SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Today is Sunday, August ninth, twenty and fifteen, and God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was all week long.
SPEAKER_00: All week long.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happened in your life, but God is on the throne and he does no wrong.
SPEAKER_00: What he does is good and right.
SPEAKER_00: He does exactly as he pleases, and what he pleases is always and only good.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be on the throne all next week.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the throne today.
SPEAKER_00: And if we have that concept etched deeply in our souls, it affects the way we go through the week and go through our life.
SPEAKER_00: And it allows us to respond rightly to the things that a good and gracious God brings across our paths.
SPEAKER_00: God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I ask you to open your Bibles, please, and to turn to Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: If I can remember to turn this thing on here.
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to have your Bible open in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to look in God's Word as we talk about God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand that what is important is what God has said, not what Walt says, not what you think, but what God has said.
SPEAKER_00: My job, Bible exposition, means to expose or to bring to light what God has said and to help us together apply it.
SPEAKER_00: But here is where the authority is.
SPEAKER_00: Here is where our focus needs to be.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd like you to follow along as I read the tender commandments, Exodus 20, verses 1 through 17.
SPEAKER_00: 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_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or is in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
SPEAKER_00: Six days you shall labor and do your work.
SPEAKER_00: But on the seventh day, the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: On it you shall not do any work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your livestock, the sojourner who is within your gate, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, the Sabbath day, and made it holy.
SPEAKER_00: Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
SPEAKER_00: I think we need to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we sit under the teaching of God's word, may our hearts be receptive to what you say.
SPEAKER_00: May we quiet ourselves from within.
SPEAKER_00: May we welcome, not resist, words of life.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, I pray, in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have begun a study of the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Last week I gave kind of an introduction to the Ten Commandments, and we tried to ask and answer the question: why do what God says?
SPEAKER_00: And then each of the following ten weeks, beginning today and going really through until October, we're going to be looking one for one at the different of the tender commandments.
SPEAKER_00: In the introduction to this, we tried to make it clear that every command that God gives us is intended for our good.
SPEAKER_00: It is intended to either give us something that is helpful, something that we need, or to protect us from something that is harmful.
SPEAKER_00: If we begin to understand why God gives us instructions, then we can learn to welcome them.
SPEAKER_00: We can learn to be commanded, even though not a single one of us likes to be told what to do.
SPEAKER_00: But every command that God gives is either to give us something good or protect us from some harm.
SPEAKER_00: We also saw last time, and we stopped and we thought about the fact that we can ignore God's commands if we choose to.
SPEAKER_00: But we cannot escape the consequences of those choices.
SPEAKER_00: Vance Habner, we quoted Vance Habner who said, you know, you really can't break any of God's commands, you can only break yourself against them.
SPEAKER_00: You can ignore what God says, but in doing so you harm yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And God tenderly and lovingly says, do this and don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way life was meant to work.
SPEAKER_00: And if we begin to understand that, it changes our approach to the commands and instructions of God.
SPEAKER_00: And we are to obey God because when He gave them to us, He said, time and time and time again, follow my way, do this and don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That it might go well with you.
SPEAKER_00: And he repeated that a dozen or two dozen times in Deuteronomy as he was giving the law.
SPEAKER_00: For our good, that it might go well with us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, today we want to look at verses one through three.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first of the tender commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And it couldn't be any more simple yet any more profound.
SPEAKER_00: The first of the tender commandments is to put God first in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He must be number one.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing more important than God, and God must have the priority in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He must have the first place, and everything else must find itself somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00: But the first place in our lives is reserved for God.
SPEAKER_00: It goes well with us when we put God first in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to help us, last week I distributed what I'm calling the tender commandment commitment card.
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole mouthful of there, of course.
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week or didn't get one, or if you want more than one, they're out on the desk in front by the office.
SPEAKER_00: Grab one, keep it in your car, stick it on your refrigerator, put it in your wallet, put it in your purse, whatever you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: Because all this is is a tool for you, not for me, to try to do something with what we're hearing as we spend this time under God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I suggested is that we would memorize the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we memorize all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of embarrassed about some of the things that I have memorized.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a college kid, and by the way, I came to Christ through Campus Crusade way back right after the Earth's crust hardened.
SPEAKER_00: But I have a wonderful spot in my heart for crew.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that I memorized, this is the famous Budweiser beer.
