SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: And we say all creatures of our God and King.
SPEAKER_01: It brings me great pleasure because finally my cat's gonna have to listen to somebody.
SPEAKER_01: All creatures of our God and King.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's something inherent in this great uh uh uh hymn of confession that that that you're saying about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You're not coming as a bully, you're coming as the one and only God who was it is and is to come.
SPEAKER_01: And it would be hate for you not to tell us the truth about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: It is not love for there to be truth about you and you not reveal it to us.
SPEAKER_01: It would be hate for this to be true and you not tell us.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, you should have no, you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're telling us something about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, give us ears to hear what you're saying about yourself today.
SPEAKER_01: Too often we come to church and preachers talk to us about us.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need another sermon about us, we need a sermon about you today.
SPEAKER_01: And so give us that, we pray, in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Exodus chapter 20.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you're in the first service, and so you're probably, I've been sick this week.
SPEAKER_01: You're probably gonna get the best of my voice.
SPEAKER_01: I prayed this morning, Lord, listen, let me get through the three services.
SPEAKER_01: And if I lose my voice and I can't talk for the rest of the week, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: And from our bathroom, my wife went, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so uh I pardon me if my voice sounds a little crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it it any anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're in a we're going to the book of Exodus and we're up to the part of the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01: We're starting today a series that we call flourish, uh, because this is what God says, I created you.
SPEAKER_01: These are not ten rules you got to keep to get into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: This is not ten things you got to do, not ten things to put on your bucket list.
SPEAKER_01: God says these are ten realities that just kind of rise out of our relationship, you and me.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to read Exodus chapter 20, the first three verses.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and then 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.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me read that again.
SPEAKER_01: It's very short.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: It's first commandment.
SPEAKER_01: And the commandments are, I mean, I mean, they start off with our relationship with God, and then they get to our relationship with other people, which is why when the disciples ask Jesus, what is the greatest commandment?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Love the Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why we call this series on the Ten Commandments Flourish, because this is the crux.
SPEAKER_01: This is the, if you boil it all down, it's this right here.
SPEAKER_01: It's loving God and loving people.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the intent of the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01: That's the life that flourishes.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk to you this morning about the prominence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say a couple of my first two points are really by way of introduction, hey, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: And then I really want to camp on my last point.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just get to it.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing the text says to us this morning is this is that speaking is an expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: Speaking is an expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you're when you're kind of sideways with your wife and she's kind of like, hey, look, I just I don't need to talk right now because I'm mad.
SPEAKER_01: I may say some things that I regret later.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so when you're mad and you you love that person, but you're like, I just can't talk because I'm not in a good way.
SPEAKER_01: However, remember when you first fell in love?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here been married over 20 years?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody?
SPEAKER_01: Yes?
SPEAKER_01: Celebrated 23 yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when you first like when we first we used to love to talk on the phone?
SPEAKER_01: I don't like talk on the phone now.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll be driving around, my wife will call me, and it's just like, hey, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: And my first thought is, there's an Eric Church song on the radio.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to miss this.
SPEAKER_01: That's how shallow I am.
SPEAKER_01: I was rolling around the other day listening to Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Misunderstood, my new favorite song.
SPEAKER_01: That's my theme song.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife calls, and I was like, Do I want to listen to the rest of this song?
SPEAKER_01: Do I want to talk to my wife?
SPEAKER_01: And then I remembered I have voicemail.
SPEAKER_01: She can leave a message.
SPEAKER_01: If it's urgent, I can call her right back.
SPEAKER_01: But no, she left a message and it was, hey, I just had a thought I wanted to share with you.
SPEAKER_01: Call me when you get a chance.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you say to me, call me when you get a chance, I take that literally.
SPEAKER_01: I will call you when I get a chance.
SPEAKER_01: You can call me at 11, 12 in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get a chance till 5 o'clock when I stop studying and come out of the cave.
SPEAKER_01: Then I return phone calls.
SPEAKER_01: My wife said, Where have you been all day?
SPEAKER_01: I've been with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You said, Call me when I got a chance.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first chance I got.
SPEAKER_01: Are you really that busy?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I am.
SPEAKER_01: Well, why didn't you answer it?
SPEAKER_01: Because there was a song on the radio I wanted to listen to.
SPEAKER_01: I went home and it's very quiet that night.
