We're ready to start commandment number one.
If you brought a Bible today, I want you to open it to Exodus chapter 20. While you're turning, just let me inform you, FYI, that the Ten Commandments break down into two very neat sections. The first section, consisting of the first four commandments, commonly referred to as the vertical commandments. These are commandments that deal directly with our relationship with God.
And the last six commandments, commonly called the horizontal commandments, these deal with our relationship with our fellow man, just so you know. Alright, now, commandment number one, Exodus chapter 20 verse 2. God speaking, and he says, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. Now God begins commandment number one by declaring, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And it's interesting to me that God makes no attempt here to prove to the Israelites that he is Almighty God.
Instead, he simply refers them back to the events in Egypt that they experienced. It's as though God were saying, hey fellas, after what you saw me do in Egypt, after witnessing the ten plagues, after seeing what I did at the Red Sea, after watching me bring the most powerful nation on earth to her knees before me, there should be no necessity for me to prove to you that I am God. And because I am God, here is my number one commandment for you, God says, you shall have no other gods before me. Now the Hebrew word before me literally means you shall have no other gods in place of me or except for me. So what exactly is commandment number one demanding from the Israelites? Well God is demanding here that he be Israel's exclusive God. He is demanding that he be the exclusive object of Israel's love and devotion. He is demanding that he be the one and only focus of Israel's loyalty. And what's really fascinating here is that the imperative that God uses, you shall have, it's not plural, it's singular.
You say, well so what does that mean? Well friends if it were plural, God would be saying to the nation of Israel, you as a nation shall have no other god except for me. But by making it singular the way God did, what God is really saying is you as individual Israelites, every one of you personally, my commandment is that you as a person shall have no other god in your individual life except for me. Now God begins with this commandment because as far as God is concerned, this is the most critical commandment, the most important commandment, the most central commandment of them all. And when we go into the New Testament, we find that the Lord Jesus repeated commandment number one in the New Testament and that he gave it the very same preeminence as God gives it in the Old Testament. Mark chapter 12, one of the teachers of the law came and asked Jesus of all the commandments, he says, Jesus, which is the most important? Now you should know at this time the rabbis had gone into the Old Testament and they had boiled the Old Testament down into 613 laws. You say that's boiling it down?
Well yeah. And they had classified these into the weighty laws and the light laws, the big hitters and the little hitters. And so this rabbi comes to Jesus and says okay Jesus out of all the big hitters, you say Lon what were some of the big hitters? Well the laws about circumcision, the laws about the temple sacrifices, the laws about the Sabbath, these were the big hitters. Out of all of these big hitters, this rabbi says Jesus, which one is most important? Look what Jesus says. Verse 29, Jesus answered and said the first and greatest commandment is this.
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero Israel, the Lord your God is one God and the verse continues, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. This Jesus says is the greatest commandment in the Bible. This Jesus says is the preeminent obligation that every human being alive has, namely to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. To have no other gods before him and no other gods in place of him in our individual lives. Now, that's as far as we're going to go with commandment number one today, because we're going to stop and ask our most important question, which I know you're ready for, right? Right? Alright, nice and loud, so loud that Moses can hear us on Mount Sinai. Here we go, one, two, three. So what?
Oh yes, he's not there, but if he were he could have heard us. Now you say, okay, Lon, so what? So I mean, okay, so we're supposed to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind. I mean, that's wonderful, but what does that really look like in everyday living? I mean, if I were really doing that in my everyday life, what would my everyday life look like if I were satisfying commandment number one? Put some handles on this for me.
Okay, I will. Hebrews 4, verse 15, the Bible says, Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. This is a declaration of the theological truth that Jesus was the sinless son of God, the perfect son of God. Now, the fact that Jesus was the sinless son of God, that has lots of ramifications theologically, but one of those ramifications is this.
Think about it now, as the sinless perfect son of God, Jesus' love for God, therefore, was sinless and perfect. Now, would you agree with that? Does that make logical sense? Okay, now, if Jesus' love for God was sinless and perfect, follow my logic now, then how Jesus lived here on earth in relation to God gives us the perfect example, the perfect template, the perfect model of what it looks like in a human being's life to practically love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Does that make sense to you?
Let me put it another way. Arguably, Michael Jordan had the purest jump shot in the history of basketball. So if Michael Jordan were to make a training video to the degree that you and I were able to copy his jump shot that we watched in the training video to that same degree you and I would have a perfect jump shot, correct? Okay, well, Jesus made a training video of what it means to love God perfectly. We call that training video the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And friends, in the four gospels, Jesus demonstrated for us to see how a person lives their everyday life when they truly love God perfectly with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength. So if you and I want to know how to love God that way in our everyday lives, the question we really need to ask is this, how did Jesus' love for God play out in his everyday life? What did it look like? And then once we know the answer to this, we'll know what loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength is supposed to look like in our everyday lives so we can copy it.