SPEAKER_00: You will find no other brand that costs so much to brew and age.
SPEAKER_00: Our exclusive Beechwood aging produces a taste, a smoothness, and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any other price.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that stupid?
SPEAKER_00: Why would we fill our minds with that?
SPEAKER_00: And here, almost 50 years later, I still have it, letter perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that horrible?
SPEAKER_00: Now just think what would happen if we would take God's word and replace that junk with words of life.
SPEAKER_00: So what I've suggested is that you would uh give it a shot to try to memorize the Ten Commandments as we go along, just one commandment a week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, did anybody uh think that would be a good idea for them to do?
SPEAKER_00: Let me see the hands of the hundreds who uh thought of that.
SPEAKER_00: There is anybody who did it, who actually started working on memorizing the Ten Commandments?
SPEAKER_00: I want to see all of those hands still raised.
SPEAKER_00: There was one there.
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
SPEAKER_00: If we have time in the weeks ahead, I would love to give an opportunity for us to just kind of help each other and encourage one another and listen as we try to work on that.
SPEAKER_00: Um this week I'm going to be really vulnerable, and uh I don't have a great memory.
SPEAKER_00: I keep asking you your names, and you'll have to forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: Um but so I I was working on it this week.
SPEAKER_00: I have it on a little card that I keep with me, and I will keep doing that for the next 10 weeks.
SPEAKER_00: 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_00: You will have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just not that difficult.
SPEAKER_00: That happens to be in the um ESV.
SPEAKER_00: Memorize it in whatever one you want.
SPEAKER_00: But I would encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: Can we help each other?
SPEAKER_00: If you're working on memorizing those, just let me know.
SPEAKER_00: Drop me an email or uh say something to me so that we can kind of encourage one another.
SPEAKER_00: The point being, hopefully, we're not coming cold to the study of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at verses one through three of Exodus 20, uh, the point is very, very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing, nothing, nothing should be more important to us than God.
SPEAKER_00: He must be our priority.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 20, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna look at these three verses.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to bring them to light, try to apply them to life.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 serves as kind of an introduction for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it says very simply, God spoke all of these words, saying, and then he goes on.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually very, very significant because these are ten very special words, the decalogue, uh, the tender commandments, as I will try to consistently refer to them.
SPEAKER_00: Very special words from God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you read the five books of Moses, the first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, you will find hundreds, hundreds of commands and instructions and ordinances given to the nation Israel that was to define many, many aspects of their daily life, of their national life, of their worship, and of their individual activities.
SPEAKER_00: Uh some of them are very general in nature, and the tender commandments fit into those.
SPEAKER_00: They're very general in nature, applicable in almost every situation.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are extremely specific.
SPEAKER_00: Um apparently, I've not tried to count them all up, but apparently there are 613 uh specific commands or prohibitions given to us in uh in the de or in uh the Old Testament law.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them are very, very specific.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for example, one of them says, don't muzzle an ox while it's treading the grain.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know what you would do with that.
SPEAKER_00: Mike, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Mike.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I had the privilege to ride Mike's combine.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that means make sure there's diesel fuel in that combine or something.
SPEAKER_00: But very specific and may not have much uh much to do with your life today.
SPEAKER_00: Or here's another one.
SPEAKER_00: Don't boil a kid.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's talking about a young goat, not a young person.
SPEAKER_00: Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk.
SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to do with that?
SPEAKER_00: And some of them are very, very general.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we need to understand is that not everything that God wrote in the law was for us or was not written to us.
SPEAKER_00: It is for our benefit, but it was not necessarily to us.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see that.
SPEAKER_00: But these ten, this decalogue, these ten words, uh, these ten messages for us have always been viewed from the time they were given until now by believers everywhere as being very, very special.
SPEAKER_00: We tend to call them the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting to note is that they are never called the Ten Commandments in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Now, somebody's going to raise their hand and say, well, what about, uh, I lost the place.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 34 28.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at that in most of our translations, you will see it says the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You will also find that there's a footnote, not commentary, which the study Bible, Ryrey, or whatever study Bible you may have.
SPEAKER_00: It's not part of the, it's not a commentary, it's the translator's footnotes, and it says literally ten words.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they are nowhere called the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we've come to call them.
SPEAKER_00: They're words to us, and word not just, I mean, that each of the ten words is made up of many words.
