Thus Sayeth The Lord - None Before Me

Join us as Shandi brings us through Exodus 20:1-3 and God's first of the Ten Commandments, to have no other gods before Him. Listen as Shandi explains how, even today, we still find ways to serve other gods and idols.

Transcript

that is chapter 20. If you're using your phone, feel free to join us in the U-version app. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a really cool Bible app. There's reading plans and things, and if you go to the bottom right-hand corner, there's an area that you can click and you can look at events, and you can find some of the outline and stuff for tonight. Also, if you happened to miss last week when Sam introduced the topic for the message this semester, thus sayeth the Lord, very King Jimmy. But the table was set beautifully by Sam last week for us to feast from God's truth in the law, in the Old Testament, specifically the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus. If you missed it, though, in case you didn't know, we actually put most of our sermons on Spotify. So you're welcome to go back and listen. If you happen to miss that one, or wanted to catch up on some old semesters or series. Who here is one of those people that can go somewhere? I'm gonna try not to stand right in front of the screen. For everybody, I know, but speakers. Who here is the person that if you can just get dropped somewhere, you just automatically find your way around, like miraculously. Be confident you guys are really powerful people. I'm not you. I'm not that person. My husband is that way. We were in Tampa a couple of weeks ago for just a few days, never been there before. And he kind of sort of used his navigation system to find a place or two that we went to. And then from there on, he was totally fine. Like gonna find himself here and there and all these other places. And if the sun wasn't out, I couldn't even tell you what was East and West, or what was North and South. And so I just was a passenger princess along for the ride. Had no idea where we were going. I have an absolutely horrible sense of direction. So much so that when I first moved to Rolla, when we were getting married, and we bought a house, and I moved in, he was still staying with his parents, and I used to work at the university just in case you didn't know. And I was trying to find my way home, and I got hopelessly lost in Rolla. On my way to my house that we bought. And I had to call him, I was like, I don't know where our house is. I made the names of the streets. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Because I am so terrible with directions. And then not only am I terrible with directions, but then there's things, and I'm sure some of you know if it's not you, you know people that are like this, that they do something that they think is normal, but it's actually completely not normal. Like, who likes celery here? You guys are freaks. Who's my carrot stick people? Yeah. So my sister likes celery with peanut butter. And I didn't. So I would use my carrot sticks and peanut butter. I didn't know that that was people's reaction until like five years ago, because it was normal to me, right? I had no frame of reference that that was disgusting to other people. You thought that was bad. Chicken nuggets. Who likes my McDonald's chicken nuggets? I bet you don't eat them the way I do. I eat the breading first. And then I'm stuck with the naked nugget that I stick in the hot mustard. And I don't even think about that being weird or gross until I'm with somebody who doesn't know what I'm doing. And they're like, what are you doing? And then they lost their appetite, right? I'm like, sorry guys, I'll try to just eat a sandwich when I'm with you and not the nuggets, OK? But I didn't know that was weird. Some of you have heard me say this story before, but it's probably one of my favorite. I lived in Okinawa, Japan for a little while. I'm a Navy brat. And we lived off base for a little while. And we heard what sounded like a parade. And I was homeschooled, and my mom was all excited. And so we went out and sure enough, there's like this dragon thing and all these people playing all these drums. So we're standing on the balcony cheering for what turned out to be a funeral procession. Because that culture was not my culture. And we had no idea. And we felt retroactively extremely embarrassed because we were cheering and celebrating for a funeral procession. And then there's another time. And we hear an ice cream truck, and we were so excited. So we grabbed our-- because it used to be changed, not bills-- or not cards or apps and things. So we grabbed our change, went running outside. And in Japan, it is not ice cream. It is the dumpster truck coming to collect the trash. So when people hear the music, they can remember, oh, yeah, I forgot to take the trash out. Little disappointing to me as a kid, because ice cream and trash are not the same. So there's things that we would do that we thought were normal, and didn't know it wasn't normal, until we had some sort of an explanation. Or someone would tell us, you crazy person, you don't eat carrots and peanut butter together. You don't