No Idols

The Ten Commandments might be the most quoted part of the Old Testament and also one of the most misunderstood. We sat down to talk about Exodus, Mount Sinai, and why God’s laws are not random restrictions but a personal invitation to know Him and live a transformed life built on truth.

We dig into the first commands about worship and idolatry, then ask the uncomfortable question: what do idols look like now? For most of us, they are not statues, they are priorities. Comfort, control, schedules, sports, screens, success, even the “you do you” mindset can quietly take God’s place. We also unpack what it means that God calls Himself a jealous God, and why that jealousy is not pettiness but covenant love that protects what belongs to Him.

From there we zoom out to the big worldview issue: can all religions be true at the same time? We talk about how Scripture presents God’s self-revelation, why Jesus is not merely a moral teacher, and why the cross and resurrection sit at the center of Christian faith. Finally, we wrestle with the purpose of the law, the trap of legalism, and how grace in Jesus changes obedience from a checklist into an outflow of love.

If you want practical Christian discipleship, clarity on biblical truth, and a fresh way to understand the Ten Commandments today, press play, then share this with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. What “idol” do you most need to put back in its place?

Transcript

Welcome Back And Spring Break Stories

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is the Kennesaw First Podcast. Life built on truth.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

What's up, guys? How we doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Doing good. How are you, man?

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Doing good, doing good. It's good to be back together. We had a little hiatus for spring break last week. Not that we were all gone all week, but just that it was just kind of how the calendar fell. Did y'all you guys have a good week?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yeah, it was great. Went with our our good friends, the the Willis family, down to the aquarium.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

That was last week. That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Um, yeah. Olivia actually she doesn't say aquarium, she just calls it the Quarium. Yeah. My favorite uh pronunciation that she used was quermium. Quermium. And so that's what we've been saying. Yeah. So now she she wakes up every day and is like, are we going back to the aquarium?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Did you go to the Tennessee or to the Atlanta? Atlanta Georgia. Oh yeah, that's fantastic. That's awesome. Yeah, you got to see a whale or something, didn't you? Yes. Whale sharks sharks. Beluga whales. Yeah, a couple of whale versions. That's a fantastic place to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Oh yeah. And it was easy. Took us took us, you know, 30 minutes to get down there, 30 minutes to get back. Like, easy.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

We found a very mid Mexican restaurant. Yeah. They got us by calling it Mexican Cajun. And I was like, man, that sounds great. And then we got in there and it was like straight out of the microwave. Yeah, like I've had better tacos made at home in 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

It was a factor meal.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

It was fine. It was fine. Now we did have we did have good milkshakes at the yard. Yeah, that was good. Those are like the big, fancy looking.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

They serve it in a mason jar and it's got a brownie on top of it. I mean, it's it's legitimately tall.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

I wish I was 40 years younger. Y'all would have invited me.

A Roadside Crash And Patience

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Hey, come on. You were off at the beach. I was about to say you did get a couple of days.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I was with my wife, and on the way down, we we got to Montgomery, and I got side swapped by a guy, and uh there was a concrete um I what do you call that, a fence or whatever right there? Like one of the sound beers. I couldn't move over further to the left. And the guy kept coming, and I looked at Jan and I said, I sure hope that guy's gonna stop. Well, he didn't. And um anyway, so we stopped on the side of the road and we sit there and called 911 twice uh hour later. They still didn't show up. Um I'd have thought you'd been to Mathens. I found out, strangely enough, that the guy hit me was a pastor from North Carolina. Hey. Yeah. Going to the beach? Yes, yes, a pastor from North Carolina, and he was going to the beach. He says, After Easter, I'm exhausted. I need I said, I get it there. So um, so anyway, so I'm still waiting for him to give a statement to his to his insurance company so I can get my car fixed. So praying right with God or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Did you did you get the name of the church? Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

I will expose any of that online.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

We don't get the insurance. Hear that, sir.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Commenting on their live stream. All enter your internet.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

I'm just thinking he probably got two weeks of vacation, and I got three days. Oh man.

