Put God First

Again, I want to extend a welcome to you and particularly those of you who are here visiting

for graduation weekend.

We are glad that you are able to join us this morning.

You know, trajectory is an important thing.

I don't know if you're a fan.

I know this is dating me, but if you haven't seen it, it's Oscar worthy.

Apollo 13 is a great movie with Tom Hanks.

And for those of you who are younger, pull it out of some archive and go watch it.

One of the things, it's about this tragedy of Apollo 13 and how the launch created a

problem with the mission and how they sought to rescue the astronauts and bring them home.

And in the midst of the crisis that was happening in Houston as they were trying to solve multiple

problems of failing systems and failing vehicles and limited resources, one of the things they

realized was that if they didn't get their trajectory right, as they sought to take this group of

men flying through space in this little piece of metal around the moon and bring it, slingshot

it back to earth, if they didn't get the trajectory right, they would be lost.

It's graduation weekend.

And for some of you, this is a time of transition.

For all of us, the question of the trajectory of our lives is always an important one.

The Westminster Catechism gives us an answer to the question, what is the trajectory of our

lives as God designed it?

The chief end of humanity is that we would glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

If I might translate that into 21st century language, the whole purpose that we are here

is that we would focus our lives on the worship and display of God's glory in our lives.

We are here for God.

But friends, we know how easy it is for us to not do that, don't we?

Think back over your last week.

How much was God the center of your life in your everyday comings and goings, wakings and

sleepings, working and playing, recreating?

We don't treat God the way He deserves.

We don't make Him the proper focal point of our trajectory of our lives.

We often diminish Him and make Him less than He truly is.

We often ignore Him or dismiss Him when it's inconvenient.

Often we don't trust Him, perhaps because of our past disappointments, perhaps because

of our fear of future uncertainties.

Sometimes for those who have grown up in church, we become familiar with God and in becoming

familiar, we diminish Him.

Sometimes we make God about us.

And we think that God is there to make us happy and to serve our purposes and to make our lives

great.

As we look at a passage this morning in Exodus 20, we're continuing in our series in the book

of Exodus.

And as we look at this passage this morning, I want you to know that as we think about these

things, I don't stand before you as one who knows the answers or who has done this perfectly.

In fact, this week has been a struggle for me because I realize how much I need this message

and this word as well as you.

But if you would, turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus 20, page, I forgot, 61 in the Pew Bibles

if you need to look at those.

We're going to begin a two-week series on the Ten Commandments, which is probably a very well-known

part of the Bible.

Well, you've probably heard them before, so we're going to read them again in just a minute.

But remember where this comes in the story.

In Exodus, in chapters 1 through 18, there is this grand story of deliverance.

God has come, and with a mighty hand and with great works, He has shown His power to deliver

His people.

And not only to deliver His people from slavery in Egypt, but to deliver them into His own

possession and in His own care as He has now delivered them from Egypt and has led them

through the wilderness, providing for them in ways that miraculously showed His commitment

to not only deliver them, but to sustain them as His people.

And so He brings us, then the story brings us to the foot of Mount Sinai.

And in chapter 19, if you were here with Greg last week, we explored the question, what does

it mean to be God's people?

What does it mean to look at Him and to come to Him on His own terms and to understand the

pattern of grace and law that He calls us to be His people by His grace and to live according

to His instructions?

We come to chapter 20 and the beginning of the instruction of the giving of the law.

We'll continue to explore this as we look at it in the chapters in the weeks to come.

But let me quote a great Bible commentator who says this about the Ten Commandments just

to orient our thoughts a little bit about the law before we jump into our passage.

He says this,

This is the way we are to think of the Ten Commandments, not as cramping restrictions on a fullness

of life that we might otherwise have enjoyed, but as the very gateway to the fullness we seek.

As God gives us the law, what He's doing is instructing us on how to live as His people,

how to live and to flourish under His rule and under His.

But what that means is that we live according to the patterns and according to the current

of His created purposes for us and His redemptive purposes for us.

And so as we receive the law, we receive it hopefully not as a restriction, but as instruction

to teach us who don't know God as well as we ought, how we ought to live as people who

do know God.