eat the breading off of your nugget first. Hey, that's actually a funeral, not a parade. Go back inside, right? Or, hey, you don't know your directions, you should use them. And I'm going to date myself a lot. And I'm convinced half of why my generation and older is cranky is because technology has changed so much. Just as soon as we get it down, it changes again. Sam, can you testify to that? Just as soon as we learn something, it changes again. So with directions, I would road trip with my family. And it started with a Rand McNally map. And it was this big, and you would open it up by state to try to find where you were and the interstates. And you would look at these microscopic numbers to try to find the exit. And sometimes in the dark, with a little bit of a light. Because if the lights on, then you're going to crash and die. Because my generation is afraid of everything. But then, as soon as I got really good at Rand McNally, then it switched to something called map quest. And you would put in your starting point and your ending point. And it would magically put it all together in about 12 pages of paper of directions for you, which was super cool. And then, the Tom Tom. And I remember people waiting outside staples when this was released on Black Friday, because you couldn't shop online then. They would wait for hours outside, because it was the hottest gift that year for people to get. And you could buy the CDs to load on to Tom Tom to give you the correct navigation for the state that you were going to be in. And then, Garmin. And then, nobody cared about map quest. And nobody cared about McNally. And nobody cared about Tom Tom, because they had Garmin. And then, just as soon as we got really good at Garmin, and we were really excited, because you could change the voices. And my favorite was Mr. T. Turn left, you fool. So Garmin was super cool. And it had that, I know, when I say Garmin, you guys don't just think of the map thing. You think of the company. It's fine. And then, now we have it on our phones. And I can just tell it to tell me-- I'm not going to say it now. My phone's going to start telling me riot directions. But you can just tell your phone to tell you. But the thing is, not so much anymore, praise Jesus. But it helps me know where I'm going and how I'm supposed to get there. And I think, as we're looking at the 10 Commandments this semester, that that is God giving His people the instructions and the directions for how to live as His people. And thankfully, as New Testament Christians, we have the Holy Spirit that's an even better version than Siri that is explaining to us how we're supposed to turn left and turn right and keep going. And to keep going a little bit further. There's a quote that I love by one of my favorite authors, Jen Woken. She has a book about the 10 Commandments that's called "10 Words to Live by," felt kind of dumb. Because I was like, oh, I wonder what the 10 words are. And I opened it up. And the 10 Commandments is like, I've been a Christian for a while. I should have seen that one coming. But she said that the 10 Commandments, the rules, show us how to live in relationship. Rules don't threaten relationship. It enables it. If I've talked to you from more than 45 seconds, I've probably told you, and voice expectations will always be, you got it. It's predominantly the women saying that, because I spend most time with them. But if you don't voice your expectation, it's not going to be met, right? And so God is saying, here's my expectation for my people, because I want you to know how to have relationship with me. And then Jen goes on to say, for those in the wilderness, the law is graciously given to set us apart from those around us and to point the way to the love of God and of neighbor. The 10 words show us how to live holy lives as citizens of heaven, while yet we dwell on earth. The Commandments were given so that they and we can know God and know what it means to be his people. So this sermon series thus saith the Lord. I think before we dig into anything, it's important to consider who was this originally written to, because it can't mean what it was never meant to mean for the original audience, right? So who was this written to? What's being talked about? Well, it's written to the Hebrews. God's chosen people, and they had been in Egypt since the famine and the time of Joseph. If you guys aren't familiar with the story, go back to Genesis. It reads like an incredible story, but with Joseph. And what started as a place of safety in a time of famine, eventually because the fear of Pharaoh became oppression and slavery instead of safety. Now, how long had they been here, Sandy? I'm glad you asked. It had been for over 400 years, but they were in Egypt. And then the time they're given the 10 Commandments, they've only been out of Egypt for 50 days. What were you guys doing 50 days ago? Summer. How was it in Mexico, chilling on a beach and a hammock? Be jealous. It was great. But that's what I was doing 50 days ago, right? And that seems like a really long time. But 400 years ago, our country is not even that old, right? Can you imagine, 400 years ago, the Taj Mahal was being