The Ten Commandments - Gods People Only Worship God

Welcome to the roots where it's all about Jesus. We

love God, we love people. We reach the lost, and

we make disciples, and we want to help you make

or grow in your knowledge and love of Jesus. That's

what we want to do. Every time we open God's word,

every time we gather, every time we hang out and talk,

that's what we want to do. Han you if if

you notice the bumper was different. We're starting a new

series today. It's going to be pretty cool. I'm really

excited about it. It is called the Ten Commandments Law

Defining Love. Ten Commandments Law Defining Love. You thought we

were done with Exodus, we're back, baby, We're back in Exodus.

We went through it really really fast. If you guys

remember the series, it was only thirteen weeks and we

took one month off. But thirteen weeks through Exodus is

really really fast. So we flew right through God's Law

and the Ten Commandments. So we thought it would be

really fun and I think super helpful to take a

moment to zoom in on those ten Commandments, to zoom

in and look at them closely. See what these ten

Commandments are all about. What we're supposed to do with

them today, the ten Commandments. And I want you to

look at what Jesus says in the Law about the

law and the prophets. This is from Matthew twenty two

and verse thirty five. He says, in one of them,

a lawyer asked him a question to test him. Well,

this is not just an innocent question that Jesus is

being asked. They're trying to test him with this question.

Verse thirty six says, teacher, which is the great commandment

in the law. What's the most important? What's number one?

And he said to him, you shall love the Lord

your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,

and with all your mind. This is the great and

first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall

love your neighbor as yourself. And right here verse forty

on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.

Are they hang on or are summed up by these

two commandments? To what to love God and to love people?

That the Law of God, including the ten Commandments, which

we're going to be looking at their summation, is how

we are to love God. And how we are to

love others, And as you look at them, it's it's

pretty clear to see what Jesus is talking about, because

when you look at him, the first four commandments are

all about how we're supposed to love God, and then

the last six are directed at our neighbor or how

we're supposed to love others. And Jesus shows us that

not only are these standards still for us today, he's

going to show us that, but he also goes on

to what I say is like, intensify these commandments, to

intensify them, like when he talks about him in the

Sermon on the Mount. You've heard it this way, but

I say this, and then he makes it more intense.

But the cool thing about this is that God doesn't

leave us to wonder about much. He doesn't leave us

in the dark about much. He's laid it all out

in his word, laid out his intentions for his people

in his words. So it's kind of on us if

we don't read it, because he provided everything we need.

It was really helpful to have these standards spelled out,

and more specifically, it's nice to have an objective standard.

You know, objective means outside of myself, not subjective. It's

nice to have this objective standard to define things outside

of ourselves, because much like in the Day of the Judges,

if you're reading through the Book of Judges in the

Bible today, it seems like everyone's just kind of doing

what's right in their own eyes. Well, this is how

I think things should be, This is how I feel

things should go, this is what I think right and

wrong should be. Making their own subjective standard for their selves.

Does that feel familiar in today's world? Redefining terms to

fit our own desires, defining love however we want, maybe

not us. Maybe the world will just say the world.

I won't put it on you, guys, but the world

defining love however they want. Allowing and I think this

is very dangerous, but allowing emotions to ultimately define what

truth is. You can't trust our emotions. God tells us

the heart is desperately sick, it's wicked. Who can know it?

Can't trust our emotions. God commands us how to feel

all the time all over Scripture. So we can't allow

emotions to ultimately define what truth is. But that's one

of the most beautiful things about God's ten Commandments or

his ten Words is what that word translates to ten words,

is that it's his law that actually defines what love

looks like. It's how we are supposed to love him

and how we are to love others. And so that's

why we're going to take a real close look at

the Ten Commandments. That's what we're excited about this series

is to look at this and see what God has

to say, see how he has defined love and how

we're supposed to love him and how we're supposed to

love people. So when we look at the law of God,

or when we look at the Ten Commandments, what do

we see? Do we see just a list of rules?