So that's where we are as we come to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

We're going to focus this morning on the first four commandments, but I'm going to read a good

part of the chapter for us to get the context.

So let's read Exodus chapter 20 together.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

And God spoke all these words saying, 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.

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.

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 fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing steadfast

love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the Lord, the name of the Lord your God in vain.

For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord,

your God.

On it you shall not do any work.

You or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock

or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested

on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your

God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his

ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's.

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the

trumpet and the mountains smoking, the people were afraid and trembled and they stood far off

and said to Moses, you speak to us.

We will listen.

But do not let God speak to us lest we die.

And Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you that the fear

of him may be before you and that you may not sin.

The people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

And the Lord said to Moses, thus you shall say to the people of Israel, you have seen for

yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven.

You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.

An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your

peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.

And in every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.

If you will make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool

on it, you profane it.

And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.

Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that you have not left us to grasp at seeking to understand you on our own wisdom

or by our own imaginations.

But God, you have revealed yourself and you have spoken to us so that we might know what kind

of a God you are.

And Lord, we pray this morning that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to receive

your word.

Lord, that your spirit would be at work amongst us as we look into this word together.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

To be God's people is to make him truly first in everything in our lives.

Truly first in our hearts and truly first in the pattern of our lives.

This is the main idea of the first four commandments that we're going to look at.

If you look at the ten commandments, it's fairly clear there are ten of them.

There are actually ten words technically as they're described.

And it's very easy to split them up.

The first four are about our vertical relationship with God primarily.

And then the second six are more about our horizontal relationship with one another.

And yet all of them are about what does it mean that we are God's people?

He's giving instructions.

These are principles, foundational concepts of what it means to be God's people.

So we're going to spend a few minutes this morning looking at the first four commandments.

And I'm going to lump them together.

We're going to start first by looking at commandments one and two.

And seeing that being God's people means making God first in our hearts.

That is, the thing that we worship, the thing that we love the most,

the thing that we set our heart upon is to be God himself.

Look with me again.

God says, you shall worship no other gods before me.

You shall make no images for my worship.

And if you think about the context that God was speaking this word into,

think about what the Israelites had known for 400 years.

They had lived in Egypt, a land full of graven images,

a land full of idols, of statues that were bowed down to

and worshiped for various things in the transactional nature of ancient religion

where you offered to a particular image, a particular God,

a particular act of worship, and he gives you something that you want.

Fertility, long life, healing, crops, children, success in battle.

And God spoke this word knowing that these people were going to enter into the promised land

where similarly the Canaanite religions would be characterized by a similar kind of idolatry.

And God comes and says, if you are to know me and to worship me right,

you must do it differently than those people do.

And recognize, too, that God isn't simply saying to Israelites,

hey, I'm your God, everything else is excluded.

You can't build those statues and bow down to them and worship other gods.

But he's also saying you can't worship me by using statues and images as well.

And I don't know about you, I didn't think this week,

you know, I wonder if I should just build a statue.

You know, life is kind of hard.

My worship, my life with God, my relationship is a little dry.

I think I'll build a statue so it'll help me to worship.

It's not a common impulse in our modern culture, is it?

Right?

But recognize how much it was for the people of Israel.

For 12 chapters later, what will they do as they sit at the foot of Mount Sinai,

as God reveals himself in these very words to Moses?

What do they do?

They make a golden calf.

Why?

Not to worship some other god, to worship this god.

They think God's given us all this bounty.

Let's make an image so that we can worship this god.

God says, no, you may not do that.

Why does God care so much?

Well, first of all, as we see in verse 5, he says, I am a jealous god.

I want your worship to be for me alone.

This is where the images of citizenship and marriage come in as analogies for how we relate to God.

What spouse wants to share the affection of their partner with another?

What country says, sure, you could be a citizen of our country and five others.

You can fight in their army, work in their government.

It doesn't matter.

It's not a big deal.

Now, in our fallen world today, we might start to think, well, okay, we might hedge our bets on some of that

because all those institutions seem pretty fallen.

But in their ideal, in what they were meant to be, in what they were made to be,

God is saying, I want you to be wholly mine.

And it's not based on a jealous grasping.

It's not God seeking to simply control his people.

But it's based on the grace that he has already shown him.

