God First | God's Top Ten (Part One)

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To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.

This morning we're going to start a brand new sermon series

called Sermon Series called Gods Top Ten.

And what would a sermon series like this be without starting

with a top ten list? So graduates and graduates,

families, this one is for you. Top 10 Things Nobody Told You

About adulthood #10 You can eat cake whenever you want, but your

body files a formal complaint afterwards.

So if you're young in here, just know that the rest of you, We're

just waiting with smirks on our face about your metabolism.

Catching up with your habits #9 half of adulthood is deciding

what to make for dinner every single day until you die #8 you

became You become irrationally excited about new kitchen

appliances. Facts #7 Going somewhere now

requires checking the weather, the traffic, the calendar, the

budget and energy level. That's why we rarely go

anywhere. Number six, The older you get,

the faster time moves and the slower you stand up again.

Facts #5 You'll throw away boxes from something you bought and

immediately need them 14 minutes later #4 You spend your

childhood wanting freedom and your adulthood wanting a nap #3

a quiet Saturday becomes more exciting than a wild Friday

night. Again, facts #2 you can injure

yourself sleeping incorrectly. If you don't know what I mean,

you will. And then number one, top 10

reasons or top 10 things Nobody Told you about adulthood.

You finally get money to buy what you want right around the

time you become too tired to go anywhere.

I don't know if you caught on a theme.

They're young people, but you will get tired so and stay

tired. Naps are from God and we'll get

we're going to get to that when it talks about Sabbath later on

in this series, but this series is really going to be all about

us diving into from the earliest chapters of the Bible.

God gave his chosen people, the Jewish people, the nation of

Israel. What Jewish rabbis refer to as

the Azerat had a Berean. Literally the 10 words, what you

and I now know as the 10 commandments.

And these 10 commandments that God gave, that he inscribed on

stone tablets gave to Moses were to be given to the people of

Israel. That right after they had been

called out of slavery, 400 years of slavery out of Egypt to, to

guide them on their way from Egypt on through the wilderness

into the Promised land. These 10 commandments, most of

us are familiar with the 10 commandments.

These 10 commandments serve as the basis of our moral code and,

and, and in our code of law. And to this day, there's still

disputes and legal fights over their presence hanging in

classrooms or courtrooms or on the public square.

I think that most of us are very familiar with the, with the 10

commandments. However, in 2007, Reuters

conducted a survey and Reuters, in this survey, they discovered

that Americans could more easily and and and, and, and readily

recite the seven ingredient ingredients that make up a

McDonald's Big Mac then they could the 10 commandments.

And while that's like not that, that that survey is about 20

years old, subsequent surveys have shown that, that, that that

gap hasn't closed. As a matter of fact, it's

widened now. But here's the here's the big

issue. And I'm not saying that it's a

light issue that, that, that we can't, we don't know the 10

commandments. But here's the bigger issue, I

think is there seems to be a disconnect between what the 10

commandments are now and why they still matter to us.

Here's here's what I mean is, is, is you've almost got like

two sides of the of a debate, right?

You've got like the grace of Jesus and you've got the law of

the commandments. And some would say, hey, because

Jesus has come and he offers grace and mercy and forgiveness,

then the law and the commandments, then they're

pretty much obsolete. I, I can, I can, I can believe

how I want to believe. I can think how I want to think.

I can, I can behave how I want to behave.

I don't necessarily have to worry about the 10 commandments.

They're they're, they're seemingly at odds and what we're

going to do, what we're going to discover starting this morning

and throughout the summer is the grace of Jesus and the law of

the commandments. They're not at odds.

They actually complement one another.

They actually complement one another or set another way.

If you're taking notes with us, here's the truth that's going to

be running throughout the series that serves as the big idea.

Jesus did not make my personal holiness optional.

He made it possible. Jesus did not make my personal

holiness optional. He made it possible.

Let's kind of lean into that for a second because I think there's

some terms that we have to define personal holiness.

If you're new to church, whether you're in the room or online

with us, here's probably the best way to describe personal

holiness or to define personal holiness.

Personal holiness is the process of of becoming more Christ like.

Is is is is thinking and loving and, and acting more like Jesus

than I did the day before. It's the process of allowing the

Holy Spirit of God to transform me from who I was into who he

created me to be. It's, it's becoming more Christ

like and that that is a process. And that process doesn't happen

in isolation from the world. That process always happens in

the midst of transformation within the world.