SPEAKER_00: They're words in the sense of a message, a word from God for us.
SPEAKER_00: Decalogue from Decca meaning ten and log from logos meaning word.
SPEAKER_00: Ten words, sometimes called the testimonies, sometimes called the words of the covenant, sometimes the commandments, Matthew 19.
SPEAKER_00: But in any case, they're understood to be very special and very unique.
SPEAKER_00: They were presented in a unique way.
SPEAKER_00: They were written by the finger of God.
SPEAKER_00: Nowhere else in the scriptures do we find God giving commands where he literally wrote it on the tablets of stone and then gave these to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: It was written on both sides.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you get your theology from movies or if you ever saw Cecil B.
SPEAKER_00: DeMille's The Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: It's pictured there by the director incorrectly because it's very clear the Ten Commandments were all written on each of two stones, front and back.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk a little bit more how they're divided up and how we should understand them.
SPEAKER_00: But this is something very unique.
SPEAKER_00: All of Scripture is inspired of God and is inerrant and profitable for us.
SPEAKER_00: But these words were spoken and written by the spoken by the mouth of God and written by the finger of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's something special about them.
SPEAKER_00: These words are tender words which were written to Israel, but they are also for us.
SPEAKER_00: Not everything we read in the Bible was specifically written to us.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we get in trouble in Bible study where we open up a Bible and we say, well, I think this, or I feel like that's what it means, and it may not even be written to you whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some things were not written to us, but they are written for us, for our benefit.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to make note of Romans chapter 15, verse 4, that says, Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just important to recognize that we are in many cases listening in to what God said to a specific people in a specific situation.
SPEAKER_00: It is for our benefit.
SPEAKER_00: It has application to us, but we need to be very careful how we use the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We are not under the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: It was written for our benefit, but it was not written for the details of our lives the way it was for God's people Israel in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We are not under the law in the same way that the nation Israel was.
SPEAKER_00: But the law has been given to reveal God's character and what is good for us.
SPEAKER_00: The law reveals something to us that we know, but the law does not provide within us the means to obey.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear God's demands, we do not automatically receive the ability to respond favorably to them.
SPEAKER_00: That is another work of God that He does.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us a new nature.
SPEAKER_00: But the law does not enable us to fulfill it.
SPEAKER_00: It is the law of the Spirit of Christ that enables us to fulfill it.
SPEAKER_00: The new heart that God gives us is a heart that wants to respond to God.
SPEAKER_00: If we look in Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 5, I want you to turn there for a moment, please.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, verses 1 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this touches on something that Scott was talking about when we were looking at the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation for us, there is an evaluation which we shall receive, but no condemnation, because all of the judgment of God against sin was placed upon Christ at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: So when we turn to God's law, it is not as a means of getting life or maintaining our life with God, but the law of the Spirit of life has set us free, verse 2 in Romans 8, from the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: For verse 3, God has done what the law could not do by sending his own son.
SPEAKER_00: He condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We no longer have hearts of stone that are cold and unresponsive to God.
SPEAKER_00: When we are born again, when we are regenerated, we are given a new nature, a new nature that welcomes the ways of God and welcomes the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And our deepest desires, our desires are to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: If we know Christ, if we have been reborn, if we have a new nature, then our hearts desire to obey.
SPEAKER_00: We talk a lot about the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Scott, Stefan, important focus for us.
SPEAKER_00: What we need to know is that although our hearts are filled with many different desires, Many conflicting desires.
SPEAKER_00: In the heart of the believer, there is a responsiveness to God that God has planted in us at the time of regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: And as we grow, that new nature expresses itself more and more and more.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know you, even if I don't know your names yet.
SPEAKER_00: I know you because I look in the mirror and I know something of myself.
SPEAKER_00: I have all kinds of conflicting desires.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, I really just want to do my own thing, go where I want to go, do what I want to do with whoever I want to do it with.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a deeper desire.
SPEAKER_00: A deeper desire.
SPEAKER_00: And my deepest desire is to follow Christ and to walk in his ways and be totally transformed.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I hear God's word, there's something within me that wants to respond.
SPEAKER_00: That is the mark of a believer.
SPEAKER_00: The mark of a believer is not having raised our hand in a wanna is the mark of a believer is not having walked an Isle.
