The First Commandment

Good evening, Grace Church. I'm used to just preaching in the morning, so forgive me.

It's a delight to be here with you. We're very grateful for the time that we have spent with this congregation through the years, all the support that we've received, and I want to do a First Commandment redo. We had a series on the Ten Commandments several years ago, and I told Doug as we were walking in, this is my opportunity to help get some things out on the way. On the table that I left on the table several years ago, we'll focus on the First Commandment by looking first at Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy chapter 6, we'll read verses 4 through 9 together, and then we'll go to Exodus chapter 20, and we'll read the first three verses. In these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Then Exodus 20 verses 1 through 3, 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. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we turn to you tonight for you to shine life-giving light upon your Word. Lord, we have heard your Word read, and now we pray that you would help us inwardly digest, to mark, to meditate, to understand what your Word has to say to each individual heart here and to the church at large. Lord, we look to you for help and for grace. Only by your Spirit's power will we see Christ. Only by your Spirit's power, Lord, will we be transformed. Come and meet us in this Word now, we pray, all for Jesus' sake and all God's people said. Amen.

Please be seated. As we begin this evening, I want to start off with a little story. You can relate this to the Brown family if you would like, but there was once a family on vacation at the beach in September. The weather was horrible. It rained every day, and so the two boys in the family decided, desperate with nothing to do, to work a jigsaw puzzle.

That's not something my boys normally do. They decided to make it hard on themselves. So they turned the box cover over and began to work the puzzle pieces, and they got some of the edges and some of the corners around about, but finally the youngest broke down.

This was just too hard. He flipped the cover over and he said, ah, I get it now. The king is in the middle. It was a picture of a medieval court scene, and once the king was in the middle, the rest of the puzzle came together. And this is the fundamental reality of the world that we live in, the world that God has made. The king is in the middle, and unless he's in the middle, unless he's in the middle of your life, the pieces of the puzzle just simply don't fall into place. It's really a parable for life. Everything coheres.

Everything revolves around him. And that's the message of the first commandment. It calls for your life, my life, to revolve around the one who made us, the one who sustains us, the one who saves his people and then redeems him by his grace. You know, the Reformed church has always believed in the abiding validity of the law of God. Sometimes you would question that by the way we like to pit law and grace against each other, but the reality is the law has a gracious design to it.

We read in Exodus chapter 20, after God had redeemed his people, after he had brought them out of Egypt, he gave them a gracious law to keep them free, to keep them at liberty. And this first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me, it's at the top of the list. It reminds us that God is the basis for everything else in his word, in his law, is to be of first importance.

This is basic to everything else. Our lives are to orbit and live around the one who made us, sustains us, the Triune God of Scripture. And that puts a question to us individually tonight, doesn't it? Does your life revolve around the one who made you? Can you say that God is at the center of your life? And more importantly, can the people who know you best say that his life revolves around the God of Scripture?

You might even say, can a person that's been around you ten minutes say, this person's life revolves around the God of the Bible. They have a fragrance about them that says, God is of central importance to their lives. Our merciful God gives us this commandment to remind us that he is chief in all things, that all life revolves around him and he is the central point of everything.

And it does so first by showing us that we serve an intolerant God. Now I know that's politically incorrect, but you know that this God is exclusive. He alone is God. He alone is to be acknowledged and worshipped as God. If you look back at the commandment in verse 3 of Exodus 20, he says, You shall have no other gods before me. Not four, not three, not two, not even one. There's no other gods before me.

And don't misunderstand the phrase. No other gods? There's no suggestion here that there are, in fact, other gods.

Remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8. He says, in a sense there are many gods and lords in the world, but there really is no other god. There's no other competitors to God.

None at all. There are no other sovereigns, no creators, no true competitors. He alone is the exclusive God, Big G. Most of you have a footnote in your Bible beside before that says that this word could be translated no other gods besides me, no other gods before my face. This God, the God of Scripture, is telling Israel, I demand exclusive loyalty.

There are to be no other rivals in your life for pride of place. Now, this would have been crucial for the Israelites. They had just left Egypt. There were hundreds of gods in Egypt.

Little G. They had no real existence, mind you. But if you remember with the ten plagues, Yahweh, the Lord that brought them out of Egypt, is toppling the so-called gods of Egypt one at a time so that Israel is very aware. There's but one exclusive God. And each plague brought about by Yahweh attacks, assaults a particular false god in their culture. So the Lord brings darkness over the land.

