Resurrection Life: Worship

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sermon. God Bless. Oh Lord, would we find that

the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the

soul. The statutes of the Lord are pure, reviving

the simple. Lord, would we find that in this

season it is a joy to look at your commandments,

to hear that you shall have no other gods before

me, before you. and that we would eagerly cast

aside all the other things that call for our

love and our service and our devotion and put

you first. God, would you move in us in this

time? Would our devotion and our love for you

increase? Would our approach to your word and

your commandments be one of delight and joy?

God, teach us now. We say with Samuel long ago,

your people are listening. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, everybody worships. And what I want

to suggest to you is that what you worship gives

you your laws for living. What you worship directs

your paths, directs your life. So last week we

began this series, this Eastertide on the Ten

Commandments. And I said, and I know that as

soon as I say that we're going to be looking

at the Ten Commandments, there's sort of a reticence

when we say let's look at law together. There's

going to be this sort of visceral reaction that

is generally opposed to that idea against it.

Part of this is simply because we don't like

being told what to do. Some of this is is because

of rebellious hearts I suggested to you some

of it is because churches often lead With law

and what you can and cannot do and do and don't

and all that Instead of love and grace. That

is true. And some of this is because of the ubiquitous

widespread Hypocrisy that was not just true of

the religious folk of Jesus day, right? That's

not wasn't just true of the hypocrites that Jesus

called out, but it's still true. It has been

true of so many Christians throughout time, which

is to say there are understandable reasons for

the reaction that we have. Another reason that

I want to suggest to you is because we often

pit law and love against one another. Kind of

think of them as like this polar opposites. We

might prefer to hear Jesus call Or summary of

the law as loving the Lord your God with all

your heart and mind soul and strength and loving

your neighbor as yourself And this also is understandable

But while it may be understandable Jesus is always

upholding the law This is not one jot until not

the small little marks are gonna be taken away

from it And he's always setting the law before

us is something that is good and right and actually

one of the one of the fundamental truths of Christian

faith is that Jesus lives it perfectly on our

behalf. He is the great law abider. So last week,

I suggest to you that the only answer to this

sort of conundrum that we find within ourselves,

right? This call, well, this reticence to sort

of say, ah, law, yuck. And at the same time,

the call to love it, to find it sweet and more

desirable than gold and tastier than honey, so

we're told, is is to look upon the one who has

done the law keeping on our behalf. Who has finished

the work of salvation for us. And so that's why

the whole beginning of the Ten Commandments says,

I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of

the land of slavery. Look at what I have done

for you. It is my action first and foremost.

The Ten Commandments themselves were given in

this context of being brought out from slavery.

and into this new life, not a life of slavery.

So the Ten Commandments aren't given to enslave,

but to instruct in right living, reflecting the

God who has done our salvation. So our meditation

on the law now happens in the context of Good

Friday having happened, of Christ's finished

work on the cross being complete, of the empty

tomb being empty, of God saying new life. the

perfect law -keeping Lord conquering the effects

of rebellion against God, Satan's sin and death

for us. The resurrection, what I also suggested

to you, the resurrection changes us. The resurrection

changes us. God's salvific work in the Old Testament

changed the people of God. That was what the

law was to say. Here is how you now live. How

do we live in light of God's salvation for us?

Who God is and what God has done determines Who

we are and what we are to do what we're to be

about and So it makes sense that the very first

commandment Has to do with who's your God? Who's

your God? Shall have no other gods before me

What do you look to love and serve If the answer

to our conundrum with the law is what God has

done, the answer to sort of our question of worship

has to do with relationship. Okay. And I want

to suggest to you, I want to consider this first

commandment, which is you shall have no other

gods before me by suggesting that there's actually

two relationships that are on offer here. Okay.