SPEAKER_00: The heart of the believer is the sign of a believer is that we have a desire, a deep longing to be and do what God wants us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we've gotta, oh, I guess he's God and I've just got to do what he says, but because we wanna.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we've gotta, but because we want it.
SPEAKER_00: And I can confidently say that if you truly know Christ, you are imperfect.
SPEAKER_00: That's real easy for me to say.
SPEAKER_00: But I can also say that at your inner core there is a heart that simply longs to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have really any interest in doing and being what God wants you to do and be, then you have a heart problem.
SPEAKER_00: You have heart disease.
SPEAKER_00: You need a heart transplant.
SPEAKER_00: You need surgery.
SPEAKER_00: That's called regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: And we do, with communion and other times, need to examine our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm very imperfect.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I have all kinds of rotten, awful, crazy desires.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know where they come from.
SPEAKER_00: But at its core, at my core, is a heart that responds to God.
SPEAKER_00: If that is not the case with you, you need a heart transplant.
SPEAKER_00: And the Ten Commandments will only produce guilt and resistance in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: If there is resistance in your heart to what God is saying to you when he says lovingly and tenderly, go this way, don't go that way.
SPEAKER_00: This is for your good, this is the way life works, that's the way that leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way in the heart of man that leads to destruction, but here's the way of life, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a longing to go this way instead of that way, and a responsiveness to God's word and the Holy Spirit and the body of Christ, we need to talk.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have a deep problem.
SPEAKER_00: Now we all have deep problems, but deep problems get solved in their core as we relate and understand that God transforms our heart, our desires, and gives us a longing to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: These are very special words for us.
SPEAKER_00: The second verse of Exodus chapter 20 gives us something of the context really in which this was given.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: God points back to what they themselves had already experienced before he breathes a word of command.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what I did for you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we open up the Ten Commandments, we're likely to just turn to Exodus 20.
SPEAKER_00: But we probably ought to really begin with Exodus 19, verses 3 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: The previous chapter, why jump here and miss the context?
SPEAKER_00: The context is when God was speaking with Moses on the Mount Sinai, on the mountain, and he said to him, when Moses went up to the Lord, this is Exodus 19 verse 3, the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, You shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings, how I brought you to myself.
SPEAKER_00: You see what he's doing, before he even commands, he expresses and reminds them of his tender, compassionate, sovereign care for them.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, before you even listen to what I am going to say, would you remember what I have done for you?
SPEAKER_00: That's what communion is supposed to be all about, a remembering.
SPEAKER_00: And so he talks about the fact that I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you out and brought you to myself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was only three months before or after the Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus verse chapter 20, the giving of the law, is only 90 days after this incredible deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And when he said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, that was really very real in their thinking.
SPEAKER_00: They were keenly aware of what God had done for them.
SPEAKER_00: There used to be an old chorus.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we sing it anymore, and I'll protect you from my horrible singing voice.
SPEAKER_00: But it's some of you are old enough to remember, after all he's done for me, after all he's done for me, how can I do less than give him my best and live for him completely after all he's done for me?
SPEAKER_00: Well, now you can hear that and say, okay, I gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00: I guess I gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00: After all, he made this big sacrifice on the cross, and I'm just this little jerk, and so I gotta follow.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, do you realize what I have done for you?
SPEAKER_00: And the more you realize what I have done for you, the more you will want to obey, and you'll be in a position to respond rightly to my word.
SPEAKER_00: In their case, they had been trapped.
SPEAKER_00: They had been trapped in slavery, and they knew it.
SPEAKER_00: And God had pulled them out of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: They had faced an impossible situation with armies that were far too strong for them to resist, and God made a path forward across the sea where there was no path.
SPEAKER_00: Their toes were wet on the side of the water.
SPEAKER_00: The armies were before them.
SPEAKER_00: They were absolutely blocked in, and God opened a way for them.
SPEAKER_00: They had been hungry and thirsty, and God provided manna, and God caused water to spring up out of the ground.
SPEAKER_00: For after those are the things that God had done for them, and this was very present in their thinking.
SPEAKER_00: They had just experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: As we go to the Tender Commandments, I think we need to really stop and reflect on what God has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been enslaved?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been trapped in desperate behaviors or patterns or ways of thinking that you couldn't free yourself from?
