The Law of God: Worship the One True God

You can turn in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 20. We're going to read verses 1 through 6.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 20. We are beginning a series in the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

And the reason we're beginning this series is to consider God's law.

And the reason we're considering God's law is because we talk so much about

grace that oftentimes we would think that there's nothing else required of us.

Now, there is nothing required of us to be saved, but that we receive Christ's

life lived on our behalf,

Christ's death died in our place, and his resurrection died.

To prove that his life did everything that we were supposed to do to live out,

to embody, to fulfill God's law, that his death was a perfect sacrifice,

satisfying God's wrath, removing God's wrath from us, the punishment for our sins.

The resurrection proves that our sins are forgiven.

It's God's stamp of approval on Jesus' life and on Jesus' death.

So there's nothing else required of us to be saved. Jesus paid it all.

But surely we can say thank you. Surely we can spend the rest of our lives saying thank you, Jesus.

Us, what sense does it make then to receive this grace and go out on living

our lives the way we want to live them?

It's an evidence that we haven't truly received the grace if we don't then seek to obey the God of grace.

And the Ten Commandments are God's moral law, His righteous standard,

and I said last week a summary of all of God's laws, and they are still in effect.

They are still in effect because they represent God's moral,

righteous standard and true divine rules for living the good life in Christ.

Or to put it another way, to live the Christian life.

And so we come to the Ten Commandments to consider how do we live this Christian

life? How do we live in light of the fact that God has saved us?

When God gave the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, he had already delivered them.

The Ten Commandments were not law to say, you obey and you will be my people if you obey.

No, God said, I've made you my people.

And in light of being who I've made you, this is how you are to live.

It's the same with us. That's the way we view the Ten Commandments as well.

This is what it means for God's people to reflect God's character, to live this way.

So as we come to Exodus 20, verses 1-6, we want to consider that.

Exodus 20:1–6

How do we best love the Lord our God, as Jesus said, with all our heart,

with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength?

The Ten Commandments are how we go about doing that. in a general way.

In Exodus chapter 20, let's stand in honor of reading God's word.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Verses 1 through 6, Exodus chapter 20, verse 1.

Exodus 20:1

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 anything 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 generation of those who hate me.

But his mercy is more, showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love

me and keep my commandments. The word of the Lord.

Father, speak through your words, speak to our hearts, so that we may love you

more and be changed to live as you have called us to.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

The first thing I want you to notice is that God's law is a reflection of his

holy character and his saving work.

God's law is a reflection of who he is.

It reflects who he is, and it reflects what he does.

His law reflects who God is and what he does. How does he begin?

He spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God. And.

Right out of the gate, giving his law, he says, here's who I am.

I am the Lord your God. In Exodus 3, we see that God revealed himself to Moses as I am.

Moses said, God, when I go to Egypt and I try to deliver your people,

and they asked me, who is it that has sent you to deliver us?

The Lord said, you are to say to them, I am has sent you.

That's the word Yahweh, translated in your English Bible as Lord,

capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

Whenever it's all caps, that's the covenant personal name of God.

God puts himself and Israel on a first name basis in a way that he had not done

up to that point with any people in all the world. and he revealed himself in such a way.

And he says, I am the Lord God.

Is that what he says? No, he says, I am the Lord your God.

In the ancient world, every nation had their God or gods that they followed.

And no one really knew who Yahweh was until he did something.

Until he did something miraculous and amazing on the biggest stage at that time in the world.

Egypt was the world power.

And in those days, whoever was the most powerful, that represented the most powerful God.

So Egypt's gods were seen as more powerful than any other because they were

the most powerful people in all the world.

And they didn't just enslave Israel, but Israel was one of those people who were enslaved.

And God was about to show just how powerful he was, ascending Moses to free

his people from Egyptian bondage.

And he did that. And now all the world knew who Yahweh was, the God of Israel.

And God here in the Ten Commandments is reminding his people of who he is I

am the Lord your God And what does he say next?

Who brought you out of the land of Egypt Out of the house of slavery You can

never disconnect who God is from what God does You want to know who God is?

You look at what God does His reputation is his name His reputation is his character,

His law reflects who he is and what he does.