Entering Exodus And The Ten

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So this uh this week we're actually gonna hit a couple of sermons, the past two weeks of sermons, and um we are stepping back into the Exodus series and we get to the Ten Commandments. And so if you are doing the Bible recap, this is probably where you start to lose a little bit of steam. So we are going to do this all together, just like in high school musical, we're all in this together, and uh we're done. Thank you. We're going to thought that was before your time. We're gonna go through the uh we're gonna go through the 10 commandments and go through some of the laws here. So, Pastor, will you kind of give us an overview of the summer?

Modern Idols And Real Commitment

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Hey, yeah. The Ten Commandments are you know, some people say it's God's top ten. But what I look at when I see the commandments, I see an invitation. I see an invitation from God where he's saying, listen, this is who I am, and this is the invitation I have for you to have a transformed life. And that's what we do here at Kennesaw First. We encounter God and experience transformed lives through the truth of his word. And so he provides it for us uh as we see him come down from heaven, come down on Mount Sinai. And the first thing he does is as he says in the first commandment, uh, you shall have no other gods before me. In that he makes a strong declaration and an invitation to say, there is a God. And number two, I want you to have a relationship with me. And the amount of things that he says in this jam-packed 10 commandments, 10 rules, whatever you want to call it, the amount of things he says about himself and about his relationship with us is just dumbfounding. But I love it because I I we just pretty much begin by it's kind of the same way that God does in Genesis 1, where he says there is a God. He doesn't argue the point. And there's so much evidence that there is a God in this world. I'm like Frank Turek and those guys that say, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. And that's exactly what we see when we see God coming down. He's the there's this expose of himself where he's saying, Listen, I am God, and you should have no gods before me. And this week we we get into some of really what that means in our life when we talk about idols. He says, You shall have no graven image. And in that, uh, in that whole unveiling of who God is to us, God says, Listen, I want a relationship with you, and I also want a commitment from you. What do you guys think about in the world that we're living in today? God coming and saying, Listen, I am going to, I'm going to command you that there will be no other gods before me, that there would be no idols. I mean, what do you think about our culture and our world when we are addressed by a God who says, Listen, I want accountability. I want you to know I've come down, I've revealed myself to you, I'm offering an invitation. But in that, there's this hinge of accountability, of requirement. I think sometimes one of the things that we struggle with is that God commands us to do anything. Uh what's your thoughts on commitment and the commitment not just maybe to God, but commitment to one another and commitment to what we see in the Ten Commandments. What's your thought about that? I call it a beautiful thing that any good relationship has commitment. But what's your thought about where we're at in the world today with that?

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yeah, I think that it's such a radically counter-cultural idea. And I think a lot of times it's easy for us to feel like the world is just so different now than it was when God was giving these commands. But if you look at culture, they were all following other gods, right? Our gods, the the little gods of today just look different. You know, like you said, we're probably not out in the woods carving up graven images and uh and carving up little idols. Uh, we had a we had a girl at the first church I ever served at um who came home one day and looked at her mom and said, I want to have an idol. Her mom's like, What do you mean? The little girl said, Well, uh, I want a little God that I can just keep in my room on the shelf that I can see and that I can talk to and that I can pray to. And uh she was she was saying she wanted to be able to see God is really what it was. Um, but we don't we don't do that, right? We don't see that, but we do prioritize a lot of things over God. Um, and so I I think that just this idea of commitment to one God and that he has expectations of us, like you said, is beautiful and freeing, but so countercultural to the you do you movement, the live your truth movement of uh that that we see running rampant.