So our call as followers of Jesus and our call as the church

is not to go move out to some obscure island and, and just

have church services 24/7, 7 days of the of, of the week.

Our, our, our, our mission from God is to be transformed from

within the culture that the Holy Spirit of God can transform us

from the inside out. So when we say that Jesus did

not come to make my personal holiness optional, he came to

make it possible. What we're saying is, is the 10

laws, the 10 commandments that God is going to give us from the

very beginning, Exodus chapter 20, they cannot be fully

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

fulfilled in our own effort. They can't be fully fulfilled in

our own effort alone that we need the empowerment of the Holy

Spirit of God in us. So with that said, I want us to

dive into if you have a Bible with you, we're going to look at

Exodus chapter 20 starting in verse one.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

We're going to look at the first of these 10 commandments says

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. Now this commandment, this first

commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

I would argue and many scholars argue that if we keep this

commandment, all other commandments that follow all

other non commandments that follow kind of take care of

themselves. This is the the the the primary,

the pre eminent of the 10 commandments.

You shall have no other gods before me.

Now to help us kind of digest it more easily and for us to walk

through it and explain it more easily, there's going to be a

template that we're going to follow throughout this series

and it's going to follow this template.

We're going to talk about the standard.

So what exactly is God saying through this commandment?

We'll talk about the struggle or why is this commandment so hard

for me to keep? And then we'll talk about the

step or the steps of obedience that I have to take in order to

keep this commandment. So let's start with a standard.

If you're taking notes with us, this is what no other gods

before me really means. There can be no dual allegiance.

There can be no dual allegiance. Now, if you remember, you go all

the way back to the Old Testament, the very beginning of

the book of Exodus. You have the nation of Israel.

They've been enslaved by the Egyptian people for over 400

years and they've been, they, they've been worked to slaves

and, and, and God set them free. And do you, do you remember how

God set them free? He, he brought about 10 horrific

plagues on the nation of Israel to finally where the Pharaoh of

Egypt said, all right, that's it.

You'll get out of town. You'll go take, take all of you

with you. I'm, I'm sick and tired of, of

having my people suffer this way.

You remember the 10 plagues? Did you know that those 10

plagues weren't just coincidental or or haphazard?

Did you know that the 10 plagues that God brought upon the nation

of Israel were direct assaults on the Egyptian gods?

So, for example, you remember the first plague to where God

turned the round the Nile River into blood and how horrific that

must have been. That was a direct assault on the

Egyptian God Hapi. He was considered the the God of

the Nile River. Or do you remember the, the,

the, the, the plague to where the entire land of Egypt was

just flooded with frogs. Everywhere you looked, there was

a frog. Everywhere you stepped, there

was a frog. Frogs were everywhere.

Frogs were in the house. Frogs were on the ceiling.

Frogs were in the bathroom. You could not go anywhere to

where there wasn't a frog. God flooded the land of Egypt

with frogs. You may say, well, that's a

weird plague for God to bring on the nation of Egypt.

Like God really like went into his bag and got creative on that

one, you know, flood the nation with frogs.

Well here's what you may not know is the Egyptians worshipped

a God headed or a frog headed goddess by the name of Hakkat

who was known to be to be worshipped as the goddess of

fertility. It was a direct assault on

Hakkkat. Remember the 9th plague to where

God just basically just shut out the sun and all of Egypt was

covered in darkness. Not not the not the Egyptians

place, but the rest of of Egypt. They're not the Israelites

place, but all the rest of Egypt.

That was a direct assault on the Egyptian God who they consider

the supreme God, RA, the sun God and even the last plague the the

the death of the first born. That was a direct assault on

Pharaoh himself. That was considered who was

considered to be a living God by the Egyptians.

You see, systematically through the plagues, God basically set

him up and knocked him down. He exposed them not only to be

weak, but to be fraudulent and fake.

So when God is saying to the nation of Israel this first

commandment, you're to have no other God except me, He.

It wasn't so much a statement about superiority, it was really

more of a statement about exclusivity.

It was really a statement about exclusivity.

No dual allegiance. There is no other God but

Yahweh. So that's the standard.

Well, what's the struggle? Here's the struggle.

It's a word that I came up with called and ISM and ISM.