SPEAKER_01: See, when you love somebody, when you're in love, when you first fell in love, me 20 year old people have been married 20 years.
SPEAKER_01: When you first fell in love, you just couldn't stop talking.
SPEAKER_01: You talked all the time.
SPEAKER_01: You talked in late into the night, talked on the phone.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's kind of like, hey, really?
SPEAKER_01: I I I go home and it's like, how's your day?
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's I have a boring job.
SPEAKER_01: I read books by dead people, I pastor people, I come home.
SPEAKER_01: What's for supper?
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm getting?
SPEAKER_01: That's all I got.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm a very one-dimensional person.
SPEAKER_01: To which she always says, No, you're a very highly functioning bipolar.
SPEAKER_01: You're not one-dimensional.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the point speaking is an expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Start with the fact that he didn't have to.
SPEAKER_01: Start that the fact, look at verse one.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and God spoke all these words saying, See, what that's a throwaway sentence in most of our minds.
SPEAKER_01: We read that, we just keep going to the good stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, that's the greatness of the text right there.
SPEAKER_01: In one half of a sentence, it's not even a whole sentence.
SPEAKER_01: And God spoke all these words saying, What do you mean speaking is an expression of love?
SPEAKER_01: He didn't have to.
SPEAKER_01: And if God hadn't spoken, see, here's my point.
SPEAKER_01: We've gotten to the point in our culture where we take God's speaking for granted.
SPEAKER_01: We don't put the weight on God speaking that we should.
SPEAKER_01: See, if he hadn't spoken, there'd be no Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: There'd be no Israel, there'd be no nations of priests or kingdom of priests, and no Bible, no church, no us, and no creation.
SPEAKER_01: He said, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: If you're an Exodus, go to the left, go to the first page of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: I won't read all of this, but I'll just you'll see, I want you to see a rhythm that that happens in the creation narrative.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 1:1.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever is kind of unformed in your life, whatever that's got a big I don't know on it, the Spirit of God this morning is kind of hovering over that.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, beloved, but look at me.
SPEAKER_01: God has something to say, to speak into that that's going to be very shaping about that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, uh and the spirit was of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
SPEAKER_01: And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light and the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: He called night.
SPEAKER_01: And there was evening and there was morning the first day.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water and let it separate the waters from the waters.
SPEAKER_01: And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse, and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: And God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening, there was morning the second day.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, who does God go home to that night to say, honey, how was your day?
SPEAKER_01: It was great.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you do?
SPEAKER_01: I made heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I made tuna casserole.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, and God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear.
SPEAKER_01: And and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: See, here's the pattern of the rhythm.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: See, I want us to kind of reclaim and have a right thought process about God speaking, because we think of God speaking as being restrictive, and yet the Bible teaches us that when God speaks, something comes into being, something uh is going to exist that did not exist before.
SPEAKER_01: So anytime you read something in the Bible, don't just read what it says, but think about it the way the Bible teaches us to think in Genesis 1 about God speaking.
SPEAKER_01: Because when God speaks, it's not like, okay, here's the man to put his foot on my neck and keep me down again.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't want me to be happy.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't want me to have a boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't want me to have a girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01: What if this, what if the reason you're 26 and you don't have a relationship, guys, is because God's preserving and saving you for marriage, not just for girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible doesn't have a category for lover or girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's nowhere in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Not a category for my lover, this is my girlfriend.
SPEAKER_01: No, the Bible has a category for wife.
SPEAKER_01: See, something that didn't exist.
SPEAKER_01: And so when God speaks, something that didn't exist comes into existence.
SPEAKER_01: And here's my favorite part.
SPEAKER_01: Skip down to verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heaven to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.
SPEAKER_01: And let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And it was so.
SPEAKER_01: And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, sun, and the lesser light to rule the night, moon, and the stars.
SPEAKER_01: It's my favorite part of the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: I laughed out loud this week when I read that.
SPEAKER_01: The greater light, the lesser light, one's gonna rule the day, one's gonna rule the night, dash, and the stars.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I'll just throw in some stars for grins and giggles.
SPEAKER_01: Have you thought about the stars lately?
SPEAKER_01: I I because this week I thought about the stars a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to see stars here in Sugarland.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta go to the country to see some stars.