Why Christianity Claims Exclusive Truth

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah, and so often we don't understand what God's up to in our life. He has to be God. Yeah, and that's why we have no other gods before him. Because when we don't understand what he's up to, because he happens to be God and we're not, sometimes we struggle with that control issue. And I think that's where the Ten Commandments kind of go of God saying, I want you to give up control. I want you to have a real relationship with me. I want you to to understand, but there will be a commitment in this relationship. And uh as we get into uh and got into this last week, as we look at um the idol worship, um, that was really a great opportunity to kind of re uh visit this thing that there is really one true God, and ultimately the evidence that there is that there is a true God. You know, there are big five religions in the world. There's, of course, uh Christianity, 31% of the world population is Christian, Islam 24%, Hinduism, 15%, and Buddhism is 7%. How in the world do we know that our religion, that our faith is based upon truth? How do we know that? And that's kind of where we venture into and ventured into as we looked at this idol worship. Because listen, while there are so many people that want us to say, coexist, you're all serving the same God. If you look at that, and if you look at the tenets of our faith and our belief systems, the bottom line is God has revealed himself to us. That's why we stick to the Bible, and the Bible in that revelation of who God is is so very different than what we see in world religions. There's multiples of world religions that say, yeah, we believe in Jesus, for example, but yet they do not believe that Jesus is truly God. And Jesus over and over made it extremely clear that he is God. That's one thing that sets apart Christianity from any other religion. And we base that on certain things like John 10, 30, where Jesus made the statement, I and the Father are one. Now, how do you misinterpret that? I don't know. Uh, before Abraham was born, he says, I am, and those big I am statements, of course, remind us that that's how God revealed himself to Moses. And he said, When who am I gonna tell that sent me? He said, You're gonna, you're gonna tell them, I am sent you. And so Jesus is saying, before Abraham was born, I am. I was there at the beginning. Jesus did so many things to reveal himself as God, and that is, he forgave sins according to Mark 2, he accepted worship, John 20, when Thomas comes in after the resurrection, and he says to Jesus, My Lord and my God. So he declares Jesus as God, and Jesus doesn't rebuke him for that. Uh, and Jesus made claims to that. For example, when he went into Nazareth, he got up in John chapter 10 when when he read Isaiah and uh that that whole event took place in John chapter 10. What we know happened is the the Jews there looked at him and said, We're gonna stone him because he's claiming to be God. They knew exactly what he was saying. So when when it comes to our faith, it God is not asking. I mean, God is singular on this. God is singular where he says, I am the true and only God. You can't hodgepodge all these different belief systems. I make myself known through my word, and when I make myself known through my word, Jesus says, I am the Logos, I am the subject of that word, I am the subject of life. And the whole Old Testament, New Testament unveils Jesus as that true and living God that we serve. What's your thoughts?

A Jealous God And Covenant Love

Putting God First In Practice

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, uh, so we see God even declare this before he gives the law in this little preamble. He says, I am the Lord your God, I'm the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And so he's a God that desires us to put him first, and he is worthy of that. Um, he is deserving of that. Um, I always I I also love this this idea of God being a jealous God. Um God is a jealous God. Uh, there are multiple times that He that this is referenced, Exodus 34, 13, Deuteronomy 4, 24, and 6, 15, Joshua 24, 19, Nahum 1, 2. There are many times that God is reserved is that God is referred to as a jealous God. Uh so this jealousy, it flows out of a love and it flows out of a covenant relationship. You know, in our terms, jealous means bad. It means uh kind of passion that is put in the wrong places. Uh it means that you're possessive in a negative way, but here God is jealous for our attention because he's the source of everything. And he is Yahweh, he is Elohim. And uh I love what Grudum says about God uh being jealous. He says this that God's jealousy means God continually seeks to protect his own honor. Um, I just think that's a that's a really profound definition of God being jealous. Uh it shows us yet another attribute of God, it shows us uh a part of God's character and his substance. Um, and so yeah, I think God deserves to be first. Um, I think it uh is necessary that he's first. Um so the question now for you guys is what does putting God first in our lives look like practically? Because um Okay, so there's this viral social media clip that's going around of a pastor saying, I don't believe that Jesus died for my sins. Have you seen this? Uh real actual pastor at a church saying, I don't believe that Jesus died for my sins. He goes on to kind of do this theological gymnastics of trying to explain that I don't believe that because I don't understand the sacrificial system. And the sacrificial system was he says it was man-made, he makes some bold claims, but what he was what he was getting at, and I think this is some of the some of the trouble that we get into, is uh some of these these old testament things that are set up not applying to us to uh today. And how do we how do we reconcile old testament things applying to us today? And it's like, well, I don't worship a golden calf, I don't go out and I don't carve an an image out of something else, but we still have idols today, they just look different. So so what does what does refraining from having an idol and what does look what does putting God first look like for us?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