Look back with me at verse 2 of chapter 20.

Do you see what he says?

Because I have redeemed you.

Because I have brought you out of the land of slavery.

I have rescued you to be mine.

Worship me.

Worship me alone.

And he's really serious about this.

You see in verses 6 and 7 that there's a result if you don't do this.

And for those of you who read this the way I read it the first time and think,

well, that doesn't seem fair.

God's just extending punishment from generation to generation for no good thing.

I want you to read the verse again carefully.

The end of verse 5.

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of those who hate me.

The point here is not that God is going to punish you because your grandfather hated God

and you are trying to love God and you are still reaping those consequences.

The point here is that you will be punished as you are a part of a generation

that refuses to worship God and rejects him.

And yes, we know that these things are often passed down from father to son,

from generation to generation, from parent to child.

And so it may be that the apples don't fall far from the tree

and therefore God's judgment will.

But recognize that what God is saying here is,

if you are going to be my covenant people,

I really expect you to be committed to this.

I really expect you to be wholehearted in it.

Because what I have done is called you into a covenant relationship with me.

Because I love you.

And I want to show my steadfast love to you for thousands of generations.

Friends, we know that our hearts don't do this very well.

As John Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories.

Human culture, ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden,

has created other things to worship other than God.

We confuse the distinction between creator and creation.

And rather than trying to worship an unseen God,

which can be challenging sometimes,

we worship a seen God by making idols out of them.

And if they're not physical idols that we shape with our hands and bow down to,

they're idols of our hearts.

Things that we look to, to be our provider, to be our protector,

to be our justification, to be our identity,

our careers, our families, our successes.

And we cling to these things.

But the God of the Bible is one who has come and said,

I am a spirit.

You cannot see me, but you can know me.

Because I am a God who has revealed myself in my words.

Think about that.

As God is meeting with his people on this mountain,

he is manifesting his majesty through great signs and wonders.

But there is no manifestation of God himself.

What there is, is words.

God gives us words to know him.

God allows us to worship him and to know who he is

because he speaks to us.

And friends, we know that God in his graciousness knows our weakness.

And in the fullness of time,

the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have beheld his glory.

The glory as only the son of the father,

full of grace and truth.

Friends, we know today as we gather

that the God of the Israelites in Exodus 20

was the God who came in Jesus Christ

to be our savior and our redeemer,

to work a greater redemption for us

and to make a greater people of God.

The fulfillment of all that the story in Exodus points to

will come in Jesus.

And so, friends, this morning as we look at these first two,

have no other gods before me.

Do not worship any other thing.

I simply want to ask you,

what do you worship?

What is the thing on your lips most often?

Where do you run in times of trouble?

What do you trust in when everything else falls away?

What do you rejoice and exult in on your best days?

Friends, God is meant to be the answer

to all of those questions in our lives.

He wants us to experience the Copernican revolution in our lives

whereby we as the self are unseated

from the center of our solar system

and God is put in place.

It's the center of gravity

and the one who is the life-giving force.

As we relate to him rightly,

we find our place in the universe.

This is what God has called us to,

to make him our God above all other things.

So if the first two commandments tell us that,

to love God with all of our heart

and be wholehearted in this God-centered life

that he's called us to,

the next two commandments help us make it practical

in very real ways.

Look with me in verses seven and following in chapter 20.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless

who takes his name in vain.

What's in a name?

Your reputation, your significance,

your lineage, your identity.

We live in a world where names are cheap,

where presidential debates can descend into name-calling

and cheap words.

But throughout history and certainly in the scriptures,

a name was the badge of who you were.

It was your reputation.

It was your person.

It was your character.

In fact, the New Testament talks about

the word glory or weightiness

to be connected with a person

and a person's name.

And when God says this,

he says,

you may not call me your God

and you may not claim to be my people

if you are frivolous or empty

in the way that you use my name.

Now, for most of you,

and for me too,

I grew up in church.

What does the third commandment mean?

Well, you don't curse.

And you don't use God's name when you curse.

That's sort of the simple,

and you know what?

That's right.

That's exactly right.

We should never use God's name

simply because we're frustrated or angry

because we want to call down judgment on someone else.

But this commandment is much more than that.