It reflects his perfect, holy character and his saving work.

He said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out.

I did this for you. I saved you. I delivered you. That's who I am.

I'm your deliverer. I'm your provider. I'm your savior.

I brought you out. And now he's about to say, therefore, live this way.

In light of what I've done for you, you are to live this way.

So first, God's law reflects who he is and what he does, his holy character and his saving work.

Secondly, God demonstrates, God's grace demonstrates his infinite worth above

all other gods. Look at verse 3.

It says, you shall have no other gods before me.

The first of the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me. Why does he start here?

Well, before me can be translated also besides me. it can also be understood

in the sense of, don't have any other gods in my presence.

Don't have any other gods in my midst.

God is right out of the gate, setting himself apart from all the other gods

who would seek to take his place.

God sets himself apart, and it's His grace that demonstrates that.

Here's why that's so important.

Because in the ancient world and still today, we're still affected by ancient

beliefs. There's really nothing new under the sun.

It was believed that if you just did enough for the gods, they would bless you.

Do you live that way sometimes?

I can do, if I just do enough, God will bless me. God will take care of me.

God will love me. You can't earn his love.

He gives it freely. And in so doing, he's unlike any other God that we could conceive of.

And that was true in the ancient world. They could not conceive of a God of love or a God of grace.

Because in that time, in those places and places still in the world today,

you do what you think the God wants you to do, and the God then will bless you

and not kill you and take care of you.

It's transactional relationship. It's not a love relationship.

It's not founded on grace. God set himself apart in that he did not require

anything of Israel to save them.

He saved them out of his own good pleasure because he is a good God,

a God of grace and a God of mercy.

See, grace is in the Old Testament. It's not a New Testament concept.

Our God has always been a God of grace. He demonstrated his grace to Israel by saving them.

And therefore he separated himself from any other god who would be imagined by other peoples.

So he says, therefore, since I'm unlike any other, and since I've saved you

in such a mighty way, don't bring any other gods near me.

Don't seek to worship me any other way in the way that I've given you, reflected in my law.

Don't have any other gods, don't trust in any other Savior.

What he's saying to you this morning is, am I enough? Or do you need to add something else?

God is enough, and so he has the right to say, you shall have no other gods before me.

What is a God, anyway? Well, in a very simplistic way,

a God is anything we put our trust in to provide for our needs,

to give us the satisfaction and the life that we desire.

And God says, the Lord says, there is no one else who can do that.

There is no one else who can provide for your deepest needs. That's only me.

So it is an affront to God when we seek to worship other things or other gods.

And that leads us to the third thing. Man's sinful tendency is always,

always to create gods in his own image.

We all will do this, whether at one point in our life or all of our life.

We will all try to make God in our image, recreate, refashion God in our own

image. Look at the second commandment.

First, he says, you shall have no other gods before me.

Then he says, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness

of anything that is in heaven or above or that is on the earth,

beneath or under the earth.

He just covers all of creation. Why?

Because there is nothing in all of creation, no single thing in all of creation

that fully reflects and communicates just how big, just how mighty,

just how glorious, just how holy our God is.

And therefore it is an affront to try to make anything that represents him because

nothing even comes close to representing, including the ones he created to represent it.

Where is God's image found in the creation story? It's on us, right?

We were created unlike anything else in all creation, created in the image and

likeness of God. There's a problem though.

We failed to rightly represent, rightly reflect God's image because of our sin.

But our tendency is always to create God's in our own image.

That's what Adam and Eve did.

They said, I think we would rather project our own image than reflect God's image.

And the rest, as we say, is history. And when we do this, we're worshiping. We do this in two ways.

Here's how we recreate God in our own image.

Man-made images, idols is one of the words used, can represent false gods.

In the case of other nations, nations unlike Israel, that would be the case.

They would have represented other gods. But I want you to think about this from

a Christian perspective.

I want to read to you from 1 Corinthians 8.

1 Corinthians 8, verses 4-6, and then 1 Corinthians 10, 9-22.

1 Corinthians 8:4–6

Listen to Paul, what Paul says, the Apostle Paul, in the New Testament,

after Christ has lived, died, been resurrected, Paul, teaching the church in

Corinth, says in 1 Corinthians 8, 4-6, Therefore,

as to the eating of food offered to idols, and just to give you a background,

in Corinth, there was a pagan society, and they ate food that had been sacrificed to idols.