There's the relationship of other gods and then

there's the you and me. Other gods knew me. So

the first thing I want to consider is just the

idea of other gods and I think as I as I say

that and as maybe as you hear this first commandment,

you shall have no other gods before me you think

of other gods my Well, I think it's important

that I acknowledge that Probably very few of

you. My guess is none of you Have shrines in

your basement to Baal, to, I don't know, Allah,

to Vishnu or Shiva. No, okay. I didn't think

so. When you think of other gods, it wouldn't

surprise me at all if what first comes to your

mind are some of the ancient gods. Zeus, Aphrodite,

Apollo, Juno, Mars. Think that's such an antiquated

way of engaging with the world Maybe what comes

to your mind is other religions and so other

gods Brings to your mind. Yes Allah maybe or

the Shinto kami something that's so far off from

your experience Of course when you think of it

like this This commitment in some ways becomes

a non -commit, non -issue, right? So no other

gods before me. You're like, well, I mean, what?

Okay. All right. You're rarely thinking of those

other gods that I mentioned. Don't give them

the time of day. You aren't going to the temples

of Aphrodite or Juno or Mars and offering sacrifices,

are you? No, you're not. You aren't probably

lighting incense to Brahma, not likely. Probably,

my guess is none of you in this room frequent

the Buddhist center up on Wiccanisco in Uptown.

How many of you knew it was there? Yeah, okay,

a couple of you. It's not likely that these things

cross your mind. And yet I began this sermon

with this idea that everybody worships, each

one of you. But think of this, okay? Aphrodite

was the god of love and lust and beauty and pleasure

and procreation. Juno was the god of marriage,

of childbirth, of women and statecraft. Juno

is the god, I'm sorry, Mars is the guardian god

over fields, livestock, crops, that which sustains

you. He's also the god of war. It's not too hard

to make the connection, is it? It's not too hard

to make the connection. It's not just that the

ancient world had many gods and that is so silly

in our minds, but that the ancient gods that

they had are the very gods that we still have.

The very things that we still hold up is that

which gives us purpose and orients our time and

our lives. What is a God after all? What is a

God? Other than that, which we love, which we

serve, which we devote our energy and attention

to, which we listen to, to direct us, which we

allow to control us. I mean, yes, the God is

what we worship. There's certain acts of worship

for different kinds of gods. But what you worship

is what you love is what controls us. It dictates

our lives, our time, and our energy. Again, one

of the things I want to try to stress this morning

is that a god is that which we allow to give

us the laws by which we live by. Who gives you

your law? How do you orient your life? Of course,

today in our world, the lawgiver is most often

ourselves, right? We're our own gods. Self -actualization

is our goal. Self -determination is our goal.

It is the age -old sin. ever since the garden

of placing ourselves in the role of God. We determine

how we spend our time, our money, how we engage

with our bodies, how we engage with others. Don't

tell us what to do, we think. And of course,

today in our world, of course, another one that

dictates our lives, that gives us our law is

others, just the others about us. We are in a

world that is so fraught with anxiety and there's

all kinds of reasons for this and that many of

them are very very understandable But you probably

have heard hopefully you've heard by now the

anxiety went crazy high after what was introduced

in 2009 the like button Facebook's like button

you can chart anxiety goes right up Which is

to say that we are so desirous of the approval

others. We're paralyzed with worry, which is

what anxiety often is, a paralyzing worry over

the approval of our friends, maybe of our family,

our perfectionistic father, our hypercritical

mother. These things dictate how we live. Often

they dictate the clothes we wear. The shows we

attend, the food that we eat, all of it. They

give us our law for living. So it's not hard

to make a connection between the ancient gods

and the gods of our own day. What I'm suggesting

to you is in fact, most time they're the same.

It's the same thing. For us, they're still the

great gods of sex and shekels, money, stomach.

They're still the great gods of pleasure and

of possessions and position and power. They're

still the same gods of football, sports. Y 'all

didn't hear that. Of the firm, right, our work.

And of course, the great god of family. They're

not far. These still dictate how we spend our

time. What we look at. who we honor, what we

do with our bodies and others' bodies, how we

spend our money, how we use our words, and what

we desire. If you're wondering, all I did just

then was translate the Ten Commandments into

different words. They still give us the Ten Commandments.

Because what you worship invites you into a way

of living. What you worship orients your life,

gives you a law for what you do. There are all

kinds of other gods. Let's not look down our

noses at the ancient world thinking how passe,

how immature, when we follow in their footsteps.

Everybody worships. And of course this is why

David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, which

I have quoted over the last 11 years, probably

three or four times, I'm going to quote again.