Do we see an outdated standard that God doesn't really

expect people to follow anymore. Do we see something that's

only for ethnic Jews to follow or people who are

following Judaism? Or do we see God's design for all

of his people, all of his people, his standard for

those that he calls his own or those he has saved?

Do we see how we ought to love him and

how we ought to love others? Is that what we

see when we look at God's law at his Ten Commandments?

So throughout this series as we're kind of breaking down

each one, well, we're gonna put in the first two

together because we're doing this in nine weeks, so surprise, surprise.

But as we're looking at these ten commandments, as we're

breaking them down, our hope is that we could not

only see how you specifically, you would see how it

defines who we are as Christians and more specifically, how

we are to love as Christians. God has defined this

how we love Him and how we love people. So

today again we're gonna cover the first two commandments. So

you're gonna be in Exodus chapter twenty, So grab your bible.

Start turning there Exodus chapter twenty. And if you need

a bible, Gabe has some at the back table right there,

and he'd loved to run it to you, so please,

if you don't have a bible, wave at him. He

will literally run it to you right now. We want

you to have God's word in your hands at all times.

We need it. It's our spiritual food and our spirits

die without it. So we're gonna be an Exodus chapter twenty,

and I'd like to read the text and then pray,

and we'll be reading the first six verses, 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 isn't heaven above,

or that is in the earth beneath, or that is

in the water underneath 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

generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love

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

Let's pray GOWI, thank you for your word. Thank you

for this moment to dive into your word to study it. God,

we open up our hearts and our ears to hear

what you have to tell us today. God, break through

our stubborn hearts and our stubborn ears when we want

to close them to your word. God, let us be

challenged today and grow because of that challenge through your word.

So God, pierce our hearts today. Let us see what

you have to say, know how to apply it, walk

in confidence as you follow after you, thank you for

all this in Jesus name. Everybody said a men. Well,

what's what's one of the fastest ways to find out

if someone's from the Seattle area or not. I mean,

there's plenty of ways, but one of the ways is

to look him straight in the face and say, I'm

gonna look at rob I gotta look at Robinson. See

Rob's from the Seattle area. If you yell out see

anyone's face and they don't and they say anything other

than Hawks, they're probably not from the Seattle area, because

that's a big indicator because we root for the Seahawks

around here. If they say something else, or if they

show up to church wearing a block of cheese on

their head, I know I got a Wisconsin fan out here.

We're not gonna kick him out of church. We're gonna

love him. He's just rooting for.

The wrong team, wrong team, wrong town, brother, he says, Convert, Yes, Convert,

that's what we're doing here.

But we're rooting for the wrong team in the wrong

town because we're in the Seattle areas. Who are rooting

for root for Seattle room for Seahawks. This is a

silly example I'm bringing up, and I'm bringing up for

a reason because God's people don't root for any other team.

God's people don't root for any other team other than

the Seahawks. Just kidding, amen. God's people don't root for

anyone but a specific team, and they don't root for

more than one team. God's people root for God. God's

people represent him everywhere they go because they're wearing his jersey.

God's people love God. And what I want us to

understand today, specifically as we look at these first two

of the Ten Commandments, is that God's people only worship God.

Write that down. God's people only worship God. They don't

worship the wrong God, and they also don't worship the

right God in the wrong way. So let me say

that again. They don't worship the wrong God and they

don't worship the right God in the wrong way. As

God is defining how we are to love him through

the ten Commandments, we're gonna see that he demands that

He alone is worshiped. It's gonna be very clear about that.

There are no other gods before Him, and we bow

before and bow too nothing and no one else. And

it all starts with him reminding the people of his

own authority. So let's look at these first two verses

and get into this. First one starts with 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. So God's reminding the people

who he is, not just who he is, but what

he did. Who he is and what he did. So

Who's mighty hand delivered the people from harsh slavery in Egypt?

God did? Was God's hand who performed all those incredible miracles,

the ten plagues that humbled Pharaoh. God did, who parted

the Red Sea when Pharaoh was chasing the people. And

when Pharaoh and on his chariots an army pursued Israel

into the Red Sea. Who closed it on them? God did?