SPEAKER_01: But there's stars, and then there's like a star, like the biggest star that ever existed is a star called R136A1.
SPEAKER_01: And it's located in the large Megellanic cloud, which is 165,000 light years away.
SPEAKER_01: Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second per second.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that is, but but I got it right on the test in seventh grade science per second per second.
SPEAKER_01: That's a picture of the star that I'm telling you about.
SPEAKER_01: It's the biggest star in the solar system.
SPEAKER_01: And just in a throwaway line, God says, Hey, by the way, I'm I made the greater light to rule the day, that'd be the sun, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.
SPEAKER_01: As just a little happenstance, boom, I made some stars.
SPEAKER_01: This is the God that speaks every time you open your Bible, and he just, and some stars thrown in for extra good measure.
SPEAKER_01: This is R136A1.
SPEAKER_01: It's 165,000 light years away.
SPEAKER_01: It is 265 times bigger than the sun.
SPEAKER_01: And it radiates, it emanates away, it radiates away nine million times more energy than the sun, and it is 94,000 times brighter than the sun.
SPEAKER_01: The human, all humans and all the planets that ever existed and do exist right now could not stand that if it was closer to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is 94,000 times brighter than the sun.
SPEAKER_01: Now you're probably wondering, oh, if you're visiting today, like, hey, Bill Nye Science God, where's the preacher?
SPEAKER_01: Right here.
SPEAKER_01: Because the God that says, who spoke, by the way, don't miss that.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, and God said, and God said, and God said, and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: God said, and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: God said and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, whatever doesn't exist in your life right now, the greatest temptation you're gonna face is to go out and create it yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: See, we we got to reclaim uh uh the have it, think rightly about this process about God speaking, because when we think God speaks and it's restrictive, oh, Debbie Downer here's to kill my fun.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: God's telling me what else I can't do.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the Bible frames God speaking as being creative, and that something that didn't exist suddenly comes into existence because God said and it was so.
SPEAKER_01: So, when God comes to speak to us, perhaps we should frame it in those terms and ask ourselves what is not existing in my life that God's wanting to create in me by speaking to me?
SPEAKER_01: What's what's not here in me?
SPEAKER_01: What character, quality, what virtue, what understanding, what discipline is God instead of kicking against the goads all the time, man, why is it always?
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: He made the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and and the stars.
SPEAKER_01: When you see, you feel, we we feel it first, what what's not there, and we set out, see, God's not restrictive, God's creative, but when we try to create, what we create is restrictive.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says that the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're in the process of creating something for yourself today, not listening to the God who speaks, the God who made the the sun and the moon and kind of said, and some stars, bam.
SPEAKER_01: This God who spoke creation into existence.
SPEAKER_01: See, speaking is an expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: So I walked around this entire week just kind of with a grin on my face, just kind of looking around, kind of like, man, you love people.
SPEAKER_01: Because the seasons are fixing to change.
SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons I got sick was because one day it was 80 and the next day it was 38.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, That's because I created it to be that way.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you cats to think that y'all are in charge of this thing.
SPEAKER_01: And I just laughed out loud.
SPEAKER_01: And people around me all the way are like, You okay?
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not okay.
SPEAKER_01: See, the first thing, this the prominence of God to speaking is an expression of love.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, command is evidence of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: It's verse 2 of Exodus 20.
SPEAKER_01: Command is evidence of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, it's this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to spend a lot of time on this.
SPEAKER_01: Someone tells you what to do, and you respond with, Hey, you're not my mom.
SPEAKER_01: You're not my boss who died and left you boss.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, what you're saying is, hey, we don't have a relationship that supports your request.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it happened all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We for our kids got to an age we could leave them, we'd get a phone call from our youngest.
SPEAKER_01: Mom, we'd be at dinner, we'd be at Carabas, and we're having a nice quiet dinner, or we'd be, you know, getting a burger somewhere, just hiding out from our kids.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, did I say that?
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the phone would start ringing.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'd be gone 45 minutes, phone start ringing, Mom, Madison's using the teacher tone on me.
SPEAKER_01: I look at my wife and she's like, it's okay, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Well, sweetie, I just tell Madison she's not your teacher, she's not your parent, she's your sister.
SPEAKER_01: Well, she's telling me I gotta eat some vegetables.
