to the book of Exodus. We're going to be in Exodus chapter 20 this morning.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

You can turn there now if you'd like. Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

This passage is interesting, Exodus 20, because it has some of the most familiar verses in all of the Bible. These are commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments. We often call them the Ten Commandments.

I think Charlton Heston might have called them the Ten Commandments a while ago, too. But Moses never called these the Ten Commandments. Moses referenced this passage three times in the Bible, in Exodus 34, in Deuteronomy 4, and Deuteronomy 10.

Each time, Moses called it the Ten Words. Most Bibles will translate Moses as the Ten Commandments. But then they'll give you this little footnote at the bottom of your Bible, and it'll say, the Hebrew actually says the Ten Words. Ten Words.

Now, that doesn't mean ten individual words, but it's ten groups of words. Now, these ten words, they are commands. So I'm not saying it's inappropriate to refer to them as the Ten Commandments.

But using the given title that Moses used, the Ten Words, this can really help us fully appreciate what God is doing in this passage. It reminds us that God spoke these ten words to his people at Mount Sinai.

God delivered them from slavery to the Egyptians. He led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness, to the mountain of God.

And in Exodus chapter 19, God descended down onto that mountain in the form of fiery and smoky and earth-shaking storm. And then out of that storm, God spoke these ten words directly to his people.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention

Theologian Peter Lightheart points out that this was not the first time that God had spoken ten words. In Genesis chapter 1, God spoke. He spoke the heavens and the earth and everything in it.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

He spoke it into existence with his words. And can you guess how many times Genesis 1 tells us that God spoke? Ten times. Ten times. And here in Exodus, at the foot of Mount Sinai, God spoke ten words.

And as he's doing that, he is engaging in a new creative act. He's forming his people into a new nation. They were no longer a nation under Pharaoh.

Now they were a nation under God. And with these ten words, God was also entering into a formal covenant, a formal promise with his new nation.

In Moses' day, you know, these covenants were prevalent. You'd have these really powerful nations. And they would make covenants with weak nations.

The powerful nation would promise to protect the weak nation. And the weak nation would promise to obey the powerful nation. Well, with the ten words, they match that covenant formula really closely.

This shows us that God here is making a promise to the Israelites. They would be his people, and he would be their God. So with these ten words, God is establishing a new Israelite nation, and he's also entering into a covenant with his new people.

But how do the ten words apply to us? How should the ten words affect Christians who have been brought under a new covenant in Jesus? Well, I want to argue that the ten words apply to Christians today in what I'll call a transfigured way.

Let me try to explain this. When I say transfigured, I'm thinking of the transfiguration of Jesus that happened in Matthew 19. There, Jesus took a few of his disciples.

He took them up on a mountain. And while they were up there, Jesus was transfigured. His face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as light.

Moses and Elijah appeared beside Jesus, and they began talking with Jesus. Moses and Elijah, they were two of the most famous leaders from the Old Testament era.

You could say they physically represented the Old Testament itself. Moses, the law. Elijah, the prophets. And they were talking with Jesus. But Jesus was shining in the midst of them, brighter and clearer than they were.

And then the cloud of God's glory had hovered over Jesus. God declared his pleasure in Jesus and charged the disciples to listen to Jesus. I want to argue that we should let that moment of transfiguration shape how we engage with the Old Testament

and the Old Testament's commands, including the ten words. They are transfigured in Christ. They are transfigured in the sense that they pointed forward to Christ, pointed forward to Jesus.

Jesus is the clear and shining picture of what the Old Testament was preparing us for. But the Old Testament is also transfigured in Jesus in that it is accomplished in Jesus.

Jesus perfectly kept all of God's laws. And the Old Testament is transfigured in Jesus in that it is carried forward by Jesus. It is not a break, but a carrying forward.

You know, Jesus continuing to speak alongside Moses and Elijah. The Old Testament is carried forward in Jesus. And God makes it really clear in the New Testament just how the Old Testament and the Old Testament's commands should be carried forward in Christ.

Sometimes Old Testament commands are carried forward in a stricter sense, kind of a tightening down. We see Jesus doing that a lot in the Sermon on the Mount.

But other times, the Old Testament commands are carried forward in an analogous sense, like an analogy. You know, in the New Testament, the command to not muzzle your ox, this becomes the command for churches to take care of their pastors.

You know, a type of analogy, carried forward, but in an analogous way. And at other times, Old Testament commands are carried forward in a reconfigured way, a reconfigured sense.