Who saved the people. God saved the people. This is

the gospel message, you guys. This is literally the gospel message.

God's people were enslaved to Egypt, and He delivered them.

And even today we stood enslaved to sin. But God,

through Jesus Christ, has delivered us. It's beautiful to see

these gospel messages all throughout scripture, and this one is

so clear. But look at Romans chapter six. I'm gonna

put on the screen. So you guys can stay in

Exodus in your bibles, but we'll have it up on

the screen. Roman six, starting in verse five. For if

we have been united with him and a death like

his talking about Christ, we shall certainly be united with

him in a resurrection like his. We know that our

old self was crucified with him in order that the

body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that

we would no longer be what and slave to sin.

If you skip a few verses down to verse seventeen,

same chapter, but thanks be to God that you, who

were wants what slaves of sin, have become obedient from

the heart to the standard of teaching to which you

were committed, and having been set free from sin, have

become slaves of righteousness. Or again in verse twenty two,

let's fast forward a little bit more. But now that

you have been set free from sin and become slaves

of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and

its end eternal life. What is all of Romans chapter

six screaming right here? In these verses we just read

through Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin.

You've been set free. That's what this is. Screaming. Those

who put faith in Jesus have been delivered from slavery

to sin, because that's what God does for his people.

He delivers them. God delivers his people, but he doesn't

just deliver them to walk around blindlessly, blindly trying to

figure out life blindlessly is not a word challenge accepted.

Put that in the dictionary. Yeah, he doesn't leave us

to wonder. He doesn't leave us with no direction, aimless

and lawless. No, he gives us clear direction on who

we are to be as his people. He has redeemed

us from lawlessness, which means having no law. He redeemed

us from having no law to a law, his law,

his perfect law, and his perfect standard. Look at Titus

chapter two. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing

salvation for all people. So it doesn't matter who you

are or where you come from. Training us to renounce

ungodliness and worldly passion and to live self controlled, upright

and godly lives in the present age. That's now, to

live this way now, waiting for our blessed hope, the

appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior.

Who say it loud, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for

us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify

for himself a people for his own possession, who are

zealous for what good works. The grace of God has

appeared and shows us how we ought to be as

His redeemed people. We're not without a standard. He gave

it to us. He showed us. This is not a mystery.

We are the redeemed ones who have been redeemed from

what all lawlessness. That means we have a law or

a code or a standard to live by. We are

His own people, and we are zealous for good works.

But there is something that I need to clarify here.

So in these first two verses of Exodus chapter twenty,

can we put them back on the screen. And God

spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord or

God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery. God doesn't start the

Ten Commandments by saying all these things you must do

so that I bring you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the house of slavery. That's not what it says,

does it. No, it's not what God said. What he

said is I already delivered you. I already delivered you,

I already saved you. You're already my people. Now this

is what that looks like. And there was a commentator

I was reading this past week says, the people were

given the law not in order that they might become

the redeemed. Rather, it was because they had already been

redeemed that they were given the law. The law of

God is the way of life He sets before those

whom He has saved, and they engaged it in Excuse me,

and they engage in that way of life as a

response of love and gratitude to God the Redeemer. Does

that make sense. There's another quote from someone named Jen

Wilkins in her books. She said, there are good works

to be done for the people of God. I for example,

laws to obey. There's good to be holy, to follow

the commands of God. There are good works to be

done by the people of God, not out of dread

to earn his favor. We're not trying to earn God's

favor by obeying him, but out of delight because we

already have it. Now, that's a freeing truth. Do we

strive for our salvation? No, Christ did all the hard work.

We work out our salvation fear and trembling. That's what

we do. We're not striving to be accepted by the Lord.

If you are a Christian, you already have God's And

what came to mind when I was studying this past

week is I got two boys. They have chores and

they're waving at me. For instance, if they came up

to me and then rushing through to get all their

chores done, they did the whole chore list. They come

running up to me once they finish, and they ask

a very interesting question, Dad, I finished all my chores.

Now can I be your son? I did everything you asked?