It has a dash if you want to be chromatic, chromatically

correct. I know because I came up with it

and ISM. Let's talk about what and ISM

is. I think that we would all hear

2026. We would go, OK, I'm been I'm on

board with there being no other God except for the God of the

Bible, Yahweh. No other God.

So how in the world if I believe that there's no other God other

than the God of the Bible, Yahweh, then how in the world

can I struggle to keep this commandment even though there's

no other God but the God of the Bible, Yahweh?

I think that we would all agree that there's so many things, so

many what we would call rivals for our hearts desires and what

for our attention and for our devotion.

Let's kind of sit down on that one for a second.

I've never known anyone, I've never known anyone in my entire

life that like showed me around their house and in their back

bedroom they had like a pile of cash and they made an altar to

this pile of cash and they said, hey, every night before I go to

bed, I just want to let you know I kneel at this altar and I'll

OfferUp a prayer to this pile of cash.

Never met anybody like that. But I do know a lot of people

who say they love God and they go to church, yet they make

money. They're God encompassing life.

I've never met anybody that offered an animal sacrifice to a

family portrait, but I do know a lot of people that say I love

God and I go to church, but they make their family and their

families happiness the guiding compass of their life.

You ever met anyone you ever met anyone who who who who knelt

down and and and prayed to a selfie?

Me neither. However, I think that we would

all agree. We know a lot of people that say

they love God and they go to church, yet they make the

pursuit of their personal pleasure, whether it be

popularity or sex or or or any type of substance.

They make that their guiding compass in life.

And here lies the the the main issue.

It is a lie that we can so easily believe and, and I

believe that this, that this lie is accepted on a rampant scale

in western, in the Western culture of the Western world,

especially in America, especially in the American

church, is we have convinced ourselves, I can love God and

money. I can love God and my family.

I can love God and myself and this is where Jesus drops the

hammer. Check this out Matthew chapter

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

6. Jesus says no one can serve 2

masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he

will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money. Now let me ask you a question.

Why did Jesus bring up money? Because money has been one of

those and isms from the very beginning.

The pursuit of more has been one of those andisms.

So what Jesus is saying here is if you and I were really

concerned about our personal holiness, let me kind of

rephrase that. If you and I are really

concerned about growing in Christ likeness, loving like

Jesus loved, thinking how Jesus thinks, behaving how Jesus would

behave, living our lives the way that Jesus would live life would

have us to live life, then we've got to absolutely rid ourselves

of andisms in our lives. And let's be really honest,

whether you're in the room or online, I think that we've all

got them. I think that we've all got our

preferred andism, don't we? I love God, and so how do we rid

ourselves of the andisms in our lives?

We've seen the standard, We've seen the struggle.

Let's look at the step, or in this case, steps of obedience.

Here's the first one. Remember your deliverance,

pledge your allegiance. Remember your deliverance,

pledge your allegiance. I want to show you something.

Let's go back to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

This is in verse 2 when God said I am the Lord your God who

brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of

slavery. Let me ask you a question right

before handing down the 10 commandments.

Why did God, why did God have to remind the people of this?

Hey, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of

Egypt, out of the House of slavery.

I think it was God declaring from Mount Sinai.

Hey Israel, remember how you were, you were captive in, in,

in Egypt for 400 years. I'm the one that delivered you.

Hey Israel, remember how you were a slave and your mom and

your dad before you, they were slaves.

And your children that came after you, they were slaves.

I'm the one that delivered you. Hey, Israel, acknowledge your

deliverance and now pledge your allegiance.

Let's put some 2026 shoes on that thought.

Do me a favor, if you're in the room with us, you can do this.

If you're joining us online, as long as you're not driving, you

can do this. I would encourage you to do this

just where you're at. I just want to invite you to

close your eyes. close your eyes.

Our ushers aren't going to come and like steal your bags or

anything like that. We'll get to the thou shall not

steal later on. You don't have to worry about

that, but just close your eyes and here's what I want to, I

want to guide you through just asking a couple questions where

you're at with your eyes closed. I just want you to take a moment

to remember what your life was like before you surrendered it

to Jesus. Let's drill down into more

specifics. Do you remember that feeling of

of knowing that something was missing in your life?

