The 1st Commandment

Those are the big 5, and maybe you can think of some others. But imagine, 4300. That means humans have a wide range of beliefs about God, or gods, life, death, life after death, purpose and meaning just to name a few.

And some of these beliefs, if I am being honest are bizarre if not just plain satire.

For example have you ever heard of Pastafarianism? It is a relatively new religion started in 2005. These followers believe the earth was created by a flying spaghetti monster who drank a little too much and made all that is while inebriated.

Now, if it sound dumb, its because it is. It is mostly thought to be a fake religion, but never-the-less it is considered an official religion in some countries and has tens of thousands of followers in certain parts of the world.

And for most of us that sounds ridiculous, but even if you don’t consider them, there are still a lot of varying religious beliefs in our world.

And that isn’t something new. in fact when you read the Bible you discover that in the Old Testament especially, the God of the Bible’s people, the Jews, were constantly surrounded by nations and people that believed differently than they did.

One of the most compelling accounts was during the 400 years when Israel was held captive as slaves in Egypt.

And if you have been coming to our Sunday School program in the mornings before Church you know that we recently studied that account.

Power in the Text

It takes place in the book of Exodus. We learn that after Joseph was put in charge of all of Egypt at the end of Genesis 400 years go by.

And we also learn that after Joseph’s death and the death of Pharoah, a new King of Egypt eventually came into power and saw an opportunity to exploit the Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham.

They had become quite a large people group in Egypt and so Pharoah decided to enslave them and use them as forced laborers to accomplish all of his grand building projects.

And this was how the people of God lived for 400 years. That is until Moses came along

And we aren’t going to get into all the details this morning, but essentially Moses is used by God to lead his people out of the captivity of Egypt and in the process, God destroys Pharoah and his army.

When this happens, God’s people are now a people without a home or place to call their own. So God is going to lead them to a new land that they will call their own, a promised land.

But it wasn’t enough to give them this land. Remember, they had lived as slaves, totally dependent on Egypt for the last 400 years.

Here you have people who for generations were surround by Egyptian culture, laws, and religious beliefs.

And though they were the one true God’s chosen people, they had no idea what that meant or what that looked like in every day life.

So one of the first things God does is give them a new law and a new way of living called The Ten Commandments.

They were no longer to live with the Egyptian worldview and mindset. Their laws would not be Egyptian law, but God’s law.

Exodus 20:1-6 NLT Then God gave the people all these instructions: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. 3 “You must not have any other god but me.

4 “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 5 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. 6 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

The Ten Commandments are the foundation of the Old Testament law. The commandments are part of the promise God made with Israel at Mount Sinai where he told them he would make them a special, holy nation.

God begins the Ten Commandments by commanding Israel, “You must not have any other god but me” (20:3).

The law hinges on this command. That God’s people understand that he alone is God.

This was important because for 400 years they lived in a land that worshiped over 2,000 different gods or deities.

But this command was about more than just other gods. What the God of the Bible was saying is that there should be nothing else in your life that you worship as a god.

God continues to further define the commandment by stating in the 2nd command that we are to refrain from making any image of anything. We are told to we “must not bow down to them or worship them” (20:5).

In Hebrew, the word translated as “carved image” is pesel, also the word for an idol.

An idol may be carved or sculpted. But the central point about an idol is that it’s something we worship and serve.

God is saying you must never ever do that. God alone is deserving of our worship.

The Hebrew people only knew how to worship God through idolatry. That was all they saw for 400 years and God here is trying to break them completely away from that.

It’s important to remember in the context of idolatry that there is essentially a positive and a negative command. God commands that we do something positively: give priority to him (v. 3). He also commands something negatively: that we are not to construct idols to worship (v. 5)

Big Idea/Why it Matters

Pastor Tim Keller writes that an idol is “anything you seek to give you what only God can give”. An idol can be anything. It may not be something you physically carve, yet you have still made it a godlike figure in your life, seeking to get from it what only God can give and, in turn, giving it the worship and service that belongs only to God.

You see, so often we thing that idol worship is an ancient problem. We don’t carve or build images that we worship anymore so this isn’t really a problem we have to worry about.

We don’t typically carve little idol statues or figurines, but we certainly struggle just as much to day as our ancient counterparts with worship things other than God.

God commands that we worship him alone.

But so often we allow other things in our lives to become our focus to become the thing that we worship.

And we must be very careful. In the New Testament, Paul writes a letter called Romans to Gentile believers.

And in this letter he warns of God’s anger at sin and his inevitable judgement. It is here that we get some of the most clear teachings in all of the New Testament on God’s intentions for human sexuality.

We see Paul use some very strong language about those who twist and pervert God’s plan for sex and the judgement that they will face as a result.

We read about men and women trading natural sexual relationships for unnatural or homosexual relationships and the judgment that will come as a result.

But let’s back up and look at what he says led to this kind of sin in the first place. Because we like to point the finger and say look, God doesn’t approve. You are right, he doesn’t. But let’s look at the cause as well, because he also doesn’t approve of that.

Romans 1:21-25 NLT 21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.

You see, it was the breaking of these first 2 commands that led to people doing what was shameful in the eyes of God.

Idolatry is a big deal to God because not only does is rob God of his worship, it leads to what the Bible calls a depraved mind.

Meaning a mind that is so dark and twisted by sin that it what is right will seem wrong and what is wrong will seem right.

It is a mind that is so morally corrupted by evil, that it can no longer differentiate between righteousness and wickedness.

Romans 1:28-32 NLT 28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.

30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

Application/Closing

This is why Idolatry is a big deal. It leads no where good.

And the readers of this letter were probably thinking, well it is a good thing that we don’t have this problem with Idolatry. Paul says, not so fast.

Romans 2:1-3 NLT You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. 3 Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things?

Here Paul is saying don’t look down on these people, for you are just as bad, in fact maybe even worse because you have not excuse. You know better and yet still worship things other than God.

Listen friends, the reality is that all of us struggle at times with making things our idol.

Careers

Relationships

Families

Money

Position

Sex

Pleasures of life

All of these things if not kept in their proper perspective have the power to become idols that we look to to give us what only God can.

In order of priority, God should always come first in our life. Nothing should ever come before him. Whether in our family life, at work, in our downtime, or whatever the case may be, God must always come first.

This is vital. Out entire lives as followers of Jesus hinge on getting this right. This is why over the next couple of weeks we are going to be looking at some of the things that so easily become idols for us and how to prevent it from happening.