Think of Peter's vision of the sheet and the animals and God telling him to take and eat. The Old Testament and its commands are transfigured in Jesus.

And that includes the ten words. Okay, so if you've zoned out and you're just jumping back in, welcome back. Let me summarize those kind of ramblings for you.

Yes, the ten words or the ten commandments apply to Christians today. But they do so in a transfigured way that is made really clear in the New Testament.

So as we study these ten words, we want to try to understand the words, each word, as it was given. You know, the word in its original context, you might say.

And then we want to explore how each of those words has been transfigured in Christ. Whether that's tightened or reconfigured or given as an analogy.

Today we're going to do that with one command. The first command. The first word. That's found in Exodus 20, verses 1 through 3. We're going to look at the first word, given.

Exodus 20:1–3

And then we're going to think about the first word, transfigured. So follow along with me, Exodus 20, verses 1 through 3. And God spoke all these words, saying,

Exodus 20:1–3

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Would you pray with me once again this morning?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for speaking to us. We pray that your word would go forth today very clearly. We pray by your spirit that you would help us to love your word, to believe in your word, and that you'd help us to submit to your word.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's talk about the first word. The first word as it was given. In Exodus 19, God told Moses to gather all the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Moses was allowed to go up and down the mountain a few times. You might remember that from chapter 19. Moses was able to get close to the presence of God.

He was hearing from God and relaying what God said to the Israelites. But the rest of the people, they had to stay back. They could tell that God was speaking to Moses.

They could kind of see that something was going on. But they couldn't really discern what was being said. Not yet. But that all changes with the ten words.

With the ten words, God spoke to all the people directly. That's what's happening here. God is speaking to his people directly. God spoke the first of the ten words in verses 2 and 3.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Notice that the first word started with an announcement.

An explanation of who God is and what God had already done for his people. God said, I am the Lord. God gave his name. He said, I am Yahweh.

Yahweh, the true God. The almighty creator of heaven and earth. The eternal and everlasting God. The God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The sovereign ruler of all. That Yahweh is speaking to his people. Was speaking to his people. And he was speaking to his people. God said, I am the Lord your God.

Yahweh chose these Israelites as his own people. They belonged to God. He promised to bless them and keep them and be gracious to them. And God already made good on that promise back in Egypt.

God brought them out of the land of Egypt. Out of the house of slavery. The Israelites were stuck in slavery. In bondage. God heard their cries.

And he miraculously delivered them from bondage. He brought them out of Egypt. Here's what we're supposed to notice. The ten words start with God's grace.

The ten words start with God's grace. God's loving introduction. God's choice of a people for himself. God's miraculous act of salvation. These all happened before any commands were given.

God didn't say, keep my commands and maybe I'll be gracious to you. You know, eat your vegetables. Maybe you'll get dessert. No, God started with grace.

Pastor Alex Motier put it well. He wrote, The grace that saves precedes the law that demands. The grace that saves precedes the law that demands.

God's people didn't earn grace by keeping God's commands. No, God started by saving them and then he gave his commands. And the command we have this morning is this.

You shall have no other gods before me. Many people in the ancient world, they were polytheists. They believed that there were many different gods.

They believed it was best to worship many different gods. The ancient Egyptians alone, they believed in more than a thousand gods. And each of them had kind of varying degrees of power and importance.

Now, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, these men all worshipped only one God, Yahweh, the true God. But it appears that when the Israelites were in slavery to Egypt, some of them at least began to worship Israel's false gods.

That's what it says in Joshua 24. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord.

The Israelites served false gods. This is repeated again in Ezekiel chapter 20. The Israelites served the gods, some of them at least, served the gods of Egypt.

Ezekiel 20 · chapter mention

But during the Exodus, God proved that these gods, they were empty. They were powerless. The gods of Egypt were not able to keep Israel in captivity.

They were not able to stop God's plagues. They were not able to protect Pharaoh's army. They were not able to protect Pharaoh's son. Yahweh proved that he alone was God.

And he stated that clearly elsewhere in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy chapter 4, Know therefore today, lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

There is no other. God said that again in Isaiah 45. And there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior. There is none besides me.

And in Deuteronomy again, God would tell his people that all of these false gods, they were actually demons. That's what it says in Deuteronomy 32.

I don't think I have it for you. But it's Deuteronomy 32, verses 16 and 17. It says,

Deuteronomy 32:16

There was only one God and that all other false gods are from demons. But that's what God says elsewhere.

Here, God didn't explain all of that. He simply gave a very clear command. You shall have no other gods before me. That phrase, other gods before me, that could be translated something like, Other gods to the face of me.