Now can I be your son? What are you talking about?

You're already my son? How does that work? You're already

my son. The whole reason you have a chort list

because you're part of this family and there's work to

be done, and you're my son. You're already part of

this family. So we have to remember we are. If

you've put faith in Christ, you are already one of

the people of God. He's already delivered you, and he's

given you a chort list. He's given you good works

to do, which he prepared an advance for you to do,

knowing that he was going to save you. And he

gets to make demands for how we are to be,

and he gets to give us chores or work to do.

He gets to define specifically what that looks like. He

gets to set the standard, and he gets to decide

how we are to interact, how we are to worship,

and how we are to love him. He's God. He

gets to do that. And not to get on too

much of a side tangent, but the biggest contention you

will have in your own heart is you want to

be God instead of Him. Almost every single one of

our sin issues boils down to that point. I don't

want God to be God. I want to be God.

I want to set my own standard. But he's God,

and he gets to set the standard. And what's the

first thing he says verse three Exodus, Chapter twenty, Verse three,

you shall have no other gods before me. You are

my people. You shall have no other gods before me.

This is big commandment number one. How does God wants

people to love him, no other gods before the One

True God. And that word before is kind of cool

if you look into it can also be understood as

the word besides. So you shall have no other gods

besides me or before the face of I like that

a translation of it. You shall have no other gods

before My face. And at the core, what God is

saying here is that you shall not treat anything else

like me, nothing else like me, or you should have

nothing else in the place that only I belong other

than me. That's what God's saying. Why because there is

no other god other than him, He's the only one.

He's making that abundantly clear. In Isaiah chapter forty five,

I don't think I put all these on the screen,

so I'm just gonna kind of read them here. In

verse five, God says, I am the Lord, and there

is no other beside me. There is no God. In

verse six, he says, there is none beside me. I

am the Lord, and there is no other. And again

in verse eighteen, I think we do have this one

on the screen. Do we have Verse eighteen? Perfect? For

thus says the Lord who created the heavens. He is

God who formed the earth and made it. He established it.

He did not create it empty, He formed it to

be inhabited. I am the Lord. And what there is?

How many others? Zero? None? No, there's no other I

know of. No other God? Is what God says, there

is no other God's point could not be more clear.

What does he want you to know from these verses?

There's no other God? You guys pass the test. That's great.

Like sometimes scripture, I mean, Peter even says, sometimes Paul

writes stuff that's hard to understand, but sometimes it's really

easy to know it's being said. Here. God's like, there's

no other gods. I'm it. That's it. There's no other

God other than God. And he this only God commands

his redeemed people, the people that he saved to himself,

to never put anyone or anything in the place that

only he belongs. And that's on the throne as the

God of the universe and the god in your literal heart.

God says, I saved you, and this is how you

will love me. You shall have no other gods before me.

But sometimes when we talk about these things, it's kind

of hard to put some handlebars on this or like

what does this practically look like, what does it look

like to have another God other than the only True God?

To remember, God's people only worship God. That's the whole

point of what we're talking about today. God's people only

worship God. Like we said, we his people only root

for one team, and that's Him. So I don't root

for any other team. We don't root for more than

one team. And I like to think of it this way.

It's not just God first when it comes to our worship,

it's God only. So if we're talking about that, it's

God only when it comes to our worship. What does

this kind of practically look like? And I have some

questions here, like what do we trust or who do

we trust in? Is it ourself to someone else? Who

do we love? Who do we obey when pitted against

two different commands or two different orders of direction? Who

do we choose to obey? Who do we fear or revere?

Who's ultimately first in your life? Who sits above the rest?

And even more specifically, I have these I think these

are helpful questions. Maybe you won't find them as helpful

as I did, but I think it is your helpful

questions to ask us so that we know like, how

do we know who or what our God is? Practically speaking?

And what do you fear losing the most? What do

you like you might wake up the middle of the

night terrified of losing something. What do you daydream about?

What is the daytime fantasy of your mind? What do

you run to when you're stressed out or overwhelmed? There

a substance? Is it doom scrolling on your phone? Is

it video games? Because he grew up in the nineties.