There's so many things to unpackage here. One thing is to me it means is there are not multiple ways to God. And while we might want to say, okay, everybody that believes in God has a relationship with God, literally, God says, when he says, You shall have no other gods before me, that's pretty plain spoken. It means to me that there is only one way of God, and I must adhere, unlike what your uh other pastor guy there, that's that information that's going around, that person says, Jesus didn't die on the cross for me. My goodness, that's the very core of the gospel. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

And so if you start trying to intermix and mingle different belief systems instead of God's word into something, guess what you end up with? You end up with nothing. And that's precisely where the world wants to go. It wants to go and say, okay, I'm okay, you're okay, and everybody's going to heaven, and let's all have a funeral for everybody and say they're all going to Jesus. And, you know, um, and the reality is, is no matter what is said, the last uh, you know, the last days before they bury our body, no matter what is said from a pulpit, what really matters is what's said before God. And that is is I knew them. Yeah. So we have to know God. We have to know God. I love the idea of the jealousy of God, because there's two types of jealousy. You know, uh, one of the things I mentioned in the passage uh as I was going through that is the jealousy of God. There's two different types of jealousy. There's godly jealousy and ungodly jealousy. One of those godly jealousies is like, for example, if if you own something, if something belongs to you and somebody's trying to take it away, that is a godly jealousy over that. Probably the extreme of that, and God uses this whole imagery as well. The extreme of that is somebody's flirting with your wife. Now, that is not okay all up in here. Right. You know, it's not gonna be okay all up in here at all. It shouldn't be okay all up in here. Uh, and the reason why is because that is my wife. But there's an ungodly jealousy that happens to be uh a jealousy over something maybe that somebody else, somebody shows up on the church parking lot, and you know, they've got uh they've got a brand new Jeep. You know, I'm a Jeep guy. So uh so say they have a brand new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392, uh high-end off-road hardware interior leather upgrades, 470 horsepower, 6.4 liter Hemi V8 engine, limited production production ramp, raw power, and uh elite capability premium presence all in one. And all of a sudden I'm like, man, uh my Jeep's not looking so good anymore. You know, then you remember it's a Jeep, and it probably didn't get to the parking lot anyway. So that is an ungodly jealousy when you start saying, Boy, I really want that. Uh and I'm really upset that that doesn't belong to me. And God rightfully has laid his stake to our life when the nails went into the cross through his son's hands and feet, when the crown of thorns was put up on his head, God laid his claims on us, and so and and he said, That's how we became his bride. So the beauty of that, God has every right to be a jealous God in that way because God loves us that much. Listen, you're not jealous over something you don't care about, yeah. Um, but a godly jealousy says, Hey, I am jealous for you, 1 Corinthians 11 3. I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Jesus Christ. That's the goal of the Heavenly Father, is to present us to Christ. So, yeah, there's this jealousy over that. So I think in that whole understanding of no idols in my life, that says, I belong to Jesus. This is an exclusive relationship.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

And then when you when it comes to to practically doing that, to practically living as this isn't as this is an exclusive relationship, is prioritizing Christ over all things and actually trusting that He is over all things. Uh so what that might look like is refusing to be a part of things that are going to pull us away from Him. Um you know, travel baseball is the one that catches it the most, right? It it's visible uh when you have folks who are more committed to a baseball team than they are to the church, but it gets far more personal than that, right? It's when we choose to sleep an extra 30 minutes instead of getting up and giving Jesus time, instead of spending time investing. That relationship. It's uh instead of staying glued to our TV at night, uh making sure that I watch every minute of the Braves game, making sure that I have a conversation with my boys about who Jesus is. What what what is Jesus teaching me? What is Jesus teaching you? Um, and illustrating this. I had a friend who text me one Sunday morning while I was teaching uh a Sunday school class, and it was something that uh I don't know if he said it or if someone else had said it and he was just sending it to me. But it said, if Jesus is the most important thing about you, he's gonna come up in conversation. And that's just a great heart check for us. Like, if I'm putting Jesus first, I'm gonna talk about him by nature. You know, I shouldn't talk about the South Carolina game cocks more than I talk about Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