SPEAKER_00: Have you been freed from that?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been thirsty, thirsty of heart, thirsty of soul, and God has given you exactly what you need?
SPEAKER_00: And the list goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: That's all preparation for the very simple, very profound thought.
SPEAKER_00: I shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: No other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Put God first in your life.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of things I want to say, and then I want to give some words of application.
SPEAKER_00: This verse is sometimes, I believe, incorrectly understood to refer to idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Idolatry comes next.
SPEAKER_00: This has to do with priority.
SPEAKER_00: What's the prior, what's the most important thing in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Now he will talk very soon next week.
SPEAKER_00: We'll hear him talk about idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: But the point here is what has the first place in your lives?
SPEAKER_00: And it's very simple.
SPEAKER_00: If God doesn't have the first place in your life, then you're heading for pain, disaster, and despair.
SPEAKER_00: Put God first in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Many different ways this little phrase can be translated, no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Most English translations put it before me, but what is, it can be translated other other ways.
SPEAKER_00: Some have said, no other gods beyond me, no other gods above me, no other gods besides me, or perhaps most better, no other gods taking precedence over me.
SPEAKER_00: The thought is clearly what has precedence in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What has priority in your life?
SPEAKER_00: And I want to suggest a picture that I hope will be helpful for you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried to prioritize a whole long list of things?
SPEAKER_00: I remember years ago I stepped into a new ministry situation.
SPEAKER_00: I found myself absolutely overwhelmed with things to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so at one point I said, okay, first things first, I'm just going to prioritize what are the most important things.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll come up with number one and number two and number three.
SPEAKER_00: And I actually had a list, I counted it, it had something like 93 things on it that I was expected to do and needed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now it started all right.
SPEAKER_00: I could say, well, this is number one, and then if you start saying two and three, well, then is three ahead of two or is two ahead of three?
SPEAKER_00: Or how about thirteen?
SPEAKER_00: Is that really number six or is that number of 43?
SPEAKER_00: And I think if we think of prioritizing the things in our life and we're picturing God saying, just make sure I'm number one, and then family is number two, and work, or blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're missing the point.
SPEAKER_00: What I would suggest to you is that he must be number one in your life, and everything else must be somewhere else on that list.
SPEAKER_00: He must be number one, and everything else must be somewhere else on the list.
SPEAKER_00: I personally don't believe, and I don't think I see in scripture where God has called us to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: Should my wife be more important than my kids, or my kids more important than my wife, or my job more important than going to church, or my golf game.
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe he said something about golf games, but when we approach it that way, it leads to utter frustration.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have the ability to prioritize all of the things in your life, but you have the ability to make sure that God is number one and everything else is in some other place on the list.
SPEAKER_00: I think if you would meditate on that a little bit, it might be very helpful for you.
SPEAKER_00: A thought that I'm not going to try to get to.
SPEAKER_00: I think you understand it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a one-time decision, okay, I'm going to make God first in my life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a one-time decision, but it's also a decision of every single day of your life.
SPEAKER_00: We go through the days of our lives, and are we recognizing and expressing that God has first place in our life?
SPEAKER_00: And there's some verses that might be helpful for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to suggest some thoughts by way of personal application.
SPEAKER_00: This is what comes to my mind and heart as I study all of this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask the question: what would really happen if you put God first in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What would that look like?
SPEAKER_00: What might that look like?
SPEAKER_00: There's probably a thousand different things that we could say, but let me just suggest three.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that we would find that we increasingly want to try to do what God wants us to do instead of trying to get God to do what we want Him to do.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if God has a first place in our life, then our relationship with God has no component in it whatsoever of God.
SPEAKER_00: What is it going to take for me to get you to do what I want you to do for me?
SPEAKER_00: If we approach prayer that way, we are totally misunderstanding prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer gets us in touch with the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's also appropriate to present our needs and our requests, but not with the spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want to get you to do what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: No, God is working to get us to want to do what he wants us to do, and we will find that we stop trying to manipulate God in this wonderful spiritual, super spiritual Christian way, which we find ourselves doing all the time.
SPEAKER_00: If God has first place in our heart, our desire is far more to know and do what he wants than to try to manipulate him to do what we want him to do for us.
SPEAKER_00: We were watching the other night, we had seen it before, the movie Rudy.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a great little film.