SPEAKER_01: I can't just eat all chicken and da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, our youngest was saying to her big sister, hey, we don't have a relationship that supports you talking to me like this.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because when God says to them, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, he's saying, We have a relationship that supports everything I'm fixing to say to you.
SPEAKER_01: Because your kind of your posture towards the commandments is really a reflection of how you think about your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: You can't separate the commandments from the commander.
SPEAKER_01: You can't separate that from your relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so, command is evidence of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so ask yourself, based on not just these ten great words he gives us, but but but but the whole, the totality of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The way you think about that, what does that say about your relationship with God?
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly and finally, this morning, the command is revealing.
SPEAKER_01: It's revealing.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean it tells us something about God.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to it again.
SPEAKER_01: Verse three you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you, here's the application for the sermon today.
SPEAKER_01: Usually we wait till the end, or sometimes, uh most of the time, I'm like, that's when you and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all get it sorted.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but I want this to kind of make this your um meditation this week.
SPEAKER_01: I almost said chant, but I'd be like oh, that's new age.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, just just kind of your mantra.
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: Because yesterday, about 4:30, watching football, and I'm just like, can we get a quarterback?
SPEAKER_01: Can we?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, God, put put anybody in there.
SPEAKER_01: Brian Hoyer is not good.
SPEAKER_01: He makes me think bad thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: Golly.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm JJ Watt, I'm like, mmm.
SPEAKER_01: And about 4:30, something said, Hey, you're hungry.
SPEAKER_01: We got some microwave popcorn.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, eat some popcorn.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we got some dip, we got some chip.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what will swallow up in me?
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: You know, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that God, little G, takes many forms.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's that glass of whatever we look forward to after the kids go to bed.
SPEAKER_01: Whoopsie! Hey, I'm not the guy that says, Oh, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: No, you can do that.
SPEAKER_01: But be careful because you start off choosing that, and then that starts choosing you.
SPEAKER_01: That's when you might want to pump the brakes a little bit on that.
SPEAKER_01: God, little G, takes many forms.
SPEAKER_01: See, you can't turn away from God without turning to something else.
SPEAKER_01: When he says, You shall have no other gods before me, here's four things it tells us about God this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, that he's demanding.
SPEAKER_01: That God is demanding.
SPEAKER_01: That's something we don't say in church enough.
SPEAKER_01: We make it sound like God's this love-struck teenager out there just knocking on the door of your heart, going, Pretty please, we'll have it on top.
SPEAKER_01: Help a brother out.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Who does God think he is that he says, You shall have no other guys before me?
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_01: I brought a quote.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, y'all all think Don Minton, how many of y'all know Don Minton, our new spiritual formation pastor?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all all think, oh, Don's so sweet and nice.
SPEAKER_01: Shut up.
SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of stuff that Don Minton sends to the staff.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, let's think about this.
SPEAKER_01: I read this and thought this would be good.
SPEAKER_01: This is a quote from a man named Mike Iacanelli.
SPEAKER_01: Mike is a guy that worked for students for years, started a ministry called Youth Specialties.
SPEAKER_01: He said this think about the terms of God being demanding.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that's not sexy, that's not politically correct, but that's biblically accurate.
SPEAKER_01: God is the demanding God.
SPEAKER_01: He always has been.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the quote: the tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified.
SPEAKER_01: We aren't afraid of God, we aren't afraid of Jesus, we aren't afraid of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: As a result, we've ended up with a need-centered gospel that attracts thousands but transforms no one.
SPEAKER_01: What happened to the bone-chilling, earth-shattering, gut-wrenching, knee-knocking, heart-stopping, life-changing fear that left us speechless, paralyzed, and helpless?
SPEAKER_01: What happened to those moments when you and I would open our Bibles and our hands started shaking because we were afraid of the truth we might find there?
SPEAKER_01: William Barclay, the commentator, Barclay tells us that the word used in the Bible for truth has three meanings.
SPEAKER_01: A word used to describe a wrestler grabbing an opponent by the throat, a word meaning to flay an animal, and a word used to describe the humiliation of a criminal who is paraded in front of a crowd with a dagger tied to his neck, its point under his chin, so he cannot put his head down.
SPEAKER_01: That is what the truth is, really like.
SPEAKER_01: It grabs us by the throat, it flays us wide open, it forces us to look into the face of God.
SPEAKER_01: When is the last time you and I heard God's truth and were grabbed by the throat?