built in India, which is really cool. Go see it sometime. The pilgrims were just finding Plymouth and landing there. Newton was just talking about gravity. They were just discovering that the entire solar system didn't go around Earth. It was actually around the sun. These were the things that happened 400 years ago from our time. So if you can just put that in a frame of reference for the people that are in Egypt, they were there for a long time. And that's a long time. If you spend time with people, you start like your roommates. You're probably already picking up some of their slaying. And like some of their habits, maybe some of the kind of annoying habits. But you start to act like each other. And you start to adopt the customs and the culture of the people around you, right? And that's what happened with the Hebrews while they were in Egypt as well. It's a long time to be influenced by the culture. But Jen Wilkin go on to say in the book she was talking about how the people needed to leave behind the land of Egypt, but also the way of Egypt, not just the physical place, but also the way of the people. So let's talk about Egypt for a second. Because I love all the different ways that scriptures connected God's word is complex and so cool. Egypt was a powerful empire in case she fell asleep through all of elementary school history. They were known for incredible technologies in their architecture, but also a very complex religion with a whole lot of gods. They had 14 just major gods and goddesses. And at this point, this polytheistic mini-god's culture would have been more familiar to the Hebrews than the monotheistic culture that God was calling them to, where he is their one and their only. And if your brain rewinds to Exodus chapter 7 through 12, this is when the plagues are happening, the 10 plagues. If you guys maybe remember that, if not, you should go back and read it. It's another incredible story in scripture. Did you know that as God is challenging Pharaoh through Moses to let his people go from slavery into the wilderness with these 10 plagues that each plague was actually targeting specific Egyptian gods? God wasn't rolling the dice like, hey, what kind of like plague are they going to get this time? Each one was systematically dismantling Egyptian religion. So the first one, when we have the Nile, right? And the water turns to blood. It's targeting the Egyptian god Osiris, the god of the afterlife and the dead. And the Nile was part of his symbolism. And also named the river guardian and happy, the personification of the Nile. The Nile was a frog like goddess. Looks like a frog. Frogs were sacred to these people. And then the frogs became invasive. And then they died in mass and became a place of disease and stench and decay. Because their Almighty goddess was powerless to the Hebrew god. And then you get the plague of-- some translations say, gnats, some say, Lice, some think that maybe it was fleas and mosquitoes. I think it'd be awful if it was all of those. It's targeting the Egyptian god, Geb. Who's the god of earth? But whether it's one or all of those can, I mean, could you guys imagine mass swarms of mosquitoes and then the itch that happens from that? Like, hmm, no thanks. And then the flies, it was a direct attack against the Egyptian god, Shu. If you're members seeing all of the fly amulets and Egyptian culture and history, it's because they would wear it for protection invoking the power and the authority of this god. And it helped them not at all. In fact, these flies then became something that was attacking them instead of protecting them. And it was also a symbol of their military power and their military power and their god symbolized by flies wielded no power against the Hebrew god. And then all the livestock start dying. And this was an a direct attack against Hathor, a cow-imaged deity of fertility and love, Amun, a ram, Nevis, a bull, because they didn't control the source of life. The Hebrew god did. And then they're covered in boils in the Egyptian god, a segment in Isis where the gods of healing and they could offer no rescue and no cure. The hail that pelted the land, the sky goddess nut, and the storm god Seth and the god of air Shu, they could not stop it. And then the locusts, the god Bastet, the god that protected the crops, could not protect the crops. And then Ra, the famous sun god, whom they believed Pharaoh embodied in darkness, covered the land, so complete. Except for where gods people dwelled, because he's the one who controls the light. And then Pharaoh, who considered himself a god, and who demanded the lives of Hebrew boys, you remember them being cast into the Nile, fed to the crocodiles of the hippos? Did you know hippos are actually more dangerous lions? It's like fun fact, they're crazy teeth. Anyway, tossing these Hebrew boys into the Nile, the lives of the Egyptian firstborns were then required. And who was spared? Only those who sat obediently under the blood on the doorposts of the sacrifice of a perfect lamb. Do you see how God turned what Pharaoh did upside down and then spared his people? And do you see how Jesus is being foretold here as the one who saves and