What controls your decision making or if there's a big

decision coming up? Who do you consult consult the Lord, wise,

godly counsel? Who am I most I love this one?

Who am I most concerned with? Keeping happy? What consumes

the majority of my time or the majority of my thoughts?

What do I spend my money on? If your answers

to these questions weren't primarily tied to Jesus or the

mission he gave us, something might be sneaking its way

into the place where only God should be. Sometimes it's

not always overt. It's sneaky, it's quiet, it's deceptive. Like

the devil is a liar, we don't give him a foothold.

Something might be sneaking its way into the place where

only God should be. Your exclusive allegiance to God might

be in danger. And I love a quote I read

this week by a guy named Kevin DeYoung, and he said,

it's possible to be full of sincere worship and worship

the wrong God. You can be the mo most devoted worshiper,

but if it's not of God, you are breaking Commandment

number one having a God other than the one true

Living God. Think about it this way. You're cruising down

I five north, going seventy miles an hour, windows down

wind in your hair, dreaming of Cancun. You are never

going to end up in Mexico because you're going north

on I five. Did you guys catch that. It's kind

of the first thing I said. If you're driving north

on the freeway, you will never get to Mexico from here.

That's just the reality of it. Just because your worship

is sincere does not mean it is right. Our worship

deser was reserved for our only God, the only God.

Thinking on these kinds of questions, which is really helpful

for us to do. If you feel yourself drifting, what

do you do? What do you do anytime you sin, repent.

That's what we do. We repent. You repent, and you

put God back in the rightful place that he should be,

as the God of your life, with no other gods

before him. Put your mind on him all day every day.

Start daydreaming about godly things. Align your spending two things

that glorify him. When big decisions come up, consult him.

Read the Bible, see what God has to say about it,

or ask a pastor. We're going to point it the Bible. Anyway.

Be most concerned with pleasing him and making him happy.

And when you are stressed out and overwhelmed, run to

the Lord who gives you rest and ultimate peace. Peace

that's aur pace, passes all understanding. You know what that means.

That means it does not make sense why you would

have peace in this moment, and I have peace. Run

to him, have no other gods before him. If he

is the source of something for you to receive, go

nowhere else, Go to him to receive that. That's the

first commandment, And the second commandment continues this idea. It

doesn't only address who it is that we worship, but

now it starts to talk about and dress how that

we should worship because we do not want to fall

into the trap of worshiping the right God in the

wrong way. Verse four. 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. So,

if we're to have no other gods before God, than

bowing down and serving anything other than Him, that's also problem.

That also is not okay, especially something that's created by man.

If you remember John chapter four, verse twenty four says

Jesus says God is spirit, and those who worship him

must worship in spirit and in truth. There is nothing

in all of creation that can accurately capture or depict

the beauty, the majesty, the perfections, the glory, the grandeur

of God, of our God. There is nothing to compare

him to in all of creation. He is far greater

and far bigger and better and cooler and more magnificent

than anything in all of creation combined. Then everything in

all of creation combined. Just to hear this crazy stat

not it's not a stat. It was just a fact

hubble telescope. That's the big telescope, right. This guy said,

I you pointed it out in the darkness of space,

and it was just the smallest, like tiny little picture,

and he zoomed in there. There's anywhere between three and

ten thousand galaxies. Three and ten thousand galaxies. Space is big.

Space is like And that's pointing in one direction. Now

point it in every direction. It's the same result. Three

to ten thousand different galaxies. And how did all those

galaxies come into a being? God breathed it into existence.

You don't think God's very big breathed out a galaxy

is like planets and stars, full of them, the Milky Way,

all of our planets, one galaxy, ten up to ten

thousand galaxies in one direction, and then you point this

telescope in every other direction. God's huge. God is bigger

than we even have the ability to comprehend. He breathed

out all those ours. Let there be light bang existence.

He is huge. There's nothing in all of creation that

can accurately capture or depict his amazingness. There's not even

anything that could be made from creation that's like him.