They were worshiping other gods in that culture, and Christians who were Corinthian,

Gentile, had been saved and brought out of that lifestyle, and now they're having

to figure out, well, can we still eat the food?

Because this food by our community is being offered to idols.

Is it still okay? And you had arguments in the church over whether or not you

could eat that type of food anymore after becoming a Christian.

And so Paul's dealing with that. And he says, as to eating food offered to idols,

we know that an idol, a carved image representing a god, is no god anymore.

He says, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one.

There's only one God, and that's the true and living God.

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth,

as indeed there are many gods,

quote-unquote, many lords, quote-unquote, yet for us there's only one God, the Father,

from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord,

Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

And then we flip over to chapter 10, verses 19 through 22.

And Paul says, what do I imply then, that food offered to idols is anything,

or that an idol is anything?

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons.

So if there is any real God behind the idol, it's a demon.

That God, those gods that Egypt worshipped were not real.

They fashioned idols' images to represent what they believed to be real God behind that image.

But behind that image, they were deceived because behind that image,

they were carving an image that represented what? Demons.

Idolatry is straight from the pit of hell.

This desire to recreate God in our own image, is that not what Satan wanted to do?

When he came to Jesus and said, jump off and I will give you all these things

if you will worship me, if you will bow down and worship me.

He wanted to be worshiped. And we do too in our sin.

That's the essence of sin. is wanting to take the place of God.

That's why sin is so heinous. That's why sin is so off-putting and affront to

God because we desire to reflect our own glory, our own image.

And when we do so, it's demonic. Now, we may not be possessed demonically,

but that idea, that concept is demonic.

So man-made idols can be Worshipping false gods.

Worshipping in the Bible, worshiping Baal, worshiping Kamosh,

depending on which people group you are.

But there's a subtle danger here because man-made idols can also be false representations

of the true God. Did you get that?

Idols can be false gods, but we can also try to remake images and idols that

we say, well, this is the true God. Let me show you what I mean.

Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, right? Well, let's go forward in the story just

a little bit to Exodus chapter 32.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

Some of you already know where this is going.

Exodus chapter 32, the golden calf incident.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

Exodus chapter 32, verses 1 through 8. Remember, God said, I am the Lord your

Exodus 32:1–8

God who brought you out of Egypt.

Exodus chapter 32, verse 1. Again, we're fast-forwarding. God's given the law

Exodus 32:1

and the Ten Commandments.

He's still sort of in that process. In fact, he's in the process of doing that

with Moses on the mountain.

And even as he's giving them their law, they are rebelling down below.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,

the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, the priest,

Moses' brother, and said to him, Up! Get up!

Make us gods who shall go before us As for this Moses The man who brought us

up Out of the land of Egypt We do not know what has become of him They think

he's gone up to the mountain To speak with God And God has killed him.

So Aaron said to them Take off the rings of gold That are in the ears of your

wives Your sons and your daughters And bring them to me,

So all the people took off the rings of gold That were in their ears And brought

them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it, melted it down,

fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.

And there's a lot here that I can't go into even though I want to.

They said, these are, listen to what they say. So they made the golden calf.

These are the gods, O Israel, who brought you all out of the land of Egypt.

Have they forgotten? Had they forgotten who brought them up out of the land of Egypt?

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. What?

Make a golden calf and we say, These are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

But let's make a feast and an altar to Yahweh.

Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord, to Yahweh. They got the name right.

They know who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They know.

They rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.

And the people sat down to eat and drank and rose up to play.

They know who brought them out of Egypt.

They just wanting something they could see.

Something they could touch. Something they could look at.

And don't we all want that? But anytime you attempt to recreate the true God

in your own image and likeness, you sin against him in idolatry.

You do the exact same thing the Israelites did in the wilderness.

You make a golden calf, and you worship who you perceive God to be rather than

who he has revealed himself to.

And there are churches all throughout this land doing that very thing this morning.

And it breaks my heart that churches would gather together, thinking they have

to have all these bells and whistles, or it's not worship.