I think when when we begin to stray away, our motive becomes legalism over love. Like, why do I want to get up in the morning and spend that extra time with Jesus? Is it because of legalism? That's something I should do, mark it off. It's like the old Sunday school envelope when I was growing up, you know. It's like, okay, did I show up? Where was I on time? Did I give my offering? You know, and you do this checkbox mentality with God. And I think that's been one of the things that God has used in my life as He says, Is what you're doing, is that out of legalism or is it out of love? Do you love me so much? Do you want to spend time with me? And I spent time with my wife this last week, and it was exclusive time. We spent three days, we didn't know anybody else around us, and we sit and we talked, we ate together, we had, it was like a three-day date. Yeah, and it was fantastic, you know, and I loved it. And something that I think was a real reset in uh in our marriage, really, and that we need those times, and and God calls us to those times in our life on a daily basis. And sometimes He calls us out to a retreat, you know. We it's it's not going to something, oh, okay, I guess the church is having this retreat thing. Sometimes we just need a spiritual retreat. And that might just be, you know, like, okay, I'm gonna convince to the next 30 days. There's gonna be, I'm just gonna take some special time with God. I'm gonna have a walk, yeah, uh, and uh a little hike, you know, with God in the morning. Uh, and it might just be down your street and back, but it's like, I'm gonna take some time for God. He loves that. Why do we have such a hard time thinking that he does not absolutely love that? If we can understand what that's like to have those moments of time with our mates, why cannot we think about it the same way that God says, I am jealous over you, like a husband? You know, Jesus is looking forward to us being presented in heaven someday as a bride, this big marriage supper of the lamb and all the things we read prophetically about what's going on. Do you think Jesus, Jesus went to go prepare a place for us? And the imagery that he uses is really of a man that goes and prepares a place so that he can come back and get his bride and they can get married. Y'all remember what it was like, right? Right before you got married, you're like smitten. It's like how you're counting the days down, how quickly can it be before we uh have our wedding, you know? And God loves that. God's looking at us in that same way. Strangely enough, right now, yeah, he longs for his bride to be home with him. And so he loves it when as we're awaiting that day, that we love to say, you know what, I'm gonna slip away. When I was growing up in my high school years in the 80s, we that we there was this old song that went, Why don't we steal away? Do you ever heard that song?

SPEAKER_04 26:07

No.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Oh, y'all that didn't get the good music. But nonetheless, uh, it goes like, Why don't we steal away, steal away into the night? And some of our listeners that are my age will know what I'm talking about. But but I always loved that song because it's like there's always this, let's steal away, let's go away for a moment, let's take some time and let's really enjoy one another.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

And when you use that analogy of like the the godly jealousy of, hey, someone is, you know, flirting with my wife, and I get a little, I get a little upset about it, it's because like, hey, she belongs to me.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yes.

Sloppy Wet Kiss Lyrics Detour

SPEAKER_01 26:48

And it's the same thing. God gets jealous because it's like, those are my people. Yeah, those are my children that I live in covenant with. And when he sees us getting straying and getting tossed to and fro between this, that, and the other, he gets he gets jealous. And he uh he has every right to do so because we belong to him. And it shouldn't bring us fear, it should bring us comfort, it should bring us hope because it it's like, hey, I know no matter what, I belong to him. And uh so just just beautiful. I love I I just love that. Um, I've always kind of liked that. There's that song How He Loves uh by David Crowder, and it says, He is jealous for me. And um, you know, people have always kind of had a problem with that. Uh not a problem, but just trying to decipher what that means. It feels too human too. Yeah, it feels it feels like, wait, why is he jealous? Does that mean he's mean? Does that mean he's he's coveting? Does that mean he's breaking his own Ten Commandments? Um, so uh, but anyways, so next question is Hang on, hang on.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Are you a sloppy wet kiss? Okay. Or where are we going? We're gonna talk about if we're gonna talk about how he loves us, okay. Here's the song. Here's my thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Here's my thing. Do you know what do you know what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I am totally on planet Mars. I mean it's intended to slip out for a minute. He's gonna steal away for a minute. I'm gonna steal away with the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