There's no image we can fabricate in our mind that

is like him. And you know what, he doesn't want

us to try. He doesn't want us to try. This

is what Israel did with the Golden Calf. He says

all these things to Moses, and he's like, by the way,

head down the mountain because they've already screwed it up.

Israel's doing this with the Golden calf. And this is

what sinful people continue to do today. See if this

sounds familiar. This is from Romans chapter one. For the

wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness

and unrighteousness of men, who, by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,

push it down, swap it out. For what can be

known about God is plain to them because God has

shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his

eternal power and divine nature, have clearly been perceived ever

since the creation of the world in the things that

have been made, so they are without excuse. So the

evidence of God is seen all around us. Look in space.

You don't need a telescope to see space as huge

and crazy. There's no excuse to know that God exists.

Verse twenty one says, for although they knew God, they

did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish

hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

And you know what these fools did. They exchanged the

glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men,

mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore,

God gave them up in the less their hearts, to impurity,

to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Because they

exchange and he's repeating himself, because they exchange the truth

about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the what,

the creature, rather than the who is blessed forever amen,

exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images, images

of created things, serving those dead, lifeless idols, instead of

bowing to and serving God, the uncreated one, the eternally

existing one, the one who stands outside of all creation.

God is not bound by his creation, He is outside

of it. There's nothing we could ever create that God

will be okay with us bowing to Why because it's

not him, it's not him. But did you know that

there is one image of God we can worship. Maybe

in cheeky what are you gonna say? Greg's in Classian's

one fifteen. He Jesus is what the image of the

invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Jesus is the

only image of God we can worship. Why because he

is God. Jesus is God. He is the Word that

was in the beginning, was with God and was God.

He is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.

He's a Manuel God with us. He is the incarnate Christ. Jesus.

Jesus is the only image of God that we can worship.

We don't serve or bow down to, or worship carved

or fashioned or created images. We don't worship those. And

even sometimes people have made things trying to honor God

with them. And I always think about, I mean, we

have a big wooden crossback here on the world. All

people out of trying to honor the Lord might make

that and say we bow before that. We don't bow

before that. That should push our minds to what worship

Jesus the one image of God that we are allowed

to worship and bow down to. Because God gets to

decide how we are to love, worship and serve Him.

Why because God, And he says, it's not through the

created things. He says, not bowing down to anything in

all of creation, because idolatry is putting something or something

or someone else in the place of God. Idolatry is

exchanging the glory of the Creator for the creation. But

I need us to understand, and this is something we

have to remind ourselves of all the time, that idols

aren't just on the altars of pagans. They're not only

the things that we can see. They also make their

way into our hearts. I said this quote last week

by John Calvin says our hearts are perpetual idol factories.

My favorite hymn, Come now Found says prone to wander Lord,

I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Our hearts are perpetual idle factories. So, whether it's a

physical idol I can see, or even just one in

my heart, we need to know what these idols truly are.

We need to view them for what they are, not God.

Whether it's physical or not, it is not God. They

are lifeless, they are deaf, they can't hear you, They're dumb,

they can't think. They're mute, can't speak to you. They're powerless.

You have to pick them up and move them. They're helpless.

When you go into a restaurant that's got a little

Buddha statue, they have to put food on that statue

because Buddha can't get up and get it himself. They're helpless.

They're stupid. They're good for one thing to be crushed,

to be destroyed before the one true God. Man, what's

the story when you know Paul goes correct me. Here

boys Athens where the idol keeps No, No, it's when they

brought the the the arc of the Covenant in and

the idol kept falling down on its face. That's one

of the coolest things God's ever done. He's just showing

these people how stupid these false idols are that they're worshiping.

They are good only to be destroyed, So we must

rid ourselves of all idols, put them to death. Now,

I do want to say it's gonna sound like a joke.

I'm not trying to make a joke. If you've made

your family or your spouse an idol, then obviously I

mean it's metaphorically I'm not going to destroy your family

or crush your family, but you do need to destroy

and crush the desire to put them in the place

that God belongs to be. Like, you have to destroy

that desire to please them over the Lord. And if

you do have an actual physical idol, I'm not trying

to step on. I am trying to step on toes.