Maybe you gave your life to Jesus when you were young, but

you still remember when you were young that there was just

something missing. Maybe you gave your life to

Jesus when you were an adult. Maybe you were you were you were

an older adult and you just know that there you just knew that

there was something missing. Do you remember that sense of

hopelessness or even fear of the unknown?

Do you remember laying awake at night being concerned, being

worried about the unknown? Do you remember sitting in maybe

in a church service, maybe somebody invited you to come to

a church service and because you knew that there was something

missing, there was a there, there was almost this paralyzing

hopelessness and fear over the unknown.

Do you remember the weight of shame and and guilt that was

always accusing you in the background, always accusing you

and convincing you that you were the worst version that you could

possibly be? That there was no saving you,

There was no redeeming you, There was no making you better?

It was an accusing voice. Do you remember that frustration

of not being able to be freed up from addictions or not being

able to be able to be freed up from?

Being unable to offer forgiveness towards someone and

that sense of bitterness just like sits heavy on your heart.

Do you remember what it was like before you surrendered your life

to Jesus? All right, you can open your

eyes. Let me ask you a question.

When it comes to all of those scenarios.

Here's my guess. Money.

Your job, a promotion. They want your deliverer, your

wife, your kids, your family, your future family.

They want your deliverer. The the popularity, notoriety,

followers, cliques, they weren't your deliverer.

And if they weren't your deliverer then then none of

those things could ever be your deliverer.

Now here's the hope of the gospel.

Jesus Christ is our only deliverer.

He was then, he is now, he always will be.

I think that a healthy, healthy spiritual habit and spiritual

discipline is for us to spend a little bit of time each day

thinking about all that God has delivered us from and allow that

deliverance to pull us into pledging our allegiance to Him

on the daily. So the first step of obedience

is I've got to remember my deliverance.

Remember my deliverance and then allow that remembrance to propel

me into pledging my allegiance. The second step of obedience

this morning is this. Put to death lesser gods with a

lowercase G Put to death lesser gods.

Now this seems pretty harsh. It seems pretty blunt, but it is

so, so necessary. Put to death lesser gods.

Let me show you what how Paul writes it in the book of

Colossians. He writes put to death

therefore, what is earthly in you?

Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and

covetousness, which is idolatry. Can I tell you this?

Maybe the issue is not like your place of work, your your

ambition for the promotion. Maybe the issues not your not

your husband or your wife or your kids or your family.

Maybe your issue is not like how God has uniquely wired you.

Maybe it's not any of those things.

It very well could be what you have made of those things.

And what I mean is it is so easy for us to take good things and

to turn them into God things. We, we, we see this playing out

even in the, even in the book of Romans, at the very beginning of

the book of Romans to where to where Paul writes that they

worship the creation rather than the creator.

It's very easy and very possible for us to take good things and

to turn them into God things to make idols out of our job, out

of a promotion, out of our family, out of self.

And what does God tell us to do with idols?

He calls us to put to death those idols.

Now, here's what that doesn't mean.

That does not mean they were all called to go quit our jobs,

leave our families and to go relocate in in a monastery in

the desert. That's for November in the

elections. That's when we want to do that.

No, in in all seriousness, it it doesn't mean that we're to all

to go quit our jobs, leave our families, and then move to a

monastery in the desert to to put to death lesser gods here.

Here's what that means. It means that as Paul writes

throughout the New Testament, hey, listen, if you set your

mind on the things of the Spirit, you will walk in the

Spirit. But if you set your mind on the

things of the flesh, you will walk in the flesh.

In other words, what you and I set our mind and what we set our

thoughts to, Guess what? That's what guides our feet.

Our thoughts will inevitably guide our direction.

So you and I, we always come to a crossroads here.

Here's the crossroads is we can either act like and pretend that

we can still grow in Christ likeness and impersonal holiness

while holding on to an and ISM and I'll go ahead and tell you

you can't Why? Because you're violating the

first of God's laws and God won't honor that.

Or you can acknowledge, hey, God, there have been some

things, some good things in my life that I've turned into God.

Things. I've made these good things that

you blessed me with. I've made them into many gods.

I've made them into idols. In your notes at the bottom of

your note sheet, I want you to take a moment.

Nobody, you're not going to turn this in or read it in in into a

microphone or ask anybody to, to look at it or proofread it.

But I want you to answer this question here it is.

What good thing am I most likely to make into a God thing?

What good thing am I most likely to make into a God thing?