This commandment is to say,

if you are going to say that you are God's people,

you are taking up the name of this God

and you are saying,

this is who I am.

This is the family that I have belonged to.

Again, the marriage analogy,

I am joining in with you

and I am taking your name

and I am being yours fully and completely.

we have hitched our wagon to him

and we will follow him to the end of the road.

This is what it means to be God's covenant people

and therefore to take his name seriously

is to not use it in an empty way in our lives,

to not use it without substance.

Friends, we live in a culture today in America

where there are,

depending on where you're from,

depending on what part of America you're in,

there are parts of America

where Christian is a social category.

There are parts of America

where Christian is a political category.

But friends,

we must understand that when the Bible talks about Christians,

it is those who have identified

with the name of Jesus Christ.

And therefore,

we must not take his name lightly in how we live.

We must not be afraid

to identify with him publicly

and to say,

yes,

I am one who has been bought

by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I am one who has been saved

by this Savior.

Even when you may be misunderstood,

even when you may be rejected,

even when you may,

it may cost you much.

Friends,

the third commandment

joins us.

It tells us

that we are to take up that name

and to live according to it.

And that in our words,

we are to speak reverently

and joyfully

and gladly

and worshipfully

about God.

Not only

are we to worship God,

not only

are we to make him

first in our words,

but we are also

to make him

first in the way

that we use our time.

As we look at verses

8 through 11,

we see the fourth commandment.

To take the Sabbath,

to take one day

out of the week

and to set it aside.

Set it aside

from the regular work.

And we've already seen this

in the story.

Do you remember

when God gave manna

in chapter 16,

17,

17,

chapter 17,

when God gave manna,

he instructed them,

six days you go out

and gather it.

And on the sixth day,

gather extra

because on the seventh day,

you won't need to

because I will have

provided for you.

And there's all this,

oh,

and if you try to save it

on other days,

it'll go bad.

And if you go out

and do it on that day,

it'll go bad.

God gave all sorts

of specifics,

but we've already

seen this happen.

And in that story,

we see God

asking his people

a couple of questions.

Do you think

that you know

better than the Lord

how to provide

for yourself?

Do you think

you know better

than God

what you need?

For the Sabbath rest

is a rest

from our regular work

so that we might

be renewed

personally

and spiritually

in our worship

of God

so that we might

take one day

out of the week

and trust

that God

will provide

for us

as we take

a break

from our regular

work.

And friends,

it's not a break

so that we can

play Fortnite

for 14 hours.

Okay?

This is not

a Sabbath.

Nor is it

doing hobbies

while your spouse

takes care

of everybody

else all day.

But it is

setting aside

your regular work

as best as you can,

as much as possible

so that you

can focus

on the Lord

and remember

his goodness,

enjoy his creation,

take a nap,

sing songs,

be with friends.

Now look,

I know some of you

are in medical

residency

and you don't

have control

of your life.

You don't get

to say,

I can't work

on Sunday

right now.

Okay?

I get it.

Some of you

are moms

of newborns.

Where's the

Sabbath rest

in that,

right?

I mean,

seriously.

Okay?

But here's the thing.

The pattern

is still

the same.

And for the rest

of us,

we really have

no excuse.

Do you really

think you know

better than the Lord

what you need

to do

to be successful,

to accomplish?

So what does

it look like?

Unplug.

Unplug from your

devices,

unplug from your

regular schedule,

unplug from your

phone,

turn off your

email notifications,

get out into

creation if you

can.

Be with God's

people as much

as you can.

Friends,

if nothing else,

and I say this

particularly to those

of you who are

graduating and

moving on,

observe the

Sabbath by making

it a commitment

to be with God's

people every week.

Go to church.

It's not optional.

It's a part of

Sabbath observance

to be with God's

people.

And you're going

to go out into

a world that is

going to trample

all over that.

And your work

group is going

to say,

can you come in

on 9 o'clock

on Sunday mornings?

And your ultimate

Frisbee game

down the street

is going to say,

hey,

we're playing

at 10,

why don't you

come over?

And your sports

teams,

as you have kids,

are going to say,

oh,

we've got a

weekend tournament

and the game's

at 8.30 and we

got to be there.

And so on and so

forth.