If you do sun and moon crystals or energy crystals,

break them, throw them away. If you read the horoscopes

and let that determine how you feel and act, tear

them up and throw them away. Or the Christian horoscopes,

which is personality profiles, that is kind of a little

bit of joke. But yeah, Enneagraham, if you let that

dictate who you are, tear it up and throw it away.

That's not your idol. That is an idol, that's not God.

Tearot cards, get rid of them, throw them in the garbage,

tear them up. Rid yourself of all idols. Because as

God's redeemed people, who do we worship God's people only

worship God. We seek Him for all things, not oracles

or cards or horoscopes. We trust in Him for all

things we love. We bow down to We fear, we obey,

and we serve God only, and we worship him the

way He wants to be worshiped. So we cannot bow

to anything or serve anything in all of creation. We

can't create, make or fabricate anything from creation to bow

down to or to serve. God's people. Only worship God,

and he takes his worship seriously. So let's look at

these last two verses in our text, verses five and six.

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 of the fathers on the

children to the third and fourth generation of those who

hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousands or

thousands of generations of those who love me and keep

my commandments. So here God saying that he's a jealous God,

that's not a bad thing. That's actually a right and

proper thing. That's actually a righteous thing for him to

be jealous, because only God deserves worship and is worthy

of worship. So if anybody else gets the worship, that's improper,

So it is proper for him to be jealous. It's

also in the same way that a husband is not

okay sharing his wife with other men. God is not

okay with sharing his people with other gods. And this

is expressed in a severity on those who hate him

and reject him. And now this I want to clear

something up. This text is not saying that the children

are punished for the sins of the father, because there's

elsewhere in script where God clears it up that is

not what he does. This is saying is that if

the children in the next generations continue to walk in

the same sins as the father, he will continue to

visit the iniquities of the punishments of those generations to

the third and the fourth generations. But what's beautiful of

this part of our text is actually the contrast, because

if you look at verse six, for those who love

God and obey him, verse six has but showing steadfast

love to thousands or thousands of generations, to those who

love Me and keep my commandments. That contrast the punishment

of three to four generations, but the reward of thousands

of generations. That's a big contrast. It's like the punishment

is you're grounded for a week if you do this,

but if you don't, the reward is indefinitely, you get freedom.

Those don't even compare. God's desire is for his people

to remain loyal to him, to exclusively love and worship him.

And in turn, what does God want to do show

is exclusive love and loyalty to his own people. And

can have the worship team come up please? So the

Ten Commandments, God's Law defines love for us. Mercy is

just singing it. Don't you apologize? It's adorable.

That's un mean when the way I said it, don't

apologize that's amazing, it's adorable.

So God's Law, the Ten Commandments are defining what love

is for us, defines how we're supposed to love him

and how we're supposed to love others as His people.

And the first way that it shows us how to

love God, he says, we worship him only God's people

only worship God. We don't worship anything else or anyone else.

We don't carve images out of anything in all of creation.

We don't bow down to them, We don't serve them,

whether that's a literal carving or a metaphorical carving, like

some image in my mind that is not God. We

only worship God. We only bow to him, We only

serve him, the God who saved us from slavery to

our sin, that God who redeemed us, who miraculously raised

us from spiritual death to spiritual life, which I still

think is the greatest miracle to ever happen anywhere. From

spiritual death to spiritual life. He made us his own people.

He adopted us as a son or a daughter and

made us a co heir with Jesus. That's incredible. Like,

let that blow your mind for a second. God literally

adopted you into his family. Someone who was rebellious, who

hated him, who rejected him. He adopted you. He sent

his one and only son to die in your place.

And we did not deserve it, and Christ did not

deserve to die. He was perfect. That's the God we worship.

That's the God we worship. That's the Father that we have.

So our greatest desire should be to worship him the

way he wants to be worshiped. So what I want

us to do, like, what do we do with this text?