Gave this at Kenyon College back in 2005. Here's

what he says. Here's something else that is true.

In the day -to -day trenches of adult life, there's

actually no such thing as atheism. There's no

such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship. And

an outstanding reason for choosing some sort

of God or spiritual type thing to worship, be

it JC, by which he means Jesus Christ, be it

JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother

goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infangible

set of ethical principles, is that pretty much

anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money or things, if they are where

you tap real meaning in life, then you will never

have enough. never feel you have enough, it's

the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and

sexual allure and you will always feel ugly and

when time and age start showing you will die

a million deaths before they finally plant you.

On one level we know all this. stuff already.

It's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches,

brahmids, epigrams, parables, the skeleton of

every great story. The trick is keeping the truth

up front in daily consciousness. He says, worship

power, you will feel weak and afraid and you

will need ever more power over others to keep

the fear at bay. Worship intellect being seen

as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud,

always on the verge of being found out and so

on. Everybody worships. It's true. Everybody

worships. So his suggestion, it seems, is probably

to lean into worshiping some of the big gods,

the personal ones, he says, that which is outside

of you. And so he suggests, you know, JC or Allah

or Yahweh or the wicked mother goddess. Of course,

this brings me to sort of the second point, the

second relationships that is in this commandment.

shall have no other gods, other gods, you shall

have no other gods before me." Which is to say

that the commandment is inviting us into a personal

relationship with the Creator, the you and me.

Again, I suggested last week that there's a widespread

idea that Christians should be led not by law,

but by love. What I'm suggesting in a way to

you today is that what you love ultimately dictates

how you live, the laws that you follow in your

life. I'm suggesting to you that what or who

you worship always dictates your life. It always

orients your life. And so you shall have no other

gods before me is the foundation commandment

from which the others kind of. flow out of, which

is also to say law and love are not so antithetical

to one another. What we're called to in the first

commandment is a call to a personal relationship

with the one true God. It's the you and the me.

That is the foundation for all other living.

So remember how the commandments began We heard

these again this morning. They began this way

by saying, I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord

your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery. Which is to say,

I have a personal relationship with you. The

Lord there is actually the covenant name for

God at Yahweh. The way he reveals himself to

his people. He says, I am in committed relationship.

with you. I'm in a covenant with you. He binds

himself to his people. There is love in this

relationship. There is honor. There's service.

There's caring for each other. He's saying, you

and me, we're in this together. You can't have

other gods. We are in this mutual relationship.

The relationships that make up our lives can

Think about this thing. We can break them in

a cup We can we can kind of categorize relationships,

right? We can categorize them into the personal

relationships and the impersonal relationships

It's kind of simple, you know, your personal

relationships are your friends and your family

and you know the I am use and the impersonal

relationships are the it's right so You can think

of these kinds of relationships like the relationship

you have with your car or your microwave or your

shoes or your clothes, or all this kind of impersonal

stuff, which is what we use for our convenience.

We primarily use these things. They help us express

ourselves creatively sometimes, wonderfully sometimes.

They help us get from point A to point B. They

help us execute our plans in life, right? But

they are fundamentally things that we use. And

I'm suggesting to you this morning that that

is how gods work. The other gods that we place

before the one true God. You offer sacrifices

to Aphrodite so that your sex life can be good.

It's a using relationship. She takes from you.

Just as David Foster Wallace said she takes from

you You worship Mars so that you can win the

war With your wife or whatever And he takes Uses

you you use him he uses you You pray to Juno

so you can be married and have children. It's

an instrumental thing It's for a certain end.

It's a using it's impersonal dynamic. These gods

are used and they use you. This is of course

what he was saying with regards to beauty and

sexual allure and money and power and all the

rest. You use them and they take from you. Which

is to say that false gods always dehumanize.

They always do. We know what this is like to

handle other people for our convenience and we

know that it is wrong To do so with another person

is to treat them as a thing as an it and Yet

the other gods all other gods call you into this

way of being in the world They do it is intrinsic

to who they are and what they are about And you

know how wrong it is You've probably been treated

this way by other people, used for certain ends,

used by your boss, used in a relationship, used

by your parents for their own sense of self -worth.

You know how wrong this is. And yet this is the

call of any other God before the one true God

who says, you and me. I am the Lord, your God.