protects? And that God is shouting through Moses and through these plagues, your Egyptian gods are nothing. Not only are they powerless, but they don't exist. Is a hardcore, absolutely, but God is telling them that I have no rival, and I have no challenger, and he's shouting it to the Egyptians, but he's also working to solidify it in the hearts and the minds of the Hebrews. What God was telling them and challenging them is everything that they've known for a long time. Remember that that is not real, that is not true, that is not your hope or your rescue or your salvation. The idea of God and gods and gods and gods? No, because he, their God is enough. So what does that have to do with the Ten Commandments? Let's go to Exodus chapter 20. Follow along, verse one through three. And God spoke all these words saying, "I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." Now next week is going to be about graven images. It's easy for us to get those mixed, but let's try to separate that a little bit today. The first thing I want you to note though is that God says he is our rescue. He says, "Who brought you out of the land of Egypt?" It was him. He's the one that rescued them. Which unfortunately they forget that a little bit later when they create a whole golden calf thing because their memory is so short. I think mine's bad, I think theirs is worse. But he says, "Who brought you out of the land of Egypt? "It was me because he alone is our salvation." Isaiah chapter 25 verse nine says, "In that day they will say, 'Surely, this is our God.'" We trusted in him and he saved us. This is the Lord. We trusted in him. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. The second thing I think that we see in verse one is that he is our freedom. He says, "Out of the house of slavery, they had been slaves. Why do we obey and worship God? Because he alone is our hope." First Peter says it in verse Peter one three, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He gives us hope through Christ. And he is the one that makes that happen. And I think that's foundational for us to understand before he launches into the law and it's application in our life because he says, "It's me. I'm the one who rescued you. I'm the one who has given you freedom. Therefore, I have all right in authority to tell you what it looks like to live as my people. And so I'm going to lay it out for you." And he says, "Unam the only God. Unquestioningly unchallenged, unrivaled." And he says, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." Why do we obey and worship him because he alone is worthy? Psalm 964 says, "For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. He is to be feared above all gods." But I think it's important for us to note that he is a jealous God. Now, when I say the word jealous, immediately, that puts all kinds of weird images in my head, but I need you to understand that his jealousy is not contaminated by sin like ours. God's jealousy is not tainted by insecurity and fear and hostility and ambition. His jealousy is pure. Exodus chapter 34, "The People Are Preparing to Leave Sinai." That's a little bit later after already breaking some of these new laws and commands in their impatience. They were reverting back to what they knew. What was familiar? They're old habits and fears. And they were forgetting the source of their rescue and their hope. Guys, how easy is it for us when we're like all gung ho to follow God faithfully and then all of a sudden, we find ourselves back in old habits? But I think before we judge them too much, we need to look in the mirror ourselves. 'Cause it's so easy for us to forget God's goodness and his faithfulness and that he alone is worthy. And we're so gung ho to go this way. And then all of a sudden, we're doing the things that we said that we would never do again. God tells them that not to compromise in their worship with him because he alone is how they got out of the land of Egypt and he is taking them to the Promised Land. Exodus 34, 13 through 14 says, "You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their ashrams." So he's giving them instructions that they're gonna go into the Promised Land. Here's what you do. Everything that has anything to do with their pagan worship, you get rid of it. Because he knew his people and he knew that I was gonna be a temptation for them. He says, "For you shall worship no other God, "for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God." Now I didn't know this 'til I was like reading it. I was like, "I wonder how this defines jealous." But the word jealous here that is used is only used by God to describe God. Because he is stating that he is demanding exclusive allegiance and that he is intensely protecting his covenant relationship with his people. Guys, his jealousy isn't just like anger at us for sometimes getting distracted, but it's also this possessive protective relationship where he says that I so much want this relationship with you, that I want to ship with us. Why is he so intense about their intolerance for these other religions? Because God knew his people and their fickle hearts. They were so easily won and fed and fueled by their desire to control. Their desire to live selfishly, to fit in, to compromise, to lose their allegiance to him. Guys, hear this. If you hear nothing else from everything I said tonight, a yielding worship and allegiance require an uncompromising heart. If it comes from an uncompromising heart. God challenges our temptation to worship even in the beginning, all the way back at the beginning of Genesis. I think this is so cool. Guys, I love the Old Testament. If you're ever struggling and reading it, come chat some time when you have time. 