The Egyptians can pray to Isis or Amun-Ra all they want to, but until Moses prays to Yahweh, there's no light in the land of Israel or in Egypt. The Lord sets up one idol. He topples it. He sets up another idol. He topples it.

He knocks them all down and slays and defeats them all. And as we listen to this commandment, we realize that our God, He demands exclusive loyalty, and He's intolerant. He's dogmatic about it. He's a narrow God. And that means that this God indeed must be the true God. Who would wish for a God like this? Who would wish for a God who demands exclusive loyalty, demands that there be no other rivals, and says that He is jealous, verse 5 of Exodus 20, for His people's affections?

That He alone is in charge and Lord of everything that they say and that they do. This is not a God of wish fulfillment. We wouldn't invent a God like this. No, this God demands exclusive loyalty. He's an intolerant God because He's the true God.

He's the true living God. And you can't go running to the New Testament and say, Oh, the New Testament is a little more open about this matter. Because you run into places like Matthew chapter 10, verse 37 and 38, where Jesus says, The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.

The person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. See, Jesus says that even good things in our lives can actually take His place.

And He won't allow that. And it's amazing when you read this and you see Jesus saying this, what an intolerant claim Jesus is making. Did you hear what Jesus said? If you want to take your Jehovah's Witness friends to a place in Scripture where Jesus claims to be the true God, here's a place you can use in your conversation with them because Jesus is saying the commandment is just in a different key.

It's Exodus 20 in a different note. You shall have no other gods before Me. Father, mother, son, daughter, nothing else before Me in place of affection, in place of loyalty and love. You remember in John's Gospel how Jesus takes the divine name upon Himself, revealed at the time of Moses in the burning bush, when He says, I am, ego ami, I am the good shepherd. I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life before Abraham was, I am. Jesus, He unequivocally says, I am God, creator of the worlds.

And though His flesh had a beginning in time and space, His person always existed. And Jesus says, if you want to obey the first commandment, Israel, take up your cross and follow Me. The triune God of the Bible, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, claims exclusive rights to our loyalty, to our love, to our devotion. Beloved, that will be the wedge that our secular, pluralistic culture continues to drive a wedge in between the church and her Lord.

It will always say, well, that is an intolerant claim that you're making. It's very exclusive what you're saying, that this God demands exclusive loyalty to Him and no one else. What about these other faiths, these other religions? And we cannot waffle on this for the sake of the exclusivity of the Gospel. When Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life, Jesus is saying, without Me, without the way, there is no going in this world. There's no path to travel.

There's no other place you can turn. Without the truth, without Me, there is no knowing. There is no understanding. There is no basis for which you to live your life upon. Jesus says, when He says, I am the life, He says, there is no living.

There is no true life that will satisfy and bless the longings of the heart if you do not have Me. When Jesus says this, He's saying, it cuts to the heart of a pluralistic age and we cannot waffle at this place. So the demand of Jesus, the command of the first commandment is indeed an intolerant claim, but it's also, we see an important command here by the way it's phrased.

We mentioned this at the start. There's an importance to this command. When you come to commandment number one, it really is the foundation and the capstone for every other commandment. Without this commandment, the rest of it falls apart.

When He says, there's no other gods, you can imagine someone in the 20th century saying, Now, Lord, let me help you out here today. That doesn't seem to really, that doesn't strike us, it doesn't have any bulletin board appeal to it. That's not going to be what I put on my Twitter feed or my Facebook page.

Let me help you out here because we live in a society that's a culture of death. If we put the sixth commandment first, we're going to attract more people. It's going to draw people. Or what about the fifth commandment?

We have all this generation gap in our society. If we'll put the fifth commandment first, then that will draw people in. That will attract the crowd. Or we've got so much fake news and information streams that are piling into us day after day. Don't you think the ninth commandment would be very attractional?

That will get everyone's attention. But the reality is, beloved, the first commandment tells us, reminds us, that the greatest issue of importance in this life is not first mankind's need, but God's place. This is the foundational commandment beneath all the rest, the linchpin commandment, and if it's not there, everything else falls apart. Jesus thought that as well. We spoke about Matthew 10 just a minute ago.

Now look at Mark 10, Mark 10, verse 17 through 22. This is the rich young ruler passage. You remember with the rich young ruler, you see how Jesus saw this as such a foundational commandment.