No, no, there's a line in the song. It says part of the bridge, and it says Um Heaven meets Earth like an either unforeseen kiss or a sloppy wet kiss. Okay. Heaven meets earth like a butta butt kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, that whole line, right? Don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way he loves us, right? So sorry I had to sing it to get it in my head.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah, it's been it's been quite the uh it's a quite the controversy and debate. So if I'm singing this in front of people and around people, I am unforeseen kiss, and I had I was very staunchly unforeseen, but then um we had uh a baby and you get sloppy wet kisses, and it's like it's like okay, this makes a little bit more sense now.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

That went exponentially better than I thought it could have. Like when you said I was staunchly this, and then you got to the fact that you had a baby. It's like, okay, I'm good with this now. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

That's true. Still, if I'm seeing it in front of people, I'm not gonna see it. So I kissed.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Well, because someone's gonna get mad about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, it gets weird.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

I'm just looking forward to seeing this on the screen on Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yeah, there we go. Sloppy. You know what? If we ever if we ever do sing it, I'll just leave that blank. Fill it in.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Fill it in with however you want to say it. If Crowder can call in, maybe he can explain all this to us. Yeah, yeah. That would be nice. Okay. Crowder. We'll we'll be wet.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yeah, we know you're one of our listeners, Dave, so yeah. You could just he's local, right? All around. I think he was at least. He used to be atlanta. Yeah.

Why God Gives Laws We Break

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Yeah. So, all right. So, next question. I want to zoom out just a bit, and um we can we can kind of wrap it up with this. What's the point? What's the purpose? What why why did God give these laws? You know, okay, so so some of the arguments are why did God give us laws that he knew we were gonna break? Um, why did a God who requires animal sacrifice give us laws that he knew we would break? And so what what is the purpose of the Ten Commandments? Why even have them if we knew we're gonna we're gonna break them? We're we're not going to be able to uphold them. Um, so so what are what are y'all's thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 31:00

So the Ten Commandments and the law in general does a few things for us, right? Uh one, like Pastor Perry did a great job of explaining, it gives us evidence that the God of the universe wants a relationship with us, right? We were designed to be in a relationship with him, and he gives us a picture of what that looks like, right? And as we go throughout the Ten Commandments, we'll see more and more of this design that God created us to have, right? Then it also shows us our need for him and his his. It shows us our need for his grace and his mercy, for him to be able to uh to say, hey, listen, this was the design, and because of sin, the design's broken. Um, I think a lot of times it's easy for us to get caught up in the timing of the revelation of the law as opposed to understanding God is unchanging, right? And so when we get bogged down in uh, well, he didn't give them the law until this point in history. Uh so why did he set it up so that they were gonna fail? Humanity had already fallen, right? We had one rule, yeah. One rule, and we didn't make it long with that one rule, yeah, right? And so uh, so it's not that God tried to set us up to fail. Instead, it's his grace, him revealing it shows us that hey, there is something better. I want something better for you. Um, and the law was the first step in us on being able to understand our need for him. Then we get Jesus to come and be the perfect fulfillment of that. Uh, and so when we can zoom out and see the whole picture, right? The the Israelites walking with Moses in the wilderness, they had it the hardest of any of us because they they didn't get to see the full picture. But us as New Testament believers, as 21st century believers, we get to see the whole picture. We have the whole story already told. We even have the last chapter that just hadn't happened yet.

unknown 33:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

And so we we get to know hey, Jesus came and fulfilled this law perfectly, and we get to experience the freedom through a relationship with him. We get to experience uh that salvation from the sin that broke the whole thing to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah, that's a perfect answer. And really, my my things I would I would just echo is that um it it shows us and reveals us, uh, reveals our sin and our need for that redemption, for that atonement, uh, for that uh way that we could be made right with God. It kind of puts guardrails uh for us, um, and it also shows us God's promise. And it's like, hey, you are my people. We're gonna live like this. And listen, you're not gonna get it right. In fact, Moses is gonna turn around as soon as I'm done, go down to the bottom of the mountain, and they're gonna be breaking law number one. Literally, literally number one.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

One and two. They're raising up a calf, which is a knotty.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