I want us to take a serious inventory of our

own lives, take a serious inventory, to stop and consider

what idols might be showing up in my life. Again,

they're not always going to be super overt, sometimes going

to be very very sneaky. But what have I put

in the place of God that should not be? What

should I If there's something I should be receiving from

the Lord? When have I ever gone to something other

than Him to receive that? I love what I was

reading this from Javern and Magee this past week. People

may not worship the Roman God of wine, but they

worship the bottle just the same. You may not see

an actual statue that you're bowing to. You're not bowing

to the Roman god of wine. So I forgot that

fake god's name. But but people will worship the bottle

just the same. They're going to the same thing. Are

we mastered by anything? Do we turn to something that

we should be turning to God? For I have said

that a lot. That's really important for us to understand

that have we exchanged the glory of the Lord for something?

In all of creation? What do we do when finances

get tight? How do we feel? What do we feel?

Who is your trust in or what is your trust in?

Is it in God? Or is it in money? When

work gets stressful, what do you run to to unwind.

What brings me the most joy? What do I look

forward to the most? What am I afraid of losing?

I think these are all questions, and I don't think

I know. These are all questions to see if I've

replaced something, if I've taken God out of my heart

and put something else in there. That's what these questions

are meant to do. Have I started bowing to or

serving anything other than Him? And so I have three steps,

and the very first one is we got to recognize

the idols. That's the first step. Recognize the idols, call

them out. We need to do some healthy and honest,

genuine self reflection. And I wouldn't be mad if you

ask a friend say, hey, what do you see? Do

you see me chasing after something other than Jesus more

than him? I think that's a great question to ask

a brother's sister in Christ, especially an honest one, because

I'll tell you the truth. We need to be able

to see these idols and see them as they've worked

their way into our hearts, because being ignorant of them,

ignorant of them does not make them not exist. Pretending

they're not there does not make them go away. They

will stay there. We have to be intentional to go

after them. And once we've recognized what they are, we

go to the second step. So the first one's recognized

the idol. The second one is remember who God is.

You need to remember who God is, who the one

and only true God is, and remember that he's the

one who saved you from your sleepy in Egypt. He

saved you from your slavery to sin. He redeemed you,

He called you out of darkness into light. He made

you his child, redeemed you as his own people, and

he gave you the law. He gave you direction. He

didn't leave you to wonder. He told you how we

should love him and how we are to worship him.

And what we need to do is let the knowledge

of who God is drive the third step. So we

recognize the idols. One two, remember who God is. In three, repent,

remove and return. To repent, remove and return. We need

to repent of our sin of idolatry, and in that

process of repentance, understand that our conversation and our confession

of sin before the Lord is part of our communion

with him, part of our union with him. This is

a beautiful piece of the process that God is never

like figure it out before you come to me. He's

got arms wide open and he's weight. He knows, come on,

you're gonna pull a fast on the Lord. He knows everything.

He knows the pre thought to the thought of before

you ever sinned. He knows when you didn't even know

that you were walking in sin, those sneaky idols. He knows.

He's waiting with open arms, So repent to him. He's

not going to spit in your face and cast you out.

You're already his child. If you've put faith in Christ,

he's already saved you. You already have his favor. So

that's a belief problem. If you don't want to confess

to the Lord, you don't believe that he's good, you

don't believe that as your father, or you don't believe

I don't know that he's shown you grace. Do you

believe that the blood of Christ was enough? Let nothing

stop you from repenting and going back to the Lord.

Repent of your sin of idolatry, and that second step

of step three, I guess I have three. Number three

is remove the idols from your life, get rid of them,

get rid of them, Remove the idols from your life,

and return back to the True God. Love God with everything,

and love others as yourself. On these two commandments depend

all the law and the prophets. God's law defines love

God's people only. Worship God. You shall have no other

gods before me. You shall not make for yourself carved

image a carved image. You shall not bow down to

them or serve them. This is how God calls us

to love Him. So let's rid our lives of the

idols that we have and return to the One True God. Amen.

Can you guys stand your feet please,