The rich young ruler runs to Jesus. He falls down before Jesus at his knees, and he asks Jesus a question. He said, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

He was looking for something beyond the basics, something beyond the elementary. And remember, Jesus listed a half dozen commands. He listed the second table of the law, and the rich young ruler, what does he say? He says, all these commands I have kept until my youth. Which really shows the rich young ruler did not understand the commandments the way he thought he did. Because Jesus turns to the rich young ruler, and we're told in the text, he looked at him, and he loved him. And he said, one thing you lack.

Go and sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. And the text literally says, gloom came over him. His jaw dropped. He went away because he knew that with his great possessions, that his heart was fixed upon those possessions. It wasn't his possessions that were the problem. The possessions had a hold of him. It had a hold of his heart. That was the first thing in his life.

He went out after that and was sorrowful and sad. The disciples turned to Jesus and said, Lord, what are we to do? Jesus is giving us a test. He's saying, will you willingly leave everything behind to follow me? Will you be Abraham and leave father, mother, brother, lands, everything else, and go after the one who made you and sustains you? See, Jesus stepped upon this rich young ruler's toes.

He put his finger in the man's heart and began to poke around, and the man began to realize his love was not as deep as he thought. This commandment keeps everything in order. Isn't it amazing, too, again, in this text, that Jesus can demand that kind of exclusive loyalty? To say, come and follow me.

Leave everything else behind. Mark 10, beloved, not just shows us the importance of the commandment, but it gives us some hope. Because it also tells us that when God loves you, that when Jesus loves you, that he will take the first commandment and he will topple your idols right in front of your face.

He'll deal with the thing that is keeping you from him, that is keeping you from a close relationship with him. Brothers and sisters, our idols are rarely wood and stone. In fact, I would bet I would not see an idol of wood and stone in anyone's house here at Grace Church. But our idols can be numerous. Calvin said our hearts are an idol factory.

We're continually pumping them out. PCA pastor Tim Keller wrote a book several years ago called Counterfeit Gods. It's about helping its readers identify the idols in their lives, and he asks this question. He says, what's more fundamental than God for your happiness? Have you ever said anything like this? I would be happy only if...

If I only had this thing, I would be happy. That this, in that phrase, that would be your idol. Seems like such a simple question, but it has a powerful effect at getting at the idols of the heart.

He goes on into the book to identify three common idols in our culture. One of the idols in our culture is love. If only I had love, I would be happy. If I could only find Mr.

Right or Mrs. Right, then I would be happy. And it's not just the single person that struggles with this. Married couples can struggle with this too. If only my husband was a little bit more like this, or if only my wife was a little bit more like that, then I would be happy. Our culture right now is bowing down to the idol of happiness and love.

If we could only pursue this illicit relationship, or only pursue this type of attraction in my life, then I would be happy. But that will not ultimately make anyone happy. Without God having pride of place, filling the heart and soul and mind of an individual, the person will never be happy. Keller mentions another major idol in our culture is success. This idol might look like wealth. It might look like a promotion. If I only had this promotion or this place in my job, then I would be happy.

Or if I could only get this amount of approval from this person, then I would be happy. Beloved, we can make an idol out of anything. Success, idolatry, activism, reputation, status. That's the reason why 1 John ends the way it does. 1 John 5, verse 21.

Little children, keep yourself from idols. An ever-present temptation for the people of God. You see, the commandment is intolerant.

It focuses on its importance. But then this is an intense commandment too. This is where I want to direct your attention to Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 9. This is really just an application of the first commandment.

The 10 commandments are given in Deuteronomy 5 also. And you hear those words. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one Lord. The Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

Literally, verse 5 says, with your whole heart, the center of who you are, the control and command center of your life should be centered upon God. With all your soul, that is with every fiber of your being, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. And then with all of your muchness, with all your strength, that is with everything that you have.

That's pretty all-encompassing, just as you think about yourself personally. But then think about how it extends itself out into the world, with your family. In your family circle, when you're sitting down, when you're waking up, when you're walking upon the roadway, you should be talking about the Word of God, the commands of God, the desires of God with those that you love. And you see the intensity of the commandment. It deals with the person, every fiber of the person's being.

It deals with every level of society, beginning with the home and working itself outward. Do you see the intensity of this commandment? All-encompassing. God is to be in the center. And there's a passion here. Heart, soul, strength, every area.

Waking, sleeping, sitting with your family, with your family, without your family, your whole heart. Is this the type of intensity that you bring to your relationship with Yahweh, the triune God of Scripture? Do you treasure Him? Do you prize Him?