When God has revealed in His Word who He is, we don't need anything else than

what He's revealed to us. Now, I like good music.

Sometimes I like loud music. Nothing wrong with that.

Lighting does affect and enhance our experience.

These are tools. They can be used in significant ways to help us worship.

But if we have all of those things, or don't, does it change who God is?

If we have all of these things or don't, does it change what God has done?

We sit here in a very comfortable situation.

There are churches gathering for the next several hours all across the world

who will meet in places with dirt floors.

Are you telling me that our worship is better than theirs because our stuff is better than theirs?

Because worship is not about you, and it's not about me, it's about Him.

It's about who He is and what He has done.

Sometimes we probably should burn all the stuff.

I'm getting a little carried away. Bear with me. But it's to make the point

that we can worship false gods, but we can also worship the true God falsely.

And we have to, day by day, week by week, be in his word to know,

am I worshiping the true God?

And am I worshiping the way that he's told me to worship him,

the way that he's revealed himself?

Am I even thinking about him when I'm thinking about him?

Is it my thoughts that I'm projecting

on God? Or is that actually who he's revealed himself to be in my mind?

You must inform your mind with who God is, so that when you think of him,

you have the right God in mind.

His word is essential.

Now, we're not talking about worshiping the Bible. This is God's written word,

and we don't worship God's written word.

We worship the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, who has been revealed to us in bodily form.

Life, death, and resurrection. We worship Jesus, but we can't worship without the written Word.

Because then we'll make up our own

stuff as we go along. Our own way of worshiping, and it will be idolatry.

This first and second commandment, we're going to see as we walk through the

Ten Commandments, they're all interconnected. They all relate to one another.

And everything flows out of this first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

Because anytime we break 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10, we're breaking number one.

Every time. You can't break one without breaking them all.

They're all interconnected because they all flow out of who God is and what

God has done. And by the way, we're all guilty.

We all are guilty before him apart from Christ, and that's why we need Christ.

And I've told you before, the greatest purpose of God's law is to show us his

holiness, to show us our sin, and point us to Christ.

So, God's law reflects who God is and what he does.

God's grace demonstrates His worth, that He, far above any other gods that could

be imagined or conceived, He alone is worthy to be worshipped,

and not those other ones.

And that our sinfulness is so heinous because we can think we're worshipping

God when we're really worshipping ourselves.

Because what do we do when we recreate God in our own image and likeness?

Who are we actually worshiping.

When we say, well, I just don't think God is like that.

I can't believe in a God who would do that, or would say that.

Well, which God are you believing in? Which God are you trusting in?

You're trying to recreate God, a God that you're comfortable with.

And if you're comfortable with your God, he's probably not God because he's holy. He is righteous.

He is far above and beyond anything you can imagine in your pea brain.

And that's why he's revealed himself because he loves us.

He wants us to know him, but we must know him through the way that he's revealed

himself in his written word and in the final way that he revealed himself,

which is through Jesus most fully and finally through Jesus.

That's why if we come in here and we, any song that's sung that's not sung about

Jesus, about what Jesus has done apart from Jesus is not worship.

We can't worship apart from Christ

because Christ is the fullest representation. He is the image of God.

He is the image of the invisible God. God is invisible, but he's made himself visible.

He stepped down into creation. He put on flesh that people could touch and see and feel and hear.

And he walked among us. And people wrote down what he said and what he did.

And that's what we believe in today.

So when we come to the written word, we see Jesus, don't we?

We see the true image of the invisible God.

And so any other worship disconnected from Christ is false worship.

It's idolatry Because God determines who his image will be And he has determined

that his image His representation of himself is Jesus So it doesn't matter Muslim,

Jewish Or think about the biggest pagan you can imagine They're all false worship

All of them Because they are not worshipped in Christ.

They are not worshipped to Christ. They are not worshipped of Christ.

They are not worshipped for Christ.

Any worship apart from Christ is not true worship. It's idolatry.

So we must keep Jesus at the center of everything and who he is and what he has done.

Now, a few questions, just to bring this down to our own personal lives.

How are we, as modern believers, tempted toward or guilty of idolatry?

What false gods do we worship?

What worldly or self-centered ideas do we falsely attribute to God?