You follow my logic? Okay, so, in Jesus' life, how did his love for God play out? What did it look like in his everyday life? Well, here you go, John chapter 4, Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me. John chapter 8, I do nothing on my own initiative, Jesus said, but I speak only those things which the Father tells me to. John chapter 6, verse 38, I have come down from heaven, Jesus said, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, finally, three times, Jesus says, Not my will, but your will, God, your will for my life be done. Listen, Jesus was absolutely surrendered to the will of God over every single part of his life.
Jesus had placed God on the throne of his life, and he had dethroned himself. And it was this attitude of absolute surrender to the will of God, this was how Jesus obeyed commandment number one. This is precisely how Jesus lived out, loving God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength. And if you and I want to obey commandment number one, and love God in the very same way, then we have to have this same attitude of absolute surrender to the will of God in our life that Jesus had. We have to dethrone ourselves and enthrone God over every part of our life, just like Jesus did, that's what it means.
For you to put God first and have no other gods before him in your life and my life. In fact, this is exactly what the apostle Paul said. Romans chapter 12 verse 1, Paul writing to us as followers of Christ said, Now I urge you brothers, in light of God's mercy to you, to present yourselves as living sacrifices to God, which is your reasonable service. And the imagery here, living sacrifices, the imagery comes from the Jerusalem temple, where worshippers would bring animal sacrifices to the temple, and the priest would take that sacrifice, that animal, and he would kill that animal, and he would pour its blood out before God on the altar, and then he would cut the animal up and completely burn, utterly burn this animal as a sacrifice to God. Question, how much of this animal sacrifice did God ask for? Answer, well he asked for all of it. Question, how much of us, in asking us to be living sacrifices, how much of us is God asking for as followers of Christ? Answer, well friend, he's asking for all of us. He's asking for us to bring our whole self, all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength, and lay it on the altar before him.
The whole shoot and match, lock, stock, and barrel, the whole nine yards, hook, line, and sinker, the whole enchilada, the whole thing. God is not asking for 51% of the stock in your life. Friends, God wants 100% of the stock into your life. God doesn't want us to be the chairman of our board. God wants to be the one and only board member in our life. Friends, God is not interested in entering into a limited partnership with you and me. God is interested in a complete takeover of our lives.
Absolute surrender, what does it mean? Well friends, it means what it meant in Jesus' life. It means that we go where God tells us to go. We do what God tells us to do. We say what God tells us to say. We act like God tells us to act. We live every day like God tells us to live. We forgive the way God tells us to forgive. And we do not negotiate with God ahead of time about the possible consequences. We simply obey. That's what absolute surrender means.
And absolute surrender is what keeping commandment number one looked like in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what it has to look like in your life and in my life. And I say, well, Lon, that's great, but I got a couple of questions.
Okay, what are they? You say, well, my first question is this. Lon, I've had some really bad experiences in my life with this love and surrender of control thing. You know, I've had some people who've really taken advantage of me in that regard and abused me in that regard. And I swore to myself that I was never, ever giving control of my life to anybody else again. Frankly, doing what you're talking about here scares me to death.
What do you say about that? Well, friend, what I say about that is if you've had some bad experiences in the past with people taking advantage of your love and your surrender of control to them, then what I want to say to you is be careful that you don't extrapolate those experiences and lay them on God. Friends, you're dealing with a whole different category of being here. God is not some human being on this earth who wants to take your love and your surrender of control and use it to feed some ego power trip they've got. This is the holy God of the universe we're talking about who loves you and me so much that he went to the cross and died for us. God doesn't want to abuse your surrender of control and your love.
All he wants to do is use it to maximize your life and your service for Christ. Don't compare the two. They are not on the same level. God is a different being. You have nothing to fear from him.
You say, all right, Lon, I've got a second question, and that is why should I? I don't have to do this to go to heaven. I can go to heaven just by trusting Christ. I don't have to absolutely surrender my whole life to him. And didn't you say the apostle Paul did this? And look what happened to him.
He got thrown into prison and shipwrecked and beat up and whipped. Why would I want to do this? Why should I?
Okay, fair question. Let me take you back to Romans 12.1. Remember what Paul said, Romans 12.1. He said, brothers, in light of God's mercy to you, I urge you to present yourself as living sacrifices, which is your reasonable service. Folks, we have to remember that our reason for surrendering our life completely to God, our reason is clear. It's in light of the mercies of God, the mercies that God showered on our lives.
Let me remind you some of those mercies. God chose us out of all the people around us for no good reason. He didn't deserve it. God sovereignly drew us to himself by the power of the Holy Spirit. God removed the spiritual scales from our eyes so that we could really see who Jesus is, so that we could really appreciate our great need for him, so that we could come to Christ and give our life to Christ and be redeemed.
He didn't do this because we deserved it. This was his sovereign goodness, choice, and mercy in our life. And in light of all of that mercy, so that we could now be on our way to heaven with a transformed life on this earth, in light of all of that, and the more we read the Word of God, the more we appreciate the incredible mercy God showed us, Paul says in light of that, surrendering our lives to Christ absolutely is our reasonable service. In other words, it is completely appropriate for God to ask for our absolute surrender in light of what he's done for us, and it is completely appropriate for us to give it to him. It is reasonable. You say, all right, Lon, I understand that. What's the bottom line here?