Do you long for Him and pant for Him? Psalm 42, as a deer, pants for living water. I know you see why this is so important. And someone is probably listening, saying, Okay, Bruce, this is the Sunday evening crowd. We're here on Sunday evening.

We were here this morning. I've put my offering in the offering plate. I want my life to revolve around God. I'm going to read my Bible someday this week. I'm going to read my Bible several times this week. We're going to talk about the Scriptures together in the home. But what are we going to do in the margins, in the places where we want to keep away from God? What are we going to do with the 15 minutes when the clickbait comes up upon our computer?

With that amount of time? Are we going to be zealous and passionate for Him then? What are we going to do with the extra change or the money in our lives when God calls us to steward every penny for His glory? What are we going to do in that area of our lives?

What are we going to do when the Lord places upon our heart the need to call and repair or restore a relationship that we know we've been putting to the back burner? And we know that there could be some gospel good if we would humble ourselves. What are we going to do with our tongue when James tells us that the tongue is a world of fire, that it can set the whole world ablaze?

Are we going to tame our tongue because God, He claims all of us. If He's in the center, He gets every piece, every portion, every bit of us. We can't say it's only five minutes. We can't say it's only five bucks.

We can't say it's only five words. Everything belongs to Him. He's called us into an exclusive, intense, whole life relationship with Himself and He's a jealous God.

This command covers it all. Beloved, Exodus 20 verse 3 is not telling you to be mildly pro-God. He is telling you to be a passionate lover of His truth, of His Word, and of all that He calls you to in the world.

This is an issue of craving. I can read over this commandment and I can breeze by it, but when I read places like Psalm 43, where David says in verse 4, I go to the altar of God, to God my joy and my delight, that cuts me to the quick. Because I have to ask myself, Bruce, do you love God like that? Do I run to the house of God for His truth, for His ways?

Am I passionate about making God my joy and my treasure? This is a command that calls us to delight in Him. So this commandment is intolerant. This commandment is important. It's intent.

But I want you to also see the intent of the command. As we close here, this commandment is calling you to keep the King of Kings at the center of your life, but as it does so, it's also making you a promise. One could say that this commandment, have no other gods besides me, is really just saying, have no other gods, because there are no other gods, and you need no other God. The Lord is saying, I am the ruler, maker, sustainer. With me at the center, you have all you need. I am sufficient for your life. And that's the flip side of this commandment.

That's the positive reality of what we're being told. This commandment is a gift. It was given to Israel to keep her liberated, to remind her there are no other gods, and to be devoted to Him gives the people of God all they need. It is a blessing and a gift. That's its true intent.

C.H. Spurgeon tells of a time when he had his pastor's college and seminary, and he tried to keep a close eye on a young man in his ranks, because he noticed that the young men's clothes were often tattered, spoiled, and so one day he decided to do something about it. He asked the young man to run an errand for him. He told him, he said, take this note to this address and wait for a reply, and that was the demand.

The young man was very dutiful. He went upon his way. He went to this place. It was an odd place.

It looked almost like a tailor shop. He handed it to the person, a pair of pants, a shirt, and a coat for the young man, free of charge. That's the intent of this command. No other gods. Have no other, because you need no other. I will give you all you need.

I am sufficient for you. May we all hear the word of this command and remind ourselves, yes, it's a call to cultural engagement. It's a call to reform and shape our lives, and sometimes we can feel the heaviness and the burden of it. The commandment puts a mirror in front of us and helps us see our faults, but all of it is to drive us to Jesus Christ. It's a gracious demand that the Lord gives us, and when we come to him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we hear his words, the words of Romans 8, 31, and 32.

What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? God has given us everything we need in the work of his Son, and because of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the prime example and model of the one who has devoted his life, his meat and his drink, every portion, every fiber of his being, devoted to the one who called him. He's given us an example, and he's given us the foundation for living a life with the King at the center of life. Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us do that as he's demanded.

Let's pray together. O gracious God and Savior, your Word is searching, Lord. It penetrates us. It humbles us. It places a mirror before our eyes and helps us to see our failings, Lord, and our need. We praise you, God, that your Word and its commandments are also a map. Lord, it gives us a path to run on, a gracious guide to remind us, Lord, where to turn and who will give us everything that we abundantly need. We praise you, Lord, for the one who has given us the first commandment, and we ask you to help us to keep him front and center, to reform our lives, Lord, and to seek his grace so that we might reflect the image and glory of Christ. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.