Well, I just believe God wants me to be happy. Well, I believe that too,

but he doesn't want you to be happy in anything that separates you from him.

So just because you want something and you say to yourself, God wants me to

be happy, therefore I should have this, doesn't mean he wants you to have it.

And you're fooling yourself otherwise.

What worldly or self-centered ideas do we falsely attribute to God?

How do we reimagine God in our own image, namely, worship ourselves?

How do we trust in other things, people, or ideas for that which only God can provide?

I'll illustrate that one for you, because so many of us are able-bodied,

and we're hard workers, and we know we can get up, and we can go out, and we can do it.

And if I just do a little bit more, then I'll have a little bit more And I I

pull myself up by my bootstraps and I do this and I make this and I achieve

that Can I ask you a simple question?

Who gives you the ability to do those things?

If you are trusting in your ability That's a false god You're not thanking god for your ability.

Therefore, you're not worshiping him He gives you the ability to work to move

to have your being Worship Him alone. Trust Him alone.

You could become paralyzed today and tomorrow will be a, the rest of your life will be different.

That could be taken away. That ability, whatever it is, could be taken away

in a moment. Where will your trust be then?

Well, it should be there now. It should be on the Lord now who gives you these abilities.

And then when you don't have the abilities you once had, who are you trusting

in? The same one you've been trusting in all the life.

The God who provides, the God who loves, the God who cares, the God who gives.

Now I said earlier we're all guilty of this Idolatry how can we repent Of our

own idolatry First we acknowledge that we trust In money, security,

Success And worldly wisdom Rather than God Can we all agree on that At some

point in our lives Or our day or our week We are going to be tempted And actually

guilty of Trusting in money,

security success or worldly wisdom rather than God.

We will say, well, that's just the way business is done these days,

rather than doing it the way God has ordained that it should be done in integrity and righteousness.

We will say, but, but, but I really need this now, even though God has said, that's not for you now.

Most often, our lives look like we love other things more than God.

Most often, our lives look like we love sports more than God.

What does it truly mean to love God with all our heart, all our soul,

all our mind, all our strength?

It means that He's on our mind all the time.

You see, it's not about just coming here once a week and calling yourself a

Christian and saying, because I live in America and because I was born to Christian

parents, I am a Christian. No, that's not how it works.

You might be a cultural Christian. You're still on your way to hell.

You have not bowed the knee to the God of the universe who created you for himself.

What does it mean to worship God? Just look at the time you spend doing other

things and you'll know whether you're worshiping him, whether you're loving him with all your heart.

Look at the energy you spend on other things and you'll know.

Look at what dominates your thoughts and your affections, and you'll know.

Is God at the center of all those things?

If He's not, it's not worship.

If He's not, it's false worship.

Ultimately worship of self. You're putting yourself in the place of God.

So acknowledge that you trust in these things over and above God.

Acknowledge that you trust in your own ideas about God rather than what he's

revealed about himself.

And acknowledge that Christ alone reveals the true and living God,

and Christ alone can satisfy your soul.

Therefore, Christ alone is worthy of worship.

Christ is all in all. He is the true image of God.

He is the one to be worshiped. No other.

The same Christ who represents God to us, represents us before God.

Do you understand that? The same Christ who came and represented the God of

heaven to us is the same Christ, who lived and died, got up on that cross and

represented you before God.

That's amazing. That's a mystery. That is love. That is mercy.

That is grace. That is worth worshiping.

We do not worship the written word. I've said this. We cannot worship without it either.

We worship the one true and living God, not as we imagine him to be,

but as he has revealed himself to.

Christ must be the image that we worship. And we worship falsely when we worship apart from him.

Father, we thank you that you have shown us how we are guilty of false worship.

And we want, Lord, in this moment to repent of this false worship.

And we want, Lord, to move forward in true worship, bowing before you,

the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has revealed himself to us

and spoken all that is right, all that is true, all that is holy.

And we want to live for you. We ask that you would help us to do this.

Help us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

Help us to lay aside our own thoughts and our own ideas of who you should be,

and bow to who you have revealed yourself to be.

By what you have done for us through Jesus.

And it's in his name that we pray. And all God's people said, Amen.