And Moses is gonna want to break more because he's gonna want to murder them. And uh pretty much. So it it is this system that we ultimately don't live up to, but got what God is trying to show them is like, I don't need you to live up to it. Yeah. Because one, I'm sovereign and I'm also sending someone who will fulfill that law, who will be that, and who will stand in your place so that you can be made right with me and be forgiven. And uh so I I I see it less as a set of rules and more as a promise.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Yeah. I like that, but I also love the parameters of the Ten Commandments and setting up, they were preparing to set up a nation. This is really the beginning of what there would be, we would be like rule with God over it. Uh, we say in America, in God we trust, and we we speak about being a Christian nation and being built upon Christian principles, Judeo Christian principles. And what I love about this is this is this is really a strong statement about right and wrong. It really is. And God will I I'm studying the book of a Leviticus of all things uh during my quiet time. And I was at uh Leviticus 16, 17, 18 today, those three chapters, and he restates all of these commandments, and then he adds additional comment to it of what this looks like and what it what it means to build a society upon scripture. And so I love that he does that as well. So I think that's a benefit of it, that our laws that we have that we are that should govern our society and govern our life as well would be based upon the holiness of God. We want to live, we want to live and enjoy the a peaceful, quiet life. We're supposed to pray for those in governing authorities, but what for? That they would lead us to truth and that the laws that are established even in our society would be based upon these ten laws uh that are laws that reveal His holiness and real reveal right relationships with one another and how that should be managed in this world.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Well, and if the point was to never break these laws or to try to live up to these laws, then we would have to keep performing. We would have to keep living up to it, and we would never, ever reach forgiveness. And so the fact that God's in Jesus um really, really kind of helps us out in that situation. Um, I had something and it just left my brain.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Well, so that thought it opens the door right to that question you asked a little bit ago, Pastor Perry, where you said, uh, am I doing this for legalism or am I doing this for love? Right. And that's one of the things that I try and hit our students with regularly. And it's not so I don't phrase it that way, um, but the idea of am I doing this because I love Jesus? Like, is this becoming an outflow of who I am because I honor him? Or is this me trying to earn his love and grace and mercy? Right. And and the law, I think, is a great picture of that. It helps us see that when we can see that whole picture.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

And that's exactly kind of where we begin when we talk about there is a God. Do we know who he is? What is that God like? And his goal is to make us like him. And the redemption, the salvation of Jesus that he provides opens up a relationship with him so that we can know him. And then as a result of that, we become like him. The Bible says to be imitators of me. That's the that's the intent that God has. God intends for us to be a physical display of his lordship and presence uh in the life of a human being that's a walking and talking, I like to say it a worship center. We're we're we take church into the world. We really do. And the reason why is because if we meet God at church, we're taking God as well into the world. We it's this thing uh called a relationship with God is not a Sunday thing. Yeah. It's Sunday is one element of it. Yep. But every day of the week, and that's what I encourage us all to think about today, is this every day of the week is an opportunity to obey his laws. But beyond that, to understand that Jesus made a way even though we failed in them, so that in turn we could seek after him, and his holiness can actually begin to develop in my lifestyle and my behaviors, and so that people would see Jesus and the result would be that we would glorify God in our body, and that they would obviously from that see our good works and glorify the Bible says, our Father who is in heaven. That's a goal.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Well, and again, touching on that legalism versus love, if you look at the structure, the first four are about our relationship with God, the last six are about our relationship with others, and it is all about how do we love God and how do we love people, which in the New Testament that's the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. And if, like, man, if you could just figure out how to do those two things and do them to the best of your ability, I mean, you've done it. You figured it out. Um, so guys, I have enjoyed this conversation today. We hope that you have enjoyed it today, and as we wrap it up, we're reminded that the center of everything is a clear and compelling truth, that there is one true God who not only reveals himself to us, but he invites us into a personal relationship with him. He calls us to place him above every competing priority, to let go of the subtle and not so subtle idols that can take hold of our hearts, and to trust him as our ultimate source, savior, and king. In a world full of distractions and substitutes, the invitation remains simple but powerful. Hold tightly to the real God because only he can rescue, redeem, and truly satisfy. Gentlemen, see you next week. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

We're glad you joined us for today's segment. We believe a life built on truth is a life that transforms everything. To stay connected, share this message, subscribe, or visit us online at Kennesaw First.church. We'll see you next time. Keep building your life on truth.