SPEAKER_01: We don't talk about that part of God.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, when you say God is demanding, that doesn't mean He's harsh.
SPEAKER_01: He's just demanding.
SPEAKER_01: Now, think about it for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: If you're God, that's a natural expression of your nature.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to be demanding.
SPEAKER_01: See, we live in a culture where no one has a boss.
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_01: You can't tell anybody what to do.
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of like, hey, I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad I work here?
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: But but God, He's just, hey, hey, He's demanding.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now, by the way, uh, if that bothers you, go back and think about your relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing it tells us about God is that God is jealous.
SPEAKER_01: He's jealous, uh, not of you, but for you.
SPEAKER_01: The jealousy of God, think of it like this the jealousy of God is a logical attitude of our creator who delivered us from slavery to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And for the people in Exodus, children of Israel, he says, I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: For us, he is the Lord our God who got us out of this spiritual no man's land and delivered us from slavery to sin.
SPEAKER_01: He gave us an option to think about life differently.
SPEAKER_01: I meant what I said in the email I sent you yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when I'm I I never saw marriage work, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I come from a family where every man and like multiple descendants, my dad and his brother, all my uncles, all of them are divorced.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that's bad.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're divorced today, don't go, oh, he's hating on us.
SPEAKER_01: No, I just never saw it work.
SPEAKER_01: And so I would get in relationships with girls, and then we start getting time to commit, I would start slowing down, they just keep going.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember a girl looked at me and said, Oh, one day somebody breaks your heart like you're breaking mine.
SPEAKER_01: And my conscious thought was, Come on, get a hold of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Ain't that big of a deal?
SPEAKER_01: That's a statement about me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be funny.
SPEAKER_01: I just did not know how to do relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And then I looked up and I saw this girl across the campus at grad school, and I was like, Hey, hey, what a friend we have in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Who is that?
SPEAKER_01: And she loved me enough to look at me and kind of say, Hey, you you don't know how to do this, do you?
SPEAKER_01: I never I didn't have For oh, this is this is what it is.
SPEAKER_01: This is how you treat a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because God is jealous, not of us, for us, because of what he's done, what no one else could do.
SPEAKER_01: He's jealous because he doesn't want us to settle for less.
SPEAKER_01: This is a bad answer.
SPEAKER_01: But even this week, one of my buddies was like, hey man, well, I mean, I mean, what made you want to marry Marcy?
SPEAKER_01: Because I had to, because it would be inappropriate, because the more I found out about her, I wanted to be good friends with her.
SPEAKER_01: It would be creepy if I was married to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Marcy, you want to go get lunch?
SPEAKER_01: It's me again.
SPEAKER_01: Me.
SPEAKER_01: Ask your husband.
SPEAKER_01: That's weird.
SPEAKER_01: What do you what's that got to do with jealousy?
SPEAKER_01: See, jealousy, the jealousy of God is a logical attitude of a creator who's delivered us from all this stuff and give us an option.
SPEAKER_01: He's jealous for us in a way that nobody or nothing else will ever be.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I, me, you'll have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm the best thing for you.
SPEAKER_01: I you were created for a relationship with me.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't embrace that need for a relationship with God, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to be good.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to be a good person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm be the best person I can be.
SPEAKER_01: Where is that gonna get you?
SPEAKER_01: If being good can get you there, then why do you need Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: You don't.
SPEAKER_01: Let me bring it down to where we live.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you men in this room have daughters?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, put your hands down.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: You are jealous for your daughter.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: You've loved her and treated her in such a way when she brings some guy home, you kind of got the radar on.
SPEAKER_01: You're kind of like, mmm, I don't know about this.
SPEAKER_01: Because, and your daughter's like, Dad, you kind of get different when so-and-so comes around.
SPEAKER_01: And you're what you don't have words for is I don't think that man's gonna love you and take care of you like I have.
SPEAKER_01: And and if I'm gonna give you away, if I'm gonna come to the front of a church and say, who gives this woman to be married to this man?
SPEAKER_01: I want to feel good about that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel good about this.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Dad, you just no one's good enough.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just jealous for you.
SPEAKER_01: By the same token, some of you women, how many women have sons?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, y'all nice church-going people.
SPEAKER_01: We come to the 8:30 service so we can go get a brunch at La Madeline's.