'Cause I get really excited. But through world history, think about the things that people worship. It's the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the sea, the sky, plants, animals, people. And what do we know from Genesis chapter one? That he created all of it. That he literally spoke it, breathed it into existence. So the things that were created have no authority or power only the one who created it. So he's destroying idolatry all the way in Genesis chapter one and saying, "It bows to me." Don't bow to that. You worship me with an uncompromising heart. God demands our undivided allegiance. So do we worship God alone? We may say yes to this verbally. I feel like most of us would probably say this technically verbally and intellectually, but I would challenge you that we don't usually say it practically. Often we are guilty of God and God wants us to say God and nothing else. Maybe we don't claim to be polytheistic worshiping many gods. We may claim to be monotheistic, but I want to teach you another term, and it's henotheism. It's many gods, but one in first place. And I think practically most of us are henotheistic. We worship many gods, but we claim God is in first place. But I have all these other priorities that are extremely important to me that rival my worship of God. We are not called to a both-and kind of faith. Kevin D. Young in an awesome book about the Ten Commandments, a God cannot be worshiped rightly alongside. Matthew 624 to quote Jesus, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." Serve one. There's another metaphor that was described by Kevin D. Young and guys, this one kind of made me queasy to my stomach. I'm gonna put it a little bit personally. Suppose my husband comes home to me. He doesn't say honey, so he would say candy or babe. Hey babe, it's good to see you. I want to introduce you to someone who's very special to me. Don't get me wrong. You're also very special to me, but I've met someone else and she is lovely. He'd probably say she's hot. And I'm going to spend time with her, but also a lot of time with you. I just want you to know that some nights, I'm gonna be with her instead. I think you too will get along just fine. You're gonna be great friends. You have so much in common, and you both mean so much to me. Does that make you guys a little sick to your stomach thinking about what that would be like? How it would feel if someone came to you that you loved so much that you committed your life to them, that you pledged yourself to them? Guys, it makes me nauseous thinking about this, but this is what we do to God all the time. And we also live in a society and a culture that wants to normalize plural in relationships, but do you realize that marriage is a sacred covenant that is an example and a metaphor to us of our relationship with God, that by adding plural in relationships, it is also saying that plural in faith is acceptable. And that's not because we are called to be set apart for one. Not to abandon what makes a relationship sacred and set apart and protected and secure. Deuteronomy chapter six, four, three, five says here, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. He didn't say God and because he is enough. Yet we rebel when our allegiance should be to him alone. Why is it so easy to default to idolatry? Deon goes on to say that because idolatry is guaranteed, we can control it. I love to be in control. One of my kids, she loves to be in control. She has reached the age of perpetual questions. Even when I'm mid-conversation, I was telling one of you earlier, I was in the middle of scissors opening something and one of my kids walked in and said, hey, are you opening the packages? Uh-huh. And then I put myself in a mommy timeout because I was about to lose my cool. Because we want to be in control. We want to know all the things, but guys, that's idolatry. And idolatry is also selfish because it gives me what I want. And it's easy because we just show up and we do the rituals and then we're fine. It isn't call for obedience and transformation. Convenient, you just make it what you want. It's on your terms. Idolatry is normal because it fits in with culture and guess what, to be a Jesus-loving Christian, there's sometimes that you and culture are not gonna mesh. And if you're always meshing, then something's wrong. Idolatry is pleasing to the senses because it's about aesthetics or pleasure or desire. It's also indulgent because idolatry is about gratification and sanctification and it makes you feel good about your sin. But if you open almost anything in Scripture, it's not gonna make you feel good about your