Other gods in the presence of me. Other gods against me. Scholars tell us that that phrase had a two-edged meaning. On the one hand, it was about competing.

Okay? No false gods should compete with God for the hearts and minds of his people. God should hold the highest priority in the lives of his people.

It was kind of like God was saying, Don't put a God between you and me. You know? Nothing to compete with God. But on the other hand, this phrase, Other gods before me, it was about supplementing.

Supplementing. You know, it's like living in South Bend. You know, my doctor says, People living in South Bend, we don't get enough sun. Maybe your doctor said this to you.

It's because of this nasty permacloud, especially that comes in the winter. We don't get enough vitamin D from the sun. And so my doctor recommends that I take a vitamin D supplement.

I'm lacking something. I need this supplement. Well, people in the ancient world kind of thought about gods in this way. They thought that every god had some weakness or another.

And so if you wanted to get a really powerful god, you had to kind of supplement that god. You had to add in another god or two. And by their powers combined, they would be enough.

But God didn't want his people supplementing. God doesn't need help. There are no deficiencies in God. No weaknesses in him. God's people were not to try to give God boosters or power-ups with other gods.

Like God was saying, Don't put another god beside me. That's the first word given. God, Yahweh, was God alone and fully God. No false god could compete with him.

No false god could supplement him. God's people were commanded to have no other gods before him. That's the first word given. But now that we understand that, we need to consider the first word transfigured.

How has this first word been transfigured in Jesus? Well, one way the first word has been transfigured has to do with the announcement of God's grace that came before God's command.

So I want to say the first word has been transfigured in this sense. The gospel of Jesus is God's word of preceding grace. The gospel of Jesus is God's word of preceding grace.

God saved his people. Then he gave them his commands. And that's how it works with Jesus today. The gospel of Jesus is God's clearest expression of grace.

Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has accomplished the greatest act of deliverance. That's salvation from sin and death.

And God doesn't withhold that gift of salvation from us until we keep his commands. If God did that, then he would never be able to give anyone salvation at all.

No, God starts, God started with an act of grace. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And we are gifted access to that salvation, access to that grace, not by keeping God's commands, but by putting our faith in the Lord Jesus.

It's only after we have put our faith in Jesus, only after we have received salvation in Christ, that we can begin to keep God's laws. It has to be out of thankfulness and mercy for what God has already done for us in Christ.

Motier again helpfully wrote, the law of God is the way of life he sets before those he has already saved. And they engage in that way of life as a response of love and gratitude to God, their Redeemer.

The first word prepares us to see that Jesus is God's word of grace. And that word of grace must precede God's commands. The Christian life begins not with keeping God's commands, but by receiving God's grace in Jesus.

Only then will God claim us for his own. Only then will he truly be our God. Only then will he begin to teach us how to keep his commands. The first word pointed forward to Jesus as God's word of preceding grace.

But the first word was also transfigured in another sense. The first word has been carried forward by Jesus. The prohibition to have no other gods before God, that still applies to Christians today.

Christians should have no other gods before God.

We see the first word carried forward in this way early in Jesus' earthly ministry. Right after Jesus' baptism, Jesus was led out into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan, tempted to put another God before God.

So we see in Matthew chapter 4, again, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

But Jesus responded by resisting that temptation and by teaching us to do the same. Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

No other gods before God. Jesus emphasized this again with very serious language in the Sermon on the Mount. He said in Matthew 6, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one

and despise the other. To put other gods before God would be to functionally despise God, to hate God. Christians today must not have any gods before God.

But what does that mean? What does putting other gods before God mean? How might Christians do this today? Well, for starters, we put gods before God when we worship anything before God.

We could slightly tweak that first word to help us understand and say something like, Christians should have nothing they worship before God.

Christians should have nothing they worship before God. And here, I mean, worship in the religious sense, you know, the kind of cultic sense.

This would include taking part in other religions. Some people today want to try to teach that Christianity is compatible with other religions.

You know, as long as someone is faithful to whatever religious practices they participate in, then God will be pleased. So, if you're a Muslim, be a faithful Muslim, God will be pleased.

If you're a Hindu, be a faithful Hindu, and God will be pleased. If you're a Buddhist, be a faithful Buddhist, and God will be pleased. But that's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that demons are behind these pagan religions. And that these demons are using false religion as a way to draw people away from the true God.

To take part in pagan religion is to fellowship with demons. That's what the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 10, No.

I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Christianity is not compatible with false religions. In order to become a Christian, we must turn from all other religions, from other gods, from other demons that would seek to compete

with the true God for our souls.