SPEAKER_01: This is this has gone through some of y'all's minds, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all, like your son brought some girl home, and your first thought was, where am I gonna bury your body after I kill you?
SPEAKER_01: All these other people think you're all sweet and everything.
SPEAKER_01: I think you're a conniving she-devil.
SPEAKER_01: And if I had a nail file, I'd shank you right now on the spleen and watch you bleed out here on my kitchen floor.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay, I got tile, it'll clean right up.
SPEAKER_01: But instead, you're like, nice to meet you, nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_01: And your son hugs you and you whisper in his ear, get rid of her.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, mom thanks, good to see you.
SPEAKER_01: She's a tramp.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Not because you're you're you're you're hating on the girl, you're jealous for your son.
SPEAKER_01: Because you want a woman who gets your son, who understands your son.
SPEAKER_01: That's what jealousy is.
SPEAKER_01: Now, by the way, you're that way because God's that way.
SPEAKER_01: God's the first person to feel that way about you.
SPEAKER_01: What else does it tell us?
SPEAKER_01: See, the command is revealing, tells us God's demanding that he's jealous.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, tells us that he's monotheistic.
SPEAKER_01: Mono one theistic God.
SPEAKER_01: God's always been mono.
SPEAKER_01: He always thinks of himself as that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not saying there wasn't other gods, little G or idols, we would say.
SPEAKER_01: He just wasn't threatened by them.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, all the other countries, this goes from to God being kind of demanding.
SPEAKER_01: All the other countries, they they they allowed polytheism, the worship of many gods.
SPEAKER_01: They were just, hey, you got Baal, you got the asherah, you got this, you got that, you got all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: God says, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: That's not restrictive, that's creative.
SPEAKER_01: That's creating us and calling us into the relationship we were made for.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, hey, they don't exist.
SPEAKER_01: He just says they're idols.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, talk through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua chapter 24, verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: But as for me and my house, some of y'all have this on your kitchen wall right now.
SPEAKER_01: But it starts earlier.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Choose this day who you will serve, or the gods of your forefathers, or uh who live beyond the river, or the God of the Amorites in whose land you're living.
SPEAKER_01: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible doesn't say, oh, there were other options or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: God just says they're false.
SPEAKER_01: They just, they're just false.
SPEAKER_01: They're not true.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings chapter 18, Elijah and the false prophets of Baal and Mount Carmel, and he they build an altar and said, Whoever's God answers by fire, he is God.
SPEAKER_01: And so you guys go first.
SPEAKER_01: And they cut themselves and dance around all day.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah begins to tonum and says, Hey, maybe your God's asleep.
SPEAKER_01: Chant louder, and they go berserk, and he's just over there, you know, okay, you done?
SPEAKER_01: And then he gets had to get wood, get water and wet the wood, and then they do it three times.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, All right, and he says, Lord, I don't need this, but just let people know that you you are God, okay?
SPEAKER_01: There is no other.
SPEAKER_01: Send fire because that was a contest.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever's God answers by fire, he's God, and all of a sudden fire falls from heaven, burns up the wet wood, and then God says, I want you to slaughter all those people.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a wild hog hunt from a helicopter with an AR-15.
SPEAKER_01: Who wants to go?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That's the exclusivity of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's not this, oh well, you know, you guys, I'm gonna give you another chance to, you know, kind of say, come on over.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, believing the wrong thing has always been consequential.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 6, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, You cannot serve both God and money.
SPEAKER_01: See, idols are all through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's next week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I just want to read from Isaiah chapter 45.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just about done.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah chapter 45, starting in verse 18, that God is monotheistic, that God not only, this is not something you guys thought up to try and make everybody Christians, just like, you know, people that follow Islam, they no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: This is God talking about how God thinks about God, what God knows about God.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 45, 18.
SPEAKER_01: For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, he is God, who formed the earth and made it, he established it, he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord, and there is no other.
SPEAKER_01: I did not speak in secret in a land of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: I did not say to the offering of Jacob, Seek me in vain.
SPEAKER_01: I, the Lord, speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: I declare what is right.
SPEAKER_01: Assemble yourselves and come draw near together, you survivors of the nations that have no knowledge, who carry about their wooden idols, and they keep on praying to a God that cannot save.
SPEAKER_01: Declare and present your case.