SPEAKER_00: Uh young man, south side of Chicago, working class, grew up and wanted to play for Notre Dame his whole life.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so he spent the first 25 years of his life trying to do whatever he could to uh to get on the team.
SPEAKER_00: And finally he goes to Father Kavanaugh, uh, a wise priest, and he's really trying to get Father Kavanaugh to intercede for him, or I mean he must be closer to God, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that he could get on Notre Dame's team.
SPEAKER_00: And Father Kavanaugh says, uh, son, um, in 35 years of religious studies, I've come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts.
SPEAKER_00: There is a God and I'm not him.
SPEAKER_00: If there is a God and we're not him, then the question is not, can I get God to do what I want?
SPEAKER_00: But rather a desire to do what God wants.
SPEAKER_00: That's an expression of having God first in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, another simple application.
SPEAKER_00: If God is really first in our lives, we will almost certainly run into conflict with other people who have expectations for us.
SPEAKER_00: You remember in the book of Acts?
SPEAKER_00: Early in the book of Acts, the apostles had to say, we can't do that, we have to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, little has changed.
SPEAKER_00: You have many, many people in your world who are wanting you to do what they want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: They have great expectations.
SPEAKER_00: And what we have to learn to do is separate out from that what it is that God wants.
SPEAKER_00: I've stepped into a new situation here.
SPEAKER_00: I have about 400 people or more who have high expectations for me of what I'm going to do, what I think about worship, how I'm going to handle the word, how we're going to relate together as staff, blah, blah, blah, on and on and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: And there are things that you want me to do.
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
SPEAKER_00: I totally get it.
SPEAKER_00: But I am likely to disappoint you.
SPEAKER_00: I may have to disappoint you.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm going to do here what God wants me to do here, then I'm probably going to have to say no, directly or indirectly, to some of your expectations, but it's just the same with you.
SPEAKER_00: If we really put God first place in our life, then we are likely to bump into the expectations of other people and disappoint them.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the nature of having God first place in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, if we really put God first in our life, we might be surprised who is comfortable in our presence and who is not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you in the first place, in whose presence are you comfortable?
SPEAKER_00: My question is, who's comfortable in your presence?
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who was comfortable around Jesus and who wasn't?
SPEAKER_00: Well, who wasn't comfortable were religious people.
SPEAKER_00: The religious people that Jesus encountered did not like him, they didn't like what he said, and frankly, he didn't think much of them either.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the religious right, the hyperfundamentalists, the people who have God all figured out, who want our I just get so tired of it.
SPEAKER_00: People who know exactly all there is to know about God, or at least that's the way they act.
SPEAKER_00: They have God all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: They've got their theology down perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And are those the people that are comfortable in your presence?
SPEAKER_00: Those weren't the people who were comfortable in Jesus' presence.
SPEAKER_00: You know who is comfortable in Jesus' presence?
SPEAKER_00: A lot of different groups.
SPEAKER_00: But people who make us uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: We're comfortable with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I think if we really put God first in our lives, we might be surprised about the people who are comfortable with us.
SPEAKER_00: What about that homosexual nephew of yours?
SPEAKER_00: Is he comfortable with you?
SPEAKER_00: He would have been comfortable with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What about Bruce Caitlin Jenner?
SPEAKER_00: Would he or she or whatever be comfortable in your presence?
SPEAKER_00: I doubt you would be comfortable in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: But my question is, would he have been comfortable in Jesus' presence?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus had a few things he would have said to him.
SPEAKER_00: He talked to the prostitutes, he talked to the uh the uh tax collectors, kind of the equivalent of the drug lords uh in our day, but they were comfortable around him.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that means to you exactly, but I've been thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00: If God is really first place in my life, I think people are going to be comfortable around me.
SPEAKER_00: It would surprise me.
SPEAKER_00: You may have six other things that uh come to your mind, but do think about that.
SPEAKER_00: What for you would it look like if you really put God first in your life and everything else?
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, it's far easier to talk about these things than it is to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Father, that we would get deeply in touch with your spirit moving within us.
SPEAKER_00: That we would understand that you have given us a whole new set of desires and that we would listen and respond to those.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Father, may we not spend the last 40 minutes or whatever hearing about putting God first in our lives and go out and just do whatever we bloom and well please.
SPEAKER_00: Father, by your grace, may we be a people who truly puts you first.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for that in Jesus' name.