But we also have to resist the temptation to try and provide supplements for God. So before, I was talking about a way that false religions compete with God.

But we also have to be careful that we're not using false religions to provide supplements for God. Kind of adding in practices from other religions in order to make God stronger.

I think this is a real struggle for Christians. Christians can try to supplement God when we pray to other beings besides God. like angels or saints or Mary.

We're offering a supplement to help God hear us better. Christians can try to supplement God when we appeal to karma as if God needs some kind of like force in the universe to make things right.

Maybe the most prevalent way Christians can try to supplement God is superstition. we knock on wood to make sure that good things will happen.

We don't talk about things that are going really well because we don't want to jinx it. We don't want to make things we don't want to make that good thing stop.

Or we wear the same pair of socks to help our team win. These are all superstitions but when we take part in these superstitions it's like we're trying to provide a supplement for God.

we're acting as if God has weaknesses. We're acting as if God isn't sovereign. As if he isn't powerful. As if he needs to be tricked or manipulated to get what you really need.

We must make sure not to place false gods in front of God in competition but we also have to take care not to place any false gods beside God as a supplement.

Christians should have nothing they worship before God. But the first word speaks to more than just formal worship practices. It also speaks to things we love.

We could reframe the first word to say something like Christians should have nothing they love before God. Christians should have nothing they love before God.

Consider what Jesus said to a lawyer in Matthew 22. The lawyer trying to trick Jesus asked him teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law?

Jesus said to him you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind this is the greatest and first commandment and a second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

This is teaching us that God is supposed to be our greatest love a love toward which we give all of our hearts our minds our souls and our strength.

We put other gods before God when we love other things more than God. Now we have to be really clear that doesn't mean that God has to be our only love.

Jesus commanded us even in this passage to love others as well as God. Many of you are parents God has called you to love your kids. Many of you are married God has called you to love your spouse.

You're all part of this local church God has commanded you to love the others in this church. These loves are something that God commands and we are supposed to pursue these loves as an act of love for God.

They can coexist just fine in some sense. Furthermore God gives us the freedom to love other things even beyond people. We're free to experience affection and joy and enjoyment in many of the things that we find in life.

You are free to love your buddies. You're free to love basketball. You're free to love your country. You're free to love playing wiffle ball in your backyard with your kids.

love. The command to have nothing that you love before God does not mean a parent needs to constantly ask themselves if they love their kids too much.

It does not mean that you need to feel badly if you spent more time gardening on a Saturday than you did in prayer. Those kinds of loves are not a problem for God.

A love becomes a problem. It rises to the level of before God when our loves cause us to forsake or disobey God. So it rises to the problem when our loves cause us to forsake or disobey God.

Parents, your love for your kids is good. It is supposed to be deep. It's supposed to be prevailing, almost all encompassing, but it can rise to the problem level, to the level of before God if it starts to lead you to forsake

God's commands. Maybe in your love for your kids you don't want to upset them so you never tell them no. You're forsaking God's command to discipline and correct your child.

Your love is rising to the point of a problem, rising to the point of before God. Or maybe you're so focused on pleasing your kids that you start spending foolishly beyond your means.

Your love is rising to a problem, rising to the level of before God. Or maybe you get so consumed with the kids that you neglect your love for your spouse.

You forget to love your spouse as Christ loves the church because you're so focused on your children. You're forsaking God's command, so your love is rising to that problem level, rising to the level of before God.

Or how about you young adults? We have a lot of college students back with us. Many of you want to pursue the gift of marriage. Your love for the person you're dating, it's a good thing, but it might rise to the level of before God if you continue to date an unbeliever.

Or maybe if you start to cross physical boundaries before you're married. Your love for the person you're dating is rising to the level of before God.

It's causing you to forsake God's commands to be equally yoked or chaste. These are problem loves. But our hobbies can also rise to the before God levels.

If your levels of joy kind of rise and fall based on your team's winning percentage, that might be a sign that your hobby has risen to the before God level.

people. Or if your favorite pastime consistently is keeping you from worshipping with God's people or serving in your church, that hobby has probably risen to before God levels.

Or if your interests start causing you to neglect God given callings of family or work, well, that is rising to the level of before God. Hobbies that cause us to forsake or disobey God are loves that have become God's to us.

God wants us to love others and he gives us permission to love many things in this world, but he wants us to guard our hearts from loving anything in a way that causes us to forsake him or disobey him.

The first word means that Christians should have nothing we worship before God. It also means that we should have nothing that we love before God.