sin because we have a faith that says it's not about you. It's about him because simply put idolatry is about man. So what do we worship in addition to God? Alistair Begg, cool Scottish preacher, says anything or any person, including self, that claims our primary loyalty has become another God. And I wanna ask you, who or what do you praise or worship or give allegiance to? Or whose praise or worship or allegiance do you seek? Who or what do you trust or rely on? Where is your security? I'm not saying don't trust your friends or your family, but are they the source of your security? If something happens with them, does your world completely fall apart? Or is the source of your security an unchanging God? Who or what do we invoke or call out to? Where is your hope or your rescue? He was telling his people, I am your hope, I am your rescue. Is the first thing when we're in crisis to call out to God or to Google some self-help? I'm not saying there's not a time and place, I use chat GBT sometimes too. It's actually kind of fun. But do we turn to chat GBT first? Or do we turn to the God who spoke and breathed everything into existence? First, who or what do we think? What are we giving our gratitude to, our praise to, our adoration to? Every idolatrous inclination begins in the heart. Proverbs 423 says, keep your heart with all vigilance for foment flow the springs of life. Guys, it matters. And just like I said, the more time that you spend with your friends or your roommates or whatever, the more you kind of adopt, their behaviors and their patterns of speech, the more we worship an idol, the more we conform to its image. What do we worship? I'm going to close with two challenges. I know that not everyone in here is a Christian. Some of you are just like, hey, there was a lot of people here. I want to see what it was about. I've been coming for a little while, but I haven't fully committed myself to Jesus. This is for you. And I want you to know that this is what the Ten Commandments are telling you that there is a God. There is one God and no other God. And he desperately wants a relationship with you. And he is jealous and protective for you and of a relationship with you and wanting you to choose him. And so I want to challenge you if this is you come talk to us. This is why we are here. The officers that came up and we introduced to you guys or the small group leaders. It's not just because we like you to look at them because they're pretty, but that's true too. Okay, but it's because they love Jesus and they want you to love Jesus too. And so if you want to talk about what that looks like, you can find one of us because that's the best conversation that we can have all week. During worship, after catalyst, we're here for that. For the rest of you that are Christians or believers, for those of you that have a relationship with God. I want to remind you that the Ten Commandments, they show us our shortcomings and our failures and a standard that cannot be met but it also shows us that God is our hope and our rescue. One of the favorite things that I thought of when I was studying this was that the Ten Commandments are not our accuser, they're our accountability partner. And they show us the direction to go and what it looks like to love Jesus faithfully. He has made the law. But I also times it's easy for us to know the law and then we look at condemnation to the people around us and Alistair Bed goes on and says the law should not be a source of animosity or aversion towards non-Christians. There's a difference between social tolerance and intellectual tolerance. Social tolerance says you have value, you have worth. You are significant and you matter even if we have nothing in common. God created them in His image too. And you liking them and their politics are not liking them and their politics or their customs or their culture or the way that they dress or the tattoos they have, right? It does not change the fact that God died for them. Intellectual intolerance or intellectual tolerance is when you compromise that there is ultimate truth and there is a difference in that. We can be intellectually intolerant without being socially intolerant. Do not let the law make you so. How do you as believers need to leave the ways of Egypt? How do you need to leave the way that the Egyptians lived and worshipped in your own life and culture? How is he asking you to be set apart as his people? How is he asking you to have undivided allegiance to God? As we go into our closing time of worship tonight, I would challenge you guys to be thinking about and responding to God the way that he's convicting you to do. Pray with me. Jesus, we love you. God, I'm so thankful that your word is true. All of it from cover to cover and that even the stuff that seems outdated and archaic is still so important and practical for our lives. God, I ask that you would convict us of the ways that we are worshiping other gods and that you are not unchallenged and unrivaled in our life. The way that we brazenly bring someone else into our relationship with you. God, please be pleased in our worship tonight. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.