All right, let me tell you. Remember when Ayatollah Khomeini ran the Shah out of Iran? You remember that? Took the throne of Iran away from him? Now, what if a year later Khomeini had had a pang of conscience and had decided to send some lavish presents to the Shah in exile to express his sorrow for what he had done? Would the Shah have been okay with that?
I don't think so. The Shah didn't want Khomeini's presents. What did the Shah want?
He wanted his throne back. That's what he wanted, the one Khomeini stole from him. You know, folks, as followers of Christ in the same way, God is not interested in our religious gifts. We come to church, we sing a few hymns, we go to Bible study, we have our quiet time, and we think we're making God happy by sending him a few religious presents like that. God does not want our religious presents. God does not want our spiritual gifts. God wants the very same thing the Shah of Iran wanted. He wants his throne back, the throne of our life, the one we stole from him, and the one we so often as followers of Christ usurp from him, at least in little pieces. That's what he wants, and nothing short of that will make him happy.
I love what A. W. Tozer said. He said, man is willing to share himself. Sometimes he's even willing to sacrifice himself for a desired end, but never to dethrone himself. And you see, this is what sets a true disciple of Jesus apart from everybody else in the world. A true disciple of Jesus is a person who aspires to love God every day with all of his heart, all of her soul, all of his mind, all of her strength, which means that a true disciple is a person who has dethroned himself.
A person who has dethroned herself. A true disciple of Jesus is a person who has restored the throne of their life back to its rightful owner. Submission to God for a true disciple of Christ is not just a buzzword. Obedience to God for a true disciple of Christ is not just a buzzword, but obedience to God and submission to God, these concepts form the very warp and woof of the life that these people seek to live every moment of every day. And the result is that God crowns the lives of these men and women with the same joy and the same peace and the same stability and strength that he crowned the life of the Lord Jesus with when he was here on earth.
Hudson Taylor said it well, the great missionary to China. He said, Jesus is either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. Jesus is either Lord of everything in our life, friends, or don't even insult him by saying he's Lord of anything. So, in closing, as a follower of Christ here today, I need to ask you, when it comes to your sex life, when it comes to the magazines you read, when it comes to the movies that you watch, when it comes to the places that your mind goes, who is really sitting on the throne of your life, my friend? You or Jesus Christ? See, those are the only two options.
There's nothing else. It's either you or him. Hey, when it comes to how you love your wife or how you respect your husband or how you treat your children, my friend, who is really sitting on the throne of your life? You or the Lord Jesus Christ? God has a will for every single one of these things that he's clearly expressed in the Bible. Either his will is sitting on the throne of your life or your will is sitting on the throne of your life. Hey, when it comes to how you serve your boss or how you speak to your fellow man, when it comes to how you forgive those who've hurt you, when it comes to how you handle your money, when it comes to how you keep your word, your promises, when it comes to how you fill out your 1040s, haha, how about that? When it comes to how you guard your integrity in the world and how you give full disclosure, an honest disclosure of what's really going on in all of these areas, who is sitting on the throne of our lives? That's the question. Now the good news is that we serve a loving and forgiving God and every time we've usurped part of the throne from him and we come to give it back, he's happy to forgive us and take it.
That's the good news. But friends, as a follower of Christ, if you've usurped the throne of your life in one of these areas or some other area, or maybe you never dethroned yourself globally to ever start with, commandment number one demands that you correct that situation. Commandment number one demands that we enthrone Jesus Christ 100% to the best of our ability, every moment of every day, that we make our mantra for life, Lord, not my will but thy will be done, every moment of every day. And if you and I want to see the richest blessing of God on our lives, this is where it starts. God doesn't want presents and he doesn't want gifts, he wants the throne of our lives.
Just that simple. That's what commandment number one means. And that's what you and I have to do in order to obey it. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, remind us that commandment number one was put first for a reason.
It is the central foundational principle for the entire Christian experience, the foundational principle of a life that enjoys the blessing of God. I pray that you would press the absolute surrender and the lordship of Christ home to us today in a very special way. I pray that we would be serious about dethroning ourselves in every area of life and enthroning the living Lord Jesus and his will for our life. And for folks who have prayed today about specific areas, maybe some of us are going to have to go back and file an amended tax return, maybe some of us are going to have to go ask forgiveness from our children or our wife or our husband or our boss.
Some of us, maybe you're going to have to talk to a boyfriend or a girlfriend about knocking off the sexual activity. Then we're going to have to back it up. Some of us are going to have to confess adulterous relationships and end them, change our reading habits, change our watching habits. Lord, we need your help to do this. So I pray for people who told you that they need a change, that the Spirit of God would give the strength to every single person here supernaturally to follow that commitment up and really re-enthrone Jesus and his will in our lives. Father, thank you that you have the ability to bless us beyond our wildest dreams when you are on the throne of our life. May that be true of every one of us as we walk out of here, and may we seek to do that to the best of our ability every day, change our lives because we were here, and we sat under the teaching of God's Word. And we pray this in Jesus' name. As God's people said, amen. Amen.