You need a you need a kind of a prompt.

I'll go first. I'll go ahead and tell you

family. That's that's a given, like

being a grandparent, man, there's nothing like it.

Love it. We're we're actually expecting

another one on the way any day now and it is going to be

awesome. I love it.

Just like sugar those kids up and send them home.

It's incredible. It's awesome.

But I'll tell you what I'm most likely to make into an idol.

What good thing I'm most likely to make into a God thing?

Ministry. Me being a pastor, I have to be

very, very honest with myself about myself and go, God, would

you show me have I taken this good thing that you have blessed

me with and have I made it into an idol?

Have I turned it into a God thing and I can at that point in

time then I I had the same choice that you do.

I can go on and pretend that I can hold on to this and ISM and

then expect God to continue personally growing me into

Christ likeness or I can acknowledge not.

God's never going to bless my disobedience to his first law

and commandment. So I need to put to death that

lesser God. Here's what it means to put to

death that lesser God. It means that I need to spend

more time feeding the spirit in me and starving the flesh.

Feed the spirit, starve the flesh.

So whatever you wrote in that blank, what good thing are you

most likely? Am I most likely to turn into a

God thing? Same thing is true for you.

Same choice is you feed the Spirit.

Here's how we feed the Spirit. We spend time daily with God in

his word. We spend time daily with God in

prayer. We spend time daily with God

confessing the things in our lives that are not in alignment

with him. We seek to get plugged into a

church, to become deeply rooted in a church, being involved in a

core group of of other Christ followers.

They're going to sharpen us and they're going to urge us on and

encourage us in Christ likeness, the one or two people that we

give absolute permission to, to call us out on our crap and go,

hey, I love you and I know that you want to honor Jesus, but the

way that you just said that doesn't do that.

The decision that you're making doesn't lead to that.

That's how we feed the Spirit and we starve the flesh.

So this is where we lay in the plane this morning.

This first commandment. This first commandment is not

simply the application, is not simply stop worshipping false

gods, stop worshipping man made idols.

This first commandment is about this return to your deliverer.

Return to your deliverer. And when you and I start to

focus more in on the majesty and the glory and all the grace, the

mercy and all that Jesus has done for us, I will make you

this promise. Everything else pales in

comparison that we sit there and go.

All these other things that I were, that that I was leaning

on, that I was counting on, that I was kind of propping myself up

on there, there these false gods, these idols, they can't

carry that weight. They were never my deliverer.

They can't be my deliverer and they never can deliver me.

But Jesus, you can. Jesus, you can.

So really, our step of obedience this morning is really twofold

#1 what Andisms exist in your life, what Andisms exist in your

life? And then number 2, after

acknowledging that Andism, confess that Andism as sin

before God and ask a holy God. God, would you forgive me for

putting this on par with you or maybe even a little bit above

you in my life? It's not this message, this

first commandment is not simply about stop worshipping false

gods. It's about returning to your

deliverer. So I'm going to pray.

After we pray, we'll stand. We'll have an opportunity to

sing one last time. And this would be an opportunity

for you to come down and pray. If you want to come and pray and

go, God, here I am. Bow before you in humility,

confessing this and ISM in my life now.

Would you help it to compare to pale in comparison to your

glory, to your lordship? I promise you, if you want to be

freed up this morning, confess the andism and turn to the

Deliverer. God we love you and God we thank

you for loving us. God, so many times we have

turned away from you, God, maybe not intentionally, maybe we have

drifted far away from you. God is so very easy for us to

confuse the blessings that you have bestowed upon us, the good

things that you have given us in life and turned them into God

things. God, would you help us this

morning to become very, very honest, gut level honest with

ourselves, about ourselves so that we can rightly identify any

and all and isms that exist within us.

And thank God to be bold enough and obedient enough to bring

that and ISM before your feet and to confess that and ISM as a

sin. God, maybe this morning is a

time to where you're calling us to a refocusing of our lives, of

our hearts, our minds, our attention, our devotion, a

rededication of sorts to where we are asking you, God, not only

that you be superior to all other gods, but you be

exclusive. Kind of pray that you would move

through US and in US this morning and bring a change that

only your Holy Spirit can bring. And it's your.

In your name, I pray. Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Riverbend Church Podcast.

Learn more about who we are as a church and how to connect.

You can head over to our website, Riverbend Church dot

Life.