This you and me relationship with God this I

and you relationship with God this Yahweh covenant

-making relational building God This reality

is what commends the first commandment and commends

Christianity As opposed to any other way of living

any other God to orient how you live into the

world What you worship gives you your laws for

living And any other God will invite you into

a depersonalized, impersonal way of engaging

in the world. Every other God, other than the

one true God, will invite you to live in a way

that takes and takes and uses and uses. But the

truth about Christianity is that the God of the

Bible is the personal God. The you and me. The

I. and your God, the Lord, your God, who brought

you out from slavery. And what does he do there

at Sinai? He doesn't just give the Ten Commandments,

but he says, we're going to build a house here.

I'm going to move into the neighborhood, you

and me together. It's a relationship. There's

no other God who claims both to be the creator

of all things and to become part of his creation.

There's no other God who creates all things and

then says I'm gonna take on flesh and move into

the neighborhood There is no other God There's

no other God that sees the brokenness of the

world and says I'm going to be broken for it

because I desire Not to use you but you Life

with you There's no other God who creates all

things and becomes one of us. There's no other

God who loves the world so much that He gives

His Son that whoever believes in Him shall have

everlasting life with Him. You see, the whole

thing is God saying, I want to be with you. I'm

the Lord, the covenant -making God. It's not

an impersonal, but a personal relationship and

a God that is committed to being with us. There's

no other God Who is not just using us and we

are not just using Now there is no other God

who invites us into this kind of relationship

Not so we can use them but so that we can know

them and love them and live with them Easter

the cross and the resurrection This is part of

what I'm suggesting in this series that the salvation

story behind the ten commandments is I'm Lord

your God who brought you out of land of slavery.

Right? There's this salvation and there's this

relationship that is established and therefore

there's this way of being in the world. That

is what Easter is also doing. The cross and the

resurrection are the backstory of life with God

and therefore of how we live if we've been raised

with Christ, if we have been. Seek the things

that are above, where Christ is. Put on this

relationship. And the relationship, the you and

me between us and God, the love that God has

for us perfectly in Christ is what invites us

into this life with this God and therefore means

putting away all other gods which orient our

time and our energy and our money and our emotions

and all the rest. It's true that we have a reticence

to the commandments. And I think it's true that

this reticence is answered by not seeing that

we have to do or don't do or do or don't do,

but we look upon the work of Christ and say it

is done. It is finished. I think it's also true

though that the answer to who or what we should

worship can only be answered by saying, who actually

wants relationship with us? Who doesn't just

want to take from us? And who do we not just

want to take from? And the only answer I know

of is this God, the one true God, the creator,

the covenant maker, the covenant keeper who takes

on flesh. for us, who becomes one of us, walks

among us, invites us to call upon the Father

as our Father. Greater love has no one than this,

that He lay down His life for His friends. And

this is the way that God interacts with you.

Not demanding you sacrifice all to Him, but Him

hanging upon the cross, being sacrificed For

you, greater love has no one than that. He laid

down his life for us and therefore, brothers

and sisters, let's have no other gods before

him. Amen. Lord. When we are honest with ourselves,

we can think of how. Much of our time and our

energy and our honoring of some and not of others

and the ways that we use others and covet from

others and spend and all the rest Is a reflection

that we are that our hearts are idle factories

And we need this commandment To not have any

other gods before you because we are so often

placing other gods before you. Other gods that

give us our laws for living, our ways of being

in the world, our calls to action. God, would

we in this series, would we today see the beauty

in these relational words, you and me? I am you.

I'm the Lord. Yahweh, your God. Jesus took on

flesh and moved into the neighborhood, gives

my life willingly for my friends. God, I pray

that we would see the beauty of a God who is

relational. who dignifies persons doesn't treat

us as the it's and we don't treat as the it.

We have a life together. God, I pray that this

communion, this fellowship that we have with

you would enliven our hearts and change our lives

and therefore brighten the world. God, I pray

that we'd be a people that are putting other

gods to death. Find it our joy to live into this

commandment. You shall have no other gods before

me. And do all that we can to live into that

reality. This commandment, this law that can

produce great love. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for listening to Second City Sermons

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