We live in a

culture that no

longer recognizes

Sunday as a

separate.

You're going to

have to be ready

to be different

and stand out

from your peers

to take that

rest.

Some of you

work in labs

where you think,

I can't tell

my PI that.

I'll get fired.

There are

challenging things

we have to face.

I will not say

you have to,

therefore,

not work on

Sundays.

The New Testament

does not tell us

explicitly that this

is what all

believers must do.

But it is a

principle based

in the very

fabric of

creation itself

that God

created the world

in six days

and then he

rested.

He didn't do it

because he was

tired.

He didn't do it

because he needed

a break

or he was

overwhelmed.

He did it for

us.

He did it so

that we would

enter into a

rhythm of rest.

And so that we

would know,

as Deuteronomy

will point out,

that the Sabbath

is also the

freedom from

work,

the work that

we do as we

seek to justify

ourselves in the

world by how

well we do,

how well we

succeed,

and how well

we progress

in the world.

So friends,

this is what God

calls us to in

the first four

commandments.

To truly be

God's people

is to make him

first in all

things,

in our hearts,

in our worship,

in our identity,

in our words,

in our use of

time,

and to honor him

as God in all

of these things,

to make him the

center around

which our lives

find their

orbit.

And of course,

we know that the

problem with this

is that we do

this so poorly,

don't we?

Like the church

in Ephesus in

Revelation 2,

we wander from

our first love.

We grow cold

in our affection.

We grow weary

in our obedience.

We want so much

to be accepted

by others

that we lose

sight of what

God has called

us to in his

people.

Our efforts to

be law keepers

will fail.

And if we try

really hard,

it will crush

us.

But as we do

that, it brings

us, in fact,

to the very

sweetest part

of what this

passage in

Exodus points

us to.

Because it points

us ahead to

another time,

to another

covenant, to

another promise.

We read it

earlier in

Ezekiel 36.

this covenant

prepares the

world to know

that we can't

be law keepers

on our own.

And that God

is going to have

to intervene and

do something.

And God himself

and Ezekiel

promised that he

would.

And in the

person of Jesus,

he did.

He came,

and Jesus came

to be the law

keeper for us.

To perfectly

worship God

and to love him

above all things.

And as he lived

this life of

perfect obedience,

he did this for

us.

And then he did

that, not only

that, but then

he offered

himself in

our place to

take the penalty

for our sin that

separates us from

God.

So that by his

life and death

and resurrection,

we might be

God's new

people in a

new covenant

relationship with

God based not

on our works,

but based on

his gracious

work for us

in Christ.

And with this

new covenant

comes one

wonderful things.

He gives us

a new heart

that can now

love God in

ways that we

never could

apart from him.

He gives us

his spirit to

live in us

so that we

actually know

the laws and

that we long

to please God

because God's

spirit lives

within us.

Friends,

this is what

the Ten

Commandments

points us

towards.

It points us

towards Christ

who did all

these things

for us so

that we might

be God's

people.

So that we

might be like

the Thessalonian

church at the

end of chapter

one who

turned from

idols to

serve the

true and

living God

and to

live our

lives for

his glory.

This is the

trajectory and

this is our

hope.

We pray this

will be true

for you,

for me,

today.

Let's pray

together.

Lord, thank

you for this

word.

Lord, thank

you that you

have created

us for

yourself and

though we so

often fail,

Lord, you

graciously draw

us back again

and again.

Lord, I pray

for those this

morning, Lord,

that you may

have convicted

that they

haven't made

their life

about you.

Lord, they

have made

empty the

name of

Christ and

the work of

Christ on the

cross for

them.

I pray, Lord,

that in this

conviction that

they would turn

to you in

their need and

find grace and

know, Lord,

that they would

know salvation

is in Jesus.

Lord, I pray

for all of us

that you might

prick our

consciences to

see the places

in our lives

where we don't

put you first,

where we have

made other

things more

important, where

we have

worshipped other

gods, where we

have bowed down

to other things

to play God

in our lives.

Lord, help us

to repent of

those and,

Lord, in

turning from

them to find

you to be the

God who has

delivered us

from slavery,

from slavery to

sin, rescued us

and called us to

be your people.

By the grace of

Jesus, we pray.

Amen.