SPEAKER_01: Let them take counsel together.
SPEAKER_01: Who told this long ago?
SPEAKER_01: Who declared it of old?
SPEAKER_01: Was it not I, the Lord, and there's no other God besides me, a righteous God and a savior.
SPEAKER_01: There's none beside me.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.
SPEAKER_01: This is God talking about himself.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: What does this commandment tell us about God?
SPEAKER_01: It tells us that God is monotheistic.
SPEAKER_01: God believes there's one God and He is it.
SPEAKER_01: There's one hope of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need a gun, he doesn't need terrorism, he doesn't need a suicide bomber, he doesn't need you to go out and kill yourself for him.
SPEAKER_01: He needs you and I to go out and live for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly and finally, it tells us that he's exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: He's exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: Because in God's understanding, there is no, they're just idols, they're just figments of people's imagination.
SPEAKER_01: They're their preference fixated on something that they gave a name to.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is 1 Timothy chapter 2, starting in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: I read this when we're done this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says this, he says, For there's one God, and there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: There's one God, and there's one mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: There's one God and there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself.
SPEAKER_01: Look what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Who gave himself as a ransom for all.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why does the Bible use the word ransom?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible teaches that we by nature are held captive to sin.
SPEAKER_01: We want to do good, but we can't.
SPEAKER_01: I I can do good before I became a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: I could do good things, but but I couldn't live a righteous life because I wasn't right with God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says not only is there's an exclusivity to God, but there's an exclusivity to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's one God and one mediator.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: There's one way to get right with God, there's one way to know this God.
SPEAKER_01: There's one God and there's one mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that that's Christ Jesus, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: It's that last part I want you to, I want to close with he said that's a testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, hey, you you hear this when you need to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: For me, it was July 1982.
SPEAKER_01: The kind of light went on.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, man, I can try to be good my whole life and never be good enough to deserve or earn heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But this one God, this is love, this isn't hate, this isn't narrow-mindedness.
SPEAKER_01: This one God provided one mediator, one person to mediate, to be the go-between between me and God.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus comes and dies on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, he pays, he gave himself as a ransom for all, which is a testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just testify in the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of who you are in this room, regardless of what you've done, when you did it, who you did it with, why you did it, the consequences you're living with, because you did it.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that God that his son Jesus gave himself on the cross as payment for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't a religious martyr, he was a payment for the sins of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why did God do that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because mediator is somebody that brings two alienated parties together.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same reason God says, You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what you were created for, is a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: And so because this is the truth, this is the testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: God places highest importance on the fact that you and I have a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: So ask yourself today, do you have that?
SPEAKER_01: When you think back, when did that start?
SPEAKER_01: When were you baptized?
SPEAKER_01: When did you out?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what baptism is.
SPEAKER_01: It's outing yourself and saying publicly, I'm a forgiven man.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not perfect, but I'm forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: That means I'm gonna live my life according to what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not perfect, because by the way, the Ten Commandments, they drive us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about that last week.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like I can keep the law.
SPEAKER_01: I can't.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I need Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I need a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says you have that in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So what the Bible, what what what this one simple command reveals to us about God is that God is demanding, that God is jealous, that God is monotheistic, and that God is exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: Let me voice a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: God thanks for your word, thinks that it's thought-provoking, that it provokes us, it stabs our mental capacities and says, I gotta think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's like in Acts 17, those people say to Paul, you're bringing some strange ideas to our ears.
SPEAKER_01: And then they said later on, we want to hear you some more on this.
SPEAKER_01: God develop our minds so that people want to hear us some more.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to be the people that they gotta listen to for 30 seconds, just burn hot, just about whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And then they can ignore the rest of the time.
SPEAKER_01: Make of us the kind of people that people say, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I want to hear you some more on this.
SPEAKER_01: Can we get lunch again, maybe in the next week or so?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That the first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_01: And God cause us to think this week about some of the gods that we turn to when we turn away from you.
SPEAKER_01: Let that be revealing and liberating, and in the revelation, God be merciful, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Stand to your feet, hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Your God is a speaking God because there's so much in us that doesn't exist yet.
SPEAKER_01: And because he's creator, he speaks to you through his word because he wants to bring it into existence.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid of that.
SPEAKER_01: Yield too and learn to enjoy that.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and get busy enjoying that in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you or dismiss.