And lastly, it means we should have nothing we serve before God. We could say the first word means Christians should have nothing they serve before God.

By things we serve, the Bible means things we give our lives toward, things we sacrificially labor toward. We're called to serve the Lord, to labor for him, to seek his kingdom first and his righteousness, forgiveness, to live our

lives for God and for God's plans. But the New Testament warns us that there are things that we can serve before God. It gives us two very clear examples that I want us to look at this morning.

Clear examples of things we are tempted to serve before God. One is wealth. Jesus made that really clear in Matthew 6. He said, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money, or God and possessions, or God and wealth. Now, God is not opposed to wealth per se. God granted many of his people wealth.

He used people of wealth. He calls us to steward our wealth wisely. What God is opposed to is serving wealth. He does not want us to live for wealth, or to spend our lives with the primary goal of amassing wealth.

That's because serving wealth will deform our souls. It will inevitably reshape our sense of right and wrong. Whatever gets us more wealth is right.

Whatever makes us lose wealth is wrong. You can see how that would lead us to forsake God's commands. It will make it very difficult for us to be generous.

It can tempt us to conduct business in dishonest or underhanded ways. It can foster discontent, leaving us always wanting more. It can cause us to worry or despair if our investments take a step backward.

It can cause us to view people in a really transactional way. And serving wealth will ultimately distort your view of God. You might still want to serve God, but in the end, he'll just become another potential source of wealth or another potential

disappointment if he doesn't give you as much as you desire. Christians cannot serve God and wealth. But the Apostle Paul also warns us that Christians cannot serve God and our own bellies.

Our own bellies. That's what the Apostle Paul tells us a couple of times. In Romans 16, Paul says, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them, for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites or their own bellies, and by smooth talk and flattery deceive the hearts of the naive.

Paul says something similar in Philippians 3, For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross, their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and their glory and their shame with minds set on earthly things.

By bellies, Paul means our own fleshly desires, our own sinful longings, the selfish yearnings of our own hearts. These desires, they're really easy to serve, because they seem to kind of spring up out of us.

They feel like they're a part of us, and pursuing them feels very natural. It can feel like we're being true to ourselves. us. That's a common slogan today.

But Paul warns us that when we give ourselves over to our sinful longings, we're treating ourselves and our passions like God's. Giving in to them, we become slaves to them.

We become servants of them. We serve them. And in serving them, we do not serve Jesus. Jesus. When we understand this, we can really start to see just how insidious the whole idea of Pride Month really is.

The month is designed to promote the idea of serving our bellies, of giving oneself over to sinful desires. Homosexuality, transgenderism, promiscuity, these things are celebrated and promoted to an even greater degree than they already

have become normal in our culture. But these are fleshly desires. They are contrary to God's design. They are gods with demons behind them. To pridefully pursue them is to serve them before God.

Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own bellies. Christians should have nothing we serve before God.

As we consider this first word this morning, I hope that God will transfigure it in your own heart. I hope that he'll show you how it was fulfilled in Jesus, that Jesus is God's word of preceding grace and mercy, that the gospel of

Jesus, in the gospel of Jesus, God accomplished salvation for you. In Jesus, God provided a salvation that is available to you even before you obey one of God's commands.

And in Jesus, God provided a salvation that will last even when you break God's commands. And I hope this morning that you, that as you receive God's mercy in Christ, that God will teach you how to not have any other gods before him, that God will teach you to

worship him and love him and serve him above everything else. The worship team is going to come once again. They're going to lead us in a closing song.

As they do come, I want to invite you to pray with me once again.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your mercy toward us in Christ. It's a mercy that precedes commands. Father, we thank you that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

God, we thank you that we can receive that grace in Christ, not by obeying you perfectly, God, but by acknowledging that we have not obeyed you and by putting our faith in Jesus as our perfect substitute.

So, Father, I pray if there are any here this morning that do not believe in the Lord Jesus as their own Lord and Savior, I pray that you would draw them to yourself, that you would give them faith, that you would help them to receive the grace that you want to bestow upon them.

And, Father, for all of us, I pray that you would guard our hearts from putting any other gods before you. Father, I pray by your Spirit you would show us where we have things that we are worshipping before you, where we have things that we love before you, where we have things that we serve before you, or trust before

you, or fear before you, Father. God, show us that those false gods are just that, that they're false. Show us that you alone are to be worshipped and praised.

And, God, help us to turn from them and turn to you out of love and thankfulness for what you've already done for